Stop using "gay" in a derogatory way. It's probably illegal in some places

Love that title mate!

OMG, grow up. Are you the 'word police'??
And where did youy read the word 'gay' anyways????

I might have called you 'fat-brained' for your remark, but I can't, bc the word 'fat' has been woke-banned and replaced by 'enormous' .... and I clearly do not want to say you are 'enormously brained'.

You are so right on all counts.
The resource update is a big fat attempt to get people to spend more. No more and surely no less, no matter which way they spinned it.

The fact that such updates - or rather: DOWNGRADES - of the gane are prioritized over much wanted and realistic things or fixes as ...:
- 'scorched earth',
- abandoning useless/unwanted units
- map errors
- lag
- etcetera andsoforth...
...is a tell tale sign this game is going down the drain :(((

agree. I hadn't played in quite a few months, so wasn't aware. one beef I have is that instant sabotage of a structure used to cost gold (right?). assuming many/most players didn't want to spend gold at all, those who did spend probably did so more often on units. since there's literally no cost, it seems way more widespread. that game choice is one of the worst aspects of the game and is now way more prevalent.

I'm on day 6 and have had like 10 buildings completely wiped, some multiple times. if that's the way the game is played now, it's not much fun.

It's not that big of a deal. Upgrade your forward air bases to level 2 so they can't be easily sabotaged, or build them in cities with other structures that lower the odds of your bases getting hit. Sabotage is mildly annoying but not game breaking.

The point is not that there are fixes, like going level 2 (or - hint for another cheap solution - just start a bunker and break off at 1 build point, then start Infra and break off at 1 build point etc. for every building you can put there, which spreads the chances of sabotage over more buildings, thus lowering the chance of your airfield getting hit).

The point is that:
1. an always losing or always going inactive F2P player - you know: the cattle going for the slaughter in 300 games and not even having coa victories - now being able to perform gold-actions. (Note: I am NOT complaining about dedicated F2P players or F2P in general. Played F2P myself for a couple of years...with plenty of victories, which was still possible in Cow v1.0 for any F2P good strategy player)
2. gold actions were always there, but they were limited. Heavy golding even being rarer. This allowed for strategy in this strategy game. Now some mana-magic (which has nothing to do with strategy!) is in EVERY game.
3. I - like other strategy players - are now forced to use tonnes of mana-magic too.
4. maybe the purple-gold reduced Gold-shaming, but it STARTED HC-shaming, bc HC gets a few more Warbonds than F2P and the ever losing/map quitting nitwits now consider HC unfair bc of the few extra WBs.

Ofc I use my WBs and I use them well to a huge benefit and it clearly speeds up my victories.
This to the detriment of the WB-loving nitwits, which they do not even realize.
No matter what, all in all the advent of WBs is a curse.

However, the 'Resources ruined' downgrade by far tops the WBs downgrade in detrimental effects on fun & playability. For one, eco-strategy is out the window.
Economic strategy is at the base of every victory and this has been reduced to an oversimplified (better: dumbified) and an overall unbalanced game, which simply is less challenging and is less fun to play.

The game has been reduced for me to only:
- hunting primarily Oil and secondarily Food cities.
- researching & producing PWs, SPG/SPAA & certain Aircraft.


Also, since the 'Resources ruined' downgrade, most fun and useful units are now obsolete.
Unless being of the nitwit-class of players, everyone should realize that;
- Infantery, incl. Motorized and Mechanized, is now obsolete
- RA, incl. SPRA, is now obsolete
- AT, incl. SPAT, is now obsolete
- Paratroopers & Commandos were already difficult to deploy, but ... are now entirely obsolete
...and the list goes on

Basically the game can now be played best with only Aircraft and PWs.

Well done Bytro/Stillfront?

