New Endgame: Temple hunt – Part 1

Hello everyone, once again I come to you with a new endgame. We are in the early stages of this concept, and just like we did with Domination we want to hear your thoughts and suggestions about it.

Just remember that we have not started development on this endgame yet, and things may change along the way, both because of your feedback and potential unforeseen technical issues.

Summary

The information about the new endgame is divided in 3 blog posts for easier understanding and consumption.

The first part focus on a more general overview of the new endgame, describing its main objectives and general rules.

The second part focus on Small and Large Ocean temples, all of its characteristics and rules.

And the third part focus on Olympus, covering all of its characteristics and rules, and the winning conditions of this endgame.

Part 1 – General overview

In the Temple Run endgame, Temples filled with enemy units will spawn around Greece and it will be up to you to conquer and hold them to win the favor of the gods. There are 3 different types of temples and they will be unlocked sequentially until finally you are trying to win the Gods by conquering Olympus. I will detail how all of this will work in the following paragraphs.

Starting conditions

Just like in the Domination endgame, this endgame only starts after an initial period of time, this allows for the world to evolve enough to provide a healthy endgame experience.

We will follow the same rules as we do in domination to determine how long it takes for the endgame to start. This time is based on both world speed and world config. The system then takes these two values and determines the amount of time it will take to start the Ocean Temple spawn stage.

Temple spawn stage

In this stage temples will spawn for alliances to conquer and hold. The spawning of these temples is directly connected to the size of the world, so for each world size we have different amounts of temples being spawned. See world sizes below.

The temples spawn stage will be divided in 3 parts:

  1. Small Ocean Temples: In this part several Ocean temples are spawned across all populated oceans and alliances need to conquer a percentage of them to unlock the next part.
  2. Large Ocean Temples: In this part 4 large ocean temples are spawned in the world, and alliances need to conquer all of them to unlock Olympus.
  3. Olympus: In this part all alliances have to fight to conquer and hold Olympus and then win the world.

World size

To make sure the players have the best experience in this endgame we need to take into account the size of the world, since we need to determine how many temples of each type will spawn and where. To determine this we will have settings that will be pre defined at the start of each world, this will allow us to cater to the different sizes of worlds in different countries. Each option on this new setting will determine the number of islands that will be open for players in the entire world.

New islands will not be unlocked in this endgame, all islands will be unlocked directly from the start of the world and players will be able to settle on any of them. This creates a very different experience from the start, but also consider that not all oceans will be available to settle in. The limited amount of islands should create large enough play area, but also tight enough to promote battle.

These numbers are based on data analysis.

The world size will influence several rules in the Temple Run endgame, things like number and positions of temples, amount of temples that need to be controlled, and others.

Conquering a temple

Conquering a temple works the same way as conquering a city, it does not matter what system is being played, while conquering a temple the Siege/Revolt rules apply the same way.

One main difference is that a conquered temple will not have its ownership associated with a player, instead it will be associated with an Alliance. This means that players do not need a city slot to conquer a temple.

Players cannot support unconquered temples, the only exception is if they are under siege/revolt.  Support commands towards an unconquered temple are sent back on arrival.

Everything else works the same:

  • Players need to destroy the units defending the temple.
  • Players need to land a Colony ship in the temple.
    • Conquest: Players need to hold a siege on the targeted temple.
    • Revolt: Players need to land a Colony ship in the temple while a revolt is ongoing.

Once conquered, the temple instantly gets a Shield, protecting it from all attacks for the next 24hrs. Any attacks directed towards a shielded temple should be returned without a battle.

If an Alliance that owns a temple is dissolved, the temple immediately returns to having no owner and refills its troops to the initial value.

Winning the world

When an Alliance conquers Olympus a timer begins counting the time said alliance has to hold Olympus for. If the alliance reaches a predetermined duration of control, said alliance wins the world. If for any reason this alliance loses control over Olympus, the timer stops but it is not reset, when the same alliance conquers Olympus again the timer keeps going from where it stopped.

