STATEMENT ABOUT BALANCING UPDATE 10 MAY

This kind of feature (backstab timer) would also be a good thing for regular allies (maybe much less time or etc):

CoN, because of its mobility, already allows for very fatal insta-betrayal. Not Every player is prudent to the point of keeping correct-size garrison in cities. Air-Lifting allows for quick mobilisation on the cities of an ally. So... I already saw a player with moderate activity, get from his "ally" in the middle of the night several marines by air-lifting, and at 5 am, A 20-city country swaps of owner in ten seconds. Needless to say that the said player didn't had the bravery to try to conquer back his country.

Somekind of timer would really help to that. In another topic, This kind of air-lifting betrayal strategy can also be used by non-legitimate users. Anything that delays them is more time for a moderation to shut them down.

Concerning the 17% increase, the net output to our economy is greater. It nearly doubled my number of "decisions per day" regarding building/production/development ---> nice.

If i produce 100 and my upkeep is 50, i have 50/h.
If i produce 117 and my upkeep is 50, i have 67/h, which implies (in this imaginary example) 35% more resources, and it depends greatly on the resource and the strain of the economy you have in upkeep.

For example, on my game this skyrocketted my Supply output (bottleneck of military production, at least for me) from 500 to 800 (60% !). Now, please note we are at day 27-28. So, this raise enhances greatly the mid-late game for upcoming PvP : Wars between superpowers.

At the beginning of the game, however, this economical raise remains good, but not sufficient to bolster the sluggish very early game (you can't be blamed on that, this is a problem every single game on the supremacy engine suffers from)

Now, taking in mind the previous updates about increasing tech cost level by level to encourage vertical shifts between one or other unit (or branch :p) :

you could think a bit about reducing the time of production/cost of production/upkeep of each lvl 1 unit, and gradually increase them over each level AND sub-levels (actually, units of higher levels cost only a bit more money, which isn't a common bottleneck).

In terms of game progression, Low level trash units would be more easily produced and used (this doesn't harm the generally agressive playstyle you want from players) "en masse", while hi-tech units are costly, with a harsh upkeep.

To take make a unbalanced example (don't know the meta :p)

Strike Fighter Lvl 1 (Actually : 1175 components - 425 manpower - 950 electronics - 3500 money / upkeep : 20 supplies - 90 fuel - 45 electronics - 80 money) ---> 600 components - 425 manpower - 475 electronics - 1750 money / 15 supplies - 65 fuel - 30 electronics - 60 money)

Strike Fighter Lvl 2 ---> 660 components - 425 manpower - 550 electronics - 1925 money / 17 supplies - 75 fuel - 35 electronics - 70 money

Strike Fighter lvl 3 ---> 760 components - 425 manpower - 630 electronics - 2200 money / 20 supplies - 85 fuel - 40 electronics - 80 money

Strike Fighter lvl 4 ---> 875 components - 425 manpower - 725 electronics - 2500 money / 23 supplies - 100 fuel - 45 electronics - 90 money

Strike Fighter lvl 5 ---> 1 000 components - 425 manpower - 830 electronics - 2875 money / 27 supplies - 115 fuel - 50 electronics - 105 money

Strike Fighter lvl 6 ---> 1 175 components - 425 manpower - 950 electronics - 3 500 money / 31 supplies - 130 fuel - 55 electronics - 120 money


From a initial 50% discount cost, each level rouglhy increase the cost by ~15%, in order to return to initial price in lvl 6. However upkeep are here at a initial discount of ~15%, with each level increasing it by ~15%. In lvl 6, Upkeep is nearly 60% higher. This is designed so, considering very few players will research anything, Units they decide to focus on in high tech become gradually more heavy on their economy, while low tech gain in attractivity by their lower impact. This is highly debatable in terms of game design, of course (but hey, if feedbacks are used as thinking materials for your brainstorming, so won't pass on the opportunity), but it would make sense in terms of "Cold War military theory".

amazon.com/Strategy-Logic-Edwa…005082/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

In this Book, Luttwak uses the "macro" decisions of several nations to study the military paradox behind effectiveness vs efficiency. He likes to describe the extreme settings of such a paradox : "If an insurgent can put out of combat a main battle tank with a single rocket, why would i bother with main battle tank in the first place, considering the absolute costs and the logistic costs ?" It may seems like a cheap "yeah haha, MBT are useless", but in fact, he manages to give valuable arguments that even with this, MBT is relevant, by paradox.

