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    Your Elvenar Team

Living on the edge

My city is on the edge of an encroaching desert on my East and South with only a few regularly active players. Sometimes a few itty bitty cities land in my neighbourhood, but are unable to reciprocate with neighbourly help, only to vanish in the mist a few days later and become gold mines.


Details:

1) When visiting a goldmine, we offer the thirsty dwarf toiling there, a tankard of cold strawberry beer. Grateful, he offers to repay us with help, effective immediately. (There is already a small building under the mines.)

A popup, similar to the App for Neighbourly help, would appear offering 4 choices of help to our city: Main Hall, Builder's Hut, Culture polish, or a visit to the Dwarven Outpost Trader.

The latter would enable us to make one immediate 2* trade for Standard Goods up to a total of 10 per day.

These visits are limited to 25% of the scouted provinces in a city. If there are still goldmines available, the option to visit for gold only is still available. For browser convenience, the allocated visits to Dwarven Goldmines could be included to the Neighbours tab in the Province Overview of the world map.



Benefits:
Receiving help of our choice when surrounded by inactive cities and Goldmines.
Having more than 105% culture bonus.
A trader is immediately available to newbie cities in the desert.
It becomes fashionable to live off the grid.
Decimating tickets to Support re moving.

Cons:
Cannot think of any.


2) Reverse the Neighbourly Help system.

When visiting a neighbour, we receive immediate polishing to our choice of Main Hall, Builder's Hut or Culture.
The neighbour then has the choice of using our help when it suits them to their own preference.
The golden handshake would still apply. It would not affect the Archive Neighbourly Perks.

Benefits:
Control over when and what type of help is received irrespective of time zone differences.
Receiving help when team mates away on holidays.
Receiving help from smaller cities who are too far to reciprocate.
Receiving help from all our neighbours!

Cons:
Only to lazy neighbours who cannot be bothered!


All the above can be automated by having a checkbox in the Game Play tab or Profile section where Neighbourhood preferences are listed 1, 2, 3, and 4 with a default if they are not checked.
 
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Genefer

Well-Known Member
It is crazy, the number of players that live within the fringe and are so affected that they post in the forum, yet the issue is entirely disregarded by Inno developers.

Yes, I know "someone has to live at the edge of the map" though it is more accurate to say off the active map. If the developers are incapable of creating a globe eliminating goldmines and removing dead cities from the server, they could at least add automatic reciprocation for collecting from goldmines.

I also feel they should add a function that allows us to choose our neighborly help, because I often forget to look for the request from the player, and it would be nice to actually name our city, rather than use the space for messages.


As for active neighbors who do not reciprocate through their notifications - I just don't know how they can stand to see they have notifications and not open their notifications tab, and if they do view them well there are always people in every situation that are happy to receive, but too bothered to reciprocate. Really, it takes less than a minute for me to give neighborly help with 20 pages of notifications, but I guess that is too much to contribute to the neighbor whose effort has increased their city's production.
 

C-Nymph

Active Member
Yes, this seems like a great solution! It is so annoying to be on the edge, Inno should really make an effort to make sure they don't leave out/ignore these players. And this suggestion would do exactly that!
+1 from me!
 

Glandeh

Active Member
Even worse than the gold mines are the cities that do not appear in the neighbors list (on browser). Much harder to see than the mines, and you have to enter the city to give help, only to find that it's just a main hall under construction and perhaps one culture building that someone just polished before your visit.
 
Well, to refine option 2), when visiting a neighbour, one wouldn't need to enter the city and scrounge around at all! The option that comes up would be your choice of where YOU need help. The visit would then be logged for your neighbour to accept the offer of help to their own city when and if they desire.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
Really, it takes less than a minute for me to give neighborly help with 20 pages of notifications, but I guess that is too much to contribute to the neighbor whose effort has increased their city's production.
Although I agree with you that people should definitely reciprocate, I have to admit you are wayyyy faster than I am on giving neighborly help. I can't imagine doing 120 notifications in less than a minute, but maybe if I were a teen, I could.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I time my 100 and manage about 25-30 per minute so no speedy clicking occurs here!

I like the idea of an option when you are at the edge. In fact, I think I like the option as described even. Since nobody is home on the gold mines, let them at least be considered occupied. Perhaps placing a city there...a "dummy" city would make the programming easier and allow those places to also appear in your neighbor list? A dummy city would not open but would be clearly marked as a "Future City Site #" occupied, as you suggest by an "dwarf caretaker" who, in response to your hospitality is hospitable himself/herself.

Of course it would be nice to have more actual cities in those areas but this would at least solve one problem with living in the dessert. The other problems it won't solve are the dearth of trading partners, and the presence of inactive cities, but those are problems for another another day.

