Ideas on Revitalizing CN

[IYIyTh]

[quote name='OrangeBeard' timestamp='1313730930' post='2784430']
The fact that the word filters include another browser game is pathetic... you can get warned for anything here. Thats partially, IMHO, why more people dont participate on the forums.

Another reason is ridiculous alliances. I mean, diversity is great, but pony alliances? Where does it end? Making this game facebook playable would only expound on that problem.
[/quote]

Are you kidding?

I think the most fun I've ever had is watching huge alliances like GOONS grow in the old days and having shark week around.

These alliances are good for the game. Look what its mere existence did to rile up the old farts in this joint. There's been more banter about an alliance based on ponies than anything else relevant in the game. What this game needs is MORE huge PONY alliances. Ones that piss you off enough to make you want to roll them/befriend them, but are crazy enough to do things that get your attention and liven up the community.

I personally joined MHA because it was generally more tame in theme than some over the past years BECAUSE of the ridiculousness of most alliance themes when you first enter the game.

This game literally needs more crazy alliances.

More FAN, more Ponies, more GOONS, more Pacifica's, more TOP's.

[Magicman657]

[quote name='IYIyTh' timestamp='1313750879' post='2784500']
Are you kidding?

I think the most fun I've ever had is watching huge alliances like GOONS grow in the old days and having shark week around.

These alliances are good for the game. Look what its mere existence did to rile up the old farts in this joint. There's been more banter about an alliance based on ponies than anything else relevant in the game. What this game needs is MORE huge PONY alliances. Ones that piss you off enough to make you want to roll them/befriend them, but are crazy enough to do things that get your attention and liven up the community.

I personally joined MHA because it was generally more tame in theme than some over the past years BECAUSE of the ridiculousness of most alliance themes when you first enter the game.

This game literally needs more crazy alliances.

More FAN, more Ponies, more GOONS, more Pacifica's, more TOP's.
[/quote]
I support this proposition of more ponies.

Also, since at least one or two people voiced concern, you need not worry about the CN forum being flooded with pony pics. That's why Ponychan exists, and we have our own forums for that as well. Ponies on CN will be (at least for the most part) limited to annoucements & propaganda. That said, we have a lot of stuff we're just dieing to use

Edited August 19, 2011 by Magicman657

[OrangeBeard]

[quote name='IYIyTh' timestamp='1313750879' post='2784500']
Are you kidding?

I think the most fun I've ever had is watching huge alliances like GOONS grow in the old days and having shark week around.

These alliances are good for the game. Look what its mere existence did to rile up the old farts in this joint. There's been more banter about an alliance based on ponies than anything else relevant in the game. What this game needs is MORE huge PONY alliances. Ones that piss you off enough to make you want to roll them/befriend them, but are crazy enough to do things that get your attention and liven up the community.

I personally joined MHA because it was generally more tame in theme than some over the past years BECAUSE of the ridiculousness of most alliance themes when you first enter the game.

This game literally needs more crazy alliances.

More FAN, more Ponies, more GOONS, more Pacifica's, more TOP's.
[/quote]
I'm not a veteran by any means, but I'm fairly certain FAN, NPO, and TOP are not "lulz" alliances.

There are people out there that enjoy them, as apparent by your post, but nearly everyone I've recruited to this game left because a) its a boring numbers game, or b) why the hell are there stupid alliances trying to recruit me?

I myself was in MHA, in government, way back near its founding point. Good times. I was in IS government until the merger with RAD. Also good times. But, the best time I've ever had is in NATO - a "serious" alliance that actually participates in world events without making my eyes bleed after seeing pony pictures and other ridiculous things.

Edited August 19, 2011 by OrangeBeard

[IYIyTh]

I used the word crazy, but that is still missing the point entirely.

[Lenny N Karl]

Orangebeard used to be in MHA and IYIyth used to be in NATO. both good guys. what does it all mean? it is a conundrum!~

as for the 5% thing. with all the 2-4 month GW's we have, older nations dropping out, anyone can get up there eventually. just takes longer.

