The holidays are coming. Any plans for "vacation time", in which your assets are frozen for a fixed and limited period and they cannot be assaulted?

I know real war does not take a vacation (although there have been known to be Christmas truces on battlefields), but its not turn-based either, which is one of the unique strengths of this game.

I've thought about this. I want to set up a certain number of "vacation days" per year that a player can use. Once he sets his country to vacation mode, he cannot attack (or set moves) until it's "unpaused," at which point it will round up to the nearest full day and subtract it from his allotment.

My worry is that it could potentially be abused. For example, if an enemy is right at your capital's door, you can just pause the game for a week or two until your ally can get close enough to assist.

So, I guess it's weighing the pros versus the cons. Is anyone strongly against a vacation/pause option? I'll add a poll, but I want to have a chance for a conversation about it first.

will you still collect income during those days, according to your tentative plans?

how many vacation days are we talking here? five? ten?

Income would not collect, no. Your game would essentially be paused.

I'm thinking maybe 14 vacation days a year. <i>Not</i> bankable.

I was thinking about this as well, but maybe as a "peace mode" type of thing for those who really just want to be left alone.

Once enabled, you'd be unable to move/create/attack any units for three days (essentially, you'd be paralyzed), but you could still be attacked by anyone you're at war with.

I'm a bit confused. Is that any different than just not logging in?

For the first three days, yes. After those three days are up, your nation would be frozen as outlined in the OP. My thought behind this delay is that the loss caused by your enemy having a free hand with you for three days would outweigh any gain from trying to exploit this feature to buy time.

Perhaps the delay could be tied to nation size? ie. A larger nation would have a longer delay than a smaller nation.

Perhaps a paid account feature? I can see that as one of those non-essential things that people would be willing to pay for.

I think this should be implemented, perhaps with a requirement that it be filed a few days in advance (so they aren't jumping when they're capital is threatened), and with no income, movement, or attacks made by that country or by any other country onto its territory.

That's a really good suggestion! I like that.

Right now, I'm actually leaning towards the idea of making the game a small fee for all players.

The main reason for that is to eliminate the <i>constant</i> creation of multiple accounts and countries. I have a script that looks for and flags them, but it's such a pain dealing with it all the time. It just gets so frustrating.

Perhaps you could make it so that the vacation days are usable only during actual major holiday events, ie. 14 days surrounding Christmas?

I think you'd lose a lot of players if you did this.

depends on whether it's a small one time initial fee, or a subscription.

That's what I said in the first place[/tng]

i agree. then again there has to be a measure to stoping all nonsense. but, i cant pay.

Perhaps a good way to rope people into this game would be to let them play "demo" worlds for free - ie. have open registration on a map the size of Charlie or Golf, let it run for 90 days before resetting it, and then charge that fee to let them into the actual game.

Maybe even put a few smallish "abandoned" nations on the demo world, so that people can feel a rush from taking over a 100-sector blob. [/tng]

define small fee.

also, what payment method are we talking here?

I'm just wondering if there's been any progress with the vacation feature?

The reason I ask is that for roughly six weeks in the early summer, I'll be off at a Marine Corps training camp with little to no access to technology (slight possibility of heading into a coffee shop during weekend liberty). I'm playing a country in Cerato, and being as how that map has gone for a while already, and will probably continue for months (years?), I'd really like to not have to lose my country (there's no way I'd sit unmolested for six weeks...).

I realize this could be seen as abuse. I mark the eastern border of my alliance (group of eight mid-sized nations), and to simply make me invulnerable would confer to them a huge protection advantage. But it'd still be nice if I didn't have to die because of this (granted, the Marines may very well take care of that...).

One feature that is needed also if players are allowed to join in late is some sort of protection mode till you get on your feet. A new country pops in it will not get big enough to defend itself for quite a while.

This needed "invincibility" mode could be combined with the vacation time feature.

As far as game hopping -- if it is the same account there is an easy fix -- someone has to play the given game / board for a set amount of time before they quit / re-join.

I'm not sure I understand why you need a "vacation" mode. if you use repetitive attack mode set it and forget it for days at a time. Any mode that makes a country "invincible" is questionable to me. Same objection I had to invisible what i like about this game is its large scale (many people) and simple game play. I'm not saying I cant handle complex gaming mechanics I'm just saying I play enough of those.

Also on the money thing if you need/ want the money for your development time and effort by all means charge us. (i will find a way to pay it.) But if the only reason is to remove "bots" there's gotta be a better mouse trap. Not to mention no matter what you do it will still happen on some scale. (its the internet we live in).

If someone has enough time to play 3-4 maps as 3-4 different people and make sure they aren't caught cheating they may need to re-examine their priorities. just saying.

