New environment effect

[King Srqt]

Fine. It does not improve the game. It only widens a gap that was plenty wide enough. Now respond to the rest of it.

If you have read my posts in this thread you would know I am strongly against the update so I do not really feel the need to respond since I have been arguing on the side of many of your points for the entire thread

[Syzygy]

I know you want your ego to be boosted by this approval of one of your ideas, DAC,

assumption, and wrong. Or, to be more blunt: a lie to attack me while you lack real arguments.

but this is atrocious. It's not playing smart or improving the game to unbalance the resources to such a large extent. Uranium is no pointless for anyone not in the top 5% and those nations who start with it will get

a. no trading partners leading to

b. slowed economic growth and

c. eventual disinterest or rerolling

marked everything in red that is plain wrong. Uranium was an awesome resource before, still is an awesome resource for all nuclear armed nations and a decent one for the others.

The environment has now taken precedent over industrialization.

no, it hasn't because you can get rid of most penalties by simply adapting your strategy to the changes

You wouldn't happen to be a registered Democrat, would you... never mind.

another OOC attack to simply discredit me.

Do you know how crazy that is? I know this game is not realistic, but it strives for a "real-esque" feel. This update has quashed that feeling and not only that, set back the growth of some nations by months and others by days and weeks because there was no warning.

marked the plain wrong stuff red and the stuff I am not responsible for blue

My main problem with this update was not the concept, but the execution. The numbers are flawed, giving preferential treatment to the larger nations, especially those already in the top 5%. If this had been a gradual increase of environmental effect or even the total upgrade with a week's warning, I would not be objecting to it. As it stands, this was a blitz on otherwise established medium-sized nations who had established trade sets, were in wars, or otherwise ambushed.

same here.

Face it, DAC, this idea was either better left in your head. I have no idea why the admin agreed to a suggestion that came from probably one of the only people in this game that was not going to suffer from it. It's not your fault for being large, it's your fault for not taking into account the needs and feelings of smaller nations when you suggested it.

I disagree.

[King Srqt]

Lol. Period.

Care to provide evidence to back up that convincing argument?

I would love to know where your stunning insight into his personal motivations comes from also remember Syz didn't implement it he just suggested it

[Kielmog]

A lie to attack you? You honestly want me to believe you get no satisfaction from having one of your "helpful suggestions" implemented in the game. Bogus. You defend it because you do not want to see your contribution removed and I understand that but I fear it gets in the way of the truth of the matter. Anyways, let me highlight the points that you have failed to evaluate correctly.

1) I am in the process of speaking to many nations whose trade sets worked previously and are now forced to search for completely new resources and partners, a process that, unfortunately, can take as long as several weeks or a couple of months.

2) Uranium, oil, and other environmentally harming resources now make pursuing industrialization very costly and destroy the idea of prosperity by industrialization. Add the fact that nuclear weapons now do environmental damage and you have the destruction of a system that WASN'T BROKEN.

3) Players whose strategy HAS WORKED PREVIOUSLY and should work now does not because the update throws off the balance of environment vs. industry so much that it skews the "real-esque" feel of the game and makes some nations who were collecting respectable amounts lose a lot of money. I am not even one of these nations and I still sympathize with them.

4) This idea was better left in your head.

I'd apologize for the melodramatic nature of my first post, but I'd rather see the update reversed first.

Edit: Dang my lack of dexterity... edited for typos and junk.

Edited May 20, 2008 by Kielmog

[crazy canuck]

DAC,

I am not going to go on the attack, but simply raise an issue of process that is more for the admin then you. I am sure you will agree, given your statements in this thread about people not adapting properly, that this update represented a significant shift in game play. The new focus on the enviornment requires everyone to re-evaluate their nations in every respect.

Given this significant change, it would have been a lot better if there had been some warning that a significant change was coming. You might have had less of a shock since it was your idea and you knew how to adapt. But for the vast majority of the players here - it did come as a shock. It is that shock that people are lashing out with.

OOC personal attacks are unwarranted but I think you are waving a red flag in front of a bull when you say things like all people have to do is restructure their trades... given how hard it can be to get good reliable trades in the first place.

[Azaghul]

Also for those worried about uranium and it's negative environment even though you need it for nukes and paying bills for nukes, keep the trade but just temporarily drop it when you collect.

