Is it Saudi Arabia, or is it Me?

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    • Look at Chile v Bolivia for why I choose landlocked instead of lots of harbors or cities within naval bombardment.

      You'd need 30 ships (6x stacks) guarding 6 cities against naval bombardment, don't need to point out how easy it'd be to penetrate such a spread-out defense.

      Even in terms of constant activity, it's a lot easier to just place ground troops in defensive positions than to constantly be alert for the blue dots moving in-out attacking you.

      I'm honestly too lazy and disinterested in playing a naval-oriented country tbh. I'm fine camping inland like I hide in corners on FPS games!
    • KFGauss wrote:


      • Italy's wet border isn't chopped up into little (mentally distinct, or actually distinct) zones like the region around Saudi, but Italy does have a long horseshoe shaped wet border instead of a closed loop, and that raises travel times.

      I don't want to be one of those "I'll just have way more, way stronger units than you!" guys, but... I mean, two fleets. Problem solved. Five of Italy's seven cities are port cities - get some ships built.


      KFGauss wrote:


      • Italy has a high perimeter to land mass ratio (easily shelled, lots of landing zones) for a non-island country,
      • Italy takes a long time to get land troops (through the mountains) from one end to the other,

      Shelled by what? A more dominant navy? Okay, then, yeah, you're beat if that's the case. I agree. I see these items as being helpful to Homeland defense, though. My opponent is going to come over water? Okay, but they're going to need a better navy than mine. They're going to come over land from the north? OKay, but it's going to take them awhile to get over the Alps (where I have a defensive advantage), and once they do, my ships are going to be shelling them as they make the long trek from north to south and try to defeat my ground defenses in my cities. They're going to bring planes to attack my homeland? Have fun flying over/through my Frigate radii; there's no free pass there.

      Again, I don't mean to do the one-upping "mine will always be better thing", but I don't think it's out of bounds to be like, "Yeah, I mean, if you're going to have 5 port cities (out of 7 total), you're going to want to have a strong navy." That doesn't seem far-fetched to me.

      And, I know, you can always be like, "Well, what if your navy gets beat, though?" Well, I guess the same answer as "what if your ground forces or air forces get beat?" You're at a disadvantage and vulnerable, then. But that's kind of almost always true at most points of the game, isn't it?

      The post was edited 1 time, last by PerigeeNil ().

    • I'm genuinely surprised you guys feel this way about Italy. I think Italy can be a pretty tough cookie if you play it Navy-heavy.

      Italy should be able to rival just about any Navy in the Med. Greece has the advantage of being a little more maritime, but they are also (resource/money) poorer, if I recall correctly.

      UK and Scandinavian navies are a tougher matchup, but they have the disadvantage of travel time if they are attacking. I like a good player's chances for a dominant Italian navy in a public game.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by PerigeeNil ().

    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      I admit that, at times, navy definitely is a "sink or swim" (hahahaha) proposition. But I think people resist the logic of coastal nations a little too much. If you don't want to build a competitive navy, then you're right, you're not going to do very well with an island/largely coastal nation. But again, that same logic applies basically the same way to the reciprocal aspects in other countries: It's not going to be super easy to win with Austria if you decide not to build hardly any ground units and you're not online very often.
      This is what you can do with a Navy on a real island country. Each choke point near full stacks. No one hitting me unless its a ICBM ;) I have half the world perimeter..cant do that with Italy. Not sure what you mean by port choke point; as point of navy is to keep enemies far from reach.

      I actually built destroyers too ;) had more than enough frigs; but to me destroyers still the tanks of the sea but needed some beef to fight some Cruiser stacks.

      I hadnt built a ground troop in 20 days. Now need to spin up a NG invasion force to invade N America with all my initial ground troops in central asia. Currently Rising tides and have 2950 pts on day 24. forum.conflictnations.com/inde…6ccfab0041fce7a9319e02bab
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp

      The post was edited 1 time, last by The Pale Rider ().

