I originally put this in the small gripes thread, but I think this is more of a major gripe.



I think more parlay and more search quests need to directly involve more players than one, and I think quests need to spawn at random involving the entire game or at least two players in competing interests. For example:



You search a ruins and it tells you that you find a small party of X sub faction there. The quest says you must guard them until they reach their destination. They move 2 tiles per turn, and have to move across 2-3 zones so maybe 15-20 turns total of movement. Every other player then gets a quest saying that this small party has loot and treasure. If they kill it they get 300*era dust, but if the original player completes it and they are safely moved they gain 500*era dust.



Quests like that would break up the tedium of mid game and plant down real sizable rewards for leaving your home base. Maybe they even just randomly are introduced. Every 20 turns the game just throws a random quest down on the game that'll last for 20 turns. Maybe it adds a king-of-the-hill matchup and whoever remains on the hill the longest gets rewarded. Maybe a quest that for the next 20 turns whoever kills the most gets a reward.



The game every 20 turns can roll on how severe the quests will be. A quest where you just have to play king-of-the-hill? That's a low severity quest. A quest where you have to kill the most major empire units? Medium severity. A quest where a random city is chosen as the target and it must be defended/destroyed (the player who had their city chosen and all in alliances with them have to defend it, everyone else has to destroy it, rewards are significantly larger for the defending player.)



And for players who want more immersion maybe some quests that are specific factions. Vaulters and Necrophage seem to have some fued, so maybe add some fuel to that fire. Maybe on turn 35 a necrophage settler is discovered in a zone between the two players and the vaulters must kill it, but the necrophage must guard it. For saving it the necrophage get a free settler, but for killing it the vaulters gain say 50*era influence. Things that would make the game world feel alive and not everything is your doing. The Broken Lords are supposed to be the good-evil race, so maybe they can get a quest dealing with that. What if the Broken Lords get a quest where they have to suck the souls out of a city (reducing it's population by 50%) but the other players have to stop them.



I'd also like to see reinforcements coming in the way of alliances or peace. For example, if I see a necrophage army is storming a player's city I can "reinforce" the city and add my army to the reinforcements of the defending player. That would greatly increase the feeling that peace and alliances matter. Additionally, I'd like to be able to call allies for help on quests. I'm playing Wandering Clans and I need to destroy this city? How about I spend influence and ask a player I'm at peace with if he'll come help me. Necrophage are attacking me? Why can't I ask the Vaulters for some help?



Random ideas for competing quests/universal quests:

First player to kill a city wins.

First player to kill 20 units wins.

Half the game gets a quest to defend a minor faction city, half the game gets a quest to kill it.

A Wandering Clans merchant is going to give everyone 500 dust, but if you kill him you gain 1000 dust.



What about player created quests?

Wandering Clans players can spend influence give a quest to all players that after 10 turns the player that bought the most in the market will have 30% of their dust refunded.

Wild Walkers can spend influence to give a quest that for the next 10 turns the player that moves the most through forests will have a giant werebear attack them.

Drakken can spend influence to give a quest to two players at war that whoever ends the war the fastest gains a free drakkenling.

Etc.

Sounds more like alignment quests. Although cliché, would be nice if EL had full alignment system.

An alignment system adds a lot to 4x games if it's properly implemented. Civ5's alignment system was ehhhh simply because of the huge punishment levied on the losing factions, and the fact that it assumed there would be two competing superpowers, AND the fact that by late game there simply wouldn't be enough civs left to be pawns for the big empires.



If EL could pull of an alignment system and have us-them questlines it would really add to the mid game and take away some stagnation .



However, ignoring an alignment system quests that simply pit players against each other would also be cool.