So how complicated (as internal critics put it) or sophisