Player base and state of game

Dax

Hydroponics Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
3,126
Location
Northants, UK
Fair play. Not saying PU are the key to having fun, just saying its p2w xD The stronger/more options u have will probably have a positive effect on the fun to be had.. ie pawning more noobs.

I know a guy who has saved his land twice this round through buying GC lol Thats mad p2w. Long story short, if the units weren't behind a pay wall and some quirky unit replaced them, i think the over all Bush experience would be better.

Thanks for the offer big man but i wouldn't want to lower your standing by helping the likes of me 🤪
I have done plenty enough over the years for my own standing, I don't give a flying toss what a single person in this game thinks of me these days. If you need help with something or assistance with ratios/playing a route without a pay unit then I am happy to help out.

The game cash thing is unfortunate, but it does happen on occasion - it is very, very uncommon to encounter and when it does it means you were very marginal in terms of attacking/landing somebody successfully anyway. If someone is willing to wax £20 on destroying you once per round then I'd take it as a compliment that you're worth £20 to beat (personally). Have experienced this with someone I knew ingame from IRL and he used to do it whenever I attacked him because he was a scrote. When you know someone will do it you can pre-prepare for it happening safe in the knowledge of their predictability.

That said, even game cash is limited on a per-round basis anyway and the amount purchaseable is entirely derived from the wealth of the playerbase on average anyway (so it is capped by total amount allowed and the rate of £ to game cash).
 

willymchilybily

Landscape Designer
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
1,418
Location
uk
Good day Dvs,

back in my day the player base was declining also, and nothing can really be done to change it, the day of web browser, text based stratergy games has passed. but much has been tried over the years in-spite of this. I would align my views as the following:

  1. P2W isnt viable in a game of this nature, it is often referred to as "rock scissors paper" where something is strong to one route and weak to another it inevitably means buying the purchase unit offers only limited advantage.
  2. The purchase of paid unit is the main income for a dead game, some how there must be revenue to keep the servers running.
  3. Some branches are more dependant on their purchase unit than others. eg robotics, protestor and military, having far less benefit for their purchase unit. where as special ops and terrorist and fantasy gain a stronger benefit from their purchase units.
Note: There are also more detractors that someone might win over someone else. An alliance being willing to be contactable, to have a lead co-ordinator of attacks and or defence (need not be same person) and some have even in my day developed tools that could accurately predict the outcome of a battle, ergo know whether the fight is worth staying for or not. This is before we even consider activity of the group as a whole arguably the largest governing factor
 

Franny

Head Gardener
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
251
TL are only really "necessary" in the VD route, but ironically this was one of the first routes I ever played and I did so without ever buying them. I had a great time?
I concur, I played VD without TL and had an absolute blast, HV Klaxon and VD vs Harrier/RPG rushes. Great fun.
 

Dax

Hydroponics Developer
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
3,126
Location
Northants, UK
I concur, I played VD without TL and had an absolute blast, HV Klaxon and VD vs Harrier/RPG rushes. Great fun.
LOOOOOOOOL I met Dachi purely because I tried using HV/LSP vs his Harriers in the very early days of the game and he pointed out that I couldn't stop him with those units :p
 
Joined
Dec 30, 2023
Messages
3
I disagree that punits create the condition for p2w. Yes they give you an advantage, but alone, that advantage just isnt enough to win you the game.
I think their existance is good to generate revenue for the creator to keep the game going, as others said, and why not make a few bucks from their effort to create this game? Personally I've been in winning alliances, and many losing ones, punits were never the reason for someone to win or lose (I've actually rarely ever bought punits).

HOWEVER...
I think the alliance mechanic is totally broken. But not because of the game design, but just because the players in those few alliances monopolized the alliance system.
Back in the days, we would have limited cooperation between rank 2-5 alliances, so that the combined force could bring down the top ranking alliance which typically was the only way tto give the round a shakeup and dethrone rank 1. But beyond that, the alliances were in war.

But now... its all the same people, in the same alliances with different names and playing solo has absolutely no chance at any decent outcome regardless of skill, knowledge, route, or punits.

The alliance mechanic is the only thing that frustrates me. Small player base, and the lack of alliances basically makes it so that the same people will keep playing, and basically prevent new players to enjoy the game, so they dont stick around.

Realistically, I dont see changes happening because well the game is pretty much dead. For some of us its a novelty that we remember from the glory days, but the nature of it just means its going to have limited appeal to new players. In the age of instant gratification, when you have to wait an eternity for a tick...

Personally I think the way to improve that would be:
1) limit alliances to 5,
2) limit accounts that can be in an alliance together round after round,
3) limit cooperation between alliances (Admittedly, I have no idea how you would achieve this),
4) buff solo players so that this can actually be a viable play strategy,
5) limit repeat attacks to the same ID.
 

Charlie_B

Harvester
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
216
Location
Sheffield, England
Personally I think the way to improve that would be:
1) limit alliances to 5,
2) limit accounts that can be in an alliance together round after round,
3) limit cooperation between alliances (Admittedly, I have no idea how you would achieve this),
4) buff solo players so that this can actually be a viable play strategy,
5) limit repeat attacks to the same ID.

I sympathise with your frustrations, but I think quite a few of the people who still play only do so to hang around with friends. If you made me choose between chatting with mates and playing bush, I'd probably pick the former.
Pre-covid, when the game was similarly dead, we still had 20 person alliances! So things have improved a bit since then. Beemer managed to finish in the top 10 last round*, ahead of some of the rank 1 alliance, so it's not impossible to be successful as a solo, especially as quite a few of the allied players are pretty inactive.
I don't recall any cooperation between alliances over the past few rounds. But I accept solos probably get hit more.
Not totally against 5) although in theory that's what the negative honour penalties are supposed to be for.

*JTeal is of course a massive cheat and so doesn't count.
 

Tombi

Harvester
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
Messages
173
Location
Suffolk
Game seems to be fully dead again after the small pre/post covid revival. Are the argies and the blatant cheating to blame...who knows.

Edit: first post in 15ish years lol
 
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Dark_Angel

Landscape Designer
Super Moderator
Community Operator
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
Messages
1,979
Location
UK
Game seems to be fully dead again after the small pre/post covid revival. Are the argies and the blatant cheating to blame...who knows.

Edit: first post in 15ish years lol
Are you playing on the right server?

When clicking world to join, click 'server 0 - cool kids'. There are about 5,000 of us on there.

If the cool kid option isn't visible for you then I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you Tombi.

KR,
DA
 
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