Redesign of the Research System

T-3PO · Jun 3rd 2018, 7:16pm

I have called you out twice. Look, I like participating in the forum, and this was a huge thread. I decided to participate and I see a fight again. The other time was when you started a fight in a thread I was participating in. Now when have you pointed out some stuff I do are not smart? I never recall it. Now if you do, I will accept your criticism if it presented politely.

I never said anything about BeastyBen, maybe if you had actually read my response you would have know I was talking about you and Diabolical.

T-3PO · Jun 3rd 2018, 7:30pm

Also, you're right. I am hypocritical. So I'm gonna do the right thing and stop the fight here. Or at least cease participating in it.

MartinB · Jun 3rd 2018, 8:00pm

T-3PO wrote:

whenever there is a fight in the forum, it's ALWAYS the same people.

T-3PO wrote:

I have called you out twice. Look, I like participating in the forum, and this was a huge thread. I decided to participate and I see a fight again. The other time was when you started a fight in a thread I was participating in.

So you were in one thread in which there was a fight, and now this one. I would not call this a fight as nobody is making rude comments, but even if you do, that is twice. Do you not think your first comment about it ALWAYS being 'the same people' was uncalled for?

There was a fight the other day between MontanaBB and BeerBelly (who was in fact doing the same thing as my interlocutor here, and trying to pull rank by pointing out that he was of a much higher level than Montana). That thread got shut down. I was not in that fight, was I?

So is your comment about the 'same people' ALWAYS being in a fight a reasonable one? Or was it, in fact, picking a 'fight'?

beastyben7 · Jun 4th 2018, 3:42am

OK BACK ON SUBJECT!!

Diabolical wrote:

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.

It seem the current problem is as you describe it:
-players "hyper focusing" on only a few branches
-lack of balance between research categories
-players focusing on different branches and leaving themselves weak in others

The way the research system is set up now, with only two slots to research with, this is what forces players to hyper focus their efforts into one or two particular branches. One solution is to add a third (or more) research slots to provide players with more opportunity to advance in technology. If we want to encourage players to research in separate branches, then we need them to be willing to spend their rare materials. So in turn, we might need to increase rare material production a little to give room for the player to spend a little extra on researching.

I have talked on a previous thread about my opinions on having no limit on the amount of research that can take place at one time. My personal opinion has been waved away because of game balance. If the research limit was removed, it really would not change that much because the day requirement still stands. Sure those who spend allot to research in many branches can have that research readily available, but in realistic sense, their overall standing in troop stats remains fairly similar to that of everyone else, because on the day limit. No matter if you have gold or not, you still can't spend it into buying research from future game days.

If I decide to spend piles of resources to getting level one of everything, I am probably not going to use it all anyway. So, when I decide that I want to attack someone who focuses less on their research, our fighting forces will still remain on an even playing field because we will still be limited to level 1 light tanks. No matter how many research slots you give me, I can never surpass the day limit, so the argument against it does not stand, but feel free to prove me wrong because I may be missing something.

Again the problem that was originally being addressed is research balance. Not who has a higher kill ratio XD

Buy I do want to know your strategy MartinB

MartinB · Jun 4th 2018, 9:12am

beastyben7 wrote:

Again the problem that was originally being addressed is research balance. Not who has a higher kill ratio XD

Buy I do want to know your strategy MartinB

Okay so I will take the liberty of answering the strategy question here instead of in PM, partly to share this with anyone else who might be interested, and partly to give my thread on using a strategic reserve a free plug. Fundamentally, my strategy is quite standard, using massed artillery to break through the enemy line and exploiting any break through using armoured columns supported by tactical bombers once you are through to his rear.

However, I use two further tactics that has probably boosted that K/D ratio a little.

1. Using combined arms.

This again is a fairly straightforward strategy which I'm sure a lot of players on this forum use. Basically, a mixed stack is always going to be better than a pure one because of the SBDE limitations. I use armoured 'divisions' of two tanks, one motorised infantry and an armoured car. If I stack three such divisions together I get a stack of 12 units, but with no SBDE penalty. So this means I can hit with a large stack but at maximum attack strength, as opposed to a stack of LT which will start taking SBDE penalties over six units.

