City Stuck at 0% Morale and the tap dissent mechanic

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    • City Stuck at 0% Morale and the tap dissent mechanic

      Hi. I have homeland cities stuck with low morale. An opponent spent a lot of gold using the "spread dissent" mechanic to nuke all of my homeland cities to cripple my economy without any way for me to fight back. That's pretty lame but okay. My question is how long does it take before the "rising" morale actually kicks in? It's been well over a day of rising at a high rate and its still stuck. This is despite building a bunker, mobilizing units, waiting a day, it being a homeland city, there being a massive garrison etc. My civ causalities are also very low and I am not in many wars. All my occupied cities gained 1-4% in this time. I am starting to think there is a negative modifier and he reduced my city morale to like -10 or something. At some random interval the city's morale jumped from 0% to 9% and then is now stuck there with no more movement. Normally morale moves incrementally so I am really confused by the math.

      So my one component city now produces 700 and since my enemy started with 2 (which is also slightly unfair since components seem to be the top resource bottleneck in the game but that's another story), he is at 5000 + from 2 cities. So even though I have 40 cities and he has 10, I am now completely outclassed in production with no chance of catching up. At the current rate it seems like it will take 10-100 days or more for my city to get back to normal (or maybe infinity days since it doesn't seem to be rising at all). I think this mechanic is quite unfair and unbalanced. A homeland city should rise from 0% faster. If he wants to cripple me for a day and cost me a unit and it bounces back, that sucks but whatever. But forever??? My homeland is now in way worse shape than even a war ravaged homeland that's been a battle zone for a month yet an enemy hasn't come within 1000 miles of me. This is the most overpowered and skill-less pay to win mechanic I've seen which stands apart from the other gold spending options.

      Most of the gold spending in the game seems like it is a lot for a small advantage that usually doesn't amount to much except in this case $7 cripples a player permanently, making it by far one of the most overpowered uses of gold in the game. I feel like you shouldn't be able to just tap a button a few times to absolutely ruin a player since that is way more powerful than even nuclear weapons in this game and is available from day 1. At least nukes can be countered and take huge resources and time and have to be used properly, this doesn't. I don't think it's fair a few taps does way more damage than being skilfully invaded by 50 units or shot with massive barrages of end game missiles. I've played hundreds of hours now and this by FAR the lamest thing that's happened.

      If anyone has some suggestions on how to raise morale in these circumstances aside from spending gold please let me know. Even though my opponent seems to have spent $100-200 in this game I'd prefer to earn gold on every match and beat him without spending any money but I can't do that if my component production is permanently screwed. I just think this tap dissent mechanic is hugely overpowered and needs some rework.

      Any thoughts?

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

    • Morale works this way:

      - it changes at daychange
      - the bigger the difference between current and target morale, the faster the change; this applies to increasing and decreasing morale
      - boni/penalty only affect the target morale, gold is neither and just instantly affects it
      - for homeland target morale without modifiers is 90iirc, dont know the value for occupied
      -> if your morale isn’t increasing its because target morale < current morale so check your penalties
      I am The Baseline for opinions
    • Thanks, Teburu. I didn't realize it updates at day change. That makes a bit more sense.

      I still feel like the instant dissent mechanic is outrageously overpowered. If it rises 9% a day it will take 10 days for me to recover under ideal conditions. In the mean time the enemy is producing 2 destroyers a day 5k components and I can do less than half a one even though we were roughly equal at the start. This means, you can almost fully eliminate a skilled player for $7 of gold especially if they are a 1 component city.
    • CAPSLOCKBANDIT wrote:

      Thanks, Teburu. I didn't realize it updates at day change. That makes a bit more sense.

