slow late game

[Anatidae]

I find that once my nation reached a certain point where the gameplay feels quite slow at times. Early on a lot goes on as war occurs a lot more often as there are more unexperienced players and less alligned nations. However at some point wars become pretty scarce as most nations join alliances; those that don't simply don't progress much as they are constantly been raided or go into peace mode and are never bothered again.

The game seems to degrade into a continous cycle of "get money, spend money", while your soldiers twiddle their thumbs waiting for that rare, once a month or less, war to happen. In the late game war is pretty much impractical as all alliances don't allow unprovoked attacks on other alliances and there are no unallied nations left that aren't in peace mode as, if they were to allow war within a day they'll have three nations tech raiding them and a long que of people waiting for those wars to expire so they can have a go. Most of the military action an alliance does is assisting newer nations that are still threatened by war because of inexperienced players who do not know better. Experinced players come to realize that war is economically unviable if your opponent is able to fight back, as such many simply do not declare war.

If it weren't for forums and 'political and idealogical conflicts created here, large nations in alliances would simply sit and never have a war as there isn't much that can happen in-game to force a player's hand to war, and then still it takes a lot of s**t to hit the fan on the forum or in the game for something to happen, and when something does occur it's normally the result of an event happening between newer nations that somehow manages to work it's way up, rarely does anything happen between larger nations initially.

Nations or alliances who don't want to be involved, say in a World War, can simply say "Not my problem" and just stay out and ignore it. Right now its like large nations live in bubbles that the events and going-ons of the world can't penetrate unless the player allows it or something drastic happens like someone declaring war, which is unlikely to happen if the nation is in an alliance. That does not reflect reality as no nation of considerable size can go unaffected by a World War no matter how much it tries to keep its hands off, we do not live in bubbles and everything is connected to the actions and beliefs of others. If one wanted to play this game like they were in a bubble that is what peace mode is for.

I don't have many suggestions on how, but I really think this game needs more interaction between nations in indirect ways such as international events (i.e uncontrolled terrorist groups from one nation attacking another), or unintended consequences (i.e nation A attacks nation B, nation C who trades with nation B is now unable to recieve resources from nation B ), things that may force players to take more action at times.

Edited October 24, 2007 by Anatidae

[shadowarmy75]

Well we can't have wars all the time, you need to rebuild in-between. I'm still below where I was about 3 months ago.

[Anatidae]

I guess that is one problem, war is so deveastating to a nation that no one simply wants to have a war.

I'm not arguing for war all the time I just find that not enough happens after awhile as nations find that conflict in anyway is not good (like in reality) and that having a 'hands off' policy on most international issues is best, if the world were like that we'd all be living in utopia and have world peace. Unfortunately (like in reality), the world is not like that as one can't avoid all conflict and often trouble comes to you without you looking for it, in CN rarely does any conflict happen in late game unless the player WANTS it too happen, for example:

You decide to have a war with another nation just because (as is often the reason), as such you get your face pummeled in by that nations alliance and you never attack anyone in an alliance again (as is often the resulting aftermath), thus another experienced nation enters it's 'bubble stage' where it avoids doing anything that would make anyone angry, yes one could attack an unalligned nation in war mode but they become pretty scare latter in the game.

Edited October 29, 2007 by Anatidae

[Anatidae]

bump

[Smallfrog]

Play the politics. Or join a war mongering alliance. But due to Politics allot of them got wiped out during the unjust war.

Also, war is not the only aspect of the game. The trading of tech and resources can be interesting if you set up and run trade circles.

[Timmmehhh]

Wars have indeed become to devastating to be attractive. You can lose a hell lot of infra/ military/ tech/ land. While you can' only loot 1 miljon, 5 tech and some land with a ground attack.

I would say give spies the ability to loot tech. Remove their infra destroying abilities. Also Make groundattacks more attractive and make the tech steeling cap something like 20.

Edited November 1, 2007 by Timmehhh

[Bob Janova]

Wars aren't supposed to be attractive. Play the politics and you'll see that the only reason the political game works at all is because avoiding war is worth it. If war was just fun and games you wouldn't need alliances or politics and the game would be dull.

[Anatidae]

I think it gets dull when you may have to wait months for anything out of the norm to happen. I'm not saying we should have war all the time I just think there needs to be more ways of making the player interact more with other nations, as right now often the best option is not to be involved in anything if you wish to avoid conflict with another nation, we don't often see wars for 'religious or ideological differences' between large nations because no one wants to risk conflict as there is no benefit to it, even though in real life this happens all the time despite there been no benefit to it. I really think there should be events or a system that forces the player to make decisions that they may not like and require more proactive involvement.

[Yenisey]

Why do you think that "not being involved" carries no consequences?

For an example, look at the GPA, while they are peaceful, they also have no allies who would come to their aid if the were to be the victims of an attack.

The most extreme example would probably be the Legion-NPO. The Legion's decision to avoid involvement in the Great War strained it's relationship with the NPO so far that the two allies turned and fought each other.

All decisions have consequences.

The sword cuts both ways...