Legislation against the Shanty Town Season in Elvenar Cities

[Lelanya]

Lol I do not know for sure, but I can guess.
I would advise speaking to Helya if you are interested in opinions, because Forum staff often remove unauthorized polls.

 

[samidodamage]

I have no special info on this specific poll being taken down in this sub-forum, but I do know some history:
At one point very early on (and probably pre-helya, so not sure it's still applicable) we were advised to utilize the Discussion sub-forum for less than fully formed suggestions. Establishing polls there to narrow things down was easy.
It was always a judgement call, but the less specific suggestions basically identifying an issue and looking for input on a variety of possible solutions were referred there. Once it was whittled down to a more specific/manageable means to address the issue, it was brought to the Ideas/Suggestions sub-forum for a more formal polishing before being determined to be ready for an official voting poll here.

 

[MichaelMichael]

But the citizens in my city still loath it and are on the verge of revolting against me. I confess I converted previously nice places to live and work into ghettos in my greedy ambition to do well in the Fellowship Adventure. This created a huge homeless problem and unrest. I promised them I would work hard to restore their beautiful city once the FA is over, but we all feel the shanty towns shouldn't have been necessary. Teleporting or tearing down beautiful buildings to replace them with more ugly level 1 buildings only to reverse the process a week later gets old fast.

Why shouldn't Elvenar reflect reality. Slum lords are a fact of life. Ghettos are required - everyone is entitled to a place to live and where else would you expect the excess population to live? You liberals with your Star Trek utopian vision of the future and man's treatment of man. Grow up, Star Wars (or Blade Runner) is a much more accurate vision of the true dystopian future. These Hoovervilles with their prisons and workhouses are everything Ebenezer Scrooge knew and best reflects the true nature of man (and elf). As Marie Antoinette would say "let them eat cake!", which really means go out and get a real job, earn your keep and stop complaining. A rising tide raises all boat - hah! It is far easier to rise stepping over the dead bodies with growth fed off the endless (and cheap) labor of others. Feel happy that those mamby pamby soft squishy citizen in your city finally did a fair day's work for almost a fair day's pay. I like a good challenge every few months. Soft, your citizens are just soft. The guest quarter are circuses but make those losers in your city work every now and then for their bread. It is GOOD for them! ... and yes, your citizens are REVOLTING .... and they SMELL, too!

Honestly, I enjoy the break and the challenge of tearing down and rebuilding my city. Of burning every spell, time instant and goods and troops I can scrounge up to earn truly pitifully low rewards. The fellowship adventure is pointless and a waste of resources, but what it really is, is FUN. Allowing people to do what they would do anyway defeats the purpose. The FA is a waste of effort and resources, consequently it had a much higher probability for fun. The goal is bragging right, no more no less. I am an optimizer. I very much appreciate the change of pace. Don't change a thing - besides my fellowship is going to crush yours next time - we can and will waste more resources than you can begin to imagine. For that, we will earn reputation points and bragging rights. Sheesh, I think you are just trying to outlaw fun, honestly.

 

[crackie]

Soft, your citizens are just soft. The guest quarter are circuses but make those losers in your city work every now and then for their bread.

Except his "soft loser" citizens were on the team that just won the most recent FA...and the one before that...and the one before that...and the one before that...and the one before that...and...well, this citizen is too soft and lazy to go on.

 

[MichaelMichael]

Except his "soft loser" citizens were on the team that just won the most recent FA...and the one before that...and the one before that...and the one before that...and the one before that...and...well, this citizen is too soft and lazy to go on.

Not on my world (his fellowship has just 7 players) - but congratulations for him and his fellowship for a great performance on a different world.

Have you no sense of humor? The "fellows" did great, but if the "citizens" were complaining and threatening revolt, those elves and humans are soft. The leaders (the players or fellows) clearly rule with an iron fist!!!

Frankly my fellowship is the very opposite of a well-oiled machine. We will never win the FA, but we still have fun completing.

 

[crackie]

Have you no sense of humor?

None at all. They ran out. Supply chain issues.

