If I'm reading this correctly, these new war bonds will not carry over from map to map. Will they be allowed for use on skill-based maps that are Bytro approved to be gold-free?

Jesus Christ Bytro, I'm impressed. Less gold is such a w.

You see less, I see more under a different name.

Because everyone gets the same amount and it doesn't carry over from map to map, this will just have more players using it as it's gold that's actually fair use. However you can still use gold to buy more of it. So it'll make it harder to identify players using gold to buy this new resource.

Imagine in a current game, you see an opponent heal their troops back to full health. It's obvious they used either gold or booster cards to do so. Once this change is made, you won't be able to differentiate between war bonds that everyone gets the same amount or ones obtained with gold.

This will just obscure what is legitimate and fair use compared to what is pay to win.

This directly increases "gold actions" across the board without reducing P2W factors.

One of the issues that has not been addressed yet is that the Warbonds do not scale with economy. So, previously if you grew your nation to a significant size, you could actually match the resource production of a coalition and fight them on an even playing field. With the Warbonds being a fixed daily limit, this means you will be facing a coalition with 5X the Warbonds at their disposal to use against you every single day, and no way to close the gap. This is a disadvantage for solo players to overcome. The opponent is also being encouraged to use them because if not they are wasted, so we end up with significantly more "gold actions" in game.

This reduces the reliability of any information you are using to execute a strategy in game, and any advantage can be wiped out in minutes with abnormal and completely unpredictable gameplay.

Interesting perspective. We will have to see how it plays out. Everyone will have an additional push of resources. I think this will dilute the effect of gold a bit. If done correctly I hope Bytro can have teams working together can overcome the gold users.

Hopefully this accomplishes two things. 1 It will reduce some of the initial boring resource period of the game. This will get players into the game more quickly. Being able to repair units simply makes sense too. Bonds seem like an ok way to do this.

2 people will actually use the spy tab now possibly.

We will see how it plays out. Im just happy the developers are still tinkering with it. It shows they hear the complaints about gold and are trying to improve it. Gold pays the bills and causes players to leave sadly. Making gold less impactful is going to help the environment. We will see how it plays out. It will be interesting to watch how much the game changes with people using spy tab. It may also allow for newer players to be able to form a better response to attacks by using these.

Wait and see all you want. The outcome is obvious, but I'll concede the time of death is not apparent yet. I think there are some good aspects to this, but I think they are overwhelmed by the bad.

On the plus side, this will make the game start faster, many new players are turned off by the slow pace of the first day or two of the game. This will certainly help with that. I've heard Bytro say this will level the playing field against heavy gold users, in response to the many complaints they are receiving. The extent to which they achieve that would be interesting to see. My alliance has a strict no first usage rule with gold/cards. This would make identifying someone using outside resources that much harder. For example, when you see units being healed, that could just be a result of someone saving war bonds or it could be outside resources. Lots of players want you to think they're strategic geniuses with managing their resources well. This will just add a layer of ambiguity and benefit those who want to use their credit card to bridge the gap between their ability and their ego. But at the same time, I have newer players accuse me of using gold on maps when I have not. It'll just add to that suspicion even more.

I also think this will increase the learning curve of the game for new players by adding another complicated element. Once they start realizing their air strips are no longer there and they don't know what happened to them, they'll probably not log in again. There are no notices when someone uses instant spy options.

I've been playing fewer and fewer regular maps anyway, but this will make them unplayable for me.

I'm also on an advisory committee for a gold/free server and play in other competitive tournaments and am trying to wrap my head around how best to use these and the overall impact they will have. I can think of a few ways to make these viable, but have serious concerns with how I understand the current plan to be. These will impact competitive games in several ways. The ability to ground planes with war bond sabotage are probably too much. Also the ability to have units or forts spring up at the last second are also going to be too much. It takes any strategy and realism out of the game.

My suggestions would be to limit war bonds to the first few days of the game, maybe three. Limit the extent war bonds can speed things up; maybe only cutting the time in half at max. Remove the ability to sabotage buildings or at least add a war bond counterespionage instant action (not even sure how that would work).

Otherwise, perhaps I should just thank Bytro for mercy killing the game and find something else. I'm not sure what methods Bytro is using to measure feedback from the AvA community, but this is a big one and many are very upset.

Interesting

They brought Jubjub back from the dead, amazing

Now I can skip 5 minute waits for free

I was afraid that you'd be able to buy resources with WarBonds (like you do with gold). 30k a day is effectively 2.5k resources an hour. That's like if you had +500/h of each resource from the start. You usually have around 270/h of each material on day 1 and you have to play efficient (build economy, expand territory) until you get like 800/h. If WarBonds just gave you +500 extra, the early buildup would require alot less skill. Also, if you could buy manpower with WB, then good players wouldn't build economy at all. No recruiting stations, because all those economic buildings take days to pay off. We would just build military and nothing else (in every situation), that would be monotonous and less enjoyable.

