One of the things in Elemental we've been thinking hard on is how the economic system in the game should work. Elemental is, first and foremost, about building a civilization that happens to exist in a world filled with magic.
So when it comes to building things, we are trying to get away from the classic "N production units". There are, for instance, no factories in Elemental. We want players to really understand just how big of a deal it is for a civilization to be able to produce mounted warriors who have metal armor and metal weapons. It's not just knowing how to build such a unit, it's being able to put together the infrastructure to produce such a unit.
Players don't research types of units, they research technologies. Players then design their own units and those designs require certain resources. A basic soldier with a club is pretty easy. You take a guy, arm him with a big stick. A better soldier might involve same guy, armed with same stick but trained. Now he's much much better but it will obviously take longer to get that unit. It's not about production then, it's about time.
A still better soldier might be equipped a bronze sword instead of the stick. But that bronze sword didn't just come out of nowhere. The metal had to be mined and then forged and then delivered. Of course, the challenge from a game-design point of view is that you don't want players to be forced to micro-manage such things. It's supposed to be a strategy game, not an inventory management game. And so, you make that issue something for your civilization to deal with - not the player.
A given land tile may have a metal resource on it. The player builds a mine on it. That mine then produces N units of metal per turn. That metal then flows to the keep's inventory (in the city). When the keep's inventory gets filled, it then starts getting sent out to other cities (little caravans start appearing on the map delivering this stuff). All of this is automated but evidence of a growing civilization. Players can build warehouses to store more inventory of a resource. A player can also build an armory which produces weapons which flow again into the keep's inventory and then into warehouses if built and then out to the country side to other cities. Players can build roads to increase the speed in which these resources make it (and incidentally, these caravans only go out sporadically so the map isn't going to be full of these units running around and they're not true units, they'll be almost like decoration except when attacked).
So when I go to build a unit, the amount of time it takes to build that unit is going to be based on decisions I made -- what am I equipping him with. How much training am I giving him? And of course, since populations of "cities" range from 100 to 1 million or so, one of the resources units require are people. A village of 100 people obviously can't conjure up a legion no matter how much money and resources you have.
How will all this actually be implemented? That's where the open beta will come into play. Our development tools allow us to quickly implement many different concepts and UI's. that's where a lot of our work has gone into so that we can make changes like this. Players saw hints of this in Galactic Civilizations where we could make dramatic changes to the game based on player feedback but it's nothing compared to what we've built for Elemental.
So for instance, do players want to prioritize where these caravans go? How much control do players want of this kind of thing? Would it be more fun to actually have technology branches dedicated to having governors (not AI, just bonuses to supply) that "manage" this. These are some of the many things that players will be involved in.
The main thing I wanted to get across is that we are not going to have the traditional "N units of production". Players will be able to design their units, design how much training (a small squad of elite soldiers or a huge mob of untrained brutes or somewhere in between?), decide how well equipped you want them to be and so on. It's not about sending out a knight. There is no "knight" unit unless you choose to call a unit you designed that has a horse, a soldier who has been trained, plate mail, sword, helmet, etc. a knight when you save it. How long would this knight take to create? Possibly very little time at all if you have the plate mail, sword, helmet, and horse ready to go. Then it's just a matter of the training time. Otherwise, it could take quite a long time (the game will estimate the time based on arriving supplies).
Hopefully this gives you a glimpse at the strategic depth we want to provide players. The choices for players in how they want to play this game are endless.
Which is exactly why they can't just auto upgrade. My experienced spearmen aren't going to be the ones I just built. The ones I just built on the other hand would be the first ones to automatically upgrade to the best weapons available.
I have concerns about the economic system:
1) Will I be able to invest resources into gaining resources? For example, maybe in mining town M, I want to produce 'trained miners with metal picks' for the economy?
2) What about social organizations, such as guilds, to aid specific training? Can I pre-train the populace with 'unused' training potential? What about training statesmen, mages, workers, acrobats/entertainers, and researchers (or teachers, for that matter)?
