Reading an old thread something occurred to me. Empires has no maintenance fees. This is quite obvious to anyone, but I wonder if it would help balance losing team vs winning team? Upfront of course this doesn't seem possible, winning team has more refs so it's easy to afford any costs right? Well hold on there, let me tell you an idea or 2. First is to decide what actually needs a maintenance cost. First thing is to know there isn't a ton of resources generally, so it makes no sense to have too many things costing stuff. Now buildings are usually what a winning team has more of, you could say this should have a cost. It would help the losing team a bit, with higher maintenance costs means winning team can't build tons of redundancy making it easier for a losing team to make that comeback. I wouldn't put costs on walls or armories, but you get the idea right? Please note I wouldn't do something like one res for every building, it would be a res for x amount of seconds or something or you know, like a tenth or a third of a res, not a whole resource point. The other thing is vehicles. There's 2 ways for vehicles, repair pad actually has a cost to repair or simply have a cost over time depending on chassis. Repair pad I don't think will work, this doesn't help either team but the more skilled ones, or hte ones less likely going back for repairs. I think cost over time is actually a simpler way, and one that could help not just a winning or losing team but also help the light/med/heavy balance. Apcs/lights/jeeps shouldn't have a cost. Meds/arty should but not a high one, say a res every 4 seconds. Heavies have a higher cost, say one res every 2 seconds. So just for fun let's assume it's 1 res every ref. This means 2 heavies every ref or 4 meds every ref. These numbers aren't set in stone. I'm just giving an example here. Another nice thing is it helps curb the number of tanks in the later game. If there's a maintenance cost this means a team that has a bunch of tanks out can't stockpile as much resources over time, making it so it's not an instant replace if a tank is lost. The reason those costs could help a team is because the losing team most likely doesn't have the ability to place so many tanks out. So these costs don't hurt them as much as the winning team. Pros Can possibly help a losing team if done right Can help reduce the massive amount of tanks in the end game Helps give a little more pros to putting out meds instead of heavies ECONOMICS HOW FUN Cons These costs are somewhat out of the commander hand if it's related to vehicles It's an extra thing that's might be hard to communicate to players If done wrong this doesn't help the losing team If done extremely wrong helps the winning team(though this is near giving plasma damage over time oversight tier) ECONOMICS HOW UNFUN Not really a pro or con With the way this works I feel it's not going to make much difference in either a higher or lower pop game because of increased res from player counts. If this scaled to player count though then it would might not be an issue.(why is this straight white, I really hate how this forum handles things like colors or formatting.)
Remind me of Sins of a Solar Empire. Totally makes sense, it could work but idk, maybe we can add taxes in empires after that. I mean as a feature maybe it's too much...? I think it's a good way to reduce tanks. What happens when income is lower than expenses? Take the wages of players? Ask for loan? ))))))))))))))))))))))))))) -grekland If you find a good solution, I will write down some suggestions I have.
i value the intention but it kinda overcomplicates it. you could archieve pretty much the same (or at least something quite similar hehe) with simple hard limits and a reduction of income (and/or tinkering with costs). at least in the past any limit was heavily opposed. but maybe soft limits even if they have the same effect are easier to swallow?
There's diminishing returns though, isn't there? From the refs, I mean. To be honest, the thing about a heavy vehicle having a maintenance cost is...its investment is kinda its maintenance cost. If you lose it somehow (and people often do), you've just lost a ton of money with it. Also...I kinda think it would be a little invisible to the average player and another thing people would have to spell out for them. I wouldn't mind seeing this as an extension of the power station idea, but lord knows that's never going to happen either.
Yeah, I get that. I feel like it would have been a nice subtle buff to meds, after all having more tanks out doesn't just mean more firepower and staying power, but you can also divide up that force easier. If it's just heavies you can't spread them out as much because you can't have as much, if this makes sense. I think building limits of some sort would help losing teams more, but then maybe people would complain about games going to long because constant base swaps and a commander not being able to drop 50 buildings if he wants. Power stations are something have always liked, worked well enough in red alert, but some maps aren't actually space friendly for placing buildings. Though I guess if it's small enough, like armory size, it's not as much of an issue. There's diminishing returns, but you have to remember the losing team still only has a ref or 2, so even if the winning team has 80% of the refs but only gets 60% out of total res income of the map, that still leaves the losing team with like 20% of the res and refs of the map. In empires it isn't just making money that will win the day, it's denying the other team that can really win the day. Makes me wonder how the diminishing returns work though, all I heard it was less money but that doesn't tell me much. I know I get at least 1 res a ref though.
Since the winning team has large bases... How about increasing the cost of certain buildings based on how many already exist... Instead of a resource drain, just make it cost more to build more. E.g. linearly 2 barracks at base cost (200), then an extra 50res per extra barracks. So the third one costs 250 Fourth one 300 Fifth one 350 Etc... Or potentially an exponential increase . 1&2 = 200res (base cost) 3rd = 250res (200+50) 4th = 350res (250 + 100) 5th = 600res (350 + 150) Etc... This would remove the need for a resource reduction, as each base above 2, would cost even more to build. But I wouldn't support a "fuel tax" on vehicles. Just my thoughts
