Hi Judy, The app has to load the map around you every time you log in to make sure that it's up to date. This can take some time when the network is a bit slowish, but from my experience it rarely takes more than 20 secondes, even on 3G networks. On Wifi or 4G the average I've seen is 5 to 10 seconds. Does this only happen on your company's Wifi network? Yes initially Wipers could be used everywhere and were used to really attack other territories. But a few trolls made them too annoying, so I changed it so that now you can only use them on the borders of your opponents territories: this prevents trolls from making random holes in your territories and make things a bit more fair to everybody. Also, if you don't have any more you can get more by exchanging your Yellows. Yellows are the in-game sort-off currency, which you earn by finding mines (and only by finding mines, there's no in-app purchase sorry). That being said, wipers are now mostly used by people who want to draw things on the map (since you can use them anywhere on your own territory). For example, have a look at this area: http://afewbillion.com/?c=-2304&r=-7867&ui=30573 Try to view it from your computer, as a bigger screen really helps realise the scale of those drawings . Here's a screenshot of this small part of the map: Each pixel corresponds to one tile, so the players in this area have collectively mined millions and millions of tiles to draw those things! In any case, welcome to the game, and let me know how your wifi things go! Philippe
New idea I have a new idea that should help the community of this game a lot more A new way of attacking This is my idea: if you completely circle land either claimed or unclaimed then it becomes yours. This would give new meaning to clan coordination of protecting their islands because they would have to make their islands so large that people would not attack them. Thus making it so people stay on the game longer and the longer people are on the game the more competive it gets leading to more people sharing it around and generating more ad revenue and in app purchases for the creator. Now you are probably thinking what about the pixel artists of the game. Well I have some ideas One. Create a new power up that protects a 10x10 land from capture if surrounded Two. Create a designated area for pixel artists to go and add a teleport button to the menu Three. Make a completely new world for pixel artists but make each tile worth less for the empire counter because they are protected. Four. If people make pixel art that gets taken over they can gain the land back so it says that they made it but the tiles for the empire counter will go to the player that took it over All in all I think that this will change the activity of the community and will give the opportunity to the creator of the game the chance to build off of it and make some more money.
Hi Steelers, Those are pretty good ideas, thanks! The sad truth unfortunately is that the game isn't profitable anymore since I had to switch to Google Ads after Apple cancelled iAd. It was (relatively) fine with iAd despite the fact that fewer and fewer people played the game, but now I'd need way more players to make money again with it. I'm perfectly happy to keep the server running anyway and swallow the cost of the servers, but I really can't justify any new development beside the routine bug fixes to keep things running. That being said, Apple gave all developers $100 to try their new Search Ad feature in the App Store and I plan to use it on A Few Billion. We'll see if that changes things ; if I see a new interest in the game I'll be happy to get working on new features! But don't get your hope too high Philippe
