Syzygy
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Blog Comments posted by Syzygy
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... yeah, and I am questioning the logic of this rule. Of course I know what the current rules are. But you could say: Why 200? Why not 150? Or 250? Or 300? Or 500?
Thats the whole case: Its artificial, god-given, indoctrinated. It makes the system flawed and weak for attempts to trick and abuse it, is distorts strength reflection and serves no real purpose.
If this rule shall "enforce" that only the "largest" alliances are sanctioned - then go and make the 12 "largest" alliances sanctioned or value membercount in the score formula just higher to ensure that large alliances always have a way higher score. An artificial number to pass just hurts, and does no good at all.
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thats the problem I talk about. I could argue that an alliance of 2,000 nations with a total NS of 340,000 (= 0.170k avg NS) would be totally invincible because no one could attack them in all their weakness.
Should they get a sanction even while being totally helpless? They had a score of 24.2, enough to get it.
Thats exactly the point: membership is ALREADY part of the score formula, and a BIG one as you can see. Why is an additional border needed?
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Actually, Syzygy, they would barely make a dent against the majority of alliances, most of which have few or no nations in range of them.
You're too used to playing with the big boys, you've lost touch with the ordinary players.Or I just think a bit wider.
After 1 week of war you have totally devastated the maybe 10 nations in your range, you could triple them all and kick them with 3 guys each stronger than himself. But, during that 1 week, your nations lose some strength as well, moving more people in their range (although *by far* not as much as the tripled ones). Also the guys of the other alliance who were only a few NS outside of your range grow as well. Fact is, the 199 could constantly cut down the top ranks of any alliance. Pinning down everyone who grows in their range, and funding billions over billions every 10days to known enemies of their opponent - you have more ways to 'fight' than direct engagement. They could take over every Team Senate they want, by just moving to that team and completely block the Top100 there and go wild with 15 sanctions every few days, even two complete teams at once, because there are always a few guys with disabled senate voting.
Besides this, your view of the scenario is simply wrong, their lowest member (#199) would have +82.37k NS. That means, his declaration range goes down to: 61.79k NS. The in comparison strongest other alliances in the game would be:
Grämlins: 47 nations in range
NPO: 51 nations in range
IRON: 61 nations in range
TOP: 62 nations in range
Fact is, they would clearly dominate - why denying them a sanction while an alliance 5x weaker with just 1 more member would get one?
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I voted "Keep it", because I still don't see a reason to "remove it". It makes sense that a sanctioned alliance should have 200 members.
I if makes "sense", please explain "how" it makes any sense to weight membership heavily in the score system itself and then use it *again* as artificial barrier?
Just as example:
The Top199 nations in the game have together:
19,395,764.30 NS - 97,466.15 avg NS - Score: 66.95
These 199 nations would obliterate *any* existing alliance in the game with ease.
Now, you need only 24.20 score IF you have more than 200 nations.
6,569,000 NS - 32,845 avg NS - Score: 24.20 -> enough.
Now explain please what makes sense in a scenario where Group A, that could obliterate *anyone* would get no sanction, but Group B which could be defeated by at least 15-20 alliances do get one?
I see none.
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Yes, its just a rough idea which had to be developed a lot before it could be implemented. Changing resources should probably require time to adapt the economy, so your trade partners would get an automated message like:
"New Syzygia has begun to stop their production and exports of Oil, they will instead focus on producing Fish in the future." - 10 days later the trade is changed from Oil to Fish. The trade partner can either keep the agreement, or cancel and look for another trade partner.
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this entry reminds me that you owe me me the answer on a PM
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I can absolutely Agree with your changes.
I disagree with the additional wonders, I would rather use these ideas to fill up the overwhelming number of empty improvementslots. Reserve Wonder Ideas to really unique effects. However, I agree that new wonders should have very few economical effects, rather more subtile benefits which are nice to have, but do not make the nation significantly stronger.
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It's certainly not about the "interesting factor" for the players, heck I like simulated export/import scenarios to be added, more like physical server and coding capability of the admin
I cannot see how any of these suggestion would put more stress on the server than there currently is. For the server there is no difference in the bonusgoods or effects. Its all simple math that neither requires more CPU power nor more database queries nor more bandwith.
When it comes to coding, the Changes to Microchips/Scholars/Wonders probably need 30minutes to be implemented. It is really just the changing of some lines in the code and some additional if-then-functions for the microchips-wonders-relation.
