First i'll explain what they were/are. The only difference between an income and UP circle is a income circle means the players have mostly income planets, a UP circle means that the people in the circle have mostly UP planets. Income planets give a 30% bonus to officers without taking away any income from the commander (note this works differently to miners), UP planets give commanders a 15% bonus in UP with taking away any UP.
Assuming a perfect circle with players that have the same size, stats, growth, etc then there will be 42.86% bonus to officers from income planets instead of 30% and a 17.65 % bonus on total UP instead of 15%. This creates benefits of bigger players teaming up with players their own size instead of recruiting smaller officers, which is a problem because believe it or not it hurts small players (if you want more of an explanation why read the spoiler).
Why the new update screws all officer commander relationships up? Commanders just don't get enough out of raw UP from officers to pay for the income sent to them...that simple. why? players can self command for 20% of their raw, why would they get a commander that only wants to pay them for 15% of their raw? Not only that raw UP just isn't enough to give people with large army sizes enough UP production back for the income they send out.
The actual suggestion:
How can you not screw up perfectly fine officer commander relationships while making circles ineffective? Easy. Just make it so you get a total bonus from your officers raw UP and your officers planets (or replace the raw figure with "self production" which is planets+raw and take the bonus off officers from there) instead of taking the number just from their total. This just excludes the bonus they get from having officers themselves (ie potential for circles). So you know how much u are getting from your officers on the commander page in front of "Race" put the bonus u receive from them at your current officer rate.
To remove income circles make it so commanders lose 30% of the income they send to officers from planets OR to be fair to people with income planets (that know they get 130% from every planet lol, UP used to get 115% before this update) make a raw income and "adjusted income". The "self production" income is from miners and planets. Adjusted income is what you get from commanders and other sources (eg no commander, banners) minus what you send to officers which would be 30% of miners production but your officers actaully receive the bonus from your "self production" figure so they still get their 130% bonus from income planets.
Also in a spoiler is a section of my game guide i stopped writing, this section is still incomplete and is now wrong.
[spoiler]Commander circles
Please read the planets section of this game guide to see where I get my figures from and what is written above about commanders also so you see how they work and can understand where I’m getting my calculations from.
Commander circles are when 3 or more people make a loop were everyone has a commander and that commander is either their officer or their officer’s officer depending on how many people are in the loop.
Even if players that are in commander circles don't realise this their commander circles can be classified as income planets commander circles or UP planets commander circles or Income/UP circles (not as common) where people generally have 5 income and 5 UP planets. They normally work out this way as people looking for commander circles join together with people with similar stats, therefore they generally have similar planet structures.
Basically most people think commander circles are magic and can not explain how they work, that is because they haven’t read the prescribed reading in my game guide lol. I’m going to try to hypothesise how they might work as I have not been in a commander circle.
In the examples below, player 2 is player 1’s commander, player 3 is player 2’s commander, and player 1 is player 3’s commander.
UP commander circles:
I’m assuming there is 500k total UP
15% of 500k UP is 75k, the standard co/officer relationship produces this extra income
The 575k UP on player 2 makes 86.25k for player 3
The 586.25k for player 3 makes 87.94k for player 1
I'm sure you get the idea, it keeps going around until it reaches 588,235.29 (a 17.65 % bonus on total UP instead of 15%)
Note, these do not produce ANY extra income at all (if there are no income planets).
Income commander circles:
This circle works pretty much the same, except you only get a bonus from your planets income, which is 30% (assuming you commander’s tax rate is 30%).
I’ll work it out for 100bil income planets
30% of players 1’s 100bil gives 130bil to player 2
The 130bil for player 2 makes 139 bil for player 3
The 139bil makes 141.7bil for player 1
The 141.7bil makes 142.51 for player 2
I’m sure you get the idea it keep going around until it reaches 142.86bil on all players, that’s a 42.86% bonus instead of a 30% bonus you would be getting if your officers gave you the correct amount of UP back for your income.
Remember this works with income planets only, not income from miners because income from miners is taken away to give officers money.
Note, these produce extra UP from the raw UP of the player, which goes around just like the UP commander circle
Does the number of people in a circle effect the results?
No it doesn’t as long as the new person has the same amount of income. But remember the more people in the chain, the more easy it is for it to get broken!
UP/income commander circles:
Well basically they just do the same as above but you combine the results of both circles.
Complications and problems with commander circles:
• Commander circles generally can not offer a lot of the things you want in a commander (described above).
• If one person goes on critical or quits the game or grows slower or grows faster or sells resources on his account or gets in a war or decides he wants to leave the circle or change his planets set up the commander circle could be adversely effected.
• It is more likely you will outgrow the other players in a circle then you will get less then you should from your commander and give more then you should to your officer if you are growing rapidly you will quickly find the circle doesn’t work for you.
Things to make commander circles work better (helps overcome the problems):
• Take people the same size, with the same combination of UP/Income planets
• Try to limit the number of alliances the people in your commander circle come from, this is because with more alliances it is more likely 1 of you will get in a war
• If you do get into a war get everyone to ppt at the same time on the same day and then you can all go critical at the same time.
Personal opinion:
Income commander circles are the most effective because they give a reasonable boost but as the price of uu rises they will be more useless, also note that income planets are very poor in war because other players can steal all your resources in 1 hit and during a commander circle if one of you is at war, you can’t go on crit because it breaks the circle. Please do not change to income planets to make a commander circle! The boost from even your own income planets could cause you to get hit for naq so much that it sends your account backwards because of the uu loses, I’ve seen it happen to somebody before.
Commander circles are not effective for weaker players because they do not get as much guidance, real protection from a larger commander and a reasonably stable income. They are also lacking due to the complications mentioned above “complications and problems with commander circles”. They may appear good because “all the bigger players are doing it” but that is only because they work better for them.
However for large players, mostly above the uu buying cap or maybe even the uu raiding cap they can be much better if the planets match up because large players are less likely to encounter the problems mentioned above in complications and problems with commander circles. The bigger you are the less likely you will outgrow other players percentage wise, it’s easy to double your army at 5mil, but if you are 50mil army size it will take a bit longer to “outgrow” other members. You also don’t need to worry about the problems with commanders because you really are big enough to look after yourself! If you are a larger player you should think about making a 10 UP planet circle. This is because you can’t buy uu but you can always sell it (to smaller players)! The price of uu WILL increase making income planets far less valuable in and out of commander circles. Also I’m sure you can look at the over advantages and disadvantages of UP vs Income planets and make up your own mind. I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.
[/spoiler]