I do wish the admin would do some thing to spice it up. add some improvements to make the game even more realistic. refineries, grocery stores, Disney land-like theme parks, anything is better than nothing. and make nukes more realistic finally. As the radiation levels rise make it damage all aspects to [u]all[/u] players...when the GRL actually reaches 10 (or some number), some % of land levels damaged/unusable for 180-600 days, -50% population for all for a specific period, tax collections even less, happiness levels take longer to recover. There would be no real world [b]IF[/b] the real one threw nukes around like we do. Make 'em think twice if it is hurting themselves just as much. Make us all feel the punches and we might respect the weapon more realistically. Plus, a more conventionally fought war is fun for both sides.


also we alliances should work out an "Alternative Universe" week and have a few short "what if" alliance wars. No treaties, no curbstomps, just organized one on ones.... Sparta vs MHA, GPA vs WTF, TOP vs Umbrella, NPO vs IRON, etc etc. get them as balanced as possible and roll the dice. Might be too complicated, just a thought.

[OrangeBeard]

Organized wars would be pretty epic. Similar to TE.

[Prime minister Johns]

[quote name='Lenny N Karl' timestamp='1313786941' post='2784681']
Orangebeard used to be in MHA and IYIyth used to be in NATO. both good guys. what does it all mean? it is a conundrum!~

as for the 5% thing. with all the 2-4 month GW's we have, older nations dropping out, anyone can get up there eventually. just takes longer.

I do wish the admin would do some thing to spice it up. add some improvements to make the game even more realistic. refineries, grocery stores, Disney land-like theme parks, anything is better than nothing. and make nukes more realistic finally. As the radiation levels rise make it damage all aspects to [u]all[/u] players...when the GRL actually reaches 10 (or some number), some % of land levels damaged/unusable for 180-600 days, -50% population for all for a specific period, tax collections even less, happiness levels take longer to recover. There would be no real world [b]IF[/b] the real one threw nukes around like we do. Make 'em think twice if it is hurting themselves just as much. Make us all feel the punches and we might respect the weapon more realistically. Plus, a more conventionally fought war is fun for both sides.


also we alliances should work out an "Alternative Universe" week and have a few short "what if" alliance wars. No treaties, no curbstomps, just organized one on ones.... Sparta vs MHA, GPA vs WTF, TOP vs Umbrella, NPO vs IRON, etc etc. get them as balanced as possible and roll the dice. Might be too complicated, just a thought.
[/quote]

Uncapping the GRL is a bad idea, there are some people out there who's fondest wish is to dance while the world burns and they would love a chance to wreck the world for the "lulz".

[WorldConqueror]

I don't think many alliances would be keen to engage in staged wars, simply because it would leave them weaker when a 'real' war came around.

[zzzptm]

[quote name='WorldConqueror' timestamp='1313809658' post='2784830']
I don't think many alliances would be keen to engage in staged wars, simply because it would leave them weaker when a 'real' war came around.
[/quote]
Very, very true. I've tried to set up sparring matches with my own big nation, but can only do so when tensions are running low.

However, these are great for getting people active in the game. I had the idea for "Bumfights" back in ACDC, and Fark was gracious enough to participate. We had noob nations go at each other for a week, with larger nations coaching them in the fight. At the end, we shook hands and then dropped $15 million on the noob nations for their efforts, with ACDC aiding Fark's nation and Fark aiding ACDC's. It was great fun, didn't risk having a major nation go into anarchy, and kept the guys involved active and participating in the alliance.

I think it's a great way to keep the game going. We're going to give lots of new member aid, anyway, so why not have them earn it? It's good for communication between treaty partners and for keeping a spirit of sportsmanlike competition going.

[HeroofTime55]

[quote name='Prime minister Johns' timestamp='1313808649' post='2784822']
Uncapping the GRL is a bad idea, there are some people out there who's fondest wish is to dance while the world burns and they would love a chance to wreck the world for the "lulz".
[/quote]
One person can't do that unless the entire world is dumb enough to follow them. I'm all for uncapping the GRL - And making it cause more damage to the bigger nations. That will really make people think carefully. One small change to the numbers could do so much.

Admin's attitude of preserving CN exactly the way it's been for the past two years is the single biggest thing that's destroying this game. We need things that are new and exciting.