The first alliance that is able to hold Olympus for a total of 30 days (this is not a final number and will be affected by world speed), wins the blessing of the gods and the world.

The first 24hrs do not count for the win timer as Olympus will be protected by a shield.

Artifact reward

The winners of the world are then rewarded with a new artifact, exactly like we do for Domination. This artifact is not yet decided, I am still considering what it will be.

Ideas:

  • 5% favor cost reduction to all mythical units.
  • 5% recruitment time reduction for mythical units

End of the world Peace time

After the world has been won we start a peace time for 14 days, just like we do for domination.

As a Game Designer, I work to improve Grepolis in any way I can. I mostly listen to the community and find good ways to make players life easier and more exciting.

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19 comments on “New Endgame: Temple hunt – Part 1
  1. Kratos Giantsbane says:

    I just wanted to put-in a little suggestion about the temple locations because I feel randomizing everything, from location of small temples to the ever changing position of Olympus leaves very less room for pre-planning on a long-time basis.

    Also, temples being just temples without cities, how does it work? Does an entire alliance gets pinged when a random player attacks a temple? (that makes spam way too easy)

    Will there be a way to check Travel-time of a particular attack for a CS? (needed for sniping)

    If One alliance sends “N” number of troops to defend a particular temple/Olympus and all the others get to attack or even see whats inside, It puts the conqueror at a major disadvantage as they will be left with nothing to defend their own cities(which is basic grepo).

    Why not go with the simple “King-of-the-Hill” approach?

    https://ibb.co/cT5wQ6M

    Red circles –> Fixed position of the small temples(core ocean)
    Pink circles –> Small temples (No. of temples/locations chosen as required)
    Orange circles –> Small temples (On rim oceans, for bigger worlds, only if necessary)

    Grey Boxes –> Large Temples
    Location: On the center of each core ocean, so only an alliance dominating a core ocean can take it.

    Green Star –> Olympus
    Location: On the center of the map (X:500, Y:500), No change in position.

    Every temple spawning, should have it’s own Island spawning with it with 5 slots,10 slots and 15 slots for smaller temples, larger temples and Olympus respectively. (Number – decided by the devs)

    An alliance with majority of the cities on a particular Temple Island gets the buffs w.r.t the temple. If the cities of the ruling party is conquered and a new alliance takes over, they get a buff and the alliance that lost control gets a curse.

    Also, by keeping the positions of these temples as fixed, alliances dropping in on Day 1 can have long-term plans and work towards securing the said locations without having to worry about Temples popping on random basis.

    * There must be a pre-set period of time like Domination for the temples to start spawning in Three stages, First being Smaller one, then the larger ones and finally Olympus

    * An alliance has to control atleast 51% of the cities on a Temple Island to gain control over the Temple.

    * An alliance can control any number of smaller temples/larger temples but can gain buffs only from a limited number of temples.(Alliance Founder gets the option to activate or De-activate buffs of a conquered Temple)

    * Cities on a Temple Island maybe specialized ( like with extra Building levels) so It has to be decided “who” gets to be on Temple Island within an alliance.

    * Keeping the “Olympus” fixed in the center will force alliances into the core which might lead them to being boxed-in by everyone else which will promote some serious battles.

    Just my thoughts,
    ~Kratos~

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello Kratos,

      Thanks for the feedback, thats very helpful.

      One of the goals of this new endgame is to bring a somewhat new way of playing Grepolis, so the random positions of the temples are an intentional measure to reduce the longterm planning a bit. Of course it is not my intention to change how you guys play the game, my intention is to bring something new that will force you to come up with cool new strategies for the new challenges.

      As to your question about the temples without cities. We intend to have a screen where the alliance members can see all movements towards a temple they own, imagine something like the live siege window where you can see any movements directed towards that city but you cant actually interact with the city itself.

