Cybernations

[Kasarn]

We obviously can't help directly but I have $4000 left if you want it... remembering that you only have 4 aid slots.

[Tezkat]

Hmm...

I guess you walked into the neighbourhood bully. Judging by his history, he's more than just a noob testing out the war system. His alliance is also twenty times our size, however, which could be rather bad for us if they support such activities and would defend him if we retaliate.  League of Shadows is a new alliance of mostly newbie nations, and this guy is in their top 10. I remember getting a recruitment message from them about two weeks back, but I unfortunately forgot to save it, so I don't have their contact info or forum address. I did message their leader, though. Still waiting for a reply...


I can try to keep you going with foreign aid until the war expires. What do you need most right now? Money? Troops? I believe I'm only allowed to send you one package every 10 days. How much damage are you taking per attack? Is the situation desperate yet?


I'm currently the only one in range to hit him back, and he seems rather better equipped for fighting that I am (not to mention that I'm currently at -20% troop strength due to a string of unfortuate terrorism-related events). I'll have to spend several days building up my tech and military before I'm much of a match for him. Even so, I'm not sure we can really do that much damage to each other 1 on 1. If he's spending so much on his war efforts instead of growing, it's possible that the rest of us will be in range to hit him by the end of the week, but I don't know enough about the war system in this game to tell if that will allow us to beat him down or just give him six little guys to pound on a day instead of three.

Can you tell how many forces he allocated to homeland defence?



Of course, it's always possible that someone else will tear him a new one for us. One of his other victims is a member of CDS--one of the largest non-sanctioned alliances in the game.

[Jim Halisstrad]

I'm going to beef up my army a bit and hold back on further purchasing until notice.  Any aid that is requested from me I will do my best to give.

[Tezkat]

Hmm... military is relatively inexpensive. You little guys might want to work on building up your economies to the point where you're in range to hit him if necessary. Some cash reserves for emergency foreign aid are probably a good idea though.

Wars only last a week, and this guy is apparently a repeat offender. So... we either need to prop up llearch for a week until the guy moves on to a new victim or build up to the point that we can realistically take him down.



Anyway, I've been in contact with the League of Shadows leader. They do not approve of this jerk's actions. Officially, they will neither help nor hinder us in the fight against this jerk, even if our entire alliance attack him. Nonetheless, I do get the impression that they have a very hands off policy with regards to their members and won't prevent any of his buddies from helping out.

So... battle plans?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

At this point, my population happiness is "-11.40" - down from +13 or so...

'course, I pulled in ~8k in taxes, payed off the ~3k of bills, and bought up ~800 troops, bringing me up to just over a thousand troops on call.

So his next move will be to attack me again, and, hopefully, bounce. Badly. My main problem is, I think, my population happiness affecting taxes. I'd say at this stage, we just let him scratch on the outside, and ignore him, for the moment. If I get into more trouble, I'll let you know - in the mean time, you lot keep building up, and perhaps keep some spare cash on hand.

I -could- take out 500 troops and go beat on him, but I'd rather just leave them at home waiting for him. Defensive, rather than offensive, you know. We'll see how tomorrow goes. If nothing else, I still have some spare cash lying around, which I'd recommend to pretty much everyone as useful - keep ~10k lying about in a kitty for use in emergencies. Increase that if necessary - about a days taxes, I'd suggest.


I suspect that, apart from the unhappiness thing (which I think I'm going to drop taxes briefly to manage) I'm pretty much set. Although finding someone to trade wine with wouldn't hurt... :-)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh. I get 1000 troops out of nowhere, he goes "hmmm." and sues for peace.

I'm gonna let him sweat for a day, I think. Or possibly until monday.
... either that or wait until he's logged in tomorrow (about 9am, server time, or 3pm my time) and then shift over and smack him one, then accept peace. Think that sounds like a plan? :-)

[Arcalane]

I suggest bumping up your DEFCON a level or two if you are fighting, because DEFCON 5 is only about 76% Combat Effectiveness.

No, rly.

[Tezkat]

Um... he already declared peace. Congress can recall the troops!

I think I'll still spend the week building up tech so I'll have tanks and missiles on demand the next time this happens, though...

