TDO are you going to shoot back or what?

[Omniscient1]

I agree, the game looks like it was designed to last for 3 years from the start, with changes that got maybe an extra year or two in there. We're really at the point where play has continued past what game mechanics initially envisioned, and it's at a point where new players are at such a disadvantage that they don't sign up. Not to mention war in the age of the super warchest has made it so that wars need to be 4 vs 1 to even have a chance at a decisive victory, and even then defeat only comes because the other side gets sick of logging in and click buttons at 1 am for 2 months straight. If CN wants a chance at surviving in the future, it either needs a second server or a reset.

The warchest thing can be solved somewhat by Dajobo's idea. Although it might be too late now that chests are in the tens of billions.

[enderland]

I agree, the game looks like it was designed to last for 3 years from the start, with changes that got maybe an extra year or two in there. We're really at the point where play has continued past what game mechanics initially envisioned, and it's at a point where new players are at such a disadvantage that they don't sign up. Not to mention war in the age of the super warchest has made it so that wars need to be 4 vs 1 to even have a chance at a decisive victory, and even then defeat only comes because the other side gets sick of logging in and click buttons at 1 am for 2 months straight. If CN wants a chance at surviving in the future, it either needs a second server or a reset.

 

Yeah, pretty much this.

 

My nation is nearly two years old and yet after almost perfect economic development, it is JUST now getting to the place it's almost relevant in a war.

[King Wally]

I agree, the game looks like it was designed to last for 3 years from the start, with changes that got maybe an extra year or two in there. We're really at the point where play has continued past what game mechanics initially envisioned, and it's at a point where new players are at such a disadvantage that they don't sign up. Not to mention war in the age of the super warchest has made it so that wars need to be 4 vs 1 to even have a chance at a decisive victory, and even then defeat only comes because the other side gets sick of logging in and click buttons at 1 am for 2 months straight. If CN wants a chance at surviving in the future, it either needs a second server or a reset.

 

 I'd be interested to hear what Daj's idea was though?

 

Generally speaking I agree the game itself is overplayed by most (max wondered out, quietly ticking over the billions in the bank) but I can tell you from spending a lot of time hanging out with newer players that there is a lot of enjoyment and fun that they tend to get out the game down in the lower teirs. Due to the "late catch up syndrome" they have to incur they do need more support to keep them dragging through the later months of nuclear war but activity wise I find they often really get into it and enjoy the game. For a lot of new players its a real thrill to eat a nuke, or get their first MP for example. It definitely reminds me of the good qualities of the game structure that is laid out in the first couple years. As long as the old heads give the new guys some help they will definitely stick around and give it a good go. That said I will admit I am a backer of a global reset, I just have a feeling while it would totally vacuum out a lot of players the ones that would stay would be active and enthusiastic and I personally think would get a lot of enjoyment out of the structure on the game being refocused in on the finer details of improvements and a handful of wonders at best.  

[Overlord Shinnra]

I agree with tayloj here. Neutrals detract from the game because newbs know they will never catch up to the top nations, especially if they are neutral. The gap got too disparate and there is no catching up without staying here for 5+ years and then maybe, just maybe, you could crack the top 10%

[Max Power]

I agree with the bolded part.  Neutrals don't usually bother me, but I've seen two very large nations grow in "protection" as a neutral.  Then they jumped to a warring alliance and started attacking other nations.

 

This is the problem.  If you could tell me they'd be neutral forever, that would be great and I'd have zero problems.  But that's not always the case.  It's sad that just those two nations have ruined my view on neutrals.  But in general I really like the GPA and most neutrals and I wouldn't ever think of just outright attacking them.
 

I've wondered for a while why non-neutral alliances don't just cut deals with neutrals saying things like "let this new nation develop as a ghost on your AA for a year while remaining a part of our community and we'll pay you $X + YT for the privilege", shielding the new nation from war until a little while later there's suddenly a pretty decent new mid-range nation in town. It would certainly make neutrals more threatening.

[Omniscient1]

 
 I'd be interested to hear what Daj's idea was though?  

