Unhallowed City End-State

[Cogbyrn]

This may have been discussed already, but after playing some games as Unhallowed and actually surviving until later, I realized that after I build all of the tech I want, the only "end-state" option for an Unhallowed city is "Housing". However, if I hit the pop cap, then the city is basically doing nothing for me. Is this supposed to be a distinct disadvantage for Unhallowed cities? I know they can't trade goods for Gold, and using a trade goods for Negative Energy feels imbalanced since that's also their unit food mechanic.

I was thinking that perhaps an Unhallowed city could turn production into Mana per turn instead. That would feel (to me, anyway) in line with the generally magical nature of the race, and it would give you some benefit for a "completed" city in the sense that you could then summon more units or reallocate some power, etc.

I don't know if this is a completely imbalanced idea because spells are generally really good, but I can't help but feel like they should be able to turn production into SOMEthing. Technically you can just assign all of your workers back to "farmers" or researchers, but I suppose it still just feels like the city isn't doing anything productive in its end-state.

Has this already been hashed out? What do other people think?

[Aaron]

You have a good point and this is a good post. I think there's room to give the unhallowed cities an "end-state" benefit. However, I think Mana could be too powerful (we would need to be very careful with the balance, anyway). We could do something with increased Negative Energy production maybe... Either way, I agree that this is something worth discussing.

Do we have any other ideas/suggestions/feedback?

[Troy_Costisick]

Having them make negative energy and research is good. My biggest problem with them was the high upkeeps on the buildings. I couldn't field large enough armies to really corrupt the prime plane and take it over/colonize it.

[Cogbyrn]

Now if you are able to generate increased negative energy with this method, would it make an early rush strategy too strong by pumping out droves of early Reapers? I'm not sure what the correct formula could be, but I'd be concerned about letting them generate their food AND gold source.

Then again, having to use a merger of the two resources does come with its own unique disadvantages as well, so maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing, especially since they can't be taxed for more Negative Energy output. I agree that mana is probably too strong given the strength of spells/summons/etc., and something with Negative Energy is probably the right approach.

[Yco]

How about letting them increase your spell skill. Say, +1 spell skill improvement point per 50 points of production?

[Aaron]

That is an interesting idea. Keep throwing things in the hat guys. We're currently giving it a good "mull", lol.

[Cogbyrn]

I like the idea of giving more spell skill, but I haven't looked at the numbers. How much production, on average, does an Unhallowed city produce? Is that about equivalent to the Trade Goods ratio?

Overall though I like that idea more than research points, though an argument could be made for both.

[Yco]

I like the idea of giving more spell skill, but I haven't looked at the numbers. How much production, on average, does an Unhallowed city produce? Is that about equivalent to the Trade Goods ratio?

Overall though I like that idea more than research points, though an argument could be made for both.

Not sure about the exact numbers either, but do know that an orc city with all buildings built and about ~20k pop gives around 50 production.
Say a shrine gives 1 power - that 1 power is put into pool and then assigned by the player into skill, mana or research.

The unhallowed 'trade power goods' would pump 1 power per 50 production into Skill.

In short, an end-game city can potentially contribute a point per turn. Bear in mind that higher skill levels require more points, so it takes hundreds more points to go from 60 to 61 than it does to go from 50 to 51.

[Cogbyrn]

Not sure about the exact numbers either, but do know that an orc city with all buildings built and about ~20k pop gives around 50 production.
Say a shrine gives 1 power - that 1 power is put into pool and then assigned by the player into skill, mana or research.

The unhallowed 'trade power goods' would pump 1 power per 50 production into Skill.

In short, an end-game city can potentially contribute a point per turn. Bear in mind that higher skill levels require more points, so it takes hundreds more points to go from 60 to 61 than it does to go from 50 to 51.

I think that's my main concern. Because of the increasing amount of skill you need as your skill gets higher, the benefit from this starts to peter out, whereas if you have a city giving you an additional 6 gold/turn with Trade Goods, that could be a high-tier unit added to one of your armies.

For Research points I know it's similar, where researching higher-end skills requires a lot more research points. It almost feels like Negative Energy is the most equivalent resource to trade for, but it would have to be adjusted carefully if that was the approach.

Not that I'm against an asymmetric benefit, I'd just be concerned that it would feel nearly useless having 1 additional skill point per turn for a fully completed city. Naturally the numbers can be changed as long as the underlying idea is sound, I just wanted to air my thoughts around the proposed numbers as part of the convo, since it feels like it's on the right track.

[Yco]

I think cogbyrn and I would agree that the bonus they get might need to be kept small, as the unhallowed are currently balanced against factions that actually have trade goods.