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Sov Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 15:20:20

Also with regard to the CD change, the only reason SoF Dict Destroyers (our Dict Techers that drop/destroy land to boost SPAL) don’t sit on more than 40m troops is because CDs wreck us and make it too costly to replenish more. With this change we would likely sit on 50m or 60m or possibly even more troops comfortably making us even harder to kill.

For SoF this change greatly favors us. But overall it will diminish warring.

Gerdler Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 15:41:07

Until 100m troop + 25m spies Rasp walls your chem rush. :)

Sov Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 15:45:25

Haha he needs to wall the chem rush first 😉

Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 18:28:55

Originally posted by BlueCow:
Currently having a cd war in ffa with k4f and I can say cd at it's current state is op. While adding in the spies as a factor is a good idea I think it will severely weaken netters who tend to carry 0 spies and could allow war clans to steam roll them.

K4f does have some great ideas on his post.


I confirm, I tried breaking his 130m troops conventionally, and it was not too bad with the right setup. however, killing 130m troops, cost me about 100m troops. Meanwhile, I dropped the land on a country for CD, 10 ops killed 80m troops, on another one of his countries.

My cost of breaking normally was 100m troops, and a boatload of oil, whereas, using 8m spies and 20 ops, I can kill just as many troops as I lost, with a total cost of 20 turns.

Both of our countries are well made, but spamming CD ops, is by far the most effective method of war once countries pass a certain size, and this shouldnt be the case with either a High spy High Land country spying someone smaller with less spies, or a 8m spy country killing 100m troops in 20 turns.

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Sov Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 21:45:23

Originally posted by Kill4Free:
Originally posted by BlueCow:
Currently having a cd war in ffa with k4f and I can say cd at it's current state is op. While adding in the spies as a factor is a good idea I think it will severely weaken netters who tend to carry 0 spies and could allow war clans to steam roll them.

K4f does have some great ideas on his post.


I confirm, I tried breaking his 130m troops conventionally, and it was not too bad with the right setup. however, killing 130m troops, cost me about 100m troops. Meanwhile, I dropped the land on a country for CD, 10 ops killed 80m troops, on another one of his countries.

My cost of breaking normally was 100m troops, and a boatload of oil, whereas, using 8m spies and 20 ops, I can kill just as many troops as I lost, with a total cost of 20 turns.

Both of our countries are well made, but spamming CD ops, is by far the most effective method of war once countries pass a certain size, and this shouldnt be the case with either a High spy High Land country spying someone smaller with less spies, or a 8m spy country killing 100m troops in 20 turns.




If this was a real scenario the smart move for the country first CDed would be to not respond with ops thus keeping himself in spy DR.

DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 22:42:40

Regarding CS, I have always thought all attacks and ops shouldnt destroy CS...like at all. I've advocated for that for a long long time. Seems most of the community is for none or next to none. It's just a set ruiner for all of us and removing it would make recovery so much more possible.

All of Sov's comments about war having dramatically less parity seem spot on as well.

Sov Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 22:55:13

This is the 2nd time in a row you have agreed with me. I fear that a 3rd time may mean the coming forth of an internet apocalypse.

Bug Game profile

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Jun 2nd 2021, 23:54:25

Originally posted by Sov:
Originally posted by Kill4Free:
Originally posted by BlueCow:
Currently having a cd war in ffa with k4f and I can say cd at it's current state is op. While adding in the spies as a factor is a good idea I think it will severely weaken netters who tend to carry 0 spies and could allow war clans to steam roll them.

K4f does have some great ideas on his post.


I confirm, I tried breaking his 130m troops conventionally, and it was not too bad with the right setup. however, killing 130m troops, cost me about 100m troops. Meanwhile, I dropped the land on a country for CD, 10 ops killed 80m troops, on another one of his countries.

My cost of breaking normally was 100m troops, and a boatload of oil, whereas, using 8m spies and 20 ops, I can kill just as many troops as I lost, with a total cost of 20 turns.

Both of our countries are well made, but spamming CD ops, is by far the most effective method of war once countries pass a certain size, and this shouldnt be the case with either a High spy High Land country spying someone smaller with less spies, or a 8m spy country killing 100m troops in 20 turns.




If this was a real scenario the smart move for the country first CDed would be to not respond with ops thus keeping himself in spy DR.


Hold up.. Spy DR only wears off with time, not if you do other spyops yourself. just FYI.

Sov Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 0:27:47

Originally posted by Bug:
Originally posted by Sov:
Originally posted by Kill4Free:
Originally posted by BlueCow:
Currently having a cd war in ffa with k4f and I can say cd at it's current state is op. While adding in the spies as a factor is a good idea I think it will severely weaken netters who tend to carry 0 spies and could allow war clans to steam roll them.

