Pause construction

[QossMean]

How about adding a pause construction option? You can start constructing, but after a few hours you want to do something else so you pause the building, put the workers on another task, like hunting, then you send the workers back to resume the building.

 

[RottPhiler]

Nope, the fun in the game is optimizing your workers. If you are allowed to pause construction, then you might as well allow queuing of builds, and reduce it to Game of War. Keeping two workers free for cider, etc., is a price you pay sometimes, while at other times you utilize them for a build and pay the price of going without cider etc. That's a good trade-off.

 

[yemen]

I like it. Queuing builds is a separate thing, but would be great as well. You know how people have tried to "gamify" work? This arrangement where optimizing the game requires timing your life is "workifying" games. I would enjoy playing this a lot more if I could advance effectively while playing more casually.

Separately, make harvesting / hunting and upgrading walls take 0 workers. I have a whole army just sitting here, let some of them hunt the deer and harvest the orchards. Right now with all workers busy, there is no reason to keep playing once mills / markets are full, not even raiding. So with industrial or above upgrades going, you can start everything and walk away for days even if you spaced everything out. 12+day uninterrupted builds are just stupid.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Once upgrades start taking 10+ days you should have the option to do them in phases like wonders. For say 50% more of the loot cost. Wouldn't be practical for oil-based upgrades but seems doable for gold and food ones. A pause project feature for a small fee would also work. It's a trivial matter to fill one's markets these days. Having to keep a worker free at all times just insta-build a wall or open a shipment is silly.

 

[RottPhiler]

So I agree that 12+ days uninterrupted builds are stupid, but I disagree on a pause feature. Ideally the max upgrade time that is tolerable is like 7 days (and I'm being extremely patient here). Anything more is just stupid and drives players away from playing the game, but I digress from the topic at hand.

I'm highly opposed to pausing builds or upgrades. Here's an example: the previous event allowed for 33% cheaper Guerilla upgrades. I kicked it off for 10 days paying 48K oil (as opposed to 72K). Then lo and behold, this event comes along where there is 50% off generals. So I canceled the guerrilla upgrade and received 24K or half the amount (lost the 24K oil), just so that I could use both slots in my armory to upgrade generals in the level 10-20 range six times by Monday resulting in 20+K oil times 6 or a 120+K (I'm gaining 136K overall) oil discount. So I had to make a choice to lose 24K oil from the cancellation, and the extra 24K oil from the guerilla upgrade discount which I cannot avail in the future (I will have to pay full 72K price), for a 136K discount on generals. So I net 88K oil discount, whereas had I let the guerillas continue upgrading, I would have only been able to use one slot for upgrading generals, and so I would have only received a 70K oil discount on generals. This kind of nuanced optimization is what makes the game fun for me. Had I been able to pause the upgrade, I wouldn't have to pay a price to avail the better discount.

P.S. Even though the example was for upgrades at the armory, the point still stands for building upgrades.

 

[yemen]

If everything was capped at 7 days, at least in every age before the latest, then this whole discussion would be much less necessary.

Not sure why pausing buildings (which releases workers, and that is the key part of the discussion) would mean you should be able to pause the armory or library.

Basically - give me the ability to do all the short random parts of the game (hunt, expeditions, walls) without having to leave several valuable workers unused the rest of the time. So I can keep playing even when all long term workers are busy. Whether that is with pausing, or making those things take 0 workers, or temporary workers that cost resources and can only do those tasks, I don't care.

 

[RottPhiler]

I gave the armory upgrade as a recent real example, and also said the point stands for building upgrades. Here's a contrived example for you. I'm in the Industrial age. Redoubts are offered at 33% discount. There are 3 of them, and each upgrade costs 7 million. Whoopee, I can kick all three of them off, and save 7 million. I spend 14 million in total for 3 redoubts, and the upgrades are 12 days long. The next week, Mortar Towers are offered at a 50% discount. There are 4 of them, and each upgrade costs 7 million. I now have a difficult choice to make.

If I let the redoubts continue by the time I upgrade all 3 Redoubts and all 4 Mortar Towers I would have spent 42 million (14 for the Redoubts at 33% discount, and 28 for the Mortar Towers at full price). If I cancel the Redoubts, by the time I upgrade all 3 Redoubts and all 4 Mortar Towers I would have spent 42 million (21 for the Redoubts at full price, and 14 for the Mortar Towers at 50% discount, and the 7 for the cancellation fee of half the resources to cancel thee Redoubt upgrades).

If I could pause construction, then I could spend just 28 million availing both discounts to upgrade my entire set of Redoubts and Mortar Towers.

