Treveur told us that you are looking for idee for the v7.
Then here is an idea discussed in french board :



It would be nice to be able to start wars directly ingame.
Here's how I see it :


1) Declaration
The leader, (or someone with a right such as "war management") would be able to start a war from his own alliance page. He must indicate the reasons for it and the conditions to end the war (maximum duration, damage done...)

If possible, determining what will be accounted for during the war could go here (°Everything, °IPM yes/no, °Rebuilt defenses yes/no, °Defenses yes/no etc.)
If not, sticking with Military Points Destroyed would be the easiest to implement.

From there on, the defending alliance receives a message with the reasons and conditions. The war will then start 24 hours later (would be even neater with an ingame countdown :p)


2) Negotiation
During those 24 hours, alliances could negotiate the end of war conditions. The defending alliance would submit their terms and the initiating alliance could either accept or refuse. Alliances would also be allowed to recruit other alliances to join them in the war during this time window.
(But anytime a new alliance joins either side, the countdown before the war begins would reset to 24 hours)

Once the countdown is over, all the participant's alliances are locked in, and so are the winning conditions. The war would then really start.


3) War
Winning conditions could appear on the external page of each alliance involved, along with damage inflicted and damage taken counters.
In case of ACS with any player not involved in the war, only the damage inflicted by the participants should be accounted for.



4) End of war
The war would go on until either side reaches a winning condition, or all the alliances on either side forfeit or are disbanded (Only the leader and the War manager would have such powers).


In case of forfeit or disbanding, all members involved in the war who belong to those alliances should suffer a penalty.
For example -10% on their mine production and -10% on plunders for a certain duration, along with a loss of "war points" (see further below)

If a player leave his alliance after the war declaration, he will still be counted in the war for 24h.
If he is not back to his alliance before the 24h, he will be out of the war suffer the aforementioned penalties for forfeiting.


5) After the war
Once the war is over, it would be nice to keep a history of it on their external alliance page, with information such as damage dealt and taken, win/loss/abandon, and opposing alliance(s) name(s). (along with the military ranking of all parties involved at the beginning of the war)


To give players an extra motivations to play this unprofitable aspect of the game, there should be a new ranking "Warrior". It would total up all the military points destroyed by each player during wars, similarly thus to Military Points Destroyed.

Adding bonuses would also be worth considering, such as +10% mine production and +10% plunder for a certain duration.



Ideas that raised arguments on the French board

Forbidding or putting much heavier penalties on players who forfeit, or alliances that forfeit or disband
Pro:
OGame much become once again the war game it is supposed to be, and sway players to see it as such a little more than they seem to do.
Con:
We shouldn't disgust players who just want to play quietly in their corner.

Enable to declare a war only against honorable alliances (the same way a player is honorable for another one)
Pro:
More balanced, more interesting wars, instead of a war that would be won before it has even started.
Con:
OGame is a war game. Weaker alliances should try and find allies to help them in the war.

I desagree with you Shole.
A War is under responsibility of the leader (or the one with a new rank for war)
Each alliance works like they want. And it's not a democratie everywhere
If you think that your leader are taking bad decisions, then lead a revolution

Indeed nice idea, I'm not fan of the penalty.
This would have a negative effect on the players on the losing side.

There is no penalty for the losing side !
Penalty are only for those who run away

On the other hand, the winners should get something, perhaps some items, ...
This would have a positive effect and would encourage players/alliances to fight wars.

I suggest +10% of production and +10% of loots.
=> Miner get something for staying in the war
=> Raider get something for wining the war

Only Items would not be very usefull for raiders
But if it's to hard to give something for raiders, then OK for items only

One other remark, couldn't find the rules but.
Isn't it possible for a single player to declare a war to an alliance or other player.
How would the game handle that?

Yes the rule allowed that.
We can imagine that even if you don't have alliance you can see the options to declare wars. But it may give extra work for developers for something not very usefull.
(it's easy for the player to make his own alliance for himself ...)

On the exposed system, the war end when you reach the fixed losses value. Or the fixed end date.
For me, a disband is like every player leave the alliance to avoid the war.
If you don't want penalties, you fight until the end !

Also a war should always be approved by a GO, not?

Why ? On which criteria he will approuve or not a war ?


If it is to avoid unbalanced war. We have an endless debate about ça on the french board :

Enable to declare a war only against honorable alliances (the same way a player is honorable for another one)
Pro:
More balanced, more interesting wars, instead of a war that would be won before it has even started.
Con:
OGame is a war game. Weaker alliances should try and find allies to help them in the war.

