Thoughts on: Balance

Day 5,000, 07:42 • Published in USA USA • by Marcelaxy

Hello,

Balance - it's quite a tricky thing to get right. Whenever balance between the alliances changes, I am worried about communities being destroyed, causing players to quit the game. I don't care whether I am on the winning or losing side, when players leave it's bad for the game and thusly bad for everyone left.


Think of it egotistically: the less players this game has, the more profit it has to make from each player. Which means less development, less fun and free stuff and more packs being pushed on us.

You can't force balance - one alliance will always be stronger than the other.
However, you can adjust how much the dominant alliance can abuse its position.
In the current state it's a disaster. Free gold from TWs and a blooming economy for the winning alliance, permawipe and lack of an economy for the losing alliance. It's as bad as it can get.

So with the foreword done, what would I do to make this game more balanced? Some changes are quite easy to implement, just some numbers have to be changed, others are quite more difficult and require actual development work. Most are aimed at making an occupation more difficult and costly. Also TWs are made more difficult and costly as a consequence.


- 1. "Stolen" tax income
- 2. Home Advantage
- 3. Empire Upkeep Fee
- 4. Defense Systems
- 5. Misc
- 6. Conclusion
- 7. Giveaway


1. "Stolen" tax income

Depending on the number of occupied territories [X] and the total number of core territories [Y] a country has, up to 80% of it's tax income can be stolen [Z] by an invader. 0.8 * Y / X = Z

That's way too overpowered and not needed anymore (also illogical) since companies are placed in a specific region that can be captured instead of placing companies in a country. To keep it simple, let's say a Country A is completely invaded by country B. This means that country A will get 100% of the region-based income and 80% of the CS-based income. So, for example the WaM tax goes to the region-owning country by 80% and to the CS country of the producer by 20%.

Now country B will get 100% of the 80% and 80% of the 80%, a total of 96% of the income of Country A. Not to forget 80% of all other of Country B's CS-based incomes like work tax on employees that have nothing to do with region ownership.

If you also watch The Spiffing Brit on Youtube, you know that stacking multipliers with multipliers is always fair and balanced. Not.

Also, to have a specific, recent example: When the USA took back Kentucky, which is the most economically viable territory, from CODE, it was useless, mostly symbolic. CODE would still get 100% of the income of the territories they captured while also getting about 70% from the territories they didn't capture. Sounds fair and logical.

So, what I would do, if not completely remove this outdated mechanic from a time when companies were placed in countries, not regions, is reducing the max. percantage to 20-50%, along with an adjustment of the CS-based WaM-tax allocation I will mention in "5. Misc.".

2. Home Advantage

A country should always have a home advantage when fighting on their own regions. No matter who the attacker or defender is.

That makes TWs on enemy regions or region swaps to reduce the RW determination bonus more difficult as locals have a realistic chance to intercept.

The bonus should only be an influence bonus, not a damage bonus as stacking it
with the Legend bonus could yield too much free currency from TPs. Also it's kind of an unfair advantage for the battle over BHs/SHs and such.

It should be as follows:

For the "host" country: +20% Air & Ground
For another country: 20 % Air, 200% Ground (fake Leg 20)
For another country against the host country: 0% Air & Ground.
RW: 20% Air & Ground (added on top of (not multiplied with) the det bonus)

So, it makes an invasion and a lasting occupation far more difficult and gives wiped nations far more opportunities to make the occupiers' lifes difficult rather than starting RWs and getting benched. Additionally it gives players an incentive to stay in their country eventhough it's wiped or at least lost major production regions.

3. Empire Upkeep Fee

What did the Roman, Mongolian and Biritish empire have in common? They outgrew themselves. They suppressed a far larger population than they can handle, plus the large distances made communication and troop deployment difficult.

That's why I am proposing an empire upkeep fee. When a country posesses more than 10 regions, for every foreign region they occupy they have to pay a fee.
So, when a nation has 9 core regions, the first occupied region is free, when a naion has 1 core region, 9 occupied regions are free. Core regions are counted even when they are occupied.

That way, small nations will have an offensive advantage, big nations a defensive advantage.

For the first Region above that threshold, 1000cc have to be paid per day, for the second 1250cc, for the third 1500cc and so on.

So when a country of 10 or more regions occupies a total of 20 foreign regions, it costs a total of 67.500cc per day. So it scales and adds up quite well.

This makes both, hostile occupations and TWs more costly - both is extremely important in order to keep powerful countries in check. As a nice side-effect, millions of CC will be removed from the economy.

For simplicity, the value should be calculated either at daychange or some other time once each day.

Foreign regions with no connection to the capital should cost an additional 1000cc each per day. This is to regain strategic importance of maintaining a connection, which creates a weakpoint and deterring nations from wiping countries all over the world using airstrikes etc.

