21JUL11 - Mobiles, other

Brids17 wrote: As I brought up before, I believe it's because no one brought up the idea of using this to maintain huge armies. Judging by the response I got from SC, it doesn't sound like he had thought of that.

So players using a game mechanic that the devs 'hadn't thought of' is now suddenly 'an exploit'?

Again, correct me if I'm wrong - but I always remember SC mentioning about how part of the joy of the Illy 'sand-box' experience was seeing the ways that the community played with the tools the devs had given them in ways they hadn't imagined. Again I can find you a quote relating to this somewhere if necessary.

i agree with Creature, if Gm's are say that's an exploit, that is... but well, and now, is having negative production of basic ressources and suffering nothing but losing a producing city a game abuse? let's put everything on the table as we are doing so: i personnaly have a city running out -12k of basic ressource/hour because of a very high use of sov structure for Cav production... this city can produce nothing but soldiers, at a high rate of course, but it can't really produce advanced ressources (would ask too much time, that's too difficult). and the gold is given justly by the cities that are running out of food.
all the advantage i have on other players that use the usual way of playing, is that i can produce a big single army, while they produce medium armies, and if they do well, they produce soldiers faster , over their cities, than me, with my single big army... than has no overpower bonus.

so, if all that is game abuse, well that's hard to hear that suddenly, but ok. Maybe GM's also do that, because we will soon be granted of a new way to specialise our cities.

But that's a bit too sudden, this negative food prod issue was known by players for a long time ago as some discussions about that are the forum:
http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/food-attack-and-defence_topic962.html?KW=

GM's were certainly aware about that a long time ago... and if so, that would have been a good idea to write clearly that this wasnt expected, and that this would be changed one day... but i cant find it on the "todo" annoucements.


Well, i agree with this change if it must be, but there must be a compensation for such an unexpected, sudden and hard release. Maybe leting us more time and giving a general city move (city taking the total caracteristics of the new tile) when arrive the very big release like specilised buildings, Factions, water warfare... would be wiser... Illy doesnt need to loose more Veterans.

Brids17 wrote: As I brought up before, I believe it's because no one brought up the idea of using this to maintain huge armies. Judging by the response I got from SC, it doesn't sound like he had thought of that. I don't think they mind high pop cities running on negative food I think it's that it allows players to have armies so large it would imbalance the game in it's current state. That's just my opinion on things however.

Over the last 2-3 months I have made roughly 30M selling food.  My opinion, is that it is a decent fix but the role out is sadly ill conceived especially without a way to make cites with 5 food squares more equal to 7 square food cities. 

Some math with my cities:  Duncton Woods is at maximum population 14003 that it can support with 100% tax rate running a surplus of 800 food.  Gross tax = 56012 an hour.  I do not know where you are getting you 90K number from Brids17.

Compare that with Daily Clicker's Solace, whose max population will be close to 20K with all farm sovs and 800 food surplus.  The gross tax = 80K

The difference is huge in the amount of forces the latter city can support and that is using only farm sovs.  The difference only increases if you utilize sov squares for increasing production/recruitment. 

The devs should have giving longer warning before rolling out the fix.  Further, they should have also rolled out a method to ensure cities that where built on 5 farm squares are more viable then they have not made them.  The best course of action for starting players is to have their starting city razed once they have built a new city on a 7 farm square.

So, while the fix is good in the long run, the manner it which it is being implemented is very dissappointing.  They have always been good at listening to the community and I hope they see that they have now rendered any city not on a 7 farm pretty much obsolete. (i.e. every starting city)

The buildings they have hinted at can not come soon(TM) enough now. 

Mandarins31 wrote: i agree with Creature, if Gm's are say that's an exploit, that is... but well, and now, is having negative production of basic ressources and suffering nothing but losing a producing city a game abuse? let's put everything on the table as we are doing so: i personnaly have a city running out -12k of basic ressource/hour because of a very high use of sov structure for Cav production... this city can produce nothing but soldiers, at a high rate of course, but it can't really produce advanced ressources (would ask too much time, that's too difficult). and the gold is given justly by the cities that are running out of food. all the advantage i have on other players that use the usual way of playing, is that i can produce a big single army, while they produce medium armies, and if they do well, they produce soldiers faster , over their cities, than me, with my single big army... than has no overpower bonus.

Yes but with this exploit, you're still producing a lot of resources, more than enough needed for producing advanced resources. The only thing you lose out on is some extra speed you would get from sov. I should point that you even with 100% taxes you could still manage sov, just less of it. So you'd build armies a bit slower. Ok, sure, that would suck if we were playing evony. However the majority of this game doesn't take place in a hostile environment. If you were using your army constantly maybe speed would mean a little more but current many players rarely use their armies and are at no disadvantage at doing so.

So once I build my 100k troops and 500 siege engines with threat of being attacked, how is that balanced? I got my big army built up now I'm going to siege you. How long does it take 500 siege engines to bring down a city? Especially with 100k troops defending it, all from one player might I add. Sure, when they lose those troops they'll be at a disadvantage but are you seriously saying that by the time they lose all those troops, the damage they've done is still balanced out? I just don't see it.

Perhaps instead arguing as to why this isn't broken we should be trying to find a way to fix it more equally? As I said, perhaps making it so that food is no longer capped would help with managing cities running negative food.

Edit: I should point out that currently a city with no good sov is always going to be at a disadvantage to any other city with good sov. This is really no different. Settling cities in spots with good sov has become a must now because if you don't your cities are thus at a disadvantage. This update really wouldn't change anything in that aspect because good city spots and good sov spots have always made other city spots obsolete it comparison.


Edited by Brids17 - 23 Jul 2011 at 01:00

I dont mind the Devs calling this an exploit and removing it, but can we have a bit longer to readjust our cities and troops than Aug 1. Also i have talked about running 4 cities with 25k pop with 100k kobolds(for cheap grins) in each with my other 4 cities supporting with resources as far back as the White/H? any way all im asking is a bit more time to let the vets change their cities since it will take some major rearranging on some parts and lots of sacrificing of buildings and troops to get cities to the safe limits,