Observations From An Old Player

[evoL]

Hey I used to play this game pretty seriously a long time ago and recently decided to create a new province just to mess around and have fun. I wanted to share some things I have found that can maybe be worked on to make the game a better experience for new and returning players.

1. The game is not fun or interactive for new players. I knew I would be autofilled in a ghetto, that’s not the problem. I thought I would be able to grow and try to see how fast I can grow. The answer is unfortunately I’m basically stagnant. I picked Faerie thinking I would do some paradising, with the thought that growing through attacking from a ghetto late in the age would be a risky strategy. Unfortunately, I get maybe 1-2 acres per tick in the explore pool and paradise pulls out of the explore pool, making it basically useless for me, so I’m limited in growth to something like 24-48 acres/day at just 700 acres. It’s pretty slow and boring. I think the explore pool and paradise need tweaking. I remember times when a good player could build a good sized province even in a ghetto. There might be a lot of old players who would play for an age or 2 just to get that thrill of growing a province again. With whatever is limiting my explore pool it feels impossible. Is it based off your kingdoms attacks? Is it intentionally limited later in the age? I think it should be tweaked to allow for growth even in ghettos.

2. Activity requirements. My first day oop my peasants penalized me for only logging in 5 out of 24 hours. That seems ridiculous. I’m honestly pretty active since I can quickly log in from my phone now.

3. Votes for monarch. We managed to briefly elect a monarch in my ghetto until some new provinces joined, now it is basically impossible. And with aforementioned issues with growth it seems like a major long shot for a province to get to half the kd net worth. Is there some way to make electing a monarch easier in ghettos?

4. Sciences. I could be wrong, but the current science system seems like if you don’t start your province right when the age starts you have zero chance to catch up to even crappy players due to the amount of books you receive being tied to how many books the scientists have generated already.

It may just be that I don’t understand how the game works anymore, and that is definitely true to an extent, but I think that is valuable to my observations. Maybe the experience is great in a full kingdom and these are just ghetto problems, but I don’t remember the ghetto feeling this limiting before. I’m just a couple days oop and feel like there is basically nothing to do with my province. I don’t think that’s what you want from old players like me coming back to mess around and have fun and especially not from the occasional new player. There’s nothing that’s hooking me in and keeping me interested. On the bright side I noticed some great qol changes since when I last played: the in game irc, all the tools and calculators being a part of the actual game now and not separate programs, looks like Munk’s tools and babysitting, etc. aren’t dirty little secrets held by just the top kingdoms anymore. If nothing changes, any suggestions for growing in a ghetto? I might give it a shot when the new age begins and see if it’s any more satisfying.

[Drunk Dragon]

Hey I used to play this game pretty seriously a long time ago and recently decided to create a new province just to mess around and have fun. I wanted to share some things I have found that can maybe be worked on to make the game a better experience for new and returning players.

1. The game is not fun or interactive for new players. I knew I would be autofilled in a ghetto, that’s not the problem. I thought I would be able to grow and try to see how fast I can grow. The answer is unfortunately I’m basically stagnant. I picked Faerie thinking I would do some paradising, with the thought that growing through attacking from a ghetto late in the age would be a risky strategy. Unfortunately, I get maybe 1-2 acres per tick in the explore pool and paradise pulls out of the explore pool, making it basically useless for me, so I’m limited in growth to something like 24-48 acres/day at just 700 acres. It’s pretty slow and boring. I think the explore pool and paradise need tweaking. I remember times when a good player could build a good sized province even in a ghetto. There might be a lot of old players who would play for an age or 2 just to get that thrill of growing a province again. With whatever is limiting my explore pool it feels impossible. Is it based off your kingdoms attacks? Is it intentionally limited later in the age? I think it should be tweaked to allow for growth even in ghettos.

2. Activity requirements. My first day oop my peasants penalized me for only logging in 5 out of 24 hours. That seems ridiculous. I’m honestly pretty active since I can quickly log in from my phone now.

3. Votes for monarch. We managed to briefly elect a monarch in my ghetto until some new provinces joined, now it is basically impossible. And with aforementioned issues with growth it seems like a major long shot for a province to get to half the kd net worth. Is there some way to make electing a monarch easier in ghettos?

4. Sciences. I could be wrong, but the current science system seems like if you don’t start your province right when the age starts you have zero chance to catch up to even crappy players due to the amount of books you receive being tied to how many books the scientists have generated already.

It may just be that I don’t understand how the game works anymore, and that is definitely true to an extent, but I think that is valuable to my observations. Maybe the experience is great in a full kingdom and these are just ghetto problems, but I don’t remember the ghetto feeling this limiting before. I’m just a couple days oop and feel like there is basically nothing to do with my province. I don’t think that’s what you want from old players like me coming back to mess around and have fun and especially not from the occasional new player. There’s nothing that’s hooking me in and keeping me interested. On the bright side I noticed some great qol changes since when I last played: the in game irc, all the tools and calculators being a part of the actual game now and not separate programs, looks like Munk’s tools and babysitting, etc. aren’t dirty little secrets held by just the top kingdoms anymore. If nothing changes, any suggestions for growing in a ghetto? I might give it a shot when the new age begins and see if it’s any more satisfying.

These are good observations.

This game is very off-putting to newbies.