I will see every fam next round. They all are too visible in map and rankings page for me to avoid that. I probably fight every fam too.

To me, it seems the biggest problem is that morale costs are too high for everyone.

Mathematically system adds more varibles to the morale equation to make it easier for smaller fams, but somebody forgot to divide the result to keep morale costs averagely at the same level than earlier.

How about if all morale costs would be divided by 3 to allow more attacks and opps. Smaller fams could still attack and opp a lot more than big fams. If that is too much, halve the costs.

I can also point out that if 2234 insists on fighting in 3v1, we (2230) will attack them too, to make things a bit more fair. Not straightforward 3v1 then...

We are also talking about NAP to stop the war before it really even starts.

If you want more appeal to the game, restructure the family roles. Morale overhaul is one step to that direction, but I think we have taken a step to wrong direction now.

Attacking is the food of IC and everything else is just spice on top of it. Opping is the salt. Everyone should have food that tastes good. Yeah, not the best metaphore, because I would be eating quite a salty food sometimes, but I hope ppl get the point.

Now we have specialists in organized families and only attackers can really attack. In organized families attackers even take others planets and build their infra for them, because of their higher constr%. Bankers and ressies are too big (planets and NW) to even support with opps or retakes. They can really only take planets from attackers. Even taking NAP payment planets can be hard work when you pay 30%+ morale for each planet taken.

Roles are not bad, but there should be less specialization and at least less importance for attacker role.

Attackers do not need to be able to attack more than others. They usually are more active players than others anyway, so they can use their morale more effectively anyway. Their racial bonus in attacking is enough difference and they can choose to invest in military science. They will usually also get help from the family to get bigger fleet than other in the family. There should be no reason to make it easy for them to build infra for others by swapping planets within the family all the time.

Bankers make the cash allright, but they should be able to make some retakes during war and use opps effectively. It is important to require activity from these guys if family wants to win.

Ressies are the same, but they should be able to act as secondary attackers as well as opp the enemy actively. Same goes with these guys as bankers, active ressies would improve family´s chances of victory.

Players who only build infra and perhaps aid once a day should harm the family cosiderably more than now compared to families where bankers and ressies support those attackers with active opping and supportive attacking.

My solution:
-First get rid of all morale planets. That evens the morale playing field for everyone.
-Get rid of all cores and DS. No need to promote safety too much. If you want safety, build fleet, agents, wizzies and portals.
-Simplify morale formula. Every attack takes 5-15% with 10% being average and attacker/defender size and NW differences affect that no more than +-5%. Intra fam planet swaps would cost half. Small enemies planets get infra lost or blown up still, but now also size factors in, not only NW. Family size or NW has nothing to do with morale costs. It is handled differently. Same system could work with opps and it should be easier to success in opps.

If family would like to opp or attack a lot, everyone would be needed to take part in it. Extra small enemies could not sneak into enemy area that easily anymore.

Then there is the farming prevention. It is hard to enforce with ingame mechanics and I think the morale system is not the way. There should be completely own mechanic for this and to prevent NAP blackmailing too. I have a suggestion:

Enforced NAPs:
Game should have ongoing data about lost and gained planets (not updated tick by tick, but instantly after every succesful attack). When a family has lost say 5% of their planets during 48hrs to a single family, they have an option to enforce 24hr NAP against them. Of course the enemy can cancel the NAP right away and continue after that 24hr, but next time it will be 48hr NAP enforced, then 72hr and finally PNAP. Losing family will get time to recover, plan things, negotiate, whatever and for sure, farming will not continue forever.

Of course, if players could easily calculate this formula too, they would just take almost 5% every 48hrs or take almost 5% and then plan a massive raid to take as many planets as they could over that 5% before enemy gets time to hit the "enforce the NAP" button. Ok, it would still take some time to farm a family down with these restrictions, but I still think it it would not be fair to be able to calculate this, so why not add some small randomness to the amount that is needed for enforcement. Or even better, have the game calculate the chance to enforce a NAP and it would hit 100% after lost planets amount that 5%. Then family could try to enforce the NAP with 50% chance after they have lost 2.5% of their planets within 48hrs. Of course hitting that enforcement button would also reset the counter.

Also, every planet taken after that 5% limit, would be automatically blown up, so there would be no gain even if key fam members are not there to push the panic button when enemy raids heavily over that 5% limit.

I know, there would be those unlucky families who have hit their panic button 6 times in a round with 50% and got no NAPs enforced, but it could fail with 95% too or get you a nice surprise NAP with 5% when you need it badly. It all evens out in the long run anyway. Safest way would be to wait until it is 100%, because reseting the counter would also let enemy to gain more planets, because they can take another 5% without blowing any planets.

The button should be available for leader and VLs.

That has been the ideal for some, maybe even for most, but during over ten years of IC I have rarely played a round where ppl would have not lied, manipulated, cheated, been a-holes or broken unofficial deals. "Trust nobody" is better advice than "be nice".

Also, I have rarely or maybe never seen others in the community to punish anyone who has clearly broken the elusive and unofficial code of honor.

Thus I think IC deserves players who are here to win by all means necessary.

I didn´t say you have no right to attack. I have every right to even nuke anyone who has no NAP with me. No need for war declaration or even provocation for that.

But when you give 24hrs and eat your word, you can´t even have CF with anyone sooner or later, because they can´t trust you.

You even had every right to eat your word, because it is not punishable by rules in IC, but those kinda things could and should have some other consequences (even in IC).

No worries though, because I did not trust your 24hrs and prepared fam for imminent attack. Too bad my message was not taken seriously enough or ppl had RL issues or whatever the cause, but we could not clear and paid the price.

Of course this is idealistic, but if we would have alliances, those inexperienced leaders could team up with more experienced ones and gain knowledge about diplo, strats and leadership. Thus smaller fams with less people would be makeable and fun.

Of course that is the theory. In practise, veteran leaders would ally only each other, have kinda double the drafts (because they were divided in to two separate fams although playing like one fam), overpower smaller fams with reluctant and/or inexperienced leaders, kill their motivaton and ruin the game once again.

Maybe someone has a solution out there?

Why bigger map? With same amount of systems, doesn´t it mean we have to fight wars over longer distances when systems are not that close to each other?

Of course you can NAP right away when shares have been dealt with, but that is boring.

If ppl want to fight wars for longer time and spend less time doing infra jumps, we should have smaller map with the same amount of systems. Or even with more systems.

Oh, women keep telling me I am hot!

You wanted some news, so here is a small report:

Taht above did work out after all. Just not the way I first tried.

Batavia sneakily jumped fleet, ran my figs, cleared most of portal shares and tried to keep few systems.

I had saves, so I outjumped his fleet and started to take back lost systems. Now we are quite even in planet gains.

He still thinks I will lose, I guess, because he changed fam name for some kinda weird prediction:

Zanharim: Loser Extraordinair (1078)

LOL

Good work. Too bad those good ideas of yours get buried into archives and bumbing is frowned upon.

Yeah, us opp lovers want our own category in there!

It is hard enough to make your own fam members know that you´re indeed doing something for the fam, because your opps don´t show in your own fam news. Would also help to coordinate OHs and pop killing, when others in fam would see who has opped and what. (Yeah, another thread coming in Ideas...)

I have posted my achievements, failures and wizzie amounts to fam forum now for over 2 weeks and have been pretty much opping 24 times per day. At least my fam knows I am trying hard. Maybe some recent targets in 805/807/800/801 know it too.