This is a groundbreaking proposal that will require the reader to really pay attention in order to fully grasp the importance of — and need for — this suggestion.
~O~
OK. So I've been thinking about the research system. It's designed to encourage players to choose only portions of the total stock of technologies and focus on them. I can agree with that, in principle (somewhat), but it offers a terrible disadvantage in a game where there are many players in some individual matches.
It's one thing for you and your enemy to both focus on naval technologies. But if you are an island-centric nation and you are surrounded by vast land-based empires, your navy will never be able to compete in the long run. So spending your research on naval power -- which makes sense in the early game for an island nation -- will have been an utter failure since you can't compete on land once your competition has grown past you in the mainland. The most you can hope for is your nearest neighbors to go inactive so you can sneak onto the mainland and take over their holdings without much resistance just so you can grow your army to take on the active mainland players, later on.
At the same time, if you are a small but powerful landlocked nation in the Pacific Map per se, and your competitors are on the other side of the map with vast navies, you'll never be able to successfully cross the ocean safely enough to invade their lands. Moreover, they're going to eventually be able to transport their entire armies into your lands thus overwhelming you because they have a monopoly on the seas.
Some players like to hyperfocus on very few technologies, i.e., Tanks and Bombers, where they can gain an early/mid game advantage if they are lucky enough to secure a good supply of Oil. Other players like to hyperfocus on just Infantry and slow-moving guns so they can turtle up and never offer much to the game and, heaven forbid, if anyone tries to invade their puny nation, it'll cost the invader dearly, thus freeing up a third nation to wipe out both of these two after they've decimated each other.
~O~
Sure, those various scenarios offer a variety of playing styles. But the problem with them is that you are pigeon-holed into your decision -- like going down a rabbit trail -- where you can't just back out and change your mind without suffering vast technological deficiencies. So, if you decide to change your focus on naval power (for instance) into air power, your newly-constructed air forces will not be able to compete against your competitors who already built up their air corps and so your change in focus will only fail.
The point, here, is that the technology is divided into five main groups...well four really, with the "secret" branch being more like a special or supplementary branch to the main four branches. And with the various prerequisite technologies being more varied up front, the early game forces you to at least research Infantry before you can research most of the other slow ground-based technologies and you must research the Armored Car before you can research many of the other armored ground-based technologies. Until the recent categories change, you had to research Fighters before you could research AA. And, despite the reorganization of the categories, you still must research slow Artillery guns before you can research fast Self-Propelled Artillery.
Now, those cross-category research requirements in the early game do help to balance the play somewhat. But the fact that they only affect the research focus for balancing in the early game is problematic. Because the typical player might only research levels 1 and 2 of Artillery so that they can unlock the SP-Artillery and only research and build the SP versions from there, thus never researching beyond level 2 of regular Artillery and never wanting to build any, anyway.
Now, I'm not in favor of forcing any player to build a balanced military. Though I much prefer balance, myself, if someone else wants to build nothing but Bombers, that's their choice. But as it stands, now, the way the technology system is set up, it encourages players to hyperfocus on only a few technologies.
~O~
So I propose this change. First, the prerequisites for various techs should continue to be cross-category far and above the early versions of each tech area. For example, instead of just requiring level 2 AA tech before researching level 1 SP-AA, maybe the level 3 SP-AA should require level 4 AA tech in addition to level 3 SP-AA tech. And, the level 5 Naval Bomber should require maybe level 3 Tac Bomber tech combined with level 4 Submarine tech...this would simulate the impetus behind both the need for and ingenuity behind the design of a more advanced Naval Bomber. Maybe it would make sense for a level 4 Light Tank to require the engine upgrades designed for a level 3 Armored Car. And maybe a level 3 Transport Ship should require a level 2 Medium Tank to be researched to simulate the need for, not just a faster ship, but one with a larger cargo-hold for those heavier units.
Already, this kind of thinking is behind the Nuclear Bomber...the higher level Nuke Bombers require higher-level Strategic Bomber technology. So why not implement this across the board?