AJ
 

C-Nymph

Active Member
The other problems it won't solve are the dearth of trading partners, and the presence of inactive cities, but those are problems for another another day.
If Inno can make a complicated formula to calculate how difficult/expensive our tourney and spire encounters are based on multiple factors in the game, it should be easy enough to make a formula that expands the trading circle for people that live further and further away from the center of the world map, where it makes no difference how far you've scouted, because you won't find new neighbours there to trade with. These people should get a wider reach for trading.
 

Rythel

Active Member
I love this idea.

As someone who is currently on the edge with it fast approaching my city, I would love the ability to get more neighborly help.

The only Con that I could see with this system would be the increased time it would take to perform neighborly visits. This could, however, be solved by when clicking on a gold mine the same screen that you receive when giving a neighbor help pops up except it shows your own town where you can select the help you want. It then rewards the coins and possible supplies as well.

Fantastic idea!
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
I think you need to get it down to 1 idea to see how it will go if you want to see this progress. I am concerned both suggestions are somewhat complex to create and I kind of feel overpowered for a person on the edge. That would give my town a huge boost in visits beyond a standard town.

I actually think the best and simplest suggestion is to ask them to review the bonus from a gold mine. Gold mines give 1/2 the gold of a visit and was selected years ago. Since then lots of things have changed in terms of player movements, new wonders with benefits to visiting, etc. Now that someone has to be on the edge a review to see if they can balance gold mines would seem reasonable.
 

Count Rupert

Well-Known Member
I think you need to get it down to 1 idea to see how it will go if you want to see this progress. I am concerned both suggestions are somewhat complex to create and I kind of feel overpowered for a person on the edge. That would give my town a huge boost in visits beyond a standard town.

I actually think the best and simplest suggestion is to ask them to review the bonus from a gold mine. Gold mines give 1/2 the gold of a visit and was selected years ago. Since then lots of things have changed in terms of player movements, new wonders with benefits to visiting, etc. Now that someone has to be on the edge a review to see if they can balance gold mines would seem reasonable.
Actually we already get the same gold as a visit. So you're suggesting we stand pat. The scope of the problem is much bigger than goldmines. Goldmines are merely a visible manifestation of the bigger problem we can all point our fingers at left hidden. If you have goldmines it means you're at the edge of the map. It means in addition to goldmines you suffer with a significant number of inactive cities moved there to die. They thus free up locations for new cities to moved away from the edge where they started as they have priority. This means you constantly have a churning of cities in your neighborhood of cities being removed for inactivity and new cities being moved to locations so they can grow. So you have a significant portion of your neighborhood from which you'll receive absolutely no neighborly help. Those cities generate absolutely no trades. These cities are not as visible as the goldmines but put players on the edge are at a significant disadvantage compared to the rest of the players with more normal neighborhoods. I don't know about any of the other edge dwellers, but I'm not playing the game I thought I was playing. As I type this my city near the end of chapter 14 has 8 pages of trades (tier 1, 2, 3) while in another world my city just starting chapter 10 has 18 pages of the same trades. This is normal. The number of cities in my neighborhood is no longer increasing but as scouting times get longer I'm bound to start losing cities. To me, this game design problem. Given the nature of the map, you cannot help but have players stuck on the edge. They're apparently okay with having player disadvantaged by this given how long this has been allowed to exist. I for one am tired of being a second class citizen. Tired of the time and effort it takes to try and mitigate the effects of living on the edge. I play games to have fun and escape my real world. It's depressing dealing with this every day. I've come to hate Mondays when I get to see the new changes after move day. This week my goldmines increased by a third. Yeah, I'm not having fun. Time to move on.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
Actually we already get the same gold as a visit. So you're suggesting we stand pat. The scope of the problem is much bigger than goldmines.
Hmm seems they snuck that in there somewhere. That is at least something.

In terms of map edge the issues are:
  • Loss of visits - Coins and supplies
  • Loss of NH - Coins, supplies and mana. The culture bonus lost from lack of visits can vary a lot based on town and chapter which can mean indirect losses like T1 goods and KP or cauldron boosting
  • Trades
In terms of actions/suggestions to remediate players on the edge the solutions need to be directed towards these losses and not overly complex to code. The indirect losses and trades are quite hard to factor in due to variability or are likely to be very complex. I think the simplest solution is:
  • Address the coins and supplies (maybe we get full coins and 1/2 supplies value per mine, assuming 1/2 the people would return a visit)
  • Anything additional or extra should like be tied to number of gold mines collected. It is probably something they could track and therefore (hopefully) provide a trigger for every x gold mines collected a gift of compensation is provided. Something like the red/blue begonia fields with a benefit that is small, expires and similar to what is lost.
In terms of edge dwelling I have done more of it than most and more dire than most. I am currently on the edge with a lot of gold mines for some time now. I have also prior to relocations and goldmines been stuck in a canyon of desolation with 2 active neighbours of the maybe dozen towns in total. Fellowships are key to a border town as it is how you get your trades and some visits. With a decent fellowships trades is a non-issue. It is only visits as we are in an era of lots of vsitis.
 

