Hey everyone,

We are happy to be able to finally present the barebone of specifications for the upcoming Country vs Country feature! We have been narrowing down the specifications for CvC the past few weeks, as there were a ton of potential ideas, solutions, problems, issues, tweaks etc.

We had to go over various versions and ideas that introduced unfairness due to time zone differences, had an “online time pressure”, had 0 country concept, were too messy/confusing for players, were too random, had boring mechanics,… Shortly put, there was a lot of things considered we had to reject for various reasons. We ended up with something that we feel fits the game, connects some unconnected parts of the game, introduces a lot of community/social elements, gets rid of “country isolation”, is not time-pressured and creates an ever-evolving/dynamic competitive environment that will get everyone and every country a great experience!

Purpose/goals of CvC

With Country vs Country we want to add a late game feature to the game, that will make the game more fun (especially at late stages) by adding additional depth, giving more meaning to „country“, and connect ALL users in common „events“ and playing goals as well as add a new highly social element to the game. As a late game feature and as a “controllable mechanic” it can also be used in various fun and exciting ways to balance out late game for players and keep the game fun for far longer periods of time, giving users the chance to get more invested with the game.

We also wanted the function to be as simple and easy to understand as possible for users, and not over complicated. Minimum user effort for maximum reward, fun and social gain.

How it works/specs

As the feature is quite extensive there is quite a bit to explain , to get a full idea of how the feature will look like. For those that might find such long specs boring, you might want to scroll-down to check the first graphics  😉 But as a lot of you are anxious of what’s coming, we felt it’s best to give you as much information as possible!

And while there is a lot of info posted, we realize some things are hard to imagine, so if you have any further questions please ask and we’ll do out best to answer and clarify things.

*Please note that some things are still prone to change as we’re mid implementation and play-testing, to create the best possible experience.

 

CvC battles

All users achieving a certain condition have access to CvC battles.

During weekdays there will be Country vs Country battles, where each country will be put into a tier based on their “active user power” (based on their users’ Clicking Force), and amongst the tiers each country will be able to vote on which country to attack the next day (there will be 3 random countries within a tier offered).

So on the “first day” country users vote on which country to attack. At the end of the day, results are known and the next day is the “fighting day/battle”, where all “fronts” are revealed to countries. So a country has an attacking front, and potentially several defending fronts (based on how many countries within a tier decided to attack them that day).

Each user can only fight on one front every battle, so if a country has several fronts they have to coordinate with other countrymen on how to best distribute their forces in order to try and win as many  fronts as possible.

After choosing a front user will have to check the front and set up “moves/strategy” of how he’d suggest the fight to go in a small tile-based strategy, which will make up the actual battle, where the winner is decided – but more on that later.

After choosing the front user’s power will be added to the front information, which will be visible to both countrymen, and the opponent immediately. Users will thereafter have a chance to change the front, where they’ll be able to set “time of arrival” for the change, which will alleviate any timezone advantages for all users.

But by doing the first selection immediately users within a country will be able to do the basic coordination more easily, and also use it as a diversion for the opponents, which might affect their own front distribution decisions.

For fronts, there will also be information on how many fronts the opponent has open, as well as how many reinforcements (user front changes) are still arriving to that front, which will add a “surprise/diversion” effect to the strategies of the countries, and still maintain some relevant upfront information for the country. This is extremely important as it reduces the need for spying via multiaccounts, or the “timezone pressure”, where users would be “forced” to wait until end of day to “make the ideal move”.

At the end of the day, all front moves are final, and based on best voted battlefield decisions from the front players, the battle happens.

Each country will be able to attack another country each day, and at the same time vote on which country to attack the day after that. This will ensure players always have decisions to make and enjoy every single day!

 

The battle

The battle will be a 8×5 tile map, separated into defender and attacker side. Defender will have a HQ at the end, that will be attackers goal to destroy. Defender’s goal is to either destroy the attacker or deal enough damage so that the attacker can not destroy their HQ, before their “air strike reinforcements arrive”.

Each front user will suggest various decisions/tile placements:

As attacker:
3 tanks, one per row, which will move and attack in a straight line.

5 air strikes, which will at beginning damage any enemy buildings they might hit.

As Defender:

3 defensive buildings, one per row, which will attack/prevent any tank from moving further (1 square forward and diagonally) until either are destroyed.

5 air strikes, which will at beginning damage any enemy tanks they might hit.

3 landmines, which if a tank drives over damages them.

 

Strength of the units/Defensive buildings will be based off the overall CF of the country fighting on that front.

 

Based on the most voted/selected strategy moves from the front players, the fight will commence:

• first airstrikes from both sides are launched.
• Then attacking units begin to move, stopping after getting to HQ or encounter a defensive building.
• If a defensive building is destroyed the tank moves forward
• If a tank goes over a landmine it is damaged
• Any tanks that reached the HQ, have X seconds to destroy it and win, before the defenders air strike reinforcements arrive and destroy the attacker completely.

 

Rewards for the country

For winning a front the country will have “full gold reward” added to their treasury. They will also have their Spoil points reward bonus increased.

The country will also fill their “spoil points pool” which will be shared to all battle participants, based on their clicking force relative to overall country’s.

Should they not win, they will get a percentage of the gold reward, based on how much damage thy did anyways to the enemy.

Rewards for the user

For each front a country fights, it will fill its pool, which will then be shared as base spoil point reward for each battle participant based on their relative CF compared to overall country CF. It will be multiplied additionally by any users’ reward bonus, country progressive SP bonus, and “user front suggestion” bonus.

This suggestion bonus, will be based off how the strategy moves user suggested would result in the final battle result (i.e. were buildings hit by air strike, would mines hit the tanks, would building intercept a tank…), giving the user additional % SP reward for that.

