Crimson's Rant

[Mr President]

*Smells a tl;dr!!* er, don't leave!! I got three ideas here!!!!!

From a newbies point of view, the *worst* thing about the game is the fact that every round, all states are deleted except us nice paying players. That's the greatest way to make a game look *really* dead, and I've *never* understood why the states get deleted every set instead of simply reset!!!!!! The last thing you want is the attack page to look like there are few players!!!

Here's an example of what not deleting does. A few months ago I was looking for more round based games to play. I found ww2game, and when I went to the attack page, I was shocked to see a few THOUSAND accounts!!!! So I started playing, and by the time I realized there was maybe 100 active players, I was already hooked. I *really* liked seeing a LOT of players that I could attack and get really nice cash!!! I had joined five days before the three week round ended, and even the inactive accounts had really nice money, and I ended the round ranking...15. I was hooked!!!

If the accounts here were simply reset every round with the state showing up, and some how they were useful for new players, that would really help keep new players from leaving after being here for 10 minutes. In the ww2game game, every one get's income each turn based on the size of their army which makes all the accounts useful. If every account here got just one free extra piece of land every turn, that would give the new players more than enough stuff to do when they start. 144 pieces of land added a day. Low enough to keep us actives from touching the inactive accounts, but enough for the new players to have nice players to go after when they start attacking. And I think it would be a fair advantage for new players that start the round late, since they don't have all those turns to use that were generated before they registered.

About the game changes, I haven't seen very many useful game changes this year, other than ones like a lower time wait on the market, Casher Strat boost, and *maybe* the attack changes. All the UN changes are useless for 90% of us actives since we can't even go in to the UN, unless we make a one player nation!!! I don't see very much use from the loan idea! Nations all seem to do just fine with the tax cash.



Earth Empires could *easily* be a gold mine for getting new members here. If some one got really good at the game, in the Alliance version, then had their own alliance that ranked very well, then recruited players to the alliance and then in the alliance, promoted this game every so often, you could easily get a flood of players here.

Here's an idea, if some one here played the one week speed version a few times and got good enough to end the round ranking in the top 10, they could then post their strategy here in as much detail as possible, join the alliance version and make an alliance. Then a bunch of us join the game and join the alliance. (Don't name it Nation Wars, that'll quickly give off the real reason of the alliance!!) We then play the game using your guide, and make the alliance rank pretty close to #1. Then we recruit like crazy to the alliance. And who's not going to say no to an invitation to one of the top 5 ranking alliances??!! Then every so often, we mention this game in the alliance. There's no need to spam forums at all when you got a game called Earth Empires!!!!!! I think a lot of the players would like NW better.

Which version of Earth Empires is MD in?



Simply having a bank that was useful longer than 10 days would be enough for me to keep providing food!!! I got 1,043,353,566 food sitting around and collecting dust!!!!! *ducks* We should try just ONE round with no bank cap, and see how it goes. By the 20th of the month we'll easily know!! That would do more good than nation loans!!

I really like a few of these ideas.. Great post! I think making it not delete states for everyone is a good idea and I also think adding a little land per turn for new members is good as well. The land thing we can work out on a seperate suggestion. We would need to make it not to much to really matter, but yet enough to help.. The bank cap issue is one that we are looking at. I don't think an unlimited bank would be the best way to go but maybe an increase would help. We don't want everyone stocking all set then jumping at the end.

Crimson, i read through the whole post, and I have a few comments.

First off i'm glad that there are still members like you fighting for this game.

Secondly, I know that it is frustrating that these older veterans have slipped from our grasp. One of them you mentioned is gnorf. I have tried over the past 2 years to find a way to get in contact with this guy but he never comes on msn, aim, responds to private messages on Dak forums, or anything. I think they have just LITERALLY fallen off the grid.

I think the best way to get a community going is have every active member bring one friend or new player back every set. I'm not talking bringing tons of people or wasting tons of time on forums or in other games. Just get in contact with a friend, and get him to come play!

I think that another way to sort of mix up the fun is try to mix up the nations a little bit. While it is cool to see USA, Sky, LoR, set in and set out, perhaps a way to generate new interest and enthusiasm is to break these nations down and start some fresh ones with different people. Obviously this is not really possible to enforce but if we shuffled the nation it would encourage more communication and we would get to know some people that we wouldn't ordinarily know.

