Easier Recovery from Destruction

Not having been in any other alphas, I am ignorant to all the various ramifications of tactics and strategies. Let's take it as a given that I do not have the experience of others commenting to this new "Easier Recovery from Destruction". 

Recently I watched while a fellow alliance member, who does not spend hours playing the game every day like some of us, get attacked continually and destroyed while off line by another player who was 2 ages above her country.  The above solution would not work for the casual players who do not "live" the game.

A suggestion I have is to include an Automatic Rebuild option in the tech tree for which a player researches. This automatic mode would use the necessary resources to rebuild a building.  The rebuild would not be automatic for everyone, only those who click an option for Automatic Rebuild of each building desired, similar to the idea when sharing one's army on the alliance page  The number of buildings would be few at first, but as the player advances in the game, a formula could be used that increases the rebuild options. The sequence of rebuild would be determined by the order in which the player selects.

I realise that adding anything to the lower levels of the tech tree may not be feasible due to programming restraints.  The point I would like to emphasize here is the Automatic Rebuild, not how it is accomplished in the programming of the game.

I like the new concept of reduced time and resources for rebuild as mentioned.

Or, an alliance leader can forbid the higher era hero from using both advanced weaponry AND higher level artifacts and clothing.  As Bers has said, no one has to do all the research so, in theory, one can be level 50 and still classical or medieval in kingdom progress.  What this means is the perks and skills will likely remain, but the effect can be to keep them basic and not enhanced wearing higher level artifacts/clothing.  That should be a matter of fair play imo, but it's what I require if a higher age hero goes with lower era heroes to move someone out of the way who won't move.

And what if a leader doesnt want to forbid ? :-) 

lol missed this.  yes, that is another issue.  I can only speak to what I do.  Unfortunately, I can't speak for others.  Make me dictator of Teya and then I will, rofl.  :-)

Bers, I think this is an excellent idea.

Don't mind others being able to rebuild and I would certainly like to be able to, had I been attacked. 

Another issue i may have forgotten to mention, is that in my humble opinion, awareness ability, as such should be completely reversed thru ages, or at least removed completely.

The reasons being:

1. more developed country of higher ages should have reasonable defenses placed already (troops, towers, wall, possibly catacombs)

2. At lower ages, even with relatively close towns of a player, reinforcing from one to another can take up to 5-10 minutes or so...  at later ages there are roads/paved roads/railroads, taverns, lighthouses, the ability to use rafts and brigs etc. that in alltogether can make the movement 10...30 times faster... same goes for reinforcements sent from elsewhere...

3. With current system, at later ages the towns/domain are significantly bigger, that allows awareness to kick in way to early, so that both defenders and attackers would end up just doing nothing for hours...

It might be a nice change to consider that we're trying to help you find the balance as well, not just reject everything stubbornly...

This makes a whole lot of sense. I like these ideas.

excellent update, hope it stays

I think this is an excellent addition to the game. I have a couple of observations, which are not in any way intended to be criticisms and I hope might be useful. One of my Industrial towns, which was fairly well developed and defended got hit hard. Due to Catacombs and an excellent Commander my entire army defended and was also wiped out.I was fortunate to have a Lada's Ward but if I had not had one my immediate priority would have been to retrain my army, in case of repeated attacks on other towns in my country. I was unsure how to use the new feature and decided on retraining as my priority but I quickly realized retraining a moderate Industrial and Renaissance army had cost me all my resources and little was left to rebuild, taking advantage of the reduced costs and time benefits, so my first observation is that without a Lada's ward, this bonus does not help as much as it could. Much of the benefit had expired before I had realized my mistake. Without a Ward it would be foolish to focus on rebuilding when all your army is dead and your other towns are exposed.I really liked the little timers, which helped me prioritise which builds to start on first. I was attacked at a time when I was not online and although I logged in late (for me) to find the attack had taken place, it was only to restart my research, a coincidence, and I could not spend time taking advantage of the benefit and lost 10 hours of it while sleeping, as a result.It's a great addition to the game and I imagine, in other situations, when only a handful of buildings were damaged/destroyed, it would be a fantastic benefit. It is such a nice touch that promoted buildings can be revived. For those of us who spend Stone age, Classical, Renaissance, Medieval and Industrial building, for example, our research building, and have it wiped out would be very disheartening. You seem to have got the balance right.Last and tiny point is that when I upgraded my military building in my damaged town, my units were determined to upgrade my Church and gathered round it hammering as they do when upgrading but the actual building being upgraded was a different one. Throughout the day this behavior increased and, again upgrading a military building, they went to work on my Church and Apartments. They also worked on my military building and it was upgraded while the Church and Apartments were not. It was very industrious and created an atmosphere of hope for regeneration but I don't know if this is deliberate or a bug? I have a screen shot if you need it.Overall, I think it is fair, with exception of the points about Lada and timing above, and a nice balance for Defenders.

Good update. However if you are offline when the attack happens  (e.g. overnight)  the timers on the low level buildings have typically elapsed before you get the chance to benefit from the change. 

Would it be possible to start the timer when you enter the country / hero after the attack provided it is within 24 hours rather than starting the timer when the building is destroyed during the attack.

This would allow players who only login in once a day (e.g. after work) to benefit.

It is also difficult to get the benefit on important buildings because of the building pre reqs.

Example - could not benefit from the timer on temple because it needed residence lvl 5. The temple timers expired very quickly but the residence had timer in excess of 6 hrs

Considering the temple is required to get your hero back it would be useful if the pre reqs / timers were adjusted.

An update post the latest change. These comments relate to building in Dwelling.

The extension to timers has improved the situation slightly. They work very well if you are online at time of the attack. However, if the attack happens overnight, you cannot really benefit due to lack of resources and time since only the high level buildings / resources are still available.

Resources, if totally destroyed, go to level 0 and produce no resources. This makes it more difficult to rebuild. If you have chosen not to develop (or they are destroyed when the timer runs out) they continue to produce minimum resources. If destroyed to level 0 then the minimum amount should still be produced.

The rebuild timers are an excellent idea but I think tweaking them so that everyone could benefit especially those players who play once a day (eg after work) would make it fairer for all. Example the timer could start when you login to your country or an automatic delay added (eg 12hrs) to the timers which would lapse as soon as the first rebuild was triggered. This would allow all players to benefit even if the attacks happened overnight. 

The rebuild timers are indeed a great help.  There is a further issue which could be treated as a "wish" or a "suggestion"...

After a massive destruction of your country when you are left with a single cell dwelling; it would really help if you could have chests with useful things and animals to tame too.  These things do not normally come to a dwelling, but having chests and animals could also help with the rebuild.

Admittedly, the single cell heroes where all "created" before the rebuild timers were in existence; and we are near the end of alpha, but would it be possible to add some mechanism to allow chests and animals to appear in dwellings?

I was totally destroyed on all buildings just hero names.  had done keepers village and new kiev  now have to start over.   rebekka and rivkin