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Moving Cities - a heads up 16SEP10

Printed From: Illyriad
Category: News & Announcements
Forum Name: News & Announcements
Forum Description: Changes, patch release dates, server launch dates, downtime notifications etc.
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=1037
Printed Date: 17 Apr 2022 at 22:06
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Topic: Moving Cities - a heads up 16SEP10

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Subject: Moving Cities - a heads up 16SEP10
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 16:21

MOVING YOUR CITIES - DATE TO BE CONFIRMED

We've had a number of questions about what the mechanic will be for moving cities once the biomes and faction seeding have been completed.

WHO CAN MOVE CITIES?
All cities belonging to any player up until the point we have finished releasing Factions onto the map, which is expected around the first week of October. We will give at least 24hrs warning before the cutoff.

WHEN YOU RELEASE IT, HOW DO I MOVE CITIES?
What we're doing for the "free relocation" offer is a grant of a one-shot Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportation spell, granted with the completion of the biomes and factions.

Prepare to Cast the Spell:

All your units must be at home - you cannot have any units abroad. This includes trade units, diplomatic units, or military units attacking, occupying, reinforcing or whatever

You must have cancelled all your trade offers

You cannot have any reinforcements in your city

You cannot be under siege or blockade

You will auto-rescind any sovereignty claims you have from that city when you teleport, and any Sovereign Square Structures you have built will be lost

You must cast the spell within 4 weeks of being granted it; it's not something you can save up for a rainy day :)

You cast the spell from your Castle Summary page

Casting the spell:

Will not cost mana or resources

Will take time to cast, and the time taken to cast will have a minimum time, and then extra time depending on size of city. We're anticipating somewhere between 3 and 48 hours for smallest to largest cities. You will be told of the casting time before you cast.

Whilst the spell is casting you cannot dispatch units or accept trade offers, and you can be attacked. Your troops will defend as usual

To begin casting the spell, simply press the "Cast Tenaril's Spell of Ultimate Teleportation"button which will be on the Castle Summary page

When the spell has completed casting:

You will be able to enter the co-ordinates of a square to teleport to.

You will need to do this very carefully. If you miss out the minus sign and end up in the wrong location, or make a typo in the X|Y co-ordinates, there is no undo button and we won't be accepting petitions about mistakes.

The target square you choose cannot be within 10 squares of another player who is either a) neutral, or b) is in any alliance other than yours - though you can put your city next to another player's city in your alliance, or one of your own "other" cities. You also cannot target a square that has someone else's sovereignty claim on it.

Exceptions to this rule are:
you can settle near another non-allied player's town if it is at zero population and the player has not logged in for a period of one week
you can settle near another non-allied player's town if it has more than zero population but the player has no logged in for a period of more than 4 weeks

Press the "Check Destination" button, which will tell you whether the square is a valid location to teleport your city to. If it is not, you will need to enter a new destination.

When the system is happy with your intended destination, a "Confirm Teleportation" button will appear. Pressing it will take your city's underlying terrain, units, buildings, technologies and resources (basically your entire city) with you, and instantly arrive at the destination

Any inbound units to your city that has now "teleported" will be instantly returned to their owning town (and the units' owner will get a message explaining this). This includes any sieges and/or blockades that have been set up at your town since you began casting the spell

Please note the following:

THIS IS NOT YET LIVE
It's not live yet, and we will give at least 48hrs warning before we intend to put this live.

We won't be putting out the warning for a few weeks, as we anticipate this is how long it will take to get the factions seeded onto the map.

THE DETAILS ARE UNCONFIRMED
We might discover there are things we've missed out over the next few weeks, and so this is subject to change.

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

Replies:

Posted By: scottfitz
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 16:52

What about sovereignty squares for the moving city, will they be lost, or will the claims have to be rescinded in order to move? Can a city move to a square that has a sovereignty claim?

Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 17:50

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.

Isn't this a little bit unfair? I mean, why should I be punished by some "kill everything that's not an orc" AI faction just because you guys decided to place it next to my city? I'm sure whe nyou do release them, they'll be made so they have to be an X amount of squares from any given city but if the closest AI faction to my city is going to hassle me for being a dwarf simple because of the place my city randomly spawned, I'm not going to be very happy.

As for the rest of the planned update, don't you think this game is getting a little too complicated? At some point you need to stop and realize this is a game and not real life. Do we really need to suffer travel complications due to terrain it passes over and needed boats to move it across a river that spans for like 400 squares? Do my boats really need to get swallowed up be a hurricane? It'd be one thing for a boat to die to a sea creature because it wasn't properly defended but when things that no one can control are destroying things, it's not fun.

Every time I read a preview for an update I cringe at how complicated you guys are making the game. I think you guys need to work on either "dumbing" the game down a bit or making extensive tutorials. At this rate, no one will be able to tell the difference between a bug and a complicated chain of event.

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:26

Brids17 wrote:

*snip*

Isn't this a little bit unfair? I mean, why should I be punished by some "kill everything that's not an orc" AI faction just because you guys decided to place it next to my city? I'm sure whe nyou do release them, they'll be made so they have to be an X amount of squares from any given city but if the closest AI faction to my city is going to hassle me for being a dwarf simple because of the place my city randomly spawned, I'm not going to be very happy.

*snip*

Every time I read a preview for an update I cringe at how complicated you guys are making the game. I think you guys need to work on either "dumbing" the game down a bit or making extensive tutorials. At this rate, no one will be able to tell the difference between a bug and a complicated chain of event.

1. You have the option to move, after factions are placed down. The further away from the center you are, the more likely you are to encounter hostile Faction AI.
And, they will not be immediately hostile when they first come into the game.

2. There are are other games if you want 'simple'... plenty in-fact... and the GMs have been good at clarifying between bug and feature when asked, including explaining the feature too.
Leave it to the players to find the workings of this new stuff.