I also think that you should add a new bonus into the game that would give 2 turns per day if the player posts on forums. That way even anyone who is slightly competitive would want to try to get these extra couple turns. Heck i would even say the premium account players should have to do this.

I can add something in for bonuses where if you post that day you receive your bonus. But, I worry that people will just come on and post a one word post to get the bonus.

[Mr President]

To go one step further on the not deleting states and adding land per turn to new people, WHAT IF: We also added land to inactive states and after the 2nd week of inactivity it pulls them out of protection and allow them to be be attacked. (at random times so people can't sit and wait for grabs at the exact moment)

This would offer grabs for new smaller states but these would be out of reach for the larger states. Granted stockers would be able to grab them but we could figure something out for that. This increases the amount of land to grab and also makes the game look more active.

Question is, if you are an active member and take a set off and your state gets grabbed even though your not playing, would you care?

[Nat22]

To go one step further on the not deleting states and adding land per turn to new people, WHAT IF: We also added land to inactive states and after the 2nd week of inactivity it pulls them out of protection and allow them to be be attacked. (at random times so people can't sit and wait for grabs at the exact moment)

This would offer grabs for new smaller states but these would be out of reach for the larger states. Granted stockers would be able to grab them but we could figure something out for that. This increases the amount of land to grab and also makes the game look more active.

Question is, if you are an active member and take a set off and your state gets grabbed even though your not playing, would you care?

I like this idea. I think that in terms of actives taking a set off, I personally wouldn't care if I've taken a set off that, if this was implemented, I was used to aid the new players...

Maybe only have the players with the new player mark or say less than 6 months old accounts (obviously this might not work if older players come back with new accounts) allowed to grab these states? I don't know how hard that would be to code. I guess you could also highlight these inactive grab states (similar to the way dead states are red) to make it easier again.

With adding land, I think new players getting some land a turn is fine but would have to be small. I think for the inactive states gaining land, maybe have them gain more so it is a better grab for the new players, say every day they gain 1k land or something, either all in one go OR randomly over the 24 hours.

[Crimson Shadow]

Secondly, I know that it is frustrating that these older veterans have slipped from our grasp. One of them you mentioned is gnorf. I have tried over the past 2 years to find a way to get in contact with this guy but he never comes on msn, aim, responds to private messages on Dak forums, or anything. I think they have just LITERALLY fallen off the grid.

I think the best way to get a community going is have every active member bring one friend or new player back every set. I'm not talking bringing tons of people or wasting tons of time on forums or in other games. Just get in contact with a friend, and get him to come play!

I doubt bringing in friends will help us out very much. We have taken the word of mouth tactic as far as it will carry us and it always ends up unsuccessful. I know I have asked all of my friends at least 5 times to give it a try, but they see the game is text based and are immediately turned off. We need to focus on a community of other people who still enjoy this type of game.

And yes, I know it is almost impossible to reach the old vets. I have tried countless times to get through some of them, I just didn't know if anyone else had any means of contacting them since MSN/AIM/emails aren't working.

I think that another way to sort of mix up the fun is try to mix up the nations a little bit. While it is cool to see USA, Sky, LoR, set in and set out, perhaps a way to generate new interest and enthusiasm is to break these nations down and start some fresh ones with different people. Obviously this is not really possible to enforce but if we shuffled the nation it would encourage more communication and we would get to know some people that we wouldn't ordinarily know.

I was thinking about starting up NS again next set, but like Totte I just don't have the time to be as fully active as I can be until summer is over. Thats why I was hoping to focus on recruiting rather than myself starting a new nation.

i used to be rather active when i started wow in 2001 sometime or other had my own nation running wich was very active... now the reason for it being so active was that first of all we had great internal coms everyone had icq for example and we had our own irc chan to hang around in and an off game nation forum site. The game comunity was very active aswell due to the fact that it also had an irc chan that you could just idle in thus people who had question could get instant help for example and ppl got to know each other.
now for me and i'm rather sure it goes for calvin to we dont play the game to be the best we play it because of the friends we have made

I think we tried to get irc up and running for USA war strikes like 2 years ago, but you had to pay to get a working version. We tried to use the free version, but it kept giving us corrupted files and errors. Perhaps something like this would help players to stick around longer than just to play turns and log off.

