Our Beloved Cities Topic

[Freenhult]

Idea to Implement Cities:

When you build a city, you must have at least 20,000 workers available. Only 5,000 will join the city but we need a pop/land requirement. You must also have 30,000 for every city. You can only build a city as soon as the one previous is level 1. You must also defend your city with units. T2 units (Archers) will be the units of choice.

Nutshell: Pop:20,000 workers
Land: 30,000 acres
Garrison: 60,000 T2
Cost: 10bil gold.
Cost: 2.5 bil crop

Cities each take approximately 20,000 acres of land.

Cities grow over time and require a certain population inside to expand. They do not require more land. City population is independent of your outside population used for other things.

City levels:
City level 0: -20% production than 20,000 huts (That produce scrolls only), gold, and troops.
City Level 1: 0% Production boost
City Level 2: 20% boost to all areas described.
City Level 3: 40% boost to all areas described.
City Level 4: 55% boost to all areas described.
City Level 5: 75% boost to all areas described.

This means a city will make 1.75x as much gold/guys/scrolls as 20,000 markets/huts/barracks at the same time. So its like having 60,000 acres of land.

Discussion on this so far...

Growth levels are somewhat iffy. Looking at someones BFR account right now... I've gotten a slight idea for what City pops should be.

City Level 0: 5,000 workers
City Level 1: 65,000 workers
City Level 2: 125,000 workers
City Level 3: 250,000 workers
City Level 4: 500,000 workers
City Level 5: 750,000 workers

Attacking: Cities can be sieged or destroyed.
City Siege: Your units, all of them attack the city's land starving them. The city loses 5% population. If you lose the attack, meaning the cities garrison + their units 50% of your units die.
City Assault: Destroys a city completely. If you fail, 50-75% of your units die.

The high Pop limit should really force cities to take FOREVER to get to the max pop. I was looking at said account with good land it would have had maybe a level 3 city. Since cities themselves aren't effected by the outside limit, it would take a while for 5,000 people to increase large enough to grow to 750,000. So this would be a weeks long process. I'm thinking a growth rate of say 1.001% per every 10 turns would be enough. Maybe a little higher. Makes it slow, but not so slow. Cities can grow to be a few million big, and then they cap. Otherwise having infinite people on 20,000 would be crazy. The higher number is to defend against attacks.


Discussion on this so far...


City Garrisons would work to defend the city. You can either...
A. Station T2s inside to defend.
B. Recruit people. Garrison will ALWAYS stay inside the city.

Garrison will be a new unit type. It will have 4 defense and 0 attack. Each city level will have a defense modifier attached to it.

Level : Percent
0: 125%
1: 150%
2: 175%
3: 200%
4: 225%
5: 250%

This will make Cities HARD to take. They will be the last bastion of hope to defend an empire. Once a city is destroyed, the 20,000 will be free and then normal attacking will ensue. There will be no more attacking with one troop type to 500 land and then Std attacking.

Discussion on this so far...

Well? Any suggestions? Ideas? Complains? I think we'll need a new unit eventually for cities being able to create units. Because having cities make any troop would be odd. Perhaps something like a pure soldier class would be useful. Something the cities make. 6/4 Anyone? Stronger than a T3. This would give rise to hopefully a new strat as well. The City Builder. As you build cities, you build an army.

Okay! Ideas come from here as well.

http://frostnflame.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=3219&hl=Cities

Edit: Changed food to gold. Why would a city make food. xd

[Gen. Volkov]

What if you choose not to build a city? It seems like the level 0 city is a significant hindrance to your growth.

[Freenhult]

Then you don't. You have to build them. Hahaha. Its not automatic.

[Gen. Volkov]

Well I'm just saying this looks like a recipe for a good idea that is not going to be used.

[Shadow I]

Cost of cities should scale up with net, as well as the number of cities you have - ei, the fifth city should cost 5x more than the first city, and a city built at a bil net should be more expensive than a city build at 100 mil net.

Cities should be a little less effective then you describe - because we are trying to -stop- land locking being eaxy right? If you are all cities, you have great production in all areas, and your defenses are even better than ever.

ACtually I have an idea that could keep the cities without interrupting land flow.

Consider: cities were really just glorified trading posts in the past. Their real wealth came from the land surrounding them - the farmers, peasants, etc. How about a system like that. For example:

Cities cost 1000 land, and they gain benefit from up to 20,000 unused land. If you have only 10,000 unused land, you get half the benefit.

Or another possibility is that cities amplify buildings around them - for each city you have, the production of your other buildings, up to a max of 20,000, is doubled. This way you get the same benefit from the same amount of land and cities, but without taking that land out of circulation.

You could also impose population penalties if each city you have is supporting less than 10k buildings ... the possbilities go on. The point is that if we add cities, we should add them in such a way that they don't reduce landflow, because lack of landflow is what is choking the life out of FAF.