Also fix the damned resource system already, people have only been !@#$%*ing about that since the day this game was created. Perhaps there really is something wrong with it after all!

[Prime minister Johns]

[quote name='HeroofTime55' timestamp='1314060070' post='2786453']
One person can't do that unless the entire world is dumb enough to follow them. I'm all for uncapping the GRL - And making it cause more damage to the bigger nations. That will really make people think carefully. One small change to the numbers could do so much.

Admin's attitude of preserving CN exactly the way it's been for the past two years is the single biggest thing that's destroying this game. We need things that are new and exciting.

Also fix the damned resource system already, people have only been !@#$%*ing about that since the day this game was created. Perhaps there really is something wrong with it after all!
[/quote]
One person may not be able to make that much of an impact, but an alliance that is backed into a corner and losing a war and facing an extremely long period of isolation and paying off reps may decide to take the world down with them.

[HeroofTime55]

[quote name='Prime minister Johns' timestamp='1314065656' post='2786522']
One person may not be able to make that much of an impact, but an alliance that is backed into a corner and losing a war and facing an extremely long period of isolation and paying off reps may decide to take the world down with them.
[/quote]
Which would make the people they'd "take down with them" think twice about their actions, wouldn't it? It all comes full circle. You need to look at the big picture, this would affect every step of the decision making process, not just the last one.

[Hyperbad]

[quote name='HeroofTime55' timestamp='1314067068' post='2786540']
Which would make the people they'd "take down with them" think twice about their actions, wouldn't it?[/quote]
Not necessarily. I once played a forum based nation sim circa 2002 where there was a simple rule: 50 nukes go off and the game is over, global winter. Granted the cost of a nuclear program was high in that game but it was still a low target. Most players came late enough that an alliance of 5 nations who started when the game did were able to roll the rest of us fairly effectively because of their quantity of forces and tech level. In any event I messaged all of the neutrals at the time to start a nuke program and set some off. If this alliance was attacking me because they didn't know whether I'd intervene in the war against them then surely the same end will arrive at their own doorstep. So all of us who weren't in that alliance started a nuke program. When the game was over (from a hacker having taken the site down and deleting the forums) I was chatting with one of the five, I've known people in that community for years before, and asked him what he thought our strategy was. He simply thought it was to hold out as long as we can. When I mentioned to him it was only to hold out long enough to set off the 50 nukes and we had mobilized even the formerly inactive (they actually found it an enjoyable idea) he laughed as they hadn't even considered we'd do it. Those at top don't always either care, consider it as a viable option for those losing, or think the defender would find it enjoyable to start over themselves in such a manner as this would entail.

With that said I don't have an issue with uncapping GRL. People may still collect what little taxes they receive and if enough people end up in bill lock the nuking will stop and GRL drop slowly to a point where no one else will be unable to pay daily bills. This puts a greater emphasis on war chest and may act as a means of eating up some of the cash inflation we're seeing - by requiring people to dip into them sometimes when they're at peace. Or it could have the opposite effect as we see war chest requirements double.

[HeroofTime55]

[quote name='Hyperbad' timestamp='1314135711' post='2787133']
Not necessarily. I once played a forum based nation sim circa 2002 where there was a simple rule: 50 nukes go off and the game is over, global winter. Granted the cost of a nuclear program was high in that game but it was still a low target. Most players came late enough that an alliance of 5 nations who started when the game did were able to roll the rest of us fairly effectively because of their quantity of forces and tech level. In any event I messaged all of the neutrals at the time to start a nuke program and set some off. If this alliance was attacking me because they didn't know whether I'd intervene in the war against them then surely the same end will arrive at their own doorstep. So all of us who weren't in that alliance started a nuke program. When the game was over (from a hacker having taken the site down and deleting the forums) I was chatting with one of the five, I've known people in that community for years before, and asked him what he thought our strategy was. He simply thought it was to hold out as long as we can. When I mentioned to him it was only to hold out long enough to set off the 50 nukes and we had mobilized even the formerly inactive (they actually found it an enjoyable idea) he laughed as they hadn't even considered we'd do it. Those at top don't always either care, consider it as a viable option for those losing, or think the defender would find it enjoyable to start over themselves in such a manner as this would entail.

