15 years of empire/city/castle/troop building has brought me here!

I'll admit, I posted this in the "official suggestions" thread but the chances of anyone finding it within the 50 pages there are nil so here goes!

I'm a long time casual gamer/designer and have now been playing this one for about 6 months but have yet to give some in-depth feedback . I have also dropped some money into this "free" game format and those two things are a credit to the design thus far, so congrats! There are, however, some serious issues that need to be addressed here.

The first of which is this: You need to advance with more speed on the changes being proposed on this forum and the changes that have already been decided on in the dev diary. I know some are coming in a few weeks but those are not going to be enough to hold the player base. Lots of people have lots of great ideas here and if the company puts the resources in, it’s my belief this game could do very well.

So here is what the TOP 3 priorities would be on my list:

1. TRADE revamped - Here is what I need. I need to be able to set an amount to trade, say 10,000 coal, and set a price for each 100 stack. I need to be able to leave that trade running until I decide to take it down. Those resources would come out of my inventory the second the trade was posted so trades could be instantaneous. Players need to be able to buy as much of my coal off that trade as they want as long as the trade is posted. First come, first serve.
I also NEED to be able to post at minimum 3 of THESE types of trades at a time.

2. PVP - There are two camps right now. One will play, and the others will opt out or leave. Nothing will ever make everyone from both those camps happy, but here, at least, is what will keep me still playing...

I don’t want people to be able to attack my main island. Ever.
My island should be perpetual. PVP goals and rewards should not.

There should be a PVP zone or zones which are fought for by guilds. When a guild controls a zone, it may build on it: defenses, farms mines etc. There should be rewards and victory points given for owning a zone for a certain period of time. Once a guild has enough victory points, the guild is declared the champion and each member receives a special island statue or decoration to commemorate the victory.
PVP areas are then reset. This should take about 5-6 months to achieve on average for a guild.

3. Adventures rebooted – Right now adventures are pretty dull. With a bit of relatively easy tweaking though, they could be improved greatly.
3 Easy tweek ideas:
- Give an incentive to doing some adventures really quickly. Have incremental time levels for adventures and appropriate bonuses for each level. It becomes about preparation and in a two, 3 or 4 player game, TEAMWORK!
- Have some adventures in which you can only bring in a certain number of troops. You must claw through the adventure choosing carefully who to send for each battle. Each battle won give a reward. This isn’t something that you will finish, but to see how far you can go.
- You could easily do 5-6 player adventures and have TEAMWORK and co-operation become much more important. If troops were limited for some of these (say 600 each) a player would have to take on a “role” much like a standard dungeon crawl in a RPG: I am the archer, I am the first striker, I am the muscle, I am the cannon fodder... (yay recruits…). Rewards can be gathered like loot is gathered.
- You could also create troop buffs. If a player wanted to, instead of focusing on higher level army units to help with a fight, they could focus on buffing other players armies (or there own), thus creating a sort of mage class… ?
- Enemy camp troop balance could also be randomized on some of these adventures…??

Those are the TOP 3, if your still reading this, here are my little ones…

- Be able to put a standing order on a Geoligist, like, find marble for the next week!

- Use a different color exclamation mark for when things are being upgraded. It looks too much like when something is missing from the buildings supply chain.

- Make Silos better or make farms last longer. Right now they are useless. Although having 5 or 6 build que options will help the perpetual daily tilling of fields…. it shouldn't take me an hour and a half of attention every day just to keep the ship floating....

So that’s it! Keep up the great work and tell you boss that you need more resources!

Anyone can find me in game as “Corinthian”

Happy building!

Forgot!
Player names in any mail (friend requests especially) should ALWAYS have their guild initials after them.

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Originally Posted by Corinthian

- Make Silos better or make farms last longer. Right now they are useless.

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How many farms do you have? And how long does it take you each morning to rebuild wheatfeilds? They are not economical but they are very useful given the proper setup and upgrades. It is a luxury since time is not a resource that can be traded.

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Originally Posted by Bobj

How many farms do you have? And how long does it take you each morning to rebuild wheatfeilds? They are not economical but they are very useful given the proper setup and upgrades. It is a luxury since time is not a resource that can be traded.

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At level 37 I have 30 farms with maxed mines and about 60 water wells. These things combined require about an hour at least per day of attention just to maintain.

30 silo's at 750 a pop is 22,500 gems or about $80... for farms... Not really my idea of money that I would feel very good about spending.

Yeah i'm at 50 fields and 90+ wells so anything to cut down on the time is proving to be invaluable. Folks also trade silos/watermills for coins in game if that is more your thing.

