New environment effect

[choop]

diskord, I've been well aware that catching up to the top-tier nations would be an uphill struggle since the first time i realized i was in the top 30% of nations. i'm now just barely inside the top 4%, having peaked near top 2%.

in the past month i've been in 7 wars. i've sacrificed over a thousand infra to make damned sure my side won their wars, and as fast as possible. before this change, it would have taken me about six weeks to save up the cash to buy it back. now, with my taxes massively lowered due to the loss of over 7000 citizens, it is likely to take me 3 months to achieve that same rebuilding effort. I'm certain this has not eased my task of catching up to the biggest of the big nations.

[King Srqt]

That's why admin has included that "peace mode" option. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to stay in war mode. If your entire goal is to just play sim-nation, then hit peacemode and grow your nation as best as you can... you still get to play sim nation. For the rest of us we now get the heightened excitement/fear of knowing at any moment devastating and crippling war could raining down upon our nation at the drop of a hat. CN USED to have that level of excitement, but now it's like "meh, war... who cares" and life goes on. Now some of that excitement is being returned.

You misunderstand me I want more war I enjoy playing with the war system and learning new things from it. The fact that doing that is now more damaging means that I have to do it less to maintain a useful nation which is less fun for me.

[Lord Sharpe]

diskord, I've been well aware that catching up to the top-tier nations would be an uphill struggle since the first time i realized i was in the top 30% of nations. i'm now just barely inside the top 4%, having peaked near top 2%.

in the past month i've been in 7 wars. i've sacrificed over a thousand infra to make damned sure my side won their wars, and as fast as possible. before this change, it would have taken me about six weeks to save up the cash to buy it back. now, with my taxes massively lowered due to the loss of over 7000 citizens, it is likely to take me 3 months to achieve that same rebuilding effort. I'm certain this has not eased my task of catching up to the biggest of the big nations.

It's the same for them, as well.

[admin]

So, lead doesn't help at all. I just picked up a lead trade to see how much it did for me, and it did practically NOTHING. I gained nothing from the lead trade itself.

Your environment is already at 2.09 which is the best level that it can be at. Now that you have lead you do have the option of getting rid of some of your border walls if they are not needed and use those improvement slots for something else.

[greenansatsu]

A Wonder is much easier. If people have high enough infra, its not needed to buy infra, only you do in that case is buy a simple wonder.

I am atm -12 improvement and personal i am not intrested to tweak that to buy again infra. Wonder is more fine and there are no requirements, only do need some money.

The reason you are at -12 improvements is because of the huge citizen loss due to bad environment. Plus we have to look at ALL the players not just a me, me, me game. By putting in a few improvements it will help younger nations be able to get a few more improvements faster. BW at the moment are sorta at a stand still, when i buy them my population barely moves where before it would go down by 20k. As your environment goes up your citizens go up and the border walls negate the increase population. A pure environment improvement will help increase smaller nations Citizens and happiness, and will make environment something to look at younger also. A wonder would only help those who can afford them and the bigger nations which according to DACsquiigle is a bad thing. If your going to make it easy on the big help the small out as well. Planning is important

[diskord]

diskord, I've been well aware that catching up to the top-tier nations would be an uphill struggle since the first time i realized i was in the top 30% of nations. i'm now just barely inside the top 4%, having peaked near top 2%.

in the past month i've been in 7 wars. i've sacrificed over a thousand infra to make damned sure my side won their wars, and as fast as possible. before this change, it would have taken me about six weeks to save up the cash to buy it back. now, with my taxes massively lowered due to the loss of over 7000 citizens, it is likely to take me 3 months to achieve that same rebuilding effort. I'm certain this has not eased my task of catching up to the biggest of the big nations.

So what you are saying is: now admin made war have some "teeth"... thats a good thing, not a bad thing.

Also note, as someone who was in the top 5%, you are one of the nations people were trying to catch, not a "catchee" as it were. So yes, this update probably hurt you more than it hurt the rest of CN, it hurt the bigger nations more than the little nations, I don't see how that is a bad thing...

[Syzygy]

so you basically want people to be like you and only focus on the building aspect of the game?

no, I personally do not want other people to do anything. By making war you get political benefits: you get rid of challengers, enemies, you take control over colors, can use "force" over other alliances, can demand reparation payments if you win or cripple their nations with harsh terms. If that is what the game makes fun for you, thats totally fine, I do not want to force anyone to build up his nation to the higher levels. You burn your cash via the destructions, I burn mine via the infrapurchases, we both do what is useful: burning our cash to keep the game moving.

In the end you get rewarded with political power and fun from fighting, and I with a high-infra nation and fun from building, so we both get what we wanted. In addition to that, highlevel nations like mine suffer a LOT more from the env-penalties, so I am basically FORCED to get a National Environment Office (and burn another 100million for it), while you are not, nations between 4999 and 7999infra can do perfectly fine by importing water and having borderwalls + the right gov when collecting. If you are nuclear armed, also consider Lead. A lot of nations with that have significantly benefited from that change.

