New Building Idea: Bank

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

Why should every server get gold pillaging "back". As i said i and most players started playing after gold pillaging was removed and started playing on a server that never had gold pillaging in the first place. so why should every soul that started playing in the last 14 years have to deal with gold pillaging. so that handful of players who disliked that change can get that back.

As i said before i fully support moving from normal to war server - and that should be the debate, not completely transforming the game just because few players don't want to start all over on war server.

But why exactly is that the problem, if people don't want to fight you they will find a way not to. Most players have a lot of resources unprotected way above warehouse safety limits. Especially now with huge exponential increases of storage capacity, but same levels of safe storage. So i really don't see the problem with normal pillaging. Why take their gold? what difference would it make?

What even is the point of the game - it is not staying in "gold mode" and not producing any resources and having empty warehouses. You can literally attack them and steal all unprotected resources, you can blockade their ports so they can't transport their goods or trade. You can force them to run out of wine and have their population drastically reduced - producing a lot less gold in addition...

So if you force your enemy to hide and run away you win. I really don't get why you are not happy with that.

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Well, let's see... There is a reason many people that are currently playing don't remember gold pillaging... Most of the players that were around for it, left shortly after it was removed. Quite a few left with the servers being merged, too.

It's not just to satiate those of us, that feel something is missing. It's to add excitement and some purpose to actually playing. It's to be able to exert genuine force upon neighbors that leech on the mines/mills. It's to be able to punish those that nuke your wonders. It's to make it so that wars are shorter and actually yield results.

Everything should have consequences, good and bad. If you get along with your neighbors, they will at least leave you alone (if not help you). If you piss off everyone around you, there should be negative consequences for that.

It all comes down to proper account construction, I suppose. For example, I could go into turtling and have every single city occupied for over a year and not lose population. To answer the question this begs, no I am not exclusively colonized on wine. I just designed my account to be the ultimate turtle. To explore the limits of what could be done. I wanted to see how difficult it would be to take advantage of the current mechanics and what sorts of limitations it would impose.

While it would be very boring to just log in every few days, I could make it costly for the person that did this to me to maintain the troops in my cities and keep me locked down. In other words, more trouble than it is worth. I'm sure I am not the only person that has had this idea.

Then there is the person that simply hides their military and plays the guerilla game to just keep re-opening their cities. Making it an endless cat and mouse game.

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You know what would solve all problems: allowing people to move from regular servers to war servers (with their current accounts). This is what you should focus on and not making every server "war server". You would keep your account and would get gold pillaging, and other players would continue playing as if nothing happened as they did before.

My argument has never been to fully remove gold pillaging, just to keep normal and war servers separated, and not to force everybody with new game-shattering feature they do not like.

How exactly would gold pillaging change that? you could still go in turtle mode, but in addition of producing no resources, produce no gold.

My point still stands if you are forced to go in turtle mode you lose, you can't advance, you can't trade, you can't build anything, it s just glorified vacation mode you have to maintain 100% of the time.

Not to mention that 99% of players are not as well prepared as you. If you find a psycho that is willing to turtle up for a year there is nothing gold pillaging would change. Players built their entire accounts not focused on fighting. not everyone has every island on Hephaestus’ Forge, nor do they have barracks and shipyard in every town. Remember that there are many different play-styles in ikariam and making such a change it would push people to play as specific archetype of player - fighter with only meta miracles and theocracy to spam them.

Forcing them all to basically rebuild everything or be at a severe disadvantage.

Quote from nosorog

1. For most people it would not be "bringing gold pillaging BACK" but introducing it a new. Since the majority of players started playing the game when there was no gold pillaging. And most servers never had it to begin with. so form most this would be introducing a NEW feature

2. I am not sure that "majority" of people want to completely remove the military. I actually never heard anyone say that to be honest. Myself as a hardcore builder, and lets be honest bad fighter, don't want that either.

1: Whether or not you experienced a feature of the game isn't really the point here.

from your perspective it might be new, but it is indeed part of this games history if you want to admit that or not.

I will admit that there are a lot of players that was not around for it though and that is a point, but in the way you're making it.

If this was the case we would have to take every players own personal experience into account.

2: so the scenario I laid down I think I said "assume this is true" I said that because there is no way for us to know

There is no way because discord is the primary way of interacting with GF, There is no way because even when it was just a message board a fraction of the players visited it, there is no way because we are a subsection of the total population as there are many other languages.

