Beiträge von Makaveli

An idea came to my mind, inspired by my memories from playing Europa 1400. In the Guild 1 if you had a fiscal imbalance on the next round, such as -1000 or higher, the player automatically lost his turn, i.e. basically a gameover. In early game players had to carefully manage their finances so as not to go bankrupt, otherwise their game was over. I suggest making [somewhat] similar changes to the guild 2 to make the gameplay more [economic-wise] complex. Right now, even if a player goes 200k in ‘minus’ he/she is still continues running all his businesses, which makes no sense [from economic competition perspective]

I suggest making the following changes, which will allow competitors destroy a rival dynasty by economic/financial means, such as stealing their gold or make the court issue a great fine, or stopping production by starting a financial inspection or using smoke bombs to stop production for a while. The following points I suggest adding to the gameplay:

• In case a player ends up with more than 1 000 in debt on the new turn, most [if not all] his employees become highly dissatisfied with a player and leave, which leaves him no employees to being a new round with. In case it is less than 1k, employees become highly dissatisfried but do not leave yet. In case employees are already highly dissatisfried and the player ends up with a debt, they leave, even if the debt does not exceed 1k. This will make players not only carefully manage their income, but also regularly pay bonuses to their employees.
• In case a player ends up with more than 3-5k in debt his/her buildings [that are established within city borders] become for sale, i.e. player losses his [legal] buildings.
• Point #2 does not apply for buildings outside of town and rogue buildings, however, the employees, including thugs, still leave in case a player cannot manage his income.
• In case a player has a high debt [say 3k or more] guild houses no longer give him loans.
• To counter the risk of possible bankruptcy as a result of competitors I suggest adding a 'safe deposit' option to the house of level 4 or higher. In the Guild 1 players could hide some of their cash in order to have a secret stash or to decrease inheritance tax, which was present in the first title, before characters death. A safe to hide some of the cash could play a role of money which a player desperately needs in case of a risk of bankrupty. This money should not be targeted by the thieves and the player cannot use it as long as it is 'stored' in the safe deposit.
• In case of a high debt players lose their infrastructure and employees on the next round, not immediately after having a debt, such as after the court trial ended.
• I also suggest increasing employee dissatisfaction rate so that player has to regularly invest into them so that they do not steal or leave during production. I believe employee dissatisfaction should be based on their level, the more experienced the employees are the more their wages cost per turn and the faster is their dissatisfaction rate, i.e. a player has to give them pay bonuses more often, say once per 2 turns.

Thus, in case a player ends up with a high debt, he/she basically loses all his [legal] business infrastructure, which in my opinion is logical and will enhance the gameplay to allow many economic possibilities to conquer your rivals. Right now the game emphasis physical elimination, but not economic one, which in my opinion would be closer to the concept of the Guild series. This way the game will become both, more difficult and interesting from economic gameplay perspective.

Regarding the trials and sentences, I suggest the following:

• Each court decision in case a defendant become accused, is followed not only by the court decision itself, but always with a fine. In case a character is put to death but his other family members are still present, they pay a certain fine. In case a character is imprisoned, it is also followed by the fine.
  
• Add 'lose the title' as an actually possible court sentence, which is not merely a huge fine as in the vanilla game, but makes a character actually lose his or her title down to the Yeoman.
• Criminal evidence is only added in case a character is seen commiting a crime with a spy on his tail or if a the merc are using 'ask around', rather than automatically. Character who commits a crime should still lose his reputation/disposition and [eventually] become a walking nightmare, however, actual evidence is only collected through specifc options. This should improve the spying part of the game and make information collection more closer to the first Guild, where players actually had to pay a spy to get certain evidences.

This is not a final brief for my suggestion, in case there could be possible difficulties with what I propose, and which I failed to take into account, please let me know, we can discuss a more balanced version of the above.

Thank you

Hi,

I would like to suggest an ovehaul of the concept of thugs in the Guild 2. Right now, and since ever, thugs are hired in houses, which means the more houses one got the more thugs he or she can hire. This feature I believe is tremendously ruining the strategy part of the game. I will give you a brief example of today's multiplayer session I had with a friend.

My friend started massively taking over residences in town, which would mean that after a while he could easily take over my family simply by numbers. In turn, I sent all of my capable characters including thieves and robbers (which previously were making coin, but I had to sent them on massacre instead) to take over his main rogue character so as to stop him until he reaches a lot of hirelings, which would give him possibility to take over all of my businesses in due time. I started attacking him with all I had, needless to say I had lost a lot of employees and had to hire more and sent them to the very place of battle again. In the end I managed to kill all his hirelings and left him with no cash, but he still owned most of the buildings in towns. This is the same way people play Age of Empires or Wacraft 3. It is easy to take out families using numbers and real-time-strategy way of playing, but in my opinion the Guild 2 is not about sending armies and atacking over and over again. I strongly believe that other concepts of the game such as pure strategy, intrigues and politics are more interesting gameplay-wise. Anyone can use numbers and not many players are capable of actually creating an interesting strategy against their key competitiors.

Thus, my suggestion is the following:

1. Allow hiring thugs in arsenals only, not in houses.

2. Limit the number of hired thugs to the title, where each title allows you to hire 1 thug.

3. Slightly increase the cost of thugs.

4. Commoners should notbe able to hire thugs, Yeoman is the first title which should be allowed to hire a first thug.

This change [I strongly believe] will massively enhance the gameplay from stategic and economci perspective, instead of turnign the game into the somewhat dull real time stategy, where people take out others by merely numbers. I will briefly describe two stategic examples of how this change may vastly improve gameplay:

Imagine two opponents, each has a limited number of thugs, say 4. They use them for collecting evidence, some sabotages, patrol and spying. However, at some point one decides to use all 4 of them against his rival, and another player notices his plans. What would be my actions in this situation? I would instead try to surround them and send two thugs from one side and two from the other so as to surround this pack and make sure they will die. This is a tactical move, not numbers.

Another example. I have three thugs. In a few years they will have nice stats/levels, and I also bought them some armor and weapons. Thus, I have invested into them and I have the right to actually enjoy this investment by having a strong crew of mercenaries. However, in case my opponent has 5 houses, with 2-3 mercenaries each, there is no way several of my mercs can take out 15 of his, no matter how strong are mine.

Notice how NPC's only use 1 or two thugs to escort them? I am not saying we should take example after the AI, but the guild series are meant to be economic strategy rather than "hire as much thugs as possible and send them out for massacre".

I have managed to make my rival bankrupt by using thieves on some of his building and making him lose his mercs in a warcraft manner but frankly this is not what I believe the Guild 2 should be. I hope some of you will support my position.

As for other combat-based characters such as mercenaries, thieves and robbers, yes, they too can be used as force, however, they are also used to generate coin, so this is risk vs reward, while you sent them on combat, they cannot generate money and while a player loses his 'troops' he is risking of becoming bankrupt, especially in early game where competition is super intensive, especially during the multiplayer sessions with agressive opponents.

Thank you

P.S. On the side note, I was outlawed while being in the the town hall and did not move out until my outlaw status was gone. Perpahs add a feature for the guards to make the outlaws come out of buildings?