Dates the new system goes into effect by server:

Free For All:	immediately
Alliance:	immediately (round that begins Feb 4th)
Express:	next round (round that begins Feb 9th)
Team:	next round (round that begins Feb ~9th)
Primary:	next round (round that begins March ~4th)
Tournament:	next round (round that begins March ~4th)

We decided to change to a system that grants turns, extra random events, or permanent bonuses for countries. If this system does not work out well, we may change it back to the old system or try a whole new approach.

Part of the reason we added back turns after phasing them out was to provide an easy way for FFA players to use their bonuses and to give new or lazy players a way to spend bonus points without worrying about all of the other options. If we balanced the system correctly, many of the permanent bonuses will be more valuable than turns, depending of course on a country's strategy and playing style.

We understand that some players may have devised strategies revolving around the old bonus system. We apologize for not making it clearer that the bonuses would be constantly evolving and for not giving more notice to players about the new bonuses.

Every country still receives 2 points per vote. Hopefully there will be a few more ways to earn bonus points implemented soon. Bonus points expire at the earliest midnight GT time after 48 hours have passed. For example, any bonus points gained during today, February 3rd, would expire one second past February 5th, 23:59:59 GT.

Here is the new set of bonuses:

Turns
Turns are a country's most valuable resource. Gaining extra turns can increase a country's short term and long term growth. The cost of 1 extra turn is 2 bonus points.

Income events
Picking one of the four income events triggers a "boom" event on your country's next turn. These events are a great way to increase short term production.

Building Costs
The building cost bonus is a permanent bonus. Once purchased, the effects will never decay or expire. Investing in lowering building costs makes it cheaper both to construct and destroy buildings.

Defense
Investing in this permanent bonus will increase your country's military defending strength. If a country has a 5% defensive bonus, other countries will need to send 5% more attacking units to successfully attack that country. A country's defensive bonus can be viewed with a normal spy op or with a military spy op.

Luck
Luck is the subtlest of the permanent bonuses. Investing in luck will lead to better explore returns, greater missile production, and lower market times. In addition, lucky countries have a greater chance of getting spy ops against countries with better spy networks and a greater chance of successfully attacking when oversending.

Expenses
This permanent bonus decreases monetary military expenses. Investing in this bonus will decrease the money needed to pay your military units each turn.

Private Market Units
This permanent bonus increases the rate at which units appear for sale on your country's private market.

Resource Decay
This permanent bonus decreases bushel decay and corruption. Whenever a country plays a turn, it loses 0.1% of its bushels due to bushel decay. If a country plays a turn with more than $2,000,000,000 cash on hand, it loses 0.1% of its cash above $2 billion. Investing in this bonus decreases the amount of resources lost to decay.

GDI
Countries in GDI can activate this bonus to zero out GDI costs. However, after activation countries are unable to leave GDI for any reason.


Here are the current costs and effects for ffa and alliance. Please note that we may adjust the costs of these bonuses on other servers because other servers have less turns per round than ffa and alliance.

Extra turn:	2 points
Income Event:	4 points
Building Costs:	8 points for a 1.25% reduction
Defense:	16 points for a 1% increase
Luck:	6 points for a 0.25% increase
Expenses:	12 points for a 1.25% reduction
PM Units	8 points for a 0.5% increase
Resource Decay	6 points for a 2.5% reduction

Some of the permanent bonuses have a limit which may or may not be achievable with the number of points given out in a set. For example, if a country achieves a 100% reduction in resource decay, it cannot spend any further points towards that bonus.


Please note that a few of the effects of the new system (slightly longer expiration time and adding a defensive bonus field to spy ops) have spilled into the old system.

A wild Wall'O Text appears!


...

This system should be cool :) Props to slag for getting this all working :)

nice :)

screw trying to understand what is best. i will invest everything in LUCK!

can u make it visible on top right of screen when they expire? I tend to lose bonuses alot.

cool changes

I am with bore on this one. I need all the luck I can get!