'Love' your update on the shop landingpage though! Thát was a true priority
It now features the logo of every credit card available. Very important, bc paying players really did not know how to use their credit cards yet... Thank you ever so much for reminding us of the multitude of possibilities

you elaborated quite well on the many downsides, but this was my primary observation. I've not played a ton of games and only 1 with WBs. But, if the best thing you can say about your game is that the changes are only mildly annoying, then...that's not a game I really want to spend much time playing I guess...??

"...mildly annoying" must be the understatement of the year.

Bytro just made 90% of their units in the game obsolete.
I loved SPRA. Discovered it much too late how good it was. Fat chance I will ever get the achievements done now. Nevertheless, in a won - but still ongoing - game with a surplus of resources, one might still built them and get some kills.
Like HT. I never ever build MT or HT before, bc they are a waste of time and space. Too slow, too expensive, too long to produce etc. and utterly useless, bc they never make it to the battle in time. Still, I am racking up 40+ kills on 1 (continuously force-marching) HT from a unit-card now, after softening the targets with Tac or Arty. So, maybe after a decade of playing, I might get that achievement still....
Will be the same now for SPRA, Commandos etc now....yeah

So, yes, is this still a game one wants to play?
I still have a considerable period of HC to burn through. That long I will probably play...or not.
Winning is 'cool', but in a dumbified game like this, it is hardly an achievement

Why are SPRA obsolete?

I don't understand your logic. In my experience, it's the tube artillery units that became less desirable because rocket variants use the same resources but do more damage to more prevalent units: unarmored and light armor. This is especially true in the early and mid game. Gun artillery is hard to justify, unless you're playing Pan Asian.

My 2 cents on SPRA vs SPG:

SPG could seem less favorable, except when you count in research and production facilities and the timing for SPRA.
One easily has SPG level 2 before even starting with SPRA/1.

Then factor in the fact that SPG only takes Metal next to Oil, while SPRA takes Food & Oil.
Oil - always in every game being your priority, bc that is how Bytro messed up the resources and unit requirements - you will have, bc you will focus on its production.
Food being important for many buildings and Aircraft is your 2nd concern, but due to heavy investments in Oil production, you can't equally invest in Food.
Metal, however, you will not be short of since the 'Resources ruined' downgrade.

Hence, if you are also using Aircraft (consuming Food & Oil) as a swift strike force or support unit in any numbers, you will not have much Food left for SPRA, but you will still have an abundance of Metal. This favors SPG over SPRA.

Also don't forget you need AA-capacity with your SPG or SPRA, when playing vs any players that are any good.
Logically you will want your AA to keep up with your ranged troops, so you will have to add sizeable numbers of SPAA, which again consume Food. This favors SPG over SPRA.

Thus the SPG+SPAA combi is much more favorable than aan SPRA+SPAA combi from an economy point of view after this horrid downgrade of the game.
Ofc, you will lack some efficiency vs Infantery-class, but that is easily offset by the numbers you can produce.

Also, once you reach SPG/3, there isn't any major performance difference with SPRA/1, but going to SPRA/2 is again a huge investement in RSS & time. Anyway, further than SPG/3 you will hardly ever get, because you will have won the game by then (...or lost it).

Besides all that, SPRA is only significantly better than SPG vs Inf-class. Given the fact that most 'nitwit-class' players love to built Tanks still and Infantery is hardly ever an issue to wipe out (given the player understands how to play a ranged battle), the advantages of SPRA do no longer outweigh the disadvantages.

Thus there is no need for SPRA anymore and the unit is now obsolete, except as a collectors item for Achievements.

PS: an example happening now.
Just now bombarding an attacking force of 400HP consisting of 14 Inf-class + 6 Light Armor of various levels; this with 10 + 9 SPG/1 and 1 moving in (+accompanying SPAA & ACs).
Airforce is standing by, but not being used to counter this force, bc enemy has sizeable AA capacity and there is no need to damage the Aircraft unnecessarily.

On the 1st salvo some 75 enemy HP evaporated.
Next salvo my SPG will be from 10 + 10 and accordingly damage will be some 5,5% higher, thus around 80 HP (+/-random %, but that evens out over multiple salvos).

