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621 days!


MrMuz

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So, hey, my nation's been around for 153 days in the SOS Brigade, 436 days in the Viridian Entente, give or take a little application time in both. By September 20, it'd have survived for 621 days. And then Catennast fades into.. wherever nations go when they don't collect.

I haven't really posted much around the OWF, so I guess I've got enough word quota left to make a long goodbye speech.


Why stop playing? Yes, the game is 5 mins a day, 5 mins a month at worst. Maybe 20 mins a day if you don't have full aid slots or trades.

Aid slots time is tolerable, Umbrella hogging all the tech sellers is fine; there are other ways to find/create sellers if you're creative.

Trades are just plain annoying. I've been handling trades in CN for long enough that, by memory, I could cite the effects of most resources and what's needed for most bonus resources. I understand that the concept behind trades is to reward people for putting effort into them, but this game takes it too far. If you don't have 'perfect' trades, you're just going to be left far behind everyone else. Some people spend a month rerolling, because it pays off.

I could assemble a trade ring for a single person in 2-3 days. But spamming and assembling the trade ring is the easy bit. You meet people who just are not interested in the game. You could spend a week making a great trade ring for someone who later decides that the game sucks and then deletes. Or people who decide to not change rings and stay loyal to a worse one after agreeing. Or people who decide later on not to change colors. It is a greatly frustrating aspect of the game when you spend literally a week on trying to gain an advantage and it all falls apart because of one person you try to help. I've had a situation where I tried to get rings for a bunch of people, only to find that 3 out of 4 of those people from my alliance deleted, leaving me making mostly an external ring.

It brings me to my main point. Most of the people I talk to believe, "The game sucks. I'm just in it for the company." Most of the game would quit if their friends left. You see this when someone leaves an alliance, and several of his/her friends follow him on the way out. The only way to win is not to play.

Facebook games have been making all these fail moves at making social games for years. CN succeeded it at so long ago. You join for the 5 mins initial gameplay, you stay for the people, you gain a lot from inviting your friends, and you keep playing just for the friends. The transaction system is perfect. You spend real money to accelerate growth, but it doesn't guarantee victory. $25 is quite a lot to pay just for a little infra and money. You'll lose hundreds of real money in a week of nuclear war, but still be ahead of those who didn't donate. But CN has done the social game aspect better than everyone else ever did.

I actually do like much of the CN gameplay (except trades). I've probably talked on it for hours with some people, spent days writing guides on them. There's no more joy in learning the gameplay aspect, because it's all been figured out. I've done almost everything I could figure to manipulate gameplay: tech bombs, aid bombs, tech farms, trade swaps. Most of them are probably going to be fully functional in a few months, so I find no more joy in messing with the gameplay.

I guess there [I]is[/I] one thing left I'd like to do, but it'd take at least a year, too many hours, and I'm not eager to spend that much time on the game.


Emergent gameplay - politics
So everyone, even the neutrals, agree that the game is in alliances. The real gameplay is not in nation building, but working together as a team. It is a political simulator, just because the rest of the game can be abstracted away.

Politics themselves can be boring, the fun here is in political shift. Wars are less fun than peace, but everyone enjoys them because they bring in a political shift (hopefully to their advantage). If wars were more fun, there would be more people playing TE than SE, but that's not the case. Everyone's enjoyment comes from bringing about a political change and experiencing it from a first person perspective.

There's internal politics, which can be fun and bloody, or they can just be really boring and peaceful. Neutrals enjoy that side of politics, but it only appeases so many people.


Inter-alliance politics... well, here's the main point. It sucks, purely because of the game mechanics and the political situation today. If you declare an aggressive war without a rock-solid CB, like direct in-game attacks, you lose months, even years worth of PR work. Only the most stupid alliances will actually give anyone a solid CB, and when that does happen, it'd be outright stupid to support such an ally (like with PC and iFOK dropping NEW for their attack on DF).

The big wars start from questionable CBs. Unfortunately, it's just not easy to get a questionable CB. That's when people start trolling - threats, insults, spy attacks, lies. Half of the major wars are "pre-emptive strikes", when someone trolls the other so bad that they hit them based on a possible threat. Throwing the first punch is just too politically costly, that the safest move to trigger a war is to troll someone into hitting you first.

In addition, Karma has shown that public opinion does indeed matter. It's foolish to say the OWF doesn't matter. OWF propaganda kills the faith of allies. Even worse, it harms an alliance's internal morale. Flooding threads with straw men and illogical arguments is also a good tactic to deflect attacks on your alliance's nature, though it doesn't work.

