Wasn't the talk about using Kp's spent on AW's as the metric in that regard?
There are tons of possibilities, now that construction crews are clearing out and allowing us to get on with the possibilities of a functioning world.
- The developers have already indicated that the Knowledge Points contributed to your Ancient Wonders will become part of your score.
- As we currently lack any sort of scoring contribution for map activity, other than more expansions and thereby more decorative Manufacturing Buildings, I would not be the least bit surprised if success in the tournaments contributes to your score.
- Similarly, FoE recently added Goods Used to their ranking formula, and doing so would neatly address the problem of folks who have stacked up SO MANY goods that they don't even bother to cycle their manufacturing anymore. I can think of a great many ways to burn up more Goods, and I'm happy that the Copper Mines, and now the Day and Night Buildings, are demanding secondary goods.
- Maybe some of the Checkpoints will tuned for negotiation, while others will be tuned for combat, and if you can't do BOTH, you'll not be able to score well in the tournaments. There's NOTHING that says the checkpoints need to be, nor even should be, balanced the same way as the original provinces.
- Or maybe it will be more akin to a Scavenger Hunt, or killing Dragons, or making offerings to the Woodland Deities. Or all of the above.
- The tournaments probably won't be boring, and the entry level checkpoints don't need to be anything like the end game checkpoints. The check point structure is WIDE OPEN for creative "event" style activities. Easter Eggs anybody??
To me it's pretty obvious that the developers are not going to just stand by, and allow picturebook cities to dominate the scoring. That said, our Achiever class ENJOYS the Steeplechase that InnoGames has provided, and it's no small feat to squeeze every last point out of the available space. The Achievers will always "win," because that's what they enjoy doing.
So the real question is NOT if the Achievers will always win, because they always will. The real question is how to balance the game such that "winning" indicates that you have a vibrant, well-balanced city that's worthy of emulation.
but could you talk/sorta vaguely address my question about:
I think that gaining Rune Shards by acquiring provinces will continue to fade in importance. I have all four of the current Ancient Wonders, in a couple of different cities, and I have plenty of Rune Shards to cover my needs.
- Rune Shards exist in the Provinces mostly so that the FIRST FEW Ancient Wonders of each type can get started, and even then anybody who is willing to spend 200*9=1800 Diamonds can immediately throw up a new Ancient Wonder. 30 seconds after they unlock the related technology they'll be building a new Ancient Wonder, to which other folks can contribute and thereby win the related Rune Shards.
- Ancient Wonders will probably contribute to your Rank by simply adding up how many Knowledge Points have been contributed to the Ancient Wonders in your city, by whomever for whatever reason.
- There's no reason to think that Ancient Wonders, nor the related benefits, will be capped at 10 levels. In FoE we have Great Buildings with more than 100 levels, and every 5th level is likely to require another 18 Rune Shards of the appropriate type, which isn't a problem, in my view
Here's the activity for a pretty typical day in the Forge Point club that I manage in FoE, for about 40 participants. Once a building is targeted, it rarely takes us more than 3 days to level it.
There's PLENTY more that we'll be able to do, in Elvenar, now that we've moved into production mode.