2. Using a strategic reserve.

I posted another thread on this which I will link here. Essentially this consists of never using all your units on the frontline, but always having some in your rear area. How this helps with minimising losses is that whenever one of my frontline divisions (whether armoured or infantry) starts taking heavy damage, I rotate it to the rear area and replace it with fresh troops. This gives the damaged units some time to heal. The net result of this, I find, is that I lose less units overall, because my damaged units have sufficient time to recover so that they can return to the front as greens or yellows instead of as oranges.

Of course I also use the standard bombardment units to soften up and weaken enemy positions, but I'm sure most of the people here also do that.

K.Rokossovski · Jun 4th 2018, 10:58am

People seem to argue here that the research system allows you to only focus on (very few) techs; and that you can't build a navy if you also want both tanks and bombers. This is simply not true. If you keep your research running all the time (well except if your research finishes when you sleep; but then start something new when waking up), you can be competitive in MOST branches. The key is really about which units you do NOT research. In the early game, before day 16, this should only be four or five units - with stuff like tank destroyers, naval bombers, strat bombers and cruisers the "usual suspects" of dropping out (mind you - NOT saying they are useless, just fringe!). However, it is very well possible to have all key units for your play style up to date - for example, light tanks, artillery, AA, AT; interceptors and tacs; destroyers and subs; commando's; and one more exotic unit like RRG or battleships)
After that, you cannot keep all the "much-used" tech up to date - but you can still build it, even if it is a level below the current high-tech level. Then, you decide wether it is better to have EITHER your interceptors OR your subs a level below your enemy - but you'll still beat him if you manage to have local superiority in numbers (which is what the game REALLY is about). All of the above, without gold.

I think the main problem with the research system is the fact that it is all about time, and hardly about resources. This results in the fact that most active players do the same amount of research, just with a slightly different emphasis. If research times where halved and resource cost was doubled, the choice "how much do I want to invest in research" would be one with much more strategic depth than "Do I want either medium tanks or cruisers". You could have them both! But... you would have less of them.

VorlonFCW · Jun 4th 2018, 9:56pm

K.Rokossovski wrote:

If research times where halved and resource cost was doubled, the choice "how much do I want to invest in research" would be one with much more strategic depth than "Do I want either medium tanks or cruisers". You could have them both! But... you would have less of them.

Best suggestion about this I have heard yet. :thumbsup:

Quasi-duck · Jun 4th 2018, 10:43pm

Alright this went to hell before I could read it all, and on top of that Dia still has not learned the meaning of the word brevity. So from the posts I did read, I agree with MartinB that the research system is fine and Dia just needs to plan ahead better and stop bragging about how he has sweat the game for the past 2 and a half years and got a bunch of points.

Diabolical · Jun 5th 2018, 1:50am

beastyben7 wrote:

MartinB wrote:

Diabolical wrote:

I detect a note of jealousy on your part.

No mate, I have no reason whatsover to feel jealous about a player who only has a K/D ratio of 3.00 against the AIUntitled.png

dangggg...

Do not be impressed. He obviously either only uses Bombers and Artillery against the AI and/or he doesn't bother fighting the AI at all. It's easy to avoid casualties when you never declare war against the AI. And, the AI will rarely ever declare war on you, so that statistic is as hollow as rotten wood and I am not impressed by it at all.

And, on the K/D ratio. That is a number that is somewhat misleading, anyway. Sure, overall, it will give an average of your kills vs. losses. But it fails to take into account all the times where you might have assisted in the kill for an ally (of whom got the credit instead of you) or if you "took one for the team" to protect an ally. A more accurate K/D would include third party perspective. But, understandably, that would be too difficult to track. Notwithstanding, the K/D/ ratio is "good enough". But it isn't perfect.

