It's good to have limited slots when you want players to actually build cities differently for unique gameplay:
But the way Ikariam is right now: We have 6 unique slots for specific buildings (in red) and 19 slots where you can experiment.
Out of those 19 slots, The first is purple - Palace and residences. If you want to skip this building, I won't stop you.
The next 9 slots are a must building if you want to play end game Ikariam and are colored in Orange. You must build them, you have no choice!
In Green you have taken 2 slots for the farming Meta, which can be changed to more warehouses, but considering the new mine levels, I'd say they are a must build too even for warmongers now.
In Blue you have 5 extremely versatile and useful buildings that help your gameplay immensely. It's up to you if you want to have them or not, but an end game player has them all.
In Pink you have one slot that is different for each city: Trading post, Black market, Workshop, Dump, Another Warehouse, God's Shrine,
And that leaves only one slot for future new building. (Surprise me)
Those who play Pirates made a lot of warehouses and this update will force them to demolish them
Dump is not good building anymore, I use it in that last 19th slot to boost capacity and build, but I know, eventually I will tear it down if they don't change it.
Right now Warehouse protects no resources, 99% of your resource can be plundered at any time! But a good level warehouse provides enough capacity for us to build.
I had thought about things like "What about new Future researches or new technology trees?", also "What if Dump building and Academy building get reworked so they are actually more useful?" But it takes so many years just to reach lv 25 once, uncapping the futures seems useless right now since most players had not maxed all 4 yet. Me including! I personally will research the next lv 25 future after 3 years if I don't do experiments or make new academies! That being said, they must make Academies a unique slotted building so new players don't skip it. Like Dockyard / wall, research is essential for this game!
I had concluded: The playerbase of ikariam is mostly 30 year olds ~ 60 year olds. It is not 2010 when players had 20 years ahead to reach maximum for all 4 futures and max out buildings in 12 towns in a reasonable time frame. Back then, the game was full of many players, now most servers have around 100 active players.
If you want to milk out the few addicted whales, go for it - uncap the game and expect them to reach lv 150 mines and lv 50 Chronus's forge with ambrosia.
Then it's going to be a game made for few as target audience.
But if you want to reform the game for new players, game should be layered.
Current problems:
1:Merges. Players can not change their gamestyle and gameplay to adapt so often to the sudden and unexpected changes in the game. Some players started on a new server just to have good miracles or town locations and a merge will take that away forcing them to either adapt once again or quit.
Solution: Use Virtualization instead of merging servers to save energy of running servers. Stop opening new servers, let new players play on the old for population. let them inherit islands, developed and left as are from players who quit or died.
2:Slow progression of mines: 17 years had passed, yet most players still have lv 40 mines, some had developed 50s and a very few 60s. Almost nobody uses GY and Inventory to upgrade islands with redonation, because nobody told them they can do such thing and still don't know about it.
Solution: Help people who PLAY with activity not fall behind others when developing islands and towns without having to relay on donation alts. If the donation scores acts are a donation multiplier or auto donates every 30 days itself or a new game system that auto donates every hour based on donation score, it will be way more balanced. OR make a proper guide that GY+ Inventory is integrated part of the gameplay for everybody and let players choose if they want to create such alt or not.
3:Slow progression of Towns: This is a slow game. But, if it took 17 years for players to reach where they are today - small expands here and there every few years, always show a carrot on a stick for players to chase. Do most players have lv 14 Palace? No What about God's shrine lv 41? Doubt......Town Halls lv 40? NO.....so why did you decide to uncap...ah yes for the few whales who managed. Fine. Uncapping means the creation of soft caps: resource production and time.
It is a slow game, if you wanted possible resource obtained to be a soft cap, you'd not uncap mines. On a paper all those Levels would be there, but in reality nobody would reach them without cheating or tons of ambrosia, easy way to find out cheaters that way actually - they will stick out more obviously now. Example: Tomorrow Ivan made 150 Forest. Others just hit lv 50. Too Suspicious. Did Ivan abuse some sort of bug or did Ivan spend ambrosia? Go investigate Ivan.
Solution: Boost resource gain. Production buildings, future researches affecting gain, add effects to Dump to help out. Like some sort of bank returning interest rate daily for the resource you keep in this town based on dump level. You keep a lot of res? Dump gives you % res for keeping it in the town. Now you are a target for plunder too but that is part of the game!
This doesn't feel right, but how else would players gather 1bil res for a building with current islands levels and gains?
It is a slow game, second soft cap was time.
Does it make sense to halt current building order and spend the next year to rise a Chronos' Forge in every city? At some levels it costs more than some palace levels (which most players do not have currently). So if so many years were not enough for those players to reach lv 14 Palace, do you think they will build lv 10 Cronos' Forge in the next 3-4-5 years?
Solution: There is no current solution. If you want to make the game endless, you remove the carrot on the stick, players won't have any seizable goals for the next 365 days. Heck even the next 17 years won't be enough now to reach the currently set limits (140% production bonus, 20 lv Palace, 150lv mines (lv 70 would had been enough to avoid possible exploits, unless you aim to catch cheaters by letting them go wild and be more obvious)
Builders will never reach those soft caps any time soon.
Warmongers now need more ship capacity to plunder more to keep up with builders. Increasing the workshop upgrades and uncapping the ship limit is a good start, but making Gold is not that easily obtained and they can't be enough to meet ends currently.
Gold income: After everything skyrocketed, Gold is left unchanged and just not enough for some things.
Solution: Increase gold income.
Chain Problems: Bigger armies. Problem 2: Gold farms will skyrocket.
Solution to problem 1: Bigger battlefields or rework of the fight mechanics so that players lose armies way faster and even the hoarded generals could melt.
Solution to problem 2: Don't increase gold income.
Chain Problem: Top players with developed accounts and mines will dominate:
Solution: Graveyard and move to another server or quit.
That above is reflecting about the game itself as a game and nothing else, but a game.
As for the business model: Addicted players enjoy being on top of others or building to max levels (reaching some hard set goal). By uncapping, you allow the possibility for a cheater to surpass them and I doubt they will race against such scenario. If you aim for players to buy resources and build time, fine.
Important suggestion: Make demolishing buildings harder, because people will miss click while trying to navigate the game with their phone.
