Quoted from the Ikariam.com forums.

Dear Community,

today you get some news how Ikariam will develop in the next time
best regards
Lissala

Planned Features:

- Action Points

Limited numbers of actions (Fleets, Military) at the same time in a town, depending on the Town Hall´s Level. Systems with their own limits (espionage) are not included.



- Corruption

The bigger the empire becomes, the more ressources you must spend to upgrade your administration or to remove the corruption. This happens by upgrading the governor's seat - the colonial variant of the palace.

With that, we want to reach:
New colonies are not productive 100% immediately - the extreme power and production increase by an additional colony is reached slowly. Colonies get more expensive until they are really useful, but without elevating the palace´s costs too much and don‘t making the steps unreachable for Casual Players.



- Piracy

You will be able to send buccaneer fleets, to attack other player`s transport fleets on their way, and protect trade routes with your warships.
For this fight we will implement new looting rules, which will be transfered (later) to the ground troops too.
Trade Fleeds that ship into blockades get in a battle and are able to loose charge. In Sea battles, ressources can end up in the sea, get lost or be taken to a nearby coast.


With that, we want to reach:
-Getting started easier in the “economic war“ for newbies, without complicate blockade- / military manoeuvers.
- Transports without escorts are dangerous. Self-sufficiency also needs expenditures – eventually more than local purchase, in which the traders have to take care about the goods arrival themselves. Traders have to arrange security or get help from fighters. Trades and Transports are to safe at the moment.
- More Sea Battles -> because of the high upkeep for both sides less Gold in the world -> because of the sulphur costs of the ships more sulphur is used ->
-> thereby we expect some deflation and sinking market prices, while the value of sulphur should increase a bit in comparison to the rest.
(Probably not yert on the same Level, but a first step to reach it).
- As a result that ressources can be lost, more materials get out of the game.







- Restructuration of ressource system

8 new buildings planned, that will affect the ressource production and the ressources costs on a colony. Because a complet reconditioning of the balancing is needed anyway, both will be done at the same time.
The construction will get more expensive. With this, the rate for building time to costs will be changed – shorter Building time with higher costs. Longer “Saving Phases“ appear during the ressources for the next level have to be protected.
Beside, we correct some estimates that have been done before the balancing release.
(The ressource Level on the players islands on each level was estimated, but affected all cost functions of the game – now we can balance it with real data), which should have relatively strong effects on the price organization.

With that, we want to reach:
- By changing the costs/time relation the game will get more difficult, and looting, piracy and defense becomes more important. This change should increase military expenses and make sulphur a very demanded good.
(Until now this relation was adjusted very good natured, to make the game not to dificult for casual players and newbies – you almost allways have enough ressources for the next building.
Because of that, the need to loot or to trade was minor. At the same time, the need to defend was not very high – because it didn`t interfare.
- Because of the new buildings we can remove the marblecosts in the beginning – the more buildings we implant, later we can get the marble in the game (the total marble use for the building construction stays the same, but it gets distributed on more options). This removes the advantage from marble islands at the beginning.
- The game duration until you reach a complete upgraded empire gets clearly longer.
- The additional construction options should open some exciting strategic upgrading options.



- Tutorial / Barbarians village / Noob Protection

We want to implement a Step-by-Step Tutorial, that will help the new player to get introduced into the game and includes everything from assignment of the workers up to military troop construction.
For all new players (also the ones that skip the tutorial) there will be an babarian village (NPC) on the island to practise attacks and fights to loot some ressources for a faster start, without getting another player annoyed.

This village will not be a shared ressource – each player has his own barbarian village with an adapted difficulty and rewards, but the village will not stay forever.
Within the tutorial the barbarian village will be used to try out attacks and fights.

We also plan to implement a Noob Protection, to guard new players completly, and later on to punish unfair and unjustified attacks (we must punish independent of the points, for example, also not punish threat attacks to upgrade ressource).





With that, we want to reach
- Easier game introduction
- Nice side effect: we could increase the costs for initial buildings due to the barbarian village as a generic resources generator, so that these are not only "peanuts" in the next colony foundation, and some more luxury goods will be provided in addition to the minimal bonus in researches, without filling up the warehouse of the player and so be a target for attacks.