Empires & Allies: New updates allow for shorter gift request timer, higher energy cap and more

You have to give it to Zynga. Over the first few weeks of its existence, Empires & Allies has been improved in some fairly large and helpful ways. Such is the case today, as quite a few updates were pushed out, altering all things from the energy received from neighbor bonuses to boss battles against some of the story characters.

Here's a full rundown of Zynga's announced changes:

• You can now receive up to 100 energy per day from neighbor visits. This was formerly capped at 20, and user encouragement has forced it higher.

• You can now send gift requests to friends every 23 hours, rather than 24 hours. This will help those players that play the game at the same time every day be able to play consistently.

• Fullscreen neighbor bar and video issues have been fixed.

• Various issues with Captain Krunsch boss battle have been resolved.

• Friend selector loading issues have been fixed.

Ok, so some of these issues may not have affected all of us, but I can bet you're pretty pleased about the increase in neighbor visitation energy. What started at just 5 energy per day has gone to 20 and now 100. If you have over 100 players on your friends' list, then you'll still have to stop short of visiting each one for energy, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. What's more, this suggestion was made by many of the game's players, proving that (for now at least), the development team is actually hearing and listening to what we have to say. We can only hope this is a positive sign of things to come.

Did you stop visiting your Empires & Allies neighbors because they weren't giving you energy? Do you have more than 100 neighbors, or simply believe the energy cap should be removed altogether? Sound off in the comments.