So I'm thankful. But yes, it will persuade many people into abusing espionage heavily, downing airstrips etc. I agree with all the criticisms raised here.

This is so weird. You need to spend within 2 days (given 30k daily production and 60k stock capacity). So no, you aren't gonna save them for a rainy day or for a push later in the game. I can answer that right here.

*Edit: oh wait, I just saw on BMfox that he has 66k stocked up passively. Is there not a fixed limit of 60k? It says "Stock Size: 60000" in the picture you provided here, but it seems it's not a fixed limit. If I'm indeed wrong and there's no limit, then the average players will just stock up 400k and not use it lol.

I dont know, seems to be a feature, just to use more boosters and gold.

And my honest opinion is, that the slow casual players will disappear from this game.

All i see is negatives. My biggest annoyance is that bonds make games go even quicker than they used to and i already was bummed to see golders finishing games in 14 days. Maybe they can now do it in 12, yay...
I like it slow so i can build up an army because i don't spend gold and this is not it.

If you're good you can win a world map in like 10 days. Sometimes, it is rather unusual but it happens. You need to be insanely active, investing so many resources into more army and economy that you're constantly running out of everything.
But yes, I agree. Playing patiently is so much more fun, and now it will be more difficult because you need to attack, go crazy or aggressive to use the WarBonds.

THey are broken i had 167K stoked up seems to be no limit

War bonds worst idea ever need major readjustment. eg - i drop 167k that built up over 2 days completely stop enemy making troops. in turn they destroy all air strips making my planes useless. also same round made 2 people quit just war bonding there core to death. Need a rework

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this supposed to be a strategy game, right? The fun factor is in the planning, anticipation, coordination, etc. This new feature misses the whole point of the game. There are other ways for Bytro to extract revenue without ruining the core mechanics. I'll mention a few, but first an example.

An enemy army destroys my stationary army, but takes heavy damage. Knowing this, I counterattack with my fresh troops. They arrive 30 minutes after the initial battle concludes, only to discover that the opposing army is all healed up and ready to defend. So much for strategy! How am I supposed to play this game?

Here's some ideas to monetize the game (brainstorming here):

1. Offer pay-to-enter rounds where gold and war bonds are disabled. I would gladly pay 10k gold to join such a game.
   
2. Make all alliance vs. alliance rounds the pay-to-join types. Allow players to contribute gold into the alliance warchest so that those with means can help out.
   
3. Unit upgrades can only be completed inside cities. If you want to upgrade in the field, it'll cost the player gold/bonds per unit.
   
4. Use of gold/bonds to speed up Research needs to be a modifier. For example, X gold increases that unit's research by 10%, XX gold increases it by 20%. The modifier maxes out at 50% speed increase.
   
5. Likewise, the use of gold/bonds to heal units needs to be a modifier. For example, at day-change when all units heal a little, those with gold applied will heal double. Those units should also include a special icon to indicate that special "repair corps" has been assigned to that unit. This icon/indicator can only be revealed based on your standard stealth mechanics.
   

I'm sure we can come up with more ideas for Bytro to monetize the game without destroying the core mechanics. The first two ideas above don't even impact the gameplay, but still monetize the game.

At the very least, I hope we can have a classic (no warbonds) rounds once in a while. I just think this new feature destroys the best parts of the game.

War Bonds are just gold in disguise...a terrible change to the game!!! Strategy, Tactics and game planning are ruined by gold and war bonds. I would much rather pay a fee (or gold) to join games with NO gold/boosters/war bonds. I believe my days are numbered here because this game has simply become pay to win, absolutetly no gamesmanship involved anymore.

Master Androv, your post is simple and brilliant! I wish freezy notices this. Suggestion 1 and 2 especially.

All it takes (for freezy) is good old client-side 'programming' like 2 buttons (

plus:

game.canGold = true; // or:
game.canGold = false; game.entryPrice = 20000;

player.hasGold(amount){ // boolean, extracts $amount upon returning true
// add 2 rows:
if !this.game.canGold
return false; // haha, what do you do now Libya?
...
}

),
and a casual 8-hour conversation with Bytro staff, to convince them that the small minority of good players (who don't need gold so they give Bytro no revenue) is important to listen to. The only argument is 'those long-time players will now pay 10-20k gold per game'. Multiply that by the glorious amount of good active players, and you got a small profit which won't convince Bytro staff And even if it does, not very convenient to pay 20k gold a game. Some strategy games cost this much to buy, and from then on you can play (even use multiplayer servers) for free.

You're right Androv, but will it work with Call of War's "Brazil cost"