Hi All;

We added another new feature, designed to allow clan leaders to see things happening in their tag. Specifically, the items that will be reported are:

-people declaring war or making peace (in tag -> out, or out -> in) will be
-failed normal ops (out or in)
-FA packages (and what's in them, tag -> out or out -> in)
-countries that joined/detagged/were forcibly detagged
-countries that became admins

This is designed to help clan leaders maintain a little more control over their members ;) also to let them keep tabs on if they are about to be FS'd for example.

As always, post your thoughts and comments here :)

-EE Staff

PS: I'll probably add more functionality to this in the future, it's fairly basic for the time being though.

sounds pretty sweet :)

So FAs/FRs cannt argue about these types of things since they are out in the open now, which used to cause wars and disputes, thus making this game less interactive.

Wow interesting...

so this is only "Spy" ops and not all spy ops?

awesome

kinda seems a bit big brotherish...not sure I like the spyops one at all. The others make some sense. Takes the mystery and the 'chess match' out of the game.

Would be helpful to be able to view all the countries in your clan.

Well that is just silly. There goes the element of surprise of being FS'd.

That kinda takes a lot away from the game to be honest.. I can see its pros and cons.

except for the last two, that i'm guessing fix non-existent problems, the changes feel both big-brotherish and as if they are removing elements from the game.

Make the ops come in with a delay. The way it is you are preventing a clan from getting ops before the FS but rather use the hitting turns to get them.

No ops would be better imo, but if you gotta have them put in a few hours of delay. Or make it so that once the owner of the country logins the ops on that country show up in the admin thing.

I would think that the purpose of clan leadership is to help protect the clan, right? Figuring out whether or not you're about to be FS'd is pretty darn helpful in that regard.

I assume, though, that the spy op alert is only triggered when the spy op fails, so that the leadership will see exactly what the country that got spied sees. Seeing successful spy ops when the country that got hit can't doesn't make sense.

I think your clan "leader" should start playing the political game with the rest of us and protect you from there.

Keep these:
-countries that joined/detagged/were forcibly detagged
-countries that became admins

Delete the rest!

-people declaring war or making peace (in tag -> out, or out -> in) will be

Ok so leaders wont have to talk to there members anymore to ask if they decced? And said members cannt lie about it? or said enemy clan FA cannt lie about it to stir up the pot? Pro netting change.

-failed normal ops (out or in)
Why do clan leaders need to know every single op going in and out? it makes no sense at all. Oh right, to spot an FS coming, Leaders dont need to "spy" on there members for normal ops anyway.... pro netting change.

-FA packages (and what's in them, tag -> out or out -> in)
Ohh ok, so we no longer have to spy alliances to try to guess if said country got FAed, and no longer need to have discussions with enemy alliance to lie if they are getting FAed or not? Also, why would leaders need to know every single FA package who there members are FAing? Should only find out through enemy FAs and then conflict with them to stir the pot. Pro netting chance.

It seems like these changes are because apparently leaders no longer know how to deal with politics and no longer know how to disciple there members.

Looks like these changes is to prepare earth for Facebook. Kinda like in a 'stream lining' fashion. Not attempting to use stream lining in a negative context. If This game wants to get anywhere when its put on Facebook its apperant there needs to be strong support for leaders to communicate and deal with members without a website.

It has nothing to do with streamlining, but everything to do with game interaction as we know it.

This has nothing to do with netting, except the FA package one; the rest are pro-warring changes.



Spy/Ally Spy/Market/Military, but only fails

The spy stuff is not necessarily set in stone, I was going to include harmful ops but decided against that just because it would be spam-ish during wars. But I'd like to see how it works.

From an admin standpoint, what is the intended purpose of adding the ability to see incoming failed normal spy ops? Harmful ops (as well as war decs, FA packages, etc.) people could lie about and that can cause FA issues so, personal opinion of the change aside, I can at least see the point for those, but why normal spy ops?

I guess one main concern could be that these changes could change the behavoir that multiple alliances have for one another, as well as how they do their foreign relations. The way foriegn relations are done currently does drive the game as well as the aspect of wars, these changes could alter what is done currently in a negative way.

The lack of communication occuring from the game forces leaders to communicate with others about what isnt being displayed by the game.

Food for thought.

Well I was thinking clan leaders should have a little more control over the direction of the tag; it does help with impending FS's; the harmful op thing I was going to do except for the firehose it would create during war.

It also helps for Team & small clans which don't have hosting sites.

FA packages help for netting in terms of knowing what's happening; also help for war by giving you an idea who's getting & sending stuff.




I can understand that a few people may be upset about it being harder to sneak in an FS, but that just makes it take more skill to do a sneak-attack; plus FS's are way too strong anyway, so tipping somebody off beforehand isn't necessarily a bad thing.


Having participated in a fairly large FS just this last set, I can safely say that if we weren't hitting a prepared tag, it'd have been pretty much the end of the war....

Not everyone fights "even" wars you know.

I think it's an interesting change and worth a try.

I think during wars it's crazy if one country can monitor all incoming spy ops.

