Change in research section

[DeletedUser627]

All of which above leads us back around to telling KRen1 that the further in we go, the more integral fighting becomes.

I'm well into Orc Age, where negotiating costs quickly become 70,000 goods per province. By the time I get to round 4, that will increase to about 100k. Even with my 770% goods boosts, negotiating ability is limited. On the other hand, even if I fight poorly, I can win a province for 80 units (and that's a worse case scenario).

The thing I'd love to tell players who started in the previous few months is that new players are being offered quite a different game. If - and I do mean if - your goal is to eventually have a city like the the ones you see at the top, it's important to not follow the path that Inno is currently encouraging.

• We didn't have Wonders. We focused on building building building and working through Research. Now these new early Wonders are interesting buildings that

1. provide very limited benefit when at low level
2. when you put kp into Wonders, you won't progress in research as quickly
3. when you don't progress in research, you don't upgrade buildings
4. when you don't upgrade buildings, you don't produce more goods / units
5. growth of your city will slow down or stall

• We had more free expansions available. As you imagine, this was a big advantage. So now, it's more important than ever to maximize the use of the space you do have.
• We didn't have Tournaments. We used our units to gain expansions, or saved them so they'd be automatically upgraded as we progressed through Research.

1. Tournaments are a mixed blessing in early play. The extra KP they provide can be helpful with Research
2. But getting ahead in Research can produce imbalance - where's the advantage of getting farther ahead in Tech, if there's not enough goods or space or coin/supply to complete the new building / upgrade?
3. So, Tournament play is icing and cake...not meat and veggies! Better not to let it tempt us into thinking, "oh, I have this extra KP but don't need it for Research, so I guess I should put down a Wonder..."

I hope this post doesn't come across as though I'm advocating only one way to play. It's not advocating - just clarifying. Since the introduction of Wonders, I started browsing cities every week. The average rank score for cities in Dwarven and Fairy has decreased by over 20,000 points. This isn't important from some Achiever mentality - it's more that rank score indicates the manufactoring / growth strength of a city. So, if newer players want to build the strongest cities, the pre-Wonder playing style is better than the new game style.

 

[DeletedUser3695]

I understand how the dev of the research tree works, and why it is now compulsory to unlock tournaments, but I agree I am extremely unhappy to be stuck going back to do it. I have no intention of participating unless it becomes unavoidable, because fighting for me has been frustrating. I get stronger fighters and larger squads only to find I am still facing greater numbers of stronger enemies. I haven't found a fight I could win in weeks. I've stopped producing troops because I can't use them, I'm certainly not going to try out new ways to lose resources fighting.

 

[DeletedUser627]

If you plan to play long term, you might want to keep producing the fighters, especially Golem and Sorc for elves. During Dwarven and then Fairy, those units all get upgraded to III - which makes them potent. From that point forward, the fighting is much simpler to learn, and rewarding.

If you produce them consistently, by the time the upgrade arrives, you'll have thousands of troops and can have fun with them.

 

[DeletedUser3575]

Agreed on troop production - they're MUCH CHEAPER to produce before they are upgraded, but once you unlock the upgrade, your whole previously-produced army gets upgraded for FREE. Churn them out early while they're cheap, stockpile your troops, then suddenly you'll have an incredibly strong army a little ways down the raod!

 

[DeletedUser3097]

Skipping some of the technologies allowed you to "progress" faster than someone else who was touching all of the bases. You're not being "penalized" for anything. You could have gone back and filled in that box at any time, but you preferred to wait.

No, I'm sorry, I did NOT PREFER TO WAIT, I skipped it because I had no intention of participating, and participation was NOT REQUIRED. So, that said, I have gone in and "TRIED" a few tournaments. In all honesty, I don't see the benefits. What I do see is on the worlds where my resources are limited I can't even finish the research on the Tournaments so basically I'm just stuck. I guess I'll have to delete my games on those worlds, because I simply cannot move forward. And again, I am really NOT happy about this. It could have been handled so much better, and to not even have the courtesy to notify your player base that you implemented this, is beyond rude. I'm being reminded of why after playing WoW (World of Warcraft) from the beginning, I quit in the last expansion...the Dev's don't seem to care what the players want...I'm seeing the same thing here. And it really, really sucks, because I thought I had found a game that I could stick with, and now that ugly doubt is rearing it's head.

