Ok, I have a solution for the HC's.
The foundation of my reasoning is this:
Skilled players should be the ones on top. Not those who are online the most, spend the most cash or have the biggest alliance or account share the most.
1. Having refuge (troops die if no food) = defenders who farm the most win.
2. Having the attack button = the largest alliances/coalations/gangs win. They will gang up on others and destroy all 9 cities of the player until they join the group or quit the server.
3. No cap on troop numbers and no refuge = defenders who have the most troops win.
4. Account sharing = those who share their accounts win. Defenders friends or alliance mates can login when account owner is not online.
Notice how all 4 above require no skill. And notice how they will only make matters worse for account sharing and multi-accounting. For example, refuge. Ok, then I will capture a HC and account share. When I am offline someone else can login to my account and farm for me to support my troops. Or, I can create 10 "feeder" accounts and login to them once a day and send food to my HC to support my huge army.
Now, should HC rules be different from normal cities? Yes. Because they are different from normal cities.
I believe that three things will fix the account sharing and make things "fair" when it comes to HC's...
1. An 8 period everyday where the HC owner cannot do anything. All they can do is login and chat. During this 8 hour period they cannot march troops, use strategems, build troops, build defenses, comfort, pray, use speech texts, nothing. All they can do is alliance chat. Why is this fair? Why will it stop account sharing when it comes to HCs which makes them near impossible to take from rivals? Because people usually sleep 8 hours. So if someone is sleeping then that means they should not be able to do anything. It means they should be "exposed". But account sharing works around this exposure. By "forcing" the 8 hour exposure the entire purpose of sharing accounts becomes void. Because the purpose of account sharing is to have others login and do things while the owner sleeps or is away from the computer. Everyone sleeps. And this needs to be "forced" on HC's because they are a magnent for accout sharing. Of course the HC owner may choose the 8hr window which their HC will be "offline". They can edit the window every few days. The HC owner may alert their alliance of the window so the alliance may reinforce the embassy if needed. So during the 8 hr window the HC owner will rely on embassy reinforcements to hold the HC.
2. Hard cap on troops. As already brought out, players can keep packing and packing troops into a HC until it has an insane amount of troops, many times more than Atlantis ever had when it was an NPC. Refiuge will not be an efficient troop limiter. Refuge just means that multi-accounting and account sharing will pack food into the city and farmers will win. Again, no skill.
3. Elected Governer cannot raise loyalty to 100% back to back to back on the same city. Elected governer may only raise loyalty to 100% 1 time each day.
In short, these three things will cause players to rely on skill as well as their alliance to keep an HC, not troop numbers, account sharing or multi-accounting to keep their HC's. And people sleep. So there should be a 8 hour window in which every HC is open to being taken by a rival. That time being the average sleep time. During which time the HC owner must rely on alliance reinforcements.
Now, if a rival takes the HC then no big deal, the new owner will have the same rules and conditions and be just as exposed.
And if someone says #1 is silly, here is my response... in advance.
If the target is online and constantly changing wall defenses, opening/closing gates, praying, comforting, etc... then it does not matter who the attacker is, the defender will not lose the city. This is why most players attack targets when they are offline. And this is also why players say 'You are dumb if you try to capture a city from a player who is online'. Problem is, since HC's are so desired the defender will typically account share to keep it in the family. So it is like trying to attack a target that is ALWAYS online. Near impossible to take a city from an experienced player who is online. And since the HC account owner often shares the account with experienced players, well, an experienced player is always online to defend it. The only way to make it fair is to "force" the HC owner to "sleep" for 8 hours per day. That is why I came up with the 8 hr suggestion. During that 8 hour window whe the HC owner is sleeping they must rely on their alliance to reinforce the embassy, period. It is "forcing" players to be honest by getting offline for a few hours like a normal person should which in turn takes away all incentive to account share. Because account sharing is done so when an owner is offline someone else can login and watch the fort. Not cool at all. So an "offline window" needs to be forced upon HC owners. They can choose the window. But it needs to happen because high level HC owners are never offline. Strange, huh? And if a high level HC owner chooses to play fair and actually sleeps for 6-8 hours, their HC stands a good chance of getting taken by a rival. Those are the only HC's being capped by rivals, the honest player HC's... which is a small percent.
During sleep time every players city should be "useless" as you said. Problem is, account sharing keeps the lights on 24x7. So Evony needs to give the HC's some sleeping pills.
Ok, I want everyone to totally pick this apart and find all the problems with it.


(I have slept this way since before Evony, it's not the game that did it to me)

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