    • Buck, you're doing a good job with Australia, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. I also agree that isolation is a nice benefit of countries like Australia. Sometimes, though, I'm just not going to be playing a country that is isolated or has hard map edges or whatever. It's just a different scenario. I hear you when you say it's a scenario that you don't enjoy, though.
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      Before you get yourself all ruffled, I'm not saying that <edit>ITALY</edit> is objectively bad or that I couldn't/haven't won with them. So, *please* try to consider the context and scale of the discussion I am intending as you read the rest.
      ...

      If you're replying to me. Please review this edited quote, and smile. :thumbsup:

      All starting locations in CoN stink.

      It's impossible to win from any of them.

      The best strategy is to join a game and then surrender to your nearest neighbor before they either try to surrender to you or drop out. ;)

      The post was edited 1 time, last by KFGauss ().

    • GrandInquisitor wrote:

      Look at Chile v Bolivia for why I choose landlocked instead of lots of harbors or cities within naval bombardment.

      You'd need 30 ships (6x stacks) guarding 6 cities against naval bombardment, don't need to point out how easy it'd be to penetrate such a spread-out defense.

      Even in terms of constant activity, it's a lot easier to just place ground troops in defensive positions than to constantly be alert for the blue dots moving in-out attacking you.

      I'm honestly too lazy and disinterested in playing a naval-oriented country tbh. I'm fine camping inland like I hide in corners on FPS games!
      Bolivia is actually one of my favorite countries to use, so I totally get that. I can also understand a player not wanting to play a certain way (i.e. navy-heavy). That all makes perfect sense to me.

      But, like, I wouldn't say "Russia/USA/China are not great countries to play because they take too long to march/drive across and I don't want to build airfields/airbases." Lol, that's more about my playstyle choices than about that country. So when someone says, "I don't like Italy because you can't defend it", that's different than saying, "I don't feel like messing with navy" (like you just said), if that's what they mean. By the way, I'm not talking about you individually when I mention the Italy thing. I don't even remember if you mentioned Italy. I'm just talking about this conversation in general.

      Isn't Chile's problem more it's shape than the fact that it is coastal, though? Wouldn't it be just as much of an albatross if it was the same long, skinny shape but landlocked? In my mind, that might even be more of a problem. Non-amphibious units can't invade from the sea except at port cities. If Chile was landlocked, you could invade it anywhere. I think you might be thinking that someone can shell your coastal cities with ships while you are offline, but couldn't they also shell Chile's border cities with artillery while you were offline if it was landlocked? I just don't see what the detriment of a coast is if you have a strong navy. No, they can't be everywhere at once while you are offline, but do you really have ground units everywhere at once when you are offline?

      I THINK you might be talking about having a buffer of land completely surrounding your country that enemies would have to travel through before they can get to your homeland. Is THAT why being landlocked would feel more secure to you? I do get that. It's a little harder to create a time buffer against incoming enemies when you're playing a coastal country. Still, you may have seen a post of mine not too long ago where I got a solo win with Chile in a 4x WWIII game, and I had spent more than 24 real hours (more than four game days) without logging on to the game at all. You just have to put a special/different effort into building offline coastal defense.
    • KFGauss wrote:

      PerigeeNil wrote:

      Before you get yourself all ruffled, I'm not saying that <edit>ITALY</edit> is objectively bad or that I couldn't/haven't won with them. So, *please* try to consider the context and scale of the discussion I am intending as you read the rest.
      ...
      If you're replying to me. Please review this edited quote, and smile. :thumbsup:

      All starting locations in CoN stink.

      It's impossible to win from any of them.

      The best strategy is to join a game and then surrender to your nearest neighbor before they either try to surrender to you or drop out. ;)
      Hahahahaha! That DID make me smile (and even quietly chuckle).