      I still feel like the instant dissent mechanic is outrageously overpowered. If it rises 9% a day it will take 10 days for me to recover under ideal conditions. In the mean time the enemy is producing 2 destroyers a day 5k components and I can do less than half a one even though we were roughly equal at the start. This means, you can almost fully eliminate a skilled player for $7 of gold especially if they are a 1 component city.
      Uh, the fact that he's using the dissent mechanic means he's being inefficient
      The $7 worth of gold could have been used to instantly get himself 4 destroyers, or worse, missiles
      "Le patriotisme, c'est aimer son pays. Le nationalisme, c'est détester celui des autres."-Charles De Gaulle, Leader of Free France in World War 2.
      English: "Patriotism is to love your country. Nationalism is hating that of others."
    • ewac123 wrote:

      CAPSLOCKBANDIT wrote:

      Thanks, Teburu. I didn't realize it updates at day change. That makes a bit more sense.

      I still feel like the instant dissent mechanic is outrageously overpowered. If it rises 9% a day it will take 10 days for me to recover under ideal conditions. In the mean time the enemy is producing 2 destroyers a day 5k components and I can do less than half a one even though we were roughly equal at the start. This means, you can almost fully eliminate a skilled player for $7 of gold especially if they are a 1 component city.
      Uh, the fact that he's using the dissent mechanic means he's being inefficientThe $7 worth of gold could have been used to instantly get himself 4 destroyers, or worse, missiles
      Mate, if you want efficiency, you're looking in the wrong place.
      "War does not determine who is right; only who is left."

      Always strive to be better
      Don't try and be the best
      A better world is always within out fingertips
      But Utopia just causes more stress.
    • Ah, dissent, I had an ex-coalition mate do it on me once. Dude went inactive for 6 day without telling anyone, by the 4th day of his inactivity (day 24 in-game at this point) the opponent coalition starts creeping up to his border so we sent troop to fight them back and gradually take over his territories. When he rejoin the game and saw his cities being taken he threw a tantrum, saying we're backstabbers, no honor and stuffs and on day 29 he started lowering my homeland cities morale to 15% or below. Then he messaged me saying "that should teach you to become a decent human being instead of a backstabber, especially against a veteran player". What he didn't see is my homeland cities being stationed by a bunch of TDS and SAM which lower the insurgency chance down to 0%. Afterward, every single time the game pass the insurgent mark, I messaged him "hey, I haven't learnt my lesson yet, mind reteaching me?"

      I'd fight a golder who use dissent over one who actually know what to do with his gold.
    • ewac123 wrote:

      CAPSLOCKBANDIT wrote:

      Thanks, Teburu. I didn't realize it updates at day change. That makes a bit more sense.

      I still feel like the instant dissent mechanic is outrageously overpowered. If it rises 9% a day it will take 10 days for me to recover under ideal conditions. In the mean time the enemy is producing 2 destroyers a day 5k components and I can do less than half a one even though we were roughly equal at the start. This means, you can almost fully eliminate a skilled player for $7 of gold especially if they are a 1 component city.
      Uh, the fact that he's using the dissent mechanic means he's being inefficientThe $7 worth of gold could have been used to instantly get himself 4 destroyers, or worse, missiles
      Which I would much prefer. Units can be fought with strategy. Spies can be fought with counterspies. A little bit of gold spending is irrelevant in the big picture. A few taps to ruin you? It's not balanced or at the least not priced correctly. For those curious about the math my city gained 9% yesterday and then a diminishing return of 8% today for 17%. I estimate at this rate it would take about 10 days to recover and I'd lose approximately 12,000 components while my opponent would produce about 30,000 (aka 12 destroyers) more than me with no special effort. Because the city's morale was only 80% it actually only costs like $4-5 at mid prices to do ruin someone in a specific resource after you get intel for what they lack.

      I agree it's not efficient for growing personal power, that's not what this is about. My complaint is it ruins an enemy player anonymously for a small cost. Imagine this setup: 64 active good players play a tournament with random nations. The top ranked player then gets a 5 city nation and is dissent nuked on day 1, crippling rares, components, and chips for 10 days. Their chance of victory would absolutely plummet. This would cost about 18,000 gold or $9 CAD at the 55k package to take the 3 key cities down 60%. The chance of victory of the guy doing it has only gone up microscopically if he is an average player but it becomes even more unfair if its done by the rank #2 player. They ensure a much easier victory by doing nothing but tapping the I win button and that's silly. For someone to effectively force me to take a loss for $9 is nuts. If it cost $100 as a deterrent, great. But $9? The guy I am fighting now is bragging he's a millionaire in real life (lol) so he can just keep me at zero forever. It's like, okay, he already researched every tech imaginable despite being tiny, magically rebuilt all the stuff I destroy instantly, has the largest most diverse army, and now he should be able to also totally cripple me without coming within 1k miles? It doesn't seem to make sense. It also doesn't make sense from a realism perspective either. What giant empire in history would have 0% support in the capital and core military cities while mobilizing and taking over the world? Even making it so the capital can't fall below 20% and the home cities 10% or something would make it more believable. It would be nice if counterspies offered some resistance as well.