Yeah I have 60 or so fields and 85 wells.... it takes awhile to redo stuff when I get home

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Originally Posted by Jethro702

Yeah I have 60 or so fields and 85 wells.... it takes awhile to redo stuff when I get home

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Ye i would also like a tool that auto rebuilds them, if you have the resources for them.

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Originally Posted by AGamer

Ye i would also like a tool that auto rebuilds them, if you have the resources for them.

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Well I guess we cant have the computer do everything for us that might be a bit boring then hehe

You said : I also NEED to be able to post at minimum 3 of THESE types of trades at a time.

This would make for a very boring game. One player would set up a trade : Sell 400 water for 2 coins. Then set up a second trade : Buy 400 water for 1 coin.
This would lock the price and the player would make a MINT !! The other players would set up for all the other resources the same way. No auctions, no undercutting the other guy, no figuring what the market will bear. Half the fun of this game is trading. The 10 minute time limit is set up to STOP this type of play. Might just as well push a button and let the computer play the game by itself. Sorry, I feel this is a BAD idea.

ok, how would having a trade market showing that someone is selling water at 2 coins per stack, and someone "else" is buying at 1 a stack, enable someone to make a mint?? What would actually happen is that the price to buy or sell water would be "set" at 1 coin per stack of water because people could post their surplus water for sale always and still be able to trade other things......some people would still be posting at 2 coins per stack and would only be able to sell at that price when the demand is really high, which is exactly what should happen in a free market situation, so you're fears are unjustified in all reality

Thanks for the feedback LordVarlot!

As with bergman, I don't see how your scenario would kill the market. Someone must still be willing to sell that 400 water at 1 coin, and if people are buying at 2 coins (as your example dictates) that doesn't seem likely. If fact, I think my suggestion is at least closer to what a true free market would be. I think it would have strong effects but I think most of those would be positive. Besides being able to trade more freely, I think it would bring prices down across the board making it easier for lower level players to get the things they need, when they need them.

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Originally Posted by bergman2021

ok, how would having a trade market showing that someone is selling water at 2 coins per stack, and someone "else" is buying at 1 a stack, enable someone to make a mint?? What would actually happen is that the price to buy or sell water would be "set" at 1 coin per stack of water because people could post their surplus water for sale always and still be able to trade other things......some people would still be posting at 2 coins per stack and would only be able to sell at that price when the demand is really high, which is exactly what should happen in a free market situation, so you're fears are unjustified in all reality

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If the price were SET at a certain price, then there would be no bargaining, it would be like shopping at McDonalds. If you want it, you pay the marked rate. Not just for water, as I used as an example, but for all resources. Would it be interesting if you KNEW that iron swords would sell at 100 for 33 coins and buy at 32 coins ? And I am saying the SAME person would set up 2 trades, one to buy the other to sell the same resource at a 1 or 2 coin markup. It would run 24 hours a day and the player would have to do nothing but log on and see how many coins he made that day. How interesting is that ?

Actually I am a PvP type player and find the most active entertaining games have a real element of PvP against the resource you build and farm! so bring on the warfare!!

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Originally Posted by LordVarlot

If the price were SET at a certain price, then there would be no bargaining, it would be like shopping at McDonalds. If you want it, you pay the marked rate. Not just for water, as I used as an example, but for all resources. Would it be interesting if you KNEW that iron swords would sell at 100 for 33 coins and buy at 32 coins ? And I am saying the SAME person would set up 2 trades, one to buy the other to sell the same resource at a 1 or 2 coin markup. It would run 24 hours a day and the player would have to do nothing but log on and see how many coins he made that day. How interesting is that ?

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Prices would be "SET" by the market, which is exactly the way it is now. Everything has a certain price that a majority of people buy and sell at, 1 for water, 8 for coal, 10 for beer, etc. Are there always people online selling these things at different prices?? Of course, however, it usually doesn't take to long to find at least one person selling at the price the market has "SET".

The issue i think you're missing is this: (using water as the example again) the trade market would have a page for buying and selling water...there are tons of people in the game who sell water at 1 coin per stack, therefore when you go to buy water, you look at the page and see a bunch of people selling at 1 coin per stack, say you buy every stack for sale at 1 coin (assuming you have both the coins and the storage to do so) and you then try to turn around and post ON THE SAME PAGE, that you are now selling all the water you just bought at 2 gold coins. This only works if everyone who is willing to sell at 1 gold coin is completely out of water to sell, otherwise people look at the market page/tab/section for water and see offers of water for sale at 1 coin and water for sale at 2 coins, which do you think they are going to choose??? So therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE, for someone to "make a mint" if there was a revamped market allowing for perpetual trades and multiple trades!! It is actually only possible in the present setup for a mint to be made, because as it is now, you have to hope someone is online and the one trade that they want to post is for the thing you are looking for at the "SET" price, instead of being forced to pay an inflated price because there isn't anyone online who sells at the lower price.