      @KFGauss I get the feeling that you're leaning toward wrapping this conversation up, but I have a quick curious question for you specifically before we do, if you don't mind: Do you feel the same way about Turkey that you feel about Italy? Turkey seems like it has an exaggerated version of all the things that make you uncomfortable about Italy, but I honestly feel like Turkey can be a juggernaut.
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      @KFGauss I get the feeling that you're leaning toward wrapping this conversation up, but I have a quick curious question for you specifically before we do, if you don't mind: Do you feel the same way about Turkey that you feel about Italy? Turkey seems like it has an exaggerated version of all the things that make you uncomfortable about Italy, but I honestly feel like Turkey can be a juggernaut.
      Well ill jump in and say yes Turkey not ideal. Ive whooped Turkey 2 or 3 times with much smaller syria. Turkey takes forever to move troops and have 1 city cut off and in europe. Think Turkey has 7 cities and syria 5 but the force concentration and speed to front lets you beat Turkey. They always try to attack syria in same mtn pass in that corner between two countries.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • Buckeyechamp wrote:

      Well ill jump in and say yes Turkey not ideal. Ive whooped Turkey 2 or 3 times with much smaller syria. Turkey takes forever to move troops and have 1 city cut off and in europe. Think Turkey has 7 cities and syria 5 but the force concentration and speed to front lets you beat Turkey. They always try to attack syria in same mtn pass in that corner between two countries.
      Okay, fair enough, but have you played AS Turkey, Buck?
    • Oh no I meant for while being active, don't even need to be away from the game to get outplayed. Say there are an EVEN amount of ships between you (Chile) and New Zealand, the NZ player sends 30 cruisers to attack your 30 Cruisers.
      Would it be wise for him to divide all of those ships to attack each of your stacks at the same time? Or rather full send the 30 to a single stack of yours, therefore, taking out the 30 cruisers one-by-one, he only needs to attack 1 stack and it's over right?

      If you react accordingly and also swing your 25 other cruisers to react, you're now 25 v 30. A full-stack short. The only way to prevent such an overwhelming numerical advantage at that moment is to KNOW that they plan that exactly through placing cheap units in predictable sea routes, intercepted messages, lucky guessing, or a good sweep of AWACS. (forget other units, this is simply a purely even fair starting number scenario, i know subs would destroy cruisers)

      Now consider this: Put 2 coalition members coordinating with each other, NZ and Australia built 20 Maxed out Elite Submarines together to destroy your navy, you can't have long-range radar detection on that to see them coming. Only a lucky guess and good timing with NPA/ASW helis/destroyers.

      That exact scenario with 20 elite subs defeated me when I played as Brazil ^ and I thought in a public match I could never possibly see such extremely good tactics be used against me like that.

      You can see why I only choose to go with landlocked nations now. This entire wall of text is gone from my memory and I need only worry about whatever I plan to use on land/air :)

      It's beautiful to see an invasion force go across the ocean just to land on shores into endless waves of special forces, rocket artillery, railguns, etc... God knows it's what has been rebuilding my noob stats...

      The post was edited 1 time, last by To0oooop ().

    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      Buckeyechamp wrote:

      Well ill jump in and say yes Turkey not ideal. Ive whooped Turkey 2 or 3 times with much smaller syria. Turkey takes forever to move troops and have 1 city cut off and in europe. Think Turkey has 7 cities and syria 5 but the force concentration and speed to front lets you beat Turkey. They always try to attack syria in same mtn pass in that corner between two countries.
      Okay, fair enough, but have you played AS Turkey, Buck?
      No and never would. Too many potential enemies day 1 (Romania; Bulgaria; Greece; Syria; Ukraine across red sea; Egypt across med; mtns protect from Russia a bit). Then basically same paradox as Saudi as cross roads between Europe and Asia. Have never seen Turkey be competitive in any game Ive played.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • @GrandInquisitor

      Okay, so I'm not sure if you meant those numbers to be realistic or not, but I'm guessing you did, since you said the Elite Submarine situation actually happened. I feel like there's a trend here that came up in our earlier conversation about infantry as well: How long are your games lasting?!

