This is the place where you post your grand battles, your pleas for help or your your sum up of an era well played.
If there is anything interesting going on, post it here! You can post screenshots of battles or messages, show how the map changes trough an era, or write a small novella detailing every twist and turn. Get your message out without spending 1 energy on a broadcast!
I am one of the newest members of the community and I first played BD years back (over 50 eras played). I returned during the quarantine and was surprised to find that nothing had changed. I feel that I must point out certain features that are being exploited repeatedly which makes the game bland:
Rich players: It is true that every game has in game buy ins which allows the buyer some advantage. However if you allow the buyer a lot of resources in the beginning, that person takes all the conquers and increases his production. Allowing advantages is completely fine but if done so right in the beginning, the game skewed for the entire era. There are hardly 20 rich players every era and 100s of free to play people. If these people never even come close to victory, your player base will shift to other games which I hate to see cause BD is a great game. The lack of players is also the reason BD has to plant 1000s of fake colonies every era.
Lot of rich players making a larger group: I played a few eras and currently in some as well. The biggest problem I am facing is that the top 2-3 alliances every era are in the same team and by boosting from the start, no other alliance gets a chance to fight at all. This happens because even if the alliance size is 5, 15 people who are boosting are getting everything in the first 100 ticks and anyone trying to rise up with negligible production gets hit with missiles.
Bribery: The game is imbalanced as it is and by enabling the sending red tokens to any player in the era, bribery is official. If you bribe to get 20 players to fight against 5, then what is the essence of an alliance or alliance size limit? and this happens in every era. With spamming a really strong tactical play, 20 spammers can easily overpower 5 of the strongest players in the game by taking their network.
Suggestions
Even though the game is great, the balance is very bad as I feel. I am a free to play experienced BD player and I think a few changes are necessary. I am making these suggestions below. Please consider them.
Allowing the usage of either red or blue tokens only after tick 200 or 300. Allowing token usage at the beginning is like playing a chess match with an extra queen. Its too overpowering and not everyone earns enough to spend on the game a lot. Moreover the biggest user base of your game is between 15-25 who don’t earn at all. Handicapping this user base will initiate further migration from the game.
Preventing a user to create colonies in more than 1 or maximum 2 eras at one time. This prevents the rich player from dominating all the eras at once altogether. Also enable sending of red tokens to non-allied players from tick 1000. This prevents the bribery issue and diplomacy and strategy will be the true winners not money (offering red tokens to non-allied players for assistance is regular these days).
Create a new world era (1 or 2 ticks) where no boosting is allowed at all. This will give a huge opportunity to new players to explore the game and become experienced before they fight with rich pros. I remember the first 2 eras I played I was overpowered very easily because of heavy boosters. With gamers having a low attention span, no new player will play on a lost era (due to low production) for 1000 ticks to gather experience. Too much time and no real learning. People who are skilled in the game will also have a great time.
In the end, I want BD to create a more equal gameplay for all the players and I feel the above suggestions are a big step towards the same. Thanks for your time.