Problem: Lategame is predictable and without diversion concerning military. Why ever even stock preserving jars or wheat? You know it will come in every year without exception.
Idea:
Reaching T4 new kind of attacks appear. You will get a notice 5 years before the attack happens that another landlord or whatever is coming for you. So better start preparing and buidling up stock of everything. Especially durable food as the enemy will siege you for a longer time. The idea is that they will attack you over a longer period from all directions or kill everything that is leaving your town (range of your towers). They will not attack your city like normal attacks as you would kill them. But they will siege you for a year or so. So you neet wood, stone, durable food, soap and more stored to survive as the amount of attackers will be very high so you cannot fight back.
The attackers will leave after a certain amount of time. You can shorten the time by spending gold. You will send gold to “allies” that will come for your rescue and frighten off the enemy when they arrive. The more gold you send them se sooner they arrive. But the goldamount the want is tremendous. You should not have it in your bank as it would be too easy.
This way you would have to change your crop rotation (something you would never do without this attack…) to more wheat beacaus it is durable.
In addition. the size of farms should be drastically bigger. Like 5-10times the space it takes up now for the same amount of yield. Otherwise there would be no reason why you would niot just build the farms inside your town. But thats not how it would make sense. Same for orchardist and cattle.
Maybe traders could get through the siege so would have a reason to actually by some food.
If you survive. Well nice thing. Your allies that came to your aid want a festival for that in another 5 years. They tell you what they want. Enormous amount of beer, fruits, meat… so as win you get a next “quest” but well the enemy came for you. Why should you get a reward for surviving? Noone said that settling at the farthest frontier would be easy?
If you dont manage to get everything for the festival some of your friends will not come for your aid next time you get such kind of an attack. So for the game this means they will take longer next time to frighten the enemy away.
Accoding to this example more “quests” could arise in lategame. Get me an amount of this or that to… build a ship… etc… and if you get it sometimes you can get cool rewards. Like well you got them the planks and the wood for a ship. They sailed way and found something great.
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Problem: At the moment after an attack you now that you are save for the next years. So all soldiers are unselected so you get many additional workers or builders. Thats not what makesa sense to me but there is no reason not to do it. As you are save an soldiers cost money.
Idea: Soldiers get expierenced in being soldiers if they stay soldiers for a longer period. Like they get a higher military rank ever 2 years they are soldiers. Like up to 5 times or something. They deal more damage, can wield better armor an weapons. If they have a low rank they cannot wield the best weapons.
Addiontally, there should be even better armors and weapons that are very very hard to build. So only the best of your soldier that made it to 10 years experience can wield them. But well they should be very strong and hard to kill then. Even giving them horses to increase their health and speed? Would make sense as their super heavy armor woould make them slow.
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Problem: Finding all ruins from destroyed houses is annoying for big cities…
Idea:
Make a Button that repairs all buildings that have been destroyed by the attackers.