[Syzygy]

1) I am in the process of speaking to many nations whose trade sets worked previously and are now forced to search for completely new resources and partners, a process that, unfortunately, can take as long as several weeks or a couple of months.

most effects can be canceled by simply switching out some improvements for borderwalls for collecting tax or by changing to another gov. the trade replacement is useful for SOME nations (by far not for all) and only in case you really want to "perfectionize" everything. Else just live with 1 env penalty or get one more borderwall. It is not even near to "crippling" anyone. If you want the "perfect" solution, putting a bit effort in your trades is not demanded too much, is it? As said, active and caring players get a slight reward, those who accept to live with a nonperfect solution get a slight penalty. Pretty fair.

2) Uranium, oil, and other environmentally harming resources now make pursuing industrialization very costly and destroy the idea of prosperity by industrialization. Add the fact that nuclear weapons now do environmental damage and you have the destruction of a system that WASN'T BROKEN.

First: no. you can cancel out their effects with 1 borderwall each, and this borderwall does NOT lower your income [even besides the env-effect]. Why? because the +2happiness ALONE are for most nations worth more than the -2%pop. Stop talking that Borderwalls will cripple your nation, they DO NOT. So, just build them and the envpenalty for Coal/Oil/Uran will be gone.

Second: People complained in the suggestionbox all day long that the impact of nukes need to be strengtened, it is now, and in a realistic way: Nukes pollute the planet. Their usage or the starting of nuclear wars will affect not only the fighters, but also those who try to sit out the conflict, it will lead to more political pressure and more interesting discussions after all. Their war-damage itself might be increased also, but in another update.

3) Players whose strategy HAS WORKED PREVIOUSLY and should work now does not because the update throws off the balance of environment vs. industry so much that it skews the "real-esque" feel of the game and makes some nations who were collecting respectable amounts lose a lot of money. I am not even one of these nations and I still sympathize with them.

Those nations can simply adapt to the new situation and collect almost as much cash as before. Explained 100times now, stop repeating it, nations which have "lost 30-60% income" did never exist, do not exist, will not exist, because the update is in no way (simple math) strong enough to cause that. Besides this, where is written that "what worked before" has a guarantee to work for eternity? Several mechanics have changed over the years for the good of the game, and always the players had to adapt their strategies, and we are still here.

4) This idea was better left in your head.

I disagree.

I'd apologize for the melodramatic nature of my first post, but I'd rather see the update reversed first.

won't happen, I am almost sure of that. The numbers of people who see the benefits raise every day and the complainers have not proven anything so far. There have not been any links to any nations posted which are severly crippled or in any kind of bankrupt state from this update.

I already posted a link to a 4999infra nation with a setup which is probably worse than that of the usual 5k infra nation. Still this nation performs very well, so PLEASE post links to nations which are "unable to grow" right now or "close to be bill locked".

[Syzygy]

DAC,

I am not going to go on the attack, but simply raise an issue of process that is more for the admin then you. I am sure you will agree, given your statements in this thread about people not adapting properly, that this update represented a significant shift in game play. The new focus on the enviornment requires everyone to re-evaluate their nations in every respect.

Given this significant change, it would have been a lot better if there had been some warning that a significant change was coming. You might have had less of a shock since it was your idea and you knew how to adapt. But for the vast majority of the players here - it did come as a shock. It is that shock that people are lashing out with.

OOC personal attacks are unwarranted but I think you are waving a red flag in front of a bull when you say things like all people have to do is restructure their trades... given how hard it can be to get good reliable trades in the first place.

absolutely, but that is neither in my power nor in my responsibility. To admins defense: there was a thread in the suggestionbox about it and before the update was implemented almost ALL responses of the usual good suggesters and people with knowledge of the mechanics approved it as step into the right direction.

Edited May 20, 2008 by (DAC)Syzygy

[uaciaut]

Syz, you're still ignoring the entire point of this discussion. People derive enjoyment from this game in different ways. You are not the ultimate authority on how people should play.

You are correct, syz isn't an authority. If you're seeing him as on it's your fault really, i personally don't, and there have been suggestions of his that i supported and others that i haven't.

Fact is Syz gets more of a kick out of this by actually doing the math, his merit. He's the one spending the time doing this, people itt are more prone doing the flaming. Well guess what, flaming is actually a very easy thing to do really and it takes no effort of any kind to do it.

As for enjoyment, i find a powerful competitiveness one of the main aspects that makes this game enjoyable, both in terms of mechanics and politics.

I don't want a game that gives +50% income and citizens and gives away big numbers on a screen, it's like playing a game with a walkthrough in front of you, i'm better off playing solitaire really.

Now do i believe this change is perfect? No, it was brought off too suddenly and has a pretty serious impact that should be partially slowed down/tweaked by other effects, such as improving the resources (which still needed some work before this IMHO really).

