Perhaps give players 24 hours to restock food before they start losing building levels, and make the buildings that consume the most food be downgraded first. 1 downgrade every hour, until food goes above 0.

Very, very interesting.

We had considered this as an idea, but thought that it would be massively unpopular with everyone, so shelved the idea...

But the (albeit small, so far) support might cause a rethink.  

Thinking out loud here, so forgive whatever follows!

I think we'd have to provide a "small player exemption" from such a rule so as not to penalise those genuinely building cities but who find themselves a bit short through mis-planning etc. But what would constitute a small player? 100 pop? 250 pop? 500 pop?

And if the rule is applied, in what order would we level buildings downs?  Last-built-upgrade is the one that levels down first?

The current idea (cutting off taxes) provides some breathing space for people who have cash reserves, but they then start losing troops if they run out of gold.  

This suggestion (leveling down buildings) would balance food (at the expense of resources expended on the building) but would also reduce taxation (less population = less taxes), so might be a double-whammy of sorts.

The other thing to consider here is that it's not just food anymore.  We don't want (with the new buildings consuming W, C, I & S) people to simply run negative W, C, I & S and still support the new "consuming" buildings - so they'd have to also level down in some order (if they were built but negative), even if food was positive.  

Again, there's a discussion there about what levels down first (by default) - sovereignty (any sov structures that consume non-food base res) or buildings that consume non-food base res...? 

This thread is the wrong place to have this discussion, but I'd be very happy if someone opened a thread on the Suggestions forum and linked it from here - and I'd be especially happy if lots of players participated in the discussion!  

Whilst we're super-busy on fixing the marketplace meltdown atm, and there's a bunch of other stuff to be released, we will be fixing this neg-res loophole very shortly, come hell or high water.  And if there's a more elegant solution that people are happy with, then we're all ears!

Very, very interesting- ty for mentioning it!

SC

You could make this clever, and specify sets of these variables using a new 'Strategy' or 'Policy' UI drop-down, somewhere near Taxes. This allows you to prioritize particular buildings, e.g. [Military, Trade, Growth, ... ]. Similar drop-downs might come in useful later, in case any growth management becomes automated.

 

Why should the deleveling take alot longer than demolizing ?

 

And I would rather have a level 18 saddlemaker go down in level than my level 20 flourmill :P

I've moved these posts over from the thread in which they started, please continue the discussion here.

Regards,

SC

The question is whether we spend that time on fix a) or fix b)

If fix b) is better than fix a) we'll do that instead.

SC

On the other hand, de-leveling buildings does have the feature that it would eventually "correct" the food imbalance on its own.  If de-leveling buildings is implemented, I suggest that the most recent building to be upgraded be the one that is de-leveled.  If the imbalance is other than in food, the most recent building to be de-leveled that ALSO consumes that resource should be the one to be de-leveled.  This could get very complex if someone runs out of multiple resources at the same time, so maybe it should always just be the most recent building.

The reason that I propose de-leveling the most recent building to be constructed is that it's easy to understand and explain.

There should be a notification for building de-leveling in the same way there is a notification for building completion.

It doesn't really matter to me which way you close the exploit, as long as it's closed.

Something along those lines might be possible - we would still, however, have to have a "default" behaviour for players who hadn't specified their prioritisation; and that default behaviour would have to be the one we went with initially (rather than building a new "prioritisation" interface, which would definitely delay the closure of the loophole, which we're not keen to do).

Regards,

SC

Precisely what we were thinking here.  Nicely summarised! 

SC

Otherwise it would be possible for someone to bring enough resources every 15 hours or so to cover only 1 or 2 hours of consumption, and not lose building levels.

 - In case of negative production, but an existing stockpile, there should not be any penalty other than a reduced building time in the queue, but definitely not an inability to build at all. This stands to reason as the population has the food and the resources to live and build, but they have the added strain of the negative economy.

- In case of negative production, but a zero stockpile, it is obvious that one cannot pay the building cost, ergo he cannot build anything new. In case of gold running out I think that already there is an algorithm of losing troops. In case food runs out now, which is the whole point, imho the most reasonable idea is being able to put the city of an "orange alert" mode where you cannot build anything, you produce things with a time penalty, and, the main feature you can CLOSE down buildings you do not need, thus zeroing their food cost, while the "alert" lasts.

- This way you avoid demolishing buildings in case of emergency, which is not really reasonable in reality (e.g. when a real town is in need, does it demolish its libraries .?. Nope, it just closes them down ).

- Plus you also avoid deleveling buildings in case of emergency, which also does not really happen in reality.

 

- When the emergency ends, the city can go out of the alert and the ability to close down buildings, goes away, along with any restrictions and everyone is happy (the possible attacker with the blights, and the defender as well).

I have only been playing for a week, but that is my two cents on the matter.

Have fun ! :-)

If food runs out, people would eat less, the workforce would be less effective. In extreme cases of prolonged food shortage, the population would diminish.

If we decouple the direct link between buildings and population, we would mimic reality, by having buildings that need a larger population to run at full capacity than exists in the city. I'd like to see production and other building benefits reduce in these situations, but the building needn't be de-levelled. Just like reality, a down-scaling company won't necessarily rebuild their factory smaller; they can occupy their existing premises at reduced capacity for a while. Indeed it would take more effort to demolish and rebuild than it would to do nothing.

I haven't thought through the detail of this, but the big plus is that building benefit can be instantly reduced, without waiting for demolition. I particularly support the previous poster's suggested prioritisation of specific buildings that contribute the most negative change to 'zero-stock' resources.