20OCT10 - Moving Cities: Final Rules, Timing

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE & EVERYTHING
aka Where do I want to live? What will water do? How will Factions work? What will you change in the future?

This question is fraught with difficulty, and we can only offer advice.

The fact is that we will be introducing different functionality into Illyriad at later points, and this may change the 'nature' of the various map locations.

As an example, the East and West sides of the map may be opened out in the future to new terrain, and perhaps joined up with the seas and oceans in the south of the world. Or they may not.

As another example, the first release of Factions will have every faction as a static entity; so if you choose to situate your city right next to the Hub of the "Outlaw Bandits" Faction, nothing will happen and you will suffer no penalty.  However, at a later stage we may introduce some Faction AI whereby the Outlaw Bandits may roam around their area of the map, intercepting and ambushing trade caravans - and this *will* affect you (unless you make friends with the Outlaw Bandit Faction, of course).

As a third example, you might settle by some tidal sea because you really want to get involved in ship-building and naval warfare once they arrive - but when we actually come round to introducing navies we decide that there will be a difference between the types of boats you can operate on rivers vs tidal water vs sea vs ocean - and the ship you want to build is a deep-water ship bristling with ballistas, but you've built your city on a river and now feel anger that you can't build the ship of your dreams.

What I'm trying to impart here is that, as you all know, we are in a continuous development cycle of adding things to the game.

So the decisions you make now as to where to move your city will inevitably be decisions you're making without the full knowledge of what might happen in the future.  In most cases we too don't even know the mechanics of what we have planned to introduce.  In some cases we don't even know that we're going to introduce something at the moment, because we haven't thought of it yet.

Make plans for the now, and keep a weather eye on the future, but don't expect it to turn out exactly how you planned it.

This piece of advice applies to everything you do in the game - we try not to swing The Changebat Of Doom too often (sometimes its a Buffbat and sometimes its a Nerfbat; everyone has an opinion on what kind of bat it is), but we will be changing things, continuously, regularly and comprehensively - as that's what moves a game along.  All of us here in the dev and content team are gamers - we believe this is incredibly important to make Illyriad better than the rest - and so we really, genuinely understand the pain brought by a large release that affects a lot of the ingame world.  For many of us sitting on the other side of the fence has been quite an eye-opener!

There are a few "general principles" I'd like to impart at this point that may affect your planning of where to relocate to, or whether you want to relocate at all - but please bear in mind that nothing below is set in stone. 

Plan your city move based on the information here if you wish, but we're not guaranteeing anything.

You might wish to leave your city where it is rather than move it.  There are advantages for doing so in that the existing terrain you have directly around your city (and your sovereign squares) is likely to contain more diversity than somewhere else on the map.

THINGS THAT MIGHT HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER BEFORE YOU MOVE YOUR CITY

• NPC FACTIONS & TRADE SCARCITY
  
  We intend Factions to play a major role in Illyriad, and we intend them to ultimately have a very active 'learning' AI.
  
  Each Faction will consume different kinds of goods in different kinds of quantities, and will also produce different kinds of goods (regular goods as well as components for crafting, when this is introduced).
  
  Each Faction will have its own friends and enemies, and the more friendly you become with a particular faction the more your relationship with their enemies will deteriorate - and vice versa.
  
  Different Factions will have different levels of tolerance to outsiders (ie you).
  
  The "danger" to players from nearby Factions generally increases as you move further from the center of the map, though this increase is not linear.
  
  For example, The Council of Illyriad faction, located in the center of the map, is tolerant of all players and won't generally interfere in what they do.  However, if you settle your city right next to (eg) the far-North-East Hub of the Undead Faction called the "City of Eternal Damnation and Death to all Living Things" then - when Faction AI is released - you shouldn't be surprised if your life is more difficult because of your choice.
  
  When we release Factions onto the map we will provide brief descriptions of each Faction, what the Faction stands for and who they generally like or dislike.  We will specifically mark those Factions that are best avoided because they hate everyone, although we strongly recommend that you use common sense regarding factions nearby your relocation point.  An Elf who settles next to a Goblin Hub Capital City is likely to be sorry in the future.
  
