New Changes are BAD(Beta)

1. From postings, most likely the limit of game creation to High Command only is to cut down on the unnecessary amount of games that go unfilled.

2. Trade market tax- I assume it's to stop players from hiding their resources in the market when their provinces are being taken. Tax seems to be taken regardless of whether it is sold or not, as it should.

3. I haven't had any problems with trading with players from another coalition/team. So you might want to explain your problem further or try again.

Ah I may have read #3 wrong, you can't make diplomatic trades with other players who aren't on your team or coalition.

For #1 they did limit it to only one a month, at least make it half a year or something. And for beta testers it would be useful to make one every month or so. Tax thing I'm not too sure on, I've never done that or seen anyone do it so I don't have personal experience with that.

Agreed, especially for beta testers is is difficult, but I generally search games that are FP every day and join as necessary depending on how my previous FP is going.

I played around with the tax to see how it worked and was using it while being attacked so I noticed it.

Yeah, you can't make positive diplomatic relations other than peace with players from other coalitions/teams, which is more neutral. I thought you were referring to the more general trading.

I would like to give you some background info on what some of these changes are supposed to tackle, as I am sure that some of these are likely to be discussed quite a bit.

Elite AI

This change means that there will be no “Elite AI” as such in the game anymore, as the current “normal AI” will be replaced with the Elite AI. With this change we want game round to be more realistic than they currently are. This change will make AIs play a more active role in the players game experience. Paying more attention to diplomacy with AI will become slightly more important with this change, if player would like to avoid having AIs declaring war on them. This also means that the gold feature for creating a map with Elite AI will be removed as the Elite AI will be available as default and free of charge.

Market Overhaul

The changes to trading and the market in general are designed to make the game more realistic and more balanced for all players participating in the game round. They give players more equal opportunities because circumventing the intended map balance is harder. The changes also add value to being part of a team/coalition, and make it harder for betrayal of a coalition by a member as trading with enemy coalitions is not possible anymore. Additionally, these changes prevent the market being used as a private resource storage, for example to avoid resources being captured when losing the capital.

Cooldown after leaving a coalition

At the same time it makes multi accounting/wolfpacking/pushing harder and adds a minor “punishment” for betrayal of a team without taking the entire strategie of spying on other coalitions by joining them away from the game.

Espionage Name and Price Changes

Despite changing the names of spy actions in the game to make it more obvious what these actions do, we also decided to adjust pricing for spy actions in the game. We reviewed the spy actions and simply acknowledge the power of these espionage measures and believe that the new price points reflect their value. It also means that players will think twice whether they want to invest in the action and are less likely to overuse a powerful spy action.

Thanks for the response! That helps to clarify things a lot more

OK lets be real...

Elite AI replacement... I play tons of elite AI game. Its a far better challenge when people go inactive. However I have played 22 maps where 8, 9 or 10 countries declare on me based on my country location and which ones Im taking out. I have seen elite AI gobble up many a new player and some vets that cant cope. I would think this plan drives new and borderline skill players away from the game not to the game. Also this feature on game creation is a major reason someone will buy HC. So lets see with HC you can create 1 game per month (very low for a membership), you get fire control (That does not work anymore) and If I do want to create a game you get just 3 options. Can anyone in charge here see you are eliminating all the reasons a person would buy a membership? Really how do you sell a new person on the value of purchasing high command?

Market overhaul... OK you ended a tactic to hide resources for countries getting killed. However I was going to kill them anyway so no net gain at all. Plus the way the slider works to purchase is going to cause all kinds of issues with noobs and the drunks.

Cool down... This one is logical and it does annoy me when players coalition hop to get cheap wins. But if me and some fella's plan on teaming up at the end, our plans don't change at, it just takes a bit more time.

Spy changes... Whatever!

None of this feedback means a damn though because no matter how many games FP players test, devs are going to roll out whatever we test. Devs may tweak a bit but they NEVER hear comments and scrap the idea. So as usual I will just adjust to these meaningless changes.

