Suggestion - (Random) Events to make your towns more interesting

Still not sure whether suggestions should be placed here or under the bug reportas "suggestion". Because this seems like something big, I'll put it here in the general discussions.

The towns gradually become boring

Even if several game features were added to make towns more interesting (collectibles, random monsters spawning), I still feel like towns gradually become dull...

I understand that some game stuff like excavation spots, puzzles, etc,  cannot just appear/disappear like random collectibles and chests do. However I still feel that having "x excavation spots and that's it" doesn't make the game sustainable and interesting in the long term (especially for farm...peaceful collectivist players ;-) )

Random Events

What about introducing some random events that periodically (say some per month for example) alter parts of the map ? I was feeling of something like earthquakes/meteor showers which could announce the following to the player :

"An Earthquake ! Moutains collapse, the earth is shaking and remodelling... this shall bring forth new changes to the place you used to know. Some locations have been deeply buried, while the unknown has been uncovered. Check your map for new interesting places"

A list of what could change :

• Some puzzles could be reset with increased difficulty
• Excavation areas : some could disappear, new one could appear
• Fish spots : add more, change their size
• Permanently adding new area to cities (for example, I notice the random map generator often generates some areas that are blocked by a single rock/tree, and it feels like this is going to unlock in the future...)
• Ocasionally destroying/downgrading a few buildings (earthquake, meteor shower),
• Maybe modifying the permanent yield (adding/removing food spots to a city, etc.)

Random Events triggered by quest

Those earth-remodelling events could also be triggered by quests. Like :

"We have discovered an unknown Precursor device in the secret library".
(Player places recharged amulet of Kolyada in the socket)
"The amulet of Kolyada fits in the hole and activates the device...."
(Beams of light appear like when Gromus summons hero at game start...then an earthquake occur and a message pops up : like the previous one explaining stuff disappeared/appeared in your towns)

Then, we can think it takes some time for this "Earthquake generator" to become activable again (or it's just one time... whatever)

"earthquake will redo everything"

is extremely easy to tell but extremely hard to implement. I would rather hear ideas about small, but interesting events which will have better complexity-to-fun ratio.

I did exaggerate on purpose in my quotes to make it sound big, but it doesn't have to. I have given a list a what could change, just for the reference. Some things are definitely easier than others to implement, but basically you can say a earthquake completely changed the map, and just add one dirt pile on the ground ^^. Plus, I didn't mention anything about special effects (or maybe just the light beams, but you already have this coded ;-)  ). I didn't actually have this in mind. For me the "Earthquake" was just a message announcing an earthquake took place. If you thought about coding an animation with a screen shaking... well why not, but it's not needed at all.

The idea of making stuff in towns updated from time to time is right direction, but example with earthquakes is not. Now go back to the drawing board and come up with something more realistic :)

We're in a videogame, I didn't know things had to be realistic :P.

So well, my "realistic" answer is just to say in a message that something has occured. The expectations to see the magical universe of the original TT again are shattered when you first see a TT2 battle, wonder what happens, and you are told to look at the report. I wasn't expecting to see wonders when I mentionned earthquakes...

Few more ideas of what you could say in those messages :

• Good timing, A5 is in the arctic regions, why not have a few avalanches ? They could just spawn a dirt pile near a mountain
• Meteorite crash (sound familiar again ;-)  ) Again, just a message on screen, and a dirt pile showing up.

Other ideas :

• Actually, you have introduced caves for towns with a previous patch. Can't you do something interesting with the piece of code that does that ? That means you are able to increase a town map size...What about a "dungeon-like cave" where you "discover the next floor" every x days ?
• Lot of stuff done in the original TT. Adapting previous content to new TT2 game engine will not be misregarded, on the opposite people will like that ;-). And it should be easier to look at existing code and recode it, than inventing something from scratch.

Only suggestions anyways. You said you liked those, even if completely surrealistic, as it could give other ideas ;-)

Startouf, you remember me Old George! LOL

More or less on the same topic: I'm really enjoying the 'new style' towns with the special areas. I have a random cave in my Dwelling, with lots of beasties to fight and some goodies to find, which I love, and I'm also very excited about the Pagan Circle in my second town.

I understand the special areas are generated at random, but I was wondering if it was possible to somehow reduce the chance of the same areas/puzzles appearing twice for one hero. I had the same puzzle twice in my dwelling (and solved both before my hero had even finished clearing the fog), and now I also have two Pagan Circles (not really necessary with my towns about 2 minutes apart). 

On the other hand, I just founded my third town, but I still don't have the infamous flower puzzle (although some tell me I'm mainly just missing out on a lot of frustration - I guess I'd just like to know what the fuss is about).

Towns are built and destroyed on a regular basis. It would be nice to have more than one pagan circle.

The idea of road signs has been used some .. during training and at some locations. I like road signs. I wonder if they can be used more often in the game. Cave signs tend to contain riddles ... maybe they should also encourage or inform - that higher hero levels afford more abilities, and it may serve to encourage those newer players who are not familiar with what to expect.  

Road signs are also more tolerable than more and more character dialogue.

Two of the same puzzles are not that bad, because they are of different difficulty levels. I can make pagan circle to appear only once, but I am not sure if it is a good idea. Sometimes you can loose a town, so having a backup circle might be not a bad thing after all.

Well, instead of saying only one will ever be generated per hero, can't you make it so that one pagan circle per domain is generated?  That a 'check' is made somehow when a new town is settled to see if there is already a circle, and if so, another one won't be generated?  This way, if a town with a circle is torn down or destroyed, there is still a possibilty that you may get it back when you settle a new town.  

I guess i can see how pagan circles make things more convenient for people that use them, but if you really want to use the idols, they all show up at other quest locations anyway, right? So those would be a backup in a way.
  I too, have a hero with two pagan circles, and i would much much much rather have a puzzle.

I like the pagan circles, am hoping to have them in all my towns. I hated going to other locations to use an idol

When my army was very big and hero had farmer perks just to keep them fed, it was a bummer to have to send her off in search of an idol.

I also love to be able to spin the wheel in more than one town, makes it convenient when other town needs the chance at resources.

I agree with leeana - if you lose your town with your Pagan Circle, you still have the totems in your quest locations. Sure, it's more convenient to have them in one of your towns, but the Pagan Circle is meant to be a bonus, not a requirement. No one else in my alliance has a Pagan Circle, while I have two. I would much, much rather have a puzzle, especially if it's one you can play more than once. (I solved all my puzzles in less than 5 minutes, and now they're just there...)

The flower puzzle has really kept me entertained. The reason being, that once I complete it it gets larger, more difficult, and gives random gifts. I also know that it will be there in a few hours for me to play again. It has added a lot to my game. When I am waiting on some upgrade that hinders my progress, I am entertained.

All other puzzles in the game I played once and they are done. Now they are pockets of unused space within my domain I am left wondering where the more difficult version of those puzzles will be found. I also have not played certain puzzles because puzzle generation inside a town is random.

Why are not each one of these puzzles progressive? Was this explained? Maybe I cannot play the more advanced difficulties until my hero reaches level 10, or completes Bulat's quests, or reaches classic age, or some other milestone that will encourage players to plow through the "slow periods". Also, completion of any puzzle should generate gifts (since we did lose monster gifts this would be nice) that have a value comparative to the progress of the puzzle.