Warning: Wall of Text incoming.Yesterday I played a nice long stretch of Fallen Enchantress and I paid particular attention to the City Building aspect. War of Magic's City Building was decent enough, however I feel that Fallen Enchantress really does deserve a better system all-round. I've read through a few threads and it seems I'm not the only person who thinks this.In the interest of improving this aspect of the game, I thought we should come to some kind of consensus on what we like, and what we don't like, about the current system and what we think would be more fun.I'll compare Elemental to Civilization IV - my favourite TBS Game - to highlight my personal largest issue.My least favourite moment in Civ IV (I was going to put CIV as the abbreviation, but it just comes out as Civ in captials) is when the game has progressed to the point where my City level decisions are no longer needed.After this moment, I'm going through the motions - my plans have come together, and my well oiled machine just hums along to victory. I don't pay attention to my resources, because I don't have to, and I don't really care what is built in each City - I just run through the list one item after another until each City has one of everything, then they just churn out the most cost effective unit.Initially in Civ IV, each time you need to select something you have to think about it."Do I need Animal Husbandry now?", "Should I go straight for Military Units, or should I throw a few more Scounts out?", "Where do I need my roads?", "Are my improvements what they need to be?", etc. This, to me, is the really fun part - actually building my Civilization. The middle game is my favourite part - right around the Medieval ages - where I'm trying to walk the line between advancing my military tech to keep me alive, while advancing my civ tech to keep my cities growing. Cities exchange hands fast and loose, Religion spreads like wildfire, backstabbing occurs; it's brilliant. My City level decisions for each City are the difference between Victory and Loss."What are the odds of this City being attacked? Do they need more defensive units, more defensive structures? Can I risk this City and have it build a Research Increasing building to get me to the next Military Tech? What are their Morale, and how is it effecting the Cities production?"This all changes when I'm engaged in the eventual End Game War that errupts, and so my brains turns off - I'm just throwing stacks of Units around until I've won the game.In Fallen Enchantress, I've arrived at the point of not caring what decisions I'm making at a City Level at around my 4th City - which is about 3-ish hours in.I've got everything I can currently build in each City, and they're now just firing off the most cost effective units so I can throw them at the A.I. player I'm at war with. When I capture a City, I'm just running through the list to make sure it has one of everything before it reverts to building the most cost effective unit for my war machine. When my research enables a new building, each City haults production and builds the new building, and then reverts back to making units.The only decision I'm making honestly now is "Which City does my horde attack next?".This, to me, is a fairly large scale issue, and is comprised of several smaller issues.Although things like Unrest and such are in place, I couldn't honestly tell you what mine are - they've had seemingly zero impact upon my game plan so far. Declaring War on three factions at once and sending an unending number of troops to their death has seemingly had no impact upon my people. And I thought I was the bastard here.I've also not altered Taxes as I've been swimming in Gildar for a while now, and as a result I've never - ever - viewed the Details screen for my Cities. They're just these 'things' that exist that enable me to make military units and buildings.I'd go as far to say if you didn't tell me Taxes and Unrest where in the game, I'd never know they were here.Population growth also seems to be a none issue. I've never seen the number of people in my Cities drop to a number I'd register as "low", nor has there been any indication that a lowering population has had an impact, and so I continue to spam units. Nothing builds slower, nothing researches slower, I don't seem to get less Gildar per turn - what the hell do these people do? If there are effects in play here, they're far too subtle.Building Placement is something I actually really like - it's far better than Civ IV's Improvement System or how the Cities just automatically expand - however it serves no purpose. 3-ish hours in, I just drop the building in the closest slot to where my mouse cursor is so I can get on with it. This feels like a big wasted opportunity. Placement really does need to do... something!Buildings seem to give too many bonuses, or too large a bonus per building. I've barely gone half way through the Civ and a third of the way through the Military trees, and my Cities are now just these never ending fountains of Gildar and Troops. I feel there is simply no decision making in selecting which Buildings to build, or in which order to do so, after your first 2 cities.Because I have seemingly unlimited troops and Gildar coming from my cities, I haven't surpassed basic Military tech. I haven't researched Black Smithing yet, and yet my armies are walking across the map wiping everything out on sheer numbers alone.Loose 4 units in a battle? Press End Turn once or twice, and I have 4 more. As such, I haven't even looked at the resource area of the game yet - I have no idea what my cities are making, nor what they could be making, and I don't feel the need to as it could only serve to make my campaign of terror only more unstoppable.This will sound ridiculous, but I feel Cities are... I don't know... too over-powered? They make too much money, too many people and produce too many powerful buildings without consequence. I didn't deliberately chose the "Warfare" path to Victory - I always go for the Religious victory in Civ IV - it's just the path I feel the game has pushed me into. If I wasn't churning out Units, my Cities would be idle. If I have 50 basic units, what am I to do with them if not war?Anyway, that's my rant. I look forward to reading other peoples thoughts and possible suggestions.
