So, banks and such...

[Misery]

....are they SUPPOSED to be giving hardly any crowns whatsoever?   I coulda sworn they actually, you know, did something before... at 1000 per turn it takes 12 turns just for the thing to break even on it's own cost.  Another few million years and it might help you buy another building.   And that's just the banks: something like commercial offices feels like a waste of perfectly good tiles.

I find I'm skipping *alot* of turns now, not because there's no decisions to be made, but because there's no money to make decisions with.  Not unless half the freaking city is a big pile of banks, anyway...  I'm just rapid-fire clicking the end turn button at times without even watching to see if stuff is happening, which to me is a sign of a big problem.  This also makes me care about the research and such even less than I already did, since it's mostly just an interruption of me clicking "end turn".  It's like, "What? Oh. Sure, whatever, just do whatever the heck this thing over here is, now go away, I have to click this now".

This is slowing things WAY the heck down.  The early part of the game in particular was already too slow as it was...

For the time being, I've stopped (again); way beyond my low patience level.  If there's something I"m missing though, do let me know...

[nas1m]

For me, building a honeycomb of Commercial Offices and Banks with a Shopping Mall in the middle yields a good windfall fairly fast.
Combined with e.g. a few Logging Camps/Fisheries and the respective Cultural updates my crown income usuallly is at a convenient 20k per turn approx at turn 100 (I think)...

[TheVampire100]

They were nerfed down for various reasons. Mainly because of the adjency bonuses. Also because a lot of other stuff gives now money too, including solar collectors (just WHY?). So if you want fast money, build a bunch of solar collectors. Money + energy=win.

[nas1m]

They were nerfed down for various reasons. Mainly because of the adjency bonuses. Also because a lot of other stuff gives now money too, including solar collectors (just WHY?). So if you want fast money, build a bunch of solar collectors. Money + energy=win.

Really ? This totally escaped my notice.

[kasnavada]

Factories by themselves gave hundreds of thousand each during the last patch I tested. But that's kind of abusive IMO.

Selling manufactoring product gives quite a lot of money. Otherwise, play peltians and unlock the social progress "unused crop = printing money machine".

Personally I don't find it useful to push for more money than about 30k / turn and that's achieved at about 3k to 5k pop with banks and commercial offices, and a few industry buildings.

[Misery]

Factories by themselves gave hundreds of thousand each during the last patch I tested. But that's kind of abusive IMO.

Selling manufactoring product gives quite a lot of money. Otherwise, play peltians and unlock the social progress "unused crop = printing money machine".

Personally I don't find it useful to push for more money than about 30k / turn and that's achieved at about 3k to 5k pop with banks and commercial offices, and a few industry buildings.

As much as I hate to say it, I have yet to even get to the point of manufacturing anything; hell, I dont even know how it works or what it does.  I've so far every time gotten bored and lost interest before I ever get near that (this time it just happened faster than usual).  The game doesnt really agree with me very much at all so far.  I'm getting the feeling that this fact isnt changing anytime soon, if ever.

For now, as I've no real drive to play it currently, I'm just going to step back and observe from a distance again.  Provided I dont forget about it.

[Tolc]

For me, building a honeycomb of Commercial Offices and Banks with a Shopping Mall in the middle yields a good windfall fairly fast.
Combined with e.g. a few Logging Camps/Fisheries and the respective Cultural updates my crown income usuallly is at a convenient 20k per turn approx at turn 100 (I think)...

Yeah, that's usually my setup as well and I'm quite content with it actually...Having a wonder/resource that boosts commerce makes it even more juicy, though.

They were nerfed down for various reasons. Mainly because of the adjency bonuses. Also because a lot of other stuff gives now money too, including solar collectors (just WHY?). So if you want fast money, build a bunch of solar collectors. Money + energy=win.

I think the tooltip explains why you get money from the solar collectors and water from the wind power plants, but I can't recall that right now. It made sense to me at least.

[TheVampire100]

I just checked it. I don't see any information about this. Maybe you saw it in the Patch Notes instead?

[crazyroosterman]

personally I've never really had an issue with money I usually just build lots of invention sites(around a resource user if I've got an appropriate resource) and then I sell the military/consumer products to the acutions for profits whats that I hear you say? selling things to the acutions will end in nothing but pain and suffering for our people? NA!.

[kasnavada]

Factories by themselves gave hundreds of thousand each during the last patch I tested. But that's kind of abusive IMO.

Selling manufactoring product gives quite a lot of money. Otherwise, play peltians and unlock the social progress "unused crop = printing money machine".

Personally I don't find it useful to push for more money than about 30k / turn and that's achieved at about 3k to 5k pop with banks and commercial offices, and a few industry buildings.

As much as I hate to say it, I have yet to even get to the point of manufacturing anything; hell, I dont even know how it works or what it does.  I've so far every time gotten bored and lost interest before I ever get near that (this time it just happened faster than usual).  The game doesnt really agree with me very much at all so far.  I'm getting the feeling that this fact isnt changing anytime soon, if ever.

