Suggestion regarding decaying island

[pine tree]

I was coming back to a cleared island just to find it in shambles. Apparently that is a game mechanic EVEN if you cleared the portals.
I found it to be extremely boring, repetitive and quite frankly a bit of a hassle to rebuild everything every time, it just breaks the game flow.
So my suggestion is this: the gold left behind in the town hall should be use by your NPC (banker? administrative person? whoever that guy is) to restore your walls, and employ your citizens. Like, everyday you spend away 2/3 coins (or the full original cost, that would keep up with the difficulty) of your stash and then put in the maintenance of your kingdom.
So when you come back, all you need to do is replenish your gold, OR if you didn't leave enough, then you rebuild.
It would make you think better on the economics of each island and more importantly it wouldn't break the game flow.
Cheers :)
(ps: do developers even read this? o.o) -> edit 2: they do! :D
edit: English

[teleshoes]

devs do read posts here fairly often, though i doubt this feature will be implemented.
it would decrease the difficulty of the endgame DRASTICALLY. also, imo, rebuilding does not break the game flow. its a core element of gameplay, in keeping with the theme of sisyphean struggle against chaos.

[Starfisher]

Lighthouses help with decay.

[Demize99]

Originally posted by Starfisher:

Lighthouses help with decay.

No they dont.

[pine tree]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

devs do read posts here fairly often, though i doubt this feature will be implemented.
it would decrease the difficulty of the endgame DRASTICALLY. also, imo, rebuilding does not break the game flow. its a core element of gameplay, in keeping with the theme of sisyphean struggle against chaos.

Yey, I just read one f them replying, thats cool s2

I dont think it would particularly decrease the difficulty, just waste less time. I mean, all the money that you need to rebuild is already there anyway, you just spent time doing it all over again (and again and again). Which does keep up with your sisyphean struggle argument i guess.

[teleshoes]

intermediate players, trying for the first time to beat the game without losing their crown once, may find that they arrive on, say, island 3 for their last cave to destroy at around, say, day 150, or even higher.

at day counts that high, it is a struggle to survive even one night with no walls and few archers. there are multiple strategies they might explore, like returning to each island briefly to battle decay before destroying each cave. or repeatedly filing up a boat+wallet, dumping off the passengers, and leaving immediately with empty boat+wallet. or just running through the game as fast as possible to keep the day counter down. or building the lighthouse first on each island so you never have greed from two sides. or never destroying any portals on the lighthouse side, so the greed counterattacks are weaker. etc etc etc (some of these strategies work, some dont, and the novice learns by exploration)

if you remove the decay, you remove that entire piece of endgame strategizing, and the game becomes VASTLY easier. you can take your time, amass coins and troops, running the day counter up as much as you like, and then arrive with all your fortifications and troops in place.

[pine tree]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

intermediate players, trying for the first time to beat the game without losing their crown once, may find that they arrive on, say, island 3 for their last cave to destroy at around, say, day 150, or even higher.

at day counts that high, it is a struggle to survive even one night with no walls and few archers. there are multiple strategies they might explore, like returning to each island briefly to battle decay before destroying each cave. or repeatedly filing up a boat+wallet, dumping off the passengers, and leaving immediately with empty boat+wallet. or just running through the game as fast as possible to keep the day counter down. or building the lighthouse first on each island so you never have greed from two sides. or never destroying any portals on the lighthouse side, so the greed counterattacks are weaker. etc etc etc (some of these strategies work, some dont, and the novice learns by exploration)

if you remove the decay, you remove that entire piece of endgame strategizing, and the game becomes VASTLY easier. you can take your time, amass coins and troops, running the day counter up as much as you like, and then arrive with all your fortifications and troops in place.

Correct me if im wrong, but if you destroy the portal it takes a few days (2 or 3) to rebuild right? And it never rebuilds when you are away. So what Ive been doing is that I just destroy the portal and then leave, so Im not attacked when I am away.

[Sapador]

Originally posted by pine tree:

So my suggestion is this: the gold left behind in the town hall should be use by your NPC (banker? administrative person? whoever that guy is) to restore your walls, and employ your citizens. Like, everyday you spend away 2/3 coins (or the full original cost, that would keep up with the difficulty) of your stash and then put in the maintenance of your kingdom.

In the current behavior, after all subjects have lost their tools, decay no longer affects that island. This means that the bank account is preserved, the number of people available in town is preserved, and the town tech level is preserved. After that, the greed waves that will have to be faced on returning there, are still growing in power. But the decay mechanic itself has reached its limit. Your suggestion however could lead to situations where there are no more walls, no more tools, and no more gold to rebuild. So, after a certain number of days, players would arrive on that island with 0% change of surviving. I can already forsee 50 posts per week on this forum with people saying "nice" things about the game and the dev team.

Originally posted by pine tree:

So what Ive been doing is that I just destroy the portal and then leave, so Im not attacked when I am away.

You are never attacked when you're away. Decay is unrelated to the Greed. And it's not an "attack", unless you're talking in a metaphorical way, as in: "The Kingdom was assaulted by the long years of abandonment and corrosion."

[teleshoes]

Originally posted by pine tree:

Correct me if im wrong, but if you destroy the portal it takes a few days (2 or 3) to rebuild right? And it never rebuilds when you are away. So what Ive been doing is that I just destroy the portal and then leave, so Im not attacked when I am away.