Another reason why the K/D ratio is not that important is due to the fact that different people have different goals in this game. If your goal is to be ultra cautious and ensure that very few of your own units die, then you aren't going to advance very quickly unless you are willing to spend tons of Gold to build overwhelmingly-huge armies and constantly using Gold to repair units. On the other hand, if you are extremely aggressive, you might be likely to throw units into battle not caring how many casualties must be had to eliminate your target. And, with Gold, you can aggressively throw an uber amount of units in non-cautious manner and so your K/D ratio might be very poor.

Both of those extremes are the exception to this rule: most players are going to fall somewhere in the middle between those extremes....myself included. I consider myself a fairly aggressive player and I've been told that I'm very aggressive by others. Having a higher casualty rate than you[?] does not invalidate the results if I obtain my objective. But I'm not crazy enough to throw everything at the enemy in some wanton melee with no regard for my own defenses.

You might think a low K/D ratio is a bad thing, but it is irrelevant to "bad" or "good" strategy. A perfect classic example would be the battle of Normandy. "D" Day was conducted with a very high casualty rate on the part of the Allies. Was that a bad strategy? Maybe in your mind, it was not. Maybe the commanders should have tried to breach the German defenses by some other means and spare more soldiers lives. Then, in the meantime, more Jews and others would be killed in concentration camps. More Russian soldiers would be killed on the eastern front. And Germany would have solidified its grip in Western Europe...perhaps even to a level where the Allies would no longer be able to crack the German control over Western Europe without suffering even greater losses.

Face it. War is hell. It is chaotic, bloody, and full of mistakes. A master strategist is not someone that can quote Sun Tsu perfectly and plans out perfect battles with only perfect results. Only Gideon, with God at his side, was able to fight the perfect war. A real master strategist is someone who accepts that there will be losses. He or she accepts that you may have to lose some to win more. Sometimes, even, a master strategist has to know when not to fight or even to surrender for the greater good of the overall effort.

This is only a game. But like all things in life, it is full of decisions that have consequences. There are many variations and more than one way to do a thing "rightly". But the K/D ratio does not reflect perfectly on the manner or skill of a person. It is, however, a component of a larger way of calculating one's proficiency in this game. But, there are more aspects to a good and experienced tactician. There is the K/D ratio. There is the number of victories. There is the number of games joined and how long played. There is the tenacity of play (does one fight tooth and nail or do they give up easily and have their stats lowered before their nation goes inactive?)

There is the teamwork aspect...do you cooperate and play selfishly? Reputation in this game is, in my opinion, far more important a measure of one's skill than even their score. Do you have a reputation of being a good player? Do others who play either for or against you have positive things to say about how you played or do they have negative things to say about it?

Do not judge me because I'm willing to point out my level. Like the K/D ratio, my score is a partial look at my overall superiority. But, like I said previously, I'm not the best. I don't pretend to be the best. But I do stand by my score, my ratio, my experience, my passion for this game, and my reputation, to prove that I am indeed among the best. It isn't showing off nor is it foolish pride. I have good reason to make my claim and I won't back down. Do others say I'm among the best? I can't say for absolute sure.

But, anecdotally, I rarely ever get claims that I'm "below average" or anything else negative by most of the people I actually play with...or against. If anything, whatever skills you might THINK I lack would be more than made up for by my sportsmanship. Because when I do play as an ally, I do play nicely and I do sacrifice my own units to protect my allies. Can you say the same?

The fact is that I earned my score. And, as a courtesy, I'm not even going to bother trying to dredge up your score. I'm sure it's just fine. But, I don't really care what it is.

MartinB wrote:

So you are being a hypocrite here. Because if you had bothered to read the thread you might have noticed that Beastyben replied politely and he was patronised and spoken to rudely in return.

I object to that. I was not patronising, I was being honest. And it is not rude to point out the facts of the matter.

MartinB wrote:

There was a fight the other day between MontanaBB and BeerBelly (who was in fact doing the same thing as my interlocutor here, and trying to pull rank by pointing out that he was of a much higher level than Montana). That thread got shut down. I was not in that fight, was I?

So is your comment about the 'same people' ALWAYS being in a fight a reasonable one? Or was it, in fact, picking a 'fight'?