      In WWIII, a player can't even begin researching Max Elite Subs until Day 23, that research takes more than 1 Game Day, then they still each have to build 4 more Elite Subs (which require Level 5 naval bases and Level 2 Secret Weapons Labs), THEN they have to sail them across the Pacific and around the tip of South America (or the other way? I don't know which is shorter) to get to Brasil. I've played as Australia and as New Zealand, and neither is the fastest starting nation in the game.

      You also mentioned 25 or 30 cruisers? I don't know if you meant those numbers to be real or not, but if you did...

      How long are your games lasting?! Why is ANYONE getting these types and numbers of high-level forces built up? And why are multiple players LETTING each other build up forces like that? Are we talking about gold use here? Because otherwise, GO KILL THEM ***WAY*** before it gets to that point!

      I'm not claiming to be the best player in Conflict of Nations, but I'll be damned if I'm letting some dude (or multiple dudes) peacefully build Level 5 Naval Bases in a public game. I hunt down people who start building Level 3 Naval Bases (which is one reason I think it's a mistake for most players to go straight to Destroyers). I'm not going to exist on the same public map as an opponent with Level 4 Naval Bases for very long. Either they're going to die, or I'm going to die, but I'm going over there, and one of us will be off the map soon. And a game that I survive in isn't going too far beyond 30 - 35 days, so they're certainly not going to have time to fight me AND collect dozens of Cruisers.

      By the way, you're not the only one from whom I hear/read stuff like this. A number of people on the Forums are like, "So I took my 50-stack of Maxed Out Aircraft Carriers, and I attacked his transports carrying 468 Ballistic Missile Launchers" and I'm thinking, "WHOA! You guys let that game go on WAY too long!" Part of the reason you guys have to worry about some of the things you have to worry about is because you are letting these games get WAY out of hand.

      That being said, I'm only an "okay" player; I'm positive there are lots of people much better than me. So, if two of them end up in a game together with me, and they team up to beat me, then I guess I just lose. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw two other good players in a public game, though.

      All of THAT being said, I do totally understand why you choose to play landlocked nations. Like I said earlier, I enjoy playing landlocked nations sometimes, and, sometimes, I even do it just because even I occasionally want a break from Navy.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by PerigeeNil ().

    • Alright, regarding playing as Turkey:

      @Buckeyechamp

      Okay. That's consistent with the impression I've gotten from you about what you do and don't like, so I totally understand. I tend to play as any country and every country. For a long, long time, I let the game randomly choose my country in every game I played. I even made a separate account where I only played as randomed countries. So, I just don't have a "I would never play as x type of country", even though I completely understand that you do and why you do.

      As for you never seeing Turkey do well: I mean, I never see New Zealand do well, but you just dominated with them not long ago, didn't you? I mean, the U.S. is an absolute MONSTER of a country in WWIII, but how often do you see it actually win? Not very often. We can't rely on poor public players to give us an impression of a country's potential.

      @bobqz

      I may have to try a game as Turkey again soon. I've only played as Turkey once, and I was like, "LOOK AT THIS BEAST GO!" I think it was my first ever solo win, and I didn't go into that game even thinking about winning solo. It felt like I took a gun to a knife fight. It left such an impression that, even though I've entered many hundreds of games since, I don't think I've ever started another game as Turkey; it just seemed like too much. It was like driving a suped up muscle car for the first time and being like, "That was fun, but I can't drive that around town every day."

      Now, that was a long time ago, and it was just that one game. So, maybe that was a false impression from a ridiculously lucky game, but it was the impression I've always had. I wasn't THAT experienced at that time, though, and not only am I a much better player now, but the public competition also seems much worse (many more brand new accounts and inactives on that map). I'll be really surprised if I try another game as Turkey and I end up thinking, "Meh, it's not that great." That's not to say that couldn't happen, though. I should give it another try.
    • I debated about whether or not to post this, because I'm not trying to show off or prove anything (other people have posted faster and better scores than this in the contest thread), but I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how some of you are playing your games.

