No third city

[joshofet]

Founding costs for a third city are massively higher than for the second city. While this may make sense for the game as such, there is no immediate rationale in reality, or it might be bribes .

A simple solution would be to have no third city at all enabled. Having a second city has an advantage since you can have all nine shops, but the compared to that the advantages of a third city seem minor, and add little to enhance the game experience ... I guess, since I don't have a third city

[Mia'cova]

Originally Posted by joshofet

Founding costs for a third city are massively higher than for the second city. While this may make sense for the game as such, there is no immediate rationale in reality, or it might be bribes .

A simple solution would be to have no third city at all enabled. Having a second city has an advantage since you can have all nine shops, but the compared to that the advantages of a third city seem minor, and add little to enhance the game experience ... I guess, since I don't have a third city

You're suggesting to limit cities to two per pharaoh because it's expensive to build the third one? Also, I disagree that a third city would only give minor benefit. I'll refrain from saying anything about what you say about game experience until I get my third city.

[Therlun]

Joshofet. I think you are underestimating the time this game is going to be played.

In a game that lasts months everything at first looks expensive.
But production capabilities will continuously rise and in two weeks the price for the third city will not seem like that much anymore.

In general I would support a complete expansion stop for all players, no new cities and no upgrading of levels. Everyone plays with the same potential.
I guess that is not what you had in mind though...

[deadlock]

Every extra city adds a lot to your capability to produce, sell and eventually build more cities. I like the fact that a third city costs so much, it gives the "disadvantaged" players a chance to catch up before the top players get to a 3rd resource.

[joshofet]

Not being able to build a 3rd city would increase those chances, but I wouldn't count on it happening deadlock . Good players are good because they can deal with such obstacles.

Since the ultimate purpose of this game, in game terms that is, has not been revealed, it could in principle continue forever. The actual purpose of this game, in player terms, I guess, is to socialize with other players. For that, I would expect a third city to be counterproductive.

Actually, Therlun, I am suggesting that players after a while would not be able to expand any further, at which the only expansion would be in the social network within, and possibly outside the game. That could be at the level of a single city, with little expansion possibilities, but my guess is two developed cities is a good compromise.

Although some players like to play competitively, CotN is not a very competitive game by nature, and I expect the majority of the players of Nile Online will appreciate a similar atmosphere.

[Mia'cova]

Originally Posted by joshofet

Not being able to build a 3rd city would increase those chances, but I wouldn't count on it happening deadlock . Good players are good because they can deal with such obstacles.

Since the ultimate purpose of this game, in game terms that is, has not been revealed, it could in principle continue forever. The actual purpose of this game, in player terms, I guess, is to socialize with other players. For that, I would expect a third city to be counterproductive.

Actually, Therlun, I am suggesting that players after a while would not be able to expand any further, at which the only expansion would be in the social network within, and possibly outside the game. That could be at the level of a single city, with little expansion possibilities, but my guess is two developed cities is a good compromise.

Although some players like to play competitively, CotN is not a very competitive game by nature, and I expect the majority of the players of Nile Online will appreciate a similar atmosphere.

On the contrary, having the city expansions encourages more interaction. You'll have to make more connections to acquire the goods needed. When a player is not able to expand further, they would've beat the game already. There's no incentive to play more. The social network thrives because of the need to expand and upgrade. Furthermore, you can't expect a market-based game to not be competitive.

[Therlun]

Originally Posted by Mia'cova

On the contrary, having the city expansions encourages more interaction. You'll have to make more connections to acquire the goods needed. When a player is not able to expand further, they would've beat the game already. There's no incentive to play more. The social network thrives because of the need to expand and upgrade. Furthermore, you can't expect a market-based game to not be competitive.

I disagree.
With people founding more cities interaction will slow down.
Players will keep up a few old connections to get the resources they cant produce themselfs, but they will have little incentive to interact with players they havent done so before.

Actually, Therlun, I am suggesting that players after a while would not be able to expand any further, at which the only expansion would be in the social network within, and possibly outside the game. That could be at the level of a single city, with little expansion possibilities, but my guess is two developed cities is a good compromise.

I completely agree with your interaction approach (I recommend my thread "long (!) feedback..." which also covers that topic... :P ), but I dont get how you propose removing the third city to encourage interaction, but want to keep getting a 2nd city (and building upgrading).
That makes no sense to me... you want to remove the stupid upgrading grind, but not all of it?
Why force players to upgrade for days or weeks before that at all?
Wouldn't an interaction based game that is designed to work that way from the beginning (without expansion and upgrading) work better in this regard?

[Mia'cova]

Of course, there will always be the trade partnerships with complementing resources. But other than that, you will have to send scrolls to more cities as the required goods increase.

For the third city expansion for example, very few cities are willing to trade you for the entirety of the required goods. Once they acquired what they need from you, they will trade someone else. Now multiply that by the number of different goods needed, that would be the number of connections you need and will make to accomplish the third expansion.

Of course, the more resources you have access to, the less raw materials or finished goods you have to trade for but with the growing number of requirements for those that you don't have, the need to widen your sources for also increases.

With this interaction approach, when you're at your upgrade limit, I can see no incentive and purpose to interact. I seriously don't know any multiplayer game that's completely social without any competition.

[Therlun]

Competition is great.
Competition with growing (production) abilities isn't.

[vic_4]

I think that with growing cities you need more interactions: just to found the third city, you need between 1000 and 1400 of allluxury goods but jewelry, not to say about bread, pottery bricks and basket, and so on for palace upgrades.
Certainely, when everybody will have 5 level 20 cities, trading interactions will slack down.

[joshofet]

Which is exactly why I think reducing the number of cities to two will enhance lasting social contacts. With the rate at which the beta is progressing, it will quite some time before we find out. Maybe a model estimate is needed to extrapolate.

[Azeem]

If the total number of cities is limited, then there also ought to be additional options for the city level. Perhaps there could be additional structures or "elites" that are necessary for the maintenance of monuments, but consume luxury and basic goods.

[Tinkerbell]

Say what?

Only two cities?

Uh NO!

PS The 3rd city is NOT expensive. Reed lowered the price of the 2nd to help players who believe they got a bad starting position.