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:36

Brids17 didn't seem to read the post very well or he didn't ask the right question. In most cases we will know where the factions are and will be able to move away from hostile ones. There is one case in where his concern has merit however. What if we settle a city right now and it turns out to be next to a hostile faction? We won't be able to move it. The only immediate solution I can think of is to wait until factions are seeded to settle any more cities, but how long is this going to be? I don't want to wait a month or more to settle my next city. The only thing I have to go off of is that the closer to the center the safer. So what's a safe gamble then? 10 squares away? 100? 200? Could we have a little more advice on what to do with cities placed after 9/14?

Posted By: waylander69
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:37

Great notice on the city moves and updates, it sure helps to know the possible outcomes of moves now rather than later.

If people do decide to move what will be the distance limits to another city in terms of squares as i can understand people not wanting 5 or 6 cities landing on their doorstep.

I take it if someone moves a city they will lose all sov levels or will the be transferred over with the new city to a square of similar settings.

Again thanks for all the work that goes into making a game like this as it cant be easy keeping even half the people happy some of the time let alone all of the time.

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:38

oh one more question...Will the seemingly forgotten military quests come with the factions release?

Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:38

Agree completely with Zangi there are plenty of simplistic games out there that get boring because they go no were, yes the changes seem drastic and confusing but that keeps the games interesting and offers new challenges to keep people playing long term

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:42

If people do decide to move what will be the distance limits to another city in terms of squares as i can understand people not wanting 5 or 6 cities landing on their doorstep.

10 squares as mentioned in the limits of the city teleportation spell. I mean this in the nicest way, but people, read the post carefully. He spelled it out pretty clearly.

Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:47

Shrap in the post it mentions moving cities, other than the 1 time off spell, so you will have a chance to move new cities, built after 9/14, just not for free :P

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:48

scottfitz wrote:

What about sovereignty squares for the moving city, will they be lost, or will the claims have to be rescinded in order to move? Can a city move to a square that has a sovereignty claim?

Good questions, and I'll add the answers to the main post.

Yes, you will have to rescind your sovereignty in order to move.

No, you cannot move to a square that has a sovereignty claim on it.

Best,

SC

Posted By: Thexion
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 18:52

Of course you can settle your city next to your current ones.. or quite close to other players. but othervise there might be dragons. I appreciate the randomness and all the options =) I wish there be more and dragons also. ;)

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 19:10

Brids17 wrote:

Isn't this a little bit unfair? I mean, why should I be punished by some "kill everything that's not an orc" AI faction just because you guys decided to place it next to my city? I'm sure whe nyou do release them, they'll be made so they have to be an X amount of squares from any given city but if the closest AI faction to my city is going to hassle me for being a dwarf simple because of the place my city randomly spawned, I'm not going to be very happy.

As for the rest of the planned update, don't you think this game is getting a little too complicated? At some point you need to stop and realize this is a game and not real life. Do we really need to suffer travel complications due to terrain it passes over and needed boats to move it across a river that spans for like 400 squares? Do my boats really need to get swallowed up be a hurricane? It'd be one thing for a boat to die to a sea creature because it wasn't properly defended but when things that no one can control are destroying things, it's not fun.

Every time I read a preview for an update I cringe at how complicated you guys are making the game. I think you guys need to work on either "dumbing" the game down a bit or making extensive tutorials. At this rate, no one will be able to tell the difference between a bug and a complicated chain of event.

Hi Brids,

As has been mentioned, the factions will be placed before we permit people to move their cities.

We are highly unlikely to be placing rabidly hostile factions anywhere near where a brand new player might randomly appear.

We are also very aware that players do not like "random" events, and so we will be endeavouring to make things as non-random as possible. However, players do understand "random propensities" just fine. For example, if a player who is an enemy of the bandits chooses to send an unsupported caravan though bandit-held land, then he might get a random event that's not to his liking - and we think most players understand this to not be the fault of randomness and more of a causality linkage.

We are certainly adding layers of depth to the game, however we're also very keen not to overcomplicate things. The long and short of it is that this is a sandbox game, and we want players to choose their level of involvement. If you don't want to go through the hassle of loading troops into boats because it's too complicated, then don't settle on an island and your problem is solved. Equally, don't expect to be doing much overseas trading with the Merfolk.

We're definitely not going to dumb the game down. If that's what people are after I can point them to many other games out there that are extremely simple to play. It's not what Illyriad is about; we're about options and depth, which aren't necessarily the same as complexity.

We do, however, certainly agree that the tutorial and the help files need vast amounts of work - and we also agree that there are many game features that could be made simpler and less repetitive to perform (and more intuitive through changes to the User Interface) and there are plans in place to do all these things.

Best wishes,

GM Stormcrow

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 19:17

Shrapnel wrote:

Brids17 didn't seem to read the post very well or he didn't ask the right question. In most cases we will know where the factions are and will be able to move away from hostile ones. There is one case in where his concern has merit however. What if we settle a city right now and it turns out to be next to a hostile faction? We won't be able to move it. The only immediate solution I can think of is to wait until factions are seeded to settle any more cities, but how long is this going to be? I don't want to wait a month or more to settle my next city. The only thing I have to go off of is that the closer to the center the safer. So what's a safe gamble then? 10 squares away? 100? 200? Could we have a little more advice on what to do with cities placed after 9/14?

None of the more hostile factions are going to be placed anywhere near current population areas, and when we place them we'll try and leave as far a gap from player positions as possible. There will be very few factions who are innately hostile, and the really hostile ones won't be roaming far. As mentioned, we don't want a situation where players are being smacked over the head by NPCs through no fault of their own.

So we really don't think this is an issue to worry about.