K4f does have some great ideas on his post.


I confirm, I tried breaking his 130m troops conventionally, and it was not too bad with the right setup. however, killing 130m troops, cost me about 100m troops. Meanwhile, I dropped the land on a country for CD, 10 ops killed 80m troops, on another one of his countries.

My cost of breaking normally was 100m troops, and a boatload of oil, whereas, using 8m spies and 20 ops, I can kill just as many troops as I lost, with a total cost of 20 turns.

Both of our countries are well made, but spamming CD ops, is by far the most effective method of war once countries pass a certain size, and this shouldnt be the case with either a High spy High Land country spying someone smaller with less spies, or a 8m spy country killing 100m troops in 20 turns.




If this was a real scenario the smart move for the country first CDed would be to not respond with ops thus keeping himself in spy DR.


Hold up.. Spy DR only wears off with time, not if you do other spyops yourself. just FYI.



Are you sure about that? Because when a spied out target spies us we generally can CD/demo them again and have been doing as such for some time. Also if it didn’t then those guys wouldn’t be able to do what they are talking about above.

Gerdler Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 0:37:35

They are talking about FFA and they have 16 multies each, so it's entirely possible that they have both better and worse spal than each others at the same time. :)

Bug Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 0:40:55

yeah those guys in ffa have really similar stats accross all 16 countries..

Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 4:05:47

Originally posted by Gerdler:
They are talking about FFA and they have 16 multies each, so it's entirely possible that they have both better and worse spal than each others at the same time. :)


You are 100% correct, all it takes is for 1 outta 4 people to take a hit and drop land, and spies become the all powerful death tool for troops. Meanwhile in the same situation, me not dropping land, my spies are impotent on both offense and defense.
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Gerdler Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 14:26:45

I would like to point out that a lot of the opposition toward this change is as such: 'We will have countries that we are unable to break with GS due to this. '

While at the same time recognicing that this change will lead to players running higher spies, higher troops. Now since GS is being done today on almost all kill runs because CDs are overpowered, this will clearly also lead to more BRs, which leads to players having more jets, which leads to the need for turrets increasing. So your country will carry more troops, jets, turrets and spies leading to higher expenses, and because you had to run higher ICs for a longer time you will enter war with less stock.
Not only that but weaker CDs and more BRs lead to bigger losses of oil and units on kill runs. All of this put together will lead to faster stock shrinkage.
So while your troops dont risk being halved in 17 turns by some enemy CDer, this will lead to some countries running out of stock faster most likely depending on how they adapt to this.

At some point you will end up being forced to allow yourself to be breakable, unless you are winning the war or somehow stocked vastly more than all your enemies, in which case I think we can all agree that you deserve to be challenging to kill, correct?

Sov Game profile

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Jun 3rd 2021, 15:03:49

I can't envisage BRs being widely adapted as a result of this. The main reason why GS is the main kill for most killruns in late wars is because you are already carrying so many troops. In many cases, BR may be the lower break but conducting those killruns entails the attacking side spending significant resources to carry a large amount of jets which serve no defensive purpose.

The problem is that countries are already too hard to kill, well played countries that is, especially when taking walling in to account. Just look at the last SoF vs Mercs war which basically ended in a stalemate because both sides had unkillable countries. This would magnify that problem and also disadvantage any alliance which is slightly weaker. It doesn't make wars more competitive and will reduce kills even more.

The fun in war is killing. Killing is more enjoyable as a whole than surviving. Sure an individual waller may feel strong personal achievement in surviving the war, but for the most part everyone goes in to a war expecting to die. This is effectively reducing killing which will also fundamentally reduce the enjoyment. It will make wars less competitive.

In terms of stock depletion, I don't think that will be a huge factor. On the contrary, countries which may have previously been opportunistic kills (lots of stock, lots of resources but by chance not online) now are under less threat because they are so much harder to kill, therefore are far more likely to survive because any kills on them would require more planning. Last set after breaking in every warchat, being CDed daily and FAing SoFers daily I still finished with I think something like 400m bushels. If anything, under this change I will finish with more stock because I won't be losing as much to CDs.

CDs may seem overpowered but they are a great equalizer by giving weaker countries the *opportunity* to kill otherwise unkillable ones.

As I have said before, SoF will benefit from these changes just due to how we set ourselves up for war. Dictatorships with high spy counts and very large stock levels. Other tags will be disadvantaged by this and will likely have to revise their strategies. But all in all war will be less competitive and there will be less kills, thus there will be less enjoyment.

Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 2:59:07

Originally posted by Sov:

The problem is that countries are already too hard to kill, well played countries that is, especially when taking walling in to account. Just look at the last SoF vs Mercs war which basically ended in a stalemate because both sides had unkillable countries. This would magnify that problem and also disadvantage any alliance which is slightly weaker. It doesn't make wars more competitive and will reduce kills even more.


I do not think that it would magnify the problem of unkillable countries, this change would reduce the effectiveness of countries that drop land, which are the main bane of countries that still have income.

If everyone did exactly the same, sure it would increase the issue. But if there was very little benefit to dropping land, now that quantity of spies is the only real thing that matters when it comes to damaging the enemy, people will not be doing that as often. Better to have a country with income, and take the occasional CD hit with the new change. I think this will lead to increase wartime income levels, which will reduce stalemates.
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Sov Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 3:22:19

Originally posted by Kill4Free:
Originally posted by Sov:

The problem is that countries are already too hard to kill, well played countries that is, especially when taking walling in to account. Just look at the last SoF vs Mercs war which basically ended in a stalemate because both sides had unkillable countries. This would magnify that problem and also disadvantage any alliance which is slightly weaker. It doesn't make wars more competitive and will reduce kills even more.


I do not think that it would magnify the problem of unkillable countries, this change would reduce the effectiveness of countries that drop land, which are the main bane of countries that still have income.

If everyone did exactly the same, sure it would increase the issue. But if there was very little benefit to dropping land, now that quantity of spies is the only real thing that matters when it comes to damaging the enemy, people will not be doing that as often. Better to have a country with income, and take the occasional CD hit with the new change. I think this will lead to increase wartime income levels, which will reduce stalemates.


Ok well put it this way.... Mercs got an opportunistic kill on Ninong last set which was great. Ninong at the time had more stock than any top Mercs country (well over 600m bushels worth of stock). Ninong's DD had 30m troops, down from 40m because he was being CDed a lot. Now with this change it doesn't matter whether Ninong has 30m or 50m because the amount he is CDed will remain the same, so now he is going to carry 50m troops. But now you cannot CD him as much either, so you can't get the break down.... End result would likely be that Ninong wouldn't have died.

Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 3:32:11

I think you underestimate our capabilities. You do realise that I had enough stock to break 1-2 countries SoF a day as a solo first break, every day for the entire war, all it woulda cost me to break an extra 10m troops, is a few turns, and 20m food, and perhaps an extra 3 seconds (Between declare war, and demo gives me the loss advantage). And yes, you can say that it is easier to carry a higher standing military without the CD worry, that also applies to our side as well. If everyone has higher military, it increases the fast break capabilities of both sides.

Your point does stand though, I could be wrong, and the whole spy system might need a full revamp.
Losing x% of your spies on a failed op is brutally expensive, can cost up to 10 turns to make good the losses. If the spy effectiveness is lowered, I think that spy % loss on a failed op should be lowered too, so both risk and reward is lower, which would balance out to just burning more turns to accomplish some results.
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DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 16:27:16

Yeah haha. If you run 10 CDs on a spied out dude your country will be worthless for like 4 days haha.

I see it happening the way sov says it and the way I said it and not any other way. It's a bit speculative because certainly people will adapt. I think in this case tho, the good players will adapt to being unkillable which like sov said. It's part of war. I think it would lower outcomes and quality and usefulness of the entire tag. The further we are from two or three countries with a high spy total getting killed by an OP chem rush deciding wars totally in a day and the whole rest of the set being a grind, the more fun our meta is. When I see this, I instantly see less kills. Less kills hurts our meta, especially when coupling that with diminishing the usefulness of restarts.

Maybe bring back lemming efficacy?

Edited By: DerrickICN on Jun 4th 2021, 16:43:51
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Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 16:57:20

Originally posted by DerrickICN:
Yeah haha. If you run 10 CDs on a spied out dude your country will be worthless for like 4 days haha.

I see it happening the way sov says it and the way I said it and not any other way. It's a bit speculative because certainly people will adapt. I think in this case tho, the good players will adapt to being unkillable which like sov said. It's part of war. I think it would lower outcomes and quality and usefulness of the entire tag. The further we are from two or three countries with a high spy total getting killed by an OP chem rush deciding wars totally in a day and the whole rest of the set being a grind, the more fun our meta is. When I see this, I instantly see less kills. Less kills hurts our meta, especially when coupling that with diminishing the usefulness of restarts.

Maybe bring back lemming efficacy?