3) How does trade between different players work? Is this like GC "I've specialized in trade so even though you know adamantine is rare you'll trade it to me for chocolate almonds"?
4) THAT raises the whole point of luxury goods. If there are no coins, how does the barter system work for those? Do they raise loyalty in friends and spread my culture to my enemies? Or do I exchange them for goods whether the other player wants to or not (economic violence!)?
5) Is there a 'mana' resource produced by the economy? To what extent can spells bolster the economy?
6) Can 'beasts' and monsters aid the economy? A few giants to do the heavy lifting would be nice. What about 'fantasy caravans'? A land swarm isn't going to stop goods from being carried by gryphon. (Although admittedly griffons can't carry too much - without magical assistance...)
7) Can multiple players play the same side/faction? It seems like some people will want to manage economies, others work on spells, others play warlord, and perhaps another navigate politics and culture (and espionage, one hopes?). If they can do this at the same time rather than hotseat it, I know it improves the game's replay value for me.
8) Do different factions have different economic bonuses? If so, then what happens if I capture slaves? What about a whole city? What if I absorb them due to culture, do (other culture) members migrate to my other cities? For that matter, what about refugees and emmigration?
9) The ability to say 'I need X of Y near (city)' and have the AI figure it out is immeasurable. For example, I need 7 samurai (swordsmen) in Riku to replace those that died fighting bandits. Maybe Riku doesn't have the swords. Maybe C doesn't have the ore to make the swords, but DOES have a barracks to reduce training. BUT maybe the answer is to ship ore from M (mining city) to Mishou, and the swords to C, and march the trained samurai to Riku, which is faster than actually producing them at Riku.
9A) An alert box like 'If you do this, production of [Monument] in [C] will be delayed [X] turns: Do it, Next Best Time, Forget This Task' would be VERY useful. Especially if it lists number of conflicts. Maybe a list box with time and conflicts. (I gather a city can actually do more than one thing at once, which is also highly useful.)
10) What if an ALLY has resources that you need to produce your units? How do I keep my economy from being plundered by that of my more militant neighbor? (I saw this in Age of Empires and Empire Earth - "Give me all your resources now, and I will lead us to victory")
11) Are there resources that are useless or near-useless in the early game that come into their own later in the game? Do some resources (like Marble and Stone of CIV fame) become 'dud' resources? After I discover Iron, can I move experienced miners from M to I to take advantage of the new resource?
12) Is there a point at which I use up too much of my civilians time, leading to lower Loyalty? Can I auto-set my economy to avoid these mishaps? Can I lower my production to increase fertility and loyalty rates?
Sorry if some of these fall outside the Economy intent of this thread, I'm just concerned that while making something new, you haven't forgotten to address how it interacts with other parts of the game system.
Here is how the resource model should work. It would be simplest as a "Pull" model as seen below:
Each city has a "Warehouse" tab.
The size of the warehouse is upgradeable (50 units, 100 units, 200 units).
The player designates the absolute value or percentage value of each resource that will be stocked in the warehouse:
I have a 100unit warehouse in Knightville which will be the production center for Knights. I designate the warehouse to hold 25 platemails, 25 shields, 25 lances, and 25 horses (0 of everything else). This way Knightville always has the correct proportion to produce Knights without waiting for an individual component.
The game automatically fills the warehouse from each town able to produce the resources: lances, platemails and shields are sent from Forgeville where my Forge has been built. Horses are produced on-site because Knightville has a Stables.
I have a second town called Skirmisherville where Skirmishers are produced. In its 100unit warehouse I designate: 75 javelins and 25 horses because Skirmishers are equipped with a horse and three javelins. Javelins are produced on-site.
