Jump to content

Increased Costs to Build New Cities


Alex
 Share

Recommended Posts

And the other thing is: Is there enough people at 19 cities to justify a demand for resources to fix the market? @Alex

 (why not use your graphing knowledge to determine how many people are at 19 cities.)

Edited by Deulos
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My initial reaction is that this is the whales closing the door behind them, however there are a few elements I think we could work with.

To start it shouldn't just be a flat 20 cities. I think it should be an increasing average. So maybe the average city size starting at 5 city nations to account for the hordes of inactive. Having a set number doesn't really work if the game is growing, this fixes that.

As for the whales benefiting, I think what is "fair" in this case would be all retroactive fixed costs being added to my next city. This will halt the upper tiers for a hot minute but keeps it even overall.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I look at suggesting something, I take a simple approach. What's the problem? How does what is being suggested impact that problem?

 

The problem is that there are two sinks for what nations produce, the first sink is money and the second is resources. The sink for money works far better than the sink for resources. This suggestion causes the money sink to increase some with needing to purchase (or produce) resources to buy a new city. This cost was supposed to be 'balanced' by a two pronged project which reduces the monetary cost of cities up to $150M between the two projects. This change will increase the sink for resources by creating a new way raw resources are required. There will likely be a large rush on the market should the "back order" on resources for next cities get implemented. 

Lets address some of the comments in the thread.

Quote

This is a band-aid fix

This is a multi-pronged attempt to create an increase demand for resources. This aspect impacts raw resources. There are other things in development, however as Sheepy stated in the OP this is something he can implement easily and quickly.

Quote

Why start at 20 cities

The project which reduces money costs for cities is currently designed to be buildable around the 15 city mark, and as I said these two things are somewhat tied together in my mind. Also I don't want to slow city growth earlier in the game.

Quote

Why not make uranium one of the original 3 resources because everyone uses it

This sort of goes against the original thinking I had for the "sink" problem. If there's a resource more widely used, the its "sink" is working better than the others. I also arbitrarily grouped the resources as powerplant resources and non-power plant resources. Which resources go where doesn't matter much to me, honestly.

Quote

Why not cut some money cost and make the resources based on a weekly average

The cost cutting ties in with 2 projects to be introduced. The basing it on an average seems highly exploitable. You could mass trade resources well below market average to artificially lower the average with a few friends. While I like where your head is at, it complicates the fix and opens the door to new problems without creating a benefit that would be worth the fix.

Quote

Discount cities under the average. Should cost refined resources.

Discounting cities under the average is a topic for another thread. The scope of this is about the resource sink. When you try to fix to much with 1 change, you inevitably fark it up. 

There will be other sinks for refined. Refined also have the sink of warfare when it does happen, and while raws go into making those refined, obviously, war impacts steel/gas/ammo much more than impacts the raws going into it.

 

Quote

This will hurt growth/retention.

This doesn't come into play until city 20. If you're at that point, I would say you've already grown and have been retained. If anything this will improve growth for new nations as the raws which are easier for them to produce will be sold at a higher price.

Quote

Helps whales, slows growth. 

If whales want to never build another city because of the back order required, that means the ability to catch them is now obtainable as they will never produce another city. The cost increase on this is actually quite low in comparison with the cost of cities. In conjunction with the projects reducing city costs cities will actually cost less in the 20s. 

Quote

Whales will stop growing.

Promise?

Quote

Retroactive cost is unfair to whales.

Not having it makes it unfair to those who are below city 20 and in the lower 20s. If anything they gain the advantage of being able to produce more money/resources than they would have should they have spent the costs while growing. Paying the cost for all of the 20s cities at once combined as a 37 city nation is extremely easy. They likely have those resources laying around. 

Quote

Whales will buy a bunch of cities then stop growing.

Okay. That's your choice. A common complaint is how to "catch up" to whales, if this knee jerk take your ball and go home reaction, without actually looking at the numbers, is your response than so be it. You have the advantage of what I've listed in the last response. 

Quote

The cost isn't that high. This will play a part in resource sinks. It actually benefits the big nations.

Glad to see someone looked at the numbers. You're right the cost isn't high, and the projects to impact city costs will likely cause it to be a wash in terms of overall city cost. This is only one of many ideas to improve the resource sinks. This one just caught sheepy's eye it seems. It does benefit big nations some.

Quote

There aren't enough players above city 20. Concerns about farms.