Then, to facilitate this need for more research, so that the pigeon-holing isn't just prevented, but the ability to actually keep up in research across the board is better-balanced, I propose more research slots be made available. However, I am not proposing more of the slots as they currently are. Instead, there needs to be only one research slot per each of the four main categories and one additional slot for any category including the Secret branch. This way, you will always have one research slot dedicated to the naval branch, one for the Air branch, one for the Infantry branch, and one for the Armored branch.
The fifth slot can focus on the Secret branch while being able to supplement any of the other branches as well. I believe that fifth slot would offer both an additional bit of balance as well as enabling players the ability to still choose to focus on fewer technological paths, somewhat.
~O~
Thus, to sum up, my proposal is twofold:
1.) Increase the prerequisite technologies for higher level techs with cross-category requirements.
2.) Have 5 research slots...1 for each of the 4 main categories and the 5th. slot for any category including Secret.
Mod edit - changed the title of this thread as it is obviously not "Top Priority"
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.Please log in to post a reply.
This sounds awful.Diabolical wrote:
Well, if you took the time to read and comprehend my proposal, you'd see that it's not 5 vs. 2 or 5 vs. 3 slots, it's 2 slots for any one group at the most, with 1 slot per group, only and 1 slot for any group. It's a more dynamic approach to the slot system and it allows for more variety.
He never will my friend, I've been trying to get him to stop ranting for years, and he only seems to have gotten worse.K.Rokossovski wrote:
Man, I really didn't read all that. Skimmed across a brag about IQ. Well, I'm pretty sure that part of having that, is knowing how to get your point across in a few sentences, instead of making the same point over and over again.Maybe you could close your posts with a management summary or something?
If you are saying something that does not make any sense, then the only thing to do is to go on a rant, because nobody is going to read the whole of your post.Quasi-duck wrote:
He never will my friend, I've been trying to get him to stop ranting for years, and he only seems to have gotten worse.K.Rokossovski wrote:
Man, I really didn't read all that. Skimmed across a brag about IQ. Well, I'm pretty sure that part of having that, is knowing how to get your point across in a few sentences, instead of making the same point over and over again.Maybe you could close your posts with a management summary or something?
Don't be ridiculous. A ratio that is just a little bit higher than 1 is pathetic even if you are a noob who has just played the game for a couple of weeks. Remember, your K/D ratio against the AI is only 3.00. This is an opponent that actually does not have a brain, and is not capable of intelligent thought. If you think achieving a K/D ratio of 3:1 against an opponent that does not have a brain is 'great if not excellent', then that certainly does not say a lot about your intellectual ability.Diabolical wrote:
And I don't have a lousy K/D ratio. If my ratio is better than 1:1 .... even by just a little bit .... then, technically, it is a good ratio. And since my ratio is considerably higher than 1:1, it's actually great if not excellent.
Ahem. Now thisDiabolical wrote:
ugh once I stop wasting my time showing you how wrong you are.
is a 'great, if not excellent' K/D ratio. Yours is only 3.00, and it is not. Period.
Even I'm better than Diabolical(see my "great, if not excellent" K/D) and I have a horrible tendency to never let units heal(I'll give an example in a pic) and go inactive.
BTW the 4 tanks in my pic have fought through Greece, Iraq, French Syria, and Yugoslavia iirc, max time to heal was 1 or 2 days as they got into position.
The trick to maintaining a good, if not great kills-to-losses ratio against AI countries is not worrying whether your own units "heal," but rather not letting your units suffer much damage/injury in the first instance.Quasi-duck wrote:
I have a horrible tendency to never let units heal . . . and go inactive.
The standard AI is about 95% predictable in its behaviors. Once you recognize the AI behavior patterns, as well as the little pre-programmed AI traps that the developers have left for you, you can plan your battle tactics against the AI the way the Germans planned in advance to invade the Netherlands and Belgium. If you're patient, and you bring the right tools to the task, you should incur minimal casualties and almost no complete unit losses.
