Cottage Update

It seems the fact that cotters have the capability to hold 100 pieces of whatever they are collecting per 1 cotter while miners/herbalists/skinners can only hold 1 per 1 has been overlooked.

More cotters per cottage but less carry capacity would be the only solution to this, however i believe that the system is implemented as intended by the dev team. 

My thoughts on the concept presented

Cottage LvL 1 100     10     0 25     4p/h  : 1 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 2 200     20     0 50     8p/h  : 2 Cotter supported : Upkeep begins here and doubles as it grows or some such.
Cottage LvL 3 400     40     0 100   12p/h: 3 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 4 800     80     0 200   16p/h: 4 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 5 1600   160   0 400   20p/h: 5 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 6 3200   320   0 800   24p/h: 6 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 7 6400   640   0 1600 28p/h: 7 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 8 12800 1280 0 3200 32p/h: 8 Cotter supported
Cottage LvL 9 25600 2560 0 6400 36p/h: 9 Cotter supported
So on and so forth

Cotter start at a carry capacity of 50 and can only harvest basic resources.
Cotter will have a level two classification that gives them 100 capacity and a horse. Upkeep cost good and food.
In a combined Cotter + Caravan dispatch each will harvest their prospective resources until caravan capacity is full and will travel back and forth at caravan speeds.
Cotters are trained to become Miners, Skinners, and Herbalists. These special units can both harvest basic resources and their specific rare resources at a slower rate than Cotters. (Seeing as how they are also in a position to look out for rare resources) Upkeep cost gold and food.
Each guild will be required to support upgraded cotter units up to their prospective limits + 1 additional cotter per level.

Main map will only show resources as its basic element, Mineral type will have a mineral base picture, armor and weapons would have a battlefield picture, herbs will have a standard herb picture.
Rarer resources are then uncovered by proximity to towns and inter-related allied towns or by 'scouting' the prospective resource with some unit that is capable of appraising the resource, caravans and the like.
Herbs growth should also apply during every spawn time; Herbs are checked against its max number within each square and if it is close to max, it has X% chance of spawning in adjacent squares.
Make it to were two different cities can send caravans and cotters to the same square. Thereby allowing smaller towns to harvest at the same time as big towns.
Make it to where sending troops or camped troops does not automatically attack everything on sight. Make it a setting to allow troops to standby or only attack under certain circumstances.


For bigger accounts/players:
Just make it to were the gold/food cost of maintaining a massive cotter, specialist, and caravan force is so high that the player has to choose between maintaining a military establishment or maintaining a trade hub or some combination of the two based on how many cotter and specialist you choose to maintain.


Edited by Aeristal - 10 Feb 2013 at 06:41

Grainne wrote: I like the way it is now, as it does allow smaller accounts an edge.  It's a good balance and encourages trade.

Edited previous post to account for smaller accounts.



Edited by Aeristal - 10 Feb 2013 at 05:10

I think the game balance of cotters is brilliant. It allows new players to provide something of value in the trade system. Allowing level 20 cottages would make big players completely self sufficient. While that might appeal to the big players (as it does to many in this thread), I think it ultimately just isolates new players even further. People using alts as gatherers are missing the point--cotters encourage trade for basic herbs and minerals. That's how I started in Illy. If I had been stuck just leveling resource plots slowly or begging for basic resources, I would have left this game in the first week or two. I say keep the system exactly as it is, because it's working great!