Tribal Territory Size Answer

[Jadzia]

My opinion is that huge tribes are more of a problem, not something the game should encourage. From the point of the long-term success of the game it has to be attractive for new players. If there are huge (500-1000 members) tribes, a new player will never get the opportunity to form a competitive tribe. And if the big tribes don't accept newbies (which happens pretty often in games), a new player would feel that he has no chance to get the same game experience as the veteran players got. Its a bad game design when the players who join later can't have the same options as the veterans.

If there was a population limit for tribes, something about 50 members, anyone could form a new tribe and wouldn't be hopelessly lagging behind the old ones. The gameplay would be more diverse too, more alliences, more conflicts, more trading. When a game is ruled by 2-3 big clans then it usually starts to get boring, and on the way to die.

[Okie]

Jadzia wrote:

My opinion is that huge tribes are more of a problem, not something the game should encourage. From the point of the long-term success of the game it has to be attractive for new players. If there are huge (500-1000 members) tribes, a new player will never get the opportunity to form a competitive tribe. And if the big tribes don't accept newbies (which happens pretty often in games), a new player would feel that he has no chance to get the same game experience as the veteran players got. Its a bad game design when the players who join later can't have the same options as the veterans.

If there was a population limit for tribes, something about 50 members, anyone could form a new tribe and wouldn't be hopelessly lagging behind the old ones. The gameplay would be more diverse too, more alliences, more conflicts, more trading. When a game is ruled by 2-3 big clans then it usually starts to get boring, and on the way to die.

+ 1 to all of this

[JCatano]

Don't limit the size of a tribe. Apply diminishing returns to space.

[gregulate]

What happens when two tribes grow to the point of overlapping land? I would think it just forms a border so expansion is no longer possible in that direction. That could be a problem for a tribe surrounded by other tribes but I have no idea of how it works in game.

[Jadzia]

gregulate wrote:

What happens when two tribes grow to the point of overlapping land? I would think it just forms a border so expansion is no longer possible in that direction. That could be a problem for a tribe surrounded by other tribes but I have no idea of how it works in game.

Good question, would be nice to get some info about it.

JCatano wrote:

Apply diminishing returns to space.

I understand the words but not the sentence...can you elaborate please that what did you mean ?

[Iron Maiden]

"In economics, diminishing returns (also called diminishing marginal returns) refers to how the marginal production of a factor of production starts to progressively decrease as the factor is increased, in contrast to the increase that would otherwise be normally expected. According to this relationship, in a production system with fixed and variable inputs (say factory size and labor), there will be a point beyond which each additional unit of the variable input (i.e., man-hours) yields smaller and smaller increases in outputs, also reducing each worker's mean productivity. Conversely, producing one more unit of output will cost increasingly more (owing to the major amount of variable inputs being used, to little effect)."

[gregulate]

I believe jCatano was saying that as a tribe adds members, the amount of territory they gain per member should decrease.

As you increase your tribe members, your return(land gained for the tribe) diminishes.

btw you were absolutely correct iron maiden. I was just trying to say it in the context for which it was used in reference to this game.

[Jadzia]

Thanks for the info to both of you, its more clear now
And any method that keeps tribes back from growing too big is fine.

[kiwibird]

I don't like population caps, at least in terms of stopping players from increasing.

I did hear that tribe size can increase by both using tribe members and totem pole claims. So in a sense I hope the main totem pole only increases the main pole to a limit of 50(ish) members then you need to plant totem poles, how to limit that is more important.

[Veldern]

So... what happens when one tribe's territory collides with another?