Now who's being patronising? Is it not reasonable to say that he meant more than just the two singular people "fighting" in this thread? Of course he would mean the larger group of participants that do tend to be passionate in their opinions...like you and me, but not exclusively you and me.

beastyben7 wrote:

If I decide to spend piles of resources to getting level one of everything, I am probably not going to use it all anyway. So, when I decide that I want to attack someone who focuses less on their research, our fighting forces will still remain on an even playing field because we will still be limited to level 1 light tanks. No matter how many research slots you give me, I can never surpass the day limit, so the argument against it does not stand, but feel free to prove me wrong because I may be missing something.

This is easy to do. You think that having the day limit keeps everything from progressing too far too fast. But you are forgetting that the only-two research slots limits your ability to research everything as soon as it becomes available. So, as time progresses, more and more of the available techs can't be researched as soon as they would be made available unless you are spending Gold. And so, without Gold, which is an outside influencing agent which un-levels the playing field, you can't have everything when it comes out.

In fact, if you are diligent in keeping your research slots filled all the time, and you never run out of the required materials for research, you will almost never completely research all paths by the end of a match. Most of the time, a match will end long before even half of the possible technologies can be researched, let alone all of them....unless a player is using Gold.

That said, I'm not trying to push for getting all research techs done in every match. That wouldn't be reasonable. But I do say that it is unrealistic for any player to only focus on one or a few tech paths when, in real life, no nation would even consider that preposterous idea. It would be devastatingly puerile and filled with problems for the long-term viability of a nation.

Diabolical · Jun 5th 2018, 1:53am

MartinB wrote:

2. Using a strategic reserve.

I posted another thread on this which I will link here. Essentially this consists of never using all your units on the frontline, but always having some in your rear area. How this helps with minimising losses is that whenever one of my frontline divisions (whether armoured or infantry) starts taking heavy damage, I rotate it to the rear area and replace it with fresh troops. This gives the damaged units some time to heal. The net result of this, I find, is that I lose less units overall, because my damaged units have sufficient time to recover so that they can return to the front as greens or yellows instead of as oranges.

Just so you know. I think this is a good strategy. In fact I don't rotate my troops as much, I prefer to reinforce stacks than rotate them. But that is a more aggressive strategy. It isn't better or worse, it is only different. I respect your choice in this and I'm glad it works for you.

Diabolical · Jun 5th 2018, 1:59am

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I think the main problem with the research system is the fact that it is all about time, and hardly about resources. This results in the fact that most active players do the same amount of research, just with a slightly different emphasis. If research times where halved and resource cost was doubled, the choice "how much do I want to invest in research" would be one with much more strategic depth than "Do I want either medium tanks or cruisers". You could have them both! But... you would have less of them.

I think that is valid. But my proposal is more focused on increasing the cross-path prerequisites of technologies (especially the later ones) but then also adding more slots, overall, in which to utilize to keep up the research. However, my idea of having each of the four main groups have their own exclusive research slot prevents too much of a hyper-focus on singular technological groupings. In other words, though you can still focus fairly exclusively on a few techs, you won't be able to hyperfocus on all techs in one group because three of the five slots must be used in other tech groups (or go idle).

So, while you might want to focus heavily on navy, you can only have two research slots in navy (like it is now) but your foot group tech slot, your armored group tech slot, and your air group tech slot can only research their respective areas...not add to your naval group.

MartinB · Jun 5th 2018, 8:10am

Diabolical wrote:

beastyben7 wrote:

MartinB wrote:

Diabolical wrote:

I detect a note of jealousy on your part.

No mate, I have no reason whatsover to feel jealous about a player who only has a K/D ratio of 3.00 against the AIUntitled.png

dangggg...

Do not be impressed. He obviously either only uses Bombers and Artillery against the AI and/or he doesn't bother fighting the AI at all. It's easy to avoid casualties when you never declare war against the AI. And, the AI will rarely ever declare war on you, so that statistic is as hollow as rotten wood and I am not impressed by it at all.

And, on the K/D ratio. That is a number that is somewhat misleading, anyway.