That's a breakeven example so I have nothing to gain by canceling the upgrade, but for the sake of illustrating the point, suppose there were more Mortar Towers say 5, or even 6. (I should have used the 4 Anti-Tank Gun versus the 7 Towers example, but now I'm too far down the rabbithole to change everything). Now clearly there is an advantage to be gained by canceling the Redoubts and upgrading the Mortar Towers instead.

P.S. Of course, we're not assuming built time as a factor since I've upgraded ~50% of 3 Redoubts by the time the Mortar Tower discounts are offered making it less desirable to cancel upgrades for petty resources which can always be looted.

P.P.S. This is not a strategy game like chess or diplomacy where ELO can be used to determine "best player" or "best alliance", because of many things, chiefly the pay2win element. So I'll never be at the top of any best player or best alliance list since I don't spend a penny on this game. I'm losing enough in the form of time as is. This game is fun for me simply because I enjoy progressing through the ages visually with the element of optimization strategy. If the optimization is lost then it becomes simply a progression game like Game of War or Mobile Strike, which are not worthy of my time.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

I think being able to pause everything indefinitely any time one wants would put far too much load on the game's already tattered servers. If a pause/free workers thing were implemented it should only last for 15 minutes to one hour tops. Just to be able to do all the little ridiculous things that pile up but generally aren't worth keeping workers free for.

Though honestly if walls and opening shipments didn't require a free worker I personally could not care less.

Being able to do lengthy projects in phases shouldn't be as taxing on the servers as each section would be defined, just like wonders. If I want to occupy four workers for 12 solid days upgrading my tank depot then it costs 8,000,000. If I wanted to break it down into four sections of three days each to potentially take advantage of sales then each section could cost 3,000,000.

Personally I find gold to be a trivial thing to get and would gladly pay the extra cost to have more freedom in how I upgrade. Food/Oil? Probably not, but who knows?

Giving the player more freedom in how they plan things, especially when all signs point to them just tacking extra days/workers on already lengthy builds with each new age isn't a bad thing. The current setup where there is little reason to log in for days, hell, soon to be weeks, at a stretch is not sustainable, imo.

Agree totally about GoW/Mobile Strike. Those "games" are awful.

 

[RottPhiler]

I agree totally about the 7+ days being unsustainable. I've quit a couple of times, and will quit again soon, since I'm going to get busier. It's a stupid game in that sense. I would say a lack of foresight in planning the game out. It's super fun until gunpowder, and then it slowly starts getting tedious around level 100 when you traditionally max a gunpowder base (will have changed with the later addition of five library upgrades per book, which will provide more XP), and move up to enlightenment. I would bet that this is the point where there's a maximum percentage of quits, when people realize this never ending raid for resources to upgrade 1 more second of a sabotage tactic, and so on.

At this point every age should have tacked on a single day to the build time, but they chose to double it and quadruple workers. I would bet that they didn't foresee that people would switch off and switch on a week later, disrupting the game in the process. There's so many semi-abandoned bases which aren't fun attacking with a full army, since they don't release heavy tanks from bunkers anymore. Everything stops being fun, and just becomes plain old tedium at this point. Yemen even said "workifying" the game up here. It is work. I have a spreadsheet of details from the wiki. That's the only way I can keep track of my upgrades, and optimize it. Getting tiny tidbits such as a pause in construction is not going to change the tedium.

Also constructing in stages is pointless. If I upgrade my Mortar, I want it upgraded once. If I see that there are 5 stages to go, then I am less inclined to upgrade it five times and then progress to the next age, and it will break the attacker from estimating the strength of the defense. There is an element of being rewarded when a 21 day forest clearing ordeal finally finishes, which will be lost. So less joy for each upgrade which will result in more quits.

 

[Master Contrail Program]

That's why they should give us the option to do it either way. You would be free to do your upgrades in the current way, others can do it in the more expensive but more engaging (to me anyway) rent-to-own format. Obviously the things being worked on in phases wouldn't function, just like if you were doing them in one shot

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Though personally I think the best way to do things is just to either assign a single worker a cost/hour ratio for each project and let us assign as many workers as we like, or let us stack groups. Take the 12 day 8,000,000 tank depot. For 32,000,000 (no small feat) I should be able to put four sets of four workers on the project and finish in three days. To max everything would still take the same amount of time, but let's be honest, armories, libraries, barracks hold far more value to be quickly upgraded than something like the vault.

This lets the max offense rushers I frequently see (catapults in atomic age guys) just do what they want to do and let's the average schmoe invest as much or as little time as they'd like. From a player standpoint it gives reason to log in at least every 2-3 days.