Unfortunately, this has created an environment where trolling is encouraged. I enjoy the drama, but not how it's becoming rather artificial. Wars should start more naturally, over things like land/tech/power/hatred, not out of boredom.

I've become weary of the contentless arguing and positioning.


OK, let's say that I do successfully start a war with a hated enemy and bring on all my friends, get 3000 nations to beat up a 200 nation group of microalliances. Let's take a 3 on 1 curbstomp.

Defender nation is curbstomped by 3 nations. Let's take an idiot who doesn't turtle, and just sits there on full soldiers, launching nukes and cruise missiles. The other 3 will all of their ground attacks, air attacks, and cruise missiles.

Defender causes 150 + 10 infra damage, 50+2-10 tech damage to each attacker. Plus the approprite techmod.
Attackers causes 150 + 90x3 in total infra damage and 50 + 12x3 tech damage to the defender.

This curbstomped defender takes 420 base infra damage, 86 base tech damage a day.
Defender causes 160 base infra damage and 42 base tech damage to each attacker, for a base total of 480 infra damage and 126 tech damage to the curbstomping alliance as a whole, daily.

That's right, winning wars actually damages the winner more! What a brilliant concept! If tech runs the world, then every curbstomp is a strategic victory to the loser. If the loser can sneak in a few extra ground attacks, they'd be even further ahead in total damage.

Of course, this assumes that the target doesn't run out of nukes mid game. But with non-SDI wars, nukes last slightly over a week before running short, 3 days with SDI. With WRC/HNMS vs SDI nations, around 4 days.

Just to 'make a profit' from the war, an alliance with 80 nuclear nations averaging 5k tech fighting for just a week would need roughly 100k in tech reps. Good luck asking for 100k tech on a curbstomp.

So, now... you can't really even win wars. You can only lose them. There is no point to going to war. Even the most powerful bloc in the game would have difficulty trying to roll a neutral, because of the political consequences. I don't even want to get started on the tangled mess the treaty web is in right now, anyone who does basic FA knows it.


The game is in a state where the winning move is to do nothing. So, I guess my move would be not to play. The 'fun' itself is so detached from the game that I can enjoy 70% of the game without ever logging in to the CN website. It's quite a sad state of affairs when the rules say that you have to actually play the game to post on the forums, otherwise people would keep posting. If I didn't leave SOS, I'd probably end up still doing FA stuff even after deletion.

As to how to rescue the game.. I don't know. Just stop being dicks, stop with the crazy CN logic that make the game so difficult to enjoy. Less nukes, more reps, less trolling, much less treaties, more tech sellers, fix the damn trade system. But this will never happen.


You guys play this game for your friends, but I'm not going to keep my friends in the game just for me. So, farewell, Cyber Nations. The 600+ days have been memorable and a good learning experience. From now on, instead of spending time making contacts on IRC, I'll be actually meeting people and chatting with them during dinners. And heck, I think I'll sign up for an actual RL political party and see if I can become gov of an actual country.

Oh, and a thank you to the Viridian Entente and the SOS Brigade for actually keeping me interested in this game as long as they have.

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I don't even use IRC anymore for a long time, barely use the forums. CN isn't a big time investment to keep your nation going. I'll let you become my apprentice if you want to stay though, otherwise why are you still even here? Good Riddance for those who leave thinking they are to good for cYbernationS. Its like one of those people who raise a digital pet, only to kill it to see that they can. Horrible people. -_-

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I can relate, and I think around the two year mark I said something very similar on IRC to one of my CN mentors. You're suffering from burnout - happens to the best of us.

My advice is the same that my mentor gave me - take a vacation, as long as you need. You CAN do that by quitting entirely. However, there is satisfaction in reaching 1000 days and beyond. There are groups out there that are good "retirement" places to be where the alliance doesn't get into politics, have many treaties, etc. These are the ones protected by other groups. Find one and move there for a bit. Become a diplomat to the alliance where you have friends. Then when you're done with your vacation, move back if you want.

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1,914 days old

In that time I've taken multiple breaks and "burnout" vacations. Its necessary. I suggest you take one for a month come back and just be a retired player, its so much better.

Sorry to see another player go, if you do go can you at least rogue and start a war?

