Suggestions, Improvements & Additions

[Sir_SnackAttack]

I've come across a few things which with The Settlers Online, which gives me occasion to create this thread.
A minor compilation of Suggestions, Improvements & Additions. Please inform me if any of the things are already on these boards in some kind
and I will adjust accordingly.


Tutorial Improvements:

When placing buildings, inform the new player where it is most profitable to build.
Example: Sawmill; Building the Sawmill close to a Storehouse or Mayor's House will reduce travel time spent by the Settler.

When placing Masons, infom the new player of the possiblities to each aspect.
Example: Mason; You can build multiple Masons to improve Stone Production. There is no limit to the amount of Masons that can benefit
from one deposit, however the deposit will empty much sooner, depending on how many Masons that are withdrawing from it.

When using the Explorer, inform the new player that he must be aware of the possiblity of being delayed in his progress if he does not explore
enough before sending the Explorer off to do Treasure Hunting.
Example: Explorer: Be aware of the need to explore new sectors. You can be delayed in your progress by sending the Explorer out on a Treasure Hunt as later Tutorial quests requires several sectors discovered. It is suggested to explore 'X' amount of sectors before starting your hunt for treasures!

When placing residences, inform the new player where it is most beneficial to place residences.
Example: Residence; Placing your residence in the outskirts of your territory will leave room for production buildings closer to the Mayor's House and Storehouses. Avoid placing Residences close to resource-heavy locations, such as close to Pine Wood, Stone Deposits or Fishing Spots. Residences do not suffer from travel time and their placement will not benefit nor lessen your income.

Suggestions:

Roads: Improve how they can be placed. Currently, there must be one "space" or half a block between each road, which prevents you from making a place filled with stone tiles. Cosmetic change only.

Buildings: There are alot of places where, by the looks of it, is possible to build. However the game won't recognize it as suitable. Many times this is due to the one "space", mentioned aswell regarding roads, that limits things from being build and/or requiring you to move it a further "space".

Buffs: When creating a large portion of buffs, please allow them to transfer automatically to the Star Menu to be used immediately instead of waiting untill the total amount has been made. When creating 25 Fish Buffs, having to wait the entire duration before beginning to use them is rather uninteresting and creating one at the time, is consuming.

Top Menu: Allow to show different resources in the top menu. Such as replacing Gold Coins or Tools with Mulled Wine(Beer) or Wheat.

Overstock Additions:

Wood & Planks: Create Pinewood/Hardwood/Exotic Wood barricades around your town(Cosmetic and/or defence improvement).
Alternatively: Create passages over short water distances, to reach islands or create a shortcut for increased production cycle.

Water: Water the ground that has dried. There are minor spots around the map that could become grassy plains if properly watered.

Resouce Requirements:

Mill/Bakery: The Mill have a 6 minute production time, the Bakery have a 3 minute production time. That means that two mills are required or one upgraded Mill per bakery. It hardly seems efficient that two entire Mills are required for one single Bakery. I suggest that the Mill will require two Wheat and create atleast two bags of Flour. A little sense of logic is never a bad thing, I doubt a mill would run with such low output.

Wheatfield: It curently requires 20 Pine Wood Planks and 5 Stone. When looking upon the visual of this Wheatfield, no stone is to be seen. What is this Stone requirement for? It cannot be Tools, as the Tools are either Copper or Iron. It has always been. Stone tools did not see usage in the age of Mills. I suggest the Stone requirement to build Wheatfields are removed.

I would like to continue updating this list as I progress further in the game, if there are anymore to suggest! So far the game is great fun to play.

Regards,
Sir_SnackAttack

[Sir_SnackAttack]

A few things added

[bugschivers]

I'd really like bridges in the game, there seems to be a fair bit of resources that are inaccessible, due to being placed on islands

[Alfredo]

The visual aspect of the XP bar. Many times I've had it over grass and it looks like it's filled in when it isn't. I suggest that the entire xp bar be made gold and it gradually fills up either red or blue (something that is easily noticeable) instead of being clear and filling up green.