It's not only about checking a FS date, which eliminates policital games. It's in the middle of a war when only one country needs to be logged in to monitor who may be targeted next.

I cannot see how this is pro war.

That's one thing that politics have always served. Something EE is already lacking in depth compared to 2025 imo. You're also severely reducing a smaller alliances chances by eliminating any element of surprise if they were to prep to FS someone larger than them.

This also greatly reduces the need to keep your members active and communicative. Another task that in the past has helped separate the good alliances from the crap.

My personal opinion is that I have no issue with this change, I like it, but then there have been some good points brought up..

Scorpion said that these failed ops could be monitored by a country during war and give a heads up on who is gonna get hit next, and could have a negative impact during war.

Maybe a compromise would work on it.. I did see a suggestion to make the news item show once the member logs into their account, after all, most clans will ask for members to report any spy ops during a war period anyways.. Or maybe just delay the news item by anywhere from half an hour to an hour or 2 should work?

I can understand monitoring failed spy ops going out. But going in?

I mean, ofc members need to tell leaders when they are getting op'd. But part of FS is that this almost never happens. Any surprise possible in the game is takenout.

-people declaring war or making peace (in tag -> out, or out -> in) will be
-failed normal ops (out or in)
-FA packages (and what's in them, tag -> out or out -> in)
-countries that joined/detagged/were forcibly detagged
-countries that became admins

This is designed to help clan leaders maintain a little more control over their members ;) also to let them keep tabs on if they are about to be FS'd for example.
================================================================
I don't feel, or see the need to know who has declared on who. Sounds like clutter, was my first thought..


I have to say nay to the ops feature.. For all the reasons mentioned above.

Facebook is still in the works, eh? No one confirmed or denied these added perks were to help there.. Unless I missed one?


FA packages?
Is this to become aware of possible FA chains, that may or may not be considered dirty pool in certain servers?
Not sure how I feel about this one, yet..



-countries that joined/detagged/were forcibly detagged
-countries that became admins
==============================
These 2 are a great idea.. :O)


RE.
help clan leaders maintain a little more control over their members.

The control I want, is to be able to see, in a hurry, who's country is violating the tags' rules or the game's rules.. Possible suiciders, from within the tag, is another example.

A way to quickly quell the offender, before a situation becomes worse, would be excellent..

I'd much rather have a way to monitor the members' countries via knowing what belongs to whom!


Pang told me it wouldn't be very easy, and it isn't at the top of the priority list, a system that can show who owns what in a tag.

I'd druther trade all these new goodies for that, if I had my druthers...

I also don't wanna have to spend TOO much time 'monitoring' my crews' actions, for the most part, as most don't require baby sitting.. :P We are very fortunate in that regard..

the FA and Spyops feature is a bit overpowered imo

i actually like the idea of seeing who my members are sending aid to, saves the hassle of hunting down someone who is aiding an enemy/suicider or sending aid to an alliance at war with an ally


but i would only like to seeing the aid going out, not coming in, or just change it so that it only reports FA packages that go outside the tag

ahh Warster.. Yes.. And... Why would anyone refuse FA packages coming in during war?

If your gonna have the cake, you might as well eat it too. eh? ;o)

If a member sends FA to a friend, or gets FA from a friend, is this so important? Maybe someone finds it out, maybe not, sometimes in the past it was fun to risk it. To monitor FA for restarts during war, i don't need this either i think. If you open up spy ops and fa packages for third parties to read, you steal privacy from the players imho.

Sounds to me like this was an announcement, not a voting booth. Sadly this will change the interaction that is frankly not great already. Guess we will see how this all pans out. I think there are better ways to encourage new tags. Handing them all the 'tools' in one spot doesn't teach them to 'fish'. School of hard knocks teaches a lot more.

QM i think you missed the point

i remember NBK accusing TKO of aiding pan a few rounds ago and it was never proven

if i had this feature back then instead of spending hours checking networths of TKO countries and then looking at the pan countries that got aid and compare the timing of networth changes i could have found out if someone had done what u claimed within minutes

thats why i said i would only like to see aid going out of the tag

And thats why this change is bad. Eliminating work for leaders and eliminating the potential lies that NBK may have been feeding you to sort around the politics, thusly creating a situation that nbk could war TKO over for.

That's true, but honestly, why would anyone (that isn't trying to get away with fluff they know would be looked upon as wrong by their clan heads) give two fluffs about this?

I think of it this way. Much like a real country, yes the sum is stronger than the individual. In most cases, the individual must give up some freedoms to be "part" of that country. Whether it be taxes, or information, or whatever else... It's never a 100% free ride.

Noone's saying that a clan leader (who typically works their ass off for your benefit) should get 5% of your public market income. They're getting information that allows them to be a better leader (for YOUR SAKE), and you have ZERO extra work to do for it.



Are you fluffing serious? Yeah, real bad.