For now, as I've no real drive to play it currently, I'm just going to step back and observe from a distance again.  Provided I dont forget about it.

You make a strong point here I wanted to raise around. Truly, manufactoring ain't that fun of a mechanic currently, and it's kind of hidden and not intuitive. But that's currently a minor concern, more or less, because as long as diplomacy ain't in the game, well it's half a game we're playing, given what Chris told us about the game. Which also makes me remember another point I want to raise, there is quite a lot of resources in this game (and I don't mean the "extractibles ones"). I mean you need to take care and balance:
- crops
- meals
- population
- jobs
- entertainment
- about 7 (I think ?) different types of manufactoring
- "map" resources
- building themselves (as they are tied to population, I consider them somewhat as a resource)
- crime
- energy
- 3 kinds of social progress points
- tiles (yes, since they give bonus to the player depending on building, I count them as resources)
- pollution
- terraforming (4 things to manage here)
- temperature
- victory progress
- research
- language (times the number of AI in the game)
- it's going to change, but whatever thing will take care of diplomacy times the number of AI.
- "rogue" progress and it's counterpart the planet appeasement
- crowns
- military
- territories
- ... and I think I forgot some. I'm rushed here, gotta go to work...

Depending on how diplomacy is done and combat changes, there could be a need to either explain all of those much better than what's done now, or to remove / automate / simplify some in order to focus the game on what's important. Actually, Misery, you'd be a good tester for this. From what you're saying, if only a few mechanics feel pointless you'll feel bored and quit  (and currently, there's quite a few which do).

[Misery]

Factories by themselves gave hundreds of thousand each during the last patch I tested. But that's kind of abusive IMO.

Selling manufactoring product gives quite a lot of money. Otherwise, play peltians and unlock the social progress "unused crop = printing money machine".

Personally I don't find it useful to push for more money than about 30k / turn and that's achieved at about 3k to 5k pop with banks and commercial offices, and a few industry buildings.

As much as I hate to say it, I have yet to even get to the point of manufacturing anything; hell, I dont even know how it works or what it does.  I've so far every time gotten bored and lost interest before I ever get near that (this time it just happened faster than usual).  The game doesnt really agree with me very much at all so far.  I'm getting the feeling that this fact isnt changing anytime soon, if ever.

For now, as I've no real drive to play it currently, I'm just going to step back and observe from a distance again.  Provided I dont forget about it.

You make a strong point here I wanted to raise around. Truly, manufactoring ain't that fun of a mechanic currently, and it's kind of hidden and not intuitive. But that's currently a minor concern, more or less, because as long as diplomacy ain't in the game, well it's half a game we're playing, given what Chris told us about the game. Which also makes me remember another point I want to raise, there is quite a lot of resources in this game (and I don't mean the "extractibles ones"). I mean you need to take care and balance:
- crops
- meals
- population
- jobs
- entertainment
- about 7 (I think ?) different types of manufactoring
- "map" resources
- building themselves (as they are tied to population, I consider them somewhat as a resource)
- crime
- energy
- 3 kinds of social progress points
- tiles (yes, since they give bonus to the player depending on building, I count them as resources)
- pollution
- terraforming (4 things to manage here)
- temperature
- victory progress
- research
- language (times the number of AI in the game)
- it's going to change, but whatever thing will take care of diplomacy times the number of AI.
- "rogue" progress and it's counterpart the planet appeasement
- crowns
- military
- territories
- ... and I think I forgot some. I'm rushed here, gotta go to work...

Depending on how diplomacy is done and combat changes, there could be a need to either explain all of those much better than what's done now, or to remove / automate / simplify some in order to focus the game on what's important. Actually, Misery, you'd be a good tester for this. From what you're saying, if only a few mechanics feel pointless you'll feel bored and quit  (and currently, there's quite a few which do).

Yes, I can agree with that stuff.  Now, granted, in all honesty I kinda expect things like resource overload in an Arcen game.  It can be very daunting and certainly hard to learn, but these games have been so very rewarding once you DO get the hang of it.  Heck, like AI war... there's only about 50 zillionty different THINGS in the game, and all of these stats and effects and structures and areas and.... SO MUCH STUFF.  It's a very hard to learn game, but it's sooooooo good once you do, and there really arent any times in their games where you end up having to just sit and wait through a slow period, for the most part.  Though, for some players this isnt always the way they feel about it, and this complexity or constant barrage of actions can put them off of games like this entirely, so simplifying some things or removing redundant bits might help indeed.  Definitely alot of good reasons for that idea.

As for me getting bored, a huge part of it is that the game doesnt really do anything to "grab" me at the start.  It reminds me of something I heard someone say about World of Warcraft once: "The REAL fun starts at level 60!!!", and I'm like, okay, I have a better idea... how about the REAL fun starts at level ONE?  Needless to say, I didn't like WoW at all.  And this one is a bit like that... the real fun, challenge, and depth just doesnt appear for quite some time.  And I'm MUCH too impatient to handle that. I think I've actually achieved a state of anti-patience at this point.

