Adjustments to resource consumptions

[SweetButPsycho]

1 hour ago, Prefontaine said:

RESOURCES USED FOR CITIES
Starting after C20, every city requires 100 iron, bauxite, lead, steel, aluminum. This increases by 100 for each city until C30, after C30 it increases by 200. After C40 it increases by 300. After C50 it increases by 400. Cities above C20 are reduced by 2.5% for cash Cities above C40 are also discounted by another 2.5% (5% total). Any current discounts to city production does not impact resources, only cash costs. 

Examples:
C21 Costs 100 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C25 Costs 500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C30 Costs 1000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C35 Costs 2000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C40 Costs 3000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C45 Costs 4500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $

I don't mind having this, but it has to start from c10 or even lower.
Start from C20, I feel like this is a penalty for me that keeps playing the game for more cities.
And the resources requires should also get discount for higher cities count. 

[Anarchist Empire]

Barely any infra, Super Market is still more profitable than a lead mine. So most nations buy instead what they need, nothing is broken atm. It's just market deciding the prices. (Resources aren't getting cheaper, you're imagining it.)

Add stuff rather than break stuff. Do so people can make more mines. If trying to do top .1% are harder to catch up to, this is all that does. If game is going to be made just to make it harder to catch up, I'll live with it. I don't support it though.

 

Have seen some improvements with projects since back, but don't  break stuff. lead is like $2,500, almost as much as steel. During a global war many years ago. Things aren't cheaper. Older nations need more resource sinks, add more Projects, etc.

 

Big benefit to resources is needs no power and popuation doesn't matter, but still just market deciding prices a no cheaper now than over 2 years ago. All the downsides to commerce and needing hospital, infra, etc; they should make more. However do so people can make more mines if anything or keep it the same. Add projects if you think to many resources in the game, but most of those resources are sitting on inactive nations. Nothing is actually cheaper than 2 years ago, more expensive if anything. You'll always see more resources in the game, because inactive nations keep making them. (I don't even care about my commerce income, just bonus. Since can make more raiding inactives anyways. That is where most of the resources are.)

20 Cities atm are expensive enough, even if I try will take 3+ months to get enough on own playing daily & doing well. So they're not to expensive, but shouldn't make going past that even harder. Even 20 Cities, will take a while before I feel it's worth buying more cities to go there. If past 20 is made even more expensive & projects, who knows. (Might keep me in the lower tiers forever if getting a high city counts keeps going up in price & just boosting the benefit of staying low to raid inactives producing resources.)

Estimated Daily Profit per improvement at a city population of 208,670 people: $18,154 - $600 Operating Cost = $17,554.32

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Django]

1 hour ago, Prefontaine said:

 

RESOURCES USED FOR CITIES
Starting after C20, every city requires 100 iron, bauxite, lead, steel, aluminum. This increases by 100 for each city until C30, after C30 it increases by 200. After C40 it increases by 300. After C50 it increases by 400. Cities above C20 are reduced by 2.5% for cash Cities above C40 are also discounted by another 2.5% (5% total). Any current discounts to city production does not impact resources, only cash costs. 

Examples:
C21 Costs 100 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C25 Costs 500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C30 Costs 1000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C35 Costs 2000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C40 Costs 3000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C45 Costs 4500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $

 

I understand the theoretical reasoning for this change but since this will be new all it will do is create a much larger separation between the current whales and smaller nations trying to grow. Would have been great if implemented from the start. It will now be even more expensive to try to catch up giving those already in this tier an even bigger military and financial advantage than they already have and feeding their larger RSS production. Yes it will curb their growth a bit but even more so it will hinder the growth of everyone else. I’m not saying larger nations shouldn’t have an advantage but they also shouldn’t be handed an even larger advantage just because the economy is broken. This change needs to be accompanied by some sort of balancing increasing the upkeep of a larger nation more than just by city or add in an deterioration upkeep curve for city age (just ideas).
 

P.S. I wrote this on my phone so don’t @ me for typos. 