He can explain it better than I can, but the main thing was getting rid of the million dollar cap when money is won from battles. Warchests then dwindle quicker, wars end quicker, hypothetically there would be more wars, and then we slowly we wouldn't have enough time to build massive chests in between wars. Again, this seemed great post-Karma, but by now we may have overdone it. I think done correctly this might smooth the big things out over time, but then the rest of the slack falls on the community to work with it.

[Caladin]

I've wondered for a while why non-neutral alliances don't just cut deals with neutrals saying things like "let this new nation develop as a ghost on your AA for a year while remaining a part of our community and we'll pay you $X + YT for the privilege", shielding the new nation from war until a little while later there's suddenly a pretty decent new mid-range nation in town. It would certainly make neutrals more threatening.

 

Because it would not be neutral.

Should we do so we would be siding with those willing to pay us for the privilege of using our AA, and that would mean that our neutrality would be no more than words.

[tayloj7]

ah caladin you beat me to it :3 but yeah exactly any harboring of a non-neutral nation would be a violation of most neutral alliance's own charters/declarations of neutralitiy so although profitable doing so would negate their neutrality at worse and at best put them in a potentially compromising position

Edited September 19, 2013 by tayloj7

[Vukland]

I think the interesting question here is could the Neutrals have been more proactive in fostering a relationship with certain AA's that had a moral predisposition to look out for them. How far could they of pushed such a relationship without becoming a target themselves but still ensuring that they had grass roots support to protect them from future Woodstock massacre events.

 

Could some post war rebuilding "gifts" and general support been utilised to feed goodwill and make it clear that neutrality did not equate to not caring. I think this is the basic problem as the lines between staying neutral in wartime and frankly not giving a shit about anyone else become one and the same thing somewhere along the line, and in my opinion anyway it didn't have to be like that.

 

That's an interesting question. I personally saw to rebuilding aid being sent to Fark during my time with the WTF.  

[jerdge]

I think the third or fourth curbstomp where the various neutral alliances would just complain that the GRL was rising or just be smugly superior about how much better neutrality is, I stopped caring if they were rolled.

Sorry for going back to a page 1 post, and bear in mind that I am all for open discussion and original views on facts.

But facts need to be there in the first place: what the heck are you talking of?

[JoshuaR]

This will be an interesting experiment. The neutral alliances have given no reason for anyone to wish to lift a finger to save them. So will they save themselves? Or will a mounting horde grow as more and more people realize there are targets and booty ripe for the plucking? And, as tayloj says, it would be good for the game to level the playing field...

[Dochartaigh]

The Grudge War pretty much threw out what remained of "the rulebook", which was already kind of a joke. The last people who still followed "the rules" were us, and we got our asses handed to us in Grudge and Dave. The last of "the rules" was finally discarded in Equilibrium when we ignored the unwritten rule about matchups being vaguely fair and hit ODN with half the planet's NS.

What has really changed is that as warchests have grown, the harder it is to force someone to surrender, so wars have become more brutalized and wars of attrition, literally wearing down your opponents. You can't even compare what war has become to what was fought in 2008. The equivalent would be if you took a modern day army and told them go nuts with the nuclear, chemical and bioweapons, suicide bombers and forget the Geneva Convention, just win however you can, but after they surrender we won't make them do anything.

Some people claim that wars are less bad nowadays because reparations and forced disbandments don't happen anymore, but that's not really true, people do demand crazy things in peace negotiations still, but forcing people to accept reps or disbandment just isn't in the cards these days, and due to the brutal nature of war, few alliances are willing to spend the blood and treasure necessary to force someone to accept a term other than surrender and no re-entry, blood and treasure they would need for other purposes. The classic cautionary tale of an alliance trying to force terms in the modern era is classic Gremlins against IRON.

Basically over the last 5 years "the rules" have been slowly undermined until now they no longer exist. There are no rules.

