Airborne Empire implies... Empire

[EvilBob]

You are the ruler of a single city state. Period. That's the beginning, middle and end of your rule and that's not really how an empire works. You have kingdoms that you rule, and we don't really have that here. We don't have any management, at all, beyond our own city which is fine... but the title of the game is Airborne Empire.

So what should that look like? I don't propose this turning into a full bore empire management game, but tribute of some form should be paid to your city. I think a lot of the locked behind money tech should be flipped over to locked behind loyalty or some other similar metric and you should get some tribute from the various cities that you help due to the pirate crisis.

It is a nice game, you aren't conquering them you are allying with them so the pirates know that everyone means business.

I'd propose a new tab on the tech tree which would be unlocked as you become an empire, there would be tiered tech levels based on how many cities were in your empire. This is where any more 'Imperial' buildings would be found, such as a palace, a trading dock, or a recruitment office. If you wanted to put caps on the city population... this is where those would be as well. Note, the palace might just upgrade the town center with more than just linear upgrades like it has now.

Basically, the first game we had a city that was the capital of a kingdom, now we need one that is the capital of an empire. You should absolutely play with the trappings of that for bonuses and upgrades. We should get an imperial building set for the empire management.

Also, if you wanted to do a good/bad or I guess in this game Strength/Compassion tree you could slide that in here. You'd need to review the quests, but you might have a 'peaceful' mode where there is less combat that could be the compassion line which makes the city states stronger (they get a defended skydock) or a strength mode where your city state is out there smashing bad guys (they get a militarized skydock)

The skydock in the cities becomes a bit more visible and is keyed to what your empire is. That is basically your control point in a city and you could stick in a few upgrades or maybe city specific relics.

The loop is basically the same, go in, do quests, but fixing the skydock is the tail end of the quests and when built you get bonuses from the city state. You might only allow a few bonuses at a time for balance/choice purposes. You can upgrade the skydock with a few options, which gives you an excuse to go back to the old kingdoms (new quests could be there as well).

Basically this is Airborne Kingdom 2 with combat, which is great. But you named it Airborne Empire, you should play into that.

[Zachulon]

I am not ignoring this, just thinking on it! Its good stuff, thank you.

FWIW: The idea to have Empire in the name was more about this Pirate Empire that had taken over the skies and you were the humble servant kingdom tasked with stopping them and freeing the skies for all. I get that isn't coming through yet, partly because the main boss and final chapter of the story aren't there. Regardless, we will think on what you've said here. Thanks again.

[Nytus]

I just assumed the Empire was sorta past-tense. Our city was the last of the former empire, or perhaps the first of many to come based on the fallen empire tech.

I won't argue though if it turns out we are at the center of a fledgling empire of our own. If that wasn't in the original plan for this game though, that might be beyond the scope of this story and/or the engine it's built on.

[SoulSteppe]

I had thoughts that Empire, was a legacy that occurred over a long time ago, when the first kingdom occurred. Now, a new kingdom has to take domination, again.