Advance Notice: Changes to upkeep, resources etc

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        Hi all,

          As part of our ongoing solution-finding to the problem outlined here on the 
          "Advance notice to changes regarding food" threadnaught, here's what we're currently intending.

          I strongly recommend that all interested parties spend some time looking at the ramifications of this change below.

          There are 4 inter-related elements, and we recommend reading all of them before commenting!

           Decoupling Food from City Taxation

At present, the tax rate you choose for your city affects the city's output of Wood, Clay, Iron, Stone, Food, Mana and Research.  On the other side, you get a change in the amount of Gold your city produces.

We're proposing removing Food from this equation.

All cities will produce food according to their Farmyard(s) output, modified by the Flourmill and seasonal variables, plus spells, sovereignty and some Discoveries; and all cities will continuously consume food according to each buildings' consumption.  This is exactly as things are now, with the exception of city taxation.   All cities will produce and consume food as if taxation was set to 25% - ie "balanced" taxation.

This means that anyone who currently has their city taxation set to higher than 25% will have "more food" than before.  Anyone who currently has their city taxation set to lower than 25% will have less food than before, and may need to upgrade their food production accordingly to stay in balance.

           Cities that run out of basic resources will cease to collect taxes

Your citizens need Food to survive.  They also need Wood, Clay, Iron and Stone for heating their stoves, cooking and serving their food, and otherwise maintaining their dwellings.

If you run out of wood, clay, iron, stone or food (i.e. you have none stored and negative production) then your citizens - as a whole - will cease to pay taxes, and you will cease to collect gold in your city.

Any city that runs a negative in any basic resource (Wood, Clay, Iron, Stone or Food) had better have sufficient resources stored to cover the shortfall until they can get back positive, otherwise there may be trouble ahead as gold production via taxation ceases, and - when the gold reserves have been exhausted - deserting military and diplomatic units, released sovereignty claims etc.

           Moving cities / nomadic existences

Players will be able to move their cities (beyond the one-off relocation spell) to other locations.

Moving to a new location in this way will have the same restrictions as the Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportating (ie must have all your units at home, cannot move to a location that is within 10 squares of another alliance etc).

One of the key differences is that - unlike the current relocation spell - you will not take your underlying terrain resource distribution with you.  

You will receive the new resource distribution of the new square that you move to, and will be able to exploit those resources accordingly.  Your existing resource plots will be mapped over to the new resource plots.  Those that do not match will be lost (ie if you move from a 7 Clay to a 5 Clay terrain, you will lose the 2 clay squares).

As with the relocation spell, you will carry over your military, diplomatic and trade units with you, as well as your research and currently stored storehouse/warehouse items.

Before you choose a location to move to, you will be informed of the consequences of moving, both generally and specific to your city.

There will be some potentially significant penalties for using this relocation method, however.

a) All buildings in the city (both city buildings and resource building, and the city wall) above Level 12 will be leveled down to L12 by the process of moving.  

 b) Once you arrive at your destination square, you will not be able to send out diplomatic units or armies for a period of 5 days.  Your armies and diplomats will spend this time adjusting to their new surroundings, and preparing their defences. They will, as ever, defend if attacked. 

c) Whilst your city is moving it will require sufficient gold upkeep to support the units it owns, travelling with it, for the period that you are travelling.  You will be informed, when you choose to relocate your city, of this cost - and it will immediately be debited from your town gold.  If you do not have sufficient gold, you will not be able to move cities.

d) All sovereignty owned by the city will be immediately relinquished.

e) You may only move a city in this manner if you have more than one city. Players who only have one city cannot use this method of relocation.

f) You may only have one city relocating at a time.  This includes (non-relocating) settlers.  If you have a city relocating, or settlers in motion, and then try to relocate another city, you will be refused.

g) Sitters may not relocate other players' cities, this is very much an "account-holder-only" function

h) Once we introduce unit interception, pathfinding and all the rest, it is entirely possible that a relocating city in motion could be destroyed outright - whilst it is in motion.  Of course, the units moving with the city will defend the convoy - but you need to understand that this might become a risky proposition in the future.

i) If the city you have chosen to move is your capital city, then your capital city will change to your largest non-moving city.  We will also be introducing a mechanism to allow players to change their capital city at will.

           New buildings

Whilst I'm not going into any detail, we shall shortly be announcing a number of new, specialist buildings.  These are designed to allow cities to specialise successfully in specific areas.

Most of these specialist buildings (14 or so new ones right now, and a further 20+ to come). will require Wood, Clay, Iron & Stone upkeep (as well as food, like all buildings).  The upkeep will be fairly substantial, depending on the building type.  We mention this simply to say that - especially in conjunction with the changes mentioned above - a 7 food square is not necessarily the best option any more, depending entirely on what you want to do with your city or cities.

          Best wishes,

          SC