Game Development Discussion - Econ Update Part 1 (Treasures/Colours, City Import Tools & City Cost Changes)

[ranoss]

my only complaint is using AI images for units in military recruitment page.

please, even crappiest picture of *real* unit is better than anything AI generated. don't make this game feel soulless. 

[whiskerz]

How many players start and don't last a year ?  Have you surveyed the under 2 year players ? Raise the recruiting bonus. When I was small I used it to get friends to come play for the minimum time just to help my nation get the bonus. Neither of these guys were staying.  The bonus has almost no impact on a city 30 and up player. Maybe make the bonus a sliding scale. with perks for the new nation and the recruiter spread over a longer time frame. I am not a fan of raising the price of my next cities. 

[boppy]

While i disagree that a change to cities is needed at all i understand that Sheepy has said it will happen so i won't fight that.  However, the notion that the formula is the issue is not necessarily the case.

On 2/8/2025 at 6:43 AM, Keegoz said:

If you take the median amount each tier earns per day, and then (for the sake of fair evaluation) assume they won’t fight next year, you can quite easily estimate the amount of growth each nation can afford next year with just their revenue. The gap between C32 and C49 will only shrink by 1 city next year, as will the gap between C50 and C62.

 

    This is selection bias.  There are many other factors that effect growth that cannot be proven by pointing to these numbers.  For example who is at each city tier. Are we actually surprised that a c45 in t$ or Rose who is very active and has their respective econ depts at their disposal is growing at a better rate than a c27 in Empire of the Romans? In fact of all c45s in the game every single one is in a top 15ish alliance (smallest is 1 in TGH), while c27 is a crap shoot of alliances and has inactives.
     Also, this graph shows a step for the c57 plus tier. There are less than 10 total c57+'s in the game! How can we possibly expect their data to be representative of the current city cost formula's failings.

 

On 2/8/2025 at 6:43 AM, Keegoz said:

 

We have seen that on average, nations will see larger and larger increases in their revenue for each subsequent city bought as they progress through the game. When a nation in the C21-C30 tier purchases a new city, their revenue will increase by about $1,800,000, whilst nations in the C41-C50 tier will see an increase of $3,700,000 for each new city bought due to the aforementioned factors.

This difference in revenue earned for each subsequent city bought will keep growing forever, and thus create a reality where large nations will definitely not only reach city 70, and then city 80, and then city 90 etc, but they’ll do so relatively quickly, a lot quicker than people think. Fundamentally, their growth will slow down very gradually. In fact, the rate at which growth slows down in the upper tier actually goes down for each subsequent city bought.

    If we are allowed to use the small sample size as proof then shouldn't we look at the this revenue chart and say that the exponential revenue generated levels off somewhere between c41 and c50? Not to mention the same selection bias is true here with what alliances dominate these tiers.  I would be more curious to see avg revenue per city for just Rose then try to compare nations in micros to majors. 

 

tl;dr skill dif

Edited February 9 by boppy

[Tiberius Aurion]

I like the idea of updates but not the arrogance. This update is happening so don’t complain. Not a good sign. Secondly, it’s obvious new players don’t care about the high tier. If player retention is the goal then the game needs more for a new player to do. 
 

Alex needs to stop letting people who run top alliances have any involvement in development. The bias in policy making is as clear as day and there should be changes to it with people removed from it.  

Edited February 9 by Tiberius Aurion

[Totally Hatebi]

19 hours ago, Stanko1987 said:

- Bring back Quests where players who login are given up to 5-10 quests a day that they have to complete and in return win cash rewards anywhere from $200,000 to $5,000,000 depending on the quest that the player must complete. Even Resource rewards such as Raws, War chest, Food, Uranium etc., or perhaps rewards that award players anywhere between $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 in city discounts, or a temporary revenue boost for several turns anywhere from 2 turns to 8 turns or production temporary increases anywhere from 2%-5% for several turns before reverting back. New Daily quests that players can do each lasting anywhere from a minute to 5 minutes per quest. It least it gives players something more to do besides raiding, countering or just logging in once a day to receive the $2,000,000 day turn bonus.

On the subject of quests: I (and others) once made suggestions to add weekly/daily randomised quests along with the current quest system, it provides goals towards the players and scalable quests/incentives can add a lot of player retention. 

[Keegoz]

8 hours ago, Totally Hatebi said:

On the subject of quests: I (and others) once made suggestions to add weekly/daily randomised quests along with the current quest system, it provides goals towards the players and scalable quests/incentives can add a lot of player retention. 

