Digging up land

[Madmeater]

Just a thought:
How about making each plant type more radical in terms of the season it produces in, and Include bush (Rather it be an all rounder).

This would then give way to my suggestion:

Digging up land!

There would be an interface similar to preparing land, only in reverse.
You would choose how much land you would dig up and you would either lose all plants in that land, or gain them in storage. (Perhaps lost some but keep, say, 30%?)

This way the player can decide to shift the ratio of land as the year progresses. Meaning rather than just sit on your pile of mainly bush land and gain seeds, You would have to think about what land you need to have more of for the season, meaning some focus is placed on maintaining and managing your land.

Gardeners would have to work on the land, pulling the plants and cultivating it for another type, so they would get to work as soon as they can, just like if you were growing or planting.

So people don't just put everything in bush, bush should join the other plant types and be heavily effected by season.

Something I was thinking was along the lines of:
Plant..........Spring..........Summer..........Autumn(Fall)..........Winter
Grass..........150%...........80%..............50%......................20%
Flower.........100%..........150%............40%.......................10%
Bush............35%............45%..............150%.....................70%
Tree.............30%............50%...............70%......................150%

These are just random numbers, but all add up to 300% (I hope so, correct me if I'm wrong)

So the scenario would be:
Spring: Turn tree into mainly Grass and flower
Summer: turn grass into flower
Autumn: Turn grass and flower into Bush and some tree
Winter: Turn some bush into tree

I haven't really but into deep theorycraft, and I'm sure people will find a way to exploit this system, If so, do tell!

Thoughts? Improvements? Flames?

 

[f0xx]

My main question is, how would this improve gameplay?

The only change it will bring is shifting your acres into a different type when the right time comes.

 

[Madmeater]

My main question is, how would this improve gameplay?

The only change it will bring is shifting your acres into a different type when the right time comes.

A few of my friends have started the game and are stumped when it comes to units and attacking. They are keen to grow plants and make money, but they find stealing land confusing, and while I explain how it works, they are finding the game stagnant as they dont have the confidence or knowledge to send attacks.

The game is hard for new players because of how complicated things get when sending attacks and working out battle outcomes etc. So I thought, why not put some emphasis on the growing and gardening side? This way, new players have something to think about while they learn how to start stealing and how combat works.

In my mind this could lead to other things in terms of plant ratios. The values are very loose but my intention was that you'd have to think about what amounts of land type you have.

"Would it be worth putting all of my land into grass and have to buy up on harvies?"

"If I change to flower in summer, I will lose X plants, will it be worth it to move my land to flower or should I ride it out until autumn?"

"Spring is coming! I need to make sure I can move into the new season smoothly and prepare!"

Adding things to do in the game can improve the gameplay by giving the players something new and (In my mind atleast) fun to do. Granted the seasons change slowly, but maybe they can come a tiny bit quicker to allow for more dynamic land rotation. I'm sure, with enough tweaking and thought, alot of different styles of play can be born.

 

[Madmeater]

A new thought just occured:

Why not add some form of reward?

Such as:
In summer, flowers have a random chance to produce triple seeds in one tick?

This would reward a player for planting correctly.

But a problem arises as players would just dump all of their land into flower.

So maybe add risk?
There is a chance, however, that a long drought may damage your land, killing X flowers.

This gives the players the option to go for the gamble with flowers, or play it safe with grass.

In this case the production will have to fiddled with.

Such as in summer:

Something I was thinking was along the lines of:
Plant..........Spring..........Summer..........Autumn(Fall)..........Winter
Grass..........*150%*...........100%..............80%......................20%
Flower.........50%..........*150*%............100%.......................80%
Bush............80%............20%..............*150%*.....................100*%
Tree.............100%............80%...............20%......................*150%*

An asterisk indicates the bonuses mentioned above

This way the player doesnt miss out that much by having grass, and so are not forced to plant that season's must have. But the increase in seeds is tempting enough that people will go for it.

Also, the season after the peak for that plant will have only an 80% bonus, so if a player is away and unable to change land during season change, they will not lose as much income. This means people wont be pranked online because it just ticked summer and theirfields of bush are producing peanuts.

 

[Garrett]

eh, time to throw out the old:

been suggested before. in fact almost exactly like you have described. granted i did not read word for word and the formulas used may not be the same, but it's been suggested in many different flavors.

sometimes due to change in mechanics certain old 'bad' ideas can definitely be revisited... but it was pretty much determined that the problems with this line of suggestions is thus:

1) abusable. (either by affecting in game land grab calcs, sticking someone that tries to steal with tons of grass, etc etc)
2) more land micro managing with no focus on encouraging warring.


The two major areas I remember, because basically most of the issues fall into those big umbrella topics.

For abuse (if you answered some of these questions, just keep reading).... how often is someone allowed to change, how long does it take to make the change, if someone steals from you - how long before they can change that acre make up? if there is set ticks before you change the make up, no one will be able to cultivate any stolen 'uncultivated' from a bot or if you switched it.

Basically there are so many questions in how to control this vs the benefit of having it. To ensure that there is a smooth transition into the game and that it is used properly, there is just so much that would need to be considered.

Then you also put, loss of production/value in regards to switching... so I'm trying to maximize my income, but I'm going to lose some anyway? Is it worth the switch?


I could be wrong and azzer could put it in tomorrow, but this to me fits in the category of 'clever, but futile'. Putting it in and giving people a chance to make money just by switching land types seems that it would decrease the drive for more acres and battles and not increase them.

