Some of these ideas/changes would work well on their own, some would need other modifications in the gvg mechanics so that they make sense, some of the ideas are radical or might be exclusive of other ideas... Here's my long list:
Instead of giving out *arbitrary* numbers; Where X Exists, just replace X with numbers of your choice...
Ghost guilds:
Require newly created guild to wait X days before being able to participate in GvG.
Require guilds to have X members before they can participate in GvG
Alternate idea just to put it out there: for the first X days of new guilds all sieges would cost XYZ (instert insanely high number here) goods.
Guild Hopping:
You want to ALLOW Guild Hopping for non-GvG reasons, but BLOCK Guild Hopping for GvG reasons. With that in mind:
1. Get rid of the 7 day block period for returning to your 'Home guild'.
2. INSTEAD, DO THIS: Block players from participating in GvG for X Days after they join any guild.
Alternate idea just to put it out there: for the first X days a new guild member would have no def/att bonus in GvG battles...
Siege costs:
Require all sieges to cost X Goods (I can see this CAN be a problem, unless other game mechanics are also changed... ie. land auto-releasing after X Days)
-or-
Require Sieges to cost X goods Minimum AND X goods Maximum
-or-
Require Sieges to have variable cost, NOT related to land owned, but related to the individual sector's power. For example: a sector with power 12, would cost X of each goods to siege, a sector with power 24 would cost 2*X of each goods to siege. Or something along those lines.
-or-
At the very least, if all other costs ideas are ignored, make sieges costs relate to overall (global? local?) map
power and not overall
number of sectors owned in this map.
-or-
Turnips? OK! How?
Static Land ownership -- Or, how to make land ownership more fluid:
First off: Would a more fluid land ownership be a good thing or a bad thing?
...If costs are reduced this idea becomes reasonable:
After X days, the sector 'reverts' to the wilds... as in: It is automatically released (whether goods are returned or not, is another issue).
Perhaps the guild HQ and the immediately surrounding sectors (those touching HQ) would be 'safe' from this?
...If costs are not reduced... well, the above idea might be problematic!
Unable to defend against repeat sieges: (Note: if fluidity is more important, then leave this issue as is)
If the various the siege cost recomendations are ignored and the siege costs stay the same, this issue *might* need addressing:
http://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/...-Popular-Ideas&p=159370&viewfull=1#post159370
Perhaps implement a siege timeout of X minutes/seconds after a defender defeats an enemy siege so the defender can swap defense troops? ...maybe...
Would that make conquering a sector difficult/impossible? ...maybe...
Ignore this issue in the interest of allowing lands to change hands more freely? ...maybe...
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Change/improve/modify/revamp the guild member permissions.
They were created with only the guild forum, kicking and inviting in mind, as such they are currently useless in all aspects of GvG. Allow specific permissions
PER ERA instead of for all ages. ie. HMA players shouldn't be able to release a PME sector! Yes, yes I know, this would add a lot of overhead on whatever storage/Database rows the current simplistic permissions scheme uses; So what?
Until that's fixed:
1. All members should be allowed to swap armies.
2. Any army that is to be put in a defense slot should only be allowed to have X Rogues (with X being certainly LOWER than 8!)
Weird, Alternate idea for the whole lacking permissions issue:
No one (YES NO ONE!!) should be allowed to swap damaged armies with fresh ones, this would certainly be interesting to watch... guilds would have to keep an eye out to add defenses
after their def slot armies die by the daily resets... but if this is coupled with other changes, ie. the timeout-after-siege is broken it could work as a game mechanism... maybe.
Frankly, I am personally affected with the lacking 'Trusted' issue on all but my main city, I cannot swap armies on damaged def slots; sure, the permissions are currently lacking, and could be fixed in the future; but, what if you instead keep it that way by making it
--WORSE-- by not allowing
anyone to replace damaged armies. Yes, it's a
thought. Silly? Good? Horendous? Ponder it...
Guild Unit pool:
I like the general sound of this idea, but I can also see potential problems with it.
1. Those units should only be used to fill defense slots and maybe sieges, not used to attack. Otherwise the more numerous and powerfull guilds can end up having large unit stocks to use for attacking (by whoever has the highest attack bonus)
2. There should be some maximum unit pool limit per Era.
3. The barracks slot where the unit originated should have a timeout period, X Hours, until a new unit can be recruited in that same slot. (this wouldn't be an issue if the unit was unattached...)
4. Guild permissions NEED to be modified if this idea is ever implemented...
Guild logs:
Yes! Please! For the sake of common sense, make the logs contain actual usable information.
Accounting of GvG bonuses:
So, this sector of mine has 35% att/def bonus, right? where does that come from? hmm?
Of my fellow guild members who gives what in the GvG def/att pool? Should the guild leaders know this info? Perhaps they would encourage them (or the guild as a whole) to upgrade some of the guild's GBs specifically if they actually had this info?
"Your Sector is Being Sieged" notification:
Once again, for the sake of common sense, the guild should be notified when one of their sectors is being Sieged.
Same for: "Your guild is now Sieging a Sector! Go Fight!" Notification.
Keep in mind that the messaging system is (still) so broken that many people ignore it entirely; so, use some alternate form of notification.
Siege replacement with fresh units:
Why are sieges allowed to be withdrawn/replaced in the first place?
Siege sniping:
If guild "Foo" Sieges a sector, then guild "Bar" should not be able to 'steal' the sector from them by placing their own siege when the defending armies are nearly dead. Make it impossible for guilds other than "Foo" to siege a sector until the daily reset.
Power varies, number of def slots should also vary?
...Should lower power sectors have less defense slots? ie 4 instead of 8? This would address the issue that the conquering guild will get less benefit from conquering this sector.
Turn off GvG for non participating guild members:
Well, it's been mentioned, and it's worth pondering... Though it would have to go both ways too: if a member is blocked from participating in GvG and bloked from getting the GvG rewards (FP in town hall) then the member's GBs should not give goods into the guild treasury or def/att bonus into the guild's sectors.
Coupled with a better logging facility to see who does and who does not contribute in GvG this could be usefull as a 'stick and carrot' approach for guilds where erm, *strong* leadership exists (see Dictators...
)
Siege def bonus:
Sieges currently have 0 att/def bonus. Is that good or bad?
Bandits (mountains/rivers):
Have *all* sectors be attacked by X bandits daily (lose X health from each sector daily)
-or-
The idea of no landing zones had been mentioned, ie. guilds could land anywhere. IF such an idea was to be implemented, it should be coupled with having all sectors be attacked by bandits daily.
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So, A fluid GvG (with sectors auto-releasing), with different siege costs and a guild unit pool? what do you think? is that game mechanic workable for the players?
My main Guild has land in Eras we hardly participate currently, is this good? bad? Sure I like not having to bother with the Iron age map even though we have several sectors there... But is that good for the game?
Should conquered swaths of land be kept by the same guild forever?, or should a continuous effort be needed for them to be kept?
There's certainly room for changes and improvements.