All in all, I will have to fire 4 or maybe 5 salvos, before I let the attacker crash into my AC-force, maximizing the def values vs Inf, while the enemy Armored units will have been reduced to rolling scrap by that time and needs not to be reckoned with.

Should I have had SPRA/1, I would still have needed at least 4 salvos (if not 5) IF I could have had 20 SPRA there (note that I have another 20 SPG elsewhere). Hence, SPRA could haven given me a 30 minute advantage... Not worth it.

Also, having 40 SPRA is unlikely, bc then I would have had to produce more Food and thus ... less Oil.
With less Oil, I could then not have produced the 40 SPRA + accompanying SPAA.

With the 'Resources ruined' downgrade came an abundance of Metal, thus favoring a combi of SPG, SPAA & AC + Aircraft.
Ofc, now they are going to 'rebalance' that AFTER many complaints. But it probably will unbalance something else and it won't restore the more interesting (or: NOT SO INCREDIBLY BORING) choices we had before.

Maybe the above analysis is something for @Bytro Labs, @Geden and @freezy, though I know I am talking to walls...
Actually, the latter is not true. It is a question of not wanting to do anything about being wrong and knowing it...
Anyways, the product is starting to fail miserably for many loyal; customers and it seems like a question of time before I will stop using it.

Short term profit is detrimental to continuity. It is clear Bytro/stillfront made a choice!

Non-sp arty and rrarty use food and metal. SPA and SPRA both use oil and metal.

Most units are unarmored and light armor. Including all the SP shooters and AA, plus AC and LT. Rocket units do 2x-3x the damage against most units they face, plus they move faster.

Yes, players who build tons of armor are annoying, but heavy armor units have almost no air defense, so are vulnerable to any ranged unit, especially in heavy terrain.

Truly, RA and SPRA are still some off the most useful units in the game. So are infantry, which get early and frequent levels. You can roll with level 4 infantry on day 4. That's the most bang for the buck you can buy at that point in the game.

You are right about the SPRA and Food vs Metal... My mistake.

Still, I see no use for them.

On Day 4 I will be spamming SPG/1 and by Day 14 SPG/3.
An adversary going for SPRA can start at Day 6 and go to SPRA/2 on Day 16.
SPG in the meanwhile costing a lot less and having shorter production times.

Taking it to extremes clears things up => Say we do a battle with only SPG vs only SPRA, the outcome would clearly be in favor of the SPG as the SPG player would have more and cheaper units.

In the game I am in I am at SPG/3. Why would I still develop and built SPRA if I can built a lot SPG for the RSS and time spend on SPRA/1, while still having to wait days before I can develop SPRA/2?

Concerning Infantery, that only works vs nitwit-class players (with 300 games, 0 vics).
Even though you get quick upgrades, there is nothing they can do vs ranged (e.g. vs a fighting waithdrawal) and little vs the Tacs at the same time in the tech-tree.
Almost no Infantery ever reaches my lines and those who do are just a shadow of what they were when they started out.
I never worry about enemy Infantery and I don't use any, except for what I was given at start and only sometimes produce them as quickly built (lvl1) occupation troops vs rebellion. If wanting some Inf (in case of surplus Food and Metal), than I would prefer Elite Militia.
The food costs for the Barracks alone are a heavy deterrent from using Inf, which can only do close-combat, increasing your troop losses and likely killing your K/D (as with MT and HT), especially when meeting my ACs.
Current K/D in the game is 301 from 602 kills & 2 deaths (ofc 2 Infantery; from not paying attention)

IMHO about 90% of units are now obsolete and only SPG, SPAA and AC matter on the ground.
Ofc, play-style and activity level may alter choices, but as an active player the above simply works out as the best combi on the ground and vs air attacks.