There are several of those - incredibly uninteresting. They literally reward you for doing nothing and making no choices.
What if cities had to choose a path at level 2 similar to champions' "Path of the....".
This selection at level 2 could then determine the offerings during future city level ups and thereby create truly specialized cities.
Great idea! And simple to implement.
I saw them more as the equivalent to the civ option to build money or research, except you default to all of them when you aren't otherwise occupied instead of having to go there and make it happen.
so it's like the least interesting thing to do in civ, except even more so?
edit: To add something constructive: I actually have no problem with this mechanism, because *passive*, noninteresting things are fine. what should aim to be minimized are things you have to actively participate that don't involve a meaningful choice
I would love it if cities got paths that unlocked special buildings and features. I think that your capitol should get at least 10 nonrandom path options at the first citylevelup in a moddable window. Paths are great as long as the modders can add new ones without having to delete the vanilla paths.
Yeah, and the more the better. Partly because it's fun, and partly because it would probably give the AI an advantage in the long run, it will choose the smartest path while we'll go ooohhhh....cool, I want that!
I love all of these idea.
Is it possible to solve part of the overly powerful hero problem (and the number of them) by requiring certain buildings to exist (or be at a certain level) just to interest a certain hero type to join? A Paladin might require an Inn and a Church, a Mage might require a workshop and access to a certain resource within the city, etc.? Another hero might require an Inn, brothel, and an archery range? (I know many of these buildings don't exist - I'm just giving examples to make the point). Or if buildings level (great idea), better/higher level heroes require higher level buildings, etc. to either recruit (or stay). Maybe there is a limit on the number of heroes based upon the number or population of cities (for example, some heroes may required to be "assigned" a city to rule - and if there aren't enough they won't join/stay).
Alternatively maybe certain buildings can't exist in the same city so you have to make some hard choices based upon the heroes nearby. Could heroes often go off on their own (sabbatical?) because they get board (or have some unresolved issue via random event) but if your city is more attractive too them they leave less often? Why can't certain heroes not get along and refuse to be hired if you have the other one or fight less effectively in the same battle with each other? Maybe an archer/thief hero requires more corruption in your city. For example, if each hero has to be based out of a certain city (his/her home), maybe there are bonuses depending upon buildings, level of building, happiness rate, corruption level, resources, etc.
I know some of these are a little out of scope and/or don't make sense with the current game design - I'm just thinking out loud.
Mozo
I think Heroes can be tuned just fine without building dependencies, but I do think there's a need for some means of generating new heroes, and having 'recruiting' structures would be a perfectly fine method of doing that, such structures unlocked either via research, deeds on the world map/in battle, via quests, constructed with unusual materials, or simply purchased with gold.
Kinda like the Great Person mechanic in Civ IV / Civ V.
I don't mind specializing cities, nor do I think cities need to have turn by turn decisions, but they do need to have interesting decisions and development throughout the course of the game.
If you choose to build up a few mega cities, those cities should be appropriately powerful and flexible, while if you choose to build up many cities, you should be able to specialize those cities to give you a useful set of focused production centers.
Right now, neither option exists in the game, and the lack of really unique development upgrades and structures is boring.
I love the suggestions in the OP and in the 1st reply. Great stuff that I hope the developers read through thoughtfully and thoroughly.
That said:
No, no, no... NO just slapping on higher maintenance costs to buildings.
I'm sorry, but let me be frank: there's a clear reason why you, and I, are not game designers. Just suggesting this horrible mechanic illustrates this.
It punishes a city for succeeding at growing, and it DOESN'T fix the fact that current city buildings are just plain BORING.
Implementing this would make the game WORSE.
The harder and better alternative that's been discussed would be to encourage city specialization and give the player MORE choices to make, not forcing them to choose between boring options. That would make cities truly unique and truly interesting.
@ZehDon,
The choices are in the details. Buildings in a military path would make you choose between advantages to elite units or conscripts, heavy armor bonuses or light armor bonuses.. A path involving a choice between gold or research would be good, as well as food or prestige.
I wold hate to have to choose between things like materials and food when leveling or researching because food is infinitely more valuable than materials. Food gives you research, levels, soldiers (another area that needs work), and gold. Not many reasons to choose anything else. Maybe other very large bonuses or something like a special trait or weapon would compare.
I would also like there to be more variations on a path that gives more low level benefits versus a path that pays off at higher levels. That way a game where you have very few grain locations on which to settle will be a little more balanced against a nation that has many 4-6 grain cities and lots of wheat farms.