[KindaEpicMoah]

10 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

Starting after C20, every city requires 100 iron, bauxite, lead, steel, aluminum. This increases by 100 for each city until C30, after C30 it increases by 200. After C40 it increases by 300. After C50 it increases by 400. Cities above C20 are reduced by 2.5% for cash Cities above C40 are also discounted by another 2.5% (5% total). Any current discounts to city production does not impact resources, only cash costs. 

Examples:
C21 Costs 100 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C25 Costs 500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C30 Costs 1000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C35 Costs 2000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C40 Costs 3000 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $
C45 Costs 4500 Iron/Baux/Lead/Steel/Alum in addition to $

I am an idiot who is bad at math so I used incorrect numbers, sorry to everyone who's time I wasted. Just look at this post that uses the correct numbers instead.

 

I'm strongly against this suggestion due to the numbers used; I'm not against the idea conceptually, but there would need to be some serious tweaking done to the numbers here to rebalance the costs. 

For additional context, I have graphed out the old (red) vs new (blue) formula with resources being 25% above their current market value. 

 

I know it's hard to tell what's actually going on, so let's zoom in and take a closer look. 

 

As you can see here, the cost of a city between 20 and 29 would somewhat increase (roughly by about $20m per city).

The cost of a city between 30 and 40 would substantially increase (by about $50m per city). 

The interesting (and alarming) part is what happens next. 

 

At some point between city 40 and 49 (around city 43), cities would actually start being cheaper(!) under the new formula. 

 

Past city 50, every city would become cheaper with each subsequent city, with the cost being reduced by about $2 billion for city 60!

So in conclusion, this change in its current state would overwhelmingly benefit whales while actually making it harder for new players to progress. I think a good start would be removing the additional 2.5% discount for cities above 40, but there still needs to be other changes made. 

 

Edit: I'm an idiot and didn't think of doing this before. Here's basically everything from the above 4 images condensed down into one image. The green line is the new formula cost relative to the old formula and the red line is y=100 (so everything below the red line indicates that it would cost less). 

Edited June 8, 2023 by KindaEpicMoah

[Anarchist Empire]

Way I see it is currently, if I'm going to go past my current city count; might as well have enough for 20. Since that is generally minimum to be upper tier sort of, but make all the projects and any cities past that more expensive; will probably chill down here longer. So $1.5b saved if I don't count the projects. If I do a lot longer & this will add to that. Whatever. (Ultimately would just add more benefit to playing how I am, longer.)

So don't care that much, in any resources looted from inactives will go up in value & price of things I'm not buying doesn't matter. So maybe I'm looking at this wrong and this change will benefit me; how it effects the rest of the game doesn't matter. lol (Guess my opinion is not a good change for the game, but I can work it to my benefit. So don't have a big personal stake in it. As long as I stay low enough city count, not much competition for the inactives in range with resource production. I can extract a benefit if resources go up in price and just delay any city/project buys if they go up.)

Just will need a lot more saved for it to be worth buying more cities, since Projects are a big part of that. Those who have already bought themselves into the mid tier, this will hurt the most I guess. Since they've already bought themselves out of range where they can benefit from the resources going up in price, but climb higher will be a lot more expensive. Maybe this even meant to make raiding inactives with no power more beneficial and if that's point, maybe it could work. (So if because one thinks resources are getting cheaper I disagree, if meant to make raiding more profitable; guess it could. Don't think resource prices have ever been this high though before, that I remember. Or peak prices almost. Lead and Bauxite are pretty up there in price. Coal/Iron used to be dirt cheap. Food was $70 before the global war some years back.)

So if changes are to be made, guess they will be. However let's be realistic & not imagine problems which aren't there. Better to be honest on why it's being done. If real problem is relatively to how rich nations are now, it seems cheaper; let's just be honest on that & not claim they're getting cheaper when they're higher. (If the change is made based on a delusion, I think it's a bad idea for that alone. Iron & Coal hasn't come anywhere close to dropping under 1k, like it used to all the time. Food, it's been higher before during really long big wars; however over $100 is expensive compare to normal peace time prices.)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Charlie Wilhumt]

I feel like making it harder to self supply resources is going to decrease wars at first, but then starve out alliances and nations so much it will increase wars astronomically.