I'm not even bothering with air units. too expensive to build airbases only to have half of them disappear. and, if the only solution is to spend more to up their levels, that's not easy early game. if the alternate solution is to build 1HP worth of infrastructure or something else, then the game is stupid.

anyway, to your point. whether they are mathematically obsolete or not, in my game most players are focusing on a few unit types. b/c they rush the research and therefore, that's their advantage...why would they build anything else?!?! becoming a pretty one-dimensional game.

You are absolute right about the game becoming 1-dimensional

Originally, the founders set out to make the best strategy game. And they did.
Unfortunately what remains of those founders, running the company, is getting forgetful.

the hunt for shortterm profits will kill all the attractions of the game IMHO.

Yea i don't spend gold and i've really been struggling to get strong now. I have to grab like a half-continent before i will start being able to build what i want instead of just scraping by and that's not ok since it takes like two weeks to do it without boosting yourself. I don't know what they did but they did me good alright.

I think it's funny that a for-profit company trying to make more money is called Woke Nonsense.

What's next, developers who want a raise are Fascists?

There are more options than 'for-profit-only'. But that might be beyond you.

But besides that:
- Companies aiming at short term profits - naturally at the detriment of their product - never last long.
- Companies aiming for continuity, however, will do their best to provide the better product at the better price within their market, ensuring happy and recurring customers. That does nót at all exclude making a profit.

Try to get this:
- Profit is a part of your Gross Margin.
- Gross Margin is the Added Value you are charging for your intellectual & physical efforts, money, time and other inputs, spent on the development, production, distribution etc. of your product or service.
- Clients will happily pay the Gross Margin IF you are adding (a perceived) value to their lives by providing a product with a good quality/price ratio
- Short term profit goals always result in (relative) price increases in combination with cost savings & reduction of quality and thus lower added value (this is indisputable).

Thus, trying to raise your profits by increasing the (relative) price, while reducing added value is a contradiction.
The latter is what we are seeing.

There simply is a seriously increased focus on short term penny milking, in combination with a reduction of product quality (downgrades, lag, etc), resulting in unhappy customers. This is a killer for continuity.

The downgrades are aimed at 2 things:
1. An effort to make the game simpler, so it can compete for players with the more succesful money-traps
2. Induce more spending by applying methods from other (pure P2W) games

Ofc, superficially the product hardly seems changed and new players wouldn't know how much the game was downgraded, but these new players are - as before - not staying.

The crowd that plays the money-trap games they want to compete with, is not the type that will stay on in COW, because for that crowd the game is still:
- too slow
- too complicated
- not flashy or loud enough for the ADHD and alike stickered kids (which is now 90% of youths according the National Health Service in my country... Or did they simply not get enough attention from their phone-occupied parents?)

Besides, those players don't even stay too long in their money-trap games either! Maybe a couple of weeks and then they are bored or broke and jump into the next flashy, fast, loud game. That is why those games aren't around longer than 1~3 years.

Concerning COW:
99% of new players - also in your maps named userXYZ - still just jump into the game, never build their first building and leave the map to go inactive in a couple of days.
Why?
Because they are '12yrs old' (you know what I mean...I hope), playing on their phones only.
They are thus not attracting (enough of) the right kind of players for this game and too many dimwits.
That is a marketing issue. Simple.

Check the rankings and you will see that the active players are just a couple of thousends. But there are >14 Million registered accounts in the rankings of which almost 14 Million inactive.
And if I saw it correctly, we are already at anonymous User24Million+ in my last map, who also went inactive after opening the map and never did a thing.

The downgrades will IMHO not ever result in more recurring, paying customers.
Conversely, it will lead to the serious strategy players to stop spending. Like me.
And that will 'end' the game.

Thát is why I am worried about these downgrades.

The silly thing is that if you can't get strong enough as a F2P-player, you will also not be a challenge to HC-players or heavy P2W-players.

Thus this dumbificaton operation is going to backfire in the long run.

Ofc, the 'long run' is of no concern to penny-stock investors and thus Stillfront...but it should be of Bytro.