These complaints are FAR overrated and inflated, by people who do not care to look into the mechanics a bit deeper than the usual 0815guide. In some weeks, as diskord already said, most people will have adapted and in some month most people will agree that this change actually made the game more interesting.

[Dr Blindness]

By my count, I lost about 6-7k pop and my environment is a 6.09 even with the modifications admin made this afternoon. So, clearly, my importation of coal, oil, and uranium is hurting. Now I have always valued the lead trade for the scholar bonus, which has helped, but it seems to me that if you're going to take away, should there not be some sort of give-back? I'd like to see a couple new improvements that would either add to pop or to the environment. Conversely, you could add a few good events and make them a touch more frequent. Or the price on any environment modifying wonder could be lowered a bit.

I do like the extra strategy required now, just saying let's get some new toys to play with.

[unbiased mod]

sidenote: I love it how people are now complaining they are making not there usual million/day profits, seeing I at best had a 1.2mil/day, now 600k-ish/day.

[BlackKnight]

We all understand- or I do anyway, that the Admin is trying to have the Environment "thing" play a major role in the game; however, what he has done- without warning us before hand, has not only affected us players who are just building up, but especially affected those large players in War

I, personally, am a small nation... I lost 900 workers (35K in tax), and almost punched a hole through my computer screen

But then, I calmed down a bit and then spent a million surplus on my infra (So my invd. tax increases, as well as my pop, meaning more income), but instead of my invd. tax increasing, it decreased

Not a very large decrease, but regardless, a million into an Infrastructure only to have it decrease your indv. tax and not raise your economy by 1/20 of a dollar is heart wrenching

My invd. tax fell from 38.71 to 38.70- again, not a very large drop, but a drop regardless after spending a million into my infra

All I ask of the admin is to atleast warn us before commencing on a major update such as this one, and to fix the god for saking bug/error/whatever that decreased my Infra

And if the admin really wants to insist on this update, then he should atleast wave one of those beautiful wonds (sp) he has and implement something that would decrease our bills, after decreasing our population and income... It would only make sense

Edited May 19, 2008 by BlackKnight

[Doitzel]

So nations should go to war so that they can be damaged and lose infra?

Of course nations that dont go to war dont get hurt, and of course nations that are heavy on the military are gonna suffer in the economic sphere.

Its your choice of gameplay to make.

Choose military over economic growth. You might grow much slower but you get a chance to beat the crap out of someone.

And all this is only valid if you are not skilled enough to do the military improvement swaps and follow a linear growth pattern.

That's convenient considering who's on what side of the fence here.

This essentially discourages war even further. It's just further increasing the damages incurred by those who go to war AND further reducing the profitability of war. Why don't we just take the war system out altogether since turtling is emerging as the clearly favoured "choice of gameplay"?

[choop]

It's the same for them, as well.

it's the same for the top 2% of nations to catch up to the top 2% of nations? sharpe, i like you, you're a great asset to the world of CN, and thanks for maintaining the MDP web, but that statement makes no sense.

actually - i may just increase in ranking when all the top nations realize they're not having fun any more either and delete themselves. sounds like a lousy way to rise in the rankings, if you ask me.

[diskord]

We all understand- or I do anyway, that the Admin is trying to have the Environment "thing" play a major role in the game; however, what he has done- without warning us before hand, has not only affected us players who are just building up, but especially affected those large players in War

I, personally, am a small nation... I lost 900 workers (35K in tax), and almost punched a hole through my computer screen

But then, I calmed down a bit and then spent a million surplus on my infra (So my invd. tax increases, as well as my pop, meaning more income), but instead of my invd. tax increasing, it decreased

Not a very large decrease, but regardless, a million into an Infrastructure only to have it decrease your indv. tax and not raise your economy by 1/20 of a dollar is heart wrenching

My invd. tax fell from 38.71 to 38.70- again, not a very large drop, but a drop regardless after spending a million into my infra

All I ask of the admin is to atleast warn us before commencing on a major update such as this one, and to fix the god for saking bug/error/whatever that decreased my Infra

Not sure if it happened to others as well, but that just what happened with my nation

Read the change.

Invest in land. A whole aspect of this change was to force people AWAY from the infra/infra/infra mindset. You did what every other CN player has been conditioned to do, buy more infra. In fact, if you had invested the same amount of money in to some land, your taxes would have INCREASED and you would have made money.

The only major change this update does is make people actually THINK about what they are doing when building their nation, not just pump money in to the infra beast.

[Dr Blindness]

sidenote: I love it how people are now complaining they are making not there usual million/day profits, seeing I at best had a 1.2mil/day, now 600k-ish/day.

When you have an alliance in which you need to help fund development, those "usual million/day profits" are fairly important.

[Doitzel]

Read the change.

