Feature Suggestion: Colonies

[Loganus]

Suggestion to add a new feature: Colonies

The purpose of this game mechanic would be to allow nations to obtain resources only available on other continents to a limited extent without having to trade for them. Colonies would behave almost exactly like a city, except that it would have access to the resources present in whatever continent it is located. A method to balance this feature and prevent it from being overpowered is stated below.

Colonies would function very similarly to Cities, except that they would have an initial cost AND upkeep costs. The upkeep costs would exist in order to maintain the colony a far distance away from the mainland, and to prevent the citizens from revolting. The upkeep costs would be charged every turn. These costs would scale up for every Colony owned, in a way similar to cities, except this cost would be charged every turn. Ultimately, there would come a point for a player, where the diminishing return of a colony causes it to cost more money to upkeep than the colony would bring in. This level would serve as a soft cap to the number of colonies a player could have. However, as a player progresses further into the game, this soft cap will increase, because the amount of infrastructure a player could afford in each colony would increase, meaning each colony would become more profitable. Since each colony would be more profitable, the upkeep cost at which it is no longer worth it to operate an additional colony would no longer be worth it would increase. In this way, as a player progresses through the game, they can always theoretically, get to a point where an additional colony would be worth it, if they were able to afford the infrastructure and improvements, but due to the increasing marginal upkeep cost of each additional colony, they are vastly less efficient than a city, and it would never be wise to have as many colonies as cities. The precise balancing and of how fast the marginal initial upkeep cost of each colony would be left up to Alex, but the point stands that with this system, there would be a way to both offer players the ability to obtain every resource the world has to offer without trading or changing location, but also disadvantage this method enough to where the trade system is still vital to the function of a nation. Nations would also have the ability to abandon colonies, so that they can stop paying the upkeep cost of their most expensive colony, but they would not receive any of the initial cost back, and players would also not receive ANY money or resources back when "selling" land, infrastructure, or improvements in colonies.

[Spukey]

Why do we want to make trade less necessary?

[JadenStar10]

10 hours ago, Nukey6 said:

Why do we want to make trade less necessary?

This exactly, imo we should get more features that actually make us more reliant on one another, play this game like how its supposed to be played.

Dont make it a single player game lmao.

Now, I personally think there is a good way to implement colonies, perhaps in relation with the commodities update instead?

Edited March 19, 2021 by JadenStar10