A brief history of Orbis, and introducing alliance-level projects

[Isjaki]

In the beginning, there was nothing but a pasture which went on for ever in all directions. A single sheep, the one we revere and worship today as the allfather, the great Sheepy, lived here.

One day, the allfather, in his divine wisdom, said "Be" and thus, the world of Orbis was created. From the primordial dust of Orbis, five beings emerged, beings that would help the allfather to shape this infant world. These beings were The Conqueror, The Concealed, The Raider, The Builder and The Sustainer.

By building legendary temples to these great beings, alliances can please the gods, and thus, be blessed with some of their divine aid. Building an alliance-level project, naturally, is much more expensive and time consuming than nation level projects. Anyone with bank access can divert funds from the alliance bank to invest in a project. Bank officers are allowed to deposit funds periodically to build an alliance level project, all the money doesn't have to be invested at once.

• Temple of the Conqueror: Costs $10bn, 2 million steel, 2 million aluminum. This project permanently increases the fighting strength of all conventional units in the alliance by 1%
• Temple of the Concealed: Costs $10bn, 2 million steel, 2 million aluminum. This project permanently raises the odds of offensive spy ops by 5%, and lowers the chance of enemy spy ops being successful by 5%. The effects of this project stack on with the 'Covert' and 'Arcane' policies.
• Temple of the Raider: Costs $10bn, 2 million steel, 2 million aluminum. This project permanently raises the loot taken by alliance members in wars by 1%. This includes victory and alliance bank loot. The effects of this project stack on with the 'Attrition', 'Turtle', 'Moneybags' and 'Pirate' policies.
• Temple of the Builder: Costs $10bn, 2 million steel, 2 million aluminum. This project permanently lowers the future costs of building new cities and nation projects for all alliance members by 1%. The effects of this project stack on with 'Manifest Destiny' and 'Technological Advancement' policies.
• Temple of the Sustainer: Costs $10bn, 2 million steel, 2 million aluminum. This project permanently lowers the future costs of building infrastructure by 1%. The effects of this project stack on with the 'Urbanization' policy.
• Temple to the Great Sheep: Costs $50bn, 10 million steel, 10 million aluminum, 50 credits. The greatest and the most expensive temple, it can only be attempted after the alliance has built all the other five temples. This project provides the effect of all other alliance projects, taking the fighting bonus to +2%, the spy bonus to +10%, the loot bonus to +2% and city, project and infra discounts to 2% permanently. All the people who are alliance members at the time of completion of this project receive a custom achievement in-game.

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

I like the idea of alliance projects, but these numbers are frankly too low to make it worth building any of them over just spending that on tiering or Warchest.

For example a 1% unit strength increase is equal to 18 jets for me. 1 whole entire hangar, roughly. To my alliance it's worth a whole 975 jets or so, one whole.... City 13. To Rose it'd be worth about 1800, one whole... City 24. 

For the investment youre asking for this, (28bn at current prices total), they could build 9.33 city 24s, from city 1 up all the way.

And this problem continues. 30bn for me to get... 6m discount off city 26? For that price you could tier 7 of us to city 30 instead, something far more useful. 

Raider one, is that 1% ontop of what they'd normally get otherwise or is that 1% ontop of the base? For example if raid wars loot 10% normally, is that now 11? If so, it's honestly still too little I think. If it's not, it's completely and utterly worthless.

The spy is probably okay, and the sheep one is pretty much completely pointless.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Akuryo

[Sir Scarfalot]

1 hour ago, Akuryo said:

I like the idea of alliance projects, but these numbers are frankly too low to make it worth building any of them over just spending that on tiering or Warchest.

For example a 1% unit strength increase is equal to 18 jets for me. 1 whole entire hangar, roughly. To my alliance it's worth a whole 975 jets or so, one whole.... City 13. To Rose it'd be worth about 1800, one whole... City 24. 

For the investment youre asking for this, (28bn at current prices total), they could build 9.33 city 24s, from city 1 up all the way.

And this problem continues. 30bn for me to get... 6m discount off city 26? For that price you could tier 7 of us to city 30 instead, something far more useful.

Raider one, is that 1% ontop of what they'd normally get otherwise or is that 1% ontop of the base? For example if raid wars loot 10% normally, is that now 11? If so, it's honestly still too little I think. If it's not, it's completely and utterly worthless.

The spy is probably okay, and the sheep one is pretty much completely pointless.

Don't forget though that the 1% bonus is completely distributed between the entire alliance. Thus, instead of getting an extra c13 nation to apply to a situation that needs one... you get between 18 and 144 jets worth on that situation. Now, that does of course mean that you'd have to invest that much less everywhere else as well, thus increasing the resources available for it, but tactically the difference is less than even getting a c13 mercenary. Or for that matter a three city mercenary. Strategically, there'd be a statistical difference in net damages and resource usage, but negligible on the individual level as you'd said.

Ultimately though, the main issue with this project as well as all projects of the "alliance-wide benefit" type is the infinite, linear scaling. Anything that can scale infinitely is potentially abuseable, so there has to be a balancing factor to it. Cities scale (sort of) infinitely, but they've got exponentially diminishing returns on investment. These projects both scale infinitely and linearly with no realistic upper limit to their cost-effectiveness, even if that effectiveness is distributed to the point of near tactical uselessness.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Sir Scarfalot

[Ukunaka]

While in concept these seem like good ideas (atleast with some tweaks for balance and price changes), another problem this causes is that it promotes consolidation which makes the game boring. It would push Blocs and alliances with Vassals & academies to merge into single alliances, and benefits large alliances disproportionately than smaller ones.

Consolidation means less wars, longer NAPs, Less raid Targets, and less micro drama to train new members & gov and promotes pixel huggery over Dynamic & fun gameplay.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Ukunaka