Well I believe I only have 1 death over the last year in 1a. Good players are already pretty much unkillable, and I don't do the drop land to max my SPAL either. I go for the extra income a larger country provides, and use that to make up my CD losses. And who cares about the Meta, if the rules change, the Meta has to change. Your guy's opinion is "This hurts how we currently do things", my opinion is "Figure out a way to do things better/different". I provided solutions (Aka, bring more land to the table now that spies arent as crippling). And the response is "This hurts kills, which hurts Meta". Screw Meta. I have come up with several strategies already that can take great advantage of this change, which would increase kills, just because you can't see it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

Adapt, overcome succeed!

Or

Complain how this is inconvenient to the way you currently do things.
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Dark Demon Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 18:06:05

Lol there needs to be a balance between players somewhat
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Gerdler Game profile

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Jun 4th 2021, 18:24:43

Originally posted by Kill4Free:
And who cares about the Meta, if the rules change, the Meta has to change. Your guy's opinion is "This hurts how we currently do things", my opinion is "Figure out a way to do things better/different". I provided solutions (Aka, bring more land to the table now that spies arent as crippling). And the response is "This hurts kills, which hurts Meta". Screw Meta. I have come up with several strategies already that can take great advantage of this change, which would increase kills, just because you can't see it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

Adapt, overcome succeed!

Or

Complain how this is inconvenient to the way you currently do things.

You have a very good attitude towards the game! +1

Requiem Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 1:59:04

CDs have been way too OP, probably for a decade; it'd be about time they get a nerf. I hope CMs are next.

Why shouldn't a country with 50m troops be hard to kill?

This game isn't youth soccer, and everyone doesn't get a medal. Also, K4F makes a good point(s).

DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 13:54:18

Originally posted by Kill4Free:
Originally posted by DerrickICN:
Yeah haha. If you run 10 CDs on a spied out dude your country will be worthless for like 4 days haha.

I see it happening the way sov says it and the way I said it and not any other way. It's a bit speculative because certainly people will adapt. I think in this case tho, the good players will adapt to being unkillable which like sov said. It's part of war. I think it would lower outcomes and quality and usefulness of the entire tag. The further we are from two or three countries with a high spy total getting killed by an OP chem rush deciding wars totally in a day and the whole rest of the set being a grind, the more fun our meta is. When I see this, I instantly see less kills. Less kills hurts our meta, especially when coupling that with diminishing the usefulness of restarts.

Maybe bring back lemming efficacy?


Well I believe I only have 1 death over the last year in 1a. Good players are already pretty much unkillable, and I don't do the drop land to max my SPAL either. I go for the extra income a larger country provides, and use that to make up my CD losses. And who cares about the Meta, if the rules change, the Meta has to change. Your guy's opinion is "This hurts how we currently do things", my opinion is "Figure out a way to do things better/different". I provided solutions (Aka, bring more land to the table now that spies arent as crippling). And the response is "This hurts kills, which hurts Meta". Screw Meta. I have come up with several strategies already that can take great advantage of this change, which would increase kills, just because you can't see it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

Adapt, overcome succeed!

Or

Complain how this is inconvenient to the way you currently do things.

If you're gonna come at my opinion, dont be so overzealous. This will absolutely not increase kills. That defies all logic.

Further, I've suggested many changes to this game, some of which have been adopted and considered. To say I'm resistant to change isnt the case. I'm resistant to less kills, for sure. And I have my reasons for it. But its not because of any of the reasons you said. Even said some of the things are speculative and that I'd be more into this idea if they fixed expenses in addition. Theres more parts to it than just hesitation to all change. That's why we're having the discussion. I'm looking at the whole picture, not just the one sentence and the way I play.

Edited By: DerrickICN on Jun 5th 2021, 14:16:03
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Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 14:09:45

Did Derrick just call someone else overzealous?

Also it is your opinion that it slows kills, consider it this way.

->Main reason large land/large income countries arent common, is due to lower SPAL and are CD targets
->Most wars in 1a are fought with income negative countries, hence resources are hoarded
->Decreasing spy effectiveness lowers the risk of having more land, and being able to throw more resources at a target
->More resources thrown at a target, decreases kill times
->Larger land countries can get troops off PM at a far better rate, further increasing resources that can be thrown at a target
->You ignore all of the benefits directly to ops that this change would do.

Yes, you and your Meta. Ive been bringing in 80k acre plus countries to wars in 1a for a while, and have been eating the daily CD cost. Your logic only applies, if the change happens, and everyone does exactly the same thing (low land income negative war builds), then this change would be detrimental to kills. Once another strategy is shown to be superior, meta changes to support that. You do NOT choose and pick changes to make the meta more meta.

I stand by everything I said in this thread.
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DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 14:37:24

I disagree for a couple reasons, and that's ok.