I agree, the main issue we ran into is there is a limited amount of quests we can do with not adding more into the game. So once that is achieved it is certainly something to look into.

[Keegoz]

18 hours ago, Tiberius Aurion said:

I like the idea of updates but not the arrogance. This update is happening so don’t complain. Not a good sign. Secondly, it’s obvious new players don’t care about the high tier. If player retention is the goal then the game needs more for a new player to do. 
 

Alex needs to stop letting people who run top alliances have any involvement in development. The bias in policy making is as clear as day and there should be changes to it with people removed from it.  

Alex is the one who asked for a change in this area to the design team. The idea wasn't even mine or anyone from my alliance but adapted from someone else in the community. The idea of caps on cities has been discussed in public such as RON for a little while now. I will credit @His Holy Decagon for help with some of my maths though.

The only idea from my alliance was the city template from Sketchy.

I suspect very little of this matters to you though.

20 hours ago, whiskerz said:

How many players start and don't last a year ?  Have you surveyed the under 2 year players ? Raise the recruiting bonus. When I was small I used it to get friends to come play for the minimum time just to help my nation get the bonus. Neither of these guys were staying.  The bonus has almost no impact on a city 30 and up player. Maybe make the bonus a sliding scale. with perks for the new nation and the recruiter spread over a longer time frame. I am not a fan of raising the price of my next cities. 

Unless you're a c40, they won't really increase in price and even if you are it is only marginal.

Bonuses would need to be constantly updated, this is to stop continually putting band aid solutions to this topic and allow the design team to move onto other areas.

[Tiberius Aurion]

10 hours ago, Totally Hatebi said:

On the subject of quests: I (and others) once made suggestions to add weekly/daily randomised quests along with the current quest system, it provides goals towards the players and scalable quests/incentives can add a lot of player retention. 

Quests or daily challenges sounds great. 

[Tiberius Aurion]

1 hour ago, Keegoz said:

Alex is the one who asked for a change in this area to the design team. The idea wasn't even mine or anyone from my alliance but adapted from someone else in the community. The idea of caps on cities has been discussed in public such as RON for a little while now. I will credit @His Holy Decagon for help with some of my maths though.

The only idea from my alliance was the city template from Sketchy.

I suspect very little of this matters to you though.

Unless you're a c40, they won't really increase in price and even if you are it is only marginal.

Bonuses would need to be constantly updated, this is to stop continually putting band aid solutions to this topic and allow the design team to move onto other areas.

RON as a forum is not at all a venue that should be viewed as a neutral platform of discussion that speaks for the game or even to be representative of most of the game. Too many alliances have had their rights infringed by it, including mine. 

Your responses matter to me. Even if I don’t agree with certain aspects of the update I like portions of it and more importantly I like that something is being worked towards. The stagnation of the game is not good. A lot of things are touched on in this update. Maybe if these ideas are better explained to me I can see it from the development teams perspective and better understand. 
 

What do you say to some of those we make the argument that the update punishes players who have been here a long time? This is a fairly common argument I hear. 

[Keegoz]

15 minutes ago, Tiberius Aurion said:

RON as a forum is not at all a venue that should be viewed as a neutral platform of discussion that speaks for the game or even to be representative of most of the game. Too many alliances have had their rights infringed by it, including mine. 

Your responses matter to me. Even if I don’t agree with certain aspects of the update I like portions of it and more importantly I like that something is being worked towards. The stagnation of the game is not good. A lot of things are touched on in this update. Maybe if these ideas are better explained to me I can see it from the development teams perspective and better understand. 
 

What do you say to some of those we make the argument that the update punishes players who have been here a long time? This is a fairly common argument I hear. 

That it doesn't actually impact your power that much. Firstly if you're well over the average where this may have a significant impact, it makes it very tough for anyone to catch you.

Add in the fact you'll be able to invest in other avenues to create either a stronger nation such as via Military Research plus any other features that come out. Something that will be of a high priority should this go through because I am aware that more investment avenues would be required for older nations.

Alternatively you could loan money and earn interest, simply wait until people catch up in cities making your own cheaper and then buy more yourself.

The gap in cities may close but your nation's will remain individually some of the strongest and wealthiest nations in the game. It would take years for this to actually change.

The difference is that more nations may be able to interact with you or the growing new middle tiers of c30-c40 where most our active players reside.

