A Tale Of Two Cities

Welcome back!

Yesterday we talked about the new version of research. Today, our menu consists of cities.

The idea of cities first entered the game last RX2, alongside the a new features known as "consolidation." In a nut shell, consolidation is a planned reduction in both the number of villages and the size of a realm, for the purpose of speeding up the end-game. Reducing the number of villages in proportion means that player power stays roughly the same, but what a player can achieve in an evening of attacks is greatly increased.

If your opponent has 400 villages, capturing four means almost nothing. If they have 40, by contrast, taking four villages is meaningful and damaging.

So, how do cities enter into this? Well, no one likes to lose something they've fought to build. For most players, the number of villages in their empire is the single most important indicator of their power within the game. It's a high score, and it matters. During RX2, two things changed for cities - point values and map icons. Player feedback was pretty clear, that just wasn't enough. Cities needed to feel more powerful than villages. They needed to represent the progress of an empire... not a step backward to facilitate overall gameplay.

As of right now, we haven't locked down exactly what the final version of cities will look like. Actually, let me say that again in bold so no one misses it. :P  As of right now, we haven't locked down exactly what the final version of cities will look like.

We're testing a bunch of things, though. Some will make the cut, and some won't. Here are the highlights.

• Increased farm capacity. Right now we're looking at a 20% bump. That may not seem like a lot, but it stacks multiplicatively with both research and bonus villages. 
• New building levels. One way to spend your new farm space will be further upgrading key structures. New levels will be few, but provide a noticeable increase in each building's capabilities, at a somewhat hefty food cost. I'm told that this potentially includes Palace levels, for those of you tired of waiting hours to recruit the fat, well-dressed buggers. (This section could change a LOT in testing, so don't quote me six months from now. Please. =P )
• Bonus village shuffle. We're working on making sure that if a bonus village is removed to promote a city, that city gains the bonus village's ability. No, this won't let you stack multiple bonuses into one place - though I admit that would be cool. But it will keep people from losing bonus villages when cities come along, and it will provide a greater strategic incentive to go after them early.

(We're still working out whether to do any realm size reductions, increase troop speeds, or other geography altering variations. Same with the exact village to city ratio. A lot of that will actually depend on how big R24 gets to be.... something we can't directly control.)

My personal take is that these changes are going to make the later stages of Realm 24 a wild, wild ride. If you've been clamoring for a genuinely different experience, this is the realm you've been waiting for. All of the excitement of early game expansion, but with a dramatically revamped mid and end-game. It may not be perfectly balanced. Someone might end up with a 4,000 knight city. The earth may tremble and locusts may devour all the green fields.

OK, maybe not that last part. Probably. The point is, the end game is going to have 150% more awesome than ever before. For me, at least, that makes it worth checking out.