I detect a note of jealousy on your part. Nobody claims that the K/D ratio is a perfect measure of a player's skill. But it is a much better measure than your level in this game, because all that shows is that you have played a lot of games over a long period of time. You can do that over time even if you have an IQ of 40.

By the way, it is daft to argue that using Bombers and Artillery against the AI is not really fighting it. All good players use both. Best example of this is probably MontanaBB, who relies heavily on tactical bombers. I'm sure you use them as well, you're just not very good at using them, that's all.

Basically, it's easy to avoid heavy casualties if you use your brains. If you use a combination of mixed stacks to maximise your damage, a strategic reserve to rotate your units so that you do not keep losing units and some creativity in your strategy. You are just a bad player who does not know how to do these things.

MartinB · Jun 5th 2018, 8:20am

Diabolical wrote:

In fact I don't rotate my troops as much, I prefer to reinforce stacks than rotate them. But that is a more aggressive strategy. It isn't better or worse, it is only different.

It is a worse strategy. You reinforce your stacks and your average health drops. The next time you go into battle, you lose one of those units, because now you have two units in your stack that are both at low health. So if you take damage that takes you below the threshold, you lose a unit. This is the reason why you lose so many units, and have such a lousy K/D ratio.

The result of continuously taking losses is that your production centres in your core will keep having to produce new units to replace your losses. This is a foolish strategy, because if you play against a good player, you will be continuously producing new units to replace your lost units, while he is producing new units to augment the size of his army.

The net result is that he will have a much larger army than yours and beat the crap out of you.

MartinB · Jun 5th 2018, 8:26am

Diabolical wrote:

Do not judge me because I'm willing to point out my level. Like the K/D ratio, my score is a partial look at my overall superiority.

Your overall score is not any kind of reflection of your 'superiority', and it is ridiculous to imagine that it is. Your score is only a reflection of the number of times you have played this game, and how much time you have spent playing it.

You get points for building barracks, naval bases, fortifications and air bases. You get points for every enemy unit you kill, even if your opponent is beating you and destroying your core region, and even if he is killing three of your units for every one he loses. Even an imbecile could get a high score because all it involves is logging on, signing up and clicking on your screen. You just have to keep doing it again and again and again. Bragging about that is like bragging about the number of beetles you have crushed in your lifetime.

In contrast, a player does not get a high K/D score because he or she deliberately 'goes out to get a high K/D score'. You get a high K/D score because you deliberately go out to kill a LOT of enemy units. And the reason you go out to kill a lot of enemy units is because if you do kill all of your enemy's units, you are bound to win the game. Unless, of course, you are stupid enough to lose all of yours in the process.

This is the essence of all military (and naval) strategy - to destroy the enemy army (or fleet), while maintaining yours intact.

WarPtyLtd · Jun 5th 2018, 8:57am

Off topic thread...Boring :thumbdown:

MartinB · Jun 5th 2018, 9:39am

WarPtyLtd wrote:

Off topic thread...Boring

Okay so getting back to the topic.

Five research slots is completely unnecessary. Most of us manage perfectly well with just two research slots, and
are perfectly happy with the system as it is for a very simple reason.

The burden imposed on us by the game system and the limit of just two research slots is imposed equally on all of our opponents.

If a player finds that he is getting destroyed by 'massive tanks' in every game then he or she is probably not playing very well, as has already been pointed out, and should probably look to improve his playing style. One possibility is to adopt a playing style that will reduce the number of casualties incurred in battle, because if you don't keep losing units, you will have a lot of infantry and anti-tank weapons left over with which to defend yourself, and your chances of getting destroyed by 'massive tanks' are going to be a lot lower.

Quasi-duck · Jun 5th 2018, 12:04pm

Once again I fully agree with MartinB. I have heard 3 research slots suggested before, and that seemed like a lot but would be okay. Why anyone would want 5 research slots is beyond me, since you'll have so much to research it will start taking away from unit production.

MartinB · Jun 5th 2018, 12:43pm

Quasi-duck wrote:

Why anyone would want 5 research slots is beyond me, since you'll have so much to research it will start taking away from unit production.