By being active every day in CvC fights, user will also get a capped progressive reward bonus, which will diminish if a CvC fight is missed.

Battle replays

Every front/battle will be able to be replayed to the users, where they will see a dynamic animated battle of all the choices and how the battle went. This will be an interesting way to display all results and make all decisions come to life. And it will “explain” how the country lost or won a front. And how your decisions as a player were accepted/not, and how your decisions would make for a good battle choice.

This will also add a neat way for users to look into strategies/fights of other countries, and especially if later customization/upgrades will be added make for some really interesting viewable mechanics. Should be fun to watch the battles unfold 😉

 

CvC fights – Alliances

While weekdays will be CvC fights, weekends will be reserved for spicing things up via alliance fights! This is where your country will not matter anymore, as all players will be pooled together into two sides for a massive battle. Players will be distributed into top attackers and defenders (evenly matched teams) based on their week’s efforts, but not everyone will get in here. Only the best and most active players will earn a spot to fight next to the rest of the elite!

So on Saturday top attackers will attack top defenders, and on Sunday they will change fronts and see how they fair on the opposite end. All alliance members will get access to alliance chat, where they can connect and discuss with other alliance members their strategy to win. The fight will unfold similarly as CvC battles.

For winning, all alliance members will receive an “alliance star” which will serve as a trophy of who their strategy making skills!
This will spice up the competition every week and connect players from all countries in a common goal of winning over the opponent. And make it a generally fun event to mix with everyone in a fun mini weekly event! Do you have it what it takes to win with a random group of soldiers over and over again?

Balancing fights – dynamic adjustments, rewarding

To ensure CvC battles will be fair and interesting to everyone, there will be several dynamic mechanics to ensure all users and countries can get a great experience, and ensure countries are incentivized to fight new enemies and choose their opponents carefully.

Firstly, there will be attack/defend and reward bonuses for attacking stronger countries within your tier.

Secondly, to avoid “country ganging” and “farming”, there will be dynamic defense and attack boosts for losing att/def fronts, where every time a country loses a def/att front, they will gain a progressive def/att bonus. This will prevent cases where countries could pile up on a country consistently, preventing them to ever win attacking or defending. This way the strongest country within a tier will not always be dominant consistently, and the weak countries will always be able to pack a surprising punch as well.
With country rewards, there will be additional boosts for attacking/Defending stronger countries, to incentivize countries to try and win the most difficult fronts. As every front won brings additional rewards countries will also be incentivized to win as many fronts as possible. And as country’ winning fronts will also bring benefits to the player, players will also be incentivized to make their best decision and help their country win. Selfishness is not punished, but is not rewarded either. Do your best and you’ll help yourself and the rest of countrymen as well.

Leaderboards

On leaderboards we want to show the rankings of countries within CvC by tiers, and also top attackers/defenders. We might use this section to add additional interesting country stats later on.

Spoil Point rewards – balance adjustment mechanic

Spoil points are getting a whole new meaning with CvC! We wanted to use the opportunity of adding CvC to help resolve some balance issues of the game, and make both Country HQ & invasions & the upcoming CvC more relevant to the rest of the game. This is possible because Country invasions and CvC are “consistent” and allow us to reward some things that other features of the game make much harder to control.

YES – spoil points will be getting an extension of rewards! Here’s a list of a few potential rewards (besides existing Battle Stars reward) we are considering, that will help resolve mainly late game balance/progression issues: DPC multipliers, Production boosts, reset fuel/30s double DPC costs, reduce/reset privatization requirements, reducing support unit loses, boost to support units gained from deploying, adding a “privatization like effect” (where you can reset your BC progress without gaining privatization points, but will allow for “support unit farming” even at late game stages)…

We are still deciding on the ones that will fit and balance the best with the game, but we definitely have some great options to play with here!  This will also require some changes to how convert itself works, as we want to ensure there’s no power creep or abusive p2w mechanic added here by this change.

Yesterday’s results

We’ll be allowing all country users to see what fronts their country fought yesterday and see the replays of the actual fights. There is more → you will also be able to check fights from other countries, study their strategies, moves and try to counter them once your country faces them!

Country Change

We want to introduce country change option with CvC as we feel it will add some interesting options to the game. We never wanted the game to become too “nationalistic”, and we think that by giving you this option we can make the game fun on another level for a lot more players. It might also add replayability to a lot of you as you might want to join & meet people from other countries and play with them. But, this change presents quite a few issues that we are finalizing on how to resolve. We want to avoid exploitation of this and ensure it doesn’t “spiral out of control” so there’s quite a few things we are considering here. But… it’s coming… we just need to finalize how exactly it will look like!

Additional potential updates for CvC – upgrades for country, cosmetics

With CvC we are also seeing some interesting future options to and make it even more fun and competitive. From upgrading a countries’ battlefield, to cosmetic changes, there are many options to  work on CvC and make it fun for ages to come!

Other random notes

• show open fronts and supporting players incoming
• Battlefield decisions/moves can be changed at any time by the user
• country strength is based off sum of fronts’ users’ CF, as this is an existing stat and we don’t want to make things additionally confusing with new stats. It also ties nicely into balancing with invasions
• countries can not attack a country the next day after already attacking it (will be noted via randomization)

 

Remaining issues/problems

• Countries with less users than open fronts
• exact leaderboards details we want to display
• results displays
• exact rewarding system with attacking/Defending bonuses (how to display in voting and CvC home?)
• country change question?
• Potential CvC upgrades
• what if no user/front actions are done – do we simply randomize and set a minimum strength of the front that by itself acts as a defending bonus?