With that said I don't have an issue with uncapping GRL. People may still collect what little taxes they receive and if enough people end up in bill lock the nuking will stop and GRL drop slowly to a point where no one else will be unable to pay daily bills. This puts a greater emphasis on war chest and may act as a means of eating up some of the cash inflation we're seeing - by requiring people to dip into them sometimes when they're at peace. Or it could have the opposite effect as we see war chest requirements double.
[/quote]
Well, it wouldn't be a game-ender, for sure, but it would help bring balance - By tearing those gigantic run-away nations and alliances down a notch. It's nothing personal, but I'd love to see Hime Themis suffer a little, you know? And with balance, you get a more dynamic environment, and with a more dynamic environment, you get a more exciting game, and with a more exciting game, you keep people interested.

That, and fix the resource system, and we're golden.

Hundreds of new nations join every single day. This game could bounce back into a new golden age with just a few simple fixes, I honestly can't figure out why admin refuses to do anything except let his game die. Maybe he truly is sick of us.

Edited August 23, 2011 by HeroofTime55

[Ernesto Che Guevara]

[quote name='HeroofTime55' timestamp='1314060070' post='2786453']
One person can't do that unless the entire world is dumb enough to follow them. I'm all for uncapping the GRL - And making it cause more damage to the bigger nations. That will really make people think carefully. One small change to the numbers could do so much.

Admin's attitude of preserving CN exactly the way it's been for the past two years is the single biggest thing that's destroying this game. We need things that are new and exciting.

Also fix the damned resource system already, people have only been !@#$%*ing about that since the day this game was created. Perhaps there really is something wrong with it after all!
[/quote]

HoT, I'm not trying to pick on you here, you were just the most recent post like this that I've seen, so I quoted you.

Admin could code every suggestion we've put up, could add every possible idea to the game, and it wouldn't do a damned thing. Why? Because of the reasons stated in and exemplified by this thread. The constant put-downs and such drive new players away. I've got some close RL friends in CN, and when I've thought of quitting a few times, they're the only reason I've stayed.

Go find one friend interested in the same kinda stuff you are and invite them to the game. HoT founded an alliance and everybody (myself included, sorry) belittled and insulted him/the alliance. Why? This is only going to drive any possible new players away. Instead of doing that, we should be GLAD they've joined CN.

tl;dr stop !@#$%*ing and invite one person to play.

[jerdge]

[size="1"][i]Sorry I know that some/all of this is in bad English, I hadn't time to polish it up.[/i][/size]

I'll try to resume and to add on what I think are the critical factors (and some of the best ideas for "revitalization").

