Shouldn't running a city be challenging?

[Expletive Deleted]

I've been trying to hammer out the details of an idea that I'm sure would be put on the DNSL for one reason or another due to its complexity, but I would like to try and get a conversation started so I might be able to refine it into something workable.

At its core this game is about managing your city. ( some might debate this and say it's about battling, but in this game you cannot battle without making your city function.) And there are many aspects to juggle in doing so depending on your playstyle, goals, and time. Resource management, space, research, military, etc.

But for the first few ages there is an actual challenge in all of this that is not present once you reach a certain level in your development. That being the population / happiness demands.

Early on that poses a challenge tonwhat you can actually do but certainly by the time one has a mid level traz they never really have to worry about happiness again, and with more and more special buildings that offer happiness to maintain their populations enthusiasm, these things become so passive most people ignore them until an event quest says to gain one or the other.

An example of what I'm talking about in my own cities show a total population in my main of 304k and available pop of 247k which means roughly 81% of my citizens have nothing to do and a more than enthusiastic population with trails and tarmac.

I want to propose an unemployment tax. Something that would make this imbalance a challenge to overcome. Perhaps an additional cost of negative happiness for an unemployment rate over 10% or even a coin / supply tax that reflects the amount of people who are unemployed.

This is an idea based around the thought that city development has basically gotten too easy for high level players and I want to bring some of the puzzle/ planning and strategy back.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

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[RazorbackPirate]

Good thought, but this horse has already left the stable. Too late to close that barn door.

Let's suppose they do as you say. Do you want to be forced into a position where you have to jettison 3/4 of your event buildings because of this? I know I don't. Honestly, I don't care about this. I built my city to not have to deal with issues like pop and happy, coins or supplies, goods or units. I have an excess of all and I like it that way.

I have no issues with my imaginary citizens in my imaginary city having nothing imaginary to do. I'd rather focus on more of the excess.

 

[Graviton]

That's kinda the point of growing one's city, to swap early-game challenges for later-game challenges. I don't have to worry about pop or happiness anymore, now the challenge is battling through all levels of GE or increasing the GvG attrition I can handle, or producing goods for trading, or focusing on settlements, or any number of other things. Growth doesn't mean stagnation, it means you grow out of one set of challenges into another.

 

[Expletive Deleted]

I think it is 'too late' in the game to add on some new tax on pop. everyone has tons of extra pop who have played for awhile. to suddenly say there is a cost.. I would probably quit the game over it. When I moved up three Eras I suddenly had a lack of Enthusiasm, Een with a level 73 Alcatraz, But I also had a ton of Event buildings, more than usual. and fewer of the long time players Attack event that added a lot of happy but not as much pop. So I looked at my option and build the Atomium. As the best all around thing to build to get more happy.
Every Era up is a challenge. Those sitting in an Era solve those challenges, and sit because tht is a choice they make. To say no one can just take it easy sucks. I have enough problems playing Foe to not have more. Thank you anyway. And yes I would just stop playing and walk away if Inno added this sot of idea to the game.
You seem to think it gets easier to paly after you get up there. Sorry it does not get easier, it just keeps getting more complicated. Join a high ranking Guild to take up your spare time.

I can definitely see how it might be too late to implement something like this. That's something I considered myself. Given how wildly some cities pop / happiness will vary. Though I do think it gets easier in higher ages. I dont slam GbG as much as others and most of my GBs are lower than the others. And I produce more than I can use on a regular basis. If I had more time to put in that may change but as is, I am at a point where most of the challenge is gone. At least in my main city.

Good thought, but this horse has already left the stable. Too late to close that barn door.

Let's suppose they do as you say. Do you want to be forced into a position where you have to jettison 3/4 of your event buildings because of this? I know I don't. Honestly, I don't care about this. I built my city to not have to deal with issues like pop and happy, coins or supplies, goods or units. I have an excess of all and I like it that way.

I have no issues with my imaginary citizens in my imaginary city having nothing imaginary to do. I'd rather focus on more of the excess.

I think being put into a challenging position where I need to work to place and earn the new event buildings as a challenge could be more fun than just waiting on quests and cook timers for an event.