This way, countries have to be smart when occupying hostile regions. Cherrypicking the best regions instead of wiping multiple countries.

Strategy over brute force.


4. Defense Systems

Defense Systems, a feature from v1/v2 times, should make a comeback.
As the name suggests, they give defenders an advantage, which is exactly what you would want to achieve further balance.

They should give a proportional advantage for the defending country and can only be placed in a core region of a country currently holding it.

Just like the old feature, they should be produced in companies by citizens using employee work only. I could imagine enabling WaM at 1/5th the production but that's not important. It should use air weapon productivity for the raw materials and ground weapon productivity for the end production in order to not have to create a new resource. Also two resources in order to not make one too much more powerful after Resource Wars.

It should give an influence bonus of 5/10/15/20/25% and cost the equivalent work of about 20/40/80/120/200 Q1 houses. So, at the current salaries a Q1 would cost about 200k, a Q5 2M cc.

Defense Systems of all qualities should have 25 uses. A use being one round of a campaign. It's instantly destroyed when the region is conquered.

In order to solve a problem the previous version of Defense Systems had, that they were sold on national markets and only those nations could buy them, creating a non-competition for buyers, this time there should be a worldwide market for them.

Sellers post their offers on an international market anonymously and presidents can buy them using the national tresury. After a purchase, the seller will be revealed and the purchase will be publicly visible in a log in order to spot and prevent abuse. (i.e. selling defense systems expensively to avoid the 400k per day donation limit)

Also, only the cheapest available offer can be bought, like with the token market. At an identical price, the oldest offer is used.

A country can store up to 3 DS of each Q and has to be placed in a region using a law proposal that will take 72h in order to give attackers a chance to prevent the allocation. Preventing the allocation by capturing the destination will result in the law being rejected. If the law passes during a campaign, the next round will start using the DS.


5. Misc.


5.1 The WaM work tax shouldn't be calculated as 80% for the region owner, 20% for the CS country of the producer but rather as a 50/50 to give weak nations who can't maintain profitable resources a chance.

5.2 The 7-day benchtime for lost RWs needs to be removed. This is both in order to give occupied nations more chances to strike back and give helplessly weaker nations a better opportunity to have a "TW" for TPs and some gold. Also this mechanic makes using multies not just more rewarding but neccessary.

5.3 Airstrikes should become far more expensive (10x as much food, 2x to 5x as much CC) and losing an airstrike will bench the attacker for 1 month from AS'ing the same country (including its core regions held by other countries) again. Also, each nation should be able to be AS'ed once every 3 days and be able to AS once every 10 days. With air strikes, the "strategy" aspect of the game (cutting off one country from another to protect a weaker ally etc.) has been completely removed. Since its addition to the game, the strongest countries can now easily battle weaker ones into submission with no way to run or hide. Air Strikes should be a tool used to allow countries with less neighbours or a bad postion to take part in conflicts but for a cost and with a risk - not an easy way for one country to be everywhere. Also an influence punishment for the air striking country could make sense.

5.4 Since all these changes have a dramatic impact on whether holding a foreign region is worth it or not, presidents should be able to start law proposals to give occupied regions back to their countries. Those shouldn't be limited and require a simple majority to pass.


6. Conclusion


As I said in the introduction, none of these things would change which is the stronger country or alliance but by how much this position can be abused by the stronger ones. Don't be egotistical: even if you are on the stronger side now, doesn't mean you are on the stronger side forever.

This game is highly toxic (as are most competetive games) and everyone tries to get advantages for themselves and destroy the others. The developers/admins shouldn't support it with game mechanics (as they have done in the recent years) but suppress it using game mechanics.

I am aware that most of this would be largest actual content update for eRepublik for years but I hope that there's still enough life and potential left in this game to justify implementing such a far-reaching and (sadly) necessary balance patch.

Thank you for your attention.

Little Disclaimer: I wrote the vast majority of the article before the "fuel feature was added. I still think that all my suggestions make as much sense with it as without it.


7. Giveaway

I'd like to do a little giveaway. 10k Q7 weapons for my favourite comment, 2x5000 Q7 tanks for two random comments (not comments on comments for this one, would be too difficult to count. Only your first comment can win this.), 2x5000 Q7 weapons for two random endorsers. No multiple wins.

Also 500 Q7 weapons to the first 25 players with 500 or more friends advertising this article including a link in the Friends-feed. Post a link to the shout in the comments as evidence. (After the 25, I will pay the next 75 200 tanks each. However, allow me for some time sorting through. As long as you are "close" to 500 friends, it's also good enough when there are enough active ones.)

I will conduct the giveaway and send all prizes sometime this weekend or the next one.