Best,

SC

Posted By: Beengalas
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 19:37

GM Stormcrow wrote:

We're definitely not going to dumb the game down. If that's what people are after I can point them to many other games out there that are extremely simple to play. It's not what Illyriad is about; we're about options and depth, which aren't necessarily the same as complexity.

GM Stormcrow

Reason why I am still here! And regarding the update: wonderful! I really look forward to a more organic and interactive world.

I don't know if I missed it, but will the faction have pockets of power so to speak? Will there be an area of, say 25x25 that is habited by one faction and another next to it. Or will they have one or few amount of places?

(if they have small pockets of power)Also, will one be able to destroy or, for a time, disable a part of a faction? Say that me and my friends want to help the dwarfs in the area cleaning out that closeby section of filthy and ravaging goblins, and we succeed, what will happens? May the dwarf faction perhaps expand a little, or will they be static? Or maybe the goblin king will send and huge army to defend his little outpost making it temporary supercastle, or what might happen? So many possibilities! :)

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 20:10

I think you need to change that 9/14 restriction. The restriction on city ownership ought to coincide with the date you bring out the teleport spell. There's no good reason to penalize people wanting to settle/siege whatever between now and then.

In terms of sov - I hope that rescinding sov is simply part of the teleport spell. trying to get sov 5 down to zero is going to seriously cut into the 4 weeks available to move.

I have other thoughts, but they probably fit better in the suggestions forum so I'll post them there.

Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 20:10

This looks like promessing upgrades, but I don't understand something; why would you make allhostile faction. whats the point? who would bother settling there?

I suppose you could give a meaning to these faction if the council of illiriad ocasionnaly organises crusade against them, to gain artifact (I'm just brainstorming here).

-------------
Bartimeus, your very best friend.

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 20:13

bartimeus wrote:

This looks like promessing upgrades, but I don't understand something; why would you make allhostile faction. whats the point? who would bother settling there?

I suppose you could give a meaning to these faction if the council of illiriad ocasionnaly organises crusade against them, to gain artifact (I'm just brainstorming here).

Me.

1. Because I can.
2. Fight the good fight.
3. ????
4. Profit!

Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 20:29

GM Stormcrow wrote:

If you don't want to go through the hassle of loading troops into boats because it's too complicated, then don't settle on an island and your problem is solved.

Is it though? You'd need a boat to cross a river would you not? Our alliance is potentially about to go to war with an alliance on the other side of the map, if units couldn't cross rivers would we not need multiple boats to get our armies there? And please don't suggest that we could always "go around" them.

Options and depth are fine but when those options and depth start penalizing players there's a problem. Take the caravan update that was talked about a while ago. It was mentioned that they'd all have different carrying carrying capacities, different speeds, limitations on what they could carry and gold costs. That's potentially going to over complicate something simple. If you want to add depth, fine, make some caravans carry more but move slower and others carry less and go faster. Make the new caravans cost gold and the old ones cost nothing. There, depth and options.

However when you add in gold costs on all caravans and carrying limitations, it gets to be too much. I'd have to assess how much of what resource I'd need to be able to move, do I want to be able to move a lot of livestock or weapons? Gold or resources? How many caravans am I going to need in total? For each resource? Are my taxes going to need to be raise to make these caravans? Do I need to kill off my troops or diplomats or get rid of one of my sov squares to afford them? If I raise my taxes will my food go negative? Will it kill my production? I could go all day with this.

GM Stormcrow wrote:

We do, however, certainly agree that the tutorial and the help files need vast amounts of work - and we also agree that there are many game features that could be made simpler and less repetitive to perform (and more intuitive through changes to the User Interface) and there are plans in place to do all these things.

I'm glad to hear, there's a lot of things in this game that it seems no one knows the answer to.

Posted By: lep
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 20:43

More options, more depth, more complexity... as long as that complexity is logical; like needing to find a ford point in a river or where someone has built a bridge or build boats. All these things are logical to wanting to cross a river so adding them is great.

Caravan changes as long as logical again are an excellent idea. It's currently absolutely bizarre that 1 caravan can carry 1000 siege blocks and the same caravan can carry 1000 bows which in turn seem to take as much space as 1000 coins. As long as the complications are logical then they will be fine for the vast majority of players.

A game I could play for years happily without knowing all the features and options is fantastic to me and it looks like you might have just that here in the making.

Please don't go overboard in the explanations and guides, leave that to the forums for players to post when they find out the intricate details.

Makes the game a much more wondrous journey of discovery.

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 21:07

lep wrote:

More options, more depth, more complexity... as long as that complexity is logical; like needing to find a ford point in a river or where someone has built a bridge or build boats. All these things are logical to wanting to cross a river so adding them is great.

Caravan changes as long as logical again are an excellent idea. It's currently absolutely bizarre that 1 caravan can carry 1000 siege blocks and the same caravan can carry 1000 bows which in turn seem to take as much space as 1000 coins. As long as the complications are logical then they will be fine for the vast majority of players.

A game I could play for years happily without knowing all the features and options is fantastic to me and it looks like you might have just that here in the making.

Please don't go overboard in the explanations and guides, leave that to the forums for players to post when they find out the intricate details.

Makes the game a much more wondrous journey of discovery.

Posted By: Smoking GNU
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 22:38

All i can say is...

AWESOMENESS

Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 22:42

Brids17 wrote:

GM Stormcrow wrote:

If you don't want to go through the hassle of loading troops into boats because it's too complicated, then don't settle on an island and your problem is solved.

I'm glad to hear, there's a lot of things in this game that it seems no one knows the answer to.

All of this sounds like a good thing. It almost seems like your complaining.... but I can see its all a complement

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I am not amused.

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 22:47

Beengalas wrote:

Hi Beenglas,

Yes, very much so.