[Danzek]

The colors, if anyone is interested:

(without the new colors)

With the new colors (note: Aqua and teal have very similar hue, and thus overlap). 

My feedback:
Possibly make gold darker, to see if that works better. Don't add bronze. Consider a very light color between aqua and blue, and a color between either green and aqua or green and olive (since eyes are better at distinguishing greens than any other color). 
 

On 2/9/2025 at 1:28 PM, leonissenbaum said:

The issue with calculating the cost with the projects right now specifically is that prices are very abnormal - 300+ ppu food on projects that require a million food is going to change things a lot, after all. UP/AUP/MP normally don't cost nearly as much as they do right now!

The value of the projects, by day, for context. 
{FOOD=1,500,000, COAL=24,000, OIL=24,000, URANIUM=72,000, LEAD=24,000, IRON=24,000, BAUXITE=24,000} 

Edited February 10 by Danzek

[LoneTechWiz]

I like this city update even though it negatively impacts my nation. I think it will lead to less non raiding alliances having new nations raid which will keep them from seeing the game differently than it really is. That change over is the point when more nations quit than any other except when nations get raided. Ultimately I think this helps both.

[Rageproject]

On the topic of the color bloc additions, I would swap Gold or Bronze for Silver/Platinum. As mentioned there are a lot of color clashes in the brown family. If there is a concern about clashing with the Gray Inactive color, then I’d suggest adding an “X” inside the Gray icon or lines to break up the solid color.

We really need to also address eliminating gray automatically once players return from inactivity — either set it to revert to the color the nation previously had or code it to default to black since it stands out and players will be inclined to change it. 

For treasures, it makes sense to focus them on the color blocs for spawning and not continents. Matching nations to the alliance color for qualification is fair — it mirrors the turn color bonus benefit. But I would remove the “30 day” component on color to qualify. That’s not necessary and I’m sure will cause issues with beige and gray periods. If nations have to match the alliance color to be eligible that will already disqualify plenty from possessing a treasure.

The city import tool looks cool. This is a great improvement that will save a lot of pain for players. I’m assuming it will only work if infra matches the template being imported. And I think that’s OK, because it does add value to having a VIP subscription to use these features like the Mass Infra Tool.

On the City Costs — there will always be challenges for some and advantages for others when it comes to growth. I did some math and the overall costs (based on the current example) balance out by the time a nation reaches c40. So it’s not as drastic as some may believe it to be but it removes some barriers. And it now gives “new choices” because people can opt for 3 different projects to steer their nation’s development to military or Econ. 

I worried that we made it too appealing or easy to just build cities in recent years, and created an illusion that players can do that consistently. When they finally hit a wall of being unable to continue building rapidly, they lose interest in the game. It’s the same reason we shouldn’t cap the high tier because they’d have nothing to strive for. This change does address the ascend in a more balanced way. And now there is no “prepaying” or “front loading” city discounts like UP/AUP/MP were basically used to do. So the pay gates are gone in that respect.

[LostNomad]

Looking at low C20s, it's cheaper to build cities now with all the projects than to wait and build after the update, so who is benefiting from this? C25+?

C22-C23 is currently $166,425,000 with all projects but not manifest, after the update (which removes all those projects) it will be $174,675,000 (assuming without manifest). I assume the gap only gets larger from there..

Edited February 10 by LostNomad

[LoneTechWiz]

One of the city 22 nations in my alliance just checked and its cheaper for him to buy c23 and c24 now than what you show after the update. I think you are comparing pricing if nations don't have the planning project to the new price. Might want to check your math.

[LostNomad]

You can use the City Purchase calculator to see C21 is $46,025,000 with all the Planning projects (that will be removed), without manifest domestic, cuz I assume that won't be removed. On the breakdown sheet it is $101,575,000 after the update.

C22: $103,225,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades and after the update is will be $134,825,000?

C23: $166,425,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades, and after the update is will be $174,675,000?

Only at C24 does it become cheaper; $235,925,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades, and after the update is will be $221,725,000.

[Roland of Enroth]

So as a C5, my question is: should I rush to C11 now, to C20, or just hold and wait for the price changes?

 

[Lucianus]

Despite my usual unwillingness to come to the forums combined with my reservation about the dev team and the way it functions, it's been a while since I've actually since a proposal I'd be happy to see go through. I don't really care about the colors, so I'm focusing this post on the (proposed) changed city cost. 

