Ahoj
First of all I really like the game. I Rejoined and have last played world 7 or 6 or so, and I think the game really took a leap from there. So kudos for the devs.
I recently had an idea which may increase late game fun. Maybe this was already mentioned, but I could not find it in a quick search. I was thinking of the implementation of world wonders. These would be buildings that would also require a bigger faction a couple of weeks to assemble the ressources to build them. They should be unique in the sense that only one can be build in the world and another can only be build (or finished) after the first one is destroyed. They should give a massive bonus obviously. Something like:
Statue of Midas - for every XXXth nugget/pebble of gold smelt in a radius of XXX around the wonder, 1 nugget/pebble is generated by the statue. Or maybe sth else increasing lerning ability (Great Library). To bolster interaction with the wonder it should maybe start only with a small bonus, which is increased by people visiting it and with that the "quality" of the wonder. There could be a global quest upon completion also informing everybody about the location. The reward of the quest should motivate people to travel, but not enable alt-spamming - a boost in a stat or a unique ability only achievable via this quest (maybe even related to the wonder) comes to mind. in case of the great library it could also be something an altrustic faction builds for everyone, whose learning ability is then increased after visiting the wonder (for the hippies).
But enough of hippies. A wonder like this would have to be accessible to everybody which would also facilitate possible comflicts around it. One the on hand people building it would have the interest to expose it to others, on the other hand that would make it open for attacks. (To circumvent the visitor-debuff problem it should maybe only be allowed to build it far away from claimed territory?) Also it would make a great natural place to establish a market like community fair. As a drawback the wonder should probably also have a significant maintenance cost (maybe via natural decay and costly (maybe even "quality"-dependent) repair materials. Hopefully this would create more interaction between the players who are interested to have this (contest for the wonders, area and reason of conflict) on the one hand. And on the other hand just create another fancy quest and a easy to find market place for the hermits (like myself).
Some other points that came to my mind:
1) I am trying to achieve the mystic credo atm. I think the "experience XY-event"-quest are quite frustrating. As an alternative having experienced a fitting lore event X-times should maybe rather be a prequisite to achieve a credos associated with it. Like this credos would unlock naturally while plaing the game. It would furthermore probably facilitate more specialization and also has better "lore-wise" feeling. Only after you have sensed the beast X times and butchered it Y times you can even hope to become a true hunter. And only the fingers of those who have been punctured countless times by the spindle can aspire to become a master tailor.
2) Some of the natural ressources seem to become useless with increasing age of the world. The guano pits are a extreme example, because high q soil can also be produced. This general problem of foraging becoming less interesting in an aging world has already been mentioned elsewhere, and is also partly tackled by the questgivers increasing foraged items quality. For (some) of the natural ressources it could however also be solved by naturally increasing their quality with increasing age of the world.
3) Maybe I am not experienced enough to judge this but cheese seems to be quite the overpowered food. Especially in the late game. To adress this and the aforementioned foraging problem maybe the cheesemaking process could be modified in a way that the high level cheese can only be achieved by adding a certain (forageable) herb to the curd?
Thanks again for providing and managing this game.
Cheers