 

[Zoof]

Shantytowns is all about emergent gameplay. We're playing the metagame, folks, and our elves simply despise it. Or have gone a little 'round the bend. All the human cities? Bah. We know they like it. Just like in real life

None at all. They ran out. Supply chain issues.

I got mine from a third party retailer and hoarded them like toilet paper and gasoline. Sometimes even at the same time in the same plastic bag!
Never you mind that said "Humor" is labeled "Made in China". It's perfectly serviceable and of good qua

 

[Palavyn]

Let me start by saying that I LOVE the new changes to the Fellowship Adventure.

But the citizens in my city still loath it and are on the verge of revolting against me. I confess I converted previously nice places to live and work into ghettos in my greedy ambition to do well in the Fellowship Adventure. This created a huge homeless problem and unrest. I promised them I would work hard to restore their beautiful city once the FA is over, but we all feel the shanty towns shouldn't have been necessary. Teleporting or tearing down beautiful buildings to replace them with more ugly level 1 buildings only to reverse the process a week later gets old fast. Also, producing resources in level 1 buildings seems rather pointless and is the opposite of what we should be doing to be successful; not to mention one public opinion poll revealed that Elvenar citizens hate working level 1 buildings. The City Council came up with suggestions and mandated that I post here.

1) Replace the requirement for the Blacksmith(or Farmer) badge from the 24-hour(or 9-hour) workshop production with producing a set amount of supplies (scaled for level as in the quest tasks).
2) Replace the requirement for the Elegant Statue badge from the 48-hour T1 manufactory production with a set amount of T2, T3, Sentient, and/or Ascendant goods (scaled for level as in the quest tasks).
3) Reduce the number of productions required for the other badges that are typically performed by level 1 buildings. For example, reduce the Carpenter badge from 10 to 5.

These changes represent moving away from activities that only help in the Fellowship Adventure towards activities that simultaneously help advance the overall game. It would significantly reduce the number of level 1 manufactories and workshops needed to be competitive.

THIS is my original post. I edited it in an attempt to reflect what players would like.

 

[Palavyn]

How many "No" votes get counted as "No" votes if there isn't any place to say "No"? You will get a skewed idea of what is popular if you only record the "Yes" votes.

Poll results were displayed as percentages. Participating in the poll adds 1 to every denominator. So if 10 people take the poll, and 6 select a particular option while the other 4 leave it blank, that item is scored at 60%.

 

[Alram]

What if 500 people took the poll and only 10 of them liked any of the suggestions enough to vote "yes" on any of them? How did it score the 500?

 

[helya]

I very much prefer the shanty town approach to Fellowship Adventures. Sure, there could be a few accidental deletions here or there, but that just keeps you on your toes. @helya , out of curiosity and if you're allowed to say, of all the building restoration requests that you get, what percentage of them can be attributed to "I misclicked while clearing out my FA shanty town" ?

Also, shanty towns signal to your populace that big changes may be coming soon. After all, if you've optimized your space to become the master slumlord, you now suddenly have space to stick things you otherwise wouldn't have thought could go there once you clear it out and make everyone jobless again. Or can get around to finally upgrading that one thing you've always wanted to. Urban renewal at its finest! Though your citizens might not see it that way...

This FA we got about 8 accidentally deleted buildings directly attributed to the FA

 

[Flashfyre]

What if 500 people took the poll and only 10 of them liked any of the suggestions enough to vote "yes" on any of them? How did it score the 500?

So your complaint is actually that Palavyn's poll did not tally the number of poll respondants, that it could only account for the people who chose a positive response (even from multiple options), since there was no negative option presented, correct? And that meant that the results were not accurate to the opinions of the masses, only to those who chose to take a positive stance.

The problem with polls is that they can be manipulated to provide skewed statistics, especially if the wording of the questions is biased.

 

[StarLoad]

This FA we got about 8 accidentally deleted buildings directly attributed to the FA

Only 8 does not seem like that many IMO.

Ed

 

[helya]

Only 8 does not seem like that many IMO.

Ed

Nope, not bad at all. We've had more in the past, but since the new hide buildings feature was added it's dropped dramatically.

 

[Palavyn]

Nope, not bad at all. We've had more in the past, but since the new hide buildings feature was added it's dropped dramatically.