Four keys to defeating the AI with minimal losses:
1. pre-war aerial reconnaissance of as much of the AI country as possible -- know what types of units the AI country has, how many of them, and their geographic distribution;
2. plan accordingly -- whatever unit types the AI has, have the correct unit types to counter them, and use stand-off weapons (artillery, naval gunfire, tactical bombers, rockets) whenever possible. Only suckers throw big stacks of units against the AI's big stacks in close combat.
3. crush the AI at the outset -- kill as many of the AI country's units in the first few hours as you can, especially those in provinces directly bordering your own. If you don't, the AI will rally what units it has, and it will often engage in suicide counter-attacks to inflict as much damage on your units as it can, usually while you are sleeping.
4. don't play with your food -- when you set out to invade a full-size AI country, you should have a plan to complete your conquest in 36 to 48 hours. Otherwise, you are simply giving the AI time to produce replacement units, engage in counter-attacks, and inflict more losses on you.
And, no, a 3:1 kills-to-losses ratio against the standard AI is not particularly impressive. It's indicative of respectably managed close combat, but under utilized stand-off weapons.
And, frankly, the same advice could be given for 75 to 90% of the human opponents you will encounter.
Exactly.MontanaBB wrote:
Plan accordingly ... and use stand-off weapons (artillery, naval gunfire, tactical bombers, rockets) whenever possible. Only suckers throw big stacks of units against the AI's big stacks in close combat..
Yeah I've been doing that, here are my latest results against Yugoslavia, which had lots of AA that greatly prohibited my use of bombers, and I only had 2 CC for naval gunfire. I was very glad I had 12 arty to soften enemies up, and plenty of LT to make short work of the AA. Most of my losses were already damaged infantry and LT I think, along with some arty. The arty got destroyed because, while I had behind my frontlines, it was still too close and got caught in combat. I did not realise until too late.MontanaBB wrote:
The standard AI is about 95% predictable in its behaviors. Once you recognize the AI behavior patterns, as well as the little pre-programmed AI traps that the developers have left for you, you can plan your battle tactics against the AI the way the Germans planned in advance to invade the Netherlands and Belgium. If you're patient, and you bring the right tools to the task, you should incur minimal casualties and almost no complete unit losses.Four key ways to defeat AI with minimal losses....
My next war with Persia will go swimmingly though, mostly just AA and militia, with some AC here and there so I can just send my LT and inf on paths straight through. Only problem will be hunting down their ships in the Persian Gulf, I lost sight of them a while ago.
EDIT: I think those LT also fought in Nepal, Bhutan and Communist China. I may be wrong but I was moving troops a lot from Asia, to Europe, and back. Hell, they could have fought in all the Balkans afaik, and they may very well have. I've been using the same army group to do my fighting for quite a while. Pretty sure my arty has fought in nearly every war of the game so far.
I think the game system has been changed, so when you conquer their last remaining province, their ships will disappear from the game (if the country has changed to AI).Quasi-duck wrote:
Only problem will be hunting down their ships in the Persian Gulf, I lost sight of them a while ago.
First off, a ratio above 1:1 against human opponents is better than average, that is a good ratio because you are beating fellow humans by at least a little bit. And as far as the AI ratio goes, I said a high ratio means you're either hitting the AI with only Artillery (and maybe Bombers) or you are not attacking the AI. I don't have time to waste not hitting the AI because I need the production bonus. Unlike you, I don't have the money to buy Gold to heal my units or pretend that I'm going to rotate my in-battle units (once committed they can't be healed nor repaired unless they survive the battle, anyway).MartinB wrote:
Don't be ridiculous. A ratio that is just a little bit higher than 1 is pathetic even if you are a noob who has just played the game for a couple of weeks. Remember, your K/D ratio against the AI is only 3.00. This is an opponent that actually does not have a brain, and is not capable of intelligent thought. If you think achieving a K/D ratio of 3:1 against an opponent that does not have a brain is 'great if not excellent', then that certainly does not say a lot about your intellectual ability.Diabolical wrote:
And I don't have a lousy K/D ratio. If my ratio is better than 1:1 .... even by just a little bit .... then, technically, it is a good ratio. And since my ratio is considerably higher than 1:1, it's actually great if not excellent.