Factions will have main hubs (their alliance capital hub, so to speak) which will be their main trade point, and will be there main base of operations. These hubs will be invulnerable (to stop a faction being entirely wiped out). But the faction hub will grow and the faction will spawn additional cities of their own nearby.

You can find more detail on some of our plans for factions http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-newness-18aug10_topic929_post6535.html#6535 - here .

KillerPoodle wrote:

I think you need to change that 9/14 restriction. The restriction on city ownership ought to coincide with the date you bring out the teleport spell. There's no good reason to penalize people wanting to settle/siege whatever between now and then.

In terms of sov - I hope that rescinding sov is simply part of the teleport spell. trying to get sov 5 down to zero is going to seriously cut into the 4 weeks available to move.

I have other thoughts, but they probably fit better in the suggestions forum so I'll post them there.

I'm not sure what 9/14 means in this context... can you clarify which restriction you mean?

On the sov front, that's a good idea - we'll just have the sov auto-cancel when you teleport, and I'll amend the main post to reflect this.

bartimeus wrote:

This looks like promessing upgrades, but I don't understand something; why would you make allhostile faction. whats the point? who would bother settling there?

I suppose you could give a meaning to these faction if the council of illiriad ocasionnaly organises crusade against them, to gain artifact (I'm just brainstorming here).

Well, there'll be very few all-hostile factions. A good example of one such faction that fits this category is, perhaps, the Undead. Or The Netherworld Demons. But there will be very few of these factions, and they will be very sparsely and carefully placed.

And yes, they will fit in with plans for quests and storyarcs - as well as being the source of rare item drops for crafting. But this is looking a long way ahead.

Brids17 wrote:

Is it though? You'd need a boat to cross a river would you not? Our alliance is potentially about to go to war with an alliance on the other side of the map, if units couldn't cross rivers would we not need multiple boats to get our armies there? And please don't suggest that we could always "go around" them.

On the island front, yes you would need water transport if you or your target were based on an Island. As far as your specific example goes, there will be bridges and fords provided by some of the factions, and these will interconnect all the mainland areas. We're not planning on cutting any areas off from players in their entirety (from land-based movement), except islands and further continents - which will require water transport. But who knows? Perhaps some nice faction will organise ferry transport for you, invisibly in the background, for a small fee - so you won't even notice the requirement to use a boat except for the additional time it takes your units to get there whilst they wait in a port for the boat to arrive?

Regarding your caravan example - we've subsequently decided that different types of caravans for carrying different things is an over-complication. However, we already have carrying capacity and speed ingame, and we already have gold upkeep - so the only change we're really proposing is different volumes for different carried items, and changing caravan carrying capacity to be volume-based rather than unit-based.

So long as the user interface to move things into caravans on a volume basis rather than a unit basis is very simple, the only real change is that we're adding gold upkeep to caravans; which I don't think is too complicated.

Your comments about how you go about raising that gold: "Are my taxes going to need to be raise to make these caravans? Do I need to kill off my troops or diplomats or get rid of one of my sov squares to afford them? If I raise my taxes will my food go negative? Will it kill my production?" are questions you have to go through every time you need gold.

I *love* these questions because they make me say to the game design team: "Brilliant job, guys - you've given this player multiple choices about how he or she can achieve a goal and they have to think through the ramifications of their decisions and prioritise what's important to them; thank the heavens we haven't produced a run-of-the-mill 'do X to get Y' game."

I'd also urge you not to judge things as over-complex before you've seen the implementation. Oftentimes the explanation of the concept sounds more complicated than it actually manifests itself ingame.

lep wrote:

Please don't go overboard in the explanations and guides, leave that to the forums for players to post when they find out the intricate details.

Makes the game a much more wondrous journey of discovery.

That was certainly our original interpretation, lep - but we do recognise that a lot of the concepts and procedures ingame aren't adequately documented anywhere that's easy or handy - and we have a project for context sensitive help pages ingame to explain the basics of how to do certain tasks that aren't currently particularly obvious unless you search the forums.

Thanks all for the comments - they're all very useful.

Best,

SC

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 23:24

GM Stormcrow wrote:

Sorry - too much time in the US. I'm referring to the September 14th restriction for owning a city in order for it to be eligible for teleport.

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2010 at 23:49

KillerPoodle wrote:

GM Stormcrow wrote:

*snip*

Sorry - too much time in the US. I'm referring to the September 14th restriction for owning a city in order for it to be eligible for teleport.

Got a point, my 3rd city has been put on hold till the new changes come in.

Posted By: McFarhquar
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 00:25

Zangi wrote:

KillerPoodle wrote:

GM Stormcrow wrote:

*snip*

Sorry - too much time in the US. I'm referring to the September 14th restriction for owning a city in order for it to be eligible for teleport.

Got a point, my 3rd city has been put on hold till the new changes come in.

At the very least, the cutoff needs to be when this announcement was posted, and preferably with an extra day or two tacked on for people who sent settlers off before the announcement that won't arrive until after the cutoff

Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 01:17

I totally agree with extending the cut off period. What Birds17 said about "why should I suffer because you decide to place a hostile faction next to my city" would certainly apply for new settlement. I may have decided that I'm happy where I am, however when factions are released I discover that the nearest faction is specifically hostile to my race then the new settlment I have just built should be able to be moved.

With the not landing barges at night would perhaps a 6 hr time loop be appropriate so day would be from 1-6 and 12-18 o'clock?

Also we all know that there are going to be major updates in the future and we should consider this if we decide to move our cities. but would it be possible tto make it slightly cheaper to move after major updates that are likely to handicap some players. Eg you can now move your lvl 20 forge but the move is likely to take 48 hrs during which time no construction can take place and gold revenue or resource production is halted. (Food consumed however is provided by hunting/foraging)

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 01:20

With the changes spoken about in this thread, will any of it change the TownsData XML file? Just wondering because I just built a tool using it. Doesn't matter because I built the tool knowing the XML might change. I did it more for the learning experience, but I'm just curious because it is useful for the time being.