[Anarchist Empire]

1 hour ago, KindaEpicMoah said:

I'm strongly against this suggestion due to the numbers used; I'm not against the idea conceptually, but there would need to be some serious tweaking done to the numbers here to rebalance the costs. 

For additional context, I have graphed out the old (red) vs new (blue) formula with resources being 25% above their current market value. 

I know it's hard to tell what's actually going on, so let's zoom in and take a closer look. 

As you can see here, the cost of a city between 20 and 29 would somewhat increase (roughly by about $20m per city).

The cost of a city between 30 and 40 would substantially increase (by about $50m per city). 

The interesting (and alarming) part is what happens next. 

At some point between city 40 and 49 (around city 43), cities would actually start being cheaper(!) under the new formula. 

Past city 50, every city would become cheaper with each subsequent city, with the cost being reduced by about $2 billion for city 60!

So in conclusion, this change in its current state would overwhelmingly benefit whales while actually making it harder for new players to progress. I think a good start would be removing the additional 2.5% discount for cities above 40, but there still needs to be other changes made. 

 

Edit: I'm an idiot and didn't think of doing this before. Here's basically everything from the above 4 images condensed down into one image. The green line is the new formula and the red line is y=100 (so everything below the red line indicates that it would cost less). 

So really does benefit really high city count nations beyond just harder for others to catch up. Cheaper for them to get even further, more expensive for others to catch up. Why change just for more updates without adding stuff can be bad, many might have ulterior motives for what they want him to do. (Those who want to make a ton of money without worrying about anyone reaching them, this would be good in many ways for the highest average NS alliances if they can get Alex to make the game easier to win for them.)

If I can't reach them, my nation matters not to them. Game should be competitive, not made to appease the oldest players in being untouchable. Starting from nothing and new nation? Doesn't matter if the game isn't rigged so new nations can never catch up. If the game isn't broken to make catching up impossible, I'll be there within a few years if I keep playing. (Is a bad thing a new nation can think it possible to reach 20 cities in less than 5 months; much higher if they keep playing daily longer than that? Guess decision to be made if new nations should have any hope of reaching the upper tiers.)

This would not be bad enough for me to give up on the game, but not a positive change. (Big Resource Costs Attached to most Projects is probably the worst part about it for those playing catch up. How much resources power plants use would be hardly noticible. Food being further pushed to only those with a ton of land it being worth producing at all, guess they get richer. Those in a differenent NS range, we'll never interact anyways probably.)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[im317]

i suggest that before any big changes are made all nations more then 6 months inactive be deleted. that way you get at least a small look at how much resources are sitting around more or less untouched. im sure raiders wont be happy but 6 months is a very long time to pick at a corpse and frankly its embarrassing that we keep nations 6 months inactive alive just to inflate nation numbers. there are even some nations over a year inactive sitting around.

[Anarchist Empire]

Just now, im317 said:

i suggest that before any big changes are made all nations more then 6 months inactive be deleted. that way you get at least a small look at how much resources are sitting around more or less untouched. im sure raiders wont be happy but 6 months is a very long time to pick at a corpse and frankly its embarrassing that we keep nations 6 months inactive alive just to inflate nation numbers. there are even some nations over a year inactive sitting around.

I disagree, because being able to raid those nations is only way new players aren't com[pletely screwed by this. (Agree with sentiment on big changes not being made without being sure there is a problem to solve, but can probably be figured out without deleting them. Some might come back after years as well.)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[im317]

Just now, Anarchist Empire said:

I disagree, because being able to raid those nations is only way new players aren't com[pletely screwed by this.

if it was even 3 months i would agree that it hurts raiding to much but 6 is just ridiculous

[Anarchist Empire]

5 minutes ago, im317 said:

if it was even 3 months i would agree that it hurts raiding to much but 6 is just ridiculous

Better if someone gone for years & come back to this game; there nation isn't gone if they have 20 cities; but got bored. We want to retain current players, gain new players and bring old ones back. 3months? That is nothing if someone is busy with real life. Even a year is nothing or 2.

