What I want to discuss here is the way other games have a lot of their systems intertwined, and so far EL is lacking in this regard.

In Civ V (not about to pitch that this game should BE CIV, just a comparison even the devs have used) they connect all of their systems together. A high production means you can make more science buildings, which in turn boosts the rate at which you unlock new techs that improve your production, culture, religion, and even diplomacy with some wonders.

In EL, you can unlock techs that help your food production, your science, your industry, your dust, and influence, however, there isn't really a lot of interplay between these outside of maybe the empire plans, and the fact that food massively increases the rate at which you generate the rest, however there isn't really a lot of interesting play in the way that food relationship works in particular.



What I am hoping can happen is some changes to the tech tree that hopefully include A: more techs, B: more non-building techs, or maybe a researching the buildings gives passive boosts?



Changes to the industry mainly in terms of increasing building costs, currently it's WAY too easy to build everything besides VERY late game stuff, and industry needs to be better at building stuff than dust, dust currently is stupidly good, as putting your people to dust to buy out a building is often times better as there is no "+3 industry per population worker thing," which either needs to be added, or industry just needs to be buffed ahead of dust, or dust nerfed behind industry (I think the latter, but that's unimportant).



Taking a city needs to not be so clean, currently you take a city, then laugh as you just got a fully developed city that has buildings you CANT EVEN MAKE YET! The following would make the game a lot more interesting, and more balanced. When you take a city, you get the option to A: plunder it gaining food stockpiles and dust, but destroying a few random buildings, as well as all buildings you have not researched and angering the populace. B: Leaving the city intact, unable to get any bonuses from the buildings you don't have researched, but gaining a bonus to science depending on how much more advanced they were than you, however this bonus would be small so as to make it a real decision.



This would allow the following,

Strategies along the lines of building a new city alongside plundering an enemies, allowing you to quickly put those food stockpiles to good use if you want to go for a quick expansion game.



Or, leave it intact if you have been attentive and somehow noticed the enemy is more advanced than you, or if you recognize that the downside of the unhappiness might make plundering the city not worth it.



On a different note,

In terms of military there currently is a kind of awkward balancing style. As far as I can tell, all infantry get a bonus vs archers, all cav gets a bonus vs infantry, and all archers get a bonus vs cav. Everyone gets a bonus vs their counter, which is HIGHLY counter intuitive, and makes Cav kinda op because they innately counter archers and can ignore the archer unit's bonuses cuz they can just insta-kill them, and they beat infantry due to the 33% bonus vs them, which gets EVEN WORSE when base stats stop mattering b/c of high lvl equipment.



Plz, give any thoughts you might have back, and though I know some might disagree, let's keep the debate kind!



Thanks for reading!

I'm really missing where Civ does a better job than EL...

A high production means you can make more science buildings, which in turn boosts the rate at which you unlock new techs that improve your production, culture, religion, and even diplomacy with some wonders.

Exactly this is happening today in EL:



Food makes and maintains workers that can be assigned to produce Industry, Dust, Science or Influence



Industry makes City Improvements that can boost any FIDSI, and military units.



Dust is used for upkeep, but extra can be used to rush City Improvements, Units as will as buy resources and Heroes on the marketplace



Science researches techs that can boost any FIDSI.



Influence can be used to create an Empire plan which will boost Dust, Science or other items it is also used for diplomatic actions



There are some pacing issues and generally you get too many resources at the moment, but I just don't see how you can say these systems don't interplay.

I didn't go into detail that much in my original post, but I'll try to now.



In civ you had culture, culture was used to unlock policies that would give bonuses to other things, like food, science, more culture, or military.



In civ techs were not ONE building, which made them far more interesting as it resulted in the player NOT being able to focus solely on 1 building type, in EL if you don't need more production b/c your dust spamming, you don't need to research those industry buildings.



In civ production MATTERED because wonders couldn't be bought, in EL you can just dust spam, which is far better no matter which way you look at it. It also, alongside gold, allowed you to make the common buildings which supported your generation of the other things like culture and faith.



In civ faith allowed you to make a religion, and choose bonuses that could conform to the playstyle you were going for in that game.



In civ gold could be used for trading, in EL as far as I can tell you use influence for that.



In civ happiness brought about golden ages, which were interesting as you could time other sources of income and stuff to occur as they came in, which was another source of connection in the systems.



