Global Triumph

Country selection is actually at 5:00 PM, not AM.

I'm glad you posted! It probably wouldn't have been very fun to find out at 5:00 AM.

I just noticed that the join page didn't specify. That's fixed!

Does this map wrap around?

It does not. (More info in this other thread: http://board.toomuchstupid.com/gt/category:3.1/thread:693/#m20)

I would like to think the person who developed this map for recognizing Israel's claims to Samaria, the Golan, and Gaza

Luckily, the public domain dataset I used already had Israel defined correctly, so no adjustment was necessary on my part.

How long will empty countries be occupying the board? with no free land available, this will be a very slow map for 28 days...

This is something that needs to be addressed very quickly.  If players have to wait 28 days to attack an unclaimed country then this map is effectively over. The largest countries will win. It is just a matter of economics.

I agree. With the inability to claim unoccupied countries there is no reason to continue playing. The larger countries already have a cash advantage so disabling the smaller countries from growing by not allowing them to gain unclaimed land is a game stopper.

This needs to be fixed and the game restarted otherwise all small countries and even alliances are worthless.

Good points! Since a change like this could already end up affecting strategies from day one and two attacks, I'm thinking the best solution may be to reset all units and bases, cash, and treaties and do a fresh restart tomorrow morning.

Going forward, only active countries would then start with treaties with other countries.

Thoughts?

Looking at the income values from last night, I also realized that I'm going to need to regenerate and test raw material levels! Let's just say that countries should not be making less income than much smaller ones.

I'm going to skew the materials closer to the rank ordering, which is the second image in this post:
http://board.toomuchstupid.com/gt/category:3.1/thread:693/#m10

That should fix the distortion and also make the world a bit more fair income-wise.

I should be able to do that tonight, so we'd still be on track for a morning reset.

I gave this more thought over lunch.

If alliances can be as big as Russia, then Russia's income should realistically be equal to that of the alliance. That would mean all sectors having about equal raw materials.

However, that would then require countries to form full alliances to be competitive. So, leaving some extra resources in smaller countries makes sense.

So, the image I referenced in the post above seems most appropriate (thought perhaps not quite as high for the smaller ones).

I think an issue with giving smaller countries a higher income to be more competitive creates a problem when that country's tiles are conquered.  For instance, in how the resources were distributed at launch conquering more, smaller countries (say, Portugal) would give you more efficient income than taking the same number of tiles from a larger country (say, Russia).

It also gives a potentially unfair advantage to a country that is surrounded by small unoccupied countries.

For context, as Canada I was noticing that the vast majority of smaller European countries had almost twice as much of a "per tile value" than my land.  This means that an alliance of a bunch of countries in that are that had half the tile count I do, would have almost the same income.

This also means (unless I'm way off) that two different alliances at the sector cap could have vastly different incomes.  For instance a "European Union" would make almost as much as North America, despite being one-third the size.

As a large country, though, the income you generate from day one is much, much larger than the income a small country makes. With each passing day, you stock up on income while the smaller countries have to expand to gain more.

The new raw material levels are higher for very small countries, but I'm still worried that won't be enough to overcome the income that large countries start gaining from day one. I think it's more fair now, but we'll have to see how this world plays out and then adjust.

It will also be harder for smaller countries to form effective alliances. In your case, for example, just three large countries almost maxed out your alliance. It's unlikely that all of the EU countries will be claimed and then work together from day one. Instead, it will likely be a few countries that take time to expand (while also battling other countries for that land).

So, all things considered, it's still the larger countries having too big of an advantage that concerns me.

I guess the issue I see is the late game, when there will inevitably be only a handful of large countries, will allow countries of similar size to potentially have vastly different incomes (when daily income will be much more important).  Because of that, it almost incentivizes targeting small countries and maintaining peace with the larger ones.

For instance, why would I want to invade and fight a long balanced war with Russia, when I could take out a bunch of small countries in Europe, Central America, Middle East, and/or South East Asia, and get a vastly larger ROI? And possibly an even larger income than if I had conquered Russia?

I don't see how this is all that much different than any other map. Late game is always dominated by a handful of larger countries fighting for dominance.

The difference in this instance is that the big guys know from the get-go that they will need to either quickly gobble up their smaller neighbors or work with them against the other large nations. So while you may have an incentive to target small countries to get a better ROI, so will I - so what do we do when we both recognize that fact?

In all honesty, I would rather work with the smaller players to fend off large aggressors as that is a better use of resources in the long run. I think it's great that these guys will have a a greater income for their size than they would on a normal resource distribution. It will also make the bigger guys hesitate when contemplating the idea of invading a smaller nation that is part of a large, active alliance. So we're also creating a incentive for cooperation, yes?

What will make this map interesting (assuming the participation is there) is that I think we're going to end up seeing a number of proxy battles between the larger nations and alliances.

We'll see what happens!