[list=1][*]Superstitions.
[list][*][i]«New players get discouraged when they look at the old big nations»[/i]
A new player can rarely have any idea of the dynamic of the game; instead s/he just rushes to try discover/test the features of the game; going up the ranks comes later.
[*][i]«New players which join micros get caught in their failure and then quit.»[/i]
A player which discovered the political aspect of CN will want to quickly be important within it, and small alliances can give that much more than big ones.
[spoiler]Of the 144 nations created yesterday 110 are on "none", 14 in United Equestria, 4 in NoR and the remaining 16 spread in 14 different AAs, [i]none[/i] of which is a micro. Of the 47 nations created a month before yesterday 8 are on none, 32 are spread in 24 different "established" AAs (of which 7 are sanctioned and got 12 members) and 7 are each in a different "micro" (< 20 members) AA.
Not counting the phenomenon UE and keeping in mind that these are samples, not statistics, it's anyway clear that at least half of the new players don't survive their first month. Of those that survive the great part gets aligned; a significant share (1/3 in the second sample) is still on none (small but noticeable number) or in small AAs, indicating that they prefer a small or no group to start with; the vast majority of people don't join sanctioned alliances, i.e. they don't just pull down a random item from the menu.
"Political" activity/alignment is obviously crucial for remaining in the game and most people look for a smaller community to begin with. Micros are part of "the solution", not of the problem.[/spoiler]
[*]«New improvements and Wonders would help to retain players.»
People that ran out of new game features to test already have 100+ free improvement slots, we don't need new improvements in themselves (although some good change could be done with improvements). New Wonders might help retain some old player for a while, but you can't continue to indefinitely add to the 34 of them, thus this can't be the long-term solution we're looking for.
[spoiler]Getting all the Wonders already takes 3+ years. That could discourage players that start becoming expert of the game as they'll see that other nations will continue to be ahead of them for a long while.
Wonders also either add to economics, worsening the "problem" of inflation (people with immense money reserves), or add to military, increasing the imbalance between old and new players, again discouraging some people. New Wonders for the sake of it aren't a good idea IMHO. Old players should have found "political" reasons to stay by now.
The most players we lose are among the new ones (which don't stay). Would these care about (or even just know of) new improvements and Wonders being added? Hardly so, they already have a lot of them to chew on.[/spoiler][*]«The bad atmosphere on the CN forums scares most people away.»
This is at some extent true but only for the (very few) players which try to be politically active on the forums early in their "career" - which doesn't make it any less bad, anyway.
Most players do NOT experience the forums and their decision to leave can't be due to the forums.
[spoiler]Most people don't experience the political aspect of CN [i]in general[/i]: they either stay on none and (sooner or later) delete; or they join some alliance where they're mostly inactive and often, for lack of interest, they let their nations be deleted. More on this in the following.[/spoiler][/list]
[*]The Resource system is annoying and unfunny. I rely on your tales about it as I've been lucky enough to have Aluminum and Fish from the start, but there are just too many active people which complain about it and I can only wonder how worse it might be for people less inclined to be active. Whatever is done - this isn't the Suggestion Box and I am not going to discuss specific details, the SB is already full of food for thought on this matter anyway - has to be done in the direction of making it easier for the player.
[spoiler]The system has to remain challenging and to continue to require contact between people: the social dynamics of messaging people about Trades shouldn't be underestimated and, although I wasn't on CN at its beginning, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the first embryonic alliances were the evolution of Trade Circles. This would IMHO best be done by allowing people to change their resources, under certain conditions, without removing the need of coordinating with other people for it.
There are indications that a lot of early deleters started with "bad" resources and were annoyed by the difficulty of using that system. It would be good to also increase the polarization of Resources Bonuses, for example making the military bonuses much bigger, to the point that they can be decisive in war, requiring certain Resources to actually benefit of specific Wonders, linking the military bills to the tech bonus, etc., so that nations choose different combinations according to what they want to do with their nation, its age etc., rather than just to maximize their net income, which instead tends to have everybody focus on 2-3 solutions ignoring everything else (like it's now for the most of us).[/spoiler]
[*]Most people don't experience the political aspect of CN [i]in general[/i], especially during their early CN life, which is a problem as they'd be more interested if they played a role in that.
For one we forum addicts should stop bashing newcomers like we always do. This forum should also be much more heavily linked into the game: several screens and features should basically be screaming around that 50%+ of the "real" game happens here and that just the game mechanics won't provide the rich experience that keeps players in CN for years.
[spoiler]About the first point, while it's true that forum newcomers are a small minority of the new players, they're also the ones more likely to be active and to drag other newcomers into activity with them (I should know, in the first days of my old micro I easily recruited 4-5 people just by saying them that we were going for an independent, crazy enterprise, without any backup.)[/spoiler]
[*]Similarly, this game is advertised as a nation simulation game, which definitely it's [i]not[/i]: it's a [i]global politics[/i] simulator. This means that people looking for political sims on the Internet [i]won't[/i] try playing CN, while people looking for nation sims will try it, they'll be disappointed and they'll leave. Fixing how the game is marketed is a vital, ridiculously simple and overdue change.
[spoiler]CN isn't a war simulation game either like many claim (you scatterbrains): wars scarcely happen and most if not all of them are decided before the first bullet is shot, which definitely would make of CN the worst war simulator of all times, if it was one.[/spoiler][/list]