But then again it isn't syzy who implemented the change, it was admin who did, syzy just came with an idea to make environment a more important part of the game mechanics.

Now the fact is that currently it affected pretty much everyone negatively, so the general reaction won't be positive. My only main concern about this is that nations between 5k and 8k are more affected by it than the ones at 10k+ (like your own or syzy's or many other).

I don't think this makes the new players' lives so much harder directly because environment does have a much weaker effect on their nation at that time. Really they'll just see that they have a few starts as environment and try to learn how to improve it. I mean, that's the point, trying to find out solutions on how to make something better should be a main factor in what makes the game interesting, not having a solution brought up to you on a platter.

Lol. Period.

Get out. Period.

DAC,

I am not going to go on the attack, but simply raise an issue of process that is more for the admin then you. I am sure you will agree, given your statements in this thread about people not adapting properly, that this update represented a significant shift in game play. The new focus on the enviornment requires everyone to re-evaluate their nations in every respect.

Given this significant change, it would have been a lot better if there had been some warning that a significant change was coming. You might have had less of a shock since it was your idea and you knew how to adapt. But for the vast majority of the players here - it did come as a shock. It is that shock that people are lashing out with.

OOC personal attacks are unwarranted but I think you are waving a red flag in front of a bull when you say things like all people have to do is restructure their trades... given how hard it can be to get good reliable trades in the first place.

I wouldn't call it that significant, though the fact that it was implemented so suddenly had a big negative effect on especially on the nations at war. But seriously, in the passed few months there has been a war going on constantly, there's no way this could have been implemented while everyone was at peace.

And there's really NO need to attack syzy at all regarding this, he just made a suggestion, it was admin who implemented it.

[Kielmog]

The problem with your suggestion to build border walls is that some nations, as have posted previously have LOST improvement slots, making border walls nearly impossible to get without destroying other aspects of the nation, such as infra cost reduction and tech cost reduction. Also, nations need a little thing called cash to randomly buy 5 border walls after destroying 5 of their previously useful improvements. I know environment needed to be MORE of a factor, just not this much of a factor. There are plenty of nations with established trade circles that are now forced to move to different and now, thanks to the update, better trade sets. Any decent player will attest to this.

Nukes pollute the planet, yes, we got that. Yes, you think nukes are bad, we got this. Major game changes should, at the very least, not get a day or two's debate by way of mass-PM or some other means to contact all members. I know you are not responsible for this aspect but again, this comes down to you either blatantly ignoring or simply forgetting about the smaller nations in CN.

I have several members just in my alliance alone who will attest to either being in the middle of backcollecting and being ambushed or of being sent into bill-lock with established trade sets.

Here are your links: Third post in

Posts 2, 12, Wait a sec... all of these are in this topic...

Nuff said.

[uaciaut]

The problem with your suggestion to build border walls is that some nations, as have posted previously have LOST improvement slots, making border walls nearly impossible to get without destroying other aspects of the nation, such as infra cost reduction and tech cost reduction. Also, nations need a little thing called cash to randomly buy 5 border walls after destroying 5 of their previously useful improvements. I know environment needed to be MORE of a factor, just not this much of a factor. There are plenty of nations with established trade circles that are now forced to move to different and now, thanks to the update, better trade sets. Any decent player will attest to this.

Nukes pollute the planet, yes, we got that. Yes, you think nukes are bad, we got this. Major game changes should, at the very least, not get a day or two's debate by way of mass-PM or some other means to contact all members. I know you are not responsible for this aspect but again, this comes down to you either blatantly ignoring or simply forgetting about the smaller nations in CN.

I have several members just in my alliance alone who will attest to either being in the middle of backcollecting and being ambushed or of being sent into bill-lock with established trade sets.

Here are your links: Third post in

Posts 2, 12, Wait a sec... all of these are in this topic...

Nuff said.

How the hell are they in the middle of backcollecting and don't have the cash to swap border walls? I mean how do you backcollect without cash on hand, really?

And for those who make daily collections and can't afford to swap BW's right now, yes they will have the first collection damaged a bit because things changed, and yes change affects things. It will hurt their economy for a few collections then they'll probably swap them more often or buy more infra.

As for the ones being in war and closing in on bill-lock due to the fact they collect very little since the env is so high, again those really are the worst cases but it happened because this update was implemented very suddenly really. Many people are displeased about it, but you have to crack some eggs to make an omlet really, and i haven't seen one update so far go without at least one complaint so giving a few examples doesn't really prove anything.

