Vital flaw in this thread's theory: newbie and ported cities get plopped down on top of barbs all the time. It doesn't stop new population--it just convinces them to start alliances of one-city players and spam the chatbox with war declarations in a vain attempt to fight back in some way...

I agree with the premises of the patch, but it fails miserably. I am a middling-high player in a top-100 alliance, and I'm noticing more border disputes already. People who were content to have uneasy truces are now going MISC and declaring war on everyone (or attacking without declaring war) in order to gather food for their horrendous armies. Diplomacy is failing because everyone with whom I actually have reason to practice it (from an economic standpoint) is ticked off because they're running 1mil negative food or higher and running out of food at an ungodly rate every day unless they start raiding.

I can take care of myself, as I've been doing a similar thing, except within a level where I can still sustain my armies with the little bit I can still get from NPC's. If it gets tight, I'll just have to make more, but I'll do it with idle cities, and not by razing the locals.

I think something had to happen to take care of the market issues and unrealistic NPC system...but this is not it.

I loved this game when I joined, because unlike other wargames available, this was one where I wouldn't have to be *forced* to jump into "Farm or be farmed" mode. A peaceful alliance was possible, and we rocked the charts, in our own modest way. We had fun. But now...? I think the whole dynamic is going to change.

Pure and simple: UMGE nerfed the players who are already skilled at passing any losses they may have down the line to smaller players. When this happens, they will have more losses, and will therefore have to transfer more of them and build their pool of people to transfer them to. It's already happening, and it will continue to happen. When you make a change, you have to think about the side-effects of that change and plan for them, too.

On another note, to those who complain about the lack of warning and extreme Nerf: You can't really be as surprised as you claim. If you have an army in the red, you were there for the medal patch. You know that UMGE overreacts suddenly before sliding back to a more manageable level. Wait for that, and use your massive armies to attack all those level 10's scattered around...or station them with your smaller allies for defense...or whatever seems like a good idea to you.

There's no need to take it out on the little guy just because you're bitter. You've probably already attacked somebody this week for retaliating against your smallest ally because he didn't have the means to strike at you. Think how you feel about that guy, and think what you might do to him if you had complete control over his gaming experience. Then add common courtesy (but not necessarily excessive foresight), and you'll have a good idea what the next patch will be if you continue your current plan.

Now, just so it doesn't seem like I'm all criticism with no substance: A simple solution to this problem is to allow us to station troops in a Food-Producing Valley without taking the Food-Penalty. That never made sense anyway. Fix that, and you've got your reserves living off the land in the lakes that (honestly) they're stockpiling anyway. Heck, maybe it will even give a newer player a chance to whittle away at a tenth of the city's army at a time in the process.

Everyone's happy. Big farmer gets a monstrous army--little guy gets a chance against big farmer. Win-Win...ish. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have, and with additional minor tweaks, it could still be the answer.

--Trev