      About the conqueror being in major disadvantage, I do see what you mean, but that sounds to me more like a strategic challenge than a proper disadvantage. You are correct when you say that if you send all your troops to defend the temple you leave your cities open to attacks, but that is a strategic decision. I think current strategies would definitely have to be adjusted to be successful in defending your temples and cities at the same time.

      The King of the hill approach is a possibility for sure, but like I said we are trying to come up with different ways to approach the gameplay that already exists in Grepolis. With that said, I do like the idea of the temples being island based and the control of the temple being based in how many cities and alliance controls in said island, that is an interesting approach for sure.

      Cheers

  2. skumbag says:

    Thank you dear god, finnaly this will come, there was a time in like 2015 or around, that you guys made and event with a goddess similar to this and i really enjoy that, in that time we had to conquer her citys spreaded by the oceans (i dont remember the name of the event, and dont even sure if the year is accurate) but still this is a really good and funny way to endgame.

    Now the only thing that i trully hope is someone decent comes to the Portuguese server, because the server is really too bad and full of cheats bots and favors coming through the support members, so if you please can provide me some way to report what is wrong with that server i’ll really appreciate that. And also have some suggestions to made for the dev team, to help to improve the game. But i dont want to go further in this here, because it’s not the place for that, but if you could give me some direct way to talk with someone that matter in the innogame, instead of the person that have the resposability for the server, because he doest know what he’s doing right now.

    cheers

    • bernardgra says:

      Hi,

      I know the event you are talking about it was called Artemesia. About the Portuguese server, you do have to contact the CMs, there is nothing I could so personally.

      Thanks for the feedback,
      Cheers

  3. nicolas tercero says:

    Hola,la idea parece muy buena solo que en mi opinon es como una fusion de lo que son los mundos con maravillas y los tiempos en los mundos de dominacion eso lo entendi asi,el problema es que al ser asi siento que seria mucho mas largo un mundo de ese etilo,no estaria mal si se torna dirvetido para los jugadores pero a cambio de eso y combinando otro tema la recompensa seria muy poca si es algo como lo que dices arriba del porcentaje de favor…
    Yo optaria mas por un porcentaje a favor como se hace en algunos caso mas premios de mucha importancia.

    Saludos

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello Nicolas,

      Thank you for the feedback. This type of world should not last a lot longer than a Domination world, we are trying to keep the duration similar, and about the rewards we are trying to work something that will be good for the players but also wont unbalance the game.

      Thanks for the feedback,
      Cheers

  4. Hyperadox says:

    Perhaps with conquering and defending a temple, rather than have it be the standard way of sending single attacks against a large stack (Which is what it would end up being, making temples strongholds never to be conquered do to lanchesters law.), you could have it be a 24 hour period where both alliances send in troops for one big battle.

    One alliance would declare a siege on the temple that another alliance is defending. Each alliance has 24 hours to send troops to participate in the battle (And numbers would be hidden from either side of the others troops), and at the end of the countdown, there’s one big ol battle that is a 1 time encounter that determines success or defeat, BP is awarded, remaining troops are sent home, and the temple either has a new owner or remains with the old.

    There are a few pros and cons to this.
    Pros:
    1, attackers couldn’t gold multiple armies out of the same city to overwhelm the defenders
    2, defenders couldn’t gold up walls and defensive units to prevent attackers from conquering
    3, It truly would be the stronger alliance who wins.

    Cons:
    1, I’m not sure how naval troops and land troops would affect each other, if they would, and if it affected the outcome. If naval units could kill transports, it would be a battle to see who could get the most Light ships or Biremes in there.
    2, Not sure how to deal with discrepancy in mythical units

    I could see how something like this would also remove a strategic aspect of the game. Another idea to go along with it (and I definitely like this one better) might be that only cities that are on the island would be able to participate. An alliance would have to first conquer cities on the island to the point that they could beat the other people on the island, and then they’d start the siege. This would solve the issue of naval units, as only land units would be allowed to participate.