That's kinda the point of growing one's city, to swap early-game challenges for later-game challenges. I don't have to worry about pop or happiness anymore, now the challenge is battling through all levels of GE or increasing the GvG attrition I can handle, or producing goods for trading, or focusing on settlements, or any number of other things. Growth doesn't mean stagnation, it means you grow out of one set of challenges into another.

I think the growth reqches a point of excess as RazorbackPirate put it is my sticking point here.
If you can auto battle through mass armies and the only limit is how fast you can level up a GB with a 1.9 thread to be a titan and smash up everything. Build dozens of anything you can get your hands on. Is that an actual challenge? Or is that excess breeding stagnation?


I'm not gonna fight for this single specific concept, but I do think the idea of managing your city has been kinda lost in some aspects. The idea of unemployment is one based in a realistic problem that one running an empire would have to address on some level so i thought it could kick up some thoughts for a new way to challenge one in the way to build your city.

 

[Emberguard]

At its core this game is about managing your city. ( some might debate this and say it's about battling,

I'd argue FoE was heavily influenced on what was popular in a lot of real time strategy games at the time of its introduction where the entire point of the city is to wage war. I'd also argue that while the point of the city is two-fold (1) wage war (2) age up; the game has developed in a direction where the war now has a greater impact on sustaining your city resources and aging up process. Everything is intertwined, both the city and the battling are important aspects of the game

I want to propose an unemployment tax. Something that would make this imbalance a challenge to overcome. Perhaps an additional cost of negative happiness for an unemployment rate over 10% or even a coin / supply tax that reflects the amount of people who are unemployed.

That's already in the game in some form. But instead of unemployment it's a straight 50% reduced production on supplies + coins if your citizens are unhappy. This is a pretty big deal for anyone who isn't into hyper leveling Great Buildings and don't have advanced Great Buildings.

If you really wanted it to make things more challenging you'd need it to effect the Great Buildings or else all you'd be doing is effecting the players who are already struggling with the game. And I can't imagine that being a popular change

But for the first few ages there is an actual challenge in all of this that is not present once you reach a certain level in your development

The challenge in this game is controlled predominately by three things:
1) the rate in which you age up
2) whether or not you use advanced Great Buildings
3) whether you level up Great Buildings past Level 10

If you want a actual challenge the easiest way to turn it into a challenge is to only utilize Great Buildings from your current age and below and age up at a pace that stretches your resources. If you stay in a age for a extended period of time to gather resources then the mechanics won't matter, it'll never be a challenge no matter what's introduced

 

[Expletive Deleted]

If you want a actual challenge the easiest way to turn it into a challenge is to only utilize Great Buildings from your current age and below and age up at a pace that stretches your resources

This is what I am doing in a side city of mine. Limiting GBs to 10, no building ahead of your age and treating every special building as if it were a GB and limiting myself to building only one. In that city I'm in PE and about to drop my traz, with enthusiasm already and a more than 60% unemployment rate for that one. It does have it's own challenges but that's by design, not by the challenges set out by the game.

 

[Emberguard]

Originally the game was designed to have GBs limited to 10. It was then changed to open up to unlimited levels.

It does have it's own challenges but that's by design, not by the challenges set out by the game.

Part of the games challenges are choosing a strategy. You'd have to go out of your way to get advanced GBs. It's definitely become a part of the FoE culture to go for advanced GBs, but you can't get the goods without either organising it with other players or using diamonds

 

[Algona]

If you want a actual challenge the easiest way to turn it into a challenge is to only utilize Great Buildings from your current age and below and age up at a pace that stretches your resources. If you stay in a age for a extended period

Sure, but that sort of challenge is not where the OP is going I think

I think they are pointing out that if a player avails themselves of all the aspects of this game in it's current incarnation that the game reaches a point where the only object is finding ways to utilize the productivity of the city.

That's not a challenge, that's just makework.

I agree playing with an alt city with a selected limit can be a lot of fun and an ongoing challenge.

But I suspect that a fair number of players deep down want to master the game at the very highest levels and still have more to learn and master.