Military power imbalance

As we can all see in this game, there is a wide discrepancy in who holds power in this game. if I ask anyone who is working in MA or FA, you see that all they want is upper tier  nations as those hold the power to win wars for you. If I'm working sheets and ordering targets, I'd prefer 10 c50's over 25 c30's, and I ask any military commander if anyone would actually disagree with this statement.

The issue of being a new player

New players who join the game today can be of a relevant tier (relevant being in a position where you're considered a real asset that helps in changing the war outcome), which I would currently define as c40+. I know c35-c39 can have some influence too, but it's alreday getting more and more limited. 
C50+ is considered the strongest, c45-c49 is qutie strong too, c40-c44 is also relevant and c35-c39 is good enough to count. 
The following are approximations as the game sorts weirdly, but gives a good general overview. 
C50+: 3 out of 57 are from after January 1st, 2020, of which 0 after January 1st, 2022.
C45-c49: 22 out of 119 are created after January 1st, 2020, of which 4 after January 1st, 2022.
C40-c44: 181 out of 381 are created after  January 1st, 2020, of which 12 after January 1st, 2022. 

As you can see, to be a player of any relevance (c40+), or in other ways a chance to belong to the top 600, it will take you 4-5 years of active playing and a good alliance that helps you, and then you're in the low relevant tier. 4 to 5 years before you as your nation can actually be of influence in the game. I don't know about you guys, but who would join a game if you're being told that you won't be able to make any impact for the next 4 years, and that is only if you play actively. 

Even worse, as the upper tier is progressing further and further, this time will increase. I know when I joined the game c30+ was considered the top tier, and c25+ quite high. So it took 4-5 years for players starting 4-5 years ago, meaning that for people who start now, I guess it will take them 7 years at a minimum. Because if they take 4-5 years to get to c40, then the current c40+ tier will be a lot further then c40 too. 

A change is necessary to address this, because alliances and players know this too. Is it demotivating for players to know they can't actually change the balance of power? Well, I've heard countless people try to argue that it doesn't matter, but for quite a large group of people it does matter. As leader I've had dozens of these kind of discussions with my members, and to this day I understand their anger, that ultimately is, if not the sole reason, at least a heavy factor in new players leaving the game. I'm not talking about those who leave in 2 days, but I am talking about those who leave after 1-12 months. Those understand the game good enough to know they will not make a difference until they are in their irl retirement. 

 

[Judy Nails]

On 2/8/2025 at 11:03 PM, Stanko1987 said:

I kind of understand where Toxic Pepper is coming from, but i strongly agree and support the decision of the Dev Team and Alex in regard to these changes as this is only the first part of fixing the problem but the problem of engagement still remains therefore i would like to propose the following,

- Update the Tutorial

- Bring back Quests where players who login are given up to 5-10 quests a day that they have to complete and in return win cash rewards anywhere from $200,000 to $5,000,000 depending on the quest that the player must complete. Even Resource rewards such as Raws, War chest, Food, Uranium etc., or perhaps rewards that award players anywhere between $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 in city discounts, or a temporary revenue boost for several turns anywhere from 2 turns to 8 turns or production temporary increases anywhere from 2%-5% for several turns before reverting back. New Daily quests that players can do each lasting anywhere from a minute to 5 minutes per quest. It least it gives players something more to do besides raiding, countering or just logging in once a day to receive the $2,000,000 day turn bonus.

Again, it is kind of a buff for new players but also for existing players, but it least it gives players who are farming something to do other than just farming and logging in once a day for several seconds. 

- Add another form of small-scale gambling like Keno, introduce roulette, pokie slots, blackjack etc...

- Revamp the baseball league
- Add Soccer, Basketball and other sporting leagues that players can start utilizing whilst during peace times
- Add a few fancy features and special effects for nation page and factbooks.

- Add a inbuilt chat room for non-discord players who they can engage with outside of discord.

Yeh i understand there is a fair bit of work involved and probably need larger bandwidths to support these extra added features, also it will definitely take time to develop and probably won't happen for it least 6-12 months from now but if it least half of the list is being taken into consideration, new players who sign up and even existing players who are not raiding or stopped raiding have things to do and they will not get bored.

I support this suggestion by Stanko.

I really feel like the tutorial could be very much updated, because it just feels, *old*

Quests are also a good idea to me, because a player might not want to raid, but still make money in other ways other than farming, and it also adds something more to the game, other than raiders logging in a couple times a day to raid, or farmers logging in once a day for only a little bit, the quests will add something to keep the variety up, also I agree with Totally Hatebi, if the quests in implemented, make them random, so it does not become stale over time.