Linked to CoN game design, this means that units can be put on a balance where "it is not always desirable to go for the hi-tech", as well as speeding considerably the early game, with a soft curve toward mid-late. Or, as said a Date Retainer while seeing leviers disperse a smaller force of trained bushis (but not in Cold War, obviously) : "Sometimes, Quality is overrated"

Sorry for the brick !

my biggest grip is the inability to trade units. this realy hinders game play between allies. for example my fellow clan mates we will each consecrate on a diffrent discipline and then trade units to each other. Just like real life where allies will trade technoligy and vehicles

Just a idea I had.

How about making it so if you lose your homeland (say 80%),then what you have left becomes homeland so you can keep fighting.

hmm might be a dumb idea.

Well I just played my first 45 player map with the new rules, and I have to say I hate it. If I hadn't gotten hooked on the game earlier and this was my first experience, i wouldn't play again. Here are my complaints:

Since you have very few rare's produced initially, and you can't trade or buy them, you are stuck to a VERY slow unit progression. You better really like fighting with motors and scouts. Maybe if you really are careful you can squeak out some air support or a tank. With these conscript level units, the first batch of rogue nation technicals you encounter will wipe you out. You will need to send a third of your nations military force to take that one city back, and then of course if it is not homeland, you are going to use many of your few resources to annex it, only to lose it to going rogue if you pull that third of your military out of there before it is above 30% morale.

So you can't build up your forces against light weight countries, because a: sure they give you vp's, manpower, and money, but when you are starved for rare and electronics, they are just a drain. b: some of those AI countries can beat you silly. You better take every last soldier you have into the fight because anything short of 12 motorized, a few scouts, your starting tank, and maybe some air units if you can afford them will just result in you getting razed and be fodder for your neighbour player countries. So what do you do? Attack a player.

This results in day 1 being a massive street brawl as everyone immediately attacks their closest neighbour before he can attack them. Half the players leave as they lost 6 of 8 cities, and most of their forces. The 'winner' has crippled his own army and has no resources to rebuild until his newly annexed cities can produce enough resources to build back up buildings, and then start the long journey of building units. But don't worry you won't get that far.

Because

There are the one or two players that winning the game gives their lives meaning, and makes them feel their reproductive organs are large. They will either resource cheat by using multiple accounts (which although impacted by the changes still seems to be happening) or Billy basement dweller grabs mommy's credit card and gold spams his way to having all the rares the wants and insta builds the crown jewel items the first day they are available.

Don't think that happens? The map i was on a nuke was used on day FOUR. I don't even want to do the math to figure out how much gold that costs. So you have a choice - quit or stick around to watch the kid spend $150 in gold to buy his win. Fun? Not so much.

I am no expert and for sure don't have all the answers, but I have some ideas.

First off, yes I buy gold and use it occasionally. I will admit that i have used it to balance against what i saw as market cheating, or gold 'abuse' by an enemy. The main reasons i have to spend gold are:
I want to know what my enemy has for production/resources and I want to see where his units are. Spy's are super expensive during the early game, and not that reliable. I like to consider those gold purchases to be my expensive spy satellites. I will also use some gold to speed production on a key unit or research if I know I am not going to be back to the game for at least 24 hours, and it is close to being finished. At 11 at night with 2 hours left on research for a new unit, I am tempted to spend the gold to be able to start producing the unit when i won't be on again for 24-36 hours, and I want to be able to use them when i get back.

I think that gold is abused though. I would think a game or daily limit would be useful. If you can only spend say 5000 gold per day, you can't build a nuclear arsenal by day 4.

I think the market issue can be handled with another approach. Market set pricing. In some other games I have played, the more you sell of an item the cheaper the price automatically becomes, and the more you buy the more expensive it becomes. Why can't it be that you don't set a sell price? If it sells for the market average you can't sell 50 000 electronics for 20 000 and then buy 50 000 for 2000 or whatever the example the earlier poster had used because the market price is a floating average. So let's say rares had a starting rate of $15 each. you buy a 1000 units from either an ai or a player, and the price increases due to demand, so the next purchase of rares is now 16 or 17 each, and if you put a sell order to sell your rares, the price drops because more are on the market, so you get less and less if you just keep selling and push down the market. Then over time it would adjust to balance back to original pricing. This would prevent unbalanced transactions wouldn't it? It could also lead to economic warfare strategies where you drive down a commodity price so your opponent that is abundant with that commodity can't sell his for very much, or you place buy orders for another to drive the price up out of his reach to supply himself. Again there would have to be a limit to gold spending or you would get a soros wanna be tanking the markets.

