Beware of the C&C insanity algorithm!
I was here on this forum once before complaining when I was at Diamond Level about the difficulty. I took the advice of someone here and after some changes to strategy and armies managed to battle my way all the way to master league on both (pro tip: you MUST always put your enemy on the defensive. Hand them the initative at any point and you are toast).
But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to call out the INSANITY algorithm. By definition, it is C&Cs way of driving you INSANE. Have you ever noticed how on rivals race that you always seem to get 2-3 wins fairly early, moving up the ranking quite quickly? Usuallly with a good deal of challenge matches so even when you lose you don't drop medals. But yet, after a few more matches, the challenge matches suddenly drop off, yet you are still matched with superior opponents? And then all of a sudden, after like 2 hours of gaming you are back to below where you were when you started?? Well this is C&Cs INSANITY algorithm! I've witnessed it with other people in rivals race who have less medals today than yesterday.
Just like gambling at the casino, or dating apps, they know to give you the dopemine rush of winning early on, but then to keep you sucked in and playing they take it away from you slowly to keep you trying, trying, trying. In their single minded interest to increase time in game, they completely dispense with any care for people's state of mind and mental wellbeing. This give-some take-more-away algorithm can be a huge detriment to your health and happiness, just like gambling or dating addiction.
So I'm here to warn you - if you find yourself in this situation, do yourself a favour and put the game away and save it for another day. Try to resist the urge to keep going and going and going because that's exactly what they want you to do and it can be seriously harmful. I've lost hours of sleep playing into the night, trying to "win" getting to top of rivals only to go to bed hours later at 3am with a fried, messed up head, unable to sleep. Two nights in a row exactly the same, went all the way to first, and 4 hours later, back to dead last, all medals lost, back at 3100 again.
As proof here's a screenshot of the last two battles I did where I started to lose on non-challenge matches. Check out the different in unit level!! That should easily be a challenge match, but it wasn't.
To the developers and Redwood growth team: Why don't you think hard about the psychology of what your stickiness and growth efforts have on your users.
To everyone else: Stay happy and healthy.
