The New Guide - Are you kidding

[MeIkor]

Core game mechanics (I am not a native english speaker so you can do a better job) that should be easy to find in your guide.
If someone understands this, he/she can play the game imo.

1.
Your maximum Population depends on the living space provided by your buildings.
Homes provide a living space of 35, every other building of 25, and an unbuild land of 15 units.
There are other factors like Science and Honor that also effect your maximum population.

2.
Your Population consists of: Peasents, Military, Thieves and Wizards.
- Peasents fill jobs and so generate money and make your buildings work properly
- Military defends your land and provides the opportunity to attack other provinces. There are different kinds of Military Units, see Section...
- Thieves defend your land against enemy thieves and provide the opportunity for espionage and sabotage Operations.
- Wizards defend your land against enemy Spells and provide the opportunity to cast offensive spells.

3.
- You need gc to train Peasents to Military Units or Thieves. You need gc to sustain specialized military units. You do not need gc to sustain simple soldiers, thieves or wizards.
- Wizards are trained for free and automatically, if you have build Guilds. The more Guilds, the more Peasents are trained into Wizards.

4.
You generate gc by building banks and fill jobs. 25 Jobs are provided by every building but homes. Homes do not provide Jobs.
If you have less peasents than jobs, some jobs are unfilled. Unfilled jobs do not provide income. A lot of unfilled jobs will reduce the effectiveness of many (but not all) buildings.

[Korp]

Get rid of the wiki, and tweak every formula in the game a bit so people are forced to actually figure stuff out again. Leave the guide, it's fine. The old guide, that we got along fine with for years, really had nothing in it except race bonuses and elite values...maybe some building numbers.

Part of the fun back then was figuring out what was the best race (or combo when personalities were introduced). There is no figuring that out now. You plug numbers into an excel sheet, and you know what is best. It's really quite blah.

Wouldnt bring in new players would just entertain old players that like that **** :P

[Goodwitch]

as far as I am aware :

there are no plans to get rid of the wiki
wiki links in the guide will be added as well as mini videos showing the interface and explaining how to use it and original art work
there is a new layout in the works that will hopefully be everything that it needs to be, attractive and functional for its needs.

the guide purposely avoids numbers and formulas whenever possible, those will be linked (it's much harder than some may think to find just the right place to link to)

the wiki is getting an overhaul sometime soon to make it easier to navigate

This project is not a "this is how we always did it" nor is it an "Old stuff is stupid we need all new stuff"

in really positive news we found two more artists willing to donate their skills and time , or rather they found us :)

[Darkmoore]

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

[Sephi]

Thank you for your reply!
I quote "Growing your lands"
"As our esteemed leader, it is up to you to find a balance between our economy and military that works for our goals. Too many peasants means a smaller military presence that will open us to heavier attacks from our enemies. Too big of an army means that our peasants are unable to generate in the income needed to pay them."

Do you notice something?
There is nothing about growing your land. It is a strategy/tactic hint for someone who does not know what you are talking about. Someone who does not know where the connection is between growing your land, economy, military, peasents, etc.
You only understand this introduction when you do not need to read the guide. The guide - as it is - seems to be full of this writing from people who know the game to people who know the game. It is full of strategy hints before you explain how the game itself works.

Thanks we will forward it and work on it :) It is this kinda feedback we need. Because after all writing a guide with dozens of ages under your belt is difficult for you take everything for granted in your head. Retracing that to what you wanted to know in your first age playing is tough, so we need your kinda feedback :)

[Shockwave]

Wouldnt bring in new players would just entertain old players that like that **** :P

The wiki isn't bringing in new players. There are plenty of smart, new players that could figure them out as well. The problem is nothing needs to be figured out, there's no mystery to the how things work when I can just go to the wiki and learn all of the formulas. I actually think the wiki hurts the community by discouraging interaction between players.

If a new player asks for help, we just point them to the wiki and never hear from them again.

No wiki and new formulas does a couple of things imo
1.) increases player interaction
2.) puts everyone on the same foot as far as game mechanics. I personally think the game would be more fun if there was ANYTHING to figure out...and there hasn't really been a new "strat" since someone came up with the homes pump, or the soldier def oow land/honor whoring. And the soldier ball NW dropping is a disease on the game. The game has been relatively the same since they nerfed dicing =P

[Korp]

The wiki isn't bringing in new players. There are plenty of smart, new players that could figure them out as well. The problem is nothing needs to be figured out, there's no mystery to the how things work when I can just go to the wiki and learn all of the formulas. I actually think the wiki hurts the community by discouraging interaction between players.

If a new player asks for help, we just point them to the wiki and never hear from them again.

No wiki and new formulas does a couple of things imo
1.) increases player interaction
2.) puts everyone on the same foot as far as game mechanics. I personally think the game would be more fun if there was ANYTHING to figure out...and there hasn't really been a new "strat" since someone came up with the homes pump, or the soldier def oow land/honor whoring. And the soldier ball NW dropping is a disease on the game. The game has been relatively the same since they nerfed dicing =P

Its not the type of players these days, the game would lose even more players. What would be left would be us stubborn nerds.

[Wiliest]

Im not playing this game currently, but have played it off and on for many years. An old KD mate contacted me and told me about all the changes going on and that the game had new owners, so I figured I would pop in and check things out. First off, I think the new guide is a great start and thank all of the people who volunteered their time to get it to this point. However, I think some extremely critical information is missing from the guide that I strongly believe should be added. I understand that the guide's purpose is to gently introduce players into the game without all of the heavy math aspects being thrown at them, but what I would like to see added doesn't really have anything to do with that. I think a more thorough explanation of what exactly a "Kingdom" is is currently missing from the new guide and should be added ASAP.

The most unique aspect of Utopia is the heavy teamwork dynamic the game possesses. It might be the most teamwork oriented game in existence. The possible impact a single player can have is quite small compared to other games, and if you want your province to be a successful one, your Kingdom has to not suck too bad. If your Kingdom is a mess your province will not ever get very far no matter what you do. I think a lot of players fail to see or understand this, which leads to a lot of internal strife in many ghettos that accept new players, or players who do not have a very good understanding of the game.

Furthermore, one of the first things people like to know when looking for a new game to play is, "is this a solo game, or team game"? In other words, is this Starcraft, where I can play by myself and not be impacted by anyone else's decisions, or is this LoL, where the decisions of other players will directly affect my gameplay?

In addition, I do not think a good enough job was done explaining the levels in Utopia. There are mentions of Island and Kingdom sure, but what are these things and why do I as a new player care? A through explanation of this your province, the thing you directly control, this is your Kingdom and why its important to you, and this is an Island, with a small example thrown in of a province name and location X:Y where X is the Kingdom number and Y is the Island number would go a long way.

As people will inevitably skip most of the guide I would definitely put this info within the first 2 sections,and before "Kingdom Politics", so it has a higher chance to be read.