NAP's.  I once argued for an implimentation of a button that would not allow you to attack anyone that you were Nap'd with, back I don't know, seven years ago.  It was funny because quite literally the arguement was, even if a button was instituted, chances are, under the table Non-Agression Pacts would flourish.  You don't have to have an overt NAP, it just allowed people to say hey we're not attacking these guys.

Enter the Illegal Nap of four years ago.  Several high and mighty alliances had set up pre-arranged divying up of planets.  But they wanted to make sure that they didn't mess up their near to the end rounds by having a last minute war, and lose all their hard earned gains.  A family would ally with the top 3.  One of those top three would NAP with the next group down the list of high end families.  The level would then NAP with the highest families up top the list.  We had 9-12 families inter-allied or NAP'd basically tearing the pieces of every family and alliance beneath them.

Historically, it pissed off a lot of players.  I used to argue about these high level inter level pacts.  Of course i wasn't to popular with my worded theatrics.   Still supposedly NAP's were supposed to be limited by individual families, not by entire alliances of families.  Kinda screwed up the equality of being able to climb the rungs of power.  Mostly because at the very beginning of the next round it was the same people forging the same NAP's and alliances as before.

Still i was dimly aware of the response of those families.  Either get lucky and random into those families or take a hike.  And I did continiously random until i learned that many of those players in those same alliances were randoming in...on multiple accounts.  I mean how else in those early years were you able to get into the same family over and over again...randomly out of 100+ families?  Yes.

Lets just say todays modern IC has evolved from most of these early problems.

I'm new. Hi.

looks like everyone has a good ideas about things i like the nap ingame idea to where its a set time where both leaders has to put and only go from there

then what we need is a real P-Nap that the game makes solid for the round, and 48hr naps available on the relations page, and have only so many of each... that way they have no choice but to stick to they're word.
and the mods should be given the work in seeing if a napped family is having an ally farm them to give to they're napped family as well.
seen that one too many times.

Someone hurry up and make single player IC. A10?

so much talk about one simple problem
the game simply cannot enforce people relations
- if i agree with my friend not to attack each other no game rule can force us to attack each other
- if i decided to leave the fam i dont like no rule can prevent me from deleting/becoming inactive
etc. etc.

its about several things: what does the game reward people with? is first, and next is how do we make a fertile community out of the old (like me) and new players that (re)join,

perhaps it is early to speak but i can't even remember how many rounds of IC i actually played, so i think i have an opinion based on some experience.

some details changed since i was last here, as an example how solds got really better def. wich i think is a sane idea, and partax got an opp against cf banking, wich perhaps is a little much to counter an inadvertedly backward strategy, but otoh perhaps even a bit weak to do the job really.

so many cf bankers around , these are just examples of that i see ic is trying to change the limitations of the environment.

so i found this an interesting threat where it is daring, whining is no real good indeed,

however i think a few points that have some impact that is not only positive can be analysed,
one thing i see as very destructive is that you more often then not end up with an inactive family even if you plan to be active, any familys that somehow manage to be more active and organised whipe players that as persons really try of the table with relative ease.

next they are left with nothing indeed to do for the rest of the round. the game promotes this and personally i think it can only discourage players.

partly it is mechanical and can be changed by some parameters, for example you could raise the effect on morale when familys with less (nr) active players are attacked.
should raise it quite a bit for some effect ofcourse.

1 or 2 percents wouldnt do.

thats where the next point kicks in, i think people in ic are to an extent addicted to strats.

some strats that work now, ok i can see they work best they can within given parameters, but really they are hardly viable, cf banking, resource dumping, ok it is basical but it is the military enterprise that still allows family's a victory with such strats. so when you focus on a more economical or fancyfull build, you actually allways become a (fat) target to the lean dogs.

that is indeed not encouraging creative gameplay. however to beat that status quo (i dont think it is necessarilly the only way to win in ic to have bank cf's resourcers and attackers) you would need to many things come together, talented players, probably some good connections, a nice active and smart family, and above all a load of time. thats not going to happen, so all except a few top active familys are stuck with setting up a shady imitation of the leading family's and hope they flatter the strongest players enough to be left in quiet,

or sth like that. now the game could change that, but it somehow contradicting the commercial principles.
it wouldnt anymore if it is a succes ofcourse.