Growth doesn't mean stagnation, it means you grow out of one set of challenges into another.

This. So much so. Knowing when to move on from what were once challenges is a subtle problem in time management that is difficult to recognize.

If you can auto battle through mass armies and the only limit is how fast you can level up a GB with a 1.9 thread to be a titan and smash up everything. Build dozens of anything you can get your hands on. Is that an actual challenge? Or is that excess breeding stagnation?

Outstanding question. Even though it's been asked before, it's always a valid question.

The continued success of FoE has been INNO answering the question by adding new challenges to the game that push players to expand in new ways.

I hope they can continue doing this.

That seems a daunting task in a time where players can power a new GB in hours, win 1000 fights without breaking a sweat, have inventories of hundreds of thousands of FPs and Goods.

I appreciate like hell that you are asking the question. It is critical to the continued success of the game.

Sure wish I had an answer. But it is fun to speculate on.

 

[CommanderCool1234]

The idea of having unenployment tax is something that logically makes sense and would make the game more interesting for later age players. However the posts above are corecct about being to late into the game to make such a game change. If this was implemented at the beiginning no one would complain since it would be a part of their game and something that players would be used to, but if you added it now players who spend time getting happiness and population growing their cities would have no way of lowering their happiness and would have to just deal with the tax.

 

[Emberguard]

But I suspect that a fair number of players deep down want to master the game at the very highest levels and still have more to learn and master.

I agree with this. I also think a players definition of what it means to master the game changes as they learn more about the game which is where part of the difficulty in balancing it for /everyone/ comes in. If you balance it to be a challenge for hyper lvl'd GBs and those who have mastered that part of the game it's also going to effect those that mastered playing without hyper lvl'd GBs, and of course same applies vice versa.

I suppose you could potentially introduce something with GB level requirements where you could only participate at a set level based on how many GBs you have in level brackets grouped by every 10-20 levels. Doubt you'd be able to (easily) do something like that for interacting against other players. But you could if it's a single player thing.

 

[Ironrooster]

This would add a layer of micro-management to the game which I have no interest in. Frankly, I am glad that cities reach a point where I don't have to micro-manage population and happiness.

Years ago I quit playing Civilization (PC version) because the micro-management of the cities became tedious as opposed to fun or interesting.

If you're looking for a challenge, you might try starting a new city, but play it in an entirely different way than your current one. One idea would be to build all the great buildings. Another would be to negotiate everything, doing no fighting except the bare minimum required by the story line quests that can not be aborted.

 

[Fishercat.]

This is an idea based around the thought that city development has basically gotten too easy for high level players and I want to bring some of the puzzle/ planning and strategy back.

It is an interesting question, but I don't think it's necessary. In my opinion, possibly the best aspect of FoE is that it accommodates widely varying styles of play. If anyone wants to maintain that particular city development challenge, there are routes to do that, as others have already pointed out. Why should it be forced on players who don't find it fun?

 

[Expletive Deleted]

This would add a layer of micro-management to the game which I have no interest in. Frankly, I am glad that cities reach a point where I don't have to micro-manage population and happiness.

That's fair. It would be a micromanaging situation for sure on some level.

Why should it be forced on players who don't find it fun?

Could this same question be asked about the plundering aspect of the game? I mean this in the sense that if they had built in an unemployment tax when they launched PE we all would have adapted by now and special buildings would be adjusted to fit. And if there had never been plundering involved in the game, would you consider an idea of implementing a plunder system a forced change that some wouldn't think is fun?

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Actually plunder as I recall (it predates me) was forced on players as I'm pretty sure that it was implemented after the game began.

As for whether or not they should consider this idea would come to whether or not they think that it would increase the number of people coming to play the game. Which it wouldn't as these types of games tend to have a short shelf life for most players (with a bunch of exceptions of course ) and in experience people tend to want to keep their games relatively simple.

and the true question here is what does this do for the game that's worth changing a basic aspect of it?

 

[DevaCat]

My objection to op's of this sort -- being bored at ones current state and suggesting changes to alleviate that boredom -- is that they usually involve suggesting making changes to existing game mechanics that negatively impact new and younger players in particular in addition to simply annoying folk who aren't thrilled by the particular notion being put forward.

