The oceanic expansion has so many flaws with advancing, military units and requirements that either players that are in that era are looking to go backwards since it is better or the next era needs to come out quickly to improve the game. At this point, the game has really ended at the Future age. the arctic and oceanic futures are poor at best and not worth the time to play. unfortunately many players have devoted significant amounts of time and resources to get to this point, they hope the next age will be better, only to be disappointed... again.
Items that need to be improved:
Military units: some will argue but I find myself using and beating most AF and OF battles with FA units. Why are units several ages older better than the advanced units? this is a Game Design flaw. The initial response on the latest OF unit Manta is again, poor at best.
Look at the different ages and the percentage of attack / defense increase of a unit from age to age. the last two ages, the units are not gaining a proportionate increase from the previous age making the OF units weak compared to units from 2 ages prior.
Technology advancing: Many of the OF advances require goods from 1 or 2 ages prior. when in the advanced ages, goods are made from goods of 3 ages back. by OF, this is several ages to build up to. Many of the goods are acquired through rewards or the made from unrefined goods that are from great buildings. To get the correct unrefined goods, would require 3 separate goods buildings so to produce one type of good would require 4 goods buildings (assuming you have the boost for each of the 4 building types). To get the previous era goods, you no longer have rewards giving you unrefined goods making the ability to make the goods significantly more difficult.
The other way to get goods is by trading. Up to future age, trading down is relatively easy. the higher age goods are typically worth more so to find trades is easy. With AF and OF, the demand for the goods is not there. Fewer players are in these ages, the great buildings needing the goods to be built are not that good (again, little demand) and the GvG does not need these goods so there is an unbalanced surplus of AF and OF goods. I am finding it hard to get Trades for FE goods when I offer 2 OF to get 1 FE good.
Another draw back in the technology advancing is the rewards are also getting worse. A mandatory quest to keep the tree going and the reward is only an avatar... this is just wasting time and/or lack of creativity.
The last 2 ages are long and drawn out with no good rewards in these ages, so why should a player keep playing when the last 3rd of the game is lame?
What needs to be fixed: A new age that has:
1) Better military units than the 3 ages below it. there needs to be a balance between each of the units within the same era, but not a balance for the era's below it (that is why it is a technology advancement).
2) Technology tree that has buildings and rewards that are worth getting (having avatars as a 2nd item or reward is fine). Also have the cost of the tech items within reason with relation goods (previous and current era's, although with the last few era,s there is a surplus so they might be abundant).
3) Goods buildings that help the later age players and have a desirable advancement or advantage.
4) Create a demand for the goods of the new era. The GvG area has created a demand for goods that stops as the Future... a new demand for goods needs to be created (demand for the player or the guild does not matter, but there needs to be the demand).
5) MOST IMPORTANT !!!! A reason or goal for a player in the advance ages to want to keep playing (a new avatar is NOT it).
At least the premium buildings in Arctic Future that had to be researched were all optional or had other things attached to them that didn't require diamonds. What happened here?