[Willhelm]

How much does land effect environment, I bought 60 miles and it didn't change my environment or population one bit. My coal/uranium/oil trade circle is starting to hurt me.

[Reachwind]

From the start I knew this would not be a popular update and I expect to see many threads like this and many PM complaints. My response... bring it on. Environment was a feature that had a lot of potential in the game and now that potential is better realized with this update.

Is this change worth losing players over? I have seen posts on a few different CN boards from players that have thrown in the towel after their nations seemed to be not worth the trouble to "fix" after this update. Case in point this thread:

http://rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=6019

[JoshuaR]

So to eliminate a supposed cookie cutter situation, you create a cookie cutter situation? And of course, just like with every other punitive change that's ever been made to the game, those who're already at the top have the advantage of already having profited greatly at the top and don't have to worry about saving up, at now much-reduced income, to make the infra jumps required to lessen the detrimental impact of the changes. It's just like when the Factory discount got cut down from -10% to -8%; it only increased the gap between the top and bottom ranks, as the top ranks had already bought their way to the top with much greater infra discounts. How nice it must be for you that you already have the NEO available to you. As far as realism is concerned, this change is patently absurd. The population of London doubled during the first decades of the industrial revolution, when the environmental impact of the industrialization was at its worst, and with modern technology, the environmental impact of things like coal usage can be completely negated, without banning "dirty Mexicans" (which is apparently how border walls work... somehow, through the magic of racism and xenophobia, the environment is improved... ridiculous). That unused nuclear weapons that are being actively maintained would have any impact, at all, on environment is equally ludicrous. The United States has a nuclear arsenal consisting of tens of thousands of warheads, many of which are right in the middle of populated suburban areas, with no discernable impact on the surrounding population or environment whatsoever.

I agree that simply holding nuclear weapons should not hurt environment.

Note that i don't generally stay on BW's, i only build them when i collect, mostly because i want to be fully prepared militarily and thus have the maximum citizen count i can have so i can buy as many tanks/soldiers as i can.

Border Walls do increase my collection ammount by a bit (all 5 do it by around 1 million) but they decrease my citizen ammount still.

My main concern with this is balancing resources so they all have a level of atractiveness and "fit in" one set or another.

I got a PM today from one of my tech sellers who was at around 1k infra telling me he wants to reroll because no one wants to trade with him since he has uranium. I mean that's completely wrong imho

Bad resources are counteracted by BWs. And uranium is one of the best resources in the game, before and after this update... Don't let anyone reroll over something silly like that.

I suggest:

- Reducing the environment effects of importing Coal, Oil and Uranium to 1/5 or 1/10 of a point, bringing them back down to the level they were previously.

- Reducing the minimum infrastructure of the NEO

- Adding an effect of land (or infra/land², i.e. building density), making land more useful.

- Removing the effect of nukes. You already pay in environment points for the government position and for importing uranium, and it is unrealistic that owning nukes would damage the environment.

I like these suggestions, particularly something to make land more useful.

[Syzygy]

These links do not lead to any significantly crippled nations. Try again please.

And yes, nations need cash to switch improvements, that is part of something called "preparation". A nation with constantly $0 available has done something significantly wrong in its management.

The only thing I agree to is that it would have been better to announce this update some days prior so that people could prepare for it. But as said 1000times now, thats nothing I can influence and it does not change anything regarding the content of the update at all.

All those "smaller nations" you talk about are

- either large enough to switch out improvements easily (change between war- and peace-setups)

- or so small that they have no nukes (lot lower env penalties at all)

They should not import uran (because they simply can neither use the -nuke upkeep effect NOR the -infraupkeep effect greatly, and for ecoboosting there are better resources available at their level), even IF they do indeed import Uran, Coal and Oil, they should also import Water, and that is simply common knowledge, even before the update.

Now that "small nation" would suffer 3 env penalty in the WORST CASE SCENARIO, and 2 of these can be canceled out easily (gov and water), without even building one borderwall. Not to mention that a small nation (10,000citizens / 35happiness) will lose VERY FEW happiness and citizens per envpenalty. Why very few? Simple, because a much larger part of its income comes from +$ resources, compared to highlevel nations which get their income almost completely from +happiness improvements and wonders. Yes, +$income boni are NOT affected from env, only happiness is.

A very big nation (like 10k infra+) has ~80-90happiness (=$373.5 gross income) and maybe ~$15 income mods (stock market, scholars, gold, gems... such stuff) = ~$30 gross income.