 

You realize that curbstomps have been the norm for almost the entirety of CN correct? GW1 was basically all of CN (minus neutrals) fighting against the Orders. Most wars are examples of one-sided curbstomps. There has never been any sort of unwritten rule regarding match ups. 

[andyt2k]

If MQ don't have the stones to fight a real war then leave them to their fight with TDO

 

Yes attacking neutrals is a low and slimey thing to do, but this is an offshoot of MK, that is even less organised, without allies to think of, what do you expect

Edited September 19, 2013 by andyt2k

[Link Gaetz]

I don't think new players give much, if any, thought to neutrals until they're no longer new players and have been around awhile and learned the lay of the land.  When you're new, there's a ton of other things to figure out and worry about.  I had no idea there even were neutral alliances for a good while when I joined.

[Neo Uruk]

If MQ don't have the stones to fight a real war then leave them to their fight with TDO
 
Yes attacking neutrals is a low and slimey thing to do, but this is an offshoot of MK, that is even less organised, without allies to think of, what do you expect

 We get it, you don't like MK. But in terms of stats and risk, this was actually a pretty bold move.
 

I don't think new players give much, if any, thought to neutrals until they're no longer new players and have been around awhile and learned the lay of the land.  When you're new, there's a ton of other things to figure out and worry about.  I had no idea there even were neutral alliances for a good while when I joined.

When you're new, the first thing you do is see how big you can get. When you realize that (without help), it's something like 1/4000th of the top nation, you get pretty frustrated.

[ChairmanHal]

If MQ don't have the stones to fight a real war then leave them to their fight with TDO

 

Yes attacking neutrals is a low and slimey thing to do, but this is an offshoot of MK, that is even less organised, without allies to think of, what do you expect

 

According to the members MQ, they plan to delete.  Which means that in about three weeks or so, you'll not have to worry about them anymore.  I suggest you help organize a TDO aid relief effort once that happens if you mean what you say.

[Shaka Zulu]

I think any new players looking for a nation building game would see that they'd likely never catch up to the upper tiers (many of which sit in neutral alliances) and go 'oh well, why bother playing' so they may be part of the reason why the game is now dangerously underpopulated - similarly the game becomes relatively boring once you've gotten to the point where you've bought all the wonders and are just importing tech to build up, the lower the average nation strength on the planet the more the nation building aspects of the game comes back into play and the more interest people may have.  I could be way off of course but I'd say there's a least an argument against the neutral alliances not detracting from the game by just sitting and building.

This doesn't make a lick of sense. If the neurtals were gone you'd still be doing the same thing you are doing now with respect to your nations.  WTF do you speak of?

[Neo Uruk]

actually, they have gained their nation's size based on skill and the perception that their would be at least a few neutral nations leaving to established warring alliances to attack different people at will

[Shaka Zulu]

actually, they have gained their nation's size based on skill and the perception that their would be at least a few neutral nations leaving to established warring alliances to attack different people at will

Was this directed to me?

[Neo Uruk]

Was this directed to me?

Yes. Sorry for not quoting, I'm lazy and thought following it up directly would be blatant enough :P

[tayloj7]

This doesn't make a lick of sense. If the neurtals were gone you'd still be doing the same thing you are doing now with respect to your nations.  WTF do you speak of?

 

What i meant was not directed at those of us who've been around for the past [x number of years] but potential new players.  I assume many find this game the same way I did in that they are looking for a nation building game, not necessarily coming here purely for diplomatic/warring type stuffs.  Thus if I came to the game right now, and after starting to play around a bit realised that it is essentially impossible for me to ever reach the strength levels of the top nations, so I'd say forget this and go find a game in which that would at least be possible.  This is definitely not entirely the fault of the neutrals however many of the neutrals have a disproportionate number of extremely large nations which is not seen outside of neutral alliances (except for my own and maybe a few other micros) and since they do not participate in war-ness there is little chance that they will ever be removed from this high level, if the neutrals were to all disappear [not that i'm advocating this] that would coincide with a sharp decrease in the average nation strength of the 'planet' and perhaps entice more players to stick around for a while and make a run for that top 5% or higher.  I mean its at the point right now where since it is so difficult to destroy large amounts of technology it is unlikely that say Dulra would be knocked outta their spot at #1 even if they were at war for several cycles, for those who are joining to try to get to #1 there is no reason to play this game especially if the top nations are simply left to continue to grow making it that much more impossible for somebody new to catch up.