Seems forever for those playing this game 24/7, but for those distracted with something else. Passes in the blink of an eye. If I get a nation to 20-30 Cities, would damn well hope it's not gone if I don't log in for just half a year or year. City Count is what really matter, eventually else can be destroyed. Mostly worth getting a bunch if you know it won't be deleted, even real life distracts. So they can come back 4 years later and most of the work they did is still there, even if every city is ZI. Better to leave a reason for them to come back, rather than delete it.

Of course they'll be booted from any alliance gone that long, but they can still come back from it. (Ultimately this is a game & many of us would rather play good than bad; if we're going to play. However far more important things in life. Doesn't mean we don't want people back who had other more important stuff distracting them.)

No matter my progress in this game, if something important outside the game required all my attention; would go there. I have free time, so can put the time in without it holding me back elsewhere. Will I do good or bad, guess time will tell. (I'd rather have confidence I can be good at it if I try, reality ultimately is only proof of anything we think will happen.)

If I knew some times off and all my cities would be gone, getting a high city would a less appealing goal at all. Just have some fun with the game and know it's not permanent.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[im317]

the real solution to that would be to put the nations into stasis instead of deleting them. that way they could be reactivated later but would not count towards any stats when they are 6+ months inactive.

[Anarchist Empire]

Just now, im317 said:

the real solution to that would be to put the nations into stasis instead of deleting them. that way they could be reactivated later but would not count towards any stats when they are 6+ months inactive.

I think the resource price stats say enough & good thing to do new nations have a chance, by having raid targets. (Almost everything is stacked against a new nation, them being in range to loot targets others have bought themselves out of range is there only hope of catching up. If they don't want to rely on handouts or loans.)

Sure I can get a city push from my clan and told that, but I'd rather raid & see how much I can earn. (Can easily buy more cities with my own money if I want. lol.)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[His Holy Decagon]

1 hour ago, Anarchist Empire said:

So really does benefit really high city count nations beyond just harder for others to catch up. Cheaper for them to get even further, more expensive for others to catch up. Why change just for more updates without adding stuff can be bad, many might have ulterior motives for what they want him to do. (Those who want to make a ton of money without worrying about anyone reaching them, this would be good in many ways for the highest average NS alliances if they can get Alex to make the game easier to win for them.)

Please, understand that obviously that wasn't the intention lol. This is why we vet the ideas publicly- we appreciate people that can find little bugs!

[Anarchist Empire]

1 hour ago, His Holy Decagon said:

Please, understand that obviously that wasn't the intention lol. This is why we vet the ideas publicly- we appreciate people that can find little bugs!

You're right, shouldn't have said it that way. (Some might support it or not based on personal benefit, but suggestion itself wasn't bad meaning.) Haven't felt well since this morning (No excuse for anything, but I started in the threat trying to look at good angles & got off track somehow.), so probably was overly brutal with how I wanted to convey my point.

Kind of how I see if someone is starting scratch and they look at the current mechanics, can they make it if they try? I feel it's possible, so should be careful not to break it. Since if it's hopeless of new nations, why try? Feel if I try, making enough to get 20 Cities at 1500 not taking projects into consideration is possible within 3.75 months at my rate. (Faster if can keep it up optimal & no expenses.)

Don't think that is to bad of curve if someone is active daily and trying, so careful not to break that. (Rather get there debt free, than not.) 20 might be artificial number, but minimum for full Aurora Citizenship; even if I consider us the same anyways. So worth aiming for. Even if I consider us the same for all intents and purposes beyond tiers; wouldn't put Aurora in my alliance field on the forum until I make it and earn that title. Over simplifying it, any amount of cities in between are meaningless; unless needed to win a close war. 20 is worth it because Aurora I think is.)

If alliance I decided to join had a 30 City Minimum for main AA, then that would be the minimum I'd care about. However Aurora I think is a good alliance. If someone strong enough down declares I need double my city count to win; so be it if that would make the difference though. lol. 1.5b for cities alone is expensive enough, not in a hurry and know patience is key. Taking all the projects into consideration, price is much more. This would make it more expensive probably, but I can deal with it. Just expect it to take a lot longer, so not to try doing it nearly as fast. Since will takes years probably regardless.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Ketya]

Good changes.

