I agree that donations should be voluntary. At the end of the day, the only person able to donate from that account is the owner so if you make threats the likelihood is that they just won't and either you accept that or you pillage them. However I'm a bit torn over the mandatory part. If a new player who has never played Ikariam before asked for advice on how to play the game, one of the pieces of advice I'd give them is that they should donate to their mills/mines.
On my islands Im a not a stickler for mine donations, I am however on faith.. it's a guaranteed way of getting my attention.
Whether you feel strongly enough to attack someone over it is up to you.. I'll take every thing they have and make the game unplayable for them.. sure they can go into gold mode for spite but that's all it'll be.. dead account.
But you have to be a fairly large size to dictate like that.. or very aggressive either way.
But there are ways around that.. assuming you have other island neighbors what you do is get everyone else to hate that person and make their life miserable, this only works if the player in question is actually wanting to play the game though and it's not a secondary account they dont' care about or one they made for the purpose of ruining your island.
Your demands have to be reasonable though, everyone has a different idea of whats a fair donation rate but you can't ask someone with 3m TS to donate as much as someone who has 30m TS, You also have to consider how many towns that person has, I would expect more out of someone with 3 towns then someone with 1 town on the island.
One thing is for sure if we have another merger I will be moving all my towns to an island where I have full control.
At one time my island chain was populated almost entirely with alliance mates but sadly many have dropped out of the game over these last few years leaving huge gaps for rifraff to wonder in.. as ugly as it is people with multi accounts plugging up town slots is a smart move.
But GF is resistant to change anything, they say it's a "shared resource", ya.. everyone takes but only some give, and the only way to improve the situation is to pull the weight (donations) that was designed for an entire island to contribute towards.
Dev's probably thought the incentive of better mines would get people to co-op but why? when you can do nothing and someone else is willing to fund it them selves.
So we get threads talking about how expensive the mine upgrades are.. ya they are, they're hellishly expensive if you're doing it all by your self.
The game is broken is on many ways.
It really depends on the mine levels and how many people are on the island. I wouldn't donate anymore if it would take me multiple years to get my wood back from the new gained mine level.
As an example, even with near perfect conditions (17 players on an island, each with 85% from the shrine and 32+ level forester's) it would take about a year for level 40 to pay off. For level 50 we talk about 8 years, even under these perfect conditions, for this level alone. If you sum up all the previous levels as well, it gets clear pretty quickly that somewhere in the lower 40s there is a point where it's not benefical anymore to donate (for the saw mill). If you have fewer players, it gets worse, obviously.
I agree the mines do have a point where their cost recovery becomes long and longer, however if everyone is donating regularly it's not that bad.
That's the problem though.. most people do not donate regularly.. I see lots of island where you have 1 or 2 people who are carrying the island.. im not saying their aren't some islands out there where everyone is working at it.. but they are the exception not the rule in my exp.
I wish GF would just privatize the mines and wonder.. It would be one thing if there was a way for other players to socially enforce their own rules
but the game is very limited in that, most actions will cost you more than the defender.
the only time it makes sense is if they have goods to take, you can't touch their gold no matter how much they have, 1bl gold nope leave that guys we want the lumber.. oh they ain't got no lumber? okay sorry for waiting your time we'll just go home now.
Oh I'll show them I'll occupy them.. ya you sit there wasting gold in their towns.
God help you if the account was actually a secondary one they don't care about or even worse one they made for the sole purpose of griefing you.