Ow - You Broke My Node! A Paradox with Bad Mayors?

Now, the videos have specifically stated that bad mayors can be replaced fairly easily, with monthly "elections" - which are different for each node-type. However:

Yours truly can't find any specific mentions on the Wiki nor via forums-search that elude to the facet of specifically replacing/removing special buildings. While buildings can be damaged and even destroyed during sieges, I was wondering on the limits of a mayor's powers to - by choice - remove special buildings. For example:

If a "bad mayor" is part of a guild that is trying to discourage people from living in a certain node neighboring the node their guild is centering in, and he/she decides to do something like removing all the marketplaces and player stalls from an Economic node-city, is this possible? SHOULD it be possible?

A Mayor's ability to remove/replace buildings is kind of a paradox; If you can't replace/remove buildings from a Node's city, then this also means that a bad Mayor could purposefully place things un-related to that node's type, to lock-out the placement of other buildings - and a Mayor that follows them can't fix the issue unless the Node levels up and more spots become available.

In the meantime, players who settled into a node specifically because of it's type are discouraged, and may pack up and move elsewhere - compounding the issue of poor building placement choices whether they be they on-purpose, or by poor decision.

Seems like it goes both ways. Has anyone else come upon information about specifically being able to choose to remove/replace buildings, thus far? SHOULD this be a Mayoral ability?

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Comments

akabear

Good point.

I always thought that the more popular towns in ESO had a lot to do with the configuration of the town building functions. Meaning, the towns that did not have long travel distances between warehouses, shops and crafting stalls seemed to be the ones that prospered.

I believe this will apply to AoC, and especially so if some of the towns are the sizes shown in the concept art.

I think strategic thinking will be necessary to plan out the placement, and hopefully, there is sufficient capacity to do it in a multitude of ways and influence the outcome.

Jamation

Hmm I hadn't considered this. At some point places might want to change up what buildings they have to offer anyways, like if their blacksmith isn't getting a lot of traffic but apartments are highly requested.

I do hope there is some way to remove buildings. If there is I think it should be in a similar fashion to building them, where players bring the materials to build/upgrade stuff, but in contrast they bring like...hammers...or...brooms...I don't know - the fantasy things you'd need to take down a building.
That way it'd still be a community effort and if the players are generally against it, it'll take longer and require more work.

I also couldn't find anything concrete about it so this might make an excellent question for the Q and A for their next stream!

akabear

Before this game got established, I had high hopes that the creating of the town was akin to a sim game, controlled by the leading player of the node, town whereby there were a multitude of combinations possible for the various building placement, right down to scribing out the paths and roads, street furniture with a variety of outcomes but no one meta. Removable and reinstatable.

Noaani

I would assume there is a function to replace a building with something else, would make for an odd game otherwise.

That said, I don't see a whole lot of scope for malice in regards to mayoral decisions. Incompetence for sure, but not malice.

Jamation

Oh just kidding, I found the info on the wiki that we're looking for:

Different governments may change the buildings within a node.[15]

And there could be regime change... If somebody doesn't like the fact that a market was built and they want to re-elect a new government next cycle, they can do so... and that market could be destroyed and a new building take its place.[15]

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Buildings

ohToasty

If you get the resources back and a mayor can't maliciously get rid of the resources, then a new good mayor could easily rebuild everything.

Tyranthraxus

Jamation wrote: »

Oh just kidding, I found the info on the wiki that we're looking for:

Different governments may change the buildings within a node.[15]

And there could be regime change... If somebody doesn't like the fact that a market was built and they want to re-elect a new government next cycle, they can do so... and that market could be destroyed and a new building take its place.[15]

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Buildings

Ah ha! Thank you - yours truly was looking through this very Wiki earlier, but was also on-the-clock for working at home; I missed it!

The specific quote "Different governments may change the buildings within a node." is from a 2017 interview with Steven.

Still, it kind of seems there should be some limitation or power-check in-place to this; a malicious player who buys the Mayorship of an Economic node could - by this logic - still be able to do some damage.

Maybe some buildings that are inherently important to the nature of a Node (like a Marketplace to an Economic Node, or a University to a Scientific Node) should have a destruction-timer, like a 35-day removal process that the citizens would be made aware of; If a vital building is targeted for destruction, the citizens could rally to vote out the bad mayor, and the next mayor could cancel the count-down.

Just throwing around some thoughts.

Voidwalkers

Also, what should happen when a mayor decides to tear down apartments? Refund sold units at ... current value? previous transaction value? Or should the mayor not have the ability to tear down occupied apartments at all?

daveywavey

Tyranthraxus wrote: »

Still, it kind of seems there should be some limitation or power-check in-place to this; a malicious player who buys the Mayorship of an Economic node could - by this logic - still be able to do some damage.

They want some level of infiltration, espionage, and subterfuge. It wouldn't surprise me if this did happen to some extent. It's up to the rest of the playerbase to make sure it doesn't!

akabear

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Also, what should happen when a mayor decides to tear down apartments? Refund sold units at ... current value? previous transaction value? Or should the mayor not have the ability to tear down occupied apartments at all?

That`s one way to out a bad tennant!

bloodprophet

daveywavey wrote: »

Tyranthraxus wrote: »

Still, it kind of seems there should be some limitation or power-check in-place to this; a malicious player who buys the Mayorship of an Economic node could - by this logic - still be able to do some damage.

They want some level of infiltration, espionage, and subterfuge. It wouldn't surprise me if this did happen to some extent. It's up to the rest of the playerbase to make sure it doesn't!

An interesting thought. Imagine a node buying another nodes mayorship and then destroying all the buildings while making taxes 100% just to watch it devolve.

maouw

It's fine if there's a malicious tennant mayor - an empire falls, a new one rises...

... from its Ashes

daveywavey

maouw wrote: »

It's fine if there's a malicious tennant mayor - an empire falls, a new one rises...

... from its Ashes

Exactly!

Tyranthraxus

daveywavey wrote: »

They want some level of infiltration, espionage, and subterfuge. It wouldn't surprise me if this did happen to some extent. It's up to the rest of the playerbase to make sure it doesn't!

Ah - good point! I've been in the mind-set of hanging on to a specific citizenship for a long time, but maybe my paradigm for expectation should instead be set more towards *frequent* re-settlement!

It would make for more opportunity for new cities to rise and fall. By present design, I think Economic Nodes are probably the only ones that are super-vulnerable to this, anyways. Maybe the chance for a single mayor to do some damage shouldn't neccessarily be a bad thing?

It'd just make bribing a mayor to essentially tear down his/her city's services and removable buildings an element of the game; The citizens might be upset for awhile, but who is to say that their Node wouldn't have faced another fate-by-destruction, anyways?

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