      No one else in this (public) game even has a Level 4 Naval Base right now, and there are no competitive navies left. I'm not claiming to be the navy king. I've only currently got maybe... four or five Cruisers? So, I'm just baffled how (or more accurately why) there are multiple people left in your games with dozens of Cruisers or 10 Max Elite Subs. GO KILL EACH OTHER. What are you waiting for?

      (fictional sample quote for emphasis) "And this dude had like 8 stacks of stealth bombers and 12 stacks of max bombers..." What?! Why did you let that happen? Why would you both still be in that game?! END IT.

      Again, I'm not at all trying to be all "look at how great I am"; I'm not great. There are people on this Forum who have shown they are ending games faster than me. I don't understand how (or why) some of you are getting to as many Days as you are getting to. If you just WANT to play with all that end game stuff, that's fine, but then don't act like it's a necessary part of normal gameplay if you're letting it go that long on purpose. "What are you going to do when your enemy pulls up with 8 aircraft carriers, though?" What?! Nothing. I'm definitely not in the game anymore at that point.

      And please, save the "you're just getting lucky" speeches. Yes, I get lucky sometimes, but we can't claim that about every game. I honestly can't remember a game I was in (whether I won or lost) past Day 40. In my opinion, you have to be choosing that. I don't understand why, though. If you're the better player, go win. If the other guy is better, then go lose. Either way, it's not necessary (though you can choose it) to drag it out.


      Screenshot 2022-02-15 9.46.18 PM.png
    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      Hahahahaha! That DID make me smile (and even quietly chuckle).
      @KFGauss I get the feeling that you're leaning toward wrapping this conversation up, but I have a quick curious question for you specifically before we do, if you don't mind: Do you feel the same way about Turkey that you feel about Italy? Turkey seems like it has an exaggerated version of all the things that make you uncomfortable about Italy, but I honestly feel like Turkey can be a juggernaut.

      PerigeeNil wrote:

      Alright, regarding playing as Turkey:

      ...
      It was like driving a suped up muscle car for the first time and being like, "That was fun,
      ...
      Sup'ed up muscle cars - My Dad bought a stock, used, 68 Dodge Charger (with a 440 V8) while I was in high school. That *was* fun. However, I swear the gas tank had a leak :D . Also the suspension sucked so bad it was close to being lethal, and the stock 2-barreled carb meant that about 1/3 of that gas pedal travel was useless because you couldn't feed enough oxygen to the engine to burn all the gasoline you were pouring into the carburetor.

      About Turkey - I've played in a grand total of 8 games (all 1X speed)
      2 Flashpoint
      3 BG USA
      3 WW3

      I've done well in them, but I haven't enjoyed experimenting with many starting positions yet.

      in my second Flashpoint I played Turkey - Things turned out well - I gave SF spamming a try - I recall the AI being the toughest opponents - I recall spending what seemed like forever slogging through the mountains on Turkey's southwest borders to kill the AIs there - Playing Flashpoint Turkey isn't the same as playing WW3 Turkey.

      Combining that with my WW3 experiences makes me think Turkey is typical. If they can form a solid alliance on one of their 3 (2.5?) exposed flanks, then they can slug it out with an enemy or two. That's not a very bold statement. It's true of most of the (equally-lousy) WW3 countries. And like most places, if Turkey's neighbors fold like houses of cards (which CoN neighbors everywhere often (usually?) do) then things can go well for a long time.

      In my limited experience, I haven't spotted any WW3 location that benefits more from "location" than all all the locations benefit from luck.

      PS: Question - Why don't I play more games? Answer - Work. For me, playing (micro-managing) CoN when a project deadline is near doesn't work well. I do hope to start another game soon. I thought I would be playing one right now, but an important work demo has been delayed. That's a blessing and a curse.

      The post was edited 2 times, last by KFGauss ().