Why are Revolts a Thing?

Great question. I agree with all of your points.

For some reason, there are people who think that annoying players with these revolts is good for the game. That it levels the playing field, keeps winners from winning too quickly. I personally think the winner is going to win, and that revolts just prolong games in a totally obnoxious way. But that's just my opinion.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I get the leveling the playing field, but they could do it in a manner that is not so annoying.

Please understand that war is not a sport and that there are players who do not want this game to become a sport.

I believe that the essence of war lies in the intermingling of people's thoughts and desires to move forward with various intentions and motives.

I don't want the results to converge to predictable results.

Because everything is inexplicable, because there are uncertainties, ironic endings and cruel decisions are necessary.

I understand your concerns, but this is a game. There is a massive difference between the real world and the real lives lost and the families destroyed. I simply want a mechanic in a game to be improved or removed. In no way do I support any form of violence in the real world. At the end of the day this is a game and in a way, the game is a sport. I think we can agree to disagree. Also that was beautiful writing on your end.

Armymac3000 wrote:

I understand your concerns, but this is a game. There is a massive difference between the real world and the real lives lost and the families destroyed. I simply want a mechanic in a game to be improved or removed. In no way do I support any form of violence in the real world. At the end of the day this is a game and in a way, the game is a sport. I think we can agree to disagree. Also that was beautiful writing on your end.

However, I have a negative impression about the loss of uncertainty and non-linearity.

In short, my main interest is whether stochastic behavior is simulated.

pod_than wrote:

my main interest is whether stochastic behavior is simulated

They recently made revolts less likely with a release a few months ago. I've almost never had issues with this, but I usually time taking a capital for just before day change.

6thDragon wrote:

They recently made revolts less likely with a release a few months ago. I've almost never had issues with this, but I usually time taking a capital for just before day change.

You're right, it's better now than it was a few months ago, and the capital timing helps as well.

The revolt issue becomes truly revolting as the game gets closer to ending.

The winner is getting hit with distance and expansion penalties, and AI capitals become scarce.

At these later stages, games can become very annoying.

Nobody needs this.

Least of all Bytro, which is paying to maintain servers just to run old maps nobody wants to play any more.

Let games end more smoothly, there is no need to punish people who want to finish a map.

Both the revolt and popularity "features" are advertised as a counter to 'big' countries getting too big too fast.

In fact both system negatively affect ANY player that ventures outside his core. Both also have very unrealistic rationales, which alienates many players.

The distance to capital penalty is another absurdity; are Hawaiians are despondent since they live so

far from Washington, DC?

cycle9 wrote:

Both the revolt and popularity "features" are advertised as a counter to 'big' countries getting too big too fast.

In fact both system negatively affect ANY player that ventures outside his core. Both also have very unrealistic rationales, which alienates many players.

The distance to capital penalty is another absurdity; are Hawaiians are despondent since they live so

far from Washington, DC?

Mainlanders are legally/superficially friendly though, discriminatory on the inside.

It can even manifest itself on the physical space.

For instance, do you know Honouliuli Internment Camp?

Such cases are not limited to Hawaii, and even if there is an "if" in history, I think it happened.

This is all true. Hawaii is different. Being where they are, and being "acquired" the way they were, a those things matter to Hawaiians.

That said... this has nothing to do with game play. The official response to a lot of our complaints about "realism" is that CoW is a game, not a simulation, and that playability trumps realism.

Revolts are annoying. They don't make the game better, they make the game last longer, needlessly.

What about it, Freezy? Let's make the game more fun. Get rid of revolts.

z00mz00m wrote:

Revolts are annoying. They don't make the game better, they make the game last longer, needlessly.

I disagree. I think revolts are necessary to slow expansion down. I'd be fine reducing the end game penalties that keep dozens of territories in the red, with target morales of like 15%, but I don't think we should do away with revolts entirely.

What if revolts were only possible on the day change after capture? This would force expanding players to account for them and plan accordingly, potentially slowing their advance, while avoiding the end game misery of dozens of daily revolts.

jubjub bird wrote:

I disagree. I think revolts are necessary to slow expansion down. I'd be fine reducing the end game penalties that keep dozens of territories in the red, with target morales of like 15%, but I don't think we should do away with revolts entirely.

What if revolts were only possible on the day change after capture? This would force expanding players to account for them and plan accordingly, potentially slowing their advance, while avoiding the end game misery of dozens of daily revolts.

Personally, I don't mind revolts, but I think they lack a little more teeth; perhaps if there was a chance militia spawned in revolting provinces. I'm no expert, but believe partisans played a more than inconsequential role in WWII.

What I don't understand is having your own troops join the revolt. How often did this happen during WWII? Although I'll admit, I use to get a lot of milage out of putting gimped units in provinces I expected to revolt. When they would join, they were easy to deal with and I didn't have them weighing down my upkeep or easy fodder for an opponent to increase their own KD at the expense of mine.

Great point about intentional morale reduction as a strategy to spawn revolts in enemy provinces

pod_than wrote:

It is better that a game is a game for me too.However, I have a negative impression about the loss of uncertainty and non-linearity.

In short, my main interest is whether stochastic behavior is simulated.

On this subject, do you know if CoW 2.0 has done away with probability in attacks? Because it seems that if it hasn't been downplayed it has been removed, although perhaps this is memory.