Secondly, I'm reporting you. I told you, I would not accept one more insult. You bring this on, yourself.
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.Sorry, I'm not into that whole 'brevity' thing. I'm a writer. Sure I could keep it short, but then how would you understand the details and how would you see my passion and zeal?K.Rokossovski wrote:
Man, I really didn't read all that. Skimmed across a brag about IQ. Well, I'm pretty sure that part of having that, is knowing how to get your point across in a few sentences, instead of making the same point over and over again.Maybe you could close your posts with a management summary or something?
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.Seriously? You're not?Diabolical wrote:
Sorry, I'm not into that whole 'brevity' thing.
There's an apocryphal story about Calvin Coolidge, whose reticence to engage in long-winded speechifying (so typical of most politicians) is legendary, so much so that his nickname was "Silent Cal." Coolidge was seated next to some worthy's chatty-cathy wife at a dinner party. Midway through the dinner, she turned to Coolidge and said:
"Mr. President, one of my friends bet me that I could not get you to say three words over dinner."
To which Coolidge replied:
"You lose."
The moral of the story is this: long-winded is not the same as erudite, informative or even interesting. And when it comes to humor, brevity IS the soul of wit.
OK, I agree in principle, that this would be ideal. And, I do similar to some of your points. But for me, point 3 is boring. Sure, you do need to crush the AI (especially the border units), and I do, for the most part, but I have no interest in ever completing my conquest. I much prefer to attrition the AI until it can't produce any more and then play the capital farming game with it for weeks if not months, toying with my food (as opposed to point 4) as long as is necessary to keep my vast empire in the green regardless of how widespread I am or of how many human empires declare war on me.MontanaBB wrote:
Four keys to defeating the AI with minimal losses:1. pre-war aerial reconnaissance of as much of the AI country as possible -- know what types of units the AI country has, how many of them, and their geographic distribution;
2. plan accordingly -- whatever unit types the AI has, have the correct unit types to counter them, and use stand-off weapons (artillery, naval gunfire, tactical bombers, rockets) whenever possible. Only suckers throw big stacks of units against the AI's big stacks in close combat.
3. crush the AI at the outset -- kill as many of the AI country's units in the first few hours as you can, especially those in provinces directly bordering your own. If you don't, the AI will rally what units it has, and it will often engage in suicide counter-attacks to inflict as much damage on your units as it can, usually while you are sleeping.
4. don't play with your food -- when you set out to invade a full-size AI country, you should have a plan to complete your conquest in 36 to 48 hours. Otherwise, you are simply giving the AI time to produce replacement units, engage in counter-attacks, and inflict more losses on you.
And, no, a 3:1 kills-to-losses ratio against the standard AI is not particularly impressive. It's indicative of respectably managed close combat, but under utilized stand-off weapons.
But, in keeping with the spirit behind your 4th. point, I do take most (though not always all) of the AI's factories. Sure, I'll leave 1 or 2 if they are Food and/or sitting between me and another human opponent that I'd rather not fight just yet. Sometimes the AI is a great buffer....and sometimes only a light one, but good enough.
Also, when capital farming, I tend to leave a smaller region where many AI nations have remnant provinces grouped fairly close together. That way, I can use just a few units (i.e., LT's) to patrol back and forth, taking one capital per day from a different AI and then letting the previous AI nations have a chance to go back to peace with me and heal their own morale enough not to have their few remaining provinces go into rebellion and join me before I want them.