  
• WATER FEATURES & NAVIES
  
  Some of the things we hope to do are:
  
  Introduce restrictions on the type of ship or boat and the kind of water it can traverse.  For example, small fishing boats might operate on lakes and tidal water, but not seas and oceans; or Barges might only operate on rivers and lakes.
  
  Introduce canal-building (the "road of the water") to connect up previously unconnected rivers and lakes - although this will be a fairly major endeavour.
  
  Allow Sovereignty claims on water features, and introduce NPC squares on water, and we do intend on introducing fishing, whaling, oyster farming and a wide variety of other maritime and freshwater possibilities.
  
  Introduce Siege capable ships - though we're not anticipating introducing amphibious warfare, so you won't be able to Storm and Capture or Storm and Raze from a ship.
  
  Armies will not be able to occupy, siege or blockade from water tiles - although ships will.
  
  Before you all rush off to the sea/river/island there are also downsides to consider; some of which I will outline here:
  
  We do intend sea monsters, shoals, reefs and whirlpools and the like, as well as weather conditions from squalls and fogs and possibly up to hurricanes.  Being on the water is a dangerous business, and for those people who don't like "unforeseeable events", the water isn't necessarily a good place to concentrate on.
  
  We intend to introduce a slew of new buildings for maritime purposes.  Shipwrights, ship building yards, harbormaster's offices, docks, dockside warehouses, lighthouses and so on.
  
  One thing I can guarantee is that anyone and everyone who wishes to run water-based units (boats, barges and ships) will need to devote *at least* one town plot to this purpose. 
  
  A player who just needs a few boats to carry his trade units across a river probably won't need more than a single "dock" building. 
  
  On the other hand, a full-fledged trading port with access to rivers, tidal waters, seas and deep (ocean) waters, who wants to use his town as a kind of transport "hub" - loading and unloading goods and passengers, collecting taxes & tolls from other players who use the facilities etc should probably plan on committing more than half his city to this purpose.
  
  The moon will affect tides, and tides will affect what you can and can't do on water (depending on ship type) - as will a day/night cycle mirroring the server clock.  Moving a ship to a port at midnight (if the port doesn't have a lighthouse) might be inadvisable.  And yes, before you ask, we are sympathetic to player's timezones.
  
  If you choose to be on an Island, you will - ultimately - have additional logistical considerations.  For example, to engage on the mainland you will need to board a ship with units and then disembark them.
  
  
• TRAVEL TIMES & TERRAIN
  
  Pathfinding (in this context) is a mechanism by which your travelling units will find the best path from point A to point B.  At the moment, all units travel linearly, directly across the map to their destination, but in the future they will find their own path.
  
  We intend to allow players some control over the paths their units take (setting waypoints for example, or areas / players to avoid whilst moving).
  
  Once pathfinding is introduced, your choice of terrain and the terrain your units pass over will affect movement speed.
  
  The effect that terrain has on movement speed will follow common sense principles.  Crossing a very high mountain range will take a lot of time.  Going through the thickest, densest jungle will take a lot of time.  Walking across some low hills won't take too long, and crossing plains will be fast.  Boat transport will be the fastest of all.
  
  We do intend to introduce road-building (of various types of road, from dirt tracks to paved highways, all with different movement speeds), and we also intend to introduce canals and locks (also of various types and speeds).  These will be expensive and will require maintenance - probably in the form of Sovereignty.  Roads will substantially increase movement speed.
  
  We intend to introduce the option for you to charge tolls to players who use your city infrastructure (roads / canals / ports).
  
  For those in powerblocs (clusters of cities right next to each other), I should mention that moving through or over cities will be painful - taking an army through a busy city isn't going to be a quick process.  Cities in the center of powerblocs will have movement speeds (inbound and outbound) severely curtailed, whilst the units cross the surrounding cities.
  
  
• TERRAFORMING
  
  We do intend on introducing some abilities to terraform, so players get the ability to change the terrain around them.
  
  Some terraforming will be manual labour, and others will be magic-based.
  
  Changing terrain will cost astronomical amounts and will take a very long time - depending on what you want to do.
  
