The current system that the game uses to discourage early and frequent expansion (Prestige) is far too much of a paper tiger to actually accomplish this purpose.
First, I will explain my understanding of the prestige system and why it works in theory:
* Prestige is a flat quantity that determines your growth rate across your entire empire. Whether you have one city or several, you are assured that X number of citizens will join your empire per turn per prestige point.
* As you expand, your prestige ranking will remain the same, thereby dividing your growth bonus (people per turn as dictated by prestige) among your expansion cities.
* Expand too frequently, and you will have a fractional prestige ranking per city, thereby stifling your growth.
Now, let's look at the other systems in the game and how they lessen the influence of prestige:
* There are city improvements that add flat bonuses to growth rate to offset a lower prestige rate. This grants higher, cumulative, growth rate bonuses to empires with multiple cities.
* Cities often reach their "food" limit well before the player is able to research technologies that improve food production. When a city reaches its food limit, prestige loses all relevance.
* A large proportion (50% - 99%) of a city's production is tied to the "material" rating of the city's "square" rather than population size. Expanding improves empire-wide production rates.
* Gildar production buildings can be placed in cities at levelup. Expanding improves gildar revenue.
* Research is tied to population-size and a level one spell (inspiration) grants +1 to research for each city that you cast it on. City expansion improves research capabilities.
Currently, the player with the most cities in the early portion of the game has a substantial lead on his or her opponents.
Now, I believe that there should be bonuses to players that have more cities than their opponents; however, the current bonuses for city spam completely preclude the possibility of a player turtling in three cities and pulling off a non-martial victory. Here is my suggestion to make smaller empires more competitive in the game: add additional bonuses for keeping a high prestige ranking. Here are a few ideas to accomplish this.
- For every point of prestige over the number of current cities (Prestige - number of cities), add the following percentage bonuses to the entire empire:
` +10% production
` +10% research
` +10% gildar production
- For every five points of prestige over the number of current cities, temporarily remove upkeep costs for one military unit (highest wage, first).
- For every number of cities over the current prestige total (# cities - Prestige), the player gets a percentage penalty to the following:
` - 5% production (corruption)
` - 5% gilldar production (corruption)
The numbers can be changed to account for balance issues, but these are some possible expansions of the prestige mechanic that could allow smaller empires to remain competitive to the larger, expansive forces. Your thoughts?