 

[DeletedUser2191]

No, I'm sorry, I did NOT PREFER TO WAIT, I skipped it because I had no intention of participating, and participation was NOT REQUIRED. So, that said, I have gone in and "TRIED" a few tournaments. In all honesty, I don't see the benefits. What I do see is on the worlds where my resources are limited I can't even finish the research on the Tournaments so basically I'm just stuck. I guess I'll have to delete my games on those worlds, because I simply cannot move forward. And again, I am really NOT happy about this. It could have been handled so much better, and to not even have the courtesy to notify your player base that you implemented this, is beyond rude. I'm being reminded of why after playing WoW (World of Warcraft) from the beginning, I quit in the last expansion...the Dev's don't seem to care what the players want...I'm seeing the same thing here. And it really, really sucks, because I thought I had found a game that I could stick with, and now that ugly doubt is rearing it's head.

Don't mind Katwijck, he's the mighty defender of the developers and think's nothing wrong with the way they are progressing the game. Also feels his ideas of how a player should proceed and build their city is the right way, which goes along with the thought process of the developers firing road block after road block at us, giving us no choice in how we want to build OUR city. I could go on more about his ideas but meh.

 

[DeletedUser43]

I have catered every encounter in every tournament so far

I think this depends on how high a level you are on. I am halfway through my available provinces on level one of the tourney and right now it costs 30,000 goods per province to cater. It gets even more expensive the further out I go. And the is level ONE. It would cost me millions of goods to cater every encounter in every tournament.

Druistar, I completely agree about how rude it was. I think they should send an ingame message around a week ahead of time telling people the change is coming. At least then we could prepare. It is very rude to give you no warning of something like that. And it would be so easy to fix.

@Muffin Is there some way you folks could send a notice around for when tech becomes mandatory retroactively? This is such a huge issue. Though, almost all of it is mandatory now anyway. But just in case it happens again? I think that would help a lot. Maybe just a mass message?

 

[DeletedUser2191]

@Muffin Is there some way you folks could send a notice around for when tech becomes mandatory retroactively? This is such a huge issue. Though, almost all of it is mandatory now anyway. But just in case it happens again? I think that would help a lot. Maybe just a mass message?

As far as forums go, they did release the maintenance/ patch notes 4 - 5 days in advance. In game wise there was no announcement. I'm pretty sure I have seen a suggestion about using the in game messaging that you see when you load in already made. Like when they tells us about The Contest or Summer Solstice events.

Maybe their message could include a link which takes us to the maintenance/ patch notes since a forum login isn't required to read threads/ posts. They already have the ability to put links in them, as we saw when they were looking for game and forum moderators.

 

[DeletedUser61]

the mighty defender of the developers and think's nothing wrong with the way they are progressing the game

There's a HUGE difference between what I think the game OUGHT to be, and what some of the other posters think the game OUGHT to be. It has very little to do with who is programming the game, but it has a LOT to do with how well the game is coming together.

to not even have the courtesy to notify your player base that you implemented this, is beyond rude. I'm being reminded of why after playing WoW (World of Warcraft) from the beginning, I quit in the last expansion...the Dev's don't seem to care what the players want

Be careful what you wish for. With the current approach we are seeing code that's fresh off of the presses. We OFTEN see "hotfix" updates, in Beta, that are implemented just a few hours before the production code goes live, when the developers think they understand a bug well enough to release it without further testing, RATHER than waiting for another two weeks.

InnoGames is actually better about providing prerelease notes, and timely information in the Wiki, than ANY of the other games that I've played in the past 20 years, including WoW.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Be careful what you wish for.

Or what? Do you understand the issue Druistar brings up? Your comment suggests you don't.

 

[DeletedUser61]

Do you understand the issue Druistar brings up?

The "or what" is that everything would be delayed for 2 weeks, or a month, SO THAT the developers would be sure of exactly what they'll be able to release.

With the current approach we're a full month closer to the bleeding edge, and that's actually the INTERESTING part of playing a real-time browser based game. If I wanted to play a game that had more of a finished polish, then I'd be playing a game where you buy another "upgrade" CD once a year, and if you want the bug fixes you have to download and install them.

Be careful that you understand what you're asking for.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Then you don't know understand. Ok. Let me explain it. Druistar is asking for a heads up. They test things on beta before they bring them to the US server. I always know weeks ahead of time when a change like that is coming and I tell my fellows about it. Even one week's heads up would be great. No one is asking for a month or more. There would be zero difference in the time it takes to do things. We were told a while ago that this tech tree tournament thing was being added. But we were told here, on the forum, buried in one thread. The information is available. The dissemination of that information is the problem.

 

[Mykan]

It was mentioned somewhere that the in game notice hangs around for a week and they consider it quite intrusive. While some players might prefer that i would hate the same message to appear for the entire week every time I log in, would drive me crazy. Failing that they post notices on the forum so anyone who would like to know can know. Perhaps in the future they can look at a better notification for in-game but for now they are obviously focused on other features/updates/bugs.

 

[DeletedUser43]

The same message doesn't need to appear for the entire week. You could simply send it as a mail message.