1) you are correct, a knight-destroyed cave portal rebuilds in ~2.5 days, and the rebuilding will not occur while youre gone, so you can guarantee 2 days of safety if you leave each island with a half-destroyed cave portal.
2) in case you dont know, there is a way to permanently destroy the cave portals. this is the way you beat the game, by destroying all cave portals.

[Arctic Circle Pit]

Originally posted by Sapador Castelo:

Your suggestion however could lead to situations where there are no more walls, no more tools, and no more gold to rebuild. So, after a certain number of days, players would arrive on that island with 0% change of surviving.

That's the crux of it right there.

[pine tree]

Originally posted by Sapador Castelo:

In the current behavior, after all subjects have lost their tools, decay no longer affects that island. This means that the bank account is preserved, the number of people available in town is preserved, and the town tech level is preserved. After that, the greed waves that will have to be faced on returning there, are still growing in power. But the decay mechanic itself has reached its limit. Your suggestion however could lead to situations where there are no more walls, no more tools, and no more gold to rebuild. So, after a certain number of days, players would arrive on that island with 0% change of surviving. I can already forsee 50 posts per week on this forum with people saying "nice" things about the game and the dev team.

Yes! That is a possibility. I mean, you have to spend a lot of time away, but I can totally see this happening. Decay time, in this case, could be adjusted.

Originally posted by Sapador Castelo:

You are never attacked when you're away. Decay is unrelated to the Greed. And it's not an "attack", unless you're talking in a metaphorical way, as in: "The Kingdom was assaulted by the long years of abandonment and corrosion."

The attack that I was referring is the Greed wave =p Good to know that they don't come out when Im not there but in my strategy the important bit is that when I come back I have 2.5 days to rebuild since I always half destroy the cave first and as soon as that is done I take the ship. So even when I come back to a decaying empire I have time to arm everybody again, rebuild and collect my gold in peace. Maybe that's why it was so frustrating for me, I had no urgency or fear of being overrun by those little bastards. Actually, I even WAIT for the portal to be reconstructed so I just half destroy again before taking the ship.
Anyway, Im about to end the game this weekend aka destroy portals for good.

thanks for your reply!

[pine tree]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

1) you are correct, a knight-destroyed cave portal rebuilds in ~2.5 days, and the rebuilding will not occur while youre gone, so you can guarantee 2 days of safety if you leave each island with a half-destroyed cave portal.
2) in case you dont know, there is a way to permanently destroy the cave portals. this is the way you beat the game, by destroying all cave portals.

1- Exactly, when I come back I have gold + time, which is why its not difficult for me to rebuild. I have no fear of attack.
2 - Yeah I know, that how you win on Classic too. (I liked so I decided to buy the two Crowns)

[teleshoes]

Originally posted by pine tree:

that how you win on Classic too

im not sure, but i believe you are missing something important. the way you win on classic, by using knights to destroy both caves before they rebuild, is NOT the way you win on two crowns. it is completely different.
in two crowns, you can PERMANENTLY destroy a cave, through a completely different game feature (not knights+archers) that is new in two crowns. ill explain it below, but its a huge spoiler if you havent done it yet. dont read it if you want to figure it out.

if you already know this and im just misunderstanding what you wrote, then carry on and ignore this message :D

after you have iron technology (unlockable on island 4 on main game, and island 5 on norselands), a bomb becomes available for purchase at the main camp. three workers, 8 archers, and 2 knights will follow you with this bomb. if you take it to the cave, you can destroy the cave

[pine tree]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

im not sure, but i believe you are missing something important. the way you win on classic, by using knights to destroy both caves before they rebuild, is NOT the way you win on two crowns. it is completely different.
in two crowns, you can PERMANENTLY destroy a cave, through a completely different game feature (not knights+archers) that is new in two crowns. ill explain it below, but its a huge spoiler if you havent done it yet. dont read it if you want to figure it out.

if you already know this and im just misunderstanding what you wrote, then carry on and ignore this message :D

Yeah, when I wrote this I was on island 4 so I figured that it should be this way =p I am now going back and destroying all caves in all islands and then going to island 5. Like I said, I come back, I have gold and time so rebuilding is not an issue for me, not even updating to the most recent technology. Its just..over and over again ya know XD
But I guess if that is the way the game play was intended all good. Maybe if I didnt know that the portals would take time to rebuild and came back and had to deal with an attack + decaying, that would keep me more on my toes.

[teleshoes]

Originally posted by pine tree:

Maybe if I didnt know that the portals would take time to rebuild

i am not sure i understand you, or maybe that you understand me. if you actually destroy the cliff/cave portals, they never come back and the island will never have any more greed ever, from any portals on that island.
but perhaps you do understand that, and youre saying that you dont want to actually complete the game, but to keep fighting forever.
i dunno, anyway, good luck and happy playing :)

[pine tree]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

Originally posted by pine tree:

Maybe if I didnt know that the portals would take time to rebuild

i am not sure i understand you, or maybe that you understand me. if you actually destroy the cliff/cave portals, they never come back and the island will never have any more greed ever, from any portals on that island.
but perhaps you do understand that, and youre saying that you dont want to actually complete the game, but to keep fighting forever.
i dunno, anyway, good luck and happy playing :)

I mean destroying them only with archers and knights! Not the definitive destruction that you unlock after.
And thank you ^_^