[Suggestion] Get rid of 'building' buildings

from Elemental Forums

Loving the beta so far.

One thing I have been struggling with is city development.  It seems... bland.  The part I love most about them is when they raise a level but that is few and far between.

My suggestion is to get rid of manually building buildings.  A city would have 2 modes.  Training and Growth.  When a city is training a unit, it does not grow - this is the tradeoff between development and expansion/protection.  Sort of like civ 4 when you build a settler.  Now take the city leveling system and make it happen a lot faster - you might build 25 buildings in your capital over the course of the game so instead you would have 25 levels, each level basically giving you a 'building'.  You could even have levels 5,10,15,20, etc be your 'wonder' levels where your population makes something truely amazing.

Say in a normal game you build a lumber yard and an inn followed by a settler (around 20 turns).  The new system would have you grow for 5 turns - level up!  Now you can pick a building to build.  Maybe you will pick that lumber yard which gives a bonus to growth rate - wood for new houses and all.  Maybe you get a rare option that you don't really need right now but youll take it because its rare... maybe you don't get a building option that you wanted and this sets you back a bit or forces you to alter your strategy.  Then you grow for another 5 turns - level up!  Now you can pick your inn which increases growth AND training times.  Now time to build the settler for 10 turns which means you sacrifice any growth for that time.

I think a system like this would both simplify the current system (and reduces micromanagement! - I don't know about you guys but once I have 5 cities it starts to become a chore, and I LIKE micromanagement!).  More importantly I think it would be fun - it mimicks the hero leveling system more which is I think one of the brightest parts of FE.

4,316 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

While i find this suggestion interesting, it is unrealistic to think that they will change the game so drastically over the course of beta.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I could get behind the installation of a per city "Governor" city-building OPTION, with military-growth-gold settings.

 

However, making the cities auto-build removes one of the fundamental qualities that make these turn-based conquest games what they are. The CHOICES, the ability to micro manage your empire in various ways to achieve different results. Setting the city/empire aspect of this game to auto as the standard setting pushes it that much closer to being MOO 3. Nobody wants that.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Actually david suggests how you can incorporate choices into this approach to city development.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Goldseeker, reply 1
While i find this suggestion interesting, it is unrealistic to think that they will change the game so drastically over the course of beta.
End of Goldseeker's quote

I agree.  Just had the thought and throwing it out there.  I wouldn't think implementation would be that bad though, as the leveling mechanism is already there.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Malsqueek, reply 2
I could get behind the installation of a per city "Governor" city-building OPTION, with military-growth-gold settings.

 

However, making the cities auto-build removes one of the fundamental qualities that make these turn-based conquest games what they are. The CHOICES, the ability to micro manage your empire in various ways to achieve different results. Setting the city/empire aspect of this game to auto as the standard setting pushes it that much closer to being MOO 3. Nobody wants that.
End of Malsqueek's quote

With respect I don't know where you got auto-build from thats not at all what I said - you are still picking improvements.  One could make the point that Stardock has done a great job moving the hero system OUT of the realm of auto advancement to more micromanagement, and I love the result.  This just moves the city dynamic closer to the hero dynamic.  Gets rid of some of the less interesting micromanagement.  I am all in favour of micro - as I have said 3 times now I LOVE the hero micro, but it needs to be micro for fun, not just for the sake of micro - Let's be clear building the same buildings over and over again until you have no more buildings to build is NOT fun micro.  In fact I submit the argument that the current system is a lot closer to 'auto-build' than the one I propose.  After all, if you're building the same things over and over again in (roughly) the same order, is that really making choices?

I can't remember the thread but I did read about how the devs were looking for input on what city buildings could be axed - from this I got the impression that city management might be regarded as a weak spot, or needing to be streamlined a bit?  (Maybe I'm stretching here - I couldn't find the thread this was mentioned and my memory is not the greatest at times).

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think just making improvements more significant to the game can be done by increasing the number of effects they have on the city. They should be harder to get and require more of an investment due to increases in abilities. They need to be forcing the player to make interesting choices. I also think an upgrade system for most buildings is a viable way to keep them useful in the endgame. Deleting improvements in favor of leveling bonuses is tantamount to throwing away a potentially vital game aspect. Why not have the citylevelup give some bonuses and fix the Improvement system to boot?