The change I don't agree with the most is the prevention of the trading of units. What's the purpose of changing it from the 10% of total armies limit? How would this improve the game? Unless it's to remove all the advantages of trading units had. (ie. gaining core defence bonuses in AvA's)

AdrianTheStrategist wrote:

The change I don't agree with the most is the prevention of the trading of units. What's the purpose of changing it from the 10% of total armies limit? How would this improve the game? Unless it's to remove all the advantages of trading units had. (ie. gaining core defence bonuses in AvA's)

Citizenkane wrote:

Elite AI replacement... I play tons of elite AI game. Its a far better challenge when people go inactive. However I have played 22 maps where 8, 9 or 10 countries declare on me based on my country location and which ones Im taking out. I have seen elite AI gobble up many a new player and some vets that cant cope. I would think this plan drives new and borderline skill players away from the game not to the game. Also this feature on game creation is a major reason someone will buy HC. So lets see with HC you can create 1 game per month (very low for a membership), you get fire control (That does not work anymore) and If I do want to create a game you get just 3 options. Can anyone in charge here see you are eliminating all the reasons a person would buy a membership? Really how do you sell a new person on the value of purchasing high command?

The fire settings have been opitmized by the dev's and are being tested in Beta games. All the issues we had with with the fire settings AI declaring war and so on will be over.

I hope just as you that HC will get more access to maps and more then one monthly.

Citizenkane wrote:

Market overhaul... OK you ended a tactic to hide resources for countries getting killed. However I was going to kill them anyway so no net gain at all. Plus the way the slider works to purchase is going to cause all kinds of issues with noobs and the drunks.

It really makes me wonder, as all these make very little sense to my simple mind.

Since the loot for capturing a province depends on the province's daily production, what difference does it make this tax? Obviously the only thing affected is the cash in the capital, which is kind of irrelevant (if the player intends to drop out he will hide it nonetheless, if he wants to punish the conqueror - if he wants to play on he should better move the capital anyway).

Better to have a more valid explanation i think.

10% tax:

Do I get it right you now have to pay 10% tax if placing an offer on the market (currently trying to get frontpioneer status back, so I have to ask)? But not in direct trades with another player, yeah?

That would be extremely bad. I always considered games with an active market to be more fun. And what I read from others, I think everyone agrees to that... except for those who don't use the market anyway. The tax would lead to the market being less used. Very negative change.

* Makes it harder to circumvent the resource imbalance given by your country selection: That's bad, it takes away all choices you have and makes it mandatory to build only a certain type of units and to hyperfocus on these even more than you do now already. Deciding which unit you're going to build is about the biggest fun and challenge in the game. Why do want to let this be dictated by your start resource provinces? Also it's really not satisfying if you have a surplus of a certain resource and cannot use it at all, because the market is dead (which it is often enough now already).

* Why in the world do you want to make it even more rewarding to be member of a team/coalition? It's now already extremely hard for single players to join one of the bigger maps since they know they'll have to face coalitions or groups of friends of 4 or 5 members. Sometimes there are hardly any other active and competent players on the map with whom you might team up with against such gangs, even if you're perfect in diplomacy. Less market activity favours even more coalitions and groups of friends which join a map together. Which finally takes the last existing bit of diplomacy out of the game .

Prohibited trade between different teams/coalitions:

What exactly has been implemented? If ONLY trade between a coalition member and a member of a different coalition is prohibited, I would really appreciate such a change!

Cooldown after leaving a coalition:

Sounds good. What exactly has been implemented here?

Hans A. Pils wrote:

Prohibited trade between different teams/coalitions:

What exactly has been implemented? If ONLY trade between a coalition member and a member of a different coalition is prohibited, I would really appreciate such a change!

Even players who are NOT members of a coalition can no longer trade.

Reasons for these changes were given plenty already by BMFox, thanks for that

One of the most important reasons, which was not mentioned yet, is that these changes make it harder for multi accounters, wolf packers and account pushers. Of course the changes won't prevent it completely, but cheating that way is now a greater hassle and can't be done as effectively anymore. There would be much more drastic options to prevent it even more (e.g. removing trading completely like in CoN), we already went with a compromise solution to still keep parts of those beloved features in the game.

