Caravan (Resource Gathering) Mayhem

We had a couple of related-but-separately-occuring issues this afternoon with resource gathering for caravans.

Firstly, there was a horrible accident involving rampaging Mammoths that destroyed a few (well alright, some 2000 or so) caravans that were harvesting resources this afternoon.

The Mammoths were captured by their handlers, lost caravans were returned to all the players who had lost them, and resources that should have been delivered were returned to each players' town.

Unfortunately there was then a second incident, this time involving Extra-Dimensional Quantum Anomalies that made many harvestable resource squares on the world map exist simultaneously in up-to 36 places at the same time.

This Quantum Entanglement meant that many players saw their caravans appear up to 36 times (apiece) on the Market Movement summary page, and also meant that it was possible to accidentally "kick" another player off a resource square even though they were on the other side of the map.

Finally, this has meant that some caravans are now returning from a location that was not the location that they travelled to initially, and they may have gathered different resources from what you sent them out to gather.

Apart from the "your caravans fell through a wormhole and are now on their way back from somewhere else" issue, we believe the other issues have been resolved, and players who actually lost caravans and goods have been reimbursed.

We apologise profusely for allowing both Mammoths and Quantum Anomalies onto the map.

World Map harvestable NPC resource squares

Only slightly tarnishing the story above with the vaguest whiff of fabrication, there was an update today involving world map harvestable NPC Resource squares.

As many players know, world map harvestable NPC resources only used to exist in a smallish area at the center of the world, and moving far away would mean you could no longer harvest these resources.

Resource piles also only used to refresh when a percentage of the "Global" Resource population was gathered by players.

Since we have allowed players to move their cities we have changed the old way of doing things, as follows:

• Resources now appear across the entire map, on every NPC square
• The rate at which these "refresh" is now on a Regional basis, so once a chunk of the resources in (eg) the Middle Kingdom have been gathered by players, additional resources will be reseeded in the Middle Kingdom.
  
  Each region therefore acts independently of one another in terms of when they refresh.

NPC military units will be returned to the map very soon, please bear with us as we work this through.

*edit* 

NPC armies and animals return to the lands

With the departure of the Mammoths, the NPC have felt safe enough to return from their hiding and are now populated all over the map.

With the departure of the Mammoths, the NPC have felt safe enough to return from their hiding and are now populated all over the map.