Those above are the really relevant things. I continue below with less important stuff that might even be ignored without compromising much the understanding of this post.
[list][*]A political simulator thrives over conflict.
The game doesn't anyway provide any "something" for which the alliances could be in conflict, thus everything is left to our make-believe or RPing. Since RPing is interesting for a small minority of CN (sorry RPers) we probably lack a feature here. The game would probably benefit by some "asset" (say, land) being capped in some way (probably dynamically to adjust with the growth/shrinking of the nation base), so that people would have something additional to fight over. I wouldn't give it too much relevance (maybe just a very small bonus in addition to what we already have) otherwise it would completely substitute our historical dynamics, changing the game too much. This something "we'd have to fight for" can of course be something different (a new feature).
[*]The huge, old nations are increasingly "too far away" and this can turn away people which are in also for the individual competition in the nation rankings. The advantage of having 15k or 20k technology is also becoming overwhelming in warfare, when the people that lose a war risk to be left behind "forever" and will "never" be able to close the gap. This could (IMHO should) be limited by introducing specific changes in the game. The tech bonus should be capped, probably somewhere between 5k-10k. The price of tech could be tweaked to make it viable to actually [i]buy[/i] tech (up to 5k, maybe). The infra price/upkeep could be tweaked to make it much more cheaper to buy infra at the lower levels, and much more expensive to maintain it at the high ones.
[spoiler]I say this with a bit of sadness as I worked hard my way up to 14k tech but really, the imbalance is getting worse with time and a stop is badly needed... For example, Umbrella has an [i]average[/i] tech per member which is at least 150% of what [i]most of the top layer nations[/i] have in NPO. Is this really challenging for either party?
The proposal about infra should force the infra heavy nations to sell off infra or at least to stop buying it (sorry Hime Themis...), while allowing the new players to close the gap more quickly. The old players would still retain the advantage as they collected money at high profit levels but hey, they've been playing for longer, after all.[/spoiler]
[*]"Virally" invading other games is a good idea, Alterego, but you need a lot of manpower for that, which is probably the worst downside of that idea. Not to mention that players could decide that the other game is better, and leave CN...
[*]Establishing a link with social networks would probably increase the new players, I am all for it.[/list]



Last but not least: wait, [b]HoT brought 90 new players into the game?[/b]

Today you're my hero, HoT! Well done.

[Sabcat]

I'm not sure about players who've been around a long time but after a year and a few days here I'm not looking for any game updates to keep me interested and I have no plans to delete my nation or let it die from inactivity.

I'd say that I was lucky though, I got an message in my inbox in the first day or so of joining the game from Legion. I joined, I got game guides, a forum that's very active with threads about the game and not about the game. I got help setting up trades, I got tech deals I got to be as active or as inactive as I like. Say what you like about Legion but they're the reason I'm still in the game. I'm sure many other people could say similar things about their own alliance.

I think if admin could do one thing to improve the retention of new players it would be a link in the sign up email to a page detailing the importance of alliances with links to forums, treaty web and history.

[Captain V]

Speaking for myself, throwing a bone to older players in the form of new updates, wonders, improvements, or the like might make this not blow. Or how about new resources, or the ability to change up your native resources? Fact is, the bells and whistles around here are looking pretty old and we need new shiny stuff.

[IYIyTh]

[quote name='Ernesto Che Guevara' timestamp='1314154463' post='2787412']
HoT, I'm not trying to pick on you here, you were just the most recent post like this that I've seen, so I quoted you.

Admin could code every suggestion we've put up, could add every possible idea to the game, and it wouldn't do a damned thing. Why? Because of the reasons stated in and exemplified by this thread. The constant put-downs and such drive new players away. I've got some close RL friends in CN, and when I've thought of quitting a few times, they're the only reason I've stayed.

Go find one friend interested in the same kinda stuff you are and invite them to the game. HoT founded an alliance and everybody (myself included, sorry) belittled and insulted him/the alliance. Why? This is only going to drive any possible new players away. Instead of doing that, we should be GLAD they've joined CN.

tl;dr stop !@#$%*ing and invite one person to play.
[/quote]


Thank you. I brought this up in the beginning of this thread and confronted with the irony everyone didn't know what to say.