Posted By: Divine Redemption
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 01:41

How many cities on one account can be moved for free to any location? Is it only one free move for one city or every city on one account...

Thanks,

Divine

Posted By: lep
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 01:54

I am about to found my sixth settlement and am a little concerned what will happen if I find I need to move that my poor sixth settlement will be decimated or worse when I move it.

It's terribly hard to persuade settlers to move out and settle when they just think their hard work will all be wasted.

Even extra beer doesn't always work.

Posted By: Ryuuku
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 05:51

I'm just hoping that our ships work like squares, we can gather our troops, sieges, reinforcements, etc. together on one and arrive to our target together, perhaps with skirmishes along the way.

Posted By: Callous
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 17:36

Is the 'not within 10 squares of another player' requirement mean that each city has a 20x20 square centered on them (10 on left, 10 on right, 10 above, 10 below) that we can't settle in, or is it a linear distance e.g. 8 squares over and 8 squares up would be a distance greater than 10 (~11.3), but diagonally would be less than 10 squares away. i.e. a circle around them, or a square?

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 18:52

KillerPoodle wrote:

GM Stormcrow wrote:

Sorry - too much time in the US. I'm referring to the September 14th restriction for owning a city in order for it to be eligible for teleport.

Actually, it's a good point and well made.

There's no particular reason to cut off on the 14th of September; whilst the larger map changes are going on (ie up until the point the factions are largely on the map and fixed), I'm extending the "free city move" to that point.

I'll amend the main post to say this.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, any cities settled to date and up to the point where we release the factions onto the map (a few weeks away) will be able to move, for free, on the "one off" Tenaril spell.

Best,

SC

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 19:37

Awesome - thanks for the update.

Posted By: Smoking GNU
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 22:21

Nice!

Posted By: Raritor
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 22:31

One more thing about the city movements.

Suppose you have a city with productions, say, 7 wood, 3 clay, 5 iron, 5 stone, 5 food. When you move your city, do you have to look for a place with the same resource distribution? if not what happens with the buildings?, are they lost, changed?....

Thanks again for the support.

Regarding some opinions about the changes and the problems they take, i'd like to say that these changes are things that make the game much more interesting, so we have been playing for months, and expect to do it for much more time. I'd like to congratulate all the developers for their effort.

Posted By: Smoking GNU
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 22:54

GM Stormcrow wrote:

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.
GM Stormcrow

Wait, does this mean that cities that you'd like to move that already has all it's uilding plots built on will NOT be able to build shipyard type buildings in them? that there will in fact then be more than the X buildings for the X amount of plots currentl available? that in fact you'll have to be forced to leave out certain types of buildings in order to build these shipbuilding facilities?

Why not just make the plots for these buildings outside the city, like the resource buildings/plots?

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2010 at 22:59

When you can buy/sell troops it's not going to be so important to have all the buildings currently available built in each city. I also see the interest in having extra buildings spread out across multiple map squares but still supported by the main city food production as per my comments in the suggestions forum.

Also, I hope we're not restricted to the same type of plot. - that's gonna make it hard for some people to move since plot types are now clustered together.

Edit: and if changing plot types means I loose some resource upgrades and have others start at zero, that's fine. E.g. Move from a 73555 (wood, clay, iron, stone, food) to a 55555. You loose the two extra wood and start with two clay plots that are at level 0.

KP

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 01:17

I think you should add a bunch of new plots for a port. You can use these plots to make naval buildings. The plots would be connected to your city by a road a maximum of 5 squares long. in the city view, there would be a little button saying "go to your port" and in your port vice versa. obviously, the port would have to be touching water. a city would look like this:

road \/ |water|

<city>======<port>|water|

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 01:18

sorry, as always, for the Âs

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 01:25

some random guy wrote:

I think you should add a bunch of new plots for a port. You can use these plots to make naval buildings. The plots would be connected to your city by a road a maximum of 5 squares long. in the city view, there would be a little button saying "go to your port" and in your port vice versa. obviously, the port would have to be touching water. a city would look like this:

road \/ |water|

<city>======<port>|water|

From what ive seen so far as to what the devs want of this game, i would assume there wont be plots added
there probably wanting something like "Im going to be building a navy so maybe i dont need a barracks in this town or stone sinks in the water so i wont need a stonemason in this city" etc so pick carefully which city you may decide to build new structures in and research demolition Wink

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 03:37

so... you won't be able to defend your ports from the land? Ermm

I can count only 4 (5 for elfs) buildings that aren't vital to a city's welfare (kiln, flourmill, vault, warehouse).

will there be only 4 new naval buildings?

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 04:02

some random guy wrote:

so... you won't be able to defend your ports from the land? Ermm

I can count only 4 (5 for elfs) buildings that aren't vital to a city's welfare (kiln, flourmill, vault, warehouse).

will there be only 4 new naval buildings?

When all this comes out troop trading should be out so build land troops in your other cities and move whats needed to defend or just reinforce when under attack

flourmill- very important in larger cities, as food is the limiting factor on growth
warehouse- very important since storehouse max capacity is 109k which isnt enough to build higher level structures

the other buildings are up to the individual players to decide how important they are to the newer buildings, but its all assumptions and we will have to wait and see whats in store for us

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 04:58

ok, fine. 2 buildings that aren't completely necessary. That merely reinforces my claim that a port will not be able to fully function. How will a new player know what is important? I certainly didn't. Also, cities on water may still not be able to be defended properly if they are unable to produce troops of their own. finally, the question of harvesting noobs arises. I agree that we will have to wait and see what our preeminent gms have in store for us.