If I place an order for 25 Knights in Knightville and 25 Skirmishers in Skirmisherville my warehouses are depleted in both towns. Now the game automatically fills the warehouses from the production centers: Knightville for the horses, Skirmisherville for the javelins, and Forgeville for everything else. But who gets the horses first? There is a resource conflict because horses are needed at Skirmisherville and Knightville. The answer is that towns fill orders in order from nearest to furthest so Knightville fills its 25 horse allotment before exporting horses to Skirmisherville.
By default the Warehouses should stock all resources evenly in case the player doesn't want to fiddle with this manually. This way Knightville ends up with a stock of javelins that it will never use but it's not so bad because once the game fills the javelin quota of 10units (if there are ten resource types) it will never order any more. It will only be slightly less efficient because you only ever have enough resources for 10 Knights at a time instead of 25.
A similar system is used in the game "Anno 1701" (1701AD in the US). In that game you set the levels for all resources in your Town warehouses and then you can set levels for the Ships' holds that deliver resources between towns. I would encourage Mr. Wardell to check out the resource model in this game.
-Wes
This got me thinking about many things I would like to know more about.
How many different kinds of resources wil be in the game? Are even basic types or resources going to be moddable or player designed?
Will you be able to trade excess of specific resources with other players, or will trade be more generic per gal civ? If tradeable how will players buy/sell resources from each other? The possibilities of being able to use embargoes as a diplomatic tool are fascinating, but I have a hard time imagining how this will work without it becoming cumbersome and micro-management. But WOW if there is a way to implement that type of real economy into the game - incredible!
Will there be "tech trading" options per Gal Civ? Ooooh, I can see how excess resources could be traded right within a negotiation window just like Gal Civ - jsut have the excess resources available under their own section, is this how it will be?
The more I hear the more excited I am to get my hands on it! Beta! Beta! Beta!
How the economics are built can be quite important, A few things I'd like to see.
I would like to be able to micro manage where supplies go, while simutaniously it will be made to keep it where people who don't like to do this can still have fun. A tough challenge but there are ways! Basicly each town will need to have a warehouse interface of sometype.
-Make the warehouse sortable and mabye even add templates so if people like thier resources a certain way they can pull down a template and poof, Instant sort. Probably be a good idea to include some basic ones like Weapon sort, or Armor, Rare items ect. as well as Default. That way if someone want's to find out what types supplies for units they have on hand right now to stop that army comming right at them, they can see really fast and make a unit on the fly without having to worry about what's showing up.
-Another part of the warehouse stealing from some above ideas and from many other trading/empire games I've played is a way to determine how much I want to keep onhand. Basicly have a field where I can type in a number of units I want this town to have. So say the town makes iron, I can tell it to keep 50 units of iron for the forge I got here making swords. Or if I don't want it to have any iron just leave it blank (default) and it will only keep iron it needs for any production I started up. But if say Irontown makes iron, and Swordtown NEEDS iron then I go to the warehouse interface and put a say 50 units next to Irontown's Iron needs. Then as soon as there is excess Iron it will be shipped to Swordtowns warehouse automaticly, No need to micromanage the caravans.
-Being able to make your own caravans can be nice, Say you want to stockpile resources but you don't want to wait for the city to "get enough" before shipping the resources out. You want it sent NOW. This means you need to build a caravan, Go to the city who has the supply your sending, Build a caravan, pick the destination city (from map or list? or both?) and what you want shipped. It will then fill up the caravans and ship it off ignoring the warehouse "keep on hand" levels. Then once the amount you requested was shipped it goes back to filling up the keep on hand value again. Then it acts normaly. This way you can have your warehouse system keep stuff flowing but if you really need something moved you can micromanage that part without having to go back and change your warehouse BACK to where it was afterwords, Just send and forget. This allows micromanaging while keeping it simple enough you can get to the fighting or the rest of your empire.
-Next way to make demand is just to build a unit, You put in an order for 10 knights. Your knights need 10 swords, 10 crossbows, 10 shields, 10 helmets, 10 armors, 10 horses. This will make your warehouse place a temp demand for those items. Any city who has enough to fill that demand will ship it out to fill the demand.
