Population vs. net worth

[birq]

Since I suggested Panama yesterday, I've been thinking about a city's net worth. It seems to me that the game should take into account more than just population when ranking players and rewarding players for holding their territory. What I said when I suggested it was:

It is in a strategic position and should be worth something in the long run.

That's what got me thinking. The value of Panama City is 708,738, but if you think about it, it's really worth more than most of the cities above it in the list. Just think about how much the Panama Canal adds to a country's GDP as opposed to what you get when you possess Dallas (3x the population) or Istanbul (more than 10x the population).

So, maybe in addition to oil wells and other natural-resource-related things, you should be rewarded with a certain number of Geos per time period for holding a city, with each city having a different value. Panama may have under 1 million people, but the reward for holding it would be several times higher than a lot of the larger cities.

The other issue that this addresses is that of the player that just exploits natural resources and doesn't care about holding any cities. I'm falling quickly into that category now that oil wells are here. I'd be perfectly happy to collect some jewels and live mostly on my oil revenue, with few (or no) armies in my home base. What's the point of holding a city at this juncture?

[Mickey]

Originally Posted by birq

So, maybe in addition to oil wells and other natural-resource-related things, you should be rewarded with a certain number of Geos per time period for holding a city, with each city having a different value. Panama may have under 1 million people, but the reward for holding it would be several times higher than a lot of the larger cities.

Agreed. One idea is that as I add more resources to the map, local cities will be rewarded. For example, Riyadh is right near the oil field. Maybe the owner of that city gets to take 1% of all of the oil collected. It would certainly create more fighting over the city.

What's the point of holding a city at this juncture?

Essentially, that's the entire goal of the game. If you don't have cities, you're losing. Right now, rasqual is winning the game. Period. You can count up armies and Geos and all of that stuff, but the bottom line is "value", and he has the most of it.

That's not to say that people might sit back and horde money for a while. Let everyone else kill each other, save up your money until you have a ton of it, then buy a zillion armies and take over the world. I'd like to find a way to somewhat prevent that.