Actually another problem I have with point 4 is that you are absorbing a lot of worthless crap. There is no good reason to acquire every single low VP or no Resource province. If you can hit it with Artillery to eliminate the units stationed there, great. But if your Artillery are more important than to be wasted on the stupid AI and are dedicated to another war or to your defense against numerous human players, then hit the AI with regular troops (yeah, MartinB's precious K/D ratio might take a witty bitty dent), but if possible, avoid acquiring those worthless drags on your economy. The more resources, the better, the more VP's, the better in the end. But you only need capture the resource-producing provinces. Also, you might want a few of the less-valuable ones simply for aesthetics. That's a personal choice that I make. It can also be a practical one since you might need the open paths to lands beyond.
Oh, and if capital farming, it helps to keep the unclaimed AI territories in small clusters (like grapes) so they don't affect your morale negatively, too much (and the reverse is true to keep them from prematurely rebelling to you). Also, as I hinted above, leave the AI at least one Food province so that its morale doesn't suffer a double whammy from starving (which is a common AI problem for smaller nations).
I gotta admit, where is the fun in that? Everyone is arguing how their K/D ratio against the AI is so great. Let's face it, WHO CARES!!! Think about what you people are bragging about. "I'm good because I outsmarted a computer." Yeah, we get it, the AI is dumb. So what? Anyone could fight a perfect war against the AI and never lose a single unit....ever....if they really wanted to waste a whole lot of time.MontanaBB wrote:
The standard AI is about 95% predictable in its behaviors. Once you recognize the AI behavior patterns, as well as the little pre-programmed AI traps that the developers have left for you, you can plan your battle tactics against the AI the way the Germans planned in advance to invade the Netherlands and Belgium. If you're patient, and you bring the right tools to the task, you should incur minimal casualties and almost no complete unit losses.
But the main reason for the game having the AI isn't to be fish in a barrel to shoot at, it's to offer a part of the game that simulates the little nations as well as filling in for the bigger ones when there aren't enough humans. And the AI is there to offer a fun target to play with in any manner we want with few consequences. Thus the only score that really matters is the one versus humans. And that score is the only one that applies, militarily, in the rankings.
And I've said over and over (is anyone listening?) that the military score is the only one that matters, not the economic score, and not the score against the AI. People who harp on the superiority of either of those other scores are wasting their breath. Now, if this were a one-player game, then, yes, you could brag about the AI score since that'd be the only metric and players would go for the high score like on an old 80's arcade game. But this isn't the 80's and the AI isn't challenging.
And, let's face it, why wouldn't you want to have fun throwing your forces into battle against the AI? There are no consequences against your real score and the takeover of the AI's resources comes much sooner. Also, this is the best testing ground to gauge changes in unit strengths, strategy variants, or whatnot. Yes, human opponents are a more satisfying kill...believe me, I embrace that, emphatically. But the AI kills are good practice, in the meantime.
"Yippee, look at me, I've perfected fighting the poorly developed and predictable AI system". Oh sure, it may be kinda fun to let the AI have it (it is my way, at least), but it's nothing to brag about, even if your kill ratio is 1,000,000:1. So stop and think about what you are really bragging about, people. Stop and think.
This is true, but it doesn't happen until the next day-change. And if it's a human player, the system waits for them to go inactive.MartinB wrote:
I think the game system has been changed, so when you conquer their last remaining province, their ships will disappear from the game (if the country has changed to AI).
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.OK, I agree that brevity has its place. And Coolidge had a great one-liner....smart and to the point. But one can also be erudite and informative ... and especially interesting ... with much verbosity. When I'm making a point or telling a story, I believe short and sweet -- when appropriate -- is good, but a fuller explanation fills the gaps that "short and sweet" left behind. One thing (of the many) that I can't abide, is poorly-revealed communications. Sure, that can include rambling on about (and I've certainly done that on rare occasions), but it's much more likely to occur with short (e.g., one-word answers) than with fully-explained and comprehensive tomes.MontanaBB wrote:
Seriously? You're not?Diabolical wrote:
Sorry, I'm not into that whole 'brevity' thing.There's an apocryphal story about Calvin Coolidge, whose reticence to engage in long-winded speechifying (so typical of most politicians) is legendary, so much so that his nickname was "Silent Cal." Coolidge was seated next to some worthy's chatty-cathy wife at a dinner party. Midway through the dinner, she turned to Coolidge and said:
"Mr. President, one of my friends bet me that I could not get you to say three words over dinner."
