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World Map Change tutorial to fix inactives

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
Most inactive/abandoned cities are the "1 day wonders". We all know them: Mainhall, builder and 1 or 2 residences.

Does a city have to be placed on the world map before it has a barracks or trader?

My suggestion is to keep the world map button hidden until a player completes the tutorial, which should include building a barracks(if it doesn't already), and only place a player on the world map after that is done.

Alternately place new cities on the fringe until they have a trader, at which point they can qualify for player movement (which should be done weekly anyways)

There is no real issue with boosts as those can be randomly assigned and there is a spot somewhere in the world that matches.
 

DeletedUser1278

Guest
That is a nice idea.
Butt stil its not the best solution for the biggest problem

On the dutch server i have arround 200 neighbours .
And on my last check 110 players are not active this includes some 1 day flies
Many of those players wrote above there city stopped or only the buildings they cant destroy are there.

This also results in poor tournament activity and poor trading which is bad for the game activity

I think it can be a nice idea (( If they send all players a mail wich all players should click on to register
And who is not active cannot register so they can be moved a little away from the active area))
I heared there looking in to this problem .

hope they fix something soon
At this way the tournament level 6 is never reached
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
Butt stil its not the best solution for the biggest problem
This tutorial idea would just be a way to set things up for successful player movement, the rest of which is being forwarded to the devs =)
24axus9.png
 

DeletedUser1596

Guest
I'd go even further. I wouldn't let them into global ladder or erase them after short inactivity. 10% of our local (CZ) server are these guys (one day visitors)
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
I'd go even further. I wouldn't let them into global ladder or erase them after short inactivity. 10% of our local (CZ) server are these guys (one day visitors)
I just checked, and 20% of my server has a score under 50 (that's 2 residences)
These players would never have even been placed on the map in my proposal(nor the ladder)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
@SoggyShorts Great idea :)
I posted this idea on the Dutch forum a couple of weeks ago. Many other players seem to like this idea, but sadly no response from the mods :(
Maybe you will have better luck being heard here ;)

For anyone who can read Dutch: Oefenterrein op wereldkaart voor nieuwe spelers

I also checked the players list, about 15% hasn't even finished the tutorial (below 40 points), but gets a place in the center of the worldmap
 
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SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
I also checked the players list, about 15% hasn't even finished the tutorial (below 40 points), but gets a place in the center of the worldmap
Even without the rest of my (our) suggestion this part could at least be fixed by NOT deleting inactives until just a few minutes before doing player movement. Between the Oct 10 and Nov 15 movements on US LIVE servers sweet spots were filled with 1 day players, they got wiped, and filled again....
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Even without the rest of my (our) suggestion this part could at least be fixed by NOT deleting inactives until just a few minutes before doing player movement. Between the Oct 10 and Nov 15 movements on US LIVE servers sweet spots were filled with 1 day players, they got wiped, and filled again....

Yep, we also asked for that, but the answer was that deleting inactive players takes place everyday, and player movement ..... only happened one time only :(

On the Dutch server my city is very close to the center, lots of inactives who will never be removed because the're beyond chapter III or spend some diamonds (introduction offer mostly). Occasionally a very small inactive city is removed (after about 8-12 weeks), and the spot gets immediately filled by another 5-min try-out player :mad:.
 

DeletedUser1767

Guest
This is such a great idea! I give it enthusiastic support!

Does anyone know how they decide whether your current neighours are active enough not to move you? I started a city on Winyandor about a week after the first US player movement, which landed in the outer ring of abandoned cities on the edge of the wasteland. I have exactly four active neighbours, one of whom is way beyond my reach, another of whom still hasn't built a trader (despite starting at the same time as me), and the other two of whom just appeared in the last week. I thought that city would be a shoo-in for this week's movement, but it wasn't moved. Are they counting the little mayfly cities as "active neighbours" if they just popped up in the last week before a move?
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know how they decide whether your current neighours are active enough not to move you?
Until @Katwijk mentioned this as a possible way they are doing things I had never even considered that your local hood activity is a factor.

The way I assumed it worked was that any player deemed "active" was moved closer to the middle- provided there was an identically boosted hex with a gold mine on it. Priority would be given to players currently furthest from the center. 100% assumption, just seemed simple to me.
 

Buttrflwr

Well-Known Member
Until @Katwijk mentioned this as a possible way they are doing things I had never even considered that your local hood activity is a factor.

The way I assumed it worked was that any player deemed "active" was moved closer to the middle- provided there was an identically boosted hex with a gold mine on it. Priority would be given to players currently furthest from the center. 100% assumption, just seemed simple to me.

Well that would make sense why myself and a few others are still at the bottom of the darn world. :/

Also, back on topic, this is a very good idea. Many other mmo games offer this. :)
 

DeletedUser867

Guest
With only two sample sets there's not much that we can prove either way BUT we do know that the game already tracks your nearest 200 neighboring cities, as potential trading partners, whether you've discovered them or not.

So here's what I'm watching for, mostly because it's how I'd approach the issue.
  1. Sweep the spiral and update the activity flag for EACH of the cities. Replace the 30 day inactive (non-safe harbor) cities with Goldmines.
  2. (At some point in the future, the safe-harbor cities should also be routinely moved to the fringes of the map and replaced with Goldmines.)
  3. Sweep the spiral again, and for each of the most recent week active cities that are more than a week old, count the number of nearby cities that are 30 day active, and thereby build a list of potential moves. If you reach 67 active nearby neighbors, stop counting and go to the next city.
  4. Sort the list of potential moves by the number of active neighbors, fewest to most
  5. Starting with the worst off active city, the one with the fewest active neighbors, look for an interior Goldmine that has the right boosts
  6. If you find a match, swap the City and the Goldmine
  7. Rinse and Repeat step 5 until you've exhausted the list.
The nearby neighbors approach would preserve healthy neighborhoods, but once a neighborhood fell below the critical mass of 1/3 actives, nearly everybody would be moved to a better location. So most of your good neighbors would still be your neighbors, in the new location.

I'm also pretty comfortable with dropping Goldmines on top of the 30 inactives, every day, and thereby allowing immigrants into the interior of the map.
  • We need a LARGE area that has an average mix of owners
  • We should AVOID approaches, such as only clearing the inactives once per week just before the moves, which would lead to an enclave of active cities at the very center of the map, and newer players would never have access to any of the "best" neighbors.
 
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