[Valynth]

Tech is good, I just spent this day's taxes getting .8 tech level.  The (relative) +2 happiness boost is useful.

Now that my population is relatively happy I'll be going back to build infrastructure.

[Arcalane]

Tech is good, I just spent this day's taxes getting .8 tech level.  The (relative) +2 happiness boost is useful.

Now that my population is relatively happy I'll be going back to build infrastructure.

Mine's at 3.02 at the moment, which seems to help fairly well.

Take in mind Tech also reduces Infrastructure Upkeep Costs, so good to balance out Tech/Infrastructure to keep the upkeep costs down.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

*muttermutterdowntofsckingthirddammitmuttermutter*

*grin*

Back to expanding, again. Another day buying infrastructure and I'll have to go back to buying tech. Promises to be interesting.

[Sirios Skywolf]

Edit:

I've joined our little alliance, and I'm up for some growing and sharing. It'll be fine. Let me know when we go to war and such, and I'll send my pathetic twenty-two soldiers in your defense. Sadly, I'm in California, so I don't know if I'll be much help....

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'd trade with you, but spice and water is likely to be a popular trade... and I've already got spice, so it'd be a waste.

Just so you know.

I'd recommend reading the various help available - eg, the cybernations wikia entry on taxes, and other related info. Find some people to trade with that get you somewhere - I'd suggest looking to see if you can make up Beer or Fast Food prerequisites, with your details.

Also, you may get people offering you money for trade, so I'd hold off on accepting the first one coming through.

[Sirios Skywolf]

Hey, well, I'm still building, trying to find trade partners and save money for land...any aid thrown my way would be appreciated, I'm the Kingdom Of March, Username Margrave.


In  other news, should we debut the alliance on the CN forum? If we are all building our resources and powers, why not act abit more in the international community? I for one intend to enter the geopolitical situation, see if we can't start some trade with other nations in California/The Pacific at large, the New Pacific Order might be friendly to us if we ask right.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

*shrug* I wasn't planning on it.

After all, we're not really big enough to show up anywhere, being only 7 minor third-world nations. The only one that's showing any signs of going places is Tezkat, and that's only because he lucked out on starting resources. :-] I wish him all the best, but will just have to reside in envy back where I am....

[Jim Halisstrad]

Speaking of envy I slipped from my cushy fourth place down to fifth ;.;
Stupid technology. Making me wait till level five until I can get my harbor...

[Tezkat]

Take in mind Tech also reduces Infrastructure Upkeep Costs, so good to balance out Tech/Infrastructure to keep the upkeep costs down.

Technology is nice, but--outside of war and a few bonus resource requirements--it's only useful when crossing certain threshold points that increase happiness (0.01, 1.01, 3.01, 6.01, 10.01, and 15.01+). It's not something that's worth building up a little bit at a time. The effect on maintenance costs is insignificant. I spent just spent a whopping $100k on tech, and it only dropped my daily infrastructure bill by a measely $70. (My bills run around $8k per day at the moment.)

Hey, well, I'm still building, trying to find trade partners and save money for land...any aid thrown my way would be appreciated, I'm the Kingdom Of March, Username Margrave.

I can toss you about $20k tomorrow. That should at least boost you into triple digit nation strength if you spend it wisely. I'll have more available in a few days, if you can wait. My own NS skyrocketted by 300 points in one shot after a $35k kickback from a trading partner when I was only a few days old.

Oh, and seriously... the -1 happiness penalty from overcrowding takes half a dollar off your income per citizen--nothing compared to the boost from increasing your population. If you have water, then maybe it's worth keeping your population density under target. However, matching land to infrastructure growth gives you a paltry $0.22/citizen bonus, so that's not cost effective until you're quite large.

In  other news, should we debut the alliance on the CN forum? If we are all building our resources and powers, why not act abit more in the international community? I for one intend to enter the geopolitical situation, see if we can't start some trade with other nations in California/The Pacific at large, the New Pacific Order might be friendly to us if we ask right.