There were at least 8 deleted buildings, and probably many more than 8. Many players probably didn't realize they deleted important buildings. Many others probably didn't bother to petition, maybe because you only approve one such petition?

 

[helya]

There were at least 8 deleted buildings, and probably many more than 8. Many players probably didn't realize they deleted important buildings. Many others probably didn't bother to petition, maybe because you only approve one such petition?

8 is substantially lower than pre-hide buildings feature. So while these things may be true, it's a fair marker. We used to get between 60-100

 

[Deleted User - 849411552]

I am in general agreement with the 5 suggestions as you have listed them in the current version of the first post,
Palavyn. You're original version of the first post was very amusing too.

I am in a somewhat neutral state about the Fellowship Adventures as they are now. I don't hate them or love them. I like the opportunity for the fellowship to work together. But the rewards are skimpy compared to the effort required, although they seem to be somewhat improved in the last couple of FAs (could be wrong on that).

My elven council's attitude is that we will not temporarily modify the city to accommodate fellowship adventures within our confederacy of 22 or so city states. However, our city does have permanent low density workshops and factories, as follows:

• 10 Level 1 Workshops for beverage production - these are the craft breweries
• 20 Level 4 Workshops for small production runs - these are the artisanal shops
• 22 Level 6 Plank Factories - these are small family-run woodlots

There is nothing "shanty" about small scale production. Both consumers and workers appreciate having a choice between large scale factories with mass produced goods, and less dense facilities that produce for custom and niche markets.

There is however a chronic shortage of usable land in our city, so even these small scale facilities are typically built to accommodate the largest possible production within the smallest footprint - with the exception of the craft breweries, which just operate more efficiently when at the smallest size.

I find that these permanent businesses are useful for Events as well as FAs. There seems to be either an Event for an FA running almost all the time, with perhaps a 1-1/2 week break in between? It seems counter-productive to tear down these small scale facilities, only to rebuild them again in a week or two.

A true shanty town would imply Level 1 residences, which we do not have. All purpose-built residences are high quality and high density, although some would say "tediously uniform". But many elves and others choose to have alternative life-styles and live in habitats, retreats, cultist facilities and wonders.

 

[Palavyn]

Not on my world (his fellowship has just 7 players) - but congratulations for him and his fellowship for a great performance on a different world.

I completely quit in all worlds but one about a year ago.

 

[Zoof]

A possibly unpopular suggestion: Make beverages, advanced tools, baskets of groceries, and toolboxes made from higher level workshops count more towards badges than dinky little lv 1 or 2 workshops. (e.g. a toolbox made in a lv 20 workshop counts as 4 toolboxes). Then ask the devs to do the hard lifting and fiddle around with the numbers and the sliding scale to discourage shantytowns and encourage some real quality. Or perhaps a highly-developed industrial park if the player is really wanting to go for it?

EDIT: And perhaps suggest some profit motive to Inno by encouraging people to buy magic workshops as a quick & easy way to go quality over quantity? Please don't shoot me for this

idk if this was suggested already; didn't reread the whole thread >.>

 

[Lelanya]

A possibly unpopular suggestion: Make beverages, advanced tools, baskets of groceries, and toolboxes made from higher level workshops count more towards badges than dinky little lv 1 or 2 workshops. (e.g. a toolbox made in a lv 20 workshop counts as 4 toolboxes). Then ask the devs to do the hard lifting and fiddle around with the numbers and the sliding scale to discourage shantytowns and encourage some real quality. Or perhaps a highly-developed industrial park if the player is really wanting to go for it?

EDIT: And perhaps suggest some profit motive to Inno by encouraging people to buy magic workshops as a quick & easy way to go quality over quantity? Please don't shoot me for this

idk if this was suggested already; didn't reread the whole thread >.>

Oh like the widely hated quests to 'make x amount 24 hr production from a workshop at current or previous level'. Grrr, wasn't that the Mermaid event, or was it the 3 Bears? I'm tired just remembering it. Oh, and nauseated, thanks to my buildings hanging over a cliff at the time!!
The only cool thing was the giant turtle. Good times, bad times. Wasn't that when Soggy quit for a while?