Perhaps you are correct that the majority would not want ALL military removed from the game, but I do FIRMLY believe that the majority would vote

to have all player on player military action removed, I say this because my experience has been that the majority of players are builders, not builder fighters, not fighters, but just pure builders.

I say this because 90% of the people I've attacked has complained and moaned about it, asking questions like what did I do to you, why are you attacking me.. it's unfair im just a builder, etc, etc.

I've had people literally delete their accounts because of it.. mind you that was not my intention to run people out of the game.
But I say that to illustrate just how allergic many players are to fighting.

All this leading up to the point that assume what I said is true, that the majority would be happy to never worry about being attacked, you do not support the majority decision but you do use it as a bullet point in why there should not be gold pillaging.

I find that inconsistent, If you say you don't want gold pillaging that's fine that's your opinion, you don't need to justify your opinion but to back up your opinion with "majority" argument but then apply it inconsistently I find it repugnant..

Quote from Buck Turgidson

if you want gold pillaging go play on WAR SERVER that is the point of them

I think we should have had a rainbow peace server for those who didn't want it.. but im not in charge, im not starting over on a different server I can tell you that.

Quote from nosorog

Why did they change it then? My guess would be that the majority of players did not like it so they removed it. all those players you pillaged did not like that one bit, so they are the majority (more than 50%). People who were losing their minds were people like you, who attacked and "won" the game in a perpetual loop paying for massive army by constantly looting others, while having huge deficit in their own gold production. Now you have to actually earn your own gold to fight, what makes wars in my opinion more meaningful.

~

The point of fighting is to pillage resources. I really don't get what else there is, if your opponent stops resource production, so you cannot steal anything from him, you kinda win, don't you? What more would you want? Destroy his buildings, drop his total score, remove research, completely destroy the account... If that is your intention, i am sorry but you should play another game.

We've been thru this already unless you're going to continue with this maybe you could come up with a proper counter argument.
GF does what it wants they've been more open to change lately then they ever have, so many good suggestions have been made over the years some quite popular and they didn't get implimented.

Scythe is right, they have their own vision, did they remove it because it was unpopular with the majority, I honestly don't know and im not sure how many people are still at GF from back then that would even know.

You say you have to earn your gold I've already told you.. no you don't, You can get gold from the blackmarket.

Do you think those people with 200m in MS are self funding that inventory? sure they pay nothing while in vmode but can you imagine teh upkeep when they're open for business?

We've also discussed island nuking where progression and resource production is not the point, so no.. someone shutting down protection is not winning in those cases, I would also point out that they have a thing called "gold mode", and they call it that for a reason, when you've given up and just shut everything down and let the account go idle and collect gold.. you are still progressing cause that gold can be used later for buying goods.

Gold is a resource last I checked bu tit's untouchable.

You might think someone occupying all your towns is also winning but it's not, someone in gold mode does'nt care because there is nothing you can do to there towns and your presence costs you double upkeep.. you lose not them.

I think scythe wants what I want, I want the ability to deny you amassing large amounts of gold, you said they would build cooks and cut their gold to 0 gain.. and im fine with that, that serves a purpose I don't necessarily need to have that gold it would be nice but denying you the freedom to sit there and amass gold unchecked will do just fine.

Quote from nosorog

But why exactly is that the problem, if people don't want to fight you they will find a way not to. Most players have a lot of resources unprotected way above warehouse safety limits. Especially now with huge exponential increases of storage capacity, but same levels of safe storage. So i really don't see the problem with normal pillaging. Why take their gold? what difference would it make?

~

What even is the point of the game - it is not staying in "gold mode" and not producing any resources and having empty warehouses. You can literally attack them and steal all unprotected resources, you can blockade their ports so they can't transport their goods or trade. You can force them to run out of wine and have their population drastically reduced - producing a lot less gold in addition...

So if you force your enemy to hide and run away you win. I really don't get why you are not happy with that.

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As has been said before denying you the freedom to sit and collect gold.

There is no point in this game, all these years you've been playing and still don't know?

those things are only useful if the players finds them useful, players that are stubborn and will accept an existence of just collecting gold waiting for you to tire out will use gold mode, not only that but all that comes at a COST the occupier.

Then you have the players that do not have advancement as an objective, they don't value progression so interfering with it has no deterrence.

I envy you for not having experienced some of the bad behavior, I really do.
The merger will bring a fresh start though, If you can't beat'em.. join'em.

Eventually I think GF will have to deal with all the games problems that are just compounding with time... or not.. we'll see.