I'm 100% opposed to this "vacation" nonsense. Just because my enemy isn't paying attention doesn't mean I'm going to stop.

Even requesting vacation time in advance is practically identical to going on vacation right away. The only difference is I can request a vacation time next week, and in the week until then, I go all-out and attack capitals just in time for my vacation to start.

This can be partially resolved with different time-paced Cycles, with 12-hour intervals to 48-hour intervals worlds.

I haven't, but I can try to make it a priority.

I think people would probably get a maximum or 14 days, though, so you might be in a bit of trouble if you'll be away for six weeks. Could you temporarily change your password and ask a friend to run your country for a while?

Many people travel throughout the year and managing a country can be difficult. I think it's reasonable to give people <i>some</i> time to accommodate that.

A vacation mode would stop all of a country's attacks and also stop attacks on a country while it's set as away. The vacation time would need to be set at least two weeks in advance to reduce abuse.

If a player can run around the map taking capitals, I'm pretty sure they'd be doing that already.

Also, doing it before a vacation block would be a very bad idea, since it would just give the player time to amass a force just outside the capital and take it back.

I could look into doing that, though not certain if I'd totally trust someone else running the game. Bah. Price I have to pay, I guess. Also, thank you for looking into it, but no need on it being a priority; I've got two months until I need to worry about it, after all!

Dman - I realize that making me invincible would possibly be seen as an advantage conferred to my alliance; hence why I managed it. I'm just saying some kind of vacation mode would be nice, not that I know how it would function.

Manaco - How is me going to a camp, for which I've been applying since September, not paying attention? I apologize if I have real life commitments that get in the way of my internet life. I'd just like my internet life to not completely halt.

Let's not forget that there would be no money acquisition during this time also.

Well, if you can't play, then you shouldn't play. It sucks, I know. Real-life commitments, obviously, are more important than this game, so you shouldn't need to apologize.

This game doesn't ask much, an hour daily at most to do everything you need to do. If you can't even do that... ... ...

I would assume the camp is for a month? It wouldn't surprise me if a new world is set to be released around the time camp is over. Not paying attention means not logging on a near-daily basis. Going to camp means you chose camp over this. If you can't do both, pick one.
You said you don't want your "internet life" to completely halt. Do that mean camp doesn't have internet or computers? Well, then going to camp automatically means your internet life is halted, regardless or not you are on vacation mode.

Also, imagine how you would feel if you are a new player but you can't join a world because a bunch of people decided to go on vacation, preventing any sort of gameplay or reducing the quality of gameplay. Also, in extreme cases, it can prevent current players from doing anything in the game, especially if it's one of the larger countries on vacation and/or has that country surrounded/cut off.

I understand and know that people go on and take lengthy vacations. But I don't see why this should make their country invincible for up to 2 weeks a year.

I a president goes on vacation and his country is a attacked he doesn't get to say go away im on vacation but hes does get a notification.

So maybe the would be more realistic a solution (or a start to a concept) is that vacation settings will send you a notice if you are getting attacked / facing imminent attack.

All that said I think i saw you mention that they gain no money while in vacation mode. If thats the case then I'm honestly okay with it as long as the country "shows" when its on vacation on the maps in someway. If you gonna make em invincible at least make it flagged as such in some way. 2 reasons 1) don't waste time attacking it. 2). So you can see when they come back.

"six weeks in the early summer, I'll be off at a Marine Corps training camp with little to no access to technology" is what I said. Did you miss the part about me applying for this since September? That was before I even knew this game existed. And no, an hour per day is not feasible at a Marine camp. I'd like to see you try to persuade the DIs to let you keep your laptop in the barracks. I could be wrong, but I doubt that somebody who designs a game capable of lasting for /years/ would expect players to be able to have access to a computer every day of every week of every year, with zero exceptions. Otherwise, the end game of Cerato will simply be which player has the least active life, which is hardly a fair way to decide a game that explicitly states "you don't have to quit school or your job to play." If I go on a research trip to Panama for a month and don't have internet access during that time, yet my country is devastated because there's no vacation function, that's basically asking me to quit school (or at least severely limit my academic ability) to play.

Yes, this has the ability to be abused. However, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented. Even in a hypothetical scenario, let's say I have somebody about to swarm my borders, so I throw up vacation mode in an attempt to stall him. What does he do? Banks money, creates missiles, jets, land units, and waits. Two weeks later, I come back with the exact same situation I left in, except with a far more powerful enemy, who's probably irked about my stall. Not happy on my part.

