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In the end, the spies were the reason they got killed like that. And yes, you're right, it's not really strategy what I was talking about. But then, is there any deep strategy in a game like this? It's more about organization and coordination (and activity of course).
I think the spy system isn't really the problem, I still don't see how it changed BD to the worse for the reasons I gave above. And you claim that you cannot attack your enemy at all is not true. If you overpower them you can always attack. It simply is more difficult. And nukes can be used to kill enemy agents. Of course it does slow down wars, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you want to have fast war, simply join a fast server. Usually wars are less stagnant there as the gameplay is less "strategic".
I don't agree, in the end it was their stupidity that got them killed like that, not the spies. It's not as if we managed to lock them down by some mastermind plan.
But really, if you overpower them you can always attack? Sure, I can launch 400 inf squads at my enemy 200 squads sitting on the OP. Then they lock me, damage me, and my 400 squads die. THAT is the reason you can't attack. As far as nukes are concerned, you can't really spare the energy needed to fire that many nukes, considering pretty much every single OP is unsafe.
For me it isn't about how slow wars are. A war in which people get pushed back and forth sounds great to me. But there is a difference between a slow war and two sides just sitting and waving at each other, being unable to attack.
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The new discussion you brought up about income and how it is generated is indeed an interesting one in my opinion. I'm completely against increasing taxation again though, simply because farming inactive noobs for income is bad game mechanics. Crystals are another point. Increasing the amount of crystals circulating would help to make the game more competitive again I think. So I'm very much in favor of the idea brought up by Simmen.
First of all, it's not increasing taxation "again". It has only been lowered. But why is that bad game mechanics? I agree that if this meant that newbies were kept down and killed repeatedly it would be bad game mechanics. But realistically 95+% of the people conquered are those that join, register and then never visit again. Those that do get active are usually a pain to keep conquered.
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Major alliances are more active than players just sitting, they are more coordinated etc. Stagnant wars usually don't happen between a "major" alliance and players "just sitting". I don't see the problem here.
How does it help when you are more coordinated and more active when you can't attack them? You don't need to be active at all to be able to stay and sit on an OP, the most that is needed is being able to get your members online to move out of the OP and then to lock and damage the OP, and return. That first of all comes down to a refresh battle rather than strategy, second of all discourages attacking and as a result slows down wars incredibly.
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Why not? If I want fast results, I'll play some real time strategy game where matches take a few hours at most. Eras on BD are supposed to last for months (1 tick servers), so wars should last long as well. The CE isn't online for that long yet and the war between SAGE and VND lasts for only about 300 ticks. Not a long time for BD in my opinion.
Again, I do not at all mind long wars, I don't mind long eras, the first era I really played here on BD lasted 2100 ticks during which I was online most ticks. It was tiring, but fun. What I however do mind is eras in which nothing is really happening and no side can advance very much. That for me is the difference between a long era and simply a stagnant era. Long eras are great, stagnant ones are not.
How do you get long eras? Make it so that there are more teams competing, make it so that there are not just a few alliances going for the win. I would much rather see us fight alliance after alliance and having a long era because of this than a long era that is simply long because you can't do anything and are sitting, throwing rocks at your enemies.
How do you get more teams to compete, in my opinion? First of all get rid of all these mechanics that "force" you to get an empire of allies and subs, and start encouraging single teams. Not balancing and nerfing everything so much that you are bound to rely on getting more allies than your enemy. Because sadly, that is largely the way to win. Individual alliances stand no chance.