The other important reason was, which was mentioned, that we want to make it harder for players to circumvent our game & map balance and to prevent certain exploits. One example would be the circumvention of SBDE by trading units of different levels, which we don't want anymore. Another example is players completely neglecting investing in certain buildings/researches/resource production and still getting the resources/units from someone else. With this change we can predict better which resources a player has available, which helps with our balancing efforts, and it makes it less unfair for players who do not have these kind of connections or master plans.

Yes certain countries have more of some resources than of others, meaning your strategy will most likely change each time you pick another country, adding replay value.

Spoils of war - I personally like a little chaos in my game play. Having everything overly predictable is lame. In a real war a losing country may burn their crops, send their wealth to another country, send arms or tech to another country. Taking away options for a losing player reduces the chance they fight it out it does not increase the chance they fight it out. Also this rule helps me because i am an aggressive player, I just disagree that it helps retention or activity in any way. In my view if a player stays long enough to trade or give away items before you finally kill them is a good thing. That player is staying active, working with other players and is more likely to play again, all benefits for future game play.

I think the bane of many online games i've played over the years is Dev's "cleaning" up all a games loophole in thoughts it would make the game better when the end result was often the exact opposite of its intent.

There is a point at which making the game play more challenging instead makes it more difficult and tedious.

CoN crossed that line, seems CoW is headed in that direction.

Perfect example of throwing out the baby with the bath water... Or cutting off your nose to spite your face... or oh never mind... pointless!!!

WayneBo wrote:

The only 'trades' allowed are relations.

But it still leaves me puzzled: freezy wrote "parts of these features" were still in the game. What are these parts? Who can trade what?

I'm sorry I still have to ask - I still didn't get my frontpioneer status back.

You still can trade resources with members of your team/coalition.

That's even worse!!

There was a time (in Supremacy1914) where no coalitions existed. That made diplomacy the most important part of the game. In order to win, being a good diplomat was even more important than being a good strategist, because you had to be intelligent in order to build up alliances you can rely on. Also figuring out the relations in between the other nations and sometimes trying to modify them was very challenging, diversified and suspenseful. Espionage was important and exciting. Relations between the powers were complex, gave room for all kinds of emotions and revealed all traits a human character can have. There was betrayal, loyalty, lies, honesty... it sometimes even made sense to write anonymous messages or articles to spread rumours or to lead others on a wrong trail.

However, not everyone (in particular modern smartphone users) liked that kind of game or was able to participate in it with a chance of success. Hence the coalition feature was invented, so these can also play in alliances. I understand and can accept that. But in CoW, coalitions are already overpowered. It's already very tough to compete with coalitions if you play only with alliances by sharing maps. And you get no reward for that... while coalition members have a spy-safe chat, get the achievement for winning the map even if finishing only second, third, fourth or fifth place and, more importantly, just don't have to invest anything for getting a very reliable alliance with several others.

Now this change would make it even impossible for Just-share-map-alliances to compete with coalitions. In other words the entire diplomacy part of the game is reduced to just one click (the "join coalition" button).

To sum it up, if this is released, diplomacy and espionage are dead. CoW would be just another dumb "do more clicks or pay more and you'll win for sure" game. That would be very sad and I would seriously consider quitting CoW, although it has the potential to be a great strategy game with just a few tweaks .

Of course it's good to make multi-accounting more difficult. But not at that price!!

Multi-accounting isn't a big problem. I'm sure there are only few players who understand how to trick the IP check. And if these trade resources from one of their countries to another on large scale, spies of the honest players would usually notice that. Sure, you need some Support personnel to check reports on possible multi-accounters and Support personnel is precious, but honestly I'd much rather live with facing a multi-accounter in one of five games (I estimate they're way more seldom... so far I haven't seen any) than being forced to play in coalitions.

And don't answer "you still have the market to trade if you don't play in a coalition". The market now already often is dead. With these changes, everyone will trade within their coalitions only and from the market you can maximally get resources from the AI.

What are wolf packers and account pushers?

Bottom line please either

* prohibit trade within coalitions as well, or

* (better) keep trading of resources allowed for everyone and remove the 10% tax from the market again.

three day cool down after leaving a coalition before you can join another.

if I had known that, I would have accepted all the random applications,

and immediately kicked them out.

WayneBo wrote:

three day cool down after leaving a coalition before you can join another.

if I had known that, I would have accepted all the random applications,

and immediately kicked them out.