And you say that we shouldn't have an invincibility mode because it is "unrealistic?" Right, because sending infantry storming across the plains is totally how you expand your country in real life. Right, because in real life, a Tomahawk missile, at $569,000 is totally five times as expensive as a F-16 Falcon, at $14.1 million. Right, because in real life, a frakkin' jeep can shoot down jets. Right, because ICBMs totally have effective ranges, instead of the ICBMs in the U.S. arsenal being able to hit anything in the world. Right, because three missiles is all it would take to destroy a land base that happens to be large enough to create hundreds of tanks in one turn. Shall I go on? The take home message here is that while it's a fine thing to strive for, if you're going to complain about realism, start with complaining about the rest of the game.

Disclaimer - Johnny, I'm not complaining about the above things, or asking for them to change.. They're fine when it comes to game mechanics, perhaps even necessary. It's just that they're not exactly realistic.

or you could just not be a dick to someone that makes a perfectly legitimate request and acknowledges that some unfairness might be built into it.

I'm bringing this back up as the holidays roll around again. I'm in favor of allowing some vacation time (I agree with the two weeks a year), and I'd like to see that implemented.

I dont know about vacation time. But a once a week map will be starting soon.

Your community is starting to grow a bit, Johnny. I think perhaps you could recruit something like a moderator or two who would happily help you deal with such issues for free. Save you some time and energy.

I gotta admit, the prospect of having vacation time is appealing. As I read this thread from top to bottom I kept thinking of ways it could be implemented, but there seems to always be some way that it can be abused.

Alas, I have to agree with manaco (http://gt.toomuchstupid.com/board/t_t165#m21) that theres no way you can do it without somehow affecting someone elses playing experience or advantage.

<b>HOWEVER</b> Johnny immediately countered with a solution that a simple that might make a good comprmise, <u>"Could you temporarily change your password and ask a friend to run your country for a while?"</u>. That sounds incredibly simple, except it exposes the fullness of your account details and perhaps even allows someone else to kill your country or otherwise hijack your account.

<b>SO WHAT IF</b>, we had the ability to give others <u>limited</u> control of the account? As in...they can login only to make unit moves but can't alter your account. It would be like a "delegation" mode. To keep people from abusing it (practically running two countries), then maybe you can apply the 14-day limit you were talking about for delegation mode.

Would be nice, cause right now if you'r on the front, you can't leave for a day without boning your friends. lol.

What do you think?

I just read the whole thing to and your idea is a good one

....any other opinions or are we all "over it"? lol

Has this been revisited lately? I know I could use some "vacation days" coming up.

I don't need the vacation time.

WAR DOESN'T WAIT FOR ANYONE.... except some Christmas Days during certain wars... Civil War comes to mind. (I hope I'm thinking of the right one..)

I'm still liking the idea of some controlled "Let your friend login for you" solution.
http://gt.toomuchstupid.com/board/t_t165#m34

I don't expect johnny will work on this anytime soon given his new job, so in the meanwhile how do you guys feel about letting your buds login for you? Just curious...

Not a fan. First off, I don't like to give out my passwords to anyone for anything. Secondly, I don't want to take over anyone's country even in the short term, as it already takes me far too much time to manage my own moves on a daily basis.

its not like he's know you intimate password. You could change it to something generic first. Right? lol

Tet Offensive

I don't think vacation time is necessary.

I would much rather see a better system for managing your nation in many turns at a time. It might mean people won't come back too often to micromanage, but if you really want to go on vacation, it would be awesome.

By better system I mean various scripts that would allow a player to play defensively, expansively, offensively, etc. You would set a general arrow or area for what you want taken. The script would figure out maybe how many units to create, where to put new bases, etc. A vacation bot essentially.

Yeah, the problem would be that people wouldn't play, just bots would. But I think if you limited it to only a few turns at a time, and it wasn't so advanced that people would prefer its strategies over their own, I think it would work. The general idea is similar to that of Rome: Total War with its mayors and auto-management or like Civilization which this seems at least somewhat similar to.


If not a script, build and movement queues would be cool. I know this would take a lot of coding, but it would work out really well for people.

I may be getting a little too far from the concept of the game.. simplicity. Just a thought.


About the payment stuff: If you want the project to explode into a large, popular game and to build a good reputation with people, no payment methods. If you just want to make money off of it, then sure. There's better validation methods than payment.

As a student at a boarding high school, I know that there is no way I would be able to continue playing. and this is a major part of my entertainment. It gives me something to do.

Try world war 1. anyway- I think the vacation time idea is a good one.

i think a fee is a great idea. Get rid of all the multiple accounts. Go ahead a take a vacation you it takes a month of inactivity for you account to get shut down. But the game keeps marching on.

Johnny posted that over a year ago. Since then he has decided not to make a forced fee. He has made a donation area instead.