  For example, sending out woodcutters to fell an entire forest and turn it into plains will take less time and be cheaper than planting a forest, managing/tending it - and letting it grow into Light Woods.
  
  For more dramatic terrain changes, there will be a set of spells in the geomancy school for these purposes.  These spells will cost astronomical amounts to cast, and will take huge amounts of time.
  
  It is anticipated that you will only be able to "shift" terrain one step at at a time.  ie Plains to Small Hills, Small Hills to Large Hills, Large Hills to Small Mountains, Small Mountains to Large Mountains.
  
  The one thing that needs to be made clear about Terraforming is that it is not something we want to become the norm for players to do instead of settling where they want to be and/or moving cities.  The costs and time to terraform will reflect this - for example, think timelines to terraform a single square in terms of weeks and months rather than days and hours.
  
  
• FUTURE CITY MOVES (AFTER THIS ONE-OFF FREE MOVE)
  
  We intend to introduce some form of "moving your city" in the future, which will partially enable a "nomadic" existence.  The precise details of this are (as is everything in this post!) still not finalised, but one thing is for sure - cities will be penalised for moving, and the penalty will grow with the city size to move.
  
  You can't expect to pack up a L20 Forge and move it, but you might be able to pack up a L5 Forge and move with it.
  
  
• FUTURE MAP CHANGES
  
  We're still changing the map.  We're detailing areas that we want to craft in specific ways for specific purposes.
  
  Most of these changes are to far-flung areas, but please be aware that any and all areas of the map will be changing - and possibly changing radically - for the foreseeable future.  It is, after all, a living and breathing world.
  
  We don't intend to change a) terrain you're settled upon, b) terrain directly N, S, E, W of your city, and c) terrain that you have claimed Sovereignty on.
  
  Once we've enabled City Moving we will try and keep changes to a minimum - however, there will inevitably still be parts of the map we'll be making alterations to.  We'll try and minimise the impact of these changes.
  
  We are also going to be introducing a wider set of standard world map tile types, to break up the monotony and busy-ness of some of the new topographic areas with more interesting features and variation.  These tiles will mostly be cosmetic variations, and the underlying square won't change (in most cases).
  

I hope this helps you understand some more about the future, and helps you see where we're going with other things.  Please bear in mind that we expect that very few of the items listed above will occur during 2010, so this is a very, very far-looking heads-up.

Most of all, I hope this reinforces that we're at the beginning of the process of changing the world from a catapillar into a butterfly - it's a living world and it's a changing world, and there is as much wisdom as there is folly in trying to predict what the future will bring - but it will all, definitely, be worth it in the end.

Best wishes,

GM Stormcrow

I'm kind of disappointed about this. I can't move my other cities anywhere close to my main one because it's within 10 squares of some random players. You should be able to move your cities directly adjacent to yours regardless of how close any other active players are.  

Miksu wrote: GM Stormcrow wrote: One FAQ that I should mention: If you want your city to interact with water in the future (launch boats, cross oceans etc) it needs to be placed next to the water it wishes to interact with. What does "next to" mean? I have my city touching water from one corner. Is my city then next to water?

Yes. So long as your city touches water in any one of the 8 squares around it, that's "touching water".

will there be a diffrence between tidal water and sea ships? like will there be ships for tidal water, and then ships for sea ships, or will they both go together?

EDIT: add shallow sea water ships also. will there be diffrent ships for each type of water?

Edited by rebel5360 - 18 Oct 2010 at 21:58

rebel5360 wrote: will there be a diffrence between tidal water and sea ships? like will there be ships for tidal water, and then ships for sea ships, or will they both go together? EDIT: add shallow sea water ships also. will there be diffrent ships for each type of water?

Ships and Maritime things are a long way away (Q1 or Q2 2011) so these details aren't anywhere near finalised.  But yes, different kinds of ships ships will have different kinds of waters they can enter safely, and some of these ships will cross different sea types.  There will also be opportunities for players to "dredge" different shallow sea squares, and thereby change their type to a type capable of supporting larger bottomed ships.

Best,

SC