 

just remove the 2.5% discount + make the additional resource requirements for cities grow faster (like how the cash requirement grows).

[Gideon]

Let the market regulate itself i say

 

[Rughzhenhaide]

Inflation is a constant issue in all MMO games and the best answer is always a resource sink. And by that i don't mean raising upkeeps even though it is definitely warranted. Give us something new to spend resources on. Something limited and shiny, with not a lot of advantages if any, but prestigious. Moon landing would be the best example of this - it's permanent account damage but people still build it to flex. Even sell out their entire alliance for it.

I'm not exactly sure what this resource sink could be but I'm sure you can come up with something better than raising overhead costs. 

[His Holy Decagon]

7 hours ago, George Clooney said:

I don't see how making it more difficult for newer nations with lower city counts to approach the number of cities that older, high city count nations have is productive for the long term health of the game.  Sure it's great if you want to fossilize the existing order of things, but that should never be an objective.  Also...

While it's true that resource prices have been in decline for well over a year, in reality, the cost of resources on the open market are actually recovering to levels they were several years ago.  I don't see a resource inflation problem, based on the cost of resources at present.  Again, why change?  So that people who have stockpiles millions of units of resources under the current system can retain their resource advantage and increase their profits on the sale of existing stocks?  Again, not needed.

 

If you believe this is all true, then why not spend some money and invest in food before it really takes off after this change? Not sure why it only has to be whales that you see as people who "could" "maybe" do well off. Can't people just buy food and invest in it? I did- I bought over 50m units and resold it for a few bil profit. Also, why is a new player supposed to even be able to catch up to someone with years of playing? There wasn't always UP, now there is, there wasn't always AUP, now there is- there are tons of "catch up mechanics" in the game atm imo, and I think this abundance and large pool of stuff to tap into is part of the root cause. It's just too easy to produce way too much stuff, and there's not enough mechanics ingame atm that act as a deficit (that's at least my thought)

There isn't any inflation btw, it's actually the opposite- it's rss devaluation. Inflation implies that money has lost it's value- currently money is extremely strong. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by His Holy Decagon

[Prefontaine]

15 hours ago, KindaEpicMoah said:

Math has been fixed
 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Prefontaine

[KindaEpicMoah]

1 hour ago, Prefontaine said:

I'm finding your math questionable. You're claiming C21 will cost about 5% more. C21's base cost is 346M which gives a 8.65M discount. Even if all the resources for the city, 500 in total, were 4000PPU that'd cost 2M. If the player had all the City cost reductions it would still cost 46M which 2.5% of is 1.15M. Giving an added cost of less than 1M, which isn't 5%. 

So I'm really doubting your numbers here. Additionally, if you want to talk about a 2B discount over the course of 10 cities for 50 -> 60 that means 40B was paid to get a 2B savings from 5%. Not to mention only 10 players have even reached C50. Yes, that number will obviously go up but reducing 2B may seem like a lot for smaller nations, it's not over the course of time it takes for a larger nation to grow 10 cities. Additionally, the nations already above C40 will have already spent the cash so anyone trying to catch up will have to spend less to get their than the players who have already gotten there. 

EDIT: Changing 2.5% instead of 5%

My apologies to you and to everyone who supported my original post; I did make a mistake in my original formula by multiplying the amount of resources needed by the city count of the buyer without first subtracting the lowest value for the city count range first (so like doing 100 * price of steel * x instead of 100* price of steel * (x - 19) for cities 20 through 29).

Here's the (hopefully) correct (peer reviewed this time) graph. 

 

The data does clearly show that city prices are decreased across the board. However, I will maintain that this change is slightly skewed towards whales due to the nature of multiplicative discounts on non-linear costs (though not as much as I originally made it out to be, which I apologize for), and especially skewed towards whales if the 2.5% price decrease is changed to 5% for cities 41+. The green line shows the formula you proposed with the additional 2.5% discount for cities 41 and over, and the orange formula shows the same formula but with that additional discount removed, so I think removing the additional discount would be more consistent with the lower cities. 

