The server lockout, and the (unpopular) solution.

[Taishaku]

@Blacky

I don't think people would enjoy that. But yeah, it would work; you would also have to double the inactivity period, bill lockout, etc.

[Viluin]

@Viluin

Your strategic thought is astounding (that was sarcasm).

You assume people can only coordinate at the update? You do realize the Europeans have NEVER coordinated at the update? Primarily because it's 5 AM there?

It seems rather naive to assume everyone only attacks when you can defend. No, the reason why they attack on updates is because you can do 2, then another 2 within a few hours. This means you can wait an entire day without doing anything.

I'm European. The update is at 7AM for me. I have no problems waking up at that time and I know several other Europeans who do the same. The fact is, the majority of people perform their attacks at the update, and it's not because of quad attacks, they do it every day because there's a certain advantage to attacking as soon as possible, either before your opponent shows up or when your opponent is active (not going to give away any detailed tactics here though). Being online at the update is a must, especially if you're fighting multiple opponents, unless you feel like not winning the majority of the ground attacks in your wars. If several "new" updates are created based on the time the wars were declared it will be hell.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Viluin

[Taishaku]

@Viluin

"The fact is, the majority of people perform their attacks at the update, and it's not because of quad attacks, they do it every day because there's a certain advantage to attacking as soon as possible, either before your opponent shows up or when your opponent is active (not going to give away any detailed tactics here though)."

So you're saying there is an advantage to attack before your enemy shows up? Sounds good to me.

"Being online at the update is a must, especially if you're fighting multiple opponents, unless you feel like not winning the majority of the ground attacks in your wars."

But wait! You said we should attack before our enemies show up. Then why are we attacking at the update? Why show up at the time your opponent knows you're coming to attack? Why would your enemies attack when they know you're there? Sheer idiocy?

Your argument makes no logical sense; We attack when the enemy is not ready; the enemy is ready during the update; we should attack during the update???

[Zarfef]

I don't know what might inspire huge numbers of players to jump on cybernations all at the same time...

Of course asking the whole NPO to jump online at the same time (I don't know if the other alliances have a clock like this) might be a little trouble for the server .

Well... its equally unpleasant but less likely to cause trouble... you could just allow first military strikes to induce quad (IE you can opt to not do any military actions the next day if you do four military strikes at the same time during the starting day of the attack). Then you would have less strain on the server because they could induce quad at 9PM or 3AM if they wanted to (eliminates unfairness to global players where update occurs at 3AM in the morning). After all, after the fist day unless you're inactive in your war for a day you can't initiate quad a second time... from there on out the battles can occur at any time (it wouldn't be hard to allow for second quads as well).

Another solution is to give a two digit value to the military so that a second wave of strikes can only be implemented by the user AFTER that two-digit value has reached 24 (all these values update when the player logs on... its a small number so the calculations shouldn't be too intense).

Edited April 28, 2009 by Zarfef

[Duncan King]

I actually like hitting in the afternoon server time better. I don't get the quad, but I can catch my opponents with their pants down.

[Lartize]

That is very true, I think you people are thinking too much about this, we are not trying to come up with a new battle system, which is what all of you are asking for.. we are trying to kill server down time.

Making MORE updates won't do that, that will just make it lag at both times.

[King Irwin]

This is always a heated topic, and I have actually posted suggestions much like the OP here.

There are two issues really. One is that the server is swamped at a specific time. Two is that there is a huge advantage to the players that can be on at a specific time, which is somewhat unfair for a worldwide audience. For some of us, that's the middle of the night, others the middle of the day; but whatever the time, in a turn-based game like this, I don't believe there should be huge advantages at certain times.

No matter what changes are implemented, getting your first blitz in right before update will always be a tactical advantage, even if you can't get a quad attack, since you are still able to get 1 extra day of attacks that your opponent will not be able match. Also, there is some tactical advantage every additional day to getting attacks in before your opponent, so when he attacks, he will be slightly weaker already. Both of those seem reasonable, IMO.

The quad attack has never seemed as reasonable though. First of all, within the context of the war simulation, it doesn't make much sense. The nations can only attack twice a day because the are too tired. And yet they can attack four times within a few minutes. Not terribly logical. Second, within the context of gameplay, I think this minimizes the point of the turn-based system and provides too much advantage to those that happen to be in the right timezones and/or have an overzealous commitment to the game.

I like two of the solutions that I have seen here, which I believe would address both of the issues mentioned above:

1) Restrict all of tomorrow's attacks by X hours after today's attacks. For example, if X = 12 and I ground attack at noon, airstrike at 8PM, and CM at 11PM, I can't launch any attacks at all against the same opponent until 11AM the next day. Setting separate restrictions for separate attacks becomes way too complex. If anything, maybe certain attacks could be exempt from this altogether (spies?).

2) Simply provide better advantages for attacking at other times. If there was a much bigger advantage for daytime attacks than nighttime attacks, many more people would opt against attacking right at update. There may be a slight server load as soon as "daytime" starts, but it would be minimal compared to the way midnight is right now. Keep in mind that this advantage has to be an attacker advantage only, not simply a tech factor for both nations or something similar as it is now.

Alright, there's my 2 cents. Don't spend it all in one place!

Edited April 30, 2009 by King Irwin