Um... trade goes by team colour, not location. Geography is quite irrelevant in CN. My own nation is parked over some Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, and I have a trading partner floating in the Indian Ocean. It adds a bit of flavour, nothing more. The Legion and a handful of large minor alliances like UPN and COF are the powers that be in our neck of the woods. If you're looking for trades, just use the resource search.

Playing politics as a group of newbie nations will just get us "noticed" by the wrong sorts of people. We have nothing to offer larger alliances militarily and aren't recruiting outside of this forum yet. So... we'd just asking to be bullied or absorbed by larger alliances. The most recent incident demonstrated how vulnerable we are to predation.

I'd recommend staying out of the public eye until we at least have an average strength in the thousands. We need to be strong enough to defend ourselves and also have enough large member nations to bootstrap new recruits.



If you guys really want to get noticed, win friends, influence people, etc... there's a new tournament round starting sometime soon now. Aside from most of the players being veterans in hundred-player alliances, everyone there will start off on even footing. A number of alliances (such as NPO) also have tourney memberships that are independent from their main CN ones.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Technology is nice, but--outside of war and a few bonus resource requirements--it's only useful when crossing certain threshold points that increase happiness (0.01, 1.01, 3.01, 6.01, 10.01, and 15.01+). It's not something that's worth building up a little bit at a time. The effect on maintenance costs is insignificant. I spent just spent a whopping $100k on tech, and it only dropped my daily infrastructure bill by a measely $70. (My bills run around $8k per day at the moment.)

Ooo. Hmm. I guess I should bump to 6 anna bit, and then leave it for a while.

Oh, and seriously... the -1 happiness penalty from overcrowding takes half a dollar off your income per citizen--nothing compared to the boost from increasing your population. If you have water, then maybe it's worth keeping your population density under target. However, matching land to infrastructure growth gives you a paltry $0.22/citizen bonus, so that's not cost effective until you're quite large.

Hmm. So just throwing all spare cash into infrastructure is probably better, then? I'll drop the 22c/citizen bonus, but increase the number of citizens and value thereof anyway....

Yes?

[Sirios Skywolf]

so, what should I be investing in with that pretty aid package you're sending?


also, what are the full names of those groups? I'm trying to search them.

[Tezkat]

Hmm. So just throwing all spare cash into infrastructure is probably better, then? I'll drop the 22c/citizen bonus, but increase the number of citizens and value thereof anyway....

Yes?

I haven't done all the math yet, but that's what I did at your size. Infra, infra, infra! I'm building up my land now because I have the cash to spare and relative population growth is small compared to land prices. I almost feel like I've been stagnating for the past week and a half, what with having to save up hundreds of thousands for a harbour and then for tech. I'll be happy to get back to the business of growing my population tomorrow.

so, what should I be investing in with that pretty aid package you're sending?

Well... what I did when I made my first big jump was withhold taxes for a few days before receiving the aid package (I knew it was coming, so that made it retroactive), then spend nearly everything on infrastructure in 10 point chunks. Then I collected my taxes with the new and improved population and had a second growth spurt. The end result was a thousand-person jump in population overnight. Your mileage may vary.

Anyways... I managed to scrounge up $25000 (spend it all on infra) and 100 soldiers (saves you the trouble of worrying about soldiers right now--it should be in the right range after your first big infra purchases). You'll want to bump taxes to 28% and DEFCON down to 5 before collecting taxes. Make sure your soldier count always stays above 20% pop, but otherwise spend it all on infra. You have water, so you only need a pop density down in the 70/mile range to get the +1 happiness bonus--maybe buy a bit of land with your leftover funds if you want, but mostly focus on infra. I tried to send a token 0.01 tech to give you the +1 happiness bonus, but I'm not sure if it went through or not. Wait to buy more tech until you can afford to cross the next threshold in one go. If my mini tech donation didn't go through, it could be worth buying up the minimum tech amount when your cash reserves drop to $5k, just so you've got a non-zero tech level.

also, what are the full names of those groups? I'm trying to search them.

Powerful purple (or mostly purple) alliances:
The Legion
UPN
COF

CN:TE is down, but here's NPO's (TE) sign-up thread on the CN forums.