Edited September 19, 2013 by tayloj7

[Artigo]

What i meant was not directed at those of us who've been around for the past [x number of years] but potential new players.  I assume many find this game the same way I did in that they are looking for a nation building game, not necessarily coming here purely for diplomatic/warring type stuffs.  Thus if I came to the game right now, and after starting to play around a bit realised that it is essentially impossible for me to ever reach the strength levels of the top nations, so I'd say forget this and go find a game in which that would at least be possible.  This is definitely not entirely the fault of the neutrals however many of the neutrals have a disproportionate number of extremely large nations which is not seen outside of neutral alliances (except for my own and maybe a few other micros) and since they do not participate in war-ness there is little chance that they will ever be removed from this high level, if the neutrals were to all disappear [not that i'm advocating this] that would coincide with a sharp decrease in the average nation strength of the 'planet' and perhaps entice more players to stick around for a while and make a run for that top 5% or higher.  I mean its at the point right now where since it is so difficult to destroy large amounts of technology it is unlikely that say Dulra would be knocked outta their spot at #1 even if they were at war for several cycles, for those who are joining to try to get to #1 there is no reason to play this game especially if the top nations are simply left to continue to grow making it that much more impossible for somebody new to catch up.

 

Giving meaning to this achievement again and you will have players.  Whether it's wonders/improvements/military or some bonus for being an elite nation (nothing OP), people will strive for that elite status and the rewards.

[jerdge]

Well we're really going off topic here, but I wonder if the Manhattan Project isn't one of the main reasons for the game mechanics being a bit spoiled. If only the top 5% could have nukes warfare would probably be much more interesting. But I am an "hippy", what do I know, anyway? :P

[Sir Humphrey]

 
According to the members MQ, they plan to delete.  Which means that in about three weeks or so, you'll not have to worry about them anymore.  I suggest you help organize a TDO aid relief effort once that happens if you mean what you say.

That seems to be a pretty important qualifier ;)

[Shaka Zulu]

actually, they have gained their nation's size based on skill and the perception that their would be at least a few neutral nations leaving to established warring alliances to attack different people at will

Hmm, I'm not sure if that's true. It almost screams of sarcasm.

 

Yes. Sorry for not quoting, I'm lazy and thought following it up directly would be blatant enough :P

 

I can dig it.

What i meant was not directed at those of us who've been around for the past [x number of years] but potential new players.  I assume many find this game the same way I did in that they are looking for a nation building game, not necessarily coming here purely for diplomatic/warring type stuffs.  Thus if I came to the game right now, and after starting to play around a bit realised that it is essentially impossible for me to ever reach the strength levels of the top nations, so I'd say forget this and go find a game in which that would at least be possible.  This is definitely not entirely the fault of the neutrals however many of the neutrals have a disproportionate number of extremely large nations which is not seen outside of neutral alliances (except for my own and maybe a few other micros) and since they do not participate in war-ness there is little chance that they will ever be removed from this high level, if the neutrals were to all disappear [not that i'm advocating this] that would coincide with a sharp decrease in the average nation strength of the 'planet' and perhaps entice more players to stick around for a while and make a run for that top 5% or higher.  I mean its at the point right now where since it is so difficult to destroy large amounts of technology it is unlikely that say Dulra would be knocked outta their spot at #1 even if they were at war for several cycles, for those who are joining to try to get to #1 there is no reason to play this game especially if the top nations are simply left to continue to grow making it that much more impossible for somebody new to catch up.

If it's the goal of a player to reach number 1 then yes I can understand that. However, I don't think the neutrals leaving the game would increase the number of players. It would only decrease it.

 

For those that are already here.............as you stated those that are in the game will play in the same regardless.