This is an excellent point that I had not thought of, but very very pertinent. In most games, I find that I have to be careful about my Goods and Rare Mats, so that I will actually have enough to start research when it becomes available. As you correctly point out, often we have to limit our Goods expenditure on either unit production, or infrastructure development, so that we will have enough left over to start the next research slot as soon as possible.

Diabolical · Jun 5th 2018, 8:56pm

MartinB wrote:

relies heavily on tactical bombers. I'm sure you use them as well, you're just not very good at using them, that's all.

Actually, I'm quite good with Bombers, but I don't like to use them in high numbers very often. To me, a Bomber-heavy military is a crux and I like taking down other players that depend on them too much. Taking down those kinds of players has almost become one of my sweetest of passions.

MartinB wrote:

Basically, it's easy to avoid heavy casualties if you use your brains. If you use a combination of mixed stacks to maximise your damage, a strategic reserve to rotate your units so that you do not keep losing units and some creativity in your strategy. You are just a bad player who does not know how to do these things.

Oh, I "don't" know how to do those things. Wrong. I consider that strategy to be reasonable but too dang slow for me. I'm an aggressive player and, instead of waiting for units to heal I'm beating my enemies back and sacrificing a few more units to ensure my opponents are well-slaughtered. And my resupply method is totally fine because I don't lose the older units as fast as you might suppose. But, yes, I do sacrifice a "few" more units than you might. But I'm sure I advance a whole lot further than you do in typical matches.

MartinB wrote:

It is a worse strategy. You reinforce your stacks and your average health drops. The next time you go into battle, you lose one of those units, because now you have two units in your stack that are both at low health. So if you take damage that takes you below the threshold, you lose a unit. This is the reason why you lose so many units, and have such a lousy K/D ratio.

Nope, I don't always lose one of those units. Because the forces raise the health of the older units more than lowering the new units. If I find that it's not enough of an improvement, then I send even more units. I don't just throw severely damaged forces at the enemy. Oh, and I do retreat them some of the time, to expedite the recombination into newer and stronger stacks.

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. You seem to think that if someone's ratio isn't at least better than average, it's "lousy". Well, perhaps you don't comprehend the mechanics of the ratio. Against human players, it's kill for kill. If I kill more of them than they of me, then I'm superior to them, at least by a small amount. A 1:1 ratio would be considered "average" since that's an even K/D of one for you against one for me kill to kill.

I know I'm really going at it here, myself, with all this typing, but you, sir, really need to get a life. Oh, and the insults are getting to be too much. Any more and I'll have to report you for crossing the line more than once, here.

MartinB wrote:

The result of continuously taking losses is that your production centres in your core will keep having to produce new units to replace your losses. This is a foolish strategy, because if you play against a good player, you will be continuously producing new units to replace your lost units, while he is producing new units to augment the size of his army.

Um, no. I usually can't keep all my factories working even though I typically have the highest economy in a match. And when they are running, it isn't to resupply, it's to grow my army. Sure, sometimes I'm replacing units. But I usually have one of the largest armies in the game.

In the immortal words of Charlie Sheen, "Duh,.....winning!"

MartinB wrote:

Your overall score is not any kind of reflection of your 'superiority', and it is ridiculous to imagine that it is. Your score is only a reflection of the number of times you have played this game, and how much time you have spent playing it.

As I said further up, my score reflects my skill. I've not played that many matches. I don't use Gold (usually). I use skill. I have a very high IQ and I'm strategically-minded....it's actually one of my natural gifts according to my old college assessment testing that I've taken in the past. And I'm not kidding about my IQ, not that you care, but I can brag a little by telling you that I'm actually a member of Mensa and you have to be at least in the top 2% of humanity to qualify (and I'm higher than that).

MartinB wrote:

ou get points for building barracks, naval bases, fortifications and air bases. You get points for every enemy unit you kill, even if your opponent is beating you and destroying your core region, and even if he is killing three of your units for every one he loses. Even an imbecile could get a high score because all it involves is logging on, signing up and clicking on your screen. You just have to keep doing it again and again and again.