An example would be the fairly recent change to difficulty of ge4 after longer term players complaints that it had become too easy, not challenging, boring. Inno's response was to change the existing game, increasing the difficulty of level 4 and changing up the rewards a bit, instead of making a new challenging level 5 for the terminally bored. Given the time passed since then, event building power creep, and GB leveling, I have to wonder how many players, bored then and calling for change, are bored now? In the meantime, it takes newer players longer to achieve mastery of ge4.

It's not easy to maintain a balance making the same game fun and challenging for both new and long time players.

If suggestions involve adding new game content or mechanics, I am all for looking at them. Besides, don't you know that in the US forum "tax" is a four-letter word?

 

[Expletive Deleted]

Actually plunder as I recall (it predates me) was forced on players as I'm pretty sure that it was implemented after the game began.

As for whether or not they should consider this idea would come to whether or not they think that it would increase the number of people coming to play the game. Which it wouldn't as these types of games tend to have a short shelf life for most players (with a bunch of exceptions of course ) and in experience people tend to want to keep their games relatively simple.

and the true question here is what does this do for the game that's worth changing a basic aspect of it?

I cant say whether or not it would increase the number if players coming to the game. I'd assume not based on it being a complex system that doesn't inherently reward the player, which does in fact leave me at a loss when trying to answer your question of " what does it do for the game?" Other than adding a new challenge to overcome and I guess a layer of "realism" to the idea of managing a city.

My objection to op's of this sort -- being bored at ones current state and suggesting changes to alleviate that boredom -- is that they usually involve suggesting making changes to existing game mechanics that negatively impact new and younger players in particular in addition to simply annoying folk who aren't thrilled by the particular notion being put forward.

An example would be the fairly recent change to difficulty of ge4 after longer term players complaints that it had become too easy, not challenging, boring. Inno's response was to change the existing game, increasing the difficulty of level 4 and changing up the rewards a bit, instead of making a new challenging level 5 for the terminally bored. Given the time passed since then, event building power creep, and GB leveling, I have to wonder how many players, bored then and calling for change, are bored now? In the meantime, it takes newer players longer to achieve mastery of ge4.

It's not easy to maintain a balance making the same game fun and challenging for both new and long time players.

If suggestions involve adding new game content or mechanics, I am all for looking at them. Besides, don't you know that in the US forum "tax" is a four-letter word?

In my suggestion I mentioned that I'd like to see this introduce as a mechanic around PE. this was basically to address the issue you raise here. I believe that by the time someone has reached PE they probably arent a 'new' player and have a basic understanding of the game and its challenges as well as a strategy they've built. So it would only be able to affect those that are at least on their way to becoming well established.

Adding something like a tier 5 to GE however would increase the challenge for some of these high level players, but would have a more negative effect on those trying to compete in the GE guild ranks, by only growing the gap between what the high level players can accomplish in a week and the limits of the lower ranked guilds.

 

[Emberguard]

Actually plunder as I recall (it predates me) was forced on players as I'm pretty sure that it was implemented after the game began.

Pretty sure the game started with it, some of the oldest posts on the forums are “I got plundered”

What was definitely introduced later on was a restriction on plundering to prevent you being plundered until you unlock Military Tactics. When I started you could plunder straight out of tutorial

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Realism generally translates to "I would like the extra challenge I think this would bring" or "in my head space it should work this way". The 2nd is exactly zero reason for a change unless you are designing the game. The 1st still leaves you with my question of how it benefits the game which as you stated you don't see how it does.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Pretty sure the game started with it, some of the oldest posts on the forums are “I got plundered”

What was introduced later on was a restriction on plundering to prevent you being plundered until you unlock Military Tactics

Maybe. I was hear for the change to the tech tree and remember that. I vaguely remember being told about how plundering led to GBs being changed since the attacker couldn't be stopped as there was some holdovers that still were unhappy that their attack GBs got sent capped at 10 if i recall right (could of been a reduction in their boosts though it has been awhile since I had conversations about it).