Corvidae

There comes along people who burn bright but brief, who change the game around them and break norms. Hatebi didn’t care about loot in the traditional sense, didn’t chase the cash looted leaderboard spot, she just wanted to see infra burn and enjoy the community. Truly will go down as one of the greats. O7 Hatebi

Super simple suggestion to give a rework and flavor, with minimal coding effort (so maybe there's a chance) while balancing out econ a bit better. Laws and Policies Overview: The general idea is to customize the current feel of your nation. Like real life, laws are not permanent and static. They can change with need and the best part is that this suggestion is a Foundation suggestion, meaning it can be built upon in future updates to provide even more content. Broad Categories Citizenship Full citizenship for any who desire it: +10% population per city, +5% crime per city Naturalization process, earned after requirements are met: +5% population per city, +5% commerce per city Restricted Citizenship: -10% population per city, -5% crime per city Economics Laissez Faire: +10% commerce, +5% pollution, +2% crime Mixed Economy: +5% commerce, +2% pollution, +1% crime Command Economy: -5% commerce, -5% pollution, -2% crime Manufacturing Regulation Deregulate Industry: +10% output of Manufacturing improvements, +5% pollution Light restrictions: +5% output of Manu, +3% pollution Heavy restriction: -10% manu output, -5% pollution Environmental Protections Exploit the Earth: +10% raw improvement output (includes farms), +5% pollution, +2% disease Mixed regulation: +5% raw improvement output, +3% pollution, +1% disease Treehugger: -10% raw output, -5% pollution, -2% disease Military readiness Si pacem, para Bellum: -10% military recruitment cost and upkeep, -10% commerce, -10% resource output, +5% battle effectiveness of all units Prepare but don't panic: -5% military cost and upkeep, -5% commerce, -5% output, +2.5% battle effectiveness of all units Trust in Diplomacy: +10% military recruitment cost and upkeep, +10% commerce and resource output, -5% battle effectiveness of units Pretty straight forward, no new feature per se just buttons that give modifiers. Mixable and matchable for various builds of producers, raiders, farmers, war-time bonuses, etc. Just adds a layer of thought to put into the game.

In my opinion, the FA hierarchy has obsessed over NAPs for far too long as the perfect tool to ensure their 400 IQ 4D chess plans go perfectly. In most instances, with the only exception being Eclipse, NAPs have been bad for almost every alliance in the game since 2020 (NPOLT) either negatively impacting activity to a point of internal collapse (Rose from almost 2 years of peace at one point) or just outright being a poor political move that saw them lose successive wars (Grumpy, TKR, T$, etc.) The benefit they provide already exists via the end of the war, most sane groups don't sacrifice rebuild or member interest to hash out the same fight right after ending it. NAPs should not only stop being a "norm", this move should be cheered as something different rather than the world police sticking their nose up Epi's metaphorical behind about it. I definitely appreciate Shwin's walls of text and effort to make this into a political issue as I found it interesting and has motivated a lot of posts... but it's really a Camelot vs. TFP issue, and Camelot's allies have already cut ties as a result. TFP's allies should wake up and react if it's a further problem from there (As the Rose coalition was the party with whom the NAP was signed). I guarantee that if any major violated a NAP, the "punishment" would only be the result of political convenience or no punishment would happen at all. Camelot's only in danger of "punishment" due to their relative isolation and weak FA position -- which they've had for awhile now. Aside from my anti-NAP rhetoric in general: Sketchy and Vexz have been the loudest voices against Epi during this whole debate in RON, and to that I say: Enforce the norm if you believe it so strongly. It was your (Rose's) NAP that got violated anyway. I wouldn't fault Rose for defending an ally or defending their peace terms if they truly believe the NAP was violated. I wouldn't fault Singularity for defending their ideological stances. Asking the community to perma-roll Camelot together is definitely overkill though. End of day: You won't see meaningful politics for the sake of politics without meaningful changes to the economic system. Any given alliance has to save up for ever-more percentages of the year just to stay or become relevant. Cities need a hard-cap just as a short-term solution, then a new system needs to be rolled out. The game isn't dying or collapsing due to some unseen force of entropy, we're just ten years into a game that didn't have an end-game designed.

Update: They did not

Shwin made his case on RON for some reason instead of the proper medium. I'm just reposting it here.

Yeah that's my understanding as well.

Stay in touch piggy. ❤️

Honestly I did not expect such a solid argument from your side Epi, and I'll be honest I'm leaning towards agreeing the NAP was nullified by Rose's proxy actions. Do NAP-breaking things, expect NAP-breaking surprises I guess. I understand TFP was the target of Arrgh and I don't begrudge you wanting to go raiding if you're broke but I do echo other's wondering why you hit TFP instead of Rose? It seems like all your frustration is directed at them and TFP is more of a supporting actor.

This has got to be one of the best things on the forums, if not the best, since probably 2020 or earlier. Love the whole thing.

Why so far out? I'm down though.

For team First Contact

"I will pay you to play AoE4 with me"

Not to deride a peace agreement but referencing the posting here, you guys fought for exactly 30 days and signed into a Non-Aggression pact for four months. Locking up 1/4th of the [active] game into a NAP for a third of the year from less-than-a-month of fighting is cowardly and frankly plays more into Rose's hands than the alleged victor's. I know people rarely care, especially gov who are ditching the game anyway, but it's sad to see careless peace deals like these. NAPs set the stage for stagnant politics by removing potential coalitions or partnerships within specific windows, it takes the dynamism out of the game and creates an environment where your incentive to fight a war is not in an interesting CB but rather in the end result of guaranteed safe growth for X months. Here's the kicker though: Safely growing in perpetuity is killing this game, the same way the lack of updates coming from the dev team are. Congrats on an interesting war bookended by a poorly-thought peace deal.

Hey so I saw you used this image, unfortunately it is under copyright protection by Kyu and you will be executed for this transgression. Congrats on forming and good luck.

Finally, a good f**king theme