Blueprint for the Future #4

Day 786, 07:40 • Published in Norway Norway • by Yan Hoek


Ok, Hospitals. We all love them don't we? Fight 5 times, heal back up to 100. Easy. And as everyone of military age is near to full health it keeps the economy working and profits flowing. And what is wrong with that?

So here's what's wrong...

1) It fatally weakens the gift industry as well as the high Q food industry. From personal experience I know that since I started fighting and healing everyday I have not bought a single piece of food over Q2. And I've only ever bought gifts for my employees struggling to hit 40 health so they can start the cycle of fighting and healing for themselves.
2) Hospitals last forever. They only get destroyed when the region is conquered. Which pretty much means all those Q5 hospitals in fortress regions like Java or Florida or Heilongjiang will be healing thousands of people until the end of time. This only weakens the wood industry.
3) No one buys Q1 hospitals. I mean, what is the point?

Now, I'm all for war, it keeps the economy moving and it makes eRep interesting but the current system of hospitals only serve to undermine the Gift, Diamond and Wood industries, as well as reinforcing the older more powerful countries.

So I'm proposing that hospitals need reforming. But how can we remove the bad aspects of hospitals without killing off the good bits too?

1) Happiness
Admin have vaguely mentioned happiness i.e. a characteristic that probably won't be affected by fighting and healing. And I guess if you aren't happy you still will be able to fight to the max but you might not be so good at your job. That might just solve the problem of the undervalued gift industry.

2) Hospitals run out after time
In RL a busy city centre hospital is going to have thousands of people through its doors every day. And after a while it isn't going to look so shiny and new. It gets old. And maybe it doesn't work as well as it used to.

Firstly I propose that every hospital heals the same amount. A Q1 hospital will refresh 50 health just like a Q5 but they will have different 'hit points'.
And that's where my second suggestion comes in. So say we have a nice shiny new Q3 hospital. And we'll give it a 'hit number' - 1,000,000 for instance. Every time someone goes and heals, the amount they are healed by is taken off the hospital's total. So if 500 people heal 50 health everyday then the hospital will last for 40 days. A Q5 will have a much more hit points, Q1 will have lower. Once all those hit points are used up then the hospital disappears and it will need replacing.

!!Ding!! Suddenly you have a system where the more heavily populated countries, ones that are raking in huge amounts of gold in taxes and would normally have a Q5 in every region, now have to regularly spent all that gold to keep their population healthy. It also means that Q1 hospitals actually become desirable - as those smaller countries won't need a super expensive Q5 to heal their smaller population. Basically it evens things out a little between the big powerful countries and the smaller ones.