I updated the interface a little bit.

Is there a cap on the permanent bonuses. Like can I get my expenses to be negative?

will point costs raise or are they fixed?

"Some of the permanent bonuses have a limit which may or may not be achievable with the number of points given out in a set. For example, if a country achieves a 100% reduction in resource decay, it cannot spend any further points towards that bonus."

Costs are fixed.

man sorry I suck at reading. I looked over it twice and missed that somehow. Anyways, this is probably up there too (or somewhere else already) but can you direct me to a list of the caps for things. Obviously I might invest a lot into one tech if the cap is really high, but might not even start to invest if the cap is lower (for example expenses..)

Should that be undersending?

Looks interesting, and it looks like you tried to take account of some of the comments on the Suggestions boards. Thanks to the admins for all the time they put towards making the game better.

lots of cool new options with this

also, luck=win!

All reduction bonuses are capped at -100%. The other bonuses are not capped.

Tertius: it's oversending.

never mind.... re-read the post

Guessing it can't, but I'll say it anyway.

this is probably wrong but if I do resource decay bonus all first month I'll use 8*30=240 bonus points to get 0% decay on food and money. SO I can stock food until it peaks, sell it, keep all that cash on hand and play out rest of set just stocking cash (lets say I'm a rep casher). Seems pretty badass if I can avoid suiciders?

@slag if it's oversending, then let me try to understand. So a defender has so much defense which you can calculate. Then there is some random modifier which could cause someone to bounce, even if they send just enough to normally break. So then luck reduces that random modifier so that you can oversend by less and still break? And then would it also be true that if you undersend by a little, the random modifier remains unchanged and you still have the small chance to break, but no additional luck bonus?

the way I understand it you have a slight chance of bouncing no matter what but if you send 10% more than the break your chances are lower. It doesn't work the same way with undersending tho, you have no chance of breaking if you undersend.

synoder: you *could* theoretically break by undersending, it'd just be very unlikely

undersending with spies works all the time

hardly seems fair

really qz? hmm then I am with tertius, it seems like the luck bonus would help undersending as well.

Do these bonuses die with a country, or do they stick with the player for the set? Seems like a good way to give a hand to people who, I dunno, have a life and can't wall. :)

@main post
''In addition, lucky countries have a greater chance of getting spy ops against countries with better spy networks and a greater chance of successfully attacking when oversending.''

When did it get so urgent to get a success bonus on attacks when oversending? If you're oversending usually thats because you're sending more than the break no? That would mean the success rate is 100% or is there still that mehul factor?

yeah there is still a chance that you will fail even if you send more than the break.

ttt for a confirmation by slag or someone that it ONLY helps for oversending and that our discussion here is correct?

The over sending comment makes sense.

When you attack a country, you don't necessarily win just because you have: offense = defense + 1

You have a probability of success based on how much you over sent. for less than 3% you chance is somewhere around 65% (I don't know the numbers off the top of my head), between 3% - 6% it is somewhere in the mid 80's, and for greater than 6% it is somewhere in the 90's.

Luck must increase those probabilities.

It decreases the standard deviation of the "random factor".

ah ok, there you go.

are there only 3 bonuses now or is that just a temporary/display thing?

I think it's reduced to 3 bonuses but one gives you 4 points... so the same as before but with less clicks (DoG was full of malware too so a good move)

It will be 3 at least for the immediate future.

We added a notification on the portal about upcoming and available bonuses.

Would it be more prudent to put the 4 bonus points on the 22 hour one? Maybe it would make things too unbalanced but it could also boost the voting for that one site?

well you'd want the most voting on the site that attracts the most members.

there's so many different cooldown's in this game now

6 turn bonus - 18hours
PS 20 hours
bonus 22/24 hours

dont forget dr and pm cooldown :P

and 4 bonus points every week.

could say that stuff selling time is kinda cooldown too.