      The guy's coalition partner just invaded me now too. He lost his capital in the first week of the game and now weeks later he still has none. He is at war with like 10 1 province nations. Every time I lose a capital it is a huge blow that I seldom recover from and it is downhill with constant revolts from but these guys just keep trucking away. Being able to just totally gold out to unreasonable levels detracts from the fun of the game and player retention. The idea of losing to these guys annoys me immensely. I also think it takes the fairness and pride of victory away from a match because players play by a different rule set. I'd love to have a server with a gold spending cap. And, yes, to preempt a bunch of comments saying it is this way by design in order to make money, I understand that but I don't see why they can't offer the option as a premium perk or why some costs can't be better balanced. I also hope I don't get censored for saying this but I also believe that some of these games operate like worldwide legalized gambling with no oversight so limits should be self imposed or governments will regulate. It is reasonable for the devs to earn a profit to improve their game but I don't think it's reasonable for the company to accept many thousands of dollars from a single user for a game that perhaps has a $60-100 retail value at best. I bet loads of people could buy acres of land for what they spend on this. I've personally made the devs hundreds if not thousands of dollars just by crushing players that desperately spend gold when I back them into a corner. I also wasted a bit in the beginning too before the sunk-cost fallacy became apparent. I don't spend any gold in a match I think I have very low chance of winning.
    • Start your own game company based in a liberal nation - Raise capital (49% (You keep 51%)) by impressing investors with your product and business plans - Run it exactly the way you want to run it - Use your company's products' excellence to set the industry's standards and crush your competitors - That's the beauty of free markets

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

    • KFGauss wrote:

      Start your own game company based in a liberal nation - Raise capital (49% (You keep 51%)) by impressing investors with your product and business plans - Run it exactly the way you want to run it - Use your company's products' excellence to set the industry's standards and crush your competitors - That's the beauty of free markets
      I already own a small game development company based in Canada that is crowdfunded by fans and I do think my other company I founded helped raised the bar for its niche industry but real business isn't quite so easy as you make it sound especially once it gets complicated with an artistic pursuit. I am not sure what that has to do with the specific balance or moral issues I brought up though.
    • It has to do with what comes across as a bit of unnecessary and naive whining about this freeium game's business model in your last paragraph.

      Regardless of your intent, that's how I reacted when I read what you wrote. If I had that reaction, I'll bet many other readers did/will too.

      Enjoy being the boss of your company - When you grow large enough to buy/absorb Dorado you should do it and then fix their problems.
    • KFGauss wrote:

      It has to do with what comes across as a bit of unnecessary and naive whining about this freeium game's business model in your last paragraph.
      Don't wanna be picky, but you meant freemium right? The model that chess.com for example uses, no?
      "War does not determine who is right; only who is left."

      Always strive to be better
      Don't try and be the best
      A better world is always within out fingertips
      But Utopia just causes more stress.
    • CAPSLOCKBANDIT wrote:

      ewac123 wrote:

      CAPSLOCKBANDIT wrote:

      Thanks, Teburu. I didn't realize it updates at day change. That makes a bit more sense.

