Have you ever seen this from player perspective? Not only the game designer can predict better which resources a player has available. Also the players themselves can predict much better which resources they have available during that game - from beginning to the end. So they also know from the beginning on which units they're going to research. Boredom is pre-programmed - no more strategic decisions and no more fun of choosing the right unit for your current situation. And I don't really see how this shall help with balancing efforts, but even if it does: What's the use of a good balancing if the distribution of resources in your core provinces dictates your unit choice anyway?freezy wrote:
With this change [disallow trade with players outside your team/coalition] we can predict better which resources a player has available, which helps with our balancing efforts.
Also if you want to know what units your enemy is going to come up with: Just look at what resources his core provinces have and you have the answer. So there's less surprises in the game, less thinking, less espionage... less excitement.
Secondly it's always been nice to look for players to trade with all over the map. This change is killing at least half the trade part - trading on the market is not always an alternative: If you need a resource it often is NOT a good idea to place a buy order at a higher price than the so far highest bid. Because then it's probable somebody else places an even higher one and in that case all you've achieved is raising the market value of that resource (which lowers your options to buy it in the future). Also with the 10% tax, there will be even less activity on the market... you now already sometimes have to wait for days or even weeks to buy a resource there - almost no matter how much money you want to pay for it.
What's worse it's also killing the diplomacy part, by making alliances without coalition or playing alone impossible options. I.e. by forcing everyone to play in coalitions.
So all in all it's taking all cleverness, all wits out of the game. Dumbs it down to a mere click-orgy. Just build and battle; be online more often, do more clicks or pay more money and you'll win. No need to think. No free space where you might use your grey matter. Perhaps CoW should be renamed from strategy game to no-brain-clicking-game, same genre as Candy Crush.
Sure, if you remove all features, you've closed all loopholes. But that doesn't mean removing features is good. Trade and diplomacy are absolutely essential features. You have to keep them alive!!
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