This conversation is getting tiresome. so let me just say this before I take my leave.

GF does not care what we're talking about here, they don't care what I have to say on it, and they most certainly don't care what you have to say about it either, or scythe, or Mr long nose madmaic.

Do you remember when they changed the island wonders? I remember asking for free warps since they changed a major part of the game and people had picked their island locations on the basis of the old system.

I was told to either pay for the warps or destroy the towns and rebuild it some where else.. and you think they care about what you or the "majority" want or think?

Sure.

OK lets just call it to agree to disagree about "few merits" and "many disastrous consequences" of gold pillaging.

Just answer me 1 thing:

-Why do you want to bring gold pillaging to normal servers (where people seem to dislike this idea), and not lobby to be able to transfer your account from normal server to war server (where all people want gold pillaging)?

It seems that you are more likely you would succeed if you try to do that. and people who want to play game without gold pillaging could do that also. Everybody is happy, less players will leave the game, and you will keep your account and be able to pillage gold with it.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

OK lets just call it to agree to disagree about "few merits" and "many disastrous consequences" of gold pillaging.

Just answer me 1 thing:

-Why do you want to bring gold pillaging to normal servers (where people seem to dislike this idea), and not lobby to be able to transfer your account from normal server to war server (where all people want gold pillaging)?

It seems that you are more likely you would succeed if you try to do that. and people who want to play game without gold pillaging could do that also. Everybody is happy, less players will leave the game, and you will keep your account and be able to pillage gold with it.

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First, I would not like to limit my options. I would love to have both concurrently.

Second, I can see why some would prefer to keep the game simpler and free from consequences of their actions. However, some of us preferred a more complex game that allowed for exertion of pressure, when needed. It's especially true since we now have all of these multis in the game now.

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But why force everybody with a new feature when we already have that in form of war servers (why not improve them)?

And allowing you and people like you to move there is a lot more simple solution, that leaves everyone happy; people who want gold pillaging and people who don't.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

OK lets just call it to agree to disagree about "few merits" and "many disastrous consequences" of gold pillaging.

Just answer me 1 thing:

-Why do you want to bring gold pillaging to normal servers (where people seem to dislike this idea), and not lobby to be able to transfer your account from normal server to war server (where all people want gold pillaging)?

It seems that you are more likely you would succeed if you try to do that. and people who want to play game without gold pillaging could do that also. Everybody is happy, less players will leave the game, and you will keep your account and be able to pillage gold with it.

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First, I would not like to limit my options. I would love to have both concurrently.

Second, I can see why some would prefer to keep the game simpler and free from consequences of their actions. However, some of us preferred a more complex game that allowed for exertion of pressure, when needed. It's especially true since we now have all of these multis in the game now.

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But why force everybody with a new feature when we already have that in form of war servers (why not improve them)?

And allowing you and people like you to move there is a lot more simple solution, that leaves everyone happy; people who want gold pillaging and people who don't.

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I'm not sure if you are just isolated on a relatively peaceful server... But, when you have accounts nuking wonders and leeching on islands... You want to be able to exert pressure on opponents. Fighting is very costly, and there should be a point to engaging in it. Like I said, it isn't even about being able to amass a large amount of gold, it's about being able to take it away.

Also, it's not really about creating a new feature. It's about returning an old feature, in a new manifestation. It was broken before, I'm trying to come up with a new way to fix it.

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Yes indeed i play on very isolated server. some months you can be in top 50 piracy with 0 points, so pretty isolated.

I never had any issues with temple leeching since i only use 2 miracles (1 Poseidon 1 Hephaestus) and i am on full island with my alliance mates, so there are no free spaces for anyone to leech from.

I am not much of a fighter, after moving to this server after merge my alliance was in a single "war" or more like peacekeeping mission. I player wanted to be an ass and he cleaned entire server with pirates, so our whole alliance and handful other players around server ganged up on him, so he had to use vacation mode. After that he never tried anything like that again. So we won that "war".

I am willing to bet that such abuses are very niche case that are a problem to very few players (in most cases they could be solved with a bit of diplomacy), but gold pillaging would effect everyone, even people who don´t like it.

So allowing people who want gold pillaging to move to war server is a lot better and simpler idea. I really don't get it, if people like to have their gold protected why change it for everyone? if they are fine with faith leeching and want to stay on that server, why force them to change? Given that people who are not fine are allowed to move to war server.