And also the in game chat room, other form of a gambling mini game, and the sports suggestions are really good ideas, hope at least some of these get implemented in the future.

[Tiberius Aurion]

On 2/10/2025 at 6:19 AM, Keegoz said:

That it doesn't actually impact your power that much. Firstly if you're well over the average where this may have a significant impact, it makes it very tough for anyone to catch you.

Add in the fact you'll be able to invest in other avenues to create either a stronger nation such as via Military Research plus any other features that come out. Something that will be of a high priority should this go through because I am aware that more investment avenues would be required for older nations.

Alternatively you could loan money and earn interest, simply wait until people catch up in cities making your own cheaper and then buy more yourself.

The gap in cities may close but your nation's will remain individually some of the strongest and wealthiest nations in the game. It would take years for this to actually change.

The difference is that more nations may be able to interact with you or the growing new middle tiers of c30-c40 where most our active players reside.

Thanks for the response. It sounds interesting. I appreciate you taking time to respond to me. I am excited to see the military update you alluded to. It’s great to see new content and ideas being implemented and they can always be changed down the road if need be. I look forward to reading more of your posts. I hope you will consider doing weekly posts or monthly ones. It’s nice to get this level of detail. Keep it up!

[Keegoz]

On 2/11/2025 at 7:28 AM, LostNomad said:

You can use the City Purchase calculator to see C21 is $46,025,000 with all the Planning projects (that will be removed), without manifest domestic, cuz I assume that won't be removed. On the breakdown sheet it is $101,575,000 after the update.

C22: $103,225,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades and after the update is will be $134,825,000?

C23: $166,425,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades, and after the update is will be $174,675,000?

Only at C24 does it become cheaper; $235,925,000 City Purchase calculator with all Project upgrades, and after the update is will be $221,725,000.

Keep in mind, they can buy these without the need to have to projects which cost a fair amount. Need to factor that into your calculations.

[Hwan]

Isn't adding more color blocs basically allow every major AA to have their own bloc? The idea behind these was to help conflict or at least diplomacy regarding them so everyone getting their own kinda goes against that.

The treasures are good although i could totally see the micro ones being abused Treasure-Island style.

Tools are good.

Won't the average cities be like 10 forever since there's like 5000 c1-5 nations or is there a cutoff point for "average"?
And what's the point of having good econ and making good decisions if you can just suck forever and then be rewarded for it. Must everyone be the same city count in a long-term nation simulator.

[Altheus]

Broadly in favour of the changes. Ultimately city counts need to be squeezed closer together for the good of the game.

A minor point, but just to agree with what's been said on this thread earlier Gold and Bronze are a mistake because they're too similar to other colours.

Lavender and Teal are good because they're distinctive, so to replace Gold & Bronze, have you considered maybe Dark Blue (Navy perhaps?), Pale Green (Mint perhaps?) or Pale Orange (Apricot perhaps?)

 

[Gul le Necro]

The idea to be 30 days in the color to have a treasure sucks hard. It s design for big alliance with farmer that do war once in 6 month. It s rewarding the inactivity and global NAP. Oh wait, the proposition comes from a guy in singularity. Exactly my point.

Everybody of the color should have the treasure as long as it match the alliance color.

For the city it can be interesting and can be good to change, you can just nerf the exponential income of cities instead. But yeah your proposition is going in the good way. But if we do the math it s incorrect if the city count is low (less than c24-c23), dont do that it will !@#$ new player even more. You want them to have it cheaper not to have it more expensive.... You are doing the opposite for them and it will !@#$ even more the player retention at this city rate.

Edited February 13 by Gul le Necro

[Keegoz]

31 minutes ago, Gul le Necro said:

The idea to be 30 days in the color to have a treasure sucks hard. It s design for big alliance with farmer that do war once in 6 month. It s rewarding the inactivity and global NAP. Oh wait, the proposition comes from a guy in singularity. Exactly my point.

Everybody of the color should have the treasure as long as it match the alliance color.

For the city it can be interesting and can be good to change, you can just nerf the exponential income of cities instead. But yeah your proposition is going in the good way.

Probably a poor time to try to use my alliance affiliation as an attack when we just decided to suicide into TKR for the next few months.

We haven't even spent 6 months at peace in our entire existence.