Base limits and anti-monopoly system. Long-term GW competition.

[wilian.souza2]

To get back to my example, China ans 108 points means that one could have 21 bases in China!!! How many aircraft would that mean? 5000? One airline could take it all (while in today's games it needs at least 4 or 5 airlines to be pretty well covered, not counting the regional carriers).
And on the other hand France, 11 points would allow CDG as main hub and then Orly, that's all. Far from what Air France has IRL, just for a reference (10 total).
But Pakistan, which IRL or in the current games is a medium market would allow around x3 bases compared to France...

The problem here is that you don't play with a geography, or a tiny country in which the demand is high, you play with a country that's populated or not. While a few places would become suddenly very interesting, most of them would suffer from this system.

To address this, we could multiply the population with a factor considering the country's economy - GDP per capita for example. The reference factor would be the world's average GDP pc, considered 1. On a country with 2x that average GDP, the multiplying factor would be 2 and for a country with half that average,  it would be 0,5 - multiply that with the population and the result will be considered in scoring. It would balance things out, allowing airlines in rich countries with low population (like France) have more bases and limit the possibilities for airlines in poor, highly populated ones (like China, India and Indonesia)

[DanDan]

my thoughts about mixing gdp/population into the equation:
sounds as if the result would be to basically reduce the possibilities in small countries with already low demand, right? when actually the interest should be to reduce the possibilities in big airports in big countries. so the whole thing is counterproductive! you want to prevent the airline in ATL and LHR from going to another big airport, not the one in timbuktu.

@Sami, regarding your question, if people will understand the rule:
if you carefully explain it, maybe make a note in the manual on it, i am very sure it wont be harder to get for players than the "too small" rule, the frequency spamming + the price insensitivity of passengers, the "too many fleets penalty", ...  but i guess you know my opinion on those undocumented issues by now.

my preference:
a point-system sounds good to me, considering maybe both airline fleet-size as well as base size and aircraft-size; the proposal of MuzhikRB sounds reasonable. additionally, maybe lift the planes outside HQ rule and replace by a general plane-limit, so that the selection of the HQ which has to be done in the beginning isnt all that important anymore / or optionally make it possible to move the HQ during the game.

even better:
if the points could be used to maybe venture into other countries at specific point-costs (at least in secondary or tertiary markets) somehow, so that the map is a bit better populated. because in most countries people dont need to worry about the limit of bases anyway (see https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,77662.0.html )

[wilian.souza2]

my thoughts about mixing gdp/population into the equation:
sounds as if the result would be to basically reduce the possibilities in small countries with already low demand, right? when actually the interest should be to reduce the possibilities in big airports in big countries. so the whole thing is counterproductive! you want to prevent the airline in ATL and LHR from going to another big airport, not the one in timbuktu.

I've made some experiments and found out that:
- Calculting points in function of population only is pretty fair in most countries, but will distort things in India and China and will limit possibilities in low populated, rich countries;

- Mixing population and GDP in the equation will correct things for rich and low populated countries, but will limit a lot the possibilities for highly populated and poorer countries.

So we can use both calculation methods and pick for each country the method which gives the highest result, and set an absolute maximum of 60 points (= 12 VL bases) to weed out the outliers.

This method I propose doesn't reduce possibilities in countries with low population and poor economy. They already offer low possibilities, and my proposal guarantees at least 5 points, which is enough for a very large base.

[MuzhikRB]

For me - GDP system is totally different from my initial one.

As I see it - it is much more difficult for casual player.

two examples:
1. China and India. 1950-1980 - GPD is poor, population is fair a lot. then GDP will increase a lot. So what to expect ? How to predict ?
2. Europe - we should calculate country GDP or EU GDP? if country GDP then some of the players will get more points in open Europe market because their HQ is in Germany and not in Poland

Economical downturns and crisis - GDP goes down - so we will remove points from player ?

IT becomes too complicated IMHO. And then we again will be strictly sticked to countries history lines of GDP/population numbers.

By removing AC limit totally (as I proposed) and playing only with base limits we are more strategy-variable not depending on population, GDP etc.
Like - FUEL scenario goes insane ? player can change his fleet from 300 large planes to 600 medium, etc etc.
China has more demand? Great - you can open 4 VL bases and concentrate on international demand or you can open 10 medium bases spamming with 4000 ACs for home demand or.... or... depends on your imagination, limiting only base limit and 3-family limit.

[wilian.souza2]

For me - GDP system is totally different from my initial one.

As I see it - it is much more difficult for casual player.

two examples:
1. China and India. 1950-1980 - GPD is poor, population is fair a lot. then GDP will increase a lot. So what to expect ? How to predict ?
2. Europe - we should calculate country GDP or EU GDP? if country GDP then some of the players will get more points in open Europe market because their HQ is in Germany and not in Poland

Economical downturns and crisis - GDP goes down - so we will remove points from player ?

IT becomes too complicated IMHO. And then we again will be strictly sticked to countries history lines of GDP/population numbers.

It's not as complicated as you think. You propose a maximum of 20 points for every player. I propose to tailor this limit according to the country's population and economy, in a span from 5 to 60 points, as explained in my previous post.