Thats because success rate will still be determined primarily by SPAL still, and this only affects the returns in the same circumstances, not dramatically shifting how ops will be done. You're correct tho. Obviously CDs have needed narfed for a long time, and this would succeed in that for all the reasons you've listed, but only in cases you have a higher spy total. I suggested moving the 0.04 based on troops to 0.03 for this reason, actually offering a suggestion which further narfs CD in those situations. Do you think that's a bad suggestion? Do you think that's me saying bad things about narfing CDs? It's not, again, I've been one of the most vocal proponents of this for years. And this does not succeed in narfing CD for a well defended netter for example. He asked if we thought the numbers were good, my answer is no I dont. I think it should be lower still for the troop based factor. Should I not say that and just shut up and fall in line because any change is good change, or were we having a conversation about the numbers?

I agree that this change would help with your current FFA war with hawk, but so too would just reducing the troop factor to even 0.03, or even 0.02. Are those things not worth considering? Especially for people who arent war prepped and suffer a blindside, this change isnt even remotely beneficial. It wont change a thing. And if I'm larger acres and higher spies than my opponent, but lower spal, people will still be dropping acres for those ops.

Something as simple as changing the expenses formula slightly would make this change a million times better. I'm not saying everything about it is bad, considering I've been probably the largest megaphone in the game calling for CD narf for over a decade. I wouldnt have suggested it a thousand times if I wasnt for CDs getting narfed. The basis of the change is obviously a very very good thing. I'm for it, Im just for amending it in a way that also encourages building. Again, I think that's why we have the discussion.

Let me pose a question to you. Slag asked what the numbers should be because he hasn't warred in a while. Do you honestly think 0.04 of troops, 0.04 of spies is perfect?

Edited By: DerrickICN on Jun 5th 2021, 15:52:42
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Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 15:52:33

I agree Derrick, the expense of spies plays a massive part in why people drop land to improve Spal, lowering expenses would also help in that area. Your suggestion for just reducing the factor for CD would work, however I really like Slagpits point of, if you attack someone with 1m spies, and can kill 5m troops, is a bit silly, his proposed change would mean damage done is directly correlated to quantity of spies, while the success factor is still attributed towards land.

I believe splitting up the two factors, so your SPAL matters, and also, total quantity matters, will give a higher diversification of builds for war, while not penalising income positive countries to the extent that they are now, or even if the factor was lowered slightly would be.

My war with Hawk is a bit ridiculous and not really an example of a typical war, we both have hundreds of billions of $$ of resources, oil, troops. This is basically the extreme of large countries, vs spal stockpile countries. Ive done thousands of attacks, and in all those attacks, I probably only killed 1b troops from breaking. Now I dropped land on 4 countries to make spy bunnies. Those spy countries have probably killed around 3b troops on their own, for the cost of a handful of spies. Even halving the current value will still make CD the most powerful weapon, while changing it to be based off of spies would stop and entire string of 16 countries from being ruined by 4 countries (which would be more realistic).
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DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 15:59:49

Well it should be a bit of both. Slags question was if the numbers looked right. I think, for example, if you went 0.03 of troops max, 0.05 of spies max (lowering the maximum of all countries max CD by 3/4 regardless of spy total, but having a more limited scope of spy adjustment, where you can have slightly less spies and still get full op power, but only slightly...1% less I'm saying), an expenses formula like (1+NW/(5*10^8)) and more limited to elimination of destruction of construction sites in an attack, and more especially in bomb buildings op, that this change is awesome. I'm just looking at countering some unintended side effects in agreeing CDs need a narf. That's my opinion in a nutshell.

Edited By: DerrickICN on Jun 5th 2021, 16:03:09
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Kill4Free Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 16:12:38

Im 100% with you on the CS.

As for the more limited approach, your statement makes sense, however I do like his original proposal, and I think it would shake things up. Some people have been using the exact same strategy every set, for half a decade (even longer), I think a change that refreshes the playstyle will get people going back to the drawing board to come up with a new setup that is more effective, and bring a bit of life into the game (regardless of the fact it fixes how powerful spies are).
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DerrickICN Game profile

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Jun 5th 2021, 16:19:12

Yeah 100%. The change makes a ton of sense if spies decrease in price the more you get, rather than doubling in price every so many nw on a hockey stick shaped exponent. Would really shake things up if a massive 150k 300 SPAL country could be out there wrecking and still be financially viable in conjunction with this change. Would be awesome. Good builders would be rewarded with good restarts if chem rushed, etc.

Edited By: DerrickICN on Jun 5th 2021, 16:24:20
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