I would go so far as to say that there should be more randomness in battle; particularly in naval battles between ships of the line, as at Tsushima, Jutland, and of course Denmark Strait, victories were achieved often at least partly by luck. I do not know but on land this is probably the same (although any given target is less valuable so the effect may be much less).

I think that the efficacy of units, particularly ranged units, ought to be subject more to chance than it is.

That said, it is my view that CoW is not perfect but is best the way it is; I don't think changing anything for its own sake is good.

But why would you want the chance of defeat when your troops/vehicle are clearly better. I get wanting to give a chance for the under dog to win, but if they want to win, they need to have something that they can rely on to win not just chance/rng. It would be incredibility annoying if you have a big fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers and have all of that be destroyed by a few subs. Or if you had a air attack with strategic bombers and fighters just to be destroyed by a few AA units or fighters. Both are completely possible in real life but this isn't real life.

If I have more troops/vehicles and they are better than yours (and little to no defense bonus) then you should lose that engagement. I don't think this game is any where close to being a simulation of war, so why are we trying to push it that way? In my opinion, there are much better games that do simulate the absolute randomness of war and war as a whole.

Also I like the quotes at the end.

Armymac3000 wrote:

But why would you want the chance of defeat when your troops/vehicle are clearly better. I get wanting to give a chance for the under dog to win, but if they want to win, they need to have something that they can rely on to win not just chance/rng. It would be incredibility annoying if you have a big fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers and have all of that be destroyed by a few subs. Or if you had a air attack with strategic bombers and fighters just to be destroyed by a few AA units or fighters. Both are completely possible in real life but this isn't real life.

If I have more troops/vehicles and they are better than yours (and little to no defense bonus) then you should lose that engagement. I don't think this game is any where close to being a simulation of war, so why are we trying to push it that way? In my opinion, there are much better games that do simulate the absolute randomness of war and war as a whole.

Also I like the quotes at the end

I do not want chance so the underdog should win. If he can use chance to his benefit good for him, but it shouldn't have sufficient effect on the game that any player could win largely due to it.

The reason I want chance in battles is due to the complexity of Call of War. In chess, go, or checkers, there is no chance. These are essentially abstract strategy games and any mention of "battle" is purely by analogy. In addition they are very simple. They don't need it and it dilutes the raw strategic skill of a player.

Call of War is more like Risk. Risk is more complex, simulating strategic goals and large-scale battles between opposing armies. Like Call of War, is intentionally less abstract and the pieces resemble real soldiers and the board the real world*. Because of this, it is necessary to have a chance mechanic in battles, because in real life chance is always an issue†. All of these conditions are the same as Call of War, so I think Call of War should incorporate more chance into its battles.

Re your naval scenario, in Risk, if an army of 12 challenges an army of 1 it is almost bound to win, but can also lose. I agree, it would be frustrating to lose a whole fleet to a few enemies. I do not want this to happen. In Call of War, it should not be possible for this to happen. It is ridiculous. Nevertheless, I think the element of chance should be there (I would say damage should be affected to around 20 per cent on each side of the nominal value).

It may even make the game more interesting; sometimes, as at Kokoda, small armies were able to hold off large ones against the odds (also due to the terrain). If this happened in-game it might make for a more diverse experience, possibly also useful to "'let's play" or narrative-type players.

Also thanks about the quotes! You should get some of your own.

*,† I agree with Pod-than that this game need not always be fully realistic; but I also agree that uncertainty must exist.

Lord Crayfish wrote:

Nevertheless, I think the element of chance should be there (I would say damage should be affected to around 20 per cent on each side of the nominal value).

Lord Crayfish wrote:

I am not sure if you are addressing me; I'll assume so.I do not want chance so the underdog should win. If he can use chance to his benefit good for him, but it shouldn't have sufficient effect on the game that any player could win largely due to it.

The reason I want chance in battles is due to the complexity of Call of War. In chess, go, or checkers, there is no chance. These are essentially abstract strategy games and any mention of "battle" is purely by analogy. In addition they are very simple. They don't need it and it dilutes the raw strategic skill of a player.

Call of War is more like Risk. Risk is more complex, simulating strategic goals and large-scale battles between opposing armies. Like Call of War, is intentionally less abstract and the pieces resemble real soldiers and the board the real world*. Because of this, it is necessary to have a chance mechanic in battles, because in real life chance is always an issue†. All of these conditions are the same as Call of War, so I think Call of War should incorporate more chance into its battles.

Re your naval scenario, in Risk, if an army of 12 challenges an army of 1 it is almost bound to win, but can also lose. I agree, it would be frustrating to lose a whole fleet to a few enemies. I do not want this to happen. In Call of War, it should not be possible for this to happen. It is ridiculous. Nevertheless, I think the element of chance should be there (I would say damage should be affected to around 20 per cent on each side of the nominal value).

It may even make the game more interesting; sometimes, as at Kokoda, small armies were able to hold off large ones against the odds (also due to the terrain). If this happened in-game it might make for a more diverse experience, possibly also useful to "'let's play" or narrative-type players.

Also thanks about the quotes! You should get some of your own.

*,† I agree with Pod-than that this game need not always be fully realistic; but I also agree that uncertainty must exist.

"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."

— Navy SEALs

Edit: didn't mean to make a new thread