Fwurg

[Mercury]

Under the current rules, constructing a zone costs 2000 . Reassigning a zone costs the same as rebuilding it.

This has the unfortunate consequence that it is almost always better to build a new zone rather than reassigning an existing one, which in turn means players have a hard time adjusting their economic strategy, leading to lock-in situations as the equilibrium between players cannot be easily breached, forcing players to stay locked on their strategies.

To resolve this issue and allow players more flexibility, and to account for the fact that reassigned zones are able to reuse many of the resources that are already present such as roads, sewer systems, bridges, etc., we wish to reduce the cost of changing an existing zone.

The new cost for reassigning a zone to another zone will be 500 , cut in half on planets with Natural Life to 250 . The Natural Flight racial characteristic does NOT apply in this case.

If a zone had any upgrades which are unique to this zone type (for example because the required technology is not available for the new product or because the upgrade only exists for the former zone type) the upgrade is lost. In other cases, the cost of reassigning the zone will cost an additional 500 (or 250 with Natural Life) after which the upgrade is also applied. Note that the full combined cost must be paid before the zone is switched.

If the zone was specialised for the old zone type, you will lose the corporation bonus to production and the corporate headquarters will no longer generate income for the zone. You are allowed to specialise the changed zone as per the normal rules afterwards abeit with a different corporation.

Example 1: A player wishes to upgrade a zone on a planet without Natural Life from a (:metal) zone to a zone. The cost of this upgrade is 500 .
Example 2: A player wishes to upgrade an specialised upgraded (:metal) zone on a planet with Natural Life to a (:power zone). The cost of this upgrade is 250 + 250 = 500 and the power zone will immidiately count as upgraded when finished, but it will no longer receive double income from being specialised.

Note: Specials such as Chtonian Planet, Ancient Ruins or Retrograde Orbit do not allow you to change the type of bonus you receive when you change the production of the zone. For this reason, the same will hold for the Jackpot Special. Thus, you cannot change the bonus and altering the type of a zone from one raw material to another, you will lose the Jackpot special production bonus.

Since this is a rule change that affects Jackpot zones, in accordance with the meta rules existing players may - for one time only - change the type of bonus their Jackpot zones provide, or choose a different special, as they please. This seems to me like a fair solution to all parties involved.

What do people think?

[Brend]

Sounds good, though I don not understand why this specific mention of the jackpot special is required?

The rules of the Jackpot special clearly states "This zone is a goldmine for any one raw material of the players choice. The zone gains +200 production for that raw material." Of course it doesn't get modified... You never get a +200 bonus on a zone ^_^

Though it won't hurt anyone to say this explicitly, I guess...

[Mercury]

An explicit mention of the Jackpot was explicitly requested ^_^

[Brend]

Time to make this rule official so people can benefit from it in this turn (i.e. turn 55).

[Brend]

In discussion with Mercury and Chriz the rule has been updated slightly, to prevent 'interesting' cases.

The rule can be found at Zones on the wiki.

The big change is: You can only change a zone into an industrial zone.