Edited June 8, 2023 by KindaEpicMoah

[Pericles]

The only thing I can kind of get behind is resource costs for building cities. Please don't reduce the margins of refined production. Refined production should be viable for newer players. Add something to spend resources on, and not another project that most nations don't have the slots for anyways. Players should be spending excess resources on war. It doesn't help that the greatest cost of war is overwhelmingly infra damage.

[Anarchist Empire]

3 hours ago, Krouton said:

The only thing I can kind of get behind is resource costs for building cities. Please don't reduce the margins of refined production. Refined production should be viable for newer players. Add something to spend resources on, and not another project that most nations don't have the slots for anyways. Players should be spending excess resources on war. It doesn't help that the greatest cost of war is overwhelmingly infra damage.

Like Rughzhenhaide mentioned, add new shiny stuff for resource sinks. Better than making it harder to catch up in Cities to those at the top already in my opinion. We can come up with better than just boosting cost of existing stuff for resource sinks. If it doesn't make resource costs go up, their advantage in not needing to pay that; who knows how much it will be? New stuff they also need to pay for it, so it's fair.

Lack of interesting new things added are the kind of updates lacking, not pointlessly changing the balance; so those who already have a ton of cities gain a big advantage; for having already bought them beforehand. Their advantage is big enough for already having it sooner. Already hard enough for a 20 city nation to catch up to a 30 City; this just makes the cost way more for them to catch up. So even 20 City Naiton would be made to make it much harder to catch up & stuck at that level really long if they build to it.

We can design updates around making the top tier out of reach, or we can add improvements and projects which are resource sink & add more exciting content to strive for; rather than demotivate people from thinking it's possible to catch up. Give people more reason to try. (If it's moving needle, where if you start getting close to catching up; they make cost much bigger to catch up further; just seems impossible to catch up if that is how updates are done. Keeping the top tier out of reach. I have no reason to strive for more cities than I do now, if it's impossible to catch up anyways to the top tier & just put myself in range to be down declared on by them.

Maybe fate I'm meant to not care to grow beyond my current city count though, if this change of making it way harder to catch up pointless. What they do doesn't matter if we just stay in seperate tiers, where can't hurt each other. (Almost like 2 tier game, new nations might as well just stay low city count & avoid being in range of the older players; they'll never catch up with.)

Game is playable plenty for new nations, as long as they don't care about reaching the top tier & just enjoy low level raiding for fun. Where striving for more doesn't matter. If possible for me to make a few hundred million per week at my current level, so reason to go higher if not going to be able to be competitive in a fight with the top nations no matter how hard I try. I play in my tier, where it's encouraged to stay with the changes. They keep climbing further out of reach and become fatter whales. I can adapt my thinking where city count doesn't matter, since they've bought themselves out of range and their nations don't matter to me either. If suddenly the price to catch up is jacked up majorly & all we get otherwise as update is something to encourage us to stay low city. Just don't bother with trying to go higher.

We can still bounty war each other, even if out of reach of each other; if we really want to fight in some way. Even buying to 20 Cites direct would seem like a terrible idea, if everyone above that suddenly gains huge advange in already having the cities above and can down declare on you. Much better to stay low, until you can afford to go much higher; where you can stand a chance against. If that goal post is constantly moved so more expensive to catch; maybe not even worth trying. Just view more cities as pointless inflation of NS. Probably better to try being as invincible as you can in the low tier; than build up to a higher tier; where it's rigged against new players from having a chance.

 

20 Cities? Then 30 Nations Cities could screw me & cost exponentially increased to catch up. So always would just screw myself by getting in range of those who got the cities before it was decided resource sink to make it much harder to catch up was the best way. Maybe better I don't care about getting more cities & fine with where I'm at if this goes through. Cities is just another stat which only matters as much as we want to think it does if they can't fight lower city nations anyways. Almost playing a idfferent game, those who started early and those starting late. (I feel if the goal post to catch up is pointlessly moved in their favor heavily, no reason to think it won't happen again if I get close. So just thing not to care about, if the game wants to make it impossible to catch up.)