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 04:59

hey, cool! you joined the forum on my b-day! LOL

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:04

Lets just assume that, when it comes out, somebody will figure it out for you and post the relavent data on the forums. We do have a nice community to work with.

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I am not amused.

Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:16

Dock cities will be able to build barracks, they just won't be able to build everything, this may seem like a big deal to a new player but the fact is that it is not essential to have a spearmaker or any other production building in every city, you can import goods that you don't produce, a tannery, saddlemaker and siege construction is certainly not essentail in all cities as at level 20 of each there is almost no way your going to be able to produce enough cattle to supply the productions.

So yeah, Vault, Kiln are not essentiall and your choice of production buildings to eliminate (do you really need level 20 bookbinders in all of your cities).

Basically with multiple cities all the problems will resolve themselves. Is 500 population really that long to wait?

Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:22

actually I do have one big question about water. When a settler is sent to an island how will it get there? Will you be required to already have a dockside settment, need an ally with a dock. Or will it be assumed that the means of aquiring a boat were given to the settler before it set out

Posted By: emasil
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:42

will the pathfinding and the way of crossing rivers(bridges, boats etc) come out together or will a player have to be stranded from the most populated areas for a long time

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:45

col0005 wrote:

actually I do have one big question about water. When a settler is sent to an island how will it get there? Will you be required to already have a dockside settment, need an ally with a dock. Or will it be assumed that the means of aquiring a boat were given to the settler before it set out

No idea.

We haven't thought about it in any detail yet... bear in mind that water/boats etc is almost definitely a 2011 project rather than something coming soon!

Best,

SC

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 15:46

emasil wrote:

will the pathfinding and the way of crossing rivers(bridges, boats etc) come out together or will a player have to be stranded from the most populated areas for a long time

Yes, pathfinding and ways of crossing will come out simultaneously, by necessity - we don't want to leave anyone stranded.

Best,

SC

Posted By: emasil
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 16:08

thanks SC

one more question: if i settle a new city now will i be able to move both of my cities with the free spell?

Posted By: gigi
Date Posted: 18 Sep 2010 at 17:56

GMs if you want to grow your user base, speed up the game. End of story. All this fauna & flora you are introducing is a waste of energy... It will take you a long time to implement and get right. I don't see the depth you are talking about... I am thinking of quitting the game... It is getting extremely boring and all these new features just overcomplicate something simple that is great and that works...

Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 15:26

Build more resource fields / marketplace / troops / thieves.

The more resources you get, the more nonstop you can build. The game speeds up a ton if you want it to.

Posted By: waylander69
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 16:15

Can i check, if someone moves from a location that has 3 clay 5 wood 5 iron and 7 stone and are lev 17 say in all of them and then moves to a new location that has 5 of each resource type hows does the move balance out in regards to the difference ?

Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 16:22

GM Stormcrow wrote:

When the system is happy with your intended destination, a "Confirm Teleportation" button will appear. Pressing it will take your city's underlying terrain, units, buildings, technologies...

GM Stormcrow

Posted By: waylander69
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 16:57

Cheers Torn Thumbs Up

Posted By: Kumomoto
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2010 at 16:03

gigi wrote:

GMs if you want to grow your user base, speed up the game. End of story. All this fauna & flora you are introducing is a waste of energy... It will take you a long time to implement and get right. I don't see the depth you are talking about... I am thinking of quitting the game... It is getting extremely boring and all these new features just overcomplicate something simple that is great and that works...

According to your homepage you've already quit...

But, given that you are on your 5th alliance in the game, I can see that you tend to get stircrazy...

I, for one, applaud the developers for adding new content and depth to the game. It is, imo, incredibly exciting and massively increases my interest in and enjoyment of Illyriad. More depth = more interesting and more options for gameplay. If I wanted a linear basic rts game, I would have chosen Travian or one of the other much simpler games.

But, that is just my opinion.

Kumo

Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2010 at 17:07

Grunvagr wrote:

Build more resource fields / marketplace / troops / thieves.

The more resources you get, the more nonstop you can build. The game speeds up a ton if you want it to.

Considering gigi has over 80,000 population, I don't think the game is going to speed up for him.

Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2010 at 17:21

What players have to realize is that just because a feature is introduced doesn't mean you have to use it.

And if the game is slow, then try new tactics like making tons of elf t1 cav and start some lightning wars =)

Playing it safe vs playing like a loose cannon can instantly add more fun to the game. /shrug

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2010 at 19:24

Big thumbs down on this post. I don't agree at all. Only exception might be travel time. Would be nice to be able to get to my alliance members faster if they needed protection, but I think things are in the works to provide that like possibly portals. This game is not any slower than a lot of PBBG games and is perfect for the casual player like myself. I'm having fun and love how you guys are enriching the game with the new features you have planned.

Posted By: rebel5360
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 03:12

what does it mean when you say and any structures you have built will be lost do you mean ALL buildings we'v already built will be lost, or buildings we have in que when we teleport will be lost?

GM Stormcrow wrote:

LIST]

Prepare to Cast the Spell:

All
your units must be at home - you cannot have any units abroad. This
includes trade units, diplomatic units, or military units attacking,
occupying, reinforcing or whatever
You must have cancelled all your trade offers
You cannot have any reinforcements in your city
You cannot be under siege or blockade
You will auto-rescind any sovereignty claims you have from that city when you teleport, and any structures you have built will be lost
You must cast the spell within 4 weeks of being granted it; it's not something you can save up for a rainy day :)
You cast the spell from your Castle Summary page

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 03:14

he means all sovereignty structures will be lost.