      I still feel like the instant dissent mechanic is outrageously overpowered. If it rises 9% a day it will take 10 days for me to recover under ideal conditions. In the mean time the enemy is producing 2 destroyers a day 5k components and I can do less than half a one even though we were roughly equal at the start. This means, you can almost fully eliminate a skilled player for $7 of gold especially if they are a 1 component city.
      Uh, the fact that he's using the dissent mechanic means he's being inefficientThe $7 worth of gold could have been used to instantly get himself 4 destroyers, or worse, missiles
      Which I would much prefer. Units can be fought with strategy. Spies can be fought with counterspies. A little bit of gold spending is irrelevant in the big picture. A few taps to ruin you? It's not balanced or at the least not priced correctly. For those curious about the math my city gained 9% yesterday and then a diminishing return of 8% today for 17%. I estimate at this rate it would take about 10 days to recover and I'd lose approximately 12,000 components while my opponent would produce about 30,000 (aka 12 destroyers) more than me with no special effort. Because the city's morale was only 80% it actually only costs like $4-5 at mid prices to do ruin someone in a specific resource after you get intel for what they lack.
      I agree it's not efficient for growing personal power, that's not what this is about. My complaint is it ruins an enemy player anonymously for a small cost. Imagine this setup: 64 active good players play a tournament with random nations. The top ranked player then gets a 5 city nation and is dissent nuked on day 1, crippling rares, components, and chips for 10 days. Their chance of victory would absolutely plummet. This would cost about 18,000 gold or $9 CAD at the 55k package to take the 3 key cities down 60%. The chance of victory of the guy doing it has only gone up microscopically if he is an average player but it becomes even more unfair if its done by the rank #2 player. They ensure a much easier victory by doing nothing but tapping the I win button and that's silly. For someone to effectively force me to take a loss for $9 is nuts. If it cost $100 as a deterrent, great. But $9? The guy I am fighting now is bragging he's a millionaire in real life (lol) so he can just keep me at zero forever. It's like, okay, he already researched every tech imaginable despite being tiny, magically rebuilt all the stuff I destroy instantly, has the largest most diverse army, and now he should be able to also totally cripple me without coming within 1k miles? It doesn't seem to make sense. It also doesn't make sense from a realism perspective either. What giant empire in history would have 0% support in the capital and core military cities while mobilizing and taking over the world? Even making it so the capital can't fall below 20% and the home cities 10% or something would make it more believable. It would be nice if counterspies offered some resistance as well.

      The guy's coalition partner just invaded me now too. He lost his capital in the first week of the game and now weeks later he still has none. He is at war with like 10 1 province nations. Every time I lose a capital it is a huge blow that I seldom recover from and it is downhill with constant revolts from but these guys just keep trucking away. Being able to just totally gold out to unreasonable levels detracts from the fun of the game and player retention. The idea of losing to these guys annoys me immensely. I also think it takes the fairness and pride of victory away from a match because players play by a different rule set. I'd love to have a server with a gold spending cap. And, yes, to preempt a bunch of comments saying it is this way by design in order to make money, I understand that but I don't see why they can't offer the option as a premium perk or why some costs can't be better balanced. I also hope I don't get censored for saying this but I also believe that some of these games operate like worldwide legalized gambling with no oversight so limits should be self imposed or governments will regulate. It is reasonable for the devs to earn a profit to improve their game but I don't think it's reasonable for the company to accept many thousands of dollars from a single user for a game that perhaps has a $60-100 retail value at best. I bet loads of people could buy acres of land for what they spend on this. I've personally made the devs hundreds if not thousands of dollars just by crushing players that desperately spend gold when I back them into a corner. I also wasted a bit in the beginning too before the sunk-cost fallacy became apparent. I don't spend any gold in a match I think I have very low chance of winning.
      I stopped reading after the second paragraph, sounds like a "I lost one game to this scenario with a 0.1% likelihood of happening, therefore everytime I lose it is because of this"
      All dogs are animals, not all animals are dogs


      "I bet loads of people could buy acres of land for what they spend on this. "

      "The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,380 per acre for 2021, "
      Source: Nass.usda.gov

      Personally, I have never met a guy who reduced my morale with gold by more than 10%.

      Also, I'm pretty sure your thread turned into a "why gold is bad" rant which is against the rules....

      I think your thread will get closed soon
      "Le patriotisme, c'est aimer son pays. Le nationalisme, c'est détester celui des autres."-Charles De Gaulle, Leader of Free France in World War 2.
      English: "Patriotism is to love your country. Nationalism is hating that of others."