[Discussion] City Building
A discussion on the aspects of City Building.
Elemental Forums
Warning: Wall of Text incoming.
Yesterday I played a nice long stretch of Fallen Enchantress and I paid particular attention to the City Building aspect. War of Magic's City Building was decent enough, however I feel that Fallen Enchantress really does deserve a better system all-round. I've read through a few threads and it seems I'm not the only person who thinks this.
In the interest of improving this aspect of the game, I thought we should come to some kind of consensus on what we like, and what we don't like, about the current system and what we think would be more fun.
I'll compare Elemental to Civilization IV - my favourite TBS Game - to highlight my personal largest issue.
My least favourite moment in Civ IV (I was going to put CIV as the abbreviation, but it just comes out as Civ in captials) is when the game has progressed to the point where my City level decisions are no longer needed.
After this moment, I'm going through the motions - my plans have come together, and my well oiled machine just hums along to victory. I don't pay attention to my resources, because I don't have to, and I don't really care what is built in each City - I just run through the list one item after another until each City has one of everything, then they just churn out the most cost effective unit.
Initially in Civ IV, each time you need to select something you have to think about it.
"Do I need Animal Husbandry now?", "Should I go straight for Military Units, or should I throw a few more Scounts out?", "Where do I need my roads?", "Are my improvements what they need to be?", etc. This, to me, is the really fun part - actually building my Civilization. The middle game is my favourite part - right around the Medieval ages - where I'm trying to walk the line between advancing my military tech to keep me alive, while advancing my civ tech to keep my cities growing. Cities exchange hands fast and loose, Religion spreads like wildfire, backstabbing occurs; it's brilliant. My City level decisions for each City are the difference between Victory and Loss.
"What are the odds of this City being attacked? Do they need more defensive units, more defensive structures? Can I risk this City and have it build a Research Increasing building to get me to the next Military Tech? What are their Morale, and how is it effecting the Cities production?"
This all changes when I'm engaged in the eventual End Game War that errupts, and so my brains turns off - I'm just throwing stacks of Units around until I've won the game.
In Fallen Enchantress, I've arrived at the point of not caring what decisions I'm making at a City Level at around my 4th City - which is about 3-ish hours in.
I've got everything I can currently build in each City, and they're now just firing off the most cost effective units so I can throw them at the A.I. player I'm at war with. When I capture a City, I'm just running through the list to make sure it has one of everything before it reverts to building the most cost effective unit for my war machine. When my research enables a new building, each City haults production and builds the new building, and then reverts back to making units.
The only decision I'm making honestly now is "Which City does my horde attack next?".
This, to me, is a fairly large scale issue, and is comprised of several smaller issues.
Although things like Unrest and such are in place, I couldn't honestly tell you what mine are - they've had seemingly zero impact upon my game plan so far. Declaring War on three factions at once and sending an unending number of troops to their death has seemingly had no impact upon my people. And I thought I was the bastard here.
I've also not altered Taxes as I've been swimming in Gildar for a while now, and as a result I've never - ever - viewed the Details screen for my Cities. They're just these 'things' that exist that enable me to make military units and buildings.
I'd go as far to say if you didn't tell me Taxes and Unrest where in the game, I'd never know they were here.
Population growth also seems to be a none issue. I've never seen the number of people in my Cities drop to a number I'd register as "low", nor has there been any indication that a lowering population has had an impact, and so I continue to spam units. Nothing builds slower, nothing researches slower, I don't seem to get less Gildar per turn - what the hell do these people do? If there are effects in play here, they're far too subtle.
Building Placement is something I actually really like - it's far better than Civ IV's Improvement System or how the Cities just automatically expand - however it serves no purpose. 3-ish hours in, I just drop the building in the closest slot to where my mouse cursor is so I can get on with it. This feels like a big wasted opportunity. Placement really does need to do... something!
Buildings seem to give too many bonuses, or too large a bonus per building. I've barely gone half way through the Civ and a third of the way through the Military trees, and my Cities are now just these never ending fountains of Gildar and Troops. I feel there is simply no decision making in selecting which Buildings to build, or in which order to do so, after your first 2 cities.
Because I have seemingly unlimited troops and Gildar coming from my cities, I haven't surpassed basic Military tech. I haven't researched Black Smithing yet, and yet my armies are walking across the map wiping everything out on sheer numbers alone.
Loose 4 units in a battle? Press End Turn once or twice, and I have 4 more. As such, I haven't even looked at the resource area of the game yet - I have no idea what my cities are making, nor what they could be making, and I don't feel the need to as it could only serve to make my campaign of terror only more unstoppable.
This will sound ridiculous, but I feel Cities are... I don't know... too over-powered? They make too much money, too many people and produce too many powerful buildings without consequence. I didn't deliberately chose the "Warfare" path to Victory - I always go for the Religious victory in Civ IV - it's just the path I feel the game has pushed me into. If I wasn't churning out Units, my Cities would be idle. If I have 50 basic units, what am I to do with them if not war?
Anyway, that's my rant. I look forward to reading other peoples thoughts and possible suggestions.