Of course it would be nice if the game would automaticly pick the places with supplies based on how close supply is to demand. That way you don't have a city across your empire shipping the swords if you have a city next door who has all the swords you need.
So how does this sound as a basic system? I'm just dealing STRICTLY with moving supplies around and maintaining a good flow of goods. There is no point in IRON town shipping extra stuff to random cities unless it just needs room. If it fills up then mabye an adviser will pop up and warn us?
Questions/comments?
Rhishisikk... most of those are good questions, but a laundry list of questions is very unlikely to be answered since the reply would take 30+ minutes. I recommend 2 or 3 questions at most within a post.
a lot of good ideads but a huge risk to me : either to much micro requierd OR rely on predefined (and suboptimal) algorithms.
The Anno / Colonization resources management looked very painful to me, I would call a 'perfect mix' something with the 'required resource' notion (as in Civilization) and 'available resources per turn' (as in dominions), but caravans/warehouses micro-management... well I'll wait and see.
It looks quite simple when explained down here, but I'm already thinking 'how many time will it take me to play one single turn ?', not because it is complex, but because I will want to check everything, every turn.
Well it is 4X strategy, so I can't imagine micromanaging being much of a problem (since its not like there is a time restraint)
Right, but I mean the tollerance for micro is much higher in a turn based game, at least it should be. Its not like RTS micro anyway. I think they would almost have to try to make it bad.
You don't want to just press 'end turn' for hundreds of turns on end do you? and if you do, I'm sure that there will be a governer feature that would let that happen.
sure, the problem is not having some MM to do, the problem is when some tasks become too repetitives and must be done several times in a turn (check cities warehouses for each city, check each caravans will be able to unload all it transport etc...).
MM is interesting as long as it needs reflexion ; once its just a question of patience and endurance it becomes painfull to me.
one last thing : you say its not time restrain, you're right... but not totally. When you need more than 1 hour to play a single turn, time becomes an issue.
To a compulsory microer and completionist like myself, too many sliders and too much microing is a death sentance. It doesn't matter that it's my own fault, I get bored out of my skull after a while!
GalCiv2 was a bit too heavy on that side, I'd like to see some moderation. I want them to take that extra step back and ask themselves "do we need this?" and "does this really add something?".
It's a bit like the issue with the combat in the game. I loathe the idea of there being (Esp. real-time) tactical combat. One could argue that "you don't have too, theres always auto-resolve, quit wining faggot" - but that's not the point. The point is that no matter what, auto-resolve is unlikely to EVER be as efficient as actually going in and play the battle yourself.
I can see my priests charging in when they run out of spells already. Or my archers trying to flank a bear. Or any out of a hundred possible things that will have me hitting the screen screaming murder.
Maybe not hundreds of no-input turns, but I'd *really* love to have a hundred years go by with nothing significant happening. Ludicrously large maps deserver ludicrously long timelines.
That's pretty much my take on it, except I have a masochist streak which has kept me playing Immense maps in GC2. But then I don't max out the habitable planets nor do I try to squeeze every possible BC and/or score point out of a game. So I don't like that much MM pain.
I've also never experienced or read about a really sweet system of governors (AI assitants). But that doesn't mean the goal is unreasonable. GC2 strikes many of us as having some trule advanced AIs for the major civs. I'm kind of hoping that Elemental will be Stardock's chance to put some of that skill (codebase) to work helping players delegate micromangement with better success than any of us have seen so far. (That's part of what I'm thinking about when I clamor for the game to include officer/administrator units.)
In my dreams I'm waiting for a game where (micro)management will scale to the current size of your empires/army.
A tribal chief managing 1 city certainly doesn't have the same problems as the king of an 'half-world' empire.
I think this could be achieve using a sort of 'civics' system (refering to the civics in civilization) where the parameters you can act on are decided by your current civic ; newer civics unlocking new area of management and leaving some old ones to an 'automated' system.