To which Coolidge replied:
"You lose."
The moral of the story is this: long-winded is not the same as erudite, informative or even interesting. And when it comes to humor, brevity IS the soul of wit.
Now, there is a method to my madness, so to speak, when I break down my words into a series of longer explanations. It is because I want to ensure that my thoughts are fully understood by those who are capable of interpreting them. Those that aren't tend to get confused or bored by my longer posts...and I usually tolerate their rude cracks about my long-windedness because their insolence is usually born either out of poor tact or a less-intelligent appreciation of the written word.
Now, I'm not implying that those are comic book readers as opposed to reading a good novel (as if that were an indicator of a lack of intelligence but rather it is a lack of sophistication), but maybe they aren't exactly the type of person who enjoys reading a non-fictional biography or, especially, a reference book or textbook. Now, anyone who can appreciate reading a dictionary for fun, or maybe the phone book for laughs, is probably more likely going to be able to appreciate what I have to say. For the rest, it's not a lack of intellect, it's a lack of intellectual choice.
That being said, I do like to write some fiction (as my story thread proves) that I think can be quite entertaining as well as concise. But in this case, it is concise because reading for entertainment should never be long-winded or boring. Communication through the written word can be as long as is necessary to convey one's thoughts. But brevity is a tool of the storymaster, not the educator.
The "popular" teacher who uses tons of brevity is usually quite entertaining but is also the one who's lesson plans are soon forgotten after their tutelage ends. Such are the worst of teachers. Sure, you might remember a few unimportant but snarky quips, but the bulk of what should have been learned was never learnt. Such is true of all communications which indeed are a form of teaching.
Now to invent a saying, with ironic brevity, of the conveyance of knowledge:
"Short and sweet, memory doth not keep, but truth long-earned is everlasting."
And if you could only retain a portion of that, then keep the latter half...."truth long-earned is everlasting". This is the core of learning.
TL;DR
Brevity may be the source of wit, but it isn't the source of knowledge. Also, "Short and sweet, memory doth not keep, but truth long-earned is everlasting."
And in the very last words of Mr. Spock to Dr. McCoy, just before going into the reactor chamber in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, "I'm sorry Doctor, I've no time to discuss this logically...Remember".
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.To quote Mary Poppins, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."Diabolical wrote:
The "popular" teacher who uses tons of brevity is usually quite entertaining but is also the one who's lesson plans are soon forgotten after their tutelage ends. Such are the worst of teachers.
Or, you could take the time honoured Canadian tradition of just trying to be more polite, and use adverbs like please and thank you more often. Little things go a long way.MontanaBB wrote:
To quote Mary Poppins, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."Diabolical wrote:
The "popular" teacher who uses tons of brevity is usually quite entertaining but is also the one who's lesson plans are soon forgotten after their tutelage ends. Such are the worst of teachers.
Once again, public opinion has show that Dia types way too much. I have still not read any more than one paragraph of what Dia has said for this whole thread.
You refuse to show me any regard and yet you expect me to care a whit about what you think on this subject.Quasi-duck wrote:
Once again, public opinion has show that Dia types way too much. I have still not read any more than one paragraph of what Dia has said for this whole thread.
~O~
Well, unlike all the naysayers here, I've proposed a reasonable idea at revamping the research system. I offered a sound and logical description of how it could improve the game. But, rather than simply arguing against my ideas in a constructive way, the bulk of the responses has been akin to "You are stupid, your ideas suck, everything is good as is. So shut up."
You know what? Instead of trying to tear down my ideas, how about proposing some ideas of your own, people.
~O~
I won't name names, because I am nice. But I'm getting tired of the droolers. The next person that wants to counter one of my arguments had better use constructive criticism. Short of that, I'm not listening any more.
It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.Please log in to post a reply.