Here is a suggestion: after the merge try and find a group of allies you trust and move on same islands, so people cannot leech faith.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

Quote from Scythe

Quote from nosorog

Quote from Scythe

First, I would not like to limit my options. I would love to have both concurrently.

Second, I can see why some would prefer to keep the game simpler and free from consequences of their actions. However, some of us preferred a more complex game that allowed for exertion of pressure, when needed. It's especially true since we now have all of these multis in the game now.

But why force everybody with a new feature when we already have that in form of war servers (why not improve them)?

And allowing you and people like you to move there is a lot more simple solution, that leaves everyone happy; people who want gold pillaging and people who don't.

I'm not sure if you are just isolated on a relatively peaceful server... But, when you have accounts nuking wonders and leeching on islands... You want to be able to exert pressure on opponents. Fighting is very costly, and there should be a point to engaging in it. Like I said, it isn't even about being able to amass a large amount of gold, it's about being able to take it away.

Also, it's not really about creating a new feature. It's about returning an old feature, in a new manifestation. It was broken before, I'm trying to come up with a new way to fix it.

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Yes indeed i play on very isolated server. some months you can be in top 50 piracy with 0 points, so pretty isolated.

I never had any issues with temple leeching since i only use 2 miracles (1 Poseidon 1 Hephaestus) and i am on full island with my alliance mates, so there are no free spaces for anyone to leech from.

I am not much of a fighter, after moving to this server after merge my alliance was in a single "war" or more like peacekeeping mission. I player wanted to be an ass and he cleaned entire server with pirates, so our whole alliance and handful other players around server ganged up on him, so he had to use vacation mode. After that he never tried anything like that again. So we won that "war".

I am willing to bet that such abuses are very niche case that are a problem to very few players (in most cases they could be solved with a bit of diplomacy), but gold pillaging would effect everyone, even people who don´t like it.

So allowing people who want gold pillaging to move to war server is a lot better and simpler idea. I really don't get it, if people like to have their gold protected why change it for everyone? if they are fine with faith leeching and want to stay on that server, why force them to change? Given that people who are not fine are allowed to move to war server.

Here is a suggestion: after the merge try and find a group of allies you trust and move on same islands, so people cannot leech faith.

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Not as niche as you would think, it's more of an issue on more active servers. After the new merge, you will probably experience it. I intend to be on islands with alliance mates, as much as possible.

I suspect that crowding will be more of an issue for colonization, during the upcoming merge. Players such as yourself are likely in for a bit of a shock, in an entirely new environment. Especially with alliances at war coming to the new servers, and will likely be needing resources that they cannot produce, while maintaining large militaries.

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At least they couldn't take my gold

I'm sure the option of looting gold is much more exciting than not having it. That's why I decided to play on the war server, but with the merger of the war servers, big, huge banks came from different countries that carry 70.80 million gold coins in one shot, now to be honest with you, it's a big risk to hold a large amount of gold and a large the amount of the army in the cities, it has to be tactical, and that is the biggest thing that looting gold entails, tactics, how to get the gold, how to hide the gold, when to spend the gold, how and from whom to take the gold. First me, I've taken a lot and lost a lot, sometimes I think gold hunters never sleep!

Personally, I don't think gold pillaging is an interesting mechanic. All that'll happen is we go from military banks to gold and military banks.

Gold can't be pillaged if it's stored on your alliance mate's account in vmode.

Honestly, I'm surprised I read this whole thread and no one brought it up. Yes, introduce gold pillaging with over a cap, like 10m, though personally, I think it should be higher and based off of (freighter cost or trade ship cost, whatever is higher) * 2.

All that happen is: more gold is converted to ships or freighters and every alliance has a gold bank or two.

For the record, I'm against gold pillaging for the obvious vmode gold bank reason and I don't think it's a good feature outside of war servers.

Someone who is going to drain your wonders and not progress will simply make it so they generate 0 gold. They're not going to generate gold for you to farm. All they'd need to do is build some cooks to offset their gold gen and the next complain would be "This person on my island is leeching my wonders and has cooks so he doesn't generate gold. Why can't I kill his cooks in combat?"

The bigger issue with wonders is we should be able to upgrade them beyond level 5 and levels beyond 5 require a reduced amount of faith, but wonders in general need a rework.

Quote from User12996

Personally, I don't think gold pillaging is an interesting mechanic. All that'll happen is we go from military banks to gold and military banks.

Gold can't be pillaged if it's stored on your alliance mate's account in vmode.