Genefer

Well-Known Member
Count Rupert, is exactly right, the edge is a dumping ground for inactive cities, tiny cities, and goldmines.

The extremely low supply of trading partners and very low quantity trades as a result of the small cities is a serious disadvantage to a city especially for higher chapter city with 5 pages of trade offers ranging from 500 to 2500 units.


I do not think a building polish for collecting from goldmines will result in an overpowered city when considering the severe disadvantage.


My new location has 58 Goldmines and counting after spending close to a year on the other side of the map with goldmines totaling 123 by the time I was relocated.


I visited one of my cities that I have not entered in 9 months, and it is located well within the active map - no goldmines. Why, is a city that has not even been entered in 9 months even on the server?


It would not be difficult to remove cities that have not been active for 2 weeks off the server so active players are playing with a full deck. If they become active again move them back to the active server.
 

Sprite1313

Well-Known Member
It would not be difficult to remove cities that have not been active for 2 weeks off the server so active players are playing with a full deck. If they become active again move them back to the active server.
I have 87 gold mines around me, so I feel your pain.

Having said that, I think two weeks is a pretty short time; go on vacation and you get removed from the map?

Also, the challenge still comes with finding an exact match for your map configuration.

Personally, I think the idea of some algorithm to allow players in the desert to trade into undiscovered rings without trader fees is a good one. Of course, that means they will do something to nerf the Blooming Trader Guild, so a lot of players will probably end up unhappy. ;) Be careful what you wish for.
 
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Genefer

Well-Known Member
I only have one city on the edge but if I got a polish for every goldmine that would be a way better return than I get from actual neighbors.

Are they truly neighbors? If you have goldmines - you are likely surrounded by inactive cities, which are not neighbors.


1 - Remove dead cities from the server

2 - Create a setting to indicate when unavailable & expected time of return to hold map position throughout the duration of inactivity

3 - Edge/desolation players should be compensated for the burden endured - and if I have over a hundred goldmines and near equal number of dead cities on my discovered map - a polish is not extravagant nor endless even with over 100 goldmines I have to have 100 buildings to polish - the size & composition of the city will create a natural cap on the number of polishes possible.

Or

4 - Redesign the map to eliminate goldmines entirely. How? I don't know, but I do not doubt the developers are competent. and all these things we think require complicated programming would be rather simple for them.

Just because the interface is a map, does not require the backend programming to be so utterly simplistic as to have a single map - the programming does not have to be of singular dimension. It seems to me, the best - backend - method would be to create a cylinder of the hex - this would eliminate city movement entirely, because the scouts would move up and down the cylinder relative to position within the layers. The top & bottom 9 layers would have some blanks, but rather than a player have 100 or more goldmines there would only be a few to contend with.

Then the map could populate on the user interface as the player's active map - customized to represent the neighbors acquired within the cylinder.

It is so frustrating when I can't find the words to explain an idea lol
 

Alram

Flippers just flip
I think it my should be completely random. Only 25% of my neighbors visit. The neighbors polish whatever they choose and they choose when to visit. Perhaps 25% of goldmines could drop a random polish at a random time. If they pick the main hall and it's already full, the player would see no benefit just like with real neighbors.
 

Iyapo

Personal Conductor
Not all players visit, some visit occasionally, and some can not visit at all because I am not in their neighborhood, they are in mine.

My edge city only has 68 goldmines at the moment. If I could log in and polish all my culture before my first collection of the day, that would be spectacular. I could fill my Main Hall, spend it down, repeat. I could polish my builders, speed up construction and repeat. I like this idea.
 

Alram

Flippers just flip
@Iyapo

I'm imagining the rage quitting fit that would likely happen if you were moved from total godlike control of 68 goldmines to a regular neighborhood. lol :eek:
 

Iyapo

Personal Conductor
Honestly, I always thought people should be moved on the map based on how many visits they do. That way visitors would be surrounded by other visitors and players who never visit could be surrounded by players who never visit. I can see how that might hurt new players and small cities though....forever on the edge surrounded by baby neighbors who can not reach you or actives who don't visit.
 
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