Borrowing Money

[tabanli]

Did you ever notice a big mean hero approaching to your key city and you wish you had 400 more gold to upgrade the city level? Or you are just 10 gold short of buying that Red Dragon you always dreamed of?

Now you can.

With the new borrowing feature you can borrow gold and get to negative for one turn. You have to pay back the loan with %25 interest, but it is surely better than loosing a key city. And that Red Dragon you always dream of? He will surely pay off.

[KGB]

Tabanli,

Interesting idea. But I can see how it can easily be abused.

When you are down to your last city you might as well borrow unlimited gold to get L8 walls. You are never going to pay it back anyway so all it does it make things harder for the player to conquer your last city.

In team games it would be worse. Borrow unlimited gold to upgrade all your production to Red Dragon and other goodies and set all walls to L8. Then resign. Your team mates don't get saddled with your debt (that's not fair) but they do get your nice cities full of superb production...

KGB

[Zaque]

Why in team games would it be unfair to transfer the debt, it is a team game and you can already transfer gold in the game granted you have to pay to do that but this would be basically the same thing. I also think there would have to be a limit to how much you could borrow, like say 2*your total income (ie the income you receive BEFORE paying for all of your troops). There should also be a limit to when you can borrow else people who know maps well and know that they will increase their income quickly will take out loans just so that they can start producing those Red Dragons a turn or three early, I would think something like turn 5 or 10 would be ok.

[KGB]

Zaque,

It's unfair to transfer team debt because you can't prevent team mates from taking loans. Not every team game features players you know aren't going to do things you don't want them to. So it's unfair for them to sink you with debt you didn't want/ask for.

Being able to borrow 2x your income only helps the stronger player with the larger income become that much stronger. The weaker player with less income who most likely needs the loan won't be able to get it. All players must be able to borrow the same amount of gold. That could change over time (ie 200 gold in turns 1-10, 400 gold in turns 11+ kind of thing) of course.

KGB