LI it doesn't change a thing, I would still need to prove it to nbk and they would still need to take my word

But it saves me as a leader time, and means I know who it is , and that gives me the same decision to make that I would have had to make if I found someone doing it

A - lie to nbk and take the risk that they find out the truth
Or
B - tell them I found them and either kill them or give them to nbk to farm

nbk could still war tko over it, all it does is save me time

This just shifts the blame within tags from the members to the leaders which is a bit poor really, it should be up to the other clan to prove there is something going on, not for them to ask the FR who then has to put his own rep on the line.

Not cool.

And that's different to how it is now???

I really don't like the fact that you can check FA packages or spy ops. It removes the 'interaction' that has made the 'game' of this community. Spy ops to check allies is what should be the only way to determine (or guess) whether a country has been aided, in conjunction with NW fluctuations. I don't for a second believe that everyone still sticks around (in majority) because they enjoy inputting text into fields and clicking buttons. The gameplay here is as basic and primitive as it gets.

The external interaction that alliances create for themselves is what creates the community feel - its what fuels wars, and its what keeps a lot of us here.

These two changes go against this, and it's (as someone else said) too big brotherish. I think changes that encourage MORE political leveraging and bargaining is more attractive than trying to piggy back those functions into the game itself.

Just my 0.02.

This is another erosion of the skill of war. Is there a limit on how many people can have access to the tag? If you can see all the incoming ops on your alliance, big alliances are going to give access to their whole vet core to camp news and pre-warn players about to be hit. Stonewalling is going to go through the roof.

@dagga

That would seem to *add* skill back to war; currently war is pretty easy, you get enough turns and you kill a target as fast as humanly possible and they have no chance.

I might add that with the recent attacking changes, attacking fast is easier. If this makes walling easier, so much the better.

qz, it's not that easy and you know it. You're basically changing the game to the point where spy ops are like news events where the tag news gets camped during war and regular spy ops give the defending country a (relatively) huge window to log on.

It does not offer any real FS warning at all. You are relying on one person to be looking at the tag news in the hour before a first strike? Or is the tag news available via a feed to be pumped into an IRC channel?

nope, just available for admins;

which is why i was arguing that it's not a huge change

I think you should allow Tags to be registered by the alliance not a particular country.

Evolution would have a "Registered Alliance" status, and whatever tag Yank selected would be listed in game as Evolution. =p

I hate this spy op thing. It is just more and more tech advantage. It is simple to stonewall right now, you just made it 100% if the attackee has an internet capable cell phone. Leave some skill and chance for everyone else.

I still say a delay of an hour or 2 would make these complaints less moot.. if these feeds happen right away, sure, you all have points on FS's.. if these spy op related feeds were delayed by an hour or 2, it would still give a good chance for any FS's or kill targets.

I walled last reset over 900 hits, walling was possible without global spy camping.

This won't help to detect a FS imho, if you don't get it politically you'd still be surprised if you get a 5 min notice of spy ops.

I don't see why i should monitor members big brother style. Spy ops and FA packages should only be visible to the involved countries.

Ultimately we'd like to make tags persistent between rounds and give clan admins better tools to manage their clans. This is part of that process. Many of you are simply overreacting.

Why is it so bad to add a sense of urgency before a FS? Is it because war leaders won't be able to run a FS the old lazy way of getting ops 1-2 hours beforehand and holding a conference to pick out perfect targets? Considering the strength of a FS, I don't exactly see this as a bad thing. The political aspect of the game isn't diminished at all: we aren't giving clan leaders a "convert to war countries" button or a "get max turns" button.

If you're worried about the other side in a war camping their ingame news for spy ops, simply adjust your tactics. Again, I don't see why this is so bad. I can think of at least three ways to mitigate it:

1) Get spy ops on the targets you need earlier than a minute before the kill run.
2) Pick appropriate spy countries so you don't fail the op.
3) Get many ops at once.

If you guys are really planning on calling every single country on your side that is spy oped even once, I suspect that policy will end after all of your members get their tenth or so false positive.

The interaction that is lost doesn't seem worth keeping to me. What exactly is the scenario here? Someone in your tag only interacts with others when he breaks your clan's policies? Why would you keep such a person in your tag anyway? If you really want to lie about declaring war or FA or something, again, adjust your tactics. He's an idea: don't let your FAs be clan admins and claim that the tag admin is out of town. Wasn't so hard, was it?

You guys don't understand that your comments can negatively impact the development and evolution of the game. For example, anything that means less work for clan leaders is a bad thing? Well we obviously don't want to add more work for clan leaders, so I guess the amount of work that clan leaders do is perfect in every aspect. That part of the game is obviously off limits to changes! That reminds me: should we remove the "message all tagged members" feature? Sending one message at a time builds character and increases interaction, right?

If there's going to be this big of a negative overreaction to anything that affects war at all that isn't "make countries kill 10% more civs in each hit", we aren't going to be inclined to make changes. I still can't even figure out what the hell "this is an anti-war change" is supposed to mean.

so basically you made a change nobody asked for. some people didn't like it, so now you're threatening to stop developing the game. nice.

Heh I think his point was to try to calm the fraction of people who over react; and then you over reacted! :)

That's not what I said at all.

Slag is just trying to say that he has something jammed way, way up his bum :P And that everyone should bow to his superior intellect.


/me strokes slagpit's ego