Yes, but there are a large number getting there and this is just one of many ways to improve the sink for resources. The brainstorming phase of the city cost reduction project will have a food cost in the millions. There are lots of ideas to improve the sinks, we're not forgetting about food.

Quote

Turning on cities versus retro payment

I actually like this a lot. Solid idea.

 

Quote

Wisdomtree's thing

I'm not ignoring you, I just think your looking outside the scope of this change. There can be multiple smaller fixes to a larger problem versus 1 fix to try and cover everything that will typically fall far short. Your idea is an idea for a different thread.

Quote

Whales closing the door behind them. Should start at an average city size. 

It does benefit whales some yes comparatively. However a good way to make money is from your resource sales and if resource sales stay in the toilet growth still slows for those trying to catch up. The number this starts at is negotiable. It can also be changed some as the game does grow. Could be reviewed every 3 or 6 months sort of things.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 5
  • Downvote 4

scSqPGJ.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only gauge for resource market pricing is the upkeep costs of the city improvement. Everything else is simulations based on current or past prices of last year. 

As a funny aside comparison, oil price per ton is basically double of real life market costs right now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Sphinx said:

 

Also, Pre mate you're normally on par with your posts/ideas, but this one missed the mark I'm afraid. 

 

jp07h30k8ql21.png

Damn Pre got btfo.

Also no on this one.  Literally every big nation can just waltz in like lmao the hell is this stupid pay wall and continue business as usual.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the idea of using projects to increase demand for materials. If the project(s) is (are) relatively inexpensive, but cost a lot of resources, that'd do wonders for market prices. The only catch would be the project or projects would have to be a "gotta have that/these" to a vast majority of players. Just my 2 cents.

P&W SK Flag Small.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If this idea is to go ahead, please consider decreasing city cost by the same amount in $-terms. Here's the effect:

1). On average, city costs wouldn't change from present. (no fairness issues)

2). Still increases peacetime demand for resources.

Ta-da?

  • Downvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is Roq suggesting implenting, may Allah forgive me for saying this foul word

Tech?

In my P/W?

This is why OG BK said no to NPO in P/W.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSJL_cAcat3SAOZjGWd0AT

  • Haha 3
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Akuryo said:

snip 

Pretty much hit the nail on the head Aku,

These changes just dry up our potential customer pool for loan takers. Seb and I as well as the other whale bankers would then have no reason to keep tens of billions in reserve for loans and would just buy a bunch of cities irrespective of the cost (Since Seb and I combined make like $1.4b a week from nation income and Investment income(We're actually competing to see who can grow the most)). I could build to 43/44 cities right now and Seb could do 45/46 or so, but the only reason we don't is we actually like what we do. Not to echo Trump, but its pretty enjoyable as a banker to see loans and Investment deals finalised and to see alliances and players (who you let billions of your own money to), grow and advance their city tiering. You're certainly right Aku, that its pretty much a meta-game since banking is pretty much the only player driven economic system entirely outside the confines of the games mechanics, its players who organise and agree on deals and who provide the funding that so many alliances and players rely upon for growth. These changes just make it so Orion, BV and Horizon won't keep such assets on hand for such deals. I know between Seb and myself we currently have loans to players/alliances from pretty much every single sphere and bloc in the game,  we don't discriminate when it comes to customers we'll do business with all but these changes are bad for business for us and bad for business for the game as whole.

*Obligatory plug*
DM me in Discord or in game for a loan, ;,P

 

 

 

Edited by Sphinx
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Resources for infra would make sense. You need to use resources other than your native ones based on where your nation is.

I.e.: I'm in Antarctica so my infra should require bauxite, iron, and lead but not oil, coal, or uranium as to avoid just making your own to grow. It'd promote trade and keep you from just cheesing the system. Also it could possibly make continents more important/make more location change credit sales @Alex ayy lmao

The resource count would also increase such as cash for higher lvls. That way your nation needs to burn way more to grow it's infra. Keep infra just as destructible, but now increase the commerce cap to 125% if you get a project and meet higher than 2500 infra. Make those whales burn cash and try as hard as possible to dodge war. Make nuclear rogues, spy attacks towards infra, hell even missiles better by making the loss of infra much worse than "oh, we rebuilt in a week". 

Edited by ?ϟħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™?
  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, ?ϟħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™? said:

I.e.: I'm in Antarctica so my infra should require bauxite, iron, and lead but not oil, coal, or uranium as to avoid just making your own to grow. It'd promote trade and keep you from just cheesing the system. Also it could possibly make continents more important/make more location change credit sales @Alex ayy lmao

Didnt think of this one, But yea, good idea.