This explicitly explains how civ does this, which isn't by any means how EL should have to do it, but what interplay in the systems does EL have that civ does not (besides maybe the military being a help towards pacifying villages which allows you to choose minor faction bonus)?



Currently it's basically optimal to rush science and dust, and have just enough food to keep population up. Ignore industry, and ignore influence until late game, and then just buy your armies and buildings.



Do you disagree with any of that, or is your point more that EL does not need all that? Your post was fairly brief so I can't really tell.

I presume in your vision on capturing cities that the building would still show in the interface but with some sort of padlock icon on it. You don't gain a bonus from it and also don't pay the maintenance to run it. However, once you develop that tech, you only need to activate the already constructed building.



I like this concept.



I think there is a fair amount of inter-relationship between the techs and buildings now. More industry means building upgrades faster. More food grows your population. Research allows you to construct those upgraded buildings etc. Influence lets you run more or higher level empire plans. The connectivity is good. What is lacking is any real choices. Everything comes too easily.



Dust is as noted overpowered. The further a project is from completion, the less efficient buying it out should be. When you think about it, the concept of an instant buyout, though a staple to 4x games, doesn't even make good sense. I don't care how much money I throw at a project, they still can't build that city wall overnight.



The most a buyout should be able to do is cut construction time in half with a per turn dust cost equal to your industry.

Dalwin wrote:




The most a buyout should be able to do is cut construction time in half with a per turn dust cost equal to your industry.

I think this is a great idea, if the cost in dust was based off the cities industry, that would make the system a lot better, and soldiers should be cheaper to buy than buildings. Furthermore, buildings should be a buy only when your loaded, mercanaries need to see a huge cost reduction, and heroes a slight increase.

One of the best examples of interconnectedness in Civ 5's mechanics is the Trade Route mechanic. International Routes grant science if the Faction has different techs researched than the originator, in addition to gold, and beyond that they give religious pressure, cultural pressure ("tourism"), and a positive diplomatic modifier (which even works fairly well in MP!). Not to mention that one can send Internal Routes that provide a great source of food or production, which means interesting choices from the get-go. Systems like this would be greatly welcome in EL.

The trade route system from civ5bnw was indeed great, good stuff to copy.

Other than that it is not so bad with connection in EL (ignoring alpha state for a while), there is some interaction with FIDS and prestige.

Problems:

- tile (land0 FIDS are generally low in comparison to workers, and there is not much ways to improve it, so there is no connection with land you are on (rivers are the nice exeption).

- there is not as much technologies, and some of them are not working (trade/diplomacy), while otherwise are pointless (siege), and others just weak in comparison (like quarry vs foundry). There is lack of no-building technologies, or technologies which buff old buildings. I havent notice if research price depends on empire size, so there is not much need to invest in science.

- Buyout makes things a bit too easy, the price of buyout is too low, and it feels weird, adds to snowball. The idea of buyout only speeding up production is interesting. There is enough things we can do with dust, and stockpile should work as buyout.

- After capturing enemy city, there is no resistance time, which is very weird.



I do not feel a need for culture, prestige, minor factions, and empire plans did it quite well. Also technologies could be as policies. With good balance, you can;t grab them all.



Note about Civ5BNW: policy system looks great, but most games ended with tradicion+rationalism, maybe with dip to Patronage. Aesthetism being useful only for one victory condicion. And 5 others being mostly gimmicks. The same way with civ5 religion, just grabbing whatever left, and what gives happiness, or at least some bonuses. So very complex system can result in very simple play, and not as much decisions to make.



In EL0.4.8 there is something wrong with worker based dust production, around age III there is several very stron dust buff buildings, and it is easies to buff per worker dust with glassteel trinkets, and policy.



In EL high happiness brings you happiness bonus (for fervent) at least to food, maybe it is connected to some buildings. So it is not that bad.

@Seek, exactly, glad to see someone agrees with me :/



@lynxlynx, I know what you mean, in that there were optimal ways to do everything, but I feel that it still added something because in EL so far it just does not feel like if I were to go all out science that it would ever get around to helping my other resources. If you start a city that has only science tiles early, you will get no where, and subsequently lose (this is kinda a bit absolute, so maybe take it with a grain of salt). I feel like this is a problem, but it could just be me, idk.



I'm tired (really tired D: ), so I bet a lot of what I said in this tiny post made no sense...