Honestly, I'm surprised I read this whole thread and no one brought it up. Yes, introduce gold pillaging with over a cap, like 10m, though personally, I think it should be higher and based off of (freighter cost or trade ship cost, whatever is higher) * 2.

All that happen is: more gold is converted to ships or freighters and every alliance has a gold bank or two.

For the record, I'm against gold pillaging for the obvious vmode gold bank reason and I don't think it's a good feature outside of war servers.

Someone who is going to drain your wonders and not progress will simply make it so they generate 0 gold. They're not going to generate gold for you to farm. All they'd need to do is build some cooks to offset their gold gen and the next complain would be "This person on my island is leeching my wonders and has cooks so he doesn't generate gold. Why can't I kill his cooks in combat?"

The bigger issue with wonders is we should be able to upgrade them beyond level 5 and levels beyond 5 require a reduced amount of faith, but wonders in general need a rework.

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Couldn't agree more. The real issue are people who abuse multi accounts, not the fact that we have have gold pillaging only on war servers.

Gold pillaging would only make bigger gap between players that gave access to gold banks, and those that don't.

Also i 100% agree that wonders need a rework. Not by making them individual, but by giving them some new gimmick or more levels. But they need to stay a island wide thing. it is one of few remaining multiplayer/ cooperation features left.

The wonders should be reworked so that all wonders are desirable (I don't know what other miracles we should have) and that higher wonder levels require less faith. For example, a wonder upgraded to level 10 should require half as much faith as a level 5 wonder.

Wonders shouldn't have a cap and each level should just require 2x as much donation as the previous level.

Honestly, Temple of Athene, Ares, and Hermes could simply be deleted. Roll Hermes' current bonus into Poseidon and I believe that'd address most of the issues. Ares is replaced with Hephaistos, Hermes with Poseidon, and Athene is replaced by the remaining ones randomized.

Great idea.

too long has the selection of buildings one can choose from has remained stagnant. Would love to see some new buildings come into the gameplay.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

Personally, I don't think gold pillaging is an interesting mechanic. All that'll happen is we go from military banks to gold and military banks.

Gold can't be pillaged if it's stored on your alliance mate's account in vmode.

Honestly, I'm surprised I read this whole thread and no one brought it up. Yes, introduce gold pillaging with over a cap, like 10m, though personally, I think it should be higher and based off of (freighter cost or trade ship cost, whatever is higher) * 2.

All that happen is: more gold is converted to ships or freighters and every alliance has a gold bank or two.

For the record, I'm against gold pillaging for the obvious vmode gold bank reason and I don't think it's a good feature outside of war servers.

Someone who is going to drain your wonders and not progress will simply make it so they generate 0 gold. They're not going to generate gold for you to farm. All they'd need to do is build some cooks to offset their gold gen and the next complain would be "This person on my island is leeching my wonders and has cooks so he doesn't generate gold. Why can't I kill his cooks in combat?"

The bigger issue with wonders is we should be able to upgrade them beyond level 5 and levels beyond 5 require a reduced amount of faith, but wonders in general need a rework.

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The opponent not generating gold is good enough for me. As long as he doesn't have it.

Both gold banks and accounts just there to leech are typically a problem that comes about with multi accounts.

Eventually, people will max out on cargo and freighters. Not to mention, with the 10mil cap you suggest... With Cargo ship 224, it would exceed a 10Mil cap.

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I suggested a 2 * trade ship or freighter cap. I do believe trade ships end up more expensive than freighters with the 380th trade ship costing 1b gold. This would give a protected amount of 2b gold after buying all ships.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

I suggested a 2 * trade ship or freighter cap. I do believe trade ships end up more expensive than freighters with the 380th trade ship costing 1b gold. This would give a protected amount of 2b gold after buying all ships.

That is excessive and defeats the purpose. I understand a reasonable amount protected, but it should also come at a cost. Which is why I suggested the bank building in the first place. It costs a building spot, for every city you place it in and also for the materials to build it. Plus, it would require cargo space to move it around. The amount pillaged would be limited to what is in that specific city. A certain small percentage of the overall capacity of that would be protected (based on building level).

Part of the whole idea is precluding people that are problematic from accumulating vast sums of gold without it being able to be taken away from them.

No need for a building, we can just reuse the trade ship formula.

Otherwise the "bank" simply becomes the alliance gold account that's 99% of the time in vmode.

No one is going to build a bank high enough to protect 1b gold to buy the last trade ship otherwise.

Again, as other people have said, if you want gold pillaging, go play on the war server.