 

3 minutes ago, ?ϟħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™? said:

The resource count would also increase such as cash for higher lvls.

Not sure about this one tbh. The costs to get to 2K infra(which is kind of like the standard) will become too high.

 

5 minutes ago, ?ϟħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™? said:

Make nuclear rogues, spy attacks towards infra, hell even missiles better by making the loss of infra much worse

True. Infact, this has a potential to make orbis warfree and peace loving just like Emperor Johnas wanted jk jk

Tbh, this will make wars way more damaging and something it is harder to recover from. Wars will be shorter and more interesting too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, ?ϟħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™? said:

Resources for infra would make sense. You need to use resources other than your native ones based on where your nation is.

I.e.: I'm in Antarctica so my infra should require bauxite, iron, and lead but not oil, coal, or uranium as to avoid just making your own to grow. It'd promote trade and keep you from just cheesing the system. Also it could possibly make continents more important/make more location change credit sales @Alex ayy lmao

The resource count would also increase such as cash for higher lvls. That way your nation needs to burn way more to grow it's infra. Keep infra just as destructible, but now increase the commerce cap to 125% if you get a project and meet higher than 2500 infra. Make those whales burn cash and try as hard as possible to dodge war. Make nuclear rogues, spy attacks towards infra, hell even missiles better by making the loss of infra much worse than "oh, we rebuilt in a week". 

Sounds absolutely tedious

However, shaving triple digits off cities with 3k infra is bound to yield more exciting results, I'll give you that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Alex said:

Brainstorming with @Prefontaine about some changes that ought to be made to the game, he pitched this idea to me. I think it's a good idea, and one that could easily be implemented in a very short amount of time.

The idea is increasing the costs of cities over city 20 (starting with city 21), specifically by added resource costs (not affecting cash costs in any way.)

 How Prefontaine explains it: "Cities over 20 cost raw resources to build 1k for each city above 20, 21 costs 1k Baux, Iron, Lead where as city 26 costs 6k of each. Cities over 30 cost 2k Oil, Coal, Uranium to build for each city above 30, if you want to make it fair to the people who haven't already built these city levels versus those who have you can require the next city to have a retroactive amount to build the next. This will likely cause a massive demand increase on raws for a short period of time (3 months or so) before normalizing if you do the retro."

 Here's a table illustrating the costs to help understand the idea:

image.png

The resource costs would be applied retroactively, so that if you already have more than 20 cities, your next city would cost the cumulative total of whatever resources you were not required to pay previously. For example, if you had 24 cities, when you went to build city 25 it would cost 15,000 Bauxite, Lead, and Iron (not 5,000) but after city 25 was built, you would go back to the regular costs (6K of each for city 26.)

Hopefully the idea is explained clearly enough. The implications of this suggestion would just be an increased demand for the raw resources in the market.

Please use the upvote/downvote reactions to help me gauge public opinion regarding this idea. Thanks!

You would just make it incredibly hard to build above 20 cities and give a sugar hit to the market. If you really wanted to increase market activity, devalue the PnW currency. 

Edited by Reaganomics
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Windseeker said:

Sounds absolutely tedious

However, shaving triple digits off cities with 3k infra is bound to yield more exciting results, I'll give you that.

The more "tedious" the better at this point tbqh

We've had this game for 5 years now, there is no learning curve as I mentioned earlier in the "add water as a resource" thread. There is a guide for literally everything. People can play this game properly by just logging and refreshing the page then logging out. It's all copy-paste now. You don't really need to track/monitor much.

Having to relearn the game/spend more than 5 minutes would be great. Seeing less active AAs struggle to fix their econ and IA departments going bust as "lazy/busy" members go "ehh, I don't want a min/max build" will once again separate the casuals vs the better members. It'd definitely change alliances.

Over abundance of resources is a problem and yes, even information. Make the game challenging even if just by making you have to login for 10 mins now.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Skepta said:

Alliance-wide embargoes, tariffs etc are a better solution to this issue imo

no
just in-case you are not aware, we can still trade under embargoes.
Trades like that are done by Personal Trades or you can jut use bank to nation or bank to bank transfers to avoid the embargo

Edited by ShadyAssassin
  • Upvote 1
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and the Guidelines of the game and community.