These are just dumb. Would anyone miss them if they were removed?

Here's what happened to me today:

An earthquake occurred destroying 1269 buildings!

That will cost over $300m to rebuild. That's easily a full 1m networth off my final score. Really, I'm losing 1m networth to a random event! Should I finish with a score of 100m, that means a *random event* just knocked out 1% of my final score. Does that make sense?

All I know, is I have had way to many earthquakes this reset.. XD

pain in the ass, right? as far as i can tell that's why they exist, to be a pain in the ass, lol.

why do any of the random events exist?

probably to add randomness, i dunno

Well, none of the other stuff can cost you 1% of your final score. Earthquake takes it to unheard of levels. Is there really a need for it to destroy such a higher percentage of buildings as you get bigger, considering that building cost is ALSO escalating exponentially? Ouch. Also, a drought or strike or whatever also has a countermeasure, the boom. No such luck with earthquake.

earthquakes are just mean!

It destroys the same percentage (within a window) regardless of size.

I've had 2 in 3 turn span, wtf!

ive seen more this set overall then i have the past 2-3 sets

oops, I probably meant "a higher amount" not percentage. but yeah. they just a pain!

While random events add "variety" to the game, it currently doesn't really serve any purpose other than to annoy the player - you could get "lucky" and get one or two extra earthquakes and finish lower than someone else as a result.

In game design terms, it doesn't contribute to gameplay, and is more of a hindrance than help, and should be removed.

I bet if you run a survey, 9 of 10 peeps will vote for elimination of earthquakes ;)

What's the point of RNG at all? Why have a raid boss drop crappy stuff when it's only the good stuff people care about? Why have fluffty letters in Scrabble? (OK maybe that one wasn't as good of an analogy but you see my point)

I like the earthquakes. Ok, more like I like the concept of random events. And KoH, I'll be the 1 in 10.

An earthquake occurred destroying 1000 buildings!

this is painful =(

i just lost 138 buildings in 3 earthquakes and 1 of those were cs.

haven't had eqs much past sets so kinda expected.

I think another problem isn't really with the randomness of the events, but more with the disproportionate damage that can be done.

The 4 booms: +2 turns of production for the type.
The 4 droughts: -0.5 turns of production for the type.
Earthquakes: Anywhere between maybe 3-15 turns lost to rebuild acres, turns that could otherwise be used to grow the country, plus another maybe 10 turns of income lost in money used to rebuild the buildings.

Earthquakes are at the moment way too destructive relative to the other random events.

In fact, I think on Primary server right now, some of the top 10 finishes are so close this reset that the number of earthquakes each player gets (between now and end of set) will be the determining factor between adjacent ranks. Oldman's 1000 buildings gone in the above probably cost him 3m NW finish, that's maybe 10-15 turns he could not have cashed, and it is worst for techers.

Players like to have control over their country, and thus any success or failure is purely due to their own skill. Random events really do not belong.

I wonder EE should add in TSUNAMI, VOLCANO, FLOOD & etc?

if they bring in tsunamis, then i want aircraft carriers. it's only fair :P

An earthquake occurred destroying all of your buildings! Your country has sank into the nearest ocean! Your civilians are all manatees and fish!


Your forces invaded HumPmyNutz (#273)! Unfortunately, they hit an Invisible Block(TM) and died!

i will trade tsunamis for air craft carriers any day, azz!

Mexican Immigrants invade your country, you gain 1 BPT permanently!

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
+100

loll cost of bldgs are reduced by 50%

Yeah, but the loss of buildings during earthquakes increases by 100%...

Seems to be a lot of support over on primary to scrap earthquakes :] Don't expect it to happen, just sayin'

I wouldn't be against evening out the relative effect of random events necessarily.

I guess the question is whether this game should be entirely calculable or if some randomness (and dealing with it!) is a good thing...

I think people don't mind the random events or how often they hit when it's booms or busts, but it's just that earthquakes can be excessively costly for big countries, to the point where they may very well impact people's final rankings. A 70k acre country losing 1200 buildings needs to spend over $300m to rebuild that which is worth over 1m networth. Cashers and techers miss out on cashing and teching while rebuilding as well. And if you have multiple earthquakes you're talking multiple millions off your final score.

I think that over the course of an entire set everyone will likely get the same amount of earthquake damage. I hate earthquakes, but from a competitive perspective it can be a differentiater.

Should you build more construction sites early on to account for rebuilding a percentage of your land? Should you rebuild or destroy the land or keep it unused? These unplanned decisions can add a tiny bit of seperation that may make the difference between two players.

However I don't know what the distribution is, if it is possible for two players of the same size to have 1,000 acres of destroyed building difference in a set, that is too much.

When you get big they kill at least 1000 buildings every time. So if someone has one earthquake more, that's greater than a 1000 acre difference. And if they have two more (which is not at all unlikely) then even worse.

interesting thing about earthquake is that I actually had an earthquake in alliance a few days ago which took out 2 buildings on my 20k country. There must be a random multiplier somewhere in the equation.

its random, it can destroy 1 or 1000 buildings.

I always saw earthquakes as a deterrent to botting and batching.

Weren't they originally put in the game to punish scripters/botters and to encourage building diversity? The latter was later removed when everyone just had 1 of each building type.

I seem to recall it being a bot/script thing WAY back in the day.

(before captchas)

haha this is messed up. I ran 100 turns in alliance and I had 3 earthquakes. What are the odds?

same as usual.

Players who whine on the forums get extra earthquakes in their countries.

That is not true. I get less earthquakes than most people. And I whine more than most people.

I get less earthquakes than anyone in the game and I am actually a proponent for it.

While you think that is the case you are not actually whining. You are pointing out logical flaws within the game != whining. Therefore you do not actually whine more than most people, you only think you do. It's an illusion.

Comfirmed, i sent USGS certified spies to his country and reported back "we did not find any active fault lines". True story!