[Ados]

I am hoping for more factions for 2012 when the pvp is introduced, I think they could introduce the factions from Settlers IV which I have just orderd from Amazon after taking the advice of BTOG46, a mod and long time gamer in the settlers community.

I think the factions that are in settlers IV ( ie ) Romans, Mayans, and Vikings, would be cool additions for next year if possible?

[SHADOW-XIII]

Some of my suggestions, I've not been playing that much yet so I might have missed something that is already existing:

1. Technical suggestions:
1.A: Way to reconnect to the game from lost connection inside the flash instead of reloading whole page
1.B: General speed up in loading of some content (messages window, icons, buildings), especially visible on slower connection when game despite long waiting for game to load at the start (watching progress bar) still all the buildings and content takes ages to show up when in the game. As well using for example buffs, placing new buildings takes some time to show a buff icon/building 'ghost' and takes 30 seconds (or even more!) after you do it to actually show up change in the game. Maybe compression of some kind or a way to use lower quality images etc, changeable in user settings. Maybe option to disable animations/settlers visibility as well.
1.C: Suggested earlier in support call: mobile access to the game (a way people could play the game from their mobiles, somehow, for no matter how, if designated ios/android app or specially prepared page for mobile browsers, as long as we can access it on the move)

2. Economic suggestions:
2.A: Geologists to renew the used up mines in first place instead of finding new places (had some copper mines but those had not been renewed and geologist found new copper place far away)
2.B: Moving a building (possibly with a cost, maybe not all of the buildings), instead of demolishing old one (especially if upgraded) to build new one close to a (new) resource
2.C: Ability to stack bonuses, Have +200 wood and couple +5 wood, taking lots of space, why not 'merge' those into one bonus? Or maybe create 'groups' so wood bonuses will be visible as '+ wood' and clicking on it open subpage with all wood bonuses
2.D: Ability to remove trees and trunks completely, especially considering change that trees might appear near foresters anyway

3. Fighting suggestions:
3.A: not sure about PvP but PvE should be slightly changed, the amount of troops (or whoever is attacking) should be a key to troop loss. Now there is always troop loss. If enemy have 20 units, they always kill same amount of my troops no matter if I come with 30 or 100. Which enforces player to loose units which isn't great.
3.B: Possible fight solutions:
* (A - attacker, D - defender) A attacks: if D units survive then it's their turn to attack A units. If D have first strike units, they attack before A's normal strike units but after A's first strike units. (named 'first strike' to simplify it)
This could overpower player vs npc bandits unless you slightly adjust enemy numbers and add few first strike units to more camps.
* or the bigger the difference between attacking and defending units power/count/etc then the smaller damage dealt to the higher power army

[Truck]

Suggestions - My two bobs worth

Building Inventory........ so that you can see how many of each building you have without having to look all over your empire (and number in each sector)
Chart/Graph................ so the you can see the total output of all buildings of the same type and if its in positive or negative production.
Ability to relocate a building rather than destroying and rebuilding - could put a cost for moving and a time penalty on it (Mentioned above)
Ability to wipe an area so that you can put buildings anywhere - Nice well laid out citys (Pretty) and redistribute trees to other locations
Roads actually speed up worker movement - put a cost on them - can have several different road types (like in the computer game)
Add new building "Trees" - so you can create parks in your citys to put the benches you have in the game already
Resource stacking in Star menu - all resources of one type stack with ability to Vary Quantity added to Mayors House (Mentioned above)

[marlock]

i agree with the people that said clearing out trees permanently in some areas to put buildings there... also i like the bridge idea.. i wish as well that you could make Armour for your army... it would be optional so that you wouldn't "have" to do it but if you did it would give your recruits or whatever, better defense

[bhoycey]

There should be some way to 'train' units to gain a bonus in attack and defense... military academy costing x say it lasts a day. this could also be in buff form, but please not in gems as it will be costly enough to keep playing

[ZedVT]

Would like to see a server status section on homepage so we know if we can logon to game. Also like the idea of a screen to see how many of each building we have to help production and resource management