The Resources-Change is a bit more complicated, but I won't expect more than one or two hours coding time for that. It is also very easy if/then and just counting days stuff.
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I got a feeling that market for Lead is already improved (since before) for nations that supports large navies.
Not quite. I own one of the largest navies in CN and the only use Lead has is as temptrade for billpaying. In any longterm setup I could import almost *anything* else and I would be better off than with lead. No matter how good the navy or military upkeep reduction is, all the military of a nation usually cost not even 10% of its daily bills. The effect looks big on paper but does almost nothing in cash-value. The choice between "collecting 500k more" or "saving 200k in upkeep" is obvious.
I haven't done any simulations, but I think for starting nations, FJ/AP/FF+wheat is quite good in gaining money, but then again it won't outperform a 3BG one in overall efficiency.FJ/AP/FF+wheat is good in the *very* early stages if you are on your own = don't get much outside aid, because that setup produces a good amount of cash. But the infra is damn expensive so you won't grow faster than with FJ/AP/Steel and outside aid (from techdeals or alliance aid) is invested with a lesser return-value in infra.
This solutions are quite good except that it doesn't do much for Bonus Resources variety among nations.I disagree, these changes would make the FJ/AP setups more attractive and the Microchips route (which is today absolutely crappy) also. It does not lead to a point where ALL setups are equal = but that is not even desired. But it does lead to a point where the right now totally underused features (=techreducers) get a purpose and will be used by some of the players for their advantage. And competition and diversity of options is always good. At least a lot better than the current situation.
Well, this is a simple game with a simple market solution anyways, if you add in simulated economics it would be a strain rather than an improvement.I fail to see why more options would make the game less interesting for those who don't want to deal with it? They simply don't need to care if they don't want to and go for whatever long-term setup they desire, not looking at its benefits or disadvantages. A lot of players do this right now anyway and they would hardly notice nor care for a change in the resource balance. But a lot of interested and motivated players would.
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Well written, very informative, and provides some good ideas.
I'm particularly agreeable concerning the tech modifiers. Not quite so sure about the resource proposal though - how would you apply that to nations already created?
Simple - they get, as new other nations, the chance to switch their second resource once a month to any agricultural one of their coice. If they do, they cannot switch back to a geological one. If they don't, they keep their second geological resource.
If they currently have 2 Agricultural resources, they have the 1-time-offer (of course unlimited delayable) to "dig for resources" - doing so would switch out their first resource for a random geological resource. After that, they have the same choice like everyone else, produce an agricultural good and switch that once per month if they want. If they don't dig for geological resources, they keep the first agricultural resource and can only switch their second once per month.
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No time. I have very irregulary free time to do some math or brainstorm some suggestions together and back them up with example calculations. I will simply use this blog to "offer ideas" and whoever wants (including the admin) can discuss them or just take them, rework them and or offer the admin to draft even code for it. See this blog as my personal drafting folder, free for everyone to use.
For more, there is absolutely no time, however I have thought about a "Creativity Team" for the Game before (I think I once said so either in the suggestionbox or during a chat with the admin) where some of the players with deep insight and knowledge about the game mechanics can suggest and discuss changes and new features *en detail*, or improve good but fuzzy suggestions from the suggestionbox with math examples and formulae.
Maybe one of my next blog entries will cover that, I wanted to re-suggest it for a long long time, but always forgot it. Thanks for the reminder!
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I'd have to buy about 2500 aircraft for that to come close to equally the 20 million extra it costs than the other +3 happiness wonder. Not even close to making it worthwhile
Huh? The Movie Industry (the other +3 happiness wonder) costs 26 million - that's a 4 million difference.
I had made the Space Program cost $50.000.000 in my suggestion. That would be a $24 Million difference just for 15% Airforce Purchase bonus.
However, I made some calculations and actually the balance is just not that bad:
If a nation has no WRC, a level9 fighter cost 50k base, that means 15% discount is 7.5k per plane. 3,200 planes must be purchased to equal out the 24M more-costs.
But, if a nation has a WRC, the costs for military goes up:
Lets say a nation has 5,000tech + WRC, all its military costs are increased by 50%, so a Level9 fighter would cost $75,000 base. A 15% discount would be $11,250 per plane, and to equal out 24M more costs he would need to purchase 2133 planes.
At 10,000 tech, that would be only 1600 planes to 'pay off'.