That means: env affects ~90% of the total income-sources of a highlevel nation (everything that comes from happiness). But only 30, 40 or 50% of the total income sources of a lowlevel or midtier nation (percentually a LOT more of their income comes directly from +$ items, since they have not that much happiness at all).

I am pretty sure you knew all this before and I am sure that you will answer that this "does not matter because you know better that everything is screwed now". Just keep repeating that smaller nations are hurt more, even if there is absolutely no evidence for that, maybe your logic comes true at some point. Magically of course.

Edited May 20, 2008 by (DAC)Syzygy

[JoshuaR]

Is this change worth losing players over? I have seen posts on a few different CN boards from players that have thrown in the towel after their nations seemed to be not worth the trouble to "fix" after this update. Case in point this thread:

http://rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=6019

If people quit over this...

EVERYONE! was affected by this. Just adapt.

[crazy canuck]

These links do not lead to any significantly crippled nations. Try again please.

And yes, nations need cash to switch improvements, that is part of something called "preparation". A nation with constantly $0 available has done something significantly wrong in its management.

The only thing I agree to is that it would have been better to announce this update some days prior so that people could prepare for it. But as said 1000times now, thats nothing I can influence and it does not change anything regarding the content of the update at all.

But the problem is you are defending the changes by saying they are no big deal - you just need to adapt - all the while ignoring the fact that in order to adapt nations need time and money to redo their trades and to recover from the negative trade slots and loss of cash that their current set ups will cause.

Really, everything you have said in defence of your idea has no significance without the warning. You have stated numberous times that you have carefully done the math. The problem is that your calculations were incomplete. You did not factor in the effect of this change being made without warning.

In fairness this change should be undone so that people can have time to adapt in the way you think they should.

Edit: it was your idea. If you come out in support of giving time to adapt, the admin may be more influenced then if it just me saying it.

Edited May 20, 2008 by crazy canuck

[Kielmog]

For those here who OPPOSED the update, go here. That is all.

For Opposition Only

[crazy canuck]

For those here who OPPOSED the update, go here. That is all.

For Opposition Only

Not sure of your meaning. Are you saying that an open discussion cannot be had in this thread?

Edit: I see now that you are just starting another thread on the topic.

Edited May 20, 2008 by crazy canuck

[Bob Janova]

Now that the change is 10x less than its initial impact, it will overall be a good thing. But boosting the 3BG combo is simply nonsensical, considering it was already the strongest set. Either take my suggestions from earlier, or add +1 environment to Fast Food (all those fat people throwing their wrappers about the environment) and/or Construction (bulldozing lovely protected woodland).

[Benjamin Smythe]

Either that or he's just trying to get people to sign up to get this reversed when there is no need to.

However... this thread has now degenerated to the point where people are seemingly reporting others for flaming, trolling and even mod bias. That's suggesting to me that the thread is slowly losing control. I think that while I'm not the OP, I'm going to ask the mod team for a lock on this. Not to stifle discussion, but to prevent a full flamefest from developing.

I'll consequently leave them to provide judgement on what to do.

Edited May 20, 2008 by Benjamin Smythe

[Syzygy]

You did not factor in the effect of this change being made without warning.

what? How the heck shall I "calculate the effect of this change being made without a warning" into anything? I did not even know the moment in which it would come. I made this suggestion some time ago and exchanged some PMs regarding possible equations, nothing more. Once it was implemented, I helped to find the mistake in the first implementation, but you will find SEVERAL statements of me saying that I was surprised as well.

Besides this, I already have proved that nations which are THAT poor that they cannot even switch to borderwalls do not face THAT harsh penalties at all. They can just switch to Democracy as gov to get rid of of 1 envpenalty of a possible 3 in the WORST CASE (importing coal+oil+uran while NOT importing water). Even in this worst case, the remaining 2 envpenalty are not nearly enough to cripple a nation, especially if it is small (why that: read the post 2 postings above - the smaller you are the less happiness affects you).

[King Srqt]

You also still have not addressed my point about the effects on small nations as opposed to older nations and the inherent advantage large nations have by having been able to grow at an accelerated rate and already being at a point were buying infra is not lucrative.

I am still interested in your input on this

[Syzygy]

I am still interested in your input on this

tomorrow, remind me via PM please

[sayton]

buying infra.. is ALWAYS a good idea.. just when everyone thought everyone was going to reach a cap on infra.. admin made it profitable to buy more.. therefore.. i have no doubt i nmy mind that the new top max infra of like 19000 infra will not stay there long. i give it another 2-3 months max and there will be more wonders and such, like the NEO and SDC and stuff to get old nations to keep playing..