Currently just a matter of time to catch up if I care to, but if game is rigged for us not to catch up; then I never will. Why care about more cities, if more cities are a perk for nations who started early and will cost me way more to just barely get in range so they can down declare on me; while paying a lot more so they can? Focus on tier where you have a chance and game isn't rigged; so keeps getting more expensive for same cities people you're trying to catch up with already bought & making a ton of income off that; proceeding even higher? Can't just play good to catch up, literally need to cheat to catch up if the game is rigged so they keep getting more expensive for newer players who don't already have them. Solution to that is simple if game wants to make it a lot more expensive to catch up to same city count as they got to years ago, don't try.

Make them more expensive starting above the highest city count anyone has achieved if you want a resource sink that matters. Would the biggest nations rather keep new cities cheaper and cities they already got more expensive? Maybe if they don't care about game being competitive. However it's a lot more fair to make it more expensive for higher tier cities nobody has gotten yet.

Starting after City 60 or 55, it cost 50k of each resource extra for each city; then it gets more expensive with resources each City after; then it's a resource sink which rather than does so newer nations can't catch up; slows how fast the top nations are gaining more cities & boosting resource prices to get them. Also fair, since everyone needs to pay that to get past that city count number.

Quite a few nations have over 50 cities, one of them 56. Would be impossible to catch up with them if suddenly after City 20; it just keeps costing a lot extra for each city compare to what they paid; as they're making a lot more thanks to their cities. Do we want them to be so we can't ever catch up or competitive game? Doing so climbing higher in cities than anyone has done makes sense if we want a resource sink and it harder to get really high city. However shouldn't be done where we want to make it really hard to catch up where people have already gotten.

Since proposed free city project only works up to CIty 30, that won't nearly make up for the extra cost for city 21-56 for newer players. This game should be competitive somehwat, rather than just made so whales are out of reach. So it matters. If not competitive, why try to play well and catch up? Only reason to play is alliance community and having some fun in the lower tiers then when bored. Since game isn't worth trying to be competitive if the devs don't care about that. If you somehow make it to City 29 despite this change making it more expensive, doesn't even matter if you get City 30 free. Since will never catch up to those 56 Cities & just be in range to get hit by them.

So maybe I should not care about a high city count or it being possible to compete playing this late in, just accept the top nations are there because they started early; newer players shouldn't bother. Bad for the game though. Those with over 50 Cities, perk for starting the game early. EVeryone else should just avoid being in their range. lol

Really just like mathematic equation if it's possible to catch up and how long. This might make it impossible, even if it would be before this. Should make sure if someone works out the math, it's possible. Rather than the opposite. If they're more active than the older player. City 20 I think is mathetically possible in 2-4 months if someone plays well enough. However reaching 20 cities & not enough to go further would be bad if suddenly they get exponentially more expensive there & everyone you just put yourself in range has a huge advantage; in they got there cheaper & already ahead. Already ahead is enough of an advantage. Complaining they're ahead for playing longer is BS, but game mechanics shouldn't change to make it harder beyond that. As is they earned that advantage. They didn't fully earn it compare to newer players if they need to pay a lot more. (They more won it as a bonus for starting earlier then. High CIty count like 56, perk for starting early newer players should never try to reach. Since they were to late to start playing to get that bonus in city count.) Basically the highest city count nations got a bunch of cities free if starting only City 20 resource cost keeps incresing in each one. Who knows how many cities free they got for starting early.

20 Cities is where it suddenly starts getting more expensive each one? Why not have it start getting more expensive in the higher tier, where it slows down how fast those already at the top keep gaining more cities and make them do a resource sink for each one? Rather than making new players do a massie resource sink just to try getting half the cities they do. Since this game is suppose to be competitive, 29 CIties or 30 Cities isn't really that much; when people have almost double 30 Cities already. 20 Cities for me would be the bare minimum for full Aurora citizenship, but it's still not really that high tier. You need 30+ to be high tier. Maybe even 40+.. 25 Cities is probably mid tier now. Rolling back anybodies cities to even the playing field would be unfair to them, but doesn't mean it's not unfair to suddenly make it a lot more expensive to catch up to those who already have a massive advantage.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Death LordSK]

3 hours ago, Anarchist Empire said:

Like Rughzhenhaide mentioned, add new shiny stuff for resource sinks.