Basically it would be a clever decision to buy a normal +3 happiness wonder first, and the Space program later when a nation is more tech-heavy.
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I would increase the cost reduction for aircraft if you have the Space Program. 15% is not *that* much and certainly not enough to justify a wonder.
I'd have to buy about 2500 aircraft for that to come close to equally the 20 million extra it costs than the other +3 happiness wonder. Not even close to making it worthwhile
You are probably right, I have thought about reducing the costs to 30,000,000 and increase the effect to 20%.
Besides this, 2500 aircrafts is not THAT much, thats 25x rebuilding a complete set of 100 planes (and you can easily loses 100 planes per day at a top level). But i Agree, after ~1000-1500 planes the wonder should have paid for itself.
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I absolutely Agree, unfortunate I have not closely the time which would be needed to rework all of that
.But, thats abslutely on 'my list'.
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fat soldiers don't fight good
You would wonder what starving people can do if they know that they will only get something to eat if they pillage it out of the attacked city -
However I think that there is not much space for individual skill in a game like CN. Not because I wouldn't like that, but merely because it is nearly impossible to code. No matter how difficult admin will make certain things, no matter how many variables he'll use, it won't take long until you have a clear written guide which exactly describes you what to do, and reading a guide and following its advice has nothing to do with individual skill anymore.
Some Things are wrong with that:
1. Not all people do research&testing. Some people will get results faster, some slower, dependent on the effort they put into the matter and their skill to actually find out cause and effect. Caring vs Carelessness has an effect.
2. The speed of adaptation differs, some alliances take longer to educate their membership, some can do it quicker. There will be alliances who share knowledge with others, and alliances who keep their research secret. Quality of communication and internal education progams has an effect. Skilled alliances will benefit, inactive/lazy ones not.
3. Not everyone even reads or sticks to guides. There are still LOTS of people who make pretty bad decisions regarding their trades, aid usage, improvement order or wonder purchase, even while pretty good guides for all that is already public knowledge, they don' even need an alliance for that. They simply dont care or dont understand it. Strengthening the impact of different decisions makes skilled players gain a higher advantage over careless players.
4. Code can work event-based, so that the same question requires a different answer and the same situation requires a different reaction depending on the circumstances (Current Infralevel, State of War, Government etc...). A 'simple guide' will be unable to cover all eventualities, so people need to THINK before they act.
5. One bad thing of the current code is, that all changes have an INSTANT effect. Basically you can switch between Governments, Religions, DEFCONs and whatnot instantly, as you need it. People can simply do all things with the 'Best choices'. Thats bad. Code effects in a way that they increase and reach their full impact after the new Government has been 'worked in', so people need Timing and Planning to get the best efficiency of their results. A simple example is DEFCON. Currently everyone fights in DEFCON1 and collects in DEFCON5. The *intentional* tax-penalties for the higher DEFCON levels are not even used, because everyone avoids them by instantly switching between those two levels. A much better way would be: DEFCON1 increases your battlestrength by +10% per day up to 130% after 3 days. Same if going backwards. Decisions require time to take effect. If you notice an alliance is gearing up for war, it might be clever to alert the own nations so they can increase alert levels as well. If nothign happens and the other alliance goes back to DEFCON5, fine, do the same. Same is for Governmental changes - the effects should be more DIFFERENT, but they should grow over time, not happen instantly. Clever scheduling and pre-planning for a week or two will offer great benefits, doing everything with the same setup just average results. People NEED to actually face the disadvantages of their decisions TOO, while right now the only *competition* is "who can exploit the systems the best" (Improvement Switching, BackCollecting, DEFCON Manipulation, Sitting out Events, TankSwitching, UpdateBlitzing etc...). Everyone is grabbing for the Benefits of the good decisions, but totally cancels out the disadvantages which SHOULD be bound to them. Or do you think LaborCamps have a -1 Happiness Penalty to make people raze them before they collect? No, they have that because people need to make a sacrifice: Trade 10% infra bills vs 1 happiness. But right now, people are simply exploiting that system to make profit with it.
Make decisions have long-term effects and close all these exploits and skilled players WILL perform noticably better than lazy players, which creates motivation to master the game better than others -> competition.