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[quote name='Ironfist' timestamp='1314279039' post='2788111']
So you don't find any joy in this game so damn us to hell because some of us do? Don't really know what the point of your post was.[/quote]

Yeah, I think it came out wrong without the context. Some people had asked me "Why? Was it because of me? Was it because of them?" It was just a long post saying, "No, it's not your fault, it's the game itself." Plus people have been speculating why people leave the game, and I'm just giving my reasons before I step off.

Oh, and I wanted going to say that all those alliances who have me masked as a diplomat should probably unmask me. Forgot to mention it earlier :P


[quote name='White Chocolate' timestamp='1314282324' post='2788138']
My advice is the same that my mentor gave me - take a vacation, as long as you need. You CAN do that by quitting entirely. However, there is satisfaction in reaching 1000 days and beyond. There are groups out there that are good "retirement" places to be where the alliance doesn't get into politics, have many treaties, etc. These are the ones protected by other groups. Find one and move there for a bit. Become a diplomat to the alliance where you have friends. Then when you're done with your vacation, move back if you want.
[/quote]

Thanks, but tried it. I just don't do well with retirement. I guess everyone has their own way of enjoying the game, mine is the grand strategy aspect. I've had numerous little breaks from the game, normally when things are going great IRL, and every time I get sucked back in. I try stepping down from positions, alliance hopping, but always end up doing stuff. I do enjoy sitting on IRC and talking to people, but hey, I can do that without having a nation.

The journey to power itself is fun enough, but hey, when you get power in game, there's nothing you can do with it. No rogue senators, no Moldavi Doctrines, no viceroys, can't disband alliances, can't even just hit someone you don't like. It's quite frustrating. Whether you're a powerful sanctioned alliance, a neutral, or an infamous micro, your options are just as limited. In fact, it's the people who avoid half the game who win in NS, and the 1-2 nation nanoalliances who have the most fun. I'm hoping that someone could point out the game here, because I can't really see it.


[quote name='Greg23' timestamp='1314283756' post='2788145']
Sorry to see another player go, if you do go can you at least rogue and start a war?
[/quote]

I don't really know who to rogue. If I could start a war, I would :P I don't have the skills to pull off a Lennox, though.

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[quote name='MrMuz' timestamp='1314313018' post='2788371']
I don't really know who to rogue. If I could start a war, I would :P I don't have the skills to pull off a Lennox, though.
[/quote]

Sorry but Lennox and skill should never be in the same sentence.

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What's more frustrating is seeing a person obviously intelligent and diligent enough to master the skills the OP outlined above, and yet fail to realize that the entire situation can be changed by the application of a little charisma and communication. Sure, there is a rather large stumbling bloc towards being a first strike proponent, but some of that PR backlash is really temporary. There is a lack of aggressive action because, frankly, most people are [s]cowards[/s] cautious (or, at best, very conservative and not willing to risk the displeasure and loss of members if they are alliance leaders). Those that aren't afraid to attack others simply because of a grudge are usually a little crazy or annoying and have a hard time building a support base.

A person with a goal in mind (the key) and the ability to rally like-minded allies can change the way business is done on Planet Bob. Any number of possible scenarios are there for the imaginative: A bloc separates from the general treaty web and bides its time until they launch a surprise attack; an alliance introduces an aggressive ideological stance and implements in practice; revival of color dominance, ect., ect.

There is a lot of potential here now that the world is more multilateral.

Leave if you want, it'd be an unfortunate and avoidable loss to the community, though.

Edited by Kzoppistan
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Actually, yeah, I've thought about it for a while, discussed it with some others, and you're absolutely right. I guess it's just that us post-Karma generation witnessed a more cautious political world. I suppose it's just that the world lacks charismatic leaders, and few people have been playing it right. I can name a few good leaders, but most are in microalliances. Maybe the leaders of large alliances have just become bitter from the politics.

I suppose I still need to take that long, long break from the game to get back that young nation spirit.

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[quote name='MrMuz' timestamp='1314313018' post='2788371']Thanks, but tried it. I just don't do well with retirement. I guess everyone has their own way of enjoying the game, mine is the grand strategy aspect.
[/quote]

Well, I am truly sorry to see you go. Good luck.

:salute:

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[quote name='Methrage' timestamp='1314261754' post='2788062']
I don't even use IRC anymore for a long time, barely use the forums. CN isn't a big time investment to keep your nation going. I'll let you become my apprentice if you want to stay though, otherwise why are you still even here? Good Riddance for those who leave thinking they are to good for cYbernationS. Its like one of those people who raise a digital pet, only to kill it to see that they can. Horrible people. -_-
[/quote]
I can't tell if you're serious or not.

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