New Game Features Chapter 3 thru 5 Guest Races

[DeletedUser]

Currently, chapters 1-5 are introductory chapters. It might be nice to start guest races a little earlier than chapter 6. Maybe a good place to start is chapter 3.

Motivation:
Get a taste of guest races and something else to do with our cities. I would totally rebuild my cities for earlier guest races goods. I'm adding my very first poll, although I thought Marindor did this.

Possible Guest Races
1. Asian styled city with cherry blossoms for planks
2. Turtappleshoes - cute little turtle race that eats apples and wears shoes. Apple trees are the new plank factory. Guest race goods: shoes
3. Futuristic or steampunk
4. Lodge, rustic always snowy kingdom. Pine trees are the new planks factory
5. Old West style. Joshua trees are the new planks factory
6. Victorian style
7. Underwater race - Mangrove trees on the surface are the new planks factory.
8. Mini race like gnomes
9. Another mini race - Little "sun"flower people with lots of floral buildings

Pros
1. More Stuff to DO!
2. New Event Quests!
3. More chapter quests
4. My garden cities would look even more amazing.
5. Portal profits given as a gift in the spire in chapter 3 might actually be a useful gift. Same with events.
6. Doesn't affect anyone already past chapter 5 but they gain the expansions.
7. Starting at chapter 3 with guest races may help people learn space management before chapter 6 and not such a shock.


Cons
1. Rework of chapter 3 thru 5
2. Space - Solution: maybe add a couple of expansions to each chapter. and make the new guest race goods buildings very small.

Miscellaneous:
* Guest Race Goods Building sizes:
chapter 3 - 1x2 or 2x1
chapter 4 - 1x3 or 3x1
chapter 5 - 1x4 or 4x1
When upgraded, they get taller.
* Possibly make them optional
* If optional, maybe the research for these can be skipped and the quests can be declined.

Have any pros and cons? go!

 

[DeletedUser]

oops guess I wasn't suppose to add the poll. @Marindor can you remove it please. I don't know how to. Thanks!

 

[UlyssesBlue]

I'm currently bringing a new city up through the lower chapters, and even though I now have the experience to avoid all the newbie errors, I am still running into a lot of issues, like limited space, very low production, and a tiny population. If I had to deal with a guest race on top of all that it would just add a massive hindrance on to something that is already a massive struggle. Where would I put the buildings? Where would I get the resources to build them? If the game gave me more expansions and goods to account for the introduction of the guest race I'd prioritise fixing my other bottlenecks, not accommodating the guest race. Dwarves was hard enough in my first city. Introducing a guest race earlier than that would be a nightmare. There are a lot of abandoned dwarf cities out there, which suggests guest races are a significant hurdle than plenty of people are just unable to overcome. That's an issue in it's own right. I think this proposal would just make that worse.

 

[DeletedUser]

@UlyssesBlue thanks for your input it gave me another idea for the 3 guest races. I guess it all depends on how you build your city. If one struggles at chapter 3 to get the 1x2 buildings they might also struggle with the dwarven chapter. Building sizes would be relative. Currently, I also have numerous small cities, some with too many wishing wells, some with empty spots, some with too many roads. I love my roads. It would be fun for me to add guest race goods to them instead of the wishing wells, empty spaces and roads. My inventory is more than enough for what I need and most have 6-9 worshops.

But I added a poll slot to make the 3 chapter guest races optional.

 

[DeletedUser]

Here is probably my most favorite chapter 3 city

It has:
6 wishing wells
Upgraded streets (and probably too many)
two level 4 wonders
All of the factories - 20 total with 1 traveling merchant
9 workshops (learned having only 5 cannot support this many factories)
No purchased expansions
199 extra population with more houses to still upgrade
170% culture
1 expansion from my map as I was already going to chapter 4
and with 1 or 2 more expansions added I could easily add guests races
I did take out my phoenix buildings because I have no way to upgrade them. Gave me lots of room.

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

You forgot to mention Venar's Rocks III. How much population and culture do you get from it? And how much population do yur Residences give in comparison?

 

[DeletedUser]

All of my cities have venar's rock III except 1, all my cities have 8 houses. (but beta because it's not chapter 3 anymore and overbuilt the daylights out of it.) None have all of my residences upgraded. I'll look up my city that doesn't have venar's rock as well. 640/640 is what the stats are for chapter 3. But it's massive. A level 15 elf residence gives 420 population.

I've had more than enough people tell me that I won't have room for the dwarven chapter. This is why I get stuck in events - I don't work on my map until the end of the chapter. I still have 3 more expansions to get currently at 76/100 to open the dwarven chapter. I have 2 open expansions in my city now. That gives me 4 expansions to add the portal and granite mines. (one is for my Garden of Harmony) By the time, I get to the copper mines, I'll have 2 more expansions. But for now, I'm slogging through getting my wonders upgraded to 5 and seeing what the new chapter brings.