I haven't been talking about "people" I talked about / to you as an individual and creator of this blog. I was trying to express that if you feel the actual game boring you can try to find other parts more exciting.Oh, I have fun, thats not the reason why I write this blog. I have many other ways to have my fun in this game beyound the pure game mechanics. But, I see this game as a Beta Version which could be a Jewel. It offers right now a very nice skeleton concept of nation building, politics and war. The admin can create (imho) a true masterpiece here over time, by giving more depth of gameplay to people who want that, without making that a requirement for survival. So, make the effects of the "advanced gameplay" decent, but noticable long term. Players who don't want that will still be able to do anything and reach anything they want - but players who DO want to master these things, will just be quicker & stronger. Like in every other game.
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Salt pork? Incidentally, how would pigs make land cheaper? Not sure I want to picture that
Pigs require space for farming / barnyards, the more a nation deals with Cattle, Pigs and all other kind of Agricultural goods, the more skilled the population is in urbanizing land
. You will see that I have applied a more or less small land-bonus to all of the agricultural resources in my suggestion. That would give Nations focusing on Agriculture a benefit when purchasing new land, while industrial nations focus more on infra and high-tech nations focus on technology. -
I fail to see why people which (as you just said) are more enjoying the "community" could enjoy the game 'less' just because it offers more options for other player who want to enjoy the actual game more?
Maybe that is only the fear that if 'individual skill' would acutally play a bigger role in the game, others would perform better and they are afraid of their own comfortable position?
If a defender could INDEED fight back 3 attackers if he makes the right decisions (maneuvers) in the right moments and his opponents make mistakes or lack skill - that would endanger the "status quo" we currently have where numbers can overwhelm nearly everything. In almost every other game you always have 'special moves' 'combo moves' 'finishing moves' 'agility skills' and what not so if you specialize for combat, you can defeat even 2 or 3 players who have refused to learn all these skills and spells and moves because they are lazy or careless. Being able to get the advantage because of higher mastery level IS one of the biggest factors for an successful online game - and it would hurt in *no way* the existing communities.
Why would it hurt anyone if there would be mechanisms wich allow other players to experience more fields of gameplay? If you don't like them, follow a standard guide and simply ignore them?
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Your nation is 666 days old today so I'll play Devil's Advocate. What's the point of years of building and positioning for power if when you get to the top you find yourself bored asking for administration to code in some kind of pixel attrition that makes everyone else not want to reach for the top anymore? This is a nation simulation game but at it's heart it is a war game. If you were more happy at 3999 infrastructure then go to war and beat your opponents to hell while you're at it.
Unfortunately the scenario is a lot more complex. You can of course do that and have your fun with blowing up some unaligneds (because attcking an alliance will bring you pretty soon on some ZI list what will be your end in BillLock for eternity, which basically ends your game). But, the unaligneds are in most cases so constantly raided that they won't even fight back, or are already under attack by 2 other guys. Even IF you are that lucky and find some targets, you are then rather excluded from the more interesting game - the political one. People in CN listen to power. Not to good intentions, not to interesting ideas. If you are representing an alliance with some hundred nuclear weapons and a few allies who ALSO have a few hundred or thousand nuclear weapons and other allies as well, and you can throw the weight of a few million NS, hundreds of SDIs, Manhattan Projects, WRCs and whatnot on the table - THEN you can take part in the real interesting global politics which influence the CN political landscape somewhat. You can achieve this either via Individual Strength (small numbers, high strength) like my alliance does, or via sheer numbers (many hundred nations, but smaller ones) like most of the sanctioned alliances do. Since I never wanted nor now want to be a member of a large alliance, 'growth' is basically a requirement to be involved in the big-business for me. Just 'going to war to have your fun' would simply remove all the fun on the political side of the game - But that is absolutely not nessessary, why shouldn't it be possible to create a game that gets MORE interesting the more time and effort you invest into mastering it? Most games work this way, especially the successful ones.
And: Additional mechanics at the top (problems) would NOT make people 'not want to reach' these heights - because you ALSO offer a lot of nice stuff as reward which they CANNOT build if they stay down where they avoid the 'problems'. Wonders, Weapons, Units, whatever. People WILL want to have all that shiny stuff, so they WILL grow and deal with Crime, Corruption, Unemployment, Pollution, whatever - because doing so gives them access to more interesting features. "Bigger Guns" if you wanna say so.
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Why has no-one offered you a job yet?
maybe someone has, just nobody knows
You're too used to playing with the big boys, you've lost touch with the ordinary players.
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Tournament Reset
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If you win, insert a complete "White Flag". And everyone who sends a peace offer automatically wears it