I don't know what's the best solution.
According to my memory (from many year ago when war were common) there were not unbalanced war.
Because it entailed shame on the biger alliance

Most importantly, I do not agree with benefits and penalties, unless there is Game Operator approval involved or it is only possible to declare war on a honorable opponent. When we're allowing the winners to get benefits for winning a war, and we do not perform any sort of check on the alliances involved, I expect there'll be quite a few alliances that declare war on a significantly weaker alliance, just to trigger these bonuses for their own alliance.

You right.
it is only possible to declare war on a honorable opponent <= sould be the better solution.

I personally am against penalties for the losers in any case - it seems that would discourage the forming of (small/weak) alliances, which doesn't seem like something we want to be doing. It's already difficult enough for people to catch up with the top players, we don't want to make that even worse.

I see that like a motivation to stay together, fight together and create strong bound between alli members
Without penalities, week alliances will explode like they do now ... I don't think it's better

In the declaration and negotiation phase, how do you deal with communities which may now have slightly different rules for wars? I can imagine this being the case, although I only play in one community myself. If wars are being handled in-game from now on, then automatically, all communities would have to play by the same rules (which is a good thing, but there might be differences now).

According to the last rule modifications in FR and EN, it seems that GF wanted to standardize the rule between communities.
Do you know what kind of differences it can be ? I didn't see difference between FR/En/DE.

Also: Does a war have to be accepted by both sides? If not: Why is there negotiation? If yes: What is preventing the 'defensive' alliance from simply setting insane victory conditions (be it extremely difficult or extremely easy)?

No.
The defensiv alliance suggest new conditions. But the offensive one decide to accept the new conditions, or Not.

I absolutely agree with (automatic) counters per war appearing on the external alliance pages. This sounds like a really cool information feature, but I do think it should be up to the alliances to display them or not. Sometimes, alliances (especially in speed universes) are declaring war just so they don't reach the bashing rule limit... It doesn't seem like we'd want to display these counters when there's no actual "war" going.

It sounds like bypassing the rules to me

I disagree. If someone isn't in the alliance, they shouldn't be in the war either. Why allow bashing on a player who clearly doesn't want to be a part of the war? The only time I would count them as still in the alliance, is if there is an enemy fleet currently heading to their planets or moons. (We don't want players to leave their alliance to avoid Military Points Lost if, for example, they get Phalanxed)

That is to prevent player from avoiding attack.
And to enable player to get out of the alliance to make ASC defend somewere, withour leaving the war. (and avoid him to get the run-away malus)
But you rigth, 24h is too long. Maybe he would stay in war during 1h only ?

I do agree with this way of giving players benefits, as it guarantees that the player actually had to do something for it. Maybe compare with his own Military Points to determine how much of a bonus this player receives. For example, if you have 100.000 Military Points and you destroy 10.000, that's not such an accomplishment. If it's the other way around... That should be rewarded.

If the duration of the bonus cannot exceed the duration of the war, is that OK ?
(Seems hard to do something with military points)





I agree with you for the last point

On wich critera a GO could accept or refuse a war ?

I still disagree with the penalties. This is a matter of opinion, I suppose, but it doesn't seem fair to penalize players for wanting to play together with others. Personally I believe that's a situation any online game should attempt to avoid. Playing together with others, in my opinion, should be rewarding, it should never result in penalties.

Penalties are not for those who play together, but for those who abandon their allies to fly away ...
If you prefer to play with other player than your allies, why waiting to be on War to join them ?

Regarding "fake" wars to bypass bashing rules: Agreed, this sounds like bypassing the rules, but it seems to be tolerated (as long as certain conditions are met). See here, for example.

It's tolerated, but why ask developper to do extra works for them ?
It's not a normal way to make war, they could adapt themselves to the news system

As to leaving the Alliance: I understand why this is an issue. We don't want them to avoid attacks to count towards the War Counter. My main concern is for people who just don't want to be in the War. They need to be able to get out. Maybe if you leave an Alliance during a War, you cannot reenter that same alliance for a certain amount of time (days, maybe even weeks, or until the War is over)?

They can get out. They only have to wait few time (i wrote 24hours, but 1 hour would be enough)
(end they get some penalities for giving up their allies :D)

Having a bonus after the war, for the duration of your last war, seems like a cool idea. That way, you'd actually need to have a proper war if you wanted bonuses. Maybe also make sure a certain amount of flight activity exists between the two Alliances? We don't want to reward people just for being at "War" for 2 weeks, but nobody actually fights each other, and then the leaders agree to end the War.

Good idee, but may be hard to implement, i don't know