I have not played GC2 enough, but I always had that sensation that as my empire grows, I dont want to loose time anymore to optimize each city/planet (it's fun when you got a couple of them though). Yet when I come to the higher AI levels or MP I cant just 'play partially', I want to optimize everything I can, everywhere... it drives me crazy and often I get discouraged at that point
No, but at the same time I don't want to be stuck going through every single city in an empire every single turn to make sure everything is 'optimized'.
I agree, I expect about the same as Civ 4 when it comes to micro in this game. Civ 4 has so much micro it makes my eyes bleed, but then it doesn't because its not a TBS strategy game. And even then Civ 4 had a few automated things that are about as good as you can get. Like the automated explore or workers, what really else could you do ? Sure, it angered me when workers cut down all my trees, but you could turn that off, and the rest of it was pretty reasonable. Build roads, build pastures, build farms, I shouldn't have to micro all that (I do anyway, but the automated works well enough). My explorers would explore everything, but they didn't do anything stupid like go half way around the world for what is obviously a 1x1 space of unexplored when they could go through the continent sized ithmus that obviously has stuff on it (Sins has done things like that, where there is 1 planet that is on the other side of my known galaxy, and they go for that one when they should be going for cluster of planets near them to explore. Its been fixed though I think)
In terms of the sliders, again I think it shouldn't be a problem as long as you arn't FORCED to use them by having pre-defined pre-sets and stuff like that.
Ron Lugge: It's funny that there are different opinions on exactly what micro and macromanagement really is.
StarCraft people associate macromanagement with unit production, building structures and researching upgrades while micromanagement to them is commanding your army.
I hope that it will simply be fun and have a strong UI.
As far as micro goes, the part I find the worst is when I am focusing on a military attack/invasion, and yet I still have to deal with just as many economic problems requiring microing as I would without a military invasion going on. In GalCiv2, I like the largest sized maps (epic wars ftw). It isn't to bad in peacetime, since I am merely upgrading planets and managing research, but in times of war I have to deal with planet upgrades, manage research, mess around with ship production, gather the newly created ships into fleets, move the fleets off to attack, and often times play around with the budget since my military spending causes my money to drop like a rock.
IMO it would be best if a player has to do relatively the same number of things per turn. Empty turns are boring, huge turns filled with 500 things to do are overwhelming. Hopefully Elemental will have some really nice governors, since due to its 64 bit capability (and therefore its ability to use up to 18000 petabytes or so of RAM) we will be able to make maps of sizes previously unheard of and civilizations on those maps which will require a huge amount of management.
I'd rather see that be a result of playstyle worked out through a highly flexible core engine and UI. What you describe as a weakness of GC2 is something that I really like about it, but then I don't do war wins. When wars happen, whether I started them or not, I *expect* things to get a lot harder and messier than they are during peacetime.
This is my ideal configuration of economy I'll like to have in this game. Hope Frogboy will look at it!!
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When you find a Iron resources, you build "Mining Camp 1" to harvest Iron at the rate of 10 Iron per Month. The "Mining Camp 1" can stockpile up to 100 iron resources only; when 100 iron is reached, production is ceased temporarily until the iron is either 1) distributed to nearest Hamlet or 2) caravanned
Pls keep in mind that the RMG or map maker will decide how much Iron this tile has. If it only has a total of 200, production ceases on the 20 month.
Hamlet, in some way is very similar to "Mining Camp 1". Hamlet produces 1 human per month; it has max human population of 100. Hamlet also acts as stockpile of all kind of material, be it Iron, Wood, Food, Life energy, Death Energy, or whatever. For sake of simplicity, the max of everything here is 100 units. It will receive the resources distribution in 10-tile radius automatically since Turn 1, without player's involvement. Map maker can stockpile any kind of material to the hamlet, up to 100 unit limit. If 100 units are stored, the nearby mines will stop producing.
