by Haron » Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:48 am
For gold bar sinkers, I maintain the view that requiring gold bars for influence will aid this goal. Today it is a gold coin sinker. Note that it will NOT require less gold coins on a global basis even if we change this to require gold bars, since gold bars are made from gold coins, and this will increase the use of gold bars, and thus gold coins. Actually, ANYTHING that is a gold bar sink, is consequently also a gold coin sink.
For some REAL sinkers, though, what's needed is more battle. Battle where the losing side loses more than the winning side gains. Like ship stealing raids. In such raids, the total resources are reduced, since the profit for the attackers is always less than the loss for the defenders. In contrast to almost any other way to turn a coin. Trade generates more resources without any loss, and even plunder and skirmish will generate a higher profit for the attacker than the loss to the defender, thanks to piracy tech and salvaging part of lost ship levels.
In general, I think it's too easy to hide away valuables safely. If this was harder, which is to say everyone had more vulnerable resources, then there would be more stealing of resources by one player from another - with a net loss of resources from the game in the process. As long as making gold is easy, and securing gold is easy, then everyone will accumulate lots of gold all the time.
Yes, a gold smith is expensive. But those that build it, end up making a lot of gold - eventually. Which is why they build it, of course, with the prospect of making more gold. So while it is a "gold sink" in the short term, it generates more gold in the long term. That goes for most techs too (though not all). It would also apply to new "gold sinks", I assume. So more combat and less safe valuables is a more "permanent" gold sink.
You could increase the maximum level of ships, I guess. I'm not sure I like that idea, but it WOULD be a gold sink. If the maximum level was changed to 20, then most combat ships would be increased to level 20 to be able to defeat other combat ships. I'm not sure I think this is a good idea, though.
Also, traders should have a reason for leveling up trade ships, to make that a gold sink, too. Perhaps an attribute to increase the cargo capacity of ships could be a way to achieve this. Or simply increase the cargo capacity directly as a function of the level of trade ships.
Big ships already have some use, but I agree that more use could be nice. Wars and Blockades could be an idea for this, but I realise that this would be a major new feature, if implemented.
More diversification in battle strategies sounds good. Not sure really how you seek to achieve that, though. "More voodoo cards" seem to have been voted down by the community (more or less). Certain ideas, like actually performing the combat as a "mini game", is hard because only the attacker will usually be online during an attack. Also I don't think it would fit in this game. And battles are usually pretty clearly decided before they are fought, anyway. The attacker usually knows that he is stronger than the defender, or he will use voodoo to weaken the defender until he is.
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