Though yes, as you said I dont like dealing with pointless things either.  It's like, why are they even there?  They dont NEED to be but the game is making me use even MORE time dealing with them nonetheless... it does indeed just make it harder for the game to grab my interest. And thus the boredom will come.  And of course I wont be the only one getting this feeling from it.


As it is I've decided for now to continue the testing ANYWAY, so we'll see what happens.

[Tolc]

I just checked it. I don't see any information about this. Maybe you saw it in the Patch Notes instead?

No, I'm positive that it was ingame, but I can't find it anymore either...weird, it definitely was there at some point. Maybe it got removed at some point...

[Venhammer]

Factories by themselves gave hundreds of thousand each during the last patch I tested. But that's kind of abusive IMO.

Selling manufactoring product gives quite a lot of money. Otherwise, play peltians and unlock the social progress "unused crop = printing money machine".

Personally I don't find it useful to push for more money than about 30k / turn and that's achieved at about 3k to 5k pop with banks and commercial offices, and a few industry buildings.

As much as I hate to say it, I have yet to even get to the point of manufacturing anything; hell, I dont even know how it works or what it does.  I've so far every time gotten bored and lost interest before I ever get near that (this time it just happened faster than usual).  The game doesnt really agree with me very much at all so far.  I'm getting the feeling that this fact isnt changing anytime soon, if ever.

For now, as I've no real drive to play it currently, I'm just going to step back and observe from a distance again.  Provided I dont forget about it.

You make a strong point here I wanted to raise around. Truly, manufactoring ain't that fun of a mechanic currently, and it's kind of hidden and not intuitive. But that's currently a minor concern, more or less, because as long as diplomacy ain't in the game, well it's half a game we're playing, given what Chris told us about the game. Which also makes me remember another point I want to raise, there is quite a lot of resources in this game (and I don't mean the "extractibles ones"). I mean you need to take care and balance:
- crops
- meals
- population
- jobs
- entertainment
- about 7 (I think ?) different types of manufactoring
- "map" resources
- building themselves (as they are tied to population, I consider them somewhat as a resource)
- crime
- energy
- 3 kinds of social progress points
- tiles (yes, since they give bonus to the player depending on building, I count them as resources)
- pollution
- terraforming (4 things to manage here)
- temperature
- victory progress
- research
- language (times the number of AI in the game)
- it's going to change, but whatever thing will take care of diplomacy times the number of AI.
- "rogue" progress and it's counterpart the planet appeasement
- crowns
- military
- territories
- ... and I think I forgot some. I'm rushed here, gotta go to work...

Depending on how diplomacy is done and combat changes, there could be a need to either explain all of those much better than what's done now, or to remove / automate / simplify some in order to focus the game on what's important. Actually, Misery, you'd be a good tester for this. From what you're saying, if only a few mechanics feel pointless you'll feel bored and quit  (and currently, there's quite a few which do).

Yes, I can agree with that stuff.  Now, granted, in all honesty I kinda expect things like resource overload in an Arcen game.  It can be very daunting and certainly hard to learn, but these games have been so very rewarding once you DO get the hang of it.  Heck, like AI war... there's only about 50 zillionty different THINGS in the game, and all of these stats and effects and structures and areas and.... SO MUCH STUFF.  It's a very hard to learn game, but it's sooooooo good once you do, and there really arent any times in their games where you end up having to just sit and wait through a slow period, for the most part.  Though, for some players this isnt always the way they feel about it, and this complexity or constant barrage of actions can put them off of games like this entirely, so simplifying some things or removing redundant bits might help indeed.  Definitely alot of good reasons for that idea.

As for me getting bored, a huge part of it is that the game doesnt really do anything to "grab" me at the start.  It reminds me of something I heard someone say about World of Warcraft once: "The REAL fun starts at level 60!!!", and I'm like, okay, I have a better idea... how about the REAL fun starts at level ONE?  Needless to say, I didn't like WoW at all.  And this one is a bit like that... the real fun, challenge, and depth just doesnt appear for quite some time.  And I'm MUCH too impatient to handle that. I think I've actually achieved a state of anti-patience at this point.

Though yes, as you said I dont like dealing with pointless things either.  It's like, why are they even there?  They dont NEED to be but the game is making me use even MORE time dealing with them nonetheless... it does indeed just make it harder for the game to grab my interest. And thus the boredom will come.  And of course I wont be the only one getting this feeling from it.


As it is I've decided for now to continue the testing ANYWAY, so we'll see what happens.

I feel the same way as you do about every MMO. I'm not gonna sit through 15+ hours of boring content just to get to the endgame which may or may not capture my interest. That said, it sounds like diplomacy is going to bring some pretty significant changes once it's patched in, so I would say give it another shot once that's been implemented.