[Suggestion] Make cities unable to be self sufficient
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As I've wrote the other day in discord, I think that the real issue we are facing with non interactions between cities is mostly due to having too many tech points. They are just enough to allow a completely independent city, and this is hurting the intercity relations.
For the next test I would propose the following small but very impacting changes:
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You can't have cities without banks and shrines. The first 5 ranks of a city are meant to establish the basic services of a settlement. You are given 12 tech points for those 12 techs. As such, increasing the city rank to 6 should require all the rank 1 techs to be completed. Right now in an effort to try to grab as many crafting techs as possible, we are skipping all the rank 1 techs which aren't strictly necessary.
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When a city reaches rank 6 it should automatically unlock the marketplace tech. It is too important.
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You now have 5 tech points between rank 6 and 10 for 17 possible techs. Those techs are divided in 10 crafting techs and 7 militaristic ones. As we saw, no one will take the militaristic ones if things are left like this, and being able to have 5 techs over a max of 10 still makes all cities too general purpose. Also, no matter what you specialise in, everyone will always take enchanting, since that is something very hard to get by trade, and everyone will get craftsmanship and engineering because they are affect all crafts in both material and quality. As such, I'd propose something like this:
a - Remove the enchanting tech. Allow the creation of enchanting tables with just the rank 1 tech witchcraft. Enchanting is a basic necessity which should be available in all cities and houses.
b - Like I saw proposed already, split Craftsmanship and Engineering in the 4 branches: leather, cloth, wood, metal.
Like this, you have now 15 crafting techs, out of which you can take a third. That's about reasonable. You need an ecosystem of at least 3 cities, probably 4, to have all the techs available.
For the military techs instead, you receive a bonus point at rank 6, 8 and 10 that can only be used for those techs. Every city should have its amount of military preparations and crafting expertise.
- From ranks 11 to 15 (which as far as we understood from the video, should be only obtainable in a nation and only in one city out of three), you develop the nation related techs OR you keep developing military techs. As such, those tech points can only go toward rank 3 techs or rank 2 military techs. Becoming a city makes you evolve in social and military terms.
All in all, these changes could probably be implemented with a reasonable effort since they are mostly numerical changes and they should increase a lot the reliance of one city upon the other.
Obviously all this would work even better if coupled with the restriction of the natural resources to the residents of that region.
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I think that after this alpha governors will realize the utility and value in building services like markets which attract and keep residents more and allow the city to grow than other tech- like walls-
If a thing is given free then it has no value and cannot be used to differentiate between options.
Leave it as is and have governors have to think seriously about benefits and consequences.
But also give them a path to respec'ing the tech tree so that their mistakes are not permanant.
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For the most part I agree with Olive here, with some exceptions:
A Starting Market should not be locked behind a Tech Point Wall.
City Ranks should have some basic building requirements such as the Bank, the Tavern, a Shrine, and a Jail
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Having specialized cities sounds cool in theory but is the worst thing you can do. Noone will be in a city where he cant get what he wants. Youre essentially breaking up entire guilds with this (this=current tech tree to small extent and what you propose quite a lot). Just like only a small minority will trade or travel hours (and thats not even counting on all the PK along the way) somewhere else to get gear they want, most will just go "oh, fck this". We already see this behaviour with PvP so why promote Fractured going on full self-dectructive mode even more?
Result? People quitting or youre breaking up guilds.
Instead, let cities be able to get everything, but force specialization on efficiency. Faster smelting, needing less material for same output, smaller refiners with same output to save town space etc., you still put massive emphasis on large cities, without crippling everything else. "Less hard locking, more soft modifiers"
Edit: Good idea (for everyone) would be to get their heads down from the clouds back on the ground. Great idea doesnt always translate into healthy and good game mechanic. Going from unicorns-filled theory to grim real world is harsh as we have already seen with PvP
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If the point of the game is to have interdependent cities, then these proposals may work. Perhaps that may be useful for inter-city interaction on Arboreus.
However, I don't think that inter-city cooperation is exactly the intent for Syndesia or Tartaros, especially when city sieges are a main feature. I can say that the PvP groups started this alpha test with the intent to build up their own cities, seeing each other as "enemies" and therefore trying to be as self sufficient as possible is part of the game.
Forcing inter-city reliance would likely just lead to huge guilds absorbing smaller guilds and claiming multiple cities for themselves rather than any cooperation.
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That's why you provide your guild with all the needed equipment in your own city.
You do that by simply putting buy orders of those kind of equips in your market.It is also interesting that you named pvp, since the current city system is the biggest responsible for red zergs being a thing.
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@Harleyyelrah said in [Suggestion] Make cities unable to be self sufficient:
If the point of the game is to have interdependent cities, then these proposals may work. Perhaps that may be useful for inter-city interaction on Arboreus.
Personally, I've always interpreted Fractured's intent as systematically-enforcing cities/regions and guilds to have relationships with one another for commerce, diplomacy, and politics. Otherwise every region/city would have access to the same variety and volume of resources. The fact that resources are disparate in composition and quantity was, to me, clearly intended to deter regions/cities and guilds from trying to be literally self-sufficient. These features seem to drive regions/cities and guilds to interact with other regions/cities and guilds to meet all their needs.
However, I don't think that inter-city cooperation is exactly the intent for Syndesia or Tartaros, especially when city sieges are a main feature. I can say that the PvP groups started this alpha test with the intent to build up their own cities, seeing each other as "enemies" and therefore trying to be as self sufficient as possible is part of the game.
I think Syndesia, in particular, is meant to be a nexus of city cooperation and competition. They're not mutually exclusive on Syndesia, much like the real world. States both rely on other states to meet specific needs for commerce and resources while also seeking to conquer or dominate other states for various reasons. It makes sense that PvP groups would want to be as self-reliant as possible and, if given that option, I think all cities/regions will aggressively pursue that path of least resistance because that's just how people are.
However, if Fractured systematically ensures that no city can meet all of its internal needs as an isolationist state, it will force them to interact with others via commerce or conquest and that's a good thing IMO.
Forcing inter-city reliance would likely just lead to huge guilds absorbing smaller guilds and claiming multiple cities for themselves rather than any cooperation.
Only if Fractured fails to make city management extremely complex and time consuming. If cities run on auto pilot like in Albion Online, then it will definitely incentivize guilds to roll over as much territory as possible. Hopefully, city management will be so challenging and intricate that it will deter most groups from trying to directly conquer the world.