As I've said again and again, I don't care much about the economic score. And this is the last straw. You are implying that I, a member of Mensa, am an imbecile. One more insult and you will be reported.

MartinB wrote:

Five research slots is completely unnecessary. Most of us manage perfectly well with just two research slots, and
are perfectly happy with the system as it is for a very simple reason.

My proposed change is to revamp the style of research such that more prereqs are required but that more slots are opened to counter. And by creating one specific slot per group, you incentivise players to want more balance, though you aren't forcing them to have balance. Sure, people might be happy with what they currently have. But that doesn't mean they won't be happier with a new way of thinking with this.

MartinB wrote:

The burden imposed on us by the game system and the limit of just two research slots is imposed equally on all of our opponents.

If a player finds that he is getting destroyed by 'massive tanks' in every game then he or she is probably not playing very well, as has already been pointed out, and should probably look to improve his playing style. One possibility is to adopt a playing style that will reduce the number of casualties incurred in battle, because if you don't keep losing units, you will have a lot of infantry and anti-tank weapons left over with which to defend yourself, and your chances of getting destroyed by 'massive tanks' are going to be a lot lower.

Dude, I never said it was unequally imposed. And I also never said that I was one of those getting "destroyed by 'massive tanks' in every game". Perhaps you are mistaken in thinking that I'm complaining about the system as it stands. No, I'm an innovator. I see the system as just "OK" and has room for improvement. It's not that I'm hurt by it or am having a hard time dealing with it or even that I'm anything less than an expert player of this game and am quite capable of kicking your ass in a match regardless of the research slots availability. But I would like to see my proposal adopted because I believe it would make the game more interesting and better for everyone, especially for the less-experienced ones who need to be taught why balanced forces is good.

Quasi-duck wrote:

Once again I fully agree with MartinB. I have heard 3 research slots suggested before, and that seemed like a lot but would be okay. Why anyone would want 5 research slots is beyond me, since you'll have so much to research it will start taking away from unit production.

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. At the same time, you don't have to use all the slots. Someone brought up how that would actually cost more resources. And I agree, it would cost more. And THAT choice (do I or don't I research more stuff) is something to be considered when balancing resources between production of buildings, units, research, espionage, trades, and bribes, etc. If anything, this additional dynamic might teach some people how to better understand budget prioritization which could actually help them in real life.

Yes, playing games can help you in real life. Video games can teach people a lot of things, both good and bad. Let this be a good lesson.

Diabolical · Jun 5th 2018, 8:59pm

Because of space requirements, I cut and pasted this from my last post. But I lost the quote in the process (oops). But it doesn't need the quote, really. It's pretty self-explanatory.

~O~

The number of matches I've played can be broken down into three groups: the ones I kicked ass in, the ones I got my ass handed to me in, and the ones that ended too early to generally affect my K/D ratio in any significant numbers. While, in theory, one could simply play endlessly, all while losing over and over...and over and over and over and over. But building tons of buildings and tons of units over time, the typical player -- like me -- isn't actually going to do that, that much.

Now, I have started, as of current records, 118 matches since mid 2015. Believe it or not, that isn't a lot of matches in that stretch of time compared to many typical dedicated players. And of those matches, there were about 20 that were deliberately started (all at once) and suicidally went on rage-quit battles against opponent capitals...with a surprisingly-effective rate of battle victories, I might add. But those were all short-lived because I only started those matches out of anger against a certain system policy that had been changed at the time and I don't even remember what it was, anymore. So those matches were ended too early to affect my K/D ratio, thus being part of the third group.

Besides those rage-started matches, I've been in dozens of matches over the past few years that also didn't affect my K/D ratio significantly...because they too ended very early (i.e., being stabbed in the back in the first couple days, or getting kicked from a handful of matches due to mistaken belief that I was cheating (and proven later that I wasn't), or simply quitting early because a neighbor started off the match as a super Golder and I figured "what's the point?"