theres two things that influence people the most (and in wikileaks style i'll be undiplomatical;) carrots and sticks,

one can think of either, each of us or most of us, are addicted to building huge enterprises on virtual planets, so when we would get 1 planet from the last universe eg, in say tick 500, all of us would do sth weird wicked and creative, with it and enjoy greatly even play the next round perhaps, to have acces to the carrot if even to try once. some conservative players may feel threatened ofcourse, alltho i dont think this example would really change the mechanics of a round very much.

it would however promote crossing over and perhaps even allow less integrated players to offset some balances.

then there are sticks. in my opinion the sticks should be with the players that have huge advantage now,
because if the game becomes defined by a predatory strategy and solid familys etc only, in the end, it is just not appealing, wich would be a great waste of a great game.

as an example of a strategy that occured to me as apparently undervalued i would call killing scientists.

every second thread here is about how important overbuilding rc is in cf or pop banking and being attacker, well i dunno, but i can hardly think of a better method to bring down nw and prospects of players under that circumstance then killing science, sth thats hard to get (somewhat) and irreplacable, (you will never get a destroyed research point back) if you make the calculations for empires building huge research and getting it brushed off, oops, i might almost cry  i think, but more importantly the whole theory and calcs is getting rather doubtfull.

high succes rates of kill scientists would change attacker races a lot. and strip the bankers of some of their undeserved extra military gear in the proces.
don't say it is balanced, but it might give space to somewhat less specialised or different races.

but static gameplay is a thing, why is a RC build succesfull? because there is (and perhaps it is not possible) no family willing to blow everyones science a round long. so even if the option is already there the strategy is limited through the circumstance (you might not have the opps extra and you would get to much problems.) were it 'official   ' ic knowledge science doesnt pay that well, (i think my calcs in the rc example indicate it is enough of a difference to indicate that aiming for moderate research is more reasonable because a strong antiscience offensive would leave you with buildings that actually produced hardly anything at all in comparison to someone that eg simply build iron or lq, in higher percentages.
(sth similar goes for TO btw, and  i think with a little tweaking there would be room for non TO banking, if there isnt already).

it all also means that if fighting against very strong familys rewarded better (after all they'd nuke your every non TO strategy to extinction, so you might as well have build TO, ) the game would become more creative noobs newbs and less active players would be a force to reckon with for a greater part of the round, you would take some pain not to provocate a small family into bitter revenge, and need to focus more on players of similar chance, i think it is logical that would keep the game interesting longer for more people.

its just
i think
loyal (paying) players don't want it.
they want to be the great victorious empire all over again and again and again, that it actually is sometimes hardly a cause for admiration is often overlooked. even if perhaps it is a bit stupid of the others to compete under that circumstance, i think it should be better appreciated we actually play games for fun. that is if, (wich i for nostalgic and other reasons would like) you want ic to grow and be more challenging. and yeah multis arent helpfull, even if its years i played i already get a tad paranoid.
(teh very most because they paralyse already small and hard to play family's)

i think having more universes to play for free would also attract more players. ideally i would want at least 1 universe that is balanced in a way to offer a more rewarding round for free and new players and for outlandish strategy's.

perhaps its best to have it both, set up the game that people fill in the void of space for the familys set out to 'rule', and realise a circumstance that it stays interesting and challenging to stay active in one of them still.

note that competition among smaller and mid level players would improve if it would not basically mostly reward the biggest ones. theres carrots there in some games. (usually score listings)

now a round for me looks like: hope (i fear against reason) hope strongly strongly to be in a very active family, probably not, so be occupied with defence traps and traits in the hopes of evading attention as a prey, getting whipped and robbed at some point. okay i will enjoy the surprises, the family and the building for a round or two 3 , but then i am off again.

it also appears to me that this circumstance is reality for to many paying players, because they can just not all end up in one or a few hyperchanced family's, at that point they pay but are still robbed of their round with regularity and quit.

wich introduces a new option;)
the option to create universes that would specifically allow for a gameplay with a lesser intensity, eg through being allowed only 2 ticks of online time in the universe, but i think i have been more then complete already,