[Sirios Skywolf]

yeah, I can hang on. I've got almost fifty infra now, and as I wait for a few days to collect taxes, I'm sitting pretty.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hmm. Man. That worked exceptionally well. :-]

[Tezkat]

yeah, I can hang on. I've got almost fifty infra now, and as I wait for a few days to collect taxes, I'm sitting pretty.

Why wait to collect your taxes? That strategy is quite useful when you're expecting an external influx of cash which will dwarf whatever growth you can manage on your own. However, you've already received your aid package. Unless someone else has promised you a donation, it's now time to build. I can't send you another for 10 days.

At this level, the game seems balanced so that you can keep growing at the rate of around 10 infra a day. Depending on your resources, that's 70-100 taxpaying citizens. Until your population is the thousands, few things compare to increasing your tax base by another 100 citizens. You'll get the most benefit from steady growth.

Withholding taxes becomes helpful when, say, saving up for improvements or large tech purchases. In that case, since you aren't increasing your income levels each day anyway, only collecting taxes every few days gives you thousands of dollars in interest (something to consider for those of you approaching the "I really should buy a harbour" point in your nations' lives).


Random stuff I've learned from sending aid for the first time: You can't send fractional values of tech in aid; you can apparently drop more soldiers on nations than they have civilians (Heh... oops... but it worked out in the end, right?); when you send soldiers in aid, it deducts from your base count rather than your actual count (If you have +30% soldiers from resources, and you send 100 soldiers, you'll lose 130 soliders); the documentation stating that you can only send 1/3 of your available cash/tech in aid is wrong/obsolete (As far as I can tell, you can send the whole thing).

Hmm. Man. That worked exceptionally well. :-]

Um... how's the view from up there? (And what's with that improvement selection?)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Um... how's the view from up there?

Concerning. If -I- can jump this far.... who am I now visible to, who can swat me down without too much trouble?

(And what's with that improvement selection?)

I looked at what there was, and guessed. *shrug*

I plan to find someone to trade with with specific resources to get some bonus resources. Mostly, I find people don't react to trade offers, which bites...

... and I just realised I've been misreading the foreign ministry to be the same as a harbour. Whoops. Oh, well. Next week...

(btw: woot! 100k posts!)

[Tezkat]

 

I looked at what there was, and guessed. *shrug*

Most vets pick the harbour hands down as a first improvement (2 extra resources easily beats anything else you can get via improvements--assuming you can get the trades). Then they go for some combination of banks, factories, and stadiums.

Right now, your improvement profile screams "TECH TRADER HERE. PLEASE RAID ME."   

I plan to find someone to trade with with specific resources to get some bonus resources. Mostly, I find people don't react to trade offers, which bites...

Yeah... it's hard if you're looking for specific resources in team. There are usually only ten or so purple nations with a given resource pair, and only one or two with a spare slot (who might not have logged in in weeks). I've been slowly converting my old trades over to purple and trying to get the right resources for good bonus stuff. Once I manage to swap my fur for gold, I'm set.

If you're not so picky about team, one thing that seems to work well is just reload the new nation list until someone comes along with the stuff you need. Then you can get to them first. It might work even better if you send them a message with a subject heading like: "30k in aid if you accept my trade!" You're big enough to bribe your way to good resource sets now, after all.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Right now, your improvement profile screams "TECH TRADER HERE. PLEASE RAID ME."   

Oh, joy. Something to look forward to. Oh, well.

FWIW, I did beef up my defenses a bit. I thought about a cruise missile or two, but those are offensive-only, and I'd rather not. *shrug* I suspect I'll just sort it out in a couple weeks. Save up for a harbour...

[Jim Halisstrad]

What the heck DID you do Llearch?  I'm kinda curious as to how you jumped up so quickly.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

There's this helpful button in the top right corner. :-]

On the down side, you can only use it effectively once a month....

I chipped 50k to Aiyno, while I was there, as well. *shrug*

[Jim Halisstrad]

Oh... this game has a cheat button :p
Ah well, a lesson in economics.

[Suwako]

I chipped 50k to Aiyno, while I was there, as well. *shrug*

*happy dance* And now I pownz you all 

I've got da Powah! *Some song in bruce almighty*

Don't be scared of the bad English, It's supposed to be awful.