 

[Arthus]

No. In chapters 1-5 player is a noobie that learns how the game works.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is another of my chapter 3 cities that is only 1/2 way through research. I have 3 expansions yet to learn unlike the one above. It has the barn but not venar's rock. I removed all of my phoenix buildings in every city. No sense keeping something for a year that I can't upgrade past chapter 1... This city I'm also stuck in the event because I won't work on my map until I'm almost done with research.


currently there are
19 factories - 1 of the tier 3 so far
3 traveling merchants
8 residences
6 workshops
Not sure where the culture is on this one, have neighbor help
5k-8k in goods of tier 1 and tier 2 2k-7k
No premium expansions

@Arthus I appreciate your response as well, having brought someone to the game and they are now in chapters 2 or 3, I think they are doing fantastic. They love the space management aspect of the game. Figuring out how to get so many factories in a limited space. They have not bought any premium expansions and also have cities with empty spaces for other goodies besides our current factories. I think they are experienced enough now to tackle guest races at an earlier chapter.

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

Event buildings that give population and Culture make the early chapters much easier, as they are (usually) more efficient than residences, and they also give Culture instead of costing you Culture. Thus when making suggestions you should assume that the player wiull have no event buildings.

 

[DeletedUser]

Okay I'll show you two more cities. although I consider wishing wells and other things like that event buildings.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is another chapter 3 city that I did purchase 5 expansions for, thinking it would be one I take a little further than others. Not sure it's correct so I'm upgrading my wonder atm before moving on. Probably a mistake to have done that.

This one has
Both venar's rock and the barn and
The glade and fruitful fields
4 wishing wells
Level 2 golden abyss
9 workshops
24 factories
1 traveling merchant
3k-8k tier 1 goods
5k-10k in tier 2 goods although I haven't upgrade my roads yet waiting for a quest for research
Huge culture
8 residences not upgraded to level 15 yet. with 155 extra population right now
My barracks can't be seen in this picture.
1 more expansion to learn from research
and probably 2 or 3 expansions to still get from my map on the trek to chapter 4.

 

[DeletedUser]

And the last one

This has:
Venar's rock III, the barn, the glade, the new cute bubble building, the coast guard, 1 wishing well
I've upgraded these factories a little higher than the rest of my cities.Which is probably something I wouldn't try again although I have the population. It has the least amount of inventory from all the upgrades. 2k-7k tier 1 and 2-4 k tier 2
No premium expansions
5 expansions left to get from my map to open chapter 4
7 residences none upgraded to 15 yet, 237 extra population
17 factories
8 workshops adding 1 more with next expansion from my map
2 traveling merchants
unsure about culture have neighbor help - any more culture buildings, they may never get clicked on, but I do have some really great neighbors in some cities that we help each other.

What I love most about this, none of my cities are carbon copies of each other. My factories are different levels in each city and different amounts of factories and this one happens to have the new event buildings. Even this city with 1 or 2 expansions added for a chapter 3 guest race, I'd have plenty of space.

Thank you mod. my bad and won't do that again.

 

[DeletedUser]

Perhaps as an optional three chapter tutorial, if it was cleaned up a bit, but otherwise no. I personally would not be willing to go through all of that.

 

[DeletedUser]

if it was cleaned up a bit,

Not sure i understand this part, please explain a little more.

I'm adding a few more things above as well.

 

[Karvest]

Just grow up faster through that chapters and you will get your guest races. Inno is working hard to speedup progression to higher chapters and you are suggesting the opposite - additional slowdown at early stages.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Dear soleil,
This idea is pointless, the're not going to redesign the entire game and spend a few thousand manhours on virtually nothing with no real gain.
In short tems, this idea cost a lot of dev time, and doesn't bring in money either on the short or long term.

 

[DeletedUser]

Playing devil's advocate here: What would be the difference of adding 3 at the beginning versus 3 at 15, 16, 17 Wouldn't high chapter players maybe want to see something new other than more guest race chapters? While I'm not a developer, I can't imagine this is 1000's of man-hours of work. Maybe it's already been done and they never added them until someone asks for them.

They have sped up the game in certain ways, the time instants for building upgrades, (one doesn't have to watch the paint dry anymore) and while this is the first time as a solo player I've had help with wonders it is still really slow to do this. I'd like to have a few other things to play with while I upgrade my wonders and for the most part I have the room.

There was a suggestion a few months ago about adding more expansions to the game, and I'm giving a reason here to add them.

It's also not unheard of for devs to revamp older content, it keeps the game fresh and when building a new city there is something new even at lower chapters.

 

[Marindor]

We think Chapter 6 is a good point to start with the Guest Race settlements. The chapters before that can be used to get familiar with the basics of the game. Since we currently have no intention of bringing the Guest Races sooner, I'll archive this thread now