The problems i see, especially with the 45 player map, are in summary:

too much pvp - which will cause, especially new players, to get discouraged as they get pummeled from day one.
No point in joining a game that is past day 1. Once you get in the game you will likely have half your country gone already, be in the midst of a war before you even open it.
gold spamming - i like using gold, and it has the benefit of giving you guys jobs to make the game - can we just fix the abuse?
market cheating - the fix can't be more damaging than the cure,or what is the point?

Just my thoughts.

For the love of all that is mighty, I just cant research things early on full stop. Things are now a lot more to upgrade as well. I cant buy rare fine, I cant trade with my allies FFS! .. what am i supposed to do? Building arms industries on my rare, well that needs rare! I cant even get the thing off the ground. For people that like missiles, their days are over. Researching missiles, warheads and buildings weapon labs.. ha, good luck. Cos you are going to need it mate

People are saying this is to make money.... I kept ignoring them when they said this, but the update was on weds and I cant give my ally the Attack helis he needs and he cant give me the rare I need

Hay whats up on the rss from the market believe me when i know say those rss building, what about to buy or trade rss when will that be fixed. I can't even play I got one that wont make gas so i have to attack everyone to get what i also know there's a max on the level of the buildings . please let us know thanks guys

I kinda feel like nerfing the market as a measure to limit multis is 'waving a white flag' to them, and limiting the playability of the game for all just to affect the attempt to cheat of a few,
curing a virus by killing the host body.

I advocate a strong human staff wall to stop cheats in preference to limiting everyone's game experience.

Here here, couldnt have summed it up better myself.

you think come get some son

i hope u guys relize the massive negitivity here. and reveres what u did

look the person that did what he did I like a good war game and am good at anything strategic you dont hear cry about Rebel dude he hits me all the time all i do is fight em and move on it seems like everyone crys about it not me I wont someone to attack ha ha ha ha

You obviously sound like your throat is still bleeding from a misplaced trust : I deeply sympathize. I've seen through the years a substantial amount of good newcomers stopping the game because they were nearly shell-shocked by allies treating them like convenient meatbags. They may say it's a game and they would be right, but a backstab remains very personal, unjust and undeserved. Ultimately, those players don't care, or care more about themselves.

You can care more about yourself and still be loyal : take more time before accepting any kind of agreement, value non-contractual cooperations first, talk a lot, and always keep the hand on the pommel of your sword. An alliance constructed with care, like a gardner, has a really low-chance of betrayal. "Hey, you wanna ally ?" style of diplomacy usually means for lambda players that your are a one night stand.Start from the theory that honor and loyalty are assets of established and veterans players, because they are involved in the community (and nobody in a social entity really likes traitors, tolerating them at much) ---> Rely more and more on your personal bravery and skill in order to not be forced into early survival agreements, and make yourself a good ally instead of an ally by default. Give guarantees to your allies and ask for guarantees : It's not about trust, it's about mutual security. Ultimately, think that "We do not need a non agression pact to be at peace, We do not need a right of way to talk and trade, We do not need a shared-map if we have no co-operations"

Of course, i don't know the details of the betrayal, so please excuse if those very basic guidelines are uneeded, but you speak in anger, and you know that after it will be gone, you will regret approximately 50% of what you said here : Whatever you may think of players and the game, you may not actually say that they are promoting backstab. To the contrary, Germanico revealed that on the roadmap the expanded team system was planned to have a anti-backstab system. I dislike with all my body traitors, but they are part of the ecosystem, and will exist in a way or another in every game that has the following feature : Diplomacy.

As you seem to like the game, otherwise you would have just disappeared in the night like so many, i advise that you give yourself another chance at dodging nefarious allies. And maybe, soothe a bit your words in your message to not add moderation action to ingame discomfiture

I do appreciate what you have said. I probably just need to take a few weeks off of playing. To me, to dishonor yourself over a game, tells me that as a person they have no character at all. I have been in games where the only way to reach the target points would be to attack an ally, and we just agreed to end the game rather than have a winner where we would have to betray a trust. When a new player takes over previously abandoned slot as in this most recent case, and he asked to end our war as he had just taken over and the ai had been at war with me, I let him. we allied and when he needed help i helped him. Then when most of my forces were on the other side of the map fighting a tough war, he attacks my open terrirtories and devastates my economy. Kind of makes you want to punch him in the face. I could spend $100 in gold to rapid build forces and destroy him, but why? All it really makes me want to do is stop rewarding the game with my hard earned, since there is no penalty for that action in the game. Which is why i think breaking an alliance should have a massive, like -150 to every city morale for the next 20 days for doing that. Just imagine what the reaction in the streets would be like if England decided to sneak attack the US in the real world.

I cant play it whatever that guy did in the game chat room mess mine up. i the game it slef wont let me in but it will let me here