[Sephiroth]

I remember the first alliance I joined even before the FCC was back in September 2007 after a recruitment message from MAD or Mutually Assured Defense. Now I've decided to merge into an alliance called MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction. Member of MAD in 2007, member of MAD in 2011. The same, yet completely different.

[zzzptm]

BRB, participating on the OWF.

[Mind the Gap]

It's sort of a social science problem - why is the CN population falling? Why is the economy tanking?

First off, it's not a problem with any individual player. It's a resort to convenience when somebody says "stop talking about it and do something." If there was something that an individual player could do, one of the 17k that play this game [i]would have already done it.[/i] Blaming the aggregate is like blaming atoms for your car engine not starting - if you provided a system which was conducive to internal combustion, the atoms would be all for it.

I think it's interesting that we once had such a vibrant community and now it is half the size. What happened? What are the macro effects that cause so many people to hang it up? What brought them here in the first place?

The political climate drives the rockstar players (Moldavi, Sponge, 404, etc) to take action and play. These people led large alliances which made the game exciting and interesting for the common agent. It's important to note that this is above the game itself, highly abstracted from anything to do with the actual gameplay. While I do think Admin should be doing more to incorporate forums and IRC into the game shell itself (it's a terrible pain to keep these people active when it's so complicated), the actual mechanics and movement of the game is impossibly boring, and was that way back when things were more exciting.

The problem seems to be a macro-political one. A game reset would have such very interesting effects on that.

Building the alliances into the shell of the game would be a huge gain. Talent we never would have seen will appear on the scene (haha!) with easier accessibility in their noobish days to the actual fun stuff of the game.

[Dai Gepp]

If you'll pardon a new member, whose only sense of history has been reading it in prep for her alliance exam,

The world seems broken into three groups:

I. The old, upper tier powers. Those with the age, wisdom, warchest, and stockpiled tech to stand at the pinnacle of Bob. People who won't be going anywhere. These people can be good or bad for the game. Many now use their economic might to lift up younger nations. Others are old and weary powers. Those that had their time in the sun and now sit around talking about the "Good Old Days".

II. The mid tier powers. Later comers to the game. They've been around for awhile though. Enough time has ticked off for them to grab up wonders and to become military powers. However they lack the sheer history to be sitting on a truly massive stockpile of tech (or they lost a few wars and paid it out as reps).

III. The new invasion alliances (newest generation of such). To put it simply: "It's going to take us how long to matter militarily? We're going to be mere tech farms for how long?!".

The issue I see here lies in the power dynamics between the mid tier and the lower tier. The mid tier has their wonders and can easily step on the throat of any lower tier that rears up. A new nation has to get to 5k-6k infra to start buying wonders, a mid tier can be sitting there at 5k with full wonders and just crush the newcomer. The mid tier has shifted so that now it has a has a wonder edge on the lower. The lower has to get themselves up to 4k infra, 5k infra, 7k infra, and then sit around for a year or so buying wonders and building a warchest. An alliance that invades today is likely looking at 14 months of tech farming and wonder building before they have any kind of serious shot of taking out a mid tier alliance.

This is bad because throughout history invasion alliances have had the most impact (after the initial settlement of powers from NS). GOONS Classic, FAN, LUE, FARK, IRON, TOP, all came into the game from another forum base and between GWII and BiPolar all of those alliances managed a moment of prominence (sanction, leader of a central power bloc, etc). Now though it takes you 14 months to reach mid tier and who knows how long to get a sanction. Invasion alliances now not only have to watch paint dry, they have to battle boredom and keep their rank and file willing to watch paint dry for over a year. Look at for example the TPF comments in the UE thread. They're talking more about "Hooray, access to tech" than "Hooray, a new military ally." It will be interesting to see what UE's attrition rate is as they find out they'll work the Foreign Aid function for months before they get to work the war function in any meaningful way. As another example, a later arrival FOK, never made it out of "mid range sanctioned alliance" level and to the level of TOP/FARK/IRON/GOONS 1.0/etc.

Simply put, longer building teams mean less changes to the political structure. That makes it less exciting and less drama to thrive on. It takes people longer to develop their alliance and set up their power play. This increases the odds of leaks and gives the most established powers time to wake up and crush the upstart playing to shake up the world order, while the old power still enjoys a decisive advantage in wonders.