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: scottfitz
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 00:28

One point of clarification, we can not move to within 10 squares of any neutral player or any player in another alliance, I assume that include inactives, or does it? Do we really have to find a square without even a single inacttive village within 10 squares?

Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 01:13

level it to the ground!

You know a guy right?

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I am not amused.

Posted By: Fateful Ending
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 05:12

Just checking.

Every town i have present before the changes will be able to move...

And if i build a town on a spot i wish to save from the changes, and other players, will i be able to move that town of it, and my main on to it. Once the changes happen?

Thanks, And sorry if i didn't make sense.

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 13:47

Any ideas yet on what to do if you're ready to build another city right now? I'm afraid to settle my next city because I won't be able to move it since it's after the date specified. How soon until biomes and factions are out? If I don't settle, my growth is stunted, but if I do settle and I'm next to an unsatisfactory faction or biome I'm stuck.

Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 13:51

Shrapnel wrote:

Any ideas yet on what to do if you're ready to build another city right now? I'm afraid to settle my next city because I won't be able to move it since it's after the date specified. How soon until biomes and factions are out? If I don't settle, my growth is stunted, but if I do settle and I'm next to an unsatisfactory faction or biome I'm stuck.

Pretty sure he said in one of the earlier posts that the cut off date has been removed until the biomes actually come out.

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 18:16

Thank you Larry he did. Sometimes posts get lost in a big conversation. I'm quoting it here so it's more fresh:

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 01:58

when someone moves will the terrain around them revert back to its natural state? (i.e. my second account's main city is currently damming a river, will the river be un-dammed when I move?)

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 04:34

some random guy wrote:

when someone moves will the terrain around them revert back to its natural state? (i.e. my second account's main city is currently damming a river, will the river be un-dammed when I move?)

If that's the case why on earth move!? Epic position of power!

Posted By: Illyriad Admin
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 08:55

The terrain will revert to its natural state.

However, we had manually gone through what we thought was all the rivers, making sure there weren't any that were dammed by cities - obviously we missed a couple.

Once people have done their moves we'll make sure there aren't any dammed rivers - and if there are, then the river might burst its banks and find a way round any towns in the way. Player cities are supposed to be next to rivers, not on them :)

Best,

SC

Posted By: Smoking GNU
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 17:18

SC mentioned earlier in this thread that factions will supply bridges and fords over rivers in their area when pathfinding is introduced.

Will you be able to "blockade" a bridge or ford in order to prevent enemy trades/armies/diplo missions(if diplo addon to armies is ever allowed) to cross said strategic crossing as part of a coordinated war strategy? I know that except with large armies a Blockade won't stand up effectively to large scale invasions (although i can see this as a way to perhaps delay the enemy somewhat and thin their ranks) but this could also be a nice strategy in enforcing some kind of trade embargo on an alliance (say you, a dwarf, are intensly hostile with a Troll faction, but an alliance of mostly Orcs is allied with said faction and is intent on seeing the faction grow massively) without outright hostilities being declared and without blockading each enemy city with an army. And as i understand the real world mechanics of it defending a bridge crossing is usually advantageous to the defender.

Maybe this would also sour your relations with the faction supplying the infrastructure that you are now picketing

Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 17:29

With attacking such a blockading army, one could be able to improve relations to the faction.
Blockading (or even destroying) would even be better, if players are able to build infrastructure.

Further I thought I read something about armies lurking on roads (or here bridges) to attack small numbers of units, once fog of war is on.
Don't know if such an option is fair to small players, but I think it adds some danger to sending goods all across the map (like it was in real Medieval).

Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 18:18

Smoking GNU wrote:

SC mentioned earlier in this thread that factions will supply bridges and fords over rivers in their area when pathfinding is introduced.

I hope players will also be able to build bridges and canal because I am currently looking at all the good spot where I could do so and receive taxes from caravan crossing it.

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Bartimeus, your very best friend.

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:24

Smoking GNU wrote:

Will you be able to "blockade" a bridge or ford in order to prevent enemy trades/armies/diplo missions(if diplo addon to armies is ever allowed) to cross said strategic crossing as part of a coordinated war strategy?

Hora wrote:

With attacking such a blockading army, one could be able to improve relations to the faction.
Blockading (or even destroying) would even be better, if players are able to build infrastructure.

Further I thought I read something about armies lurking on roads (or here bridges) to attack small numbers of units, once fog of war is on.
Don't know if such an option is fair to small players, but I think it adds some danger to sending goods all across the map (like it was in real Medieval).

bartimeus wrote:

I hope players will also be able to build bridges and canal because I am currently looking at all the good spot where I could do so and receive taxes from caravan crossing it.

Yes, yes and thrice, yes!

Best,

SC

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:31

this is going to be awesome. when is it going to be released, the end of next year? if all that you say is going to happen is actually going to happen, how will you get it out by the the time UK1 ends?

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....

Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:34

I dont think they plan for UK1 to end anymore.

"No plans for a new server atm; still lots to do with this one! Our objective is for each server to be a persistant world rather than one with resets."

quoted from GM Stormcrow

http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-newness-18aug10_topic929_page4.html - http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-newness-18aug10_topic929_page4.html

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Bartimeus, your very best friend.

Posted By: Strategos
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:56

We currently have no plans to reset UK1.

We will however launch more servers in time, when we feel the player base is large enough to support it without detracting from UK1

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Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis

Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 22:23

I like your signature...

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Bartimeus, your very best friend.

Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 19:44

Callous wrote:

Is the 'not within 10 squares of another player' requirement mean that each city has a 20x20 square centered on them (10 on left, 10 on right, 10 above, 10 below) that we can't settle in, or is it a linear distance e.g. 8 squares over and 8 squares up would be a distance greater than 10 (~11.3), but diagonally would be less than 10 squares away. i.e. a circle around them, or a square?