From a corporate standpoint they may actually sell more crowns. I'm not paying $10-15 for one upgrade under the current standards. However, after I have 16 guys and 32,000,000 invested in something I really want I may be tempted to spend a few hundred crowns to get it sooner.

Will any of this ever happen? I doubt it. These devs are quite stubborn about certain game issues.

 

[RottPhiler]

"This lets the max offense rushers I frequently see (catapults in atomic age guys) just do what they want to do and let's the average schmoe invest as much or as little time as they'd like."

This is the key point though. This unbalances the game towards the later ages. The idea behind the number of workers/construction is that a base gets built in a balanced way. That is what will ensure balance towards the later stages. The offense rushers are unbalancing the game by not upgrading farms and caravans, which is well within their right to do, but reduces the food available at the later ages for raiding. This freedom of construction will only incentivize and further skew the situation, which is not a good thing.

 

[LordJestix]

I like it. Queuing builds is a separate thing, but would be great as well. You know how people have tried to "gamify" work? This arrangement where optimizing the game requires timing your life is "workifying" games. I would enjoy playing this a lot more if I could advance effectively while playing more casually.

Separately, make harvesting / hunting and upgrading walls take 0 workers. I have a whole army just sitting here, let some of them hunt the deer and harvest the orchards. Right now with all workers busy, there is no reason to keep playing once mills / markets are full, not even raiding. So with industrial or above upgrades going, you can start everything and walk away for days even if you spaced everything out. 12+day uninterrupted builds are just stupid.

Making walls/hunting/harvesting/claiming shipments cost 0 workers is what needs to happen. No need to add a pause feature then.

I also would love them to add at least 1 queue slot so i dont have to stay online 100% of the time when i am saving up and have obtained all the oil i need for a big upgrade im going to start in a few hours or a day.

 

[LordJestix]

I gave the armory upgrade as a recent real example, and also said the point stands for building upgrades. Here's a contrived example for you. I'm in the Industrial age. Redoubts are offered at 33% discount. There are 3 of them, and each upgrade costs 7 million. Whoopee, I can kick all three of them off, and save 7 million. I spend 14 million in total for 3 redoubts, and the upgrades are 12 days long. The next week, Mortar Towers are offered at a 50% discount. There are 4 of them, and each upgrade costs 7 million. I now have a difficult choice to make.

If I let the redoubts continue by the time I upgrade all 3 Redoubts and all 4 Mortar Towers I would have spent 42 million (14 for the Redoubts at 33% discount, and 28 for the Mortar Towers at full price). If I cancel the Redoubts, by the time I upgrade all 3 Redoubts and all 4 Mortar Towers I would have spent 42 million (21 for the Redoubts at full price, and 14 for the Mortar Towers at 50% discount, and the 7 for the cancellation fee of half the resources to cancel thee Redoubt upgrades).

If I could pause construction, then I could spend just 28 million availing both discounts to upgrade my entire set of Redoubts and Mortar Towers.

That's a breakeven example so I have nothing to gain by canceling the upgrade, but for the sake of illustrating the point, suppose there were more Mortar Towers say 5, or even 6. (I should have used the 4 Anti-Tank Gun versus the 7 Towers example, but now I'm too far down the rabbithole to change everything). Now clearly there is an advantage to be gained by canceling the Redoubts and upgrading the Mortar Towers instead.

P.S. Of course, we're not assuming built time as a factor since I've upgraded ~50% of 3 Redoubts by the time the Mortar Tower discounts are offered making it less desirable to cancel upgrades for petty resources which can always be looted.

P.P.S. This is not a strategy game like chess or diplomacy where ELO can be used to determine "best player" or "best alliance", because of many things, chiefly the pay2win element. So I'll never be at the top of any best player or best alliance list since I don't spend a penny on this game. I'm losing enough in the form of time as is. This game is fun for me simply because I enjoy progressing through the ages visually with the element of optimization strategy. If the optimization is lost then it becomes simply a progression game like Game of War or Mobile Strike, which are not worthy of my time.

I think the idea of pausing a building is so one can hunt/gather/mine/etc. Not to start another building. I would think you couldnt start a new building while another is paused, You would either have to let if finish, cancel it, or use crowns to finish it up.

Your argument in this case is void.

 

[RottPhiler]

You and I have very different viewpoints on pausing the game, queuing etc., and so let us agree to disagree. You are entitled to your opinions.

 

[Blacknife686]

That's where crowns come in. Events are specifically​ designed to make you spend or purchase crowns in order to maximise weekend deals.