The mega-simplified materials/grain system definitely makes city placement a bit unexciting - and since you can pull resources with outposts, you don't even need to worry about grabbing semi-distant resource nodes with city boarders eithe. If they're even remotely close, you can dump a garrison in them if they're under enemy threat.
I'd like to see resources directly benefiting the cities they are 'attached' to, beyond simply filling your metal/horse/crystal supplies. eg, one of the very few uses of the currently useless building placement system would be that if a resource is 'enveloped' by your city, it provides a direct benefit to that city - say you 'fully secure' a gold mine, shard, crystal node, horse pasture or monster camp, it gives you some form of added bonus; more of the resource, a perk to created units, a cost reduction, etcetc.
I'd still like to see rare resources on the map that would benefit nearby cities directly (think adamantium weapons in mom or whatever), but failing that, simply expanding what the current resources can do would add some flavor to cities - particularly if the research tree is upgraded to give new benefits to resources.
I can't remember which thread it was (I'm losing track of all the conversations at this point), but someone had a great idea of having 'extended research branches', so if you research mining, you could then perform extra research to pick one of 2-3 mutually exclusive perks. Adding benefits to existing resources would be one obvious application of that clever idea.
I like the resources in the old WARLORDS series. A nearby shrine may give units produced in the city a bonus to resistance for example.
I like the current system in FE. I just feel some nodes could do more than just add to the coffers. This would also help make cities unique.
There is a precedent for resources built by a city giving you more of that resource. It was eventually taken out as it encouraged too much snaking with cities. It would work well with a 9 tile limit for cities, but in the current system it would cause more problems than it would solve. Once the AI learns to attack outlying resources, I have a feeling that this will be less of a complaint.
Am I the only one who hates Wonders? When there is only 1 per world, research is just a race. When the Great Mill is built i just roll my eyes and curse CIV.
Well, you're probably not the only one. But I do like wonders, when I get them.
The problem with many games is that, on higher difficulty levels the AI gets so many bonuses in terms of tech speed, production, build speed, that it's nigh impossible to keep up.
The advantages given so that the AI can compete strategically take Wonders completely out of the picture.
While not exactly the great person path, building that attract the kind of heroes, or maybe, a not-quite-hero but a specialized unit to increase food/research/building points. Still could be random in nature, but more of the same kind of building would increase the chances of attracting one each turn. With a limit on both heroes and buildings.
One per faction is much more useful for my efforts, but a race to building something really powerful is good sometimes too.
I vote to eliminate pioneers and simply construct one city. I dont know where to post this because ive see some other complaints on how city building is repetitive. Lets all think back to MOM, MOO, and CIV (the latter not so far back ago) every city build the same thing so complaining about the citys building the same thing is not a valid complaint. We all understand in 4X games after an empire is established we build the same build Queue, production, food and research or a variation of the 3. It is no different here. Solutions might be one main city. New "outposts" can then be placed on distant resources and feed the main city with caravans. Production to outposts are limited to only what resource it is built above. Example to clarify. There is a ore mine 10 spaces away from your city sprawl, send a pioneer and build on that resource.. the pioneer automatically builds a mine and mining town on that square. Available building for that mining town are a masonry, a workshop, a mill... and these items are in addition to the ones you have in your main city. The kicker is that the pop to support that mining town comes from the main city. This is just an idea on how to try and vary city building and expansion.
One city is an interesting proposal, but a proposal that causes me to salivate is branching city specialization trees that add unique functionality, depth of gameplay, and most importantly to the people-who-are-me demographic: emergent story!
I plan, when modding, to make the player make that choice. Do you want several weaker villages or a few large cities? The difference is huge. Ivory Towers Mod will allow you to build only one level 5 city. All other cities will be capped at level 2. Not much point in building many of those unless you want to spawn alot of minions. Another option in the vanilla should be to get several level 3 cities running and use them as a war machine. You will have a better military but far fewer bonuses to research and magic. The game isn't really showing this well right now as we are in the first week of beta. I have faith it will be soon.
I'm troubled that it seems that every city gets every building. Despite what one person said, it isn't that way in Civ at higher levels of difficulty; one of the big transitions from the lowest level play to the mid-levels is learning to specialize cities. I agree with the several people who said choices should be meaningful; there ought to be some good reason why some cities don't need (and perhaps even shouldn't have) certain buildings.
I don't think there's one obvious solution that would appeal to everyone. I have to say a lot of the ideas I've seen here look really interesting and was intrigued by seanw3's immediately preceding comment: how much of the ideas we've seen in this thread can be done with the current modding facilities? (haven't looked at them personally)
When I first saw it I kind of liked the idea of having buildings that do something when not building anything else -- it is kind of like CIV's "build research" versus "build gold" options but by default. However, the small boost in, say, research productivity, doesn't seem big enough yet.
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