With the recent game updates allowing for accounts to have 21 total towns, this brings up the issue of available space and crowding.
Currently the island capacity is 16 + 1 premium spot, this simply is not enough spaces. The islands chains groupings are also not very big. The ones I see average between 10-14 islands.
Doing the math on this, at the minimum you have 170 available town spaces and a maximum of 238. If you divide that by 21 towns per player then that is only 11-12 players at most in an area and a minimum of 8-9 in one island grouping. (Yes I know there will probably be more players than this, but this is math and I am speaking to the statistics of what is allowed on paper)
This is going to make trading harder, it is going to limit the interactions of the players, it makes it easier for bigger alliances to lock down areas of the map, it makes the pirate game harder for some players.
With the amount of resources that are going to be required for a player to upgrade buildings to the max, the Vines, Quarry, Sulfur Pit, Crystal Mine and the Forest are going to be needing massive investments from the players on these islands, a handful players will have a hard time upgrading this on their own.. Especially with 17 towns on an island.
What I propose:
1. Increase the Island sizes to 30+5 premium spots.
2. Increase the island chain size to be between 16-20 islands.
Doing these two things will increase the available town spaces to 700 at most and 560 at minimum. Allowing for 27 players at minimum and 34 at most to have 21 town spaces in an area.
The below idea would be completely optional for a player to elect into,
3. Adding the feature to add a wood tax to the Vines, Quarry, Sulfur Pit, Crystal Mine and the Forest. Players can choose to automatically opt into contributing X% of their hourly wood production to the Vines, Quarry, Sulfur Pit, Crystal Mine and the Forest. This would completely optional for someone to choose to do. When assigning workers for a town just add a box that lets a player input a percentage.
The benefits of doing this:
1. More investment in the Vines, Quarry, Sulfur Pit, Crystal Mine and the Forest so that the players can help each other grow their accounts.
2. More trading partners that are closer together
3. plenty of spots that players do not need to fight over them
4. Allowing alliances to move into new territories in the world that were previously locked down by big alliances and older accounts.
5. Allowing players to move into more populated areas instead of being alone at the edge of the map.
6. The pirate game will benefit by giving players more targets in the immediate area.
7. Miracles will be less impacted by 1 player having a low average. (could also be a double edged sword and do the opposite)
8. Island towers will have more contributors to give bonuses to the players.
9. New players will have the chance to get more help from those around them.
10. Automatic wood taxes would help players who forget to contribute to set this up and not have to worry about remembering to contribute wood.