    The gameplay would very much revolve around taking the cities on the island to conquer the temple, however, it’s still a viable strategy to attack players directly, to weaken the support the island would receive.

    Just a few quick typed up thoughts. Would love to communicate with you more, as I’ve been looking into a lot of things that I think would improve the game as a whole. Thanks for trying to keep things fresh 🙂

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello Hyperadox,

      Those are also interesting ideas, like you said I think the first idea would remove a bit of the strategic side since it focus a lot on unit numbers, but it is still an interesting approach. I will consider it a bit further.

      Thanks for the feedback,
      Cheers

  5. zebia says:

    Hello Bernard

    Great idea + some feedback from Kratos = Best gamemode for my.
    I like your gamemode thinking.

    I can’t it make better than you have done think so, maybe if I see it on Beta how it is.

    Greetings from Dutch Player (I heard from our Community Manager : Kroenuh)

  6. saaa says:

    I’m a bit thrown. Do temples appear on there own new islands or do they appear on existing ones?

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello saaa,

      Temples have their own “new” islands, but these are the small rocks that have no cities, the smaller islands that are just decorative.

      Cheers

  7. FutbolTango says:

    It is appreciated this improvement.
    My suggestions might be general, but they are based on my desire to have more interest Grepolis worlds.

    a) I would like that the Temples are not random. They can be figured out with different concentrations, so it force the alliance to come with different strategies.

    b) I would like that some temples are in remote areas. This way it forces the population of the entire world.

    c) I would like that the world does not end after 14 days. One of the most interest parts of Grepolis is when you do not close the world right away. It is nice when the world starts to filled with ghosts. This allows us to have one on one battles. It is realistic with human history. Humans have seen temples from other times that are from other times.

    This might be strange, but I am an Economist/Philosopher. It is based on a concept of marginal analysis. When you continue until there are 300, then you continue to allow to maximize our benefit as players. We make new friends. We try new strategies. Many players love the long endgames.

    d) Please do not give up the world wonders. Please give us a world once in a while.
    You can add some world wonders that provide special benefits.

    e) Please allow us to have guerrilla warfare by having some temples on the rim of the worlds.

    f) Please have the temples based on some relation to actual history. It does not have to be identical.

    g) Please have games like the one of ships right now.

    Yours truly,
    Futboltango a.k.a one of the most hated villains in Grepolis

    • bernardgra says:

      Hey FutbolTango,

      Thanks for the feedback, it is very appreciated. We are making some big changes based on all the feedback and internal talks, and I will be publishing an update soon. I think you folks will appreciate it.

      Cheers

  8. Efstathios says:

    Greetings good sir,

    It’s really nice that you want to shake things up by adding a new endgame, variety is always good.

    About the prize artifact, I believe it should be the reduced favor cost for myth units recruitement. Time to build is surely a limiting factor as well but there are plenty work-arounds for that- Hera’s Divine power (the “baby”), the Academy research, Pariphaestus etc. For Favor cost reduction.. not much. This would also help the prize feel unique and special.

    Cheers

  9. Ada says:

    Bonsoir 🙂

    Je trouve le concept novateur et plutĂ´t intĂ©ressant, je n’ai pas vraiment d'”idĂ©es” Ă  apporter mais j’ai toujours dĂ©sirĂ© avoir plus de population.
    Alors pourquoi pas :

    – rajouter 5% sur la population maximale des villes.

    Le bonus me paraĂ®t tout de mĂŞme puissant car c’est en +- 160 de + soit presque un bateau de colonisation…
    Quoi qu’il en soit fĂ©licitations et j’espère que ce projet aboutira Ă  quelque chose d’efficace qui plaira au plus grand nombre !

    A votre santé

  10. Wisper says:

    I think the 4 large ocean temples should be in the middle of a sea that borders the center of the world and you should See where those are even before you can interact so its Not luck based.
    Ans finally Olympus in Center of the map