The larger countries tend to have capitals that are far away from much of anything. It will make adding new territory a slow process. In some cases it will make it difficult to retain territory after the 28 days are over.

Smaller nations, by virtue, have capitals that are generally much closer to other smaller nations and therefore have the ability to expand quickly. Those of us who have been around the block a few times also know that you don't need construction trucks when you can send a jeep to take an empty capital quickly (for those not in the know - you're welcome for the hint).

Further point: This map is unwinnable without controlling a fair amount of the Antarctic continent. I don't know how many of you are factoring this in - but Antarctica will be key to victory and most the truly large nations are a hemisphere away (you're also welcome for that hint).

Have the aliens attacked already.  It appears that a country has disappeared

Russian Media has reported mass sightings of UFOs over Eastern Europe. Videos of the event are mysteriously being removed from YouTube.

One farmer, on the condition of anonymity, claimed to have seen our great leader, Vladimir Putin, topless while riding what appeared to be a saucer shaped object.

Hah! It is a new player, so I suppose they may have just been curious about what the Mass Vacate button does.

I could probably restore the sectors, but I'm not sure if that would be fair!

The difference, as I stated in my previous post, is that once that point is reached, those countries could have VASTLY different incomes, even if they're exactly the same size.

Hypothetical, if I, as Canada was to conquer Europe, and Russia was to conquer enough of China to give us an exactly equal sector count, I'd be making quite a bit more money each day than Russia would.

That is true. I'm not disagreeing with you.

My point is that I don't see how this causes an issue. Maps are meant to be different, particularly this one (think of it as a new game mode). We both have this knowledge of how this map is different. So I think the question is: how does that affect our strategy, what will we do that we would not normally do?

The nature of the map requires that not everyone can start the map on equal footing as nations are pre-established. I think the best attempt at balance is to create a resource distribution that gives the smaller nations some sort of a boost. This is what Johnny attempted to do. We tossed some other ideas around before the map started. Do you have a better idea?

I think that, in theory, it was good idea assuming that all of the countries would be occupied at the beginning of the game, but as Johnny pointed out many areas of the map with groupings of small countries are unoccupied.

I think that one thing that would balance the map would be making unoccupied countries sectors less valuable, or perhaps placing a total value cap on regions or continents, for example.

I understand Johnny's point about larger countries saving up, but we all know that your "savings account" doesn't always mean much compared to daily income once you're in the thick of it.

The issue regarding that daily income is the fact that Eastern Europe (for instance), an amount of mostly unoccupied territory, small enough that a majority of it will probably be conquered in the first 28 days, has almost the same value as my entire country.

I agree with that sentiment. My income per sector is substantially worse - keep in mind too that even if a large nation conquers higher resource sectors there is also a diminishing returns component to how that income is calculated.

The data is gone after the reset but I think there was a nation roughly 1/20th my size with about 1/8th the income (or some such - will have to compare that again tomorrow). That's fairly substantial and I am not complaining. I think that is great in terms of balance.

However, I think the larger issue here is the size of the player base. It's amazing that this map managed to attract some 40 odd people thus far given the most recent maps but even that number is not enough to reach the full potential of this map.

Which is also partially why I think it was a bit of a mistake that the 28 treaty limit was removed from non-played countries. That was 28 days that someone could have joined and taken control of an unclaimed nation along with its accumulated income. Which would essentially resolve this particular issue. Perhaps we should just suck it up and think of this as a beta test of a new mode?

I think one of the huge differences in this world, though, is that early spending will be so small for big countries. You already own so much land and you're collecting so much income, while not even having to bother with battles or units to grab space.

I could be wrong, but I think that nest egg is going to be very high! This world just has such a different dynamic, so I think we'll all have to see how it plays out.

It'll definitely require some new strategies, though!

Just a quick clarification. Those unclaimed countries will still build up income, in case a new player wants to jump in and put it to use!

So on the World War I map today, I only got 60% of the income I got on the first day of the initial start.  Is that right?
On the 6th I had a little over $200,000; today I have a little over $125,000.
My per sector earnings were $1.06 and today they're $0.61

Yes, that's correct. The large countries (due to the gap in size between Russia and the next largest country) had raw materials that were far too high.

In the first set, Canada made more than Russia, despite being about 58% of its size! (That also meant it could team up with several other large nations to form a super income-generating alliance, which Russia could not do.) Needless to say, the material levels were very off! I tested various levels and came up with one that is far more fair.

I also set up logging that will record the size and income of all countries and alliances, which will allow me to graph progress and see if adjustments should be made for future iterations.

Also, with the World War I map I'd like to reissue my call for canals as the opposite to bridges.

I was wondering if there was a way, to put troops in an allies territory w/o taking their land, that way, let's say Russia and North Korea joined together, NK can send some troops to the Russian Chinese border, as protection without Russia having to loose sectors. And if you can send an ally money, and/or resources.(trade)

Each sector in GT can only be occupied by a single land unit. It would be too large of a revision to modify that in the current version of the game.