For each country, this limit will be calculated by 2 methods: in function of population only (5 + 1 per 10M people) and in function of population and country's GDP (which will multiply the result of that same formula by a factor which is a relation of the country's GDP over the world's average GDP); the system will adopt the highest result between the calculation methods for each country and will not allow more than 60.

As only the highest results are picked, there's no risk of having to close a base by reduction of the maximum points for base limit because the country has gone poor - unless if it loses population, too... which is improbable in 99% of the scenarios!

And the average player doesn't need to know in detail how the base limit points are calculated - just tell that the base limit points "are calculated considering the country's population and economy level, and will be no less than 5 and not more than 60" and then show him the points available for him.

The rest of your proposal, Muzhik, will remain untouched.

[JumboShrimp]

The country / GDP / population: I don't think this should be in any way related to bases and players.  And it would only make hard countries even harder to play.  This is not really the problem to be solved.

The problem to be solved: In the past, 3/4 through the game, the player would realize that the next objective to realize can't be realized because of Out of the base limit.  So the player can:
a) race as fast as possible to the unachievable objective then hit the wall
b) be discouraged, give up the futile effort (even if it is just short of hitting the wall).

What changed now:
1. Game extended 15 years from 2020 to 2036
2. Cargo uses the plane limits twice as fast.

So now a player realizes 1/2 throught the game that hitting the wall is inevitable, instead of 3/4 of the way through.  Not a good way to keep the player motivated if the effort is ultimately futile.

Example: I opened a base at ORD, thought about competing with the players there.  But realized that I can't really achieve anything there with the limit, if another base, Baltimore has already consumed 1/2 of my limit.

So building a wall, that the player can race toward and hit with the head - that is not exactly the best motivation to stay in the game for 1 RW year...

I think the combination of base points (levels) that can grow over time either automatically or as a player achievement is something that is motivating, rather than the the demotivating aircraft limits...

Example #2:  I started in Turkey twice (before cargo).  Half way through the game, at about 400 of the plane limit used, I realized that I can't effectively competed with remaining players.  So I dropped the game, left AWS for s short hiatus.  Than a couple of GWs later, I did it again, played Turkey, disposed of competitors in 1 or 2 airports, but knew that the plane limit would prevent me from competing with remaining airlines in Turkey, so quit again...

Notice Muzhik's subheading: Long-term GW competition.

Right now, after playing successfully, the innevitable outcome is to hit the wall, without being able to engage competitors fully.

When there are huge BKs of players with 1000 aircraft, I would say majority are from boredom / demotivation, rather than result of competition.

[DanDan]

When there are huge BKs of players with 1000 aircraft, I would say majority are from boredom / demotivation, rather than result of competition.

absolutely. its my first GW (GW2) but its terribly sad how many players just leave, but understandable. and i doubt thats in the interest of the game-makers either.

[dmoose42]

I agree. The mechanism should be designed to encourage achievements that enhance the player experience - the striving aspect would definitely enhance the player experience. Happy to help develop a more thorough write-up if it would be helpful.

[wilian.souza2]

the striving aspect would definitely enhance the player experience.

I agree. And I was thinking about some ways to increase the striving aspect - one of the ways I thought was revampimg the credit system entirely, adopting the bond system and making the airlines start 80-90% leveraged (allowiing as much leverage as the credit rating permits), instead of the usual 40-50% (?). I will detail it later. That, along with the extinction of aircraft out of HQ limit and the adoption of points system for base limits, would take competition to a new level.

[MuzhikRB]

when I was thinking about it my main goals were about:

1. This is Airline Management game - there should be no limits how much ACs I can control.
2. There should be some kind of limit - like anti-monopoly IRL, so it will be no overdomination
3. Player should have chance to become the biggest, richest airline without having HQ in ATL/LHR/ORD or similar bases.

in my setup 20 points are 4 VL bases.
What does it mean: USA market  - players started in ATL/LAX/JFK/ORD/DWF can open base in every competitor HQ and fight till last penny till the end of 50-70years GW. Because there will be no limits. At the same time, someone started in CHA, living in safety for 30 years can also decide to join the big boys in some of the bases without AC limit.
to that bloodbath we will add regional airlines, which can open 5L or 10M bases and spam with medium planes where it is possible. but nobody of them can dominate totally.
4th fleet penalty will not allow big boys to have medium family, and regional airlines cannot go LH, because of base and fleet limits.

the same for europe. when EU opens everybody who is brave enough can attack everybody. One was playing regional strategy with medium planes and therefore started in 2tier base, then 30 years later he see big BK in EU big base - he can close everything (except HQ) and change his game plan totally (even not flying at HQ at all) and go to L and VL planes.
Why not?

but none of them can really dominate, and it will not be known from begining anymore that biggest airline in the end will be from top5 airports

[JumboShrimp]

I agree. The mechanism should be designed to encourage achievements that enhance the player experience - the striving aspect would definitely enhance the player experience. Happy to help develop a more thorough write-up if it would be helpful.

I would be happy to hear your ideas.  There should be 2 (or more) different achievement tracks:
- for expanding into bases
- for expanding airport (different thread)

BTW, as a side benefit to motivating players players to to the next achievement, it would also prevent people from shooting themself in the foot.  Just yesterday I noticed an airline bankrupting that has 3 bases with about 20 aircraft.