[Freenhult]

Dun dun dun. Lemme stop for a second and just say this. It was decided a long long time ago by everyone that there were two ways that you had to approach land. It was either a commodity that you passed around and meant nothing, or it was something to go to war over. This game is severely lacking in any means of diplomacy whatsoever. It used to be that you HAD to have relations in order to do a thing on WoA. Granted the playerbase has dropped since then, but the idea is that with new coding and renovation, new life will be in the game. As such, the admin staff and most of the current members felt this way.

Our goal is not to in a way remove landlocking. Our goal is to remove the ability to do it yourself. One should only be able to lock any amount of land through diplomatic means.

Cost of cities should scale up with net, as well as the number of cities you have - ei, the fifth city should cost 5x more than the first city, and a city built at a bil net should be more expensive than a city build at 100 mil net.

Could be. I was thinking about something like this last night after I went to bed.

Cities should be a little less effective then you describe - because we are trying to -stop- land locking being eaxy right? If you are all cities, you have great production in all areas, and your defenses are even better than ever.

Already explained. Also, you can't have all cities. You would need to have regular land otherwise how would you make guys, economy, etc. Cities grow independently of your main empire. It will take many many weeks if not months to grow to a point where they even break even.

Cities cost 1000 land, and they gain benefit from up to 20,000 unused land. If you have only 10,000 unused land, you get half the benefit.

Not that I'm against extra coding... Dynamic sizes won't work if you're being attacked. Generally, the idea with the new land grab limits and well. Quite frankly, building efficiency you won't grab land unless you have too. And you'll think about it really hard because hitting for land will get you smacked now. So in reality. You're not going to have 75,000 acres of land to just lollygag around with. You might have 25000 and never even get a city. People who will pay the cost to scout out will. And those that form clans and such will be able to as well. I kinda contradicted myself, but my point was, why would you ever have idle land.

Or another possibility is that cities amplify buildings around them - for each city you have, the production of your other buildings, up to a max of 20,000, is doubled. This way you get the same benefit from the same amount of land and cities, but without taking that land out of circulation.

You could also impose population penalties if each city you have is supporting less than 10k buildings ... the possbilities go on. The point is that if we add cities, we should add them in such a way that they don't reduce landflow, because lack of landflow is what is choking the life out of FAF.

My idea does the same. Cities provide 1. Defense against kills. 2. Production for lower land limits. 3. Improve the land their on over time.

I think that currently we have different ideas on how to fix the game. It seems to the current staff and I that the changes we're about to bring to the table are going to fix the game. Maybe not the way you want it, but it will and should.

[Shadow I]

I agree with most of that, but I think you misunderstand my second idea - what I am saying is that right now, landlocking is easy. With cities, it would be even easier since they give hige defense boosts. So my suggestion is that we make cities lock down only a small amount of land while affecting much more land, that can still be taken. A game without land flow is a boring game.

Diplomacy for land is a fine thing for a large player based, but NOT for a small one. If you need relations for land, new players are screwed - let's face it, FAF isn't especially welcoming at the moment. If you can't advance and get land without relations, your player base is not going to grow.

FAF is dying - if you want to fix it. you need to compromise at least until the player base grows - make the game easy for a while, to get more players, and then scale it back to what you want. Because your vision, while great for a big game, isn't going to work toward attracting new players to a game with only 10 players.

[Freenhult]

Oh. Okay. Well, I guess I have to tell you then don't worry. Because if anything. The idea of reducing landflow amounts, but not removing land trading is important. Also, part of the new change is a complete removal of the hitlimit. So if you need to, you can really sock it to a person for land. I'll be putting a request for a defense amount look to reduce losses while attacking and such.

But wars will become more frequent we hope, yes? c:

[Shadow I]

I don't know - this whole thing seems headed toward a game that is hardly oriented toward war at all, and troops are the only thing that give net - seems inconsistent. YOu are going to have to do a rework of the net values to give resources more clout. And you are -definietly- going to hve to reduce sack down to something manageable.

[Freenhult]

Just wait and see. Don't worry about overall gameplay dynamics now. Assume that MOST of the variables have been worked out and solve for my current theory.

Overall, is it sound? If so, they will be added.

[Shadow I]

I don't know til I try it

But if you posted the full plan, or gave access to whatever staff topic this dev was happening in I could give you much more detailed feedback.

[Freenhult]

All of the topics for changes have been released Shadow. I think I bumped the topic and all. I'll do it again. But all of those changes have been okayed and are being worked on.

[Shadow I]

It seems to me that you are creatinga game like feuniverse - very slow land flow, with bloody wars that generally end in kills since there is no hitlimit.

I think a good change to make would be to make kills even harder - maybe add standards under 1000 and make attacks under 100 land cost extra health. Otherwise youll just end up with everyone who manages to legitimately pull ahead being killed, since that is generally easier than murder.

[Freenhult]

Possibly. Its all theoretical right now, and we'll have to wait and see. I'm going to type up the city task to be coded up probably today unless there is an objection. But even so, cities will make kills ungodly hard.

[Arthus]

Kills right now seem pretty hard. Most attacks get you max 200 land, and can vary to as low as 4 land. If you are actually going to kill someone, it's most likely gonna take more than one person to do it, even then, you must REALLY want that person dead.