The end result is that this Halmet A has Iron production of 10 Iron per month received from the “mining camp 1” and various resources nearby.
The map maker/player can distribute all kind of production from Hamlet A to Village B, if they want. For Village B, it has a stockpile limit of 1000 units of everything, including human & material resources. Say Village B already has Iron mine producing 50 Iron per month, map maker/player can ask Halmet A to distribute a total of 10 Iron & 1 human per month to Village B. Then in this Village B, you can produce 2 paladin per month, which costs 30 Iron, 1 human, 10 wood, 40 gold coins & 10 labor unit. When a player want to train/buy 10 paladins, the game will automatically calculates that this Village B can only produce 2 Paladins per month max. But this is already more productive then Hamlet A, which has a rate of 1/3 Paladin per month max (if we consider Iron only)
When multiple units are being produced (e.g. sharing the wood resources), player adjust sliders to determine exactly how many Paladins or Trebuchets are produced per month.
In case of emergency, a player can always micro-manage & caravan all the stockpiled Iron from the Hamlet A and/or "Mining Camp 1". Caravan can also be used for diplomacy or being robbed etc.
To define 'nearby' mentioned above, I'll say it is a continuous chain of resources. Say if Hamlet A is now occupied by your opponent, Village B will no longer receive its Iron but the mining camp 1 will still keep stockpiling to 100 Iron unit (until your opponent take it, or you caravan it away) Its Paladin production rate will drop right away.
The neat thing is all newly produced Paladin can also be vectored to another village. Any unit produced in that month will travel to its vectored town on the map at month end; grouped separately depending on their movement speed.
To sumarize, all material/units are vectored as designated by mapmaker, or micromanaged by the player. I've not mentioned attrition yet, but it should be there.
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The stuff above is intimately related to the player-designed units. I'll not like to micromanage how many horse, sword, wand, shield etc there is in which village. I hope what I described will find an audience.
For example, the game comes with a Dark Knight unit; it costs 20 Iron, 1 undead, 20 wood, 50 gold coins and 0 labor; and requires the Horse Riding Technology. It will have ATT 20, DEF 15, Damage 15, HP 200 and various fighting skills.
However, I want to make a customized a Dark Paladin unit that can cast all Death Magic level 1 spell. I go to the customize screen & use the Dark Knight as template. It will say "Death Magic level 1 spell" costs extra 15 Death Energy, -10% HP, -10% ATT and extra 20% gold; requires Death Magic 1 Technology.
Once I playtest a while I want to change how the Dark Paladin work, I can say add the "Spell Range +1" ability, it'll then cost 100% more (Death) Energy and minus additional 20% ATT. Or I'll like to put in extra armor, so its DEF increases by 20%, but then it'll requires the "Armory 2" technology.
The developer will need to find a way mathematically & organically calculate how an Undead, a horse will costs that much, and has certain ability. And how the AI will use a customized unit is maybe quite difficult!
I would like to know a few things regarding the training/equipment system..
Would it be possible for me to train soldiers without equipment, and then equip them later with proper equipment? If that is so, what stops me from simply doing that very thing?
Could I train units post-formation? If I have an army at my gates, and I scramble all my ressources to build properly equipped (but green) troops, I win the battle. Could I then spend time training the surviving units while they are already present on the map?
What stops me from just training equipmentless soldiers on the map until I have elite soldiers, and simply equip them with proper weapons later on?
If I discover Technological Training Gizmo X (ex: Fire Magic Training for soldiers). Could I send my already trained and equipped team of knights to Hogwart to have them trained in the use of magic? What about my King?
This reminds me of Stronghold where you have to get grain, build a mall, bakery etc. Could be turned into an sim game..
Gawd this game sounds perfect. I absolutely cannot wait to check this out. I really want to play a Stardock-made game other than GalCiv2 (which I love dearly).
Keep it up Stardock, this is aweosme stuff.
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