Hi All,

This is a small change-set, with only a couple changes, focusing on Solo play.

These changes are often requested, and their reasoning is explored in depth on many threads on the B&S board.

1) Solo (Primary/Express) GDI now protects against espionage.
- That is to say, other countries cannot commit espionage against you unless you have attacked them twice (attacks + ops).

2) Offensive Allies and Trade Allies are now disallowed on Primary & Express
- Offensive Allies were being slightly abused
- Trade Allies are unnecessary with FA disabled


Please post your thoughts, or any oversights &etc below.

Regards,

- qzjul & the EE Staff :)

I like the changes and appreciate the attention. :) Long-term I think there may be a better fix for the espionage thing that revises spy ops a little more extensively, and there may be some reworking of tech allies that could help, but short-term that's a good bandaid. Thanks qz!

Yea, we were a bit short on time due to recent events &etc, this ought to be a good short-term fix at least, as you said ;)

understandable. Glad you got at least this change in

Thanks qzjul!

awesome! thought we would have to wait till next set with all the other stuff going on.

Are DAs a little unbalanced without OAs?

Awesome changes Qz thanks a million!

Well, you *can* use the +50% Bonus from Planned Strikes =/ Typically, with two equal Defensive Allies, you only get +50% defence anyway... so one could say it is probably in perfect balance ?

Yeah I thought we'd missed the boat on this for the set that's just started (Primary).

Thanks for finding time to shoe-horn this one in, qz - much appreciated. :)

thanks alot! :D

thank you very much!

1st will stop all queries why this and that can steal my techs.

I think this is too harsh.

GDI should not protect from tech-stealing. Make it so IF a country hits another country once, the country being hit has the right to steal tech. This is just fair for the smaller countries.

^ I think this was just put in as a stop-gap. Hopefully by next set they can do something that will leave tech/cash stealing as an option while also making it possible to stop.

I'd like to see two factors taken into account:
1) Somewhat increased defense rates for the person with higher raw spies (rather than solely calculating based on SPAL). The in-game instructions claim this to be the case, but it's not working as described.
2) Increase defense rate in general for players with high SPAL. The higher SPAL you run, the more ops you should catch, *to some extent* regardless of the attacker's SPAL. So that if you run something very respectable like a 50 SPAL, you will be able to stop *a portion* of the attacker's ops even if they have an extreme SPAL.

With changes like this, you would not need to outlaw espionage altogether, leaving it an option for smaller countries, and this also would help with bomb banks which has not been protected, and even extend to spy warfare ops in general, which would be improved by these changes imo.

Guess that would be better then. Now you risk being special attacked/missiles and tech stealing when you multi tap someone compared to someone else that only hit each target once.

Research ally can be take off as well for solo server.

Since research ally never benefit techer but only benefit casher, farmer & indy.

Why : the less tech point in market ; auto price will high & techer still earn more ---> equilibrium level

it theory yes... but people will still under cut on greed.

The tech alliance does not just benefit cashers, farmers, and indies, it also benefits other techers by increasing the available tech pool from which to sell if you need cash, without diminishing the tech benefits you may be relying upon such as SDI, Spy and Weapons tech. My favorites. It also could encourage a few adventurous players to keep their stocks in tech points rather than bushels thus increasing the availability of various styles of play concerning stocking.