As such I have three proposals:

[b]First[/b], split the wonders into two groups. We could do a "classic wonder tier" and an "advance wonder tier". Stick things that most nations consider primary wonders (Stock Market, Social Security, IIS, MP, SDI, etc) into the classic tier. Stick the others in advance. Allow nations to buy 2 wonders a month out of the 'classic tier' and one a month or every other month out of the 'advanced tier'. Alternative do a economic group, a military group, and and an advanced research group. Allow one per month out of economic and military, while advanced only become available after you have X number of the military and economic ones.

My thought here is to create a system where new arrivals can get the basic combat / economic set of wonders faster. Make it so established alliances can recruit and grow nations quickly. If you can grab 40 new players, have your banks feed them aid for 6 months, and walk away with them as combat ready and supportable in war via aid (using FAC, DRA to feed) suddenly everyone gets an incentive to recruit, to buddy up with invasion alliances, and generally do more than farm for tech. Meanwhile the more established nations can hang onto the advance class of wonders as their perk for being old and hanging around (also they get the advantage of a warchest and a tech stockpile in most cases).

[b]Second[/b], increase aid slot numbers. I've read some arguments over increasing the size of slots as well, but I don't think that it makes a good idea. If I can get 4.5 million a slot, I'll just start charging 4.5 million for 100 tech. It just increases the price for tech. Rather increase the base aid slots by one or two. That lets nations be build faster or be build with a combo of say 3 slots being used to sell tech (good for older nations) and 2 slots being used to pump aid directly in (good for the new nation). This will get smaller nations off the ground faster while still maintaining a tech flow up. What really matters those is now banks could have 7 slots to spread the wealth out over new recruits. It lets larger nations kick out more money over a wider area. So a small cadre of active banks can fund more newbies.

[b]Third[/b], increase the war range. This is tricky and I'll admit I'm having trouble nailing this one down. My thinking is that in the upper tier you have a lot of nations who are old and lazy. They don't use their aid slots to buy tech or anything. They have a tech stockpile, over 10k infra and their attitude is "I got mine, I'll back collect every 19 days". That's all some of them seem to do. I think it would be good for the game if the mid tier could attack deeper into the upper tier. Obviously in the first few rounds the big guys with their WRCs would wipe the floor with the mid tier. However I'd like a setup where eventually a howling mob of mid tiers could drag them down and beat them up. On the flip side we need to prevent a system where the mid tier can attack deep into the lower tier and just buzzsaw the little newbies knees off. Something like starting at 10k, your upper attack range increase by a certain percent. A 20k increase the lower attack range.

This basically forces the big guys to stop coasting. If they do the little horde of mids can get them. I also think some mids are kind of content. They're too small for the really big guys ot squash them, but they can clobber upstart little guys. So some of the mids just sit in the middle and enjoy complete dominance there that is impossible to challenge due to wonder size (over the lower end) or being too small to step on (from the higher end). If the mids can suddenly be rolled by the big boys it forces them to get to building up to the size of the big boys. So you'll have the political play of the mids expanding upwards and the big guys trying to fend them off. This means lots of blood, wars, and politics in the upper ranks again and hopefully an increase in activity / war frequency.

Alternatively do something like anyone with a MP can attack anyone else with a MP, but that gets kind of weird.

My personal view is some version of my first and second ideas is the best. Make it so that by the third month of the game new arrivals are buying their first wonder (with proper banking support of course). It creates a "light at the end of the tunnel" view. Even if it will take the new arrival a few more months to finish filling out the basic set, they can see progress and see they're halfway there to mattering militarily.

[Ernesto Che Guevara]

[quote name='IYIyTh' timestamp='1314257494' post='2788051']
Thank you. I brought this up in the beginning of this thread and confronted with the irony everyone didn't know what to say.
[/quote]

I saw that and thought "This man has a damned good idea, I think I'll steal it and claim it as my own."

Sorry, I'll give you a cut of my profits.

[Henry Rollins]

Incorporate alliances and irc into the main forum and give trade bonuses to alliances which have economic pacts signed with one another for their members to trade with one another.