Question is, if you are an active member and take a set off and your state gets grabbed even though your not playing, would you care?

Why should they care? If you havent logged on and played a turn in 15 days, I don't think you really had much of a chance of winning the set. If the question was would they care if we logged onto their account and played their turns, then you would have an argument. But if you get upset because your account got kicked from protection after a half-set of inactivity then maybe you should have played your turns in the first place.

[Calvin74]

crimson
go to mir.com and just download mirc

we can work on getting a NW room setup
maybe mr p can look at having a server that runs through here
i know earth uses irc.earthempires.com
so maybe we can get a nw one and then have clans that each have their own room to chat and have war chats and also just a general room people can hang out in

[Calvin74]

as to what totte said he is mostly right
there is nothing in this game that i haven't accomplished at least 10 times over.
i have shown i can net
i have warred
i have led the best nations

what really is left
i stuck around in wow b/c i felt i owed svenn and b/c of the friends
i play nw to help Mr P since i think he needs it and for the company. i play with my friends and we just kinda mess around
we invited a 5 min a day strat that gives a top ten finish

i don't have it in me to completely train a guy from scratch and i dont think it would be fair to that player. i have done it too many times in the past and sunk too much of my life into the game. i am more than willing to take on anyone that has a basic understanding of the game and expand their knowledge and give them opportunities they haven;t had before.
this set ragnar actually took us up on our offer to play in CR and he has said he will get his best finish ever by a wide margin.


i would be more than happy to teach anyone any aspect of the game. not to brag but i don't think there are many people if any that have my understanding or knowledge of the game (granted this is b/c i have way way more experience than anyone)

[Lord Burch]

as to what totte said he is mostly right
there is nothing in this game that i haven't accomplished at least 10 times over.
i have shown i can net
i have warred
i have led the best nations

what really is left
i stuck around in wow b/c i felt i owed svenn and b/c of the friends
i play nw to help Mr P since i think he needs it and for the company. i play with my friends and we just kinda mess around
we invited a 5 min a day strat that gives a top ten finish

i don't have it in me to completely train a guy from scratch and i dont think it would be fair to that player. i have done it too many times in the past and sunk too much of my life into the game. i am more than willing to take on anyone that has a basic understanding of the game and expand their knowledge and give them opportunities they haven;t had before.
this set ragnar actually took us up on our offer to play in CR and he has said he will get his best finish ever by a wide margin.


i would be more than happy to teach anyone any aspect of the game. not to brag but i don't think there are many people if any that have my understanding or knowledge of the game (granted this is b/c i have way way more experience than anyone)

Personally I would LOVE to have someone mentor me right. I'm still wrapping up in my head how the heck someone can get 200 mill in one set. (BTW Dogma, I have yet to say how appreciative I am that you taught me most of the true game where LoR failed.)

Another idea I thought of is maybe giving EVERY attack mode 2 turns at war...

[Calvin74]

Personally I would LOVE to have someone mentor me right. I'm still wrapping up in my head how the heck someone can get 200 mill in one set. (BTW Dogma, I have yet to say how appreciative I am that you taught me most of the true game where LoR failed.)

Another idea I thought of is maybe giving EVERY attack mode 2 turns at war...

i would be more than willing to teach you HOWEVER when you are in my tag i ask/demand that you follow my rules
no harmful ops or harmful attacks OUTSIDE of war or my specific permission...

[Lord Burch]

i would be more than willing to teach you HOWEVER when you are in my tag i ask/demand that you follow my rules
no harmful ops or harmful attacks OUTSIDE of war or my specific permission...

Which tag is your tag next round?

[Ragnar]

We also added land to inactive states and after the 2nd week of inactivity it pulls them out of protection and allow them to be be attacked. (at random times so people can't sit and wait for grabs at the exact moment)

Instead of messing with trying to make them come out at random times, how about just making it so that if you have 1,000,000 or more NW, you can't attack them at all, sort of like being placed in semi-protection mode!!