Just wanted to repeat that question, as it isn't answered yet (somewhat drowned under all the other ones). Would be useful to know, if we've got to think in squares or circles Wink

Posted By: Fateful Ending
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 10:37

As well as the above i'd like to know if its possible to settle on NPC squares?

Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 15:14

Fateful Ending wrote:

As well as the above i'd like to know if its possible to settle on NPC squares?

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 15:23

Hora wrote:

Just wanted to repeat that question, as it isn't answered yet (somewhat drowned under all the other ones). Would be useful to know, if we've got to think in squares or circles Wink

As we do most all distance ingame, an edged-circular pythagorean distance of 10 squares from another alliance's city.

a²+b²=c²

(PS - no idea why those extra "A"s and hats have appeared... I've obv caught another player's disease here - will look into the encoding in the stylesheets!)

What I mean is a(squared) + b(squared) = c(squared), where a and b are at right-angles to each other.

This means that a square 8 across and 8 up is 11.3 squares away, ie far enough away to settle, however 7 across and 7 up is 9.9 squares away, therefore too close; and 7 across by 8 up is 10.6 squares away (and is therefore fine to settle).

Shrapnel wrote:

Fateful Ending wrote:

As well as the above i'd like to know if its possible to settle on NPC squares?

Correct, you won't be able to settle on NPC squares or "unsettlable squares" such as water.

Best,

SC

Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 20:15

Ok, thx SC

will have to do some calculating right before moving Confused

,
but seems the only way sensible Smile

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 20:39

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

Which do you mean? (I think its Figure B, but actually hope you mean Figure A.)

Figure A

[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y]
[Y]~~[N][N][N]~~[C]~~[N][N][N]~~[Y]
[Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]

Figure B
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y]
[Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[C]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y]
[Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N][N][N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]~~[N]~~[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]
[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]

Posted By: Kumomoto
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 21:08

Zangi wrote:

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

Which do you mean? (I think its Figure B, but actually hope you mean Figure A.)

Figure A

I interpret it as neither. In a straight line (ie n,s,e,or w) it should be 10. Yours only shows 7 in your Figure B...

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 21:52

Zangi wrote:

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

You're a slightly deranged individual, Zangi - if you don't mind me saying Wink

And both your diagrams are wrong :)

Go 8 along and 1 up from the center.

(8x8) + (1x1) = 64
sqrt(64) = 8

8 < 10 (and is fine to settle)

Best,

SC

(EDIT - it's a circle, not a diamond)

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 22:45

GM Stormcrow wrote:

Zangi wrote:

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

You're a slightly deranged individual, Zangi - if you don't mind me saying Wink

And both your diagrams are wrong :)

Go 8 along and 1 up from the center.

(8x8) + (1x1) = 64
sqrt(64) = 8

8 < 10 (and is fine to settle)

Best,

SC

(EDIT - it's a circle, not a diamond)

Quoting for posterity. I hope the in game algorithms are this mathematically sound... ;)

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 00:51

GM Stormcrow wrote:

Zangi wrote:

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

You're a slightly deranged individual, Zangi - if you don't mind me saying Wink

And both your diagrams are wrong :)

Go 8 along and 1 up from the center.

(8x8) + (1x1) = 64
sqrt(64) = 8

8 < 10 (and is fine to settle)

Best,

SC

(EDIT - it's a circle, not a diamond)

No mind at all. Keeps things fresh.

And, from my experience, can't exactly picture making a circle out of squares...

I do have a general idea at least.
(Never was interested in anything more complicated then basic math.)

Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 01:00

Pythagorean theorem ftw!

Posted By: Fateful Ending
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 02:28

Thanks for the quick response shrapnel,

Damn, going to have to do some major re-thinking

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 09:43

KillerPoodle wrote:

GM Stormcrow wrote:

Zangi wrote:

So... yea... you explained in maths.

How bout in picture?

[C] = City
~~[N]~~ = You can't settle there
[Y] = You can settle there

You're a slightly deranged individual, Zangi - if you don't mind me saying Wink

And both your diagrams are wrong :)

Go 8 along and 1 up from the center.

(8x8) + (1x1) = 64
sqrt(64) = 8

8 < 10 (and is fine to settle)

Best,

SC

(EDIT - it's a circle, not a diamond)

Quoting for posterity. I hope the in game algorithms are this mathematically sound... ;)

Especially genius quoting as I see I managed to make 64+1 = 64.

Kids: Don't Drink and Math!

(8x8) + (1x1) = 65
sqrt(65) = 8.06

8.06 < 10 (and is fine to settle)

Best,

SC

Posted By: Ethelion
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 12:04

Wait, I thought you had to more than 10.

Shouldn't the distance (x) have to meet x>10?

I'm so confused.

Posted By: ivyleaves
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 13:14

Ethelion wrote:

Wait, I thought you had to more than 10.

Shouldn't the distance (x) have to meet x>10?

I'm so confused.

I'm so amused. I find Zangi's idea of a picture to be just what is needed! After SC does all the math the right way, he needs to plot it out for us.

Tongue

Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 13:59

Oh my word.

8.06 is indeed less than 10, and so is NOT settlable.

Zangi had the right idea all along.

Here's a picture, showing where you can't move to (in red), where you can (in green) around a city in the center (in blue), hypothetically located at 0|0.

Apologies for all my confusions!

Best,

Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 15:24

Victory is mine?

Gotta keep in mind, not everyone knows more then the 'basic' math terms.

Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2010 at 15:30

SC got there in the end :)

Posted By: some random guy
Date Posted: 09 Oct 2010 at 00:13

if I were to create a city in the next 9 days, would I be able to move it? this is a rather urgent question.

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Soon, very soon, my name will become synonymous with chicken alfredo.... mmm.... chicken alfredo....