Money transfer has been discussed in the past, and it was actually a part of my initial design for the game. The biggest concern I have is that it would encourage users to create multiple accounts and countries to try to funnel money, which would create more work on my end policing accounts.

I did consider adding it in when I was creating the WWI world, but I'm still not entirely convinced one way or the other.

I really like this idea!

Considering the current game design, I think it would be too much of a modification to create a canal object cut into a current land sector. (It would affect all of the in-game and Game Cycle processing of moves and attacks on land sectors, which could then also contain sea units.) I'll look into it more, though.

I could probably allow a truck to convert a sector from land to water more more easily. However, I feel like that could be exploited to create a pretty strong barrier against advancing troops!

I've been giving this more thought, and I think I'm going to allow countries to transfer cash to other countries.

However, in order to do so, both users will have to have "verified" accounts. I'll have to explore to see if there are good verification options, though.

I think that money transferring would be a good addition but it should only be allowed between countries in the same alliance.

My first thought was that it should only be allowable within alliances, but I'm wondering if that prevents other dynamics that could be interesting. Instead of just giving money to teammates, I could see players trading money for land, bases, treaties, etc. Lending money to an opponent who's fighting another opponent could be very useful.

It seems more realistic to allow players to transfer cash to whomever, and it always means giving up money that the player then can't use himself.

I'm certainly open to hearing arguments for or against, though!

I've decided to verify accounts via text message. In anticipation of the cash transfer functionality, users can feel free to verify their accounts at any time via the Account Settings page.

I've also updated the Alliances section. Clicking an alliance will provide rank/growth details on each country in the alliance, as well as alliance totals. (Most of the other pages within the Alliances section still need to be updated.)

If anyone who has a country in the Development Sandbox wants to verify their account (on the Account Settings page), I can transfer some money to your country as a test!

Now that money transferring will soon be available, it brought another idea to mind. How about being able to give a land base (and its sector) to another player?

It seems realistic, and it would be a more functional way for countries to work together.

If you have any thoughts on that idea, please share!

i like the idea but it seems too unrealistic for a country to suddenly be able to expand from a new part of the world.

what if a player could set a base to be available to a different player and then that player has to send a jet to claim it... like sending troops there. then the expansion wouldn't be too fast and unrealistic.

I like the idea.  I think it's silly that in some cases you have to abandon a large number of sectors to give an ally a lane to create a base.

I'm still not 100% deciding on limiting money transfer to alliance members or any country, though I'm slightly leaning towards the latter.

Last call for feedback!

I like this idea. It also means that a country would have to get across enemy units to reach their destination base.

I can probably tap that into the existing jet transfer functionality, as well.

I don't have a problem with this personally.  If base transfer was within an alliance only it wouldn't affect the game at all because expansion is effectively zero-sum.  Any expansion the ally would do from the new base would decrease the amount of expansion the original owner could do.

that's true for expansion but not for attacks.

let's say Canada was in an alliance with Palau. then instantly you could appear on the other side of the map and a new enemy with huge resources came out of nowhere. but if you can only spread with jets then the move across the world can be faster but more realistic.

and those jets could have to get across enemy airspace if the countries are separated.

But that's the thing.  This is related to the money transfer system because what is the difference between Canada taking over one of Palau's bases to organize attacks themselves, compared to Canada just giving all of their daily income to Palau to do the same thing?

With the money transfer system in place, the "giving bases" function really only changes WHO is doing the attacking, it doesn't really make any impact on the game in reality.

that's a good point.

i think most countries would be more willing to spend money on its own attacks and expansion than sending it all over to someone else though, and i think that's even more true with a huge country willing to give its money to a little one.

so i think there's still some value in making a country get there instead of just popping up.

I don't completely agree with this statement, I think it will make a big difference on who is doing the attacking. If a new player takes a small country and is being funneled money from alliance members, I bet they would still be defeated by a more experienced player. But, if that inexperienced player were allowed to "give a base" to the more experienced players, the outcome of the battle would be totally different.

giving bases to alliance members takes away (or completely changes) one of the largest strategic aspects of the game, location. Experienced players place their countries (or chose countries in WWI) based on location i.e. expansion capabilities, access to waterways, distance to/from alliance member and/or enemies  etc. Now the ability to give a base to an alliance member removes this aspect of the game entirely. In previous games I have played I can think of a handful of times where I was being attacked, but I had to try and hold off an assault until my alliance members could support me; those instances would be totally different if I could just give a base to an alliance member overnight instead of having to wait 3 weeks for their help.

I don't think it is realistic at all to be able to just appear anywhere alliance members have land. Players should still need to travel using land/sea units in order to take bases.

I'm curious, salzigeGurcke. Does this mean you're not a fan of the instant sharing, or not a fan of sharing bases at all (even if it's by jets)?