No timelines on this right now, but I'll share my current thinking. The goal of this change is to make the server more challenging, to improve the health of the public market, and to encourage players to interact more with each other instead of just with NPC countries.

NPC countries will have one of five attacking styles. The attacking style is randomly decided at the beginning of each round at the country level.

1) Never attacks
2) Only retals
3) Retals + prefers to attack countries with the most land on the scores page
4) Retals + prefers to attack countries with the lowest NW/acre on the scores page
5) Retals + prefers to attack countries with the lowest NW on the scores page

Specific behaviors/changes:

* NPC countries can get defensive and intel allies.
* NPC countries can landgrab both players and other NPC countries, even if they haven't been attacked first.
* NPC countries will generally only attack and retal when their country is in good shape. Good shape means having high readiness, a minimum number of acres, being mostly built, and having enough cash, military, and oil to perform the attacks.
* NPC countries will not perform landgrabs against countries in heavy DR.
* NPC countries may choose to retal countries that perform harmful spy ops on them.
* NPC countries will pick a "retal window" between 24 and 72 hours.
* NPC countries will only SS, BR, AB, and launch missiles.
* NPC countries will not attack if they cannot get a spy op.
* NPC countries will not attempt to get alliance spy ops. They will make a random guess as to the defensive power provided by the target's allies.
* NPC countries will only perform special attacks if they have been attacked by their target.
* If an NPC country decides to do special attacks, it will generally perform many of them.

I understand that these changes may not be entirely popular, but please share any constructive feedback that you have.