Sitting on your company's 'ass' is not going to promote game play.

 

[Madmeater]

eh, time to throw out the old:

been suggested before. in fact almost exactly like you have described. granted i did not read word for word and the formulas used may not be the same, but it's been suggested in many different flavors.

sometimes due to change in mechanics certain old 'bad' ideas can definitely be revisited... but it was pretty much determined that the problems with this line of suggestions is thus:

1) abusable. (either by affecting in game land grab calcs, sticking someone that tries to steal with tons of grass, etc etc)
2) more land micro managing with no focus on encouraging warring.


The two major areas I remember, because basically most of the issues fall into those big umbrella topics.

For abuse (if you answered some of these questions, just keep reading).... how often is someone allowed to change, how long does it take to make the change, if someone steals from you - how long before they can change that acre make up? if there is set ticks before you change the make up, no one will be able to cultivate any stolen 'uncultivated' from a bot or if you switched it.

Basically there are so many questions in how to control this vs the benefit of having it. To ensure that there is a smooth transition into the game and that it is used properly, there is just so much that would need to be considered.

Then you also put, loss of production/value in regards to switching... so I'm trying to maximize my income, but I'm going to lose some anyway? Is it worth the switch?


I could be wrong and azzer could put it in tomorrow, but this to me fits in the category of 'clever, but futile'. Putting it in and giving people a chance to make money just by switching land types seems that it would decrease the drive for more acres and battles and not increase them.

Sitting on your company's 'ass' is not going to promote game play.

Cheers for the input. I know full well that this idea won't be implemented but i'm fairly proud of it so i'll keep the dream alive.

I thought the exact thing in terms of land swapping just before it's lost.
The stealer can just change it to whatever the want as soon as they get it (As I said, swapping land would work like planting or grwing, your gardeners would work on that land's plants, removing them and, if you have enough, it should be completed next tick.

I think it would be a good idea if the plants you uproot go into storage, gardeners aren't likely to just rip up plants they die for
In that sense, there's no loss when changing land type.

The only loss comes from the gamble plant of that month. Seeing as there's always a 150% with bonus and a 100% no bonus for each season, if a player doesn't want to gamble his income, he'll just whack all of it into his safe bet. As for the gamblers, they can go for the 150%.

Events should be random and global. So if one person loses out, everyone does, as this makes it fair.

A player doesnt have to lump all of his land into one type, he can split it, depending on the size of the gamble he wishes to take.

This is not intended as a sub for income, just a feature. stealing land remains the main importance, and how are you going to redig land if you dont have any? Some people may even develop unhealthy addictions to the gambling side and steal just so they have more chips to put down

 

[Garrett]

i'm all for spicing things up, but this just seems to be introspective for the ID and not an inclusive feature. Other than maximizing profits per season in a (in my opinion) convoluded way, i just don't see a benefit.

it's neat, i'll grant you that. i liked iliard's idea from another thread of making another land type or series of land types...

in fact i had immediately from that other thread's first post started to think about 'magic the gathering's dual land types from 3rd edition like tiaga and such that gave mana in either 1 type or another.

then i saw iliard's post and said to myself 'he's got that covered'... now that idea i'd like to see fleshed out.

i'm on the fence between wanting to sit here in suggestions and flesh out ideas and just stopping posts all together.

keep posting tho manmeater (just not in this thread lol). even if not always useful, i tend to like what you write and how you roll with feedback.

 

[Sir Drumalot]

Just a thought:
How about making each plant type more radical in terms of the season it produces in, and Include bush (Rather it be an all rounder).

This would then give way to my suggestion:

Digging up land!

There would be an interface similar to preparing land, only in reverse.
You would choose how much land you would dig up and you would either lose all plants in that land, or gain them in storage. (Perhaps lost some but keep, say, 30%?)

This way the player can decide to shift the ratio of land as the year progresses. Meaning rather than just sit on your pile of mainly bush land and gain seeds, You would have to think about what land you need to have more of for the season, meaning some focus is placed on maintaining and managing your land.

Gardeners would have to work on the land, pulling the plants and cultivating it for another type, so they would get to work as soon as they can, just like if you were growing or planting.

So people don't just put everything in bush, bush should join the other plant types and be heavily effected by season.

Something I was thinking was along the lines of:
Plant..........Spring..........Summer..........Autumn(Fall)..........Winter
Grass..........150%...........80%..............50%......................20%
Flower.........100%..........150%............40%.......................10%
Bush............35%............45%..............150%.....................70%
Tree.............30%............50%...............70%......................150%

These are just random numbers, but all add up to 300% (I hope so, correct me if I'm wrong)

So the scenario would be:
Spring: Turn tree into mainly Grass and flower
Summer: turn grass into flower
Autumn: Turn grass and flower into Bush and some tree
Winter: Turn some bush into tree

I haven't really but into deep theorycraft, and I'm sure people will find a way to exploit this system, If so, do tell!

Thoughts? Improvements? Flames?

Unfortunately your seasonal seed growth has already been around before, it used to be that way back when I was playing last.. Not as drastic as you suggest but still a difference amoung seasons.

Nice thought with the second part though, would bring in more variables and make it more work to keep the money rolling in at 100%.. But I doubt it will be implemented since it puts casual players at a huge disadvantage.

 

[rooney]

i like the idea, but i feel that the biggest problem with the game atm is keeping new players, so anything that complicates the game unecessarily is a bad move. it would add a new level of play for the experienced players but overall i think it wont help.