We only have one dev working on this game. And they are currently busy with war back and front end. Also, adding literally anything to this game takes a few months, I would rather have this quick fix and then we go from there than wait for 6 months to know that if the new shiny things works or not. 

[Anarchist Empire]

1 hour ago, Death LordSK said:

We only have one dev working on this game. And they are currently busy with war back and front end. Also, adding literally anything to this game takes a few months, I would rather have this quick fix and then we go from there than wait for 6 months to know that if the new shiny things works or not. 

Adding stuff requires no more work than doing this & making cities way more expensive for players not already at 55 Cities. Better ways to do a resource sink, If he wants to make cities more expensive as one, he should start there. (Not saying he's not doing enough updates, just should do good ones if he's going to.)

This really isn't solving anything, since resources aren't really down in price. However still better ways to do resource sinks, make it more expensive for the top city nations to get more and make them use more of their money/resources. Shouldn't do updates which aren't really that good just for the sake of doing updates, better nothing than making things worse. Even though resources are more expensive than a few years ago, if they seem cheaper it's only because the top nations are so rich; so put the cost on them to get even more cities beyond what they have. Everyone will need to pay that price to reach that city count then & fair. (Resource consumption changes are pointless, probably bad in making balancing out ciites harder. However city cost increase? Just helps the very top nations. Food Bonus removal, will just do so need a lot more land to make producing food profitable. Pointless changes imo.)

Mostly I see a lot of false assumptions as why this should be done & see it as just helping those who already have the cities bought. So trying to be constructive in pointing out the obivous flaws. When nations are already over 50 Cities, why is making it harder for nations to even reach 30 considered a priority over making it easier for others to catch up fairly; but making the resource sink start at 57 Cities; where no one has bought yet? The other changes without the city cost increase still makes it harder for others to catch up, since Projects use a ton of resources if this does jack up their price.

My only interest is any changes make the game better and not worse. I'm not emotionally attached to this issue, if game makes it not worth aiming for high cities; I won't. I can just stay at 6 Cities, if that is optimal. I can just focus on being strong in the lower tier and able to counter anyone there. Let those already high in city counts deal with battles there if the game doesn't want us to catch up in Cities and Projects. If we want it harder to catch up with top cities & them just to grow out of reach of anyone; maybe this will pass. Otherwise I think it won't.

To me makes no sense to suddenly increase the cost for low city count nations for the resource sink, rather than the top nations getting more; so it's more expensive instead for them to climb further ahead faster. Someone at 20 or 30 cities are still just trying to play catch up; not nearly top tier when there are 50+ CIty nations. To me 20 Cities is just minimum requirements for Aurora, not top tier at all. If you want it to be possible to reach top tier, you need to be able to get past 40 Cities, maybe even 50. So adds huge cost to even reach the mid tier somewhat, so better to hover in the bottom tier and not try going higher for a long tiem.

But just a game we adapt our expectations and goals based on the changes. If changes makes reaching the top tier city wise unfeasible, focus on being strong in lower tier raiding or don't play. lol

Yes, I know it was just idea put forth and Prefontaine the front man for it. However I think it's a bad idea and thus won't come to be. So can end it at that. If I'm wrong, I'll live with it, but think it's bad for the game. More content I'd encourage Alex to do rather than balance changes based on imaginary problems.

Have seen improvements since gone, so think people complaining he's done no updates are exaggerating some. However adding stuff are the good updates. If someone is complaining they spent $3k real cash on infra and gets wrecked; solution isn't to do people who blow that much money are out of reach invincible; with no way for others to catch up without blowing 6k instead. Game shouldn't be completely pay huge sums of money to win or already having played before changes to be competitive. If I'm going to play, I'd rather give advise I think is good; rather than encourage breaking the game.

If he doesn't like or pay attention to what I think on this, his choice. I think game would be worse off for it, so trying to help him. I know he's one dev, which is why he needs us to help him point out if an idea isn't great. Help him avoid mistakes if possible. If he doesn't want my advise, I won't give it and let whatever happens; happen without bothering. However think he puts these threads out since he wants advise.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Anarchist Empire