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Originally Posted by Corinthian

Thanks for the feedback LordVarlot!

As with bergman, I don't see how your scenario would kill the market. Someone must still be willing to sell that 400 water at 1 coin, and if people are buying at 2 coins (as your example dictates) that doesn't seem likely. If fact, I think my suggestion is at least closer to what a true free market would be. I think it would have strong effects but I think most of those would be positive. Besides being able to trade more freely, I think it would bring prices down across the board making it easier for lower level players to get the things they need, when they need them.

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Corinthian, i totally respect you're programming and gaming experience and expertise, however I don't think you are looking at the economics of a revamped market correctly. Using our water example, plenty of players sell water at 1 coin per stack (i generally buy at least 8k in water a day at this price), however if you look at the market you see people selling at 2 coins (or a higher value than one coin in some other resource) or more all the time as well. This is because of how the present market is set up, if people were allowed to post a trade for a 24hr period, or multiple trades at once, you would find prices would become much more standardized (not necessarily at 1 coin per stack of water, maybe the set or standard price would be 2 or 3 coins).

This would happen for two reasons:
A)Everyone has a price they are willing to sell any resource at, a price they would be willing to regularly sell at, and a price that they think each resource is worth to buy at. So over the first 2-3weeks of a revamped market everyone would be posting resources for sale, and the people who are posting at the price they are willing to regularly sell at would gradually set the price for the resource. (i.e. i am willing to sell coal at 9 coins per stack, you are willing to sell at 10...everytime i log on i see that all the coal i posted and all the coal you posted has sold and the lowest price available is 10 coins per stack, after this happening a few times i probably try raising my price, if i sell it all again, 9 becomes my new price i am willing to sell at)

B)Everyone would have the same opportunity to buy/sell. Right now, with only a 10min window for a given trade, all trades can only be completed by the people who are online at that exact moment. This is basically akin to black friday conditions everyday, great deals if you are the first in line and have the resources necessary to get the deal. If trades were available for 24hrs or more, then prices become more fair because if I need something I don't have to pay whatever price is available, I would instead be able to pay a price that people offered all the time.

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Originally Posted by bergman2021

Prices would be "SET" by the market, which is exactly the way it is now. Everything has a certain price that a majority of people buy and sell at, 1 for water, 8 for coal, 10 for beer, etc. Are there always people online selling these things at different prices?? Of course, however, it usually doesn't take to long to find at least one person selling at the price the market has "SET".

The issue i think you're missing is this: (using water as the example again) the trade market would have a page for buying and selling water...there are tons of people in the game who sell water at 1 coin per stack, therefore when you go to buy water, you look at the page and see a bunch of people selling at 1 coin per stack, say you buy every stack for sale at 1 coin (assuming you have both the coins and the storage to do so) and you then try to turn around and post ON THE SAME PAGE, that you are now selling all the water you just bought at 2 gold coins. This only works if everyone who is willing to sell at 1 gold coin is completely out of water to sell, otherwise people look at the market page/tab/section for water and see offers of water for sale at 1 coin and water for sale at 2 coins, which do you think they are going to choose??? So therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE, for someone to "make a mint" if there was a revamped market allowing for perpetual trades and multiple trades!! It is actually only possible in the present setup for a mint to be made, because as it is now, you have to hope someone is online and the one trade that they want to post is for the thing you are looking for at the "SET" price, instead of being forced to pay an inflated price because there isn't anyone online who sells at the lower price.

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I personally love the idea of a trading market as Corinthian advised. I played another game not much different from this that did just that, the option in trading really helps all players but does need a time limit.
I think a three day time limit for a trade to be completed would be acceptable. After the time allotted was complete your trade should be taken down from the list. This would help keep the lists of trades organized and not have a million pages.
Plus there wouldn't be any inflated prices as bergman2021 said because of everyone offering up a lower price or a more reasonable one.
There could be a list of the resources that you look through to see the offers in a trade bar or menu. I don't see any problem with the idea and i think that it would greatly improve the game and make it easier to start up and get going.

The entire combat system needs to be revamped IMHO... the randomness factor is way too low right now, which means if you had excel and a couple of hours you can carefully map out exactly what sends are optimal for each camp in an adventure. It doesn't matter how many new adventures you make, if each one just takes a couple of hours to "crack".

1 simple fix is to vary the amount of units in each camps between a min and a max, that way the player running the adventure has to be able to run the math on the fly, and it makes adventures a lot more challenging.

i think corinthian idea of revamping the trade system is good and is long overdue-- coming from a player that buys 30k water 20k wheat 10k flour 20k copper at least every 2-3 days and have a day job. i just don't have enough time to do small trades the entire day.just my cent