Invest in land. A whole aspect of this change was to force people AWAY from the infra/infra/infra mindset. You did what every other CN player has been conditioned to do, buy more infra. In fact, if you had invested the same amount of money in to some land, your taxes would have INCREASED and you would have made money.

The only major change this update does is make people actually THINK about what they are doing when building their nation, not just pump money in to the infra beast.

Uhhh ... "if it ain't broke..."? Why is this a desirable outcome at all?

[acrux]

All of us small nations thank you for driving us into the ground. First the tech raid for not being in a alliance, now the admin just knocks me the hell off my feet..

Wahoo now I'm set back 2 weeks.

Youve basiclly taken making people happy out of the game, and made enviornment more important. So the people with the default resources that benifit going happy in bouns resources are now screwed and have to re do trades and go for the minimal they can get trying to improve their environment.

Maybe updates like this a msg should go out to all users, and not have me hunting down an update log.

+1 on the effort -10 on the follow through on such a 'brilliant' idea

Edited May 19, 2008 by acrux

[diskord]

Uhhh ... "if it ain't broke..."? Why is this a desirable outcome at all?

I would argue that it was "broke."

How can you have a strategy game where there is no strategy... that seems counter-intuitive.

[BigNastyPSU]

The only thing this makes me worry is that if I lose any of my trades, my natural uranium is going to be a tough sell

[diskord]

All of us small nations thank you for driving us into the ground. First the tech raid for not being in a alliance, now the admin just knocks me the hell off my feet..

Wahoo now I'm set back 2 weeks.

Youve basiclly taken making people happy out of the game, and made enviornment more important. So the people with the default resources that benifit going happy in bouns resources are now screwed and have to re do trades and go for the minimal they can get trying to improve their environment.

Maybe updates like this a msg should go out to all users, and not have me hunting down an update log.

+1 on the effort -10 on the follow through on such a 'brilliant' idea

I am quoting this because I actually agree with a portion of his post, and hope admin does read this.

Perhaps any time a game mechanics update is performed and automated message and/or banner could be displayed after you log in notifying you of the change. I know where to look, but I have been playing for 2+ years and regularly read the update log... I am guessing I am in the minority when it comes to your average player. So some notification might be helpful to "average joe."

[bart416]

So what you are saying is: now admin made war have some "teeth"... thats a good thing, not a bad thing.

Also note, as someone who was in the top 5%, you are one of the nations people were trying to catch, not a "catchee" as it were. So yes, this update probably hurt you more than it hurt the rest of CN, it hurt the bigger nations more than the little nations, I don't see how that is a bad thing...

The bigger nations have the effects partially compensated by their massive amount of wonders. It are the mid range nations that got hurt...

[Doitzel]

I would argue that it was "broke."

How can you have a strategy game where there is no strategy... that seems counter-intuitive.

This is a strategy game? I always thought it was a nation/political simulator. Silly me!

Also, please explain how buying infra and stealing tech/land compulsively isn't a strategy? Just because you think of it as simple or because everyone uses it doesn't mean it's not a strategy, it means it's effective. Give it a day and the masterminds of this "idea" will have a universal formula worked out and will brush it off as a minor inconvenience, and a new "strategy" will become standardised and you will have to sit on your stool and think of some other way to force the game into your boxy notion of what is and isn't "strategy".

[diskord]

The bigger nations have the effects partially compensated by their massive amount of wonders. It are the mid range nations that got hurt...

I have less than 7000 infra (what I would assume you classify as a mid range nation) and I think I actually gained money from this change. It has less to do with the amount of infra you have, and more how you have distributed your growth over land/infra/tech.

The people that got hurt the most are the 10K infra/1K tech/0 land people. People with a more balanced growth in both land and tech were either unscathed or actually benefited from this change. In other words, it brought some life back in to land.

[myruler]

I must have been the only person that basically wasn't effected at all by this update. I was able to change my government from Monarchy to Democracy, gaining back the point of environment that I lost from this update. Other than that, I lost only 1750 citizens(compared to my now 126,451 citizens) and I lost about 6 cents per citizen that I collect a day. This whole change made me drop my income from 17.4 million to 17.15 million or about 250k. That's pocket change.

[BlackKnight]

Diskord, doing what you professed, I just invested about 150K into my land, bringing my land dens. to 29.71, only to see that I have just wasted precious money (for me- I'm small in size.. )

My environment didnt increase, nor did my invd. tax, nor did squat...

You must work for the CN Government... Making me waste valuable money that would just direct itself to your banks

[TheyCallMeJeezy]

I must have been the only person that basically wasn't effected at all by this update. I was able to change my government from Monarchy to Democracy, gaining back the point of environment that I lost from this update. Other than that, I lost only 1750 citizens(compared to my now 126,451 citizens) and I lost about 6 cents per citizen that I collect a day. This whole change made me drop my income from 17.4 million to 17.15 million or about 250k. That's pocket change.

i think i lost a few thousand citizens and my income dropped about $0.07. In the long run I think this will be a great update, albeit tough for some middle nations atm.