So, it is fair to assess that at least 25 to 35% of my matches played ended far too early to have more than a token effect against my overall K/D ratio, whether positively or negatively. The exact amount will never be known, though. And even if they did affect my K/D ratio significantly, so long as I didn't throw too many units into casualty territory, the effect wouldn't even be negative.

Then there is the second group. Of the many matches I have played in which I got my ass handed to me, usually these matches lasted long enough to have a more-significant effect on my K/D ratio. These matches, typically of me, would have been ones where I fought tooth and nail but, typically, after building a strong enough empire, got put down or worn down by multiple enemies through brute force. In a slug-fest, for example, my casualties might have been greater than theirs but theirs was still very high as I usually make my opponents pay dearly for their wins against me.

However, in more cases than not, I attest that when I lose a match, my overall K/D ratio in the match is usually in the positive (though not always and usually not a high positive) because if, for example, I'm fighting against 5 nations and I wipe out three of them while the other two take me down, on more than one occasion, I am seeing the combination of their 5 (or other number of players) nations' worth of casualties listed in the World Herald as being either comparable or even higher than mine.

In fact, in the last such huge match where I lost under such overwhelming conditions, I remember the overall ratio being approximately 2 to 1 with my opponents ultimately winning with severe consequences to their combined ratios. Frankly, it was a battle between myself and two coalitions, one of whom had 5 members and the other had 2 members. And in this 7 vs. 1 war, I nearly wiped out 2 of my opponents in the larger coalition and was close to the tipping point in turning the course of the war but then the other coalition joined against me on my other side. So I was fighting the armies of 7 nations at one point.

Sure, some of the other players might have been significantly less experienced. But the larger team had a couple decent players steering their teammates and yet I still racked up many hundreds of kills, far outnumbering my own casualties. I don't remember if i racked up over a thousand kills by the time I was defeated, but it came close, at least. But in that match, including AI kills, I was smoking my opponents and I didn't use any Gold (though I'm unsure if any of the human opponents did, either).

Now, I lost perhaps half a thousand units, myself, by the end, though I had retreated about 50 or so units to an island but lost them all before I could attack the island since the system deleted them when my last owned provinces were captured and I had briefly gone inactive while waiting for the convoy to reach the island (and no, it wasn't sunk, either). But, since the forces were deleted by the system, I don't believe they would count against my K/D ratio.

Finally, there is the first group, the "I'm kickin' your ass" group. In those matches, which account for my wins as well as more than a handful of matches in which I got bored of and ultimately went inactive without finishing (and later "won" without getting any credit for it because someone else voted to end before I could return to finish the match). Now, when I say kickin' ass, I mean the matches where I'm either winning hands down, or that I'm filling enemy body bags by the thousands and I'm one of -- if not "the" -- dominant players throughout the match.

Now, in that first group, I also count some matches where I actually lost, but not because I was taken down by superior players, but that I was taken down, perhaps months into the match, by others whom used lots of Gold in the late game because they refused to go down when I was skunking them. In such cases, in the past, I would've been pissed. But after about a dozen times that's happened to me, I've learned to take such defeats with a grain of salt. After all, if I wipe out an enemy air corps through spy action grounding them at a destroyed airbase, and then they use Gold to rebuild the base and restock it with a couple dozen rockets to take out MY airbase and grounding MY air force, then it's time to accept that wallet trumps skill in some matches, no matter how much time and energy and skill you've invested in a match.

Such is life. But in those cases, where late-game Gold turns a war against me, even in those cases, my K/D ratio is usually quite positive. But more important than that, my overall kill count is what gives me my high overall military score. I happen to have a fairly high economic score, but I don't brag about it because, as you've said, I could just be building buildings in lots of matches. But rather, it's less matches with tons of conquered territory combined with my tendency to try to max out my economy to survive the late game ('cause I'm thinkin' ahead). No, I don't care about my economic score, really. My overall score reflects my military score much more than my economic score. And in that, I'm not in 96th place. In fact, militarily, I'm in 70th. Oh, and I've just fallen back to 97th, overall. But I'll rectify that soon enough once I stop wasting my time showing you how wrong you are.

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