What if I choose not to do the military part?

[Debbie216]

What if I just happily play away, building, trading, upgrading, another new city, trading some more, ad nauseum.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression, from perusing the forums, is that the main objective of military units is conquering monument sites in your own nome (and possibly other nomes, I am a bit unclear on that part) and building pyramids. From what I have read it seems very expensive, both to first equip units and then to actually build the pyramids.

So what if I have no monuments sites for me? Do I have to have pyramids?

It would not enhance the game for me in any way unless there would be profit in it. Will play be penalized in some way or is the military just an "added feature" for the people who want it?

Cannot I just go about my business and profit from other's war-mongering ways?

[Peribsen]

What if I just happily play away, building, trading, upgrading, another new city, trading some more, ad nauseum.
Then the evil grammar nazis will come and yell at you for not spelling ad nauseam correctly :(

The military feature isn't remotely done, from what I can tell, but it does seem that you will be needing soldiers for your own protection at some point. Usually, in situations/games such as those, there is some period of protection from harm for newer players.

[shasamrat]

Your cities will never be attacked by other players, so far as has been indicated yet. However, advancement past a Level 11 palace requires limestone, so you'll either need to acquire it yourself (with military) or trade for it. It isn't clear yet how willing monument-holders will be to trade for a good that requires so much effort to obtain, so it may be as expensive to maintain an army as it is to buy limestone on the market or through trading.

[draines]

Cannot I just go about my business and profit from other's war-mongering ways?

From what I have read by the developer, the military portion of the game is entirely voluntary. So yes, feel free to go about your business and ignore this part of the game.

PS. My spelling is the source of constant derision by my friends. Please ignore the spelling police!

DRaines

Xantuc
Benevolent Ruler of Houston, Albuquerque and Mineral Wells

[CppThis]

Added feature. Monuments produce limestone, which you need for high level palace upgrades, but it is a market item so if you dont want to do military, you wont really be penalized or anything as you can buy what you need.

[Debbie216]

thanks for the replies, and DRaines, thanks for the work you did on the spreadsheet, which I have on my desktop for easy reference. And, while I try my best to accomodate the spelling police, I don't mind a ticket every now and then...

The answers have confirmed what my take on the military part was (thank you all), but the part about limestone being needed for palace upgrades was something I had not thought of. However, I am still a few weeks away from a level 11 palace upgrade and I don't mind sitting back and getting fat on trade while others work out the bugs!

[Leperous]

Aside from limestone, the probable rank-bonus, and something else to spend bread/resources on, no-one really knows what monument sites are for :)

So it's really too early to tell whether or not you'll need to raise your own army. Both because the information is not out there yet, and because playtesting will probably change its nature.

[Caesar Clifford]

Looks like it will affect your rank a lot if you don't have a monument.

And I do have a L11 palace. Doesn't look likely that limestone will appear on the market for a long time at an even reasonable rate so my chances of a L13 don't look likely.

[Tinkerbell]

Correct. Owner gets limestone to upgrade Palace. Friends get limestone to upgrade theirs. Limestone then used to build Pyramid. Selling waaay down the list.

[Deguar]

Correct. Owner gets limestone to upgrade Palace. Friends get limestone to upgrade theirs. Limestone then used to build Pyramid. Selling waaay down the list.

Owner will typically have three palaces to upgrade. Although we still don't know yet it seems likley that limestone will be extracted at a similar rate to any other luxury resource. A level 7 resource facility, which would take you a good few days to actually build, would still only be cranking out 52 limestone an hour. Close to 64 hours to produce the limestone for three palaces, then you actually have to build the monument. Again we don't kinow yet but it would be unsurprising if this is a fairly huge resource sink for limestone on the scale of at least a 11 palace construction.

I don't expect to see limestone on the market for at least two weeks and it will take many weeks after that for sufficient competition to start trending the price down to the point where you can actually afford to buy the 3+k you will need by then.

Limestone in palace construction appeared to have been a deliberate roadblock to stop anyone getting past level 11 before military came in, but as long as limestone remains in palace construction military is not optional. It also completely destroys the 4 luxury good cycle for palace upgrades, so there will be even less demand for perfume/cosmetics/sandals/sculptures than there is now. Especially with the huge roadblock that trying to find limestone will become.

Deguakay
Hetephinushr of Raka (59N) Sandals and Leather
Rakheben of Amunsesh (49N) Sculptures and Bronze
Rawaset of Setger (80N) Jewelry and Gold

[Hottenshot]

Then the evil grammar nazis will come and yell at you for not spelling ad nauseam correctly :(

The military feature isn't remotely done, from what I can tell, but it does seem that you will be needing soldiers for your own protection at some point. Usually, in situations/games such as those, there is some period of protection from harm for newer players.
:eek:espelleting ize doas spellet weal msot of teh tmie:p

[Mnemon]

Limestone in palace construction appeared to have been a deliberate roadblock to stop anyone getting past level 11 before military came in, but as long as limestone remains in palace construction military is not optional.

The question is if limestone is necessary for upgrades after you passed the roadblock. If yes, if the amount increases. If no - the regular cycle could continue (with maybe another limestone roadblock before reaching final palace level).

-Mnemon