I been playing about a year now and love the realisitic complexity of needing combined arms etc that makes this one of the best strategy games i ever played. Biggest disappointment is the numbers of players who go inactive very early on. Disappointing for me because playing humans way more fun than playing AI. Disappointing for Bytro where more players playing gives a better chance to monetise the game. Thus, why not seed some secret gold mines onto the maps? Its well known that random rather than fixed rewards are addictive to human behaviour (think casino and horse racing). As well as encouraging players to keep playing if they get control of a mine, they mines themselves are a direct 'product placement' advertisment of what Bytro would be loving us all to buy.
Having done the Marketing Analysis the actual mechanics of the '4Ps' can be up for discussions but I would suggest something like the following: Unlike normal resources, the gold mines do not show on the global map and are only discoverable by direct observation or when a spy gets a 'reveal units'. Maybe only 1 mine on the 10-25 maps, 2 on the 40-50 maps and 3 on the 70-100 maps? They randomly seed at start of game and can be in either both human or AI provinces but not in cities and only one per continent area. They produce say 10 gold bars per turn and can be improved by factories and infrastructure but be careful otherwise your neighbours may get suspicious because these are visible and reportable in the news! The mines eventually deplete (just like a real mine) after say 20 days on small maps and up to 80 days on large maps so that someone doesnt keep a game going forever just for the gold.
I am sure the lucky person who start with a gold mine is going stay active throughout that game! If someone else finds or realises where the mine is, I suspect whole wars may erupt around trying to control such a precious resource and it would also encourage people to do more active spying. At the production rate i suggest of just 10 bars/day, even with improvements, the mine is only going to give 200-1000 bars over an entire game (less a high place winning reward) but I reckon it could do wonders to encourage people to stay active (and be a good advert for gold)
Having done the Marketing Analysis the actual mechanics of the '4Ps' can be up for discussions but I would suggest something like the following: Unlike normal resources, the gold mines do not show on the global map and are only discoverable by direct observation or when a spy gets a 'reveal units'. Maybe only 1 mine on the 10-25 maps, 2 on the 40-50 maps and 3 on the 70-100 maps? They randomly seed at start of game and can be in either both human or AI provinces but not in cities and only one per continent area. They produce say 10 gold bars per turn and can be improved by factories and infrastructure but be careful otherwise your neighbours may get suspicious because these are visible and reportable in the news! The mines eventually deplete (just like a real mine) after say 20 days on small maps and up to 80 days on large maps so that someone doesnt keep a game going forever just for the gold.
I am sure the lucky person who start with a gold mine is going stay active throughout that game! If someone else finds or realises where the mine is, I suspect whole wars may erupt around trying to control such a precious resource and it would also encourage people to do more active spying. At the production rate i suggest of just 10 bars/day, even with improvements, the mine is only going to give 200-1000 bars over an entire game (less a high place winning reward) but I reckon it could do wonders to encourage people to stay active (and be a good advert for gold)
