I believe that, outside of tutorial map, there should be a minimum of $5 required gold purchase (13,000 gold). That would keep away trolls ruining the game by going inactive ... Gold rewards should be increased for everybody that finishes a game in order to encourage players to stay. The current rewards are a pittance and I believe that many players with no chance to win go inactive before the end of the game because they think it's not worth the effort ...

We can reduce the IMPACT of inactive players from the start by the following

1. Anyone who misses a move with 24 hours of the start of a game is automatically REPLACED with the new player given an extra set of resources such as $30,000

Apply to anyone with a ranking of 20 or less

2. As above but give 36 hours for level 45 or less

3. 48 hours for level 46 or more


Increase gold rewards will not impact drops at the start when it is most critical to game enjoyment.

Allow people to create games with time limits and increased speed. I find the 2x games better in Drops, as the new players are less frustrated by slow development.

I feel that the real problem is the new player involvement.

So maybe have tutorial games be 7 days, 14 days. Or go 3 or 4x and shorter maybe even 2 or 3 days. This will give people a taste of things without a big time commitment.

I think the main problem is people just don’t understand how to balance the economy. It’s tough when you on building an army then realise your using too much food and oil
but you got no resources to build infrastructure to increase production.
Then you’re stuck in a rut as nobody really uses the market and as time goes on if you’ve invaded a few countries then chances are the ai that’s taken over most of the others have put a trade embargo on you

That plus when you see all the superpowers join forces it gives a real ‘what’s the point feeling’ sometimes

The map with the lowest amount of players I've played is 22, where a game may last 30-35 days. Been told by others that games at 10-player maps last typically 14 days. Why not make these 10-player maps more available? ...

I just joined over the weekend, but played Supremacy for last 2 years or so. Don't know if I will say on playing CoW with this flawed economy.

Love supremacy, but what spoils it for me there is lack of AI takeover of your account to make intelligent decisions while offline for a day or less. Been several times when I am sleeping or while I am at work, then getting attacked by someone just spamming with arties( which in itself is annoying. most fight with just big stacks of arties) and bombers, and you have really no defence against that.
And my men just sit there waiting for me to give a command. Same for ships, just sit there taking pot shots, instead of taking evasive action at the very least or attack!

I liked the additional different units in CoW, e.g. defensive units against aircraft, subs, tanks, and the fact you can actually recruit infantry, etc, which really lacked in Supremacy.
But what spoils this game is this concept of "non core" states, producing forever only 25% resources.
Why on earth would anyone want to take land, if it was not for the resources, that is the whole point of the game (and even in real life war).
I understand that if a state was just invaded, it will take time to get the economy back to speed (rebuilding cities, infrastructure etc and incorporate some cultural aspects), but in supremacy for example that was dealt with the whole idea of morale.

Here in CoW, I play Ukraine in the training map, took over caucassus, cossacks and crimea, and only have 83 units (vs my almost 400 unit strong Austrian army in Supremacy), and now struggling with a food shortfall. Had to disable all my barracks to get back to positive rate, and having the build for days, spending thousands on buildings on states which produce 300 food for example, whereas in Kiev, I get 4000+ food with few buildings at all.

The idea that you get a morale penalty the further you are away from the capital is also absurd really, which forces you to eventually have to move the capital to a more central location. But here in CoW, if you did it that, your whole economy will fall apart.
Morale really should not go down regardless how far you are from the capital. Take the US, Russia, Australia, China for example, All huge territories with 4000km+ from one to the other side. if the capital is on one side, the morale of the people don't decrease living on the other side of the country.

I think it is fine to have a 25% production or even lower as a start just after taking over a state, but then over time that should improve to 100% (say 1 month period game time, excluding building improvements), unless obviously the state was taken over again (in which case it will reset back to the initial value, except if you where the previous owner of the state and taking it back). If you want to add a bit more complexity, you can have this morale increase take longer for the "invader" for example every time the state flips between 2 owners for example. e.g. a highly contested state which flips owners multiple times, result in a "dissident" or Guerilla force, and even an AI army can pop up as a Militia, which fight anyone trying to take over that state. Morale will be at its lowest and neither owner will be favoured if taken over.
Using Nukes for examples take an instant morale hit on all states for the person using a nuke, and similarly maybe having x amount of patrolling aircraft, over states increases their morale.
Similarly for ships for states next to the oceans/seas.

Another morale idea could be to lower say morale at border states, if they are not well defended for example and the border is not shared with an ally for example. But it will mean if the player posts a large enough army there (maybe with a x amount of strength, then morale penalty will go away). Maybe it also affects internal states depending on distance from the enemy, unless there is defence presence.

Both games severely lack powerful, competent and aggressive AI, such that you rely on active players to make or break the game.
In Supremacy I am currently playing a 25 player history map of europe. 3 days in and I lost all my allies gone inactive, and now it is just 2 of us, me and my enemy. Both of us can't take over/control the armies of our allied/teamed countries who went inactive.

This is just my 2 cents what spoils for me the 2 games.

Hi @PetrusR,
your post is quite off-topic, but I want to answer to your major criticism:

In my opinion, the 75% malus for non-core provinces is perfect. Without it, this game would be a rush with an ultimate obligation for everyone to be the fastest conqueror. Maps would be decided very quickly - as soon as one player has conquered some more than the others, there would hardly be any chance for the rest to catch up. It should be a difficult choice between offensive style of play (already in early game investing large percentage of resources into arms build-up and leading many wars) and economy-first style of play. It should depend on the situation which of these two strategies leads to success, while without the 75% malus, the aggressive style of play would always be preferrable.
And yes, it is also realistic. After conquering a country, it takes decades or even centuries until you no longer have to suppress people's wish to revolt and until you can fully benefit from it's economic richness. But a CoW game represents a timeframe of only a few years. So even a province conquered on day 1 of a CoW game and held until the end of the game shouldn't get near the productivity of a core province.

Since you also criticize the morale malus from distance to capital, I guess you're actually frustrated by having to go on conquering for many days in late game, just for the sake of gathering the required victory points to finish the map... although you know that these provinces far from your capital bring you nothing in terms of increasing your economic or military power (because the food and goods consumption of these provinces practically equals the resource income you get from them).
This indeed isn't a satisfying aspect of the game. My preferred solution for this is to give manpower a value also in late game by decreasing the food costs of infantry - see --> this thread <--. Currently manpower is worthless in late game, but with this change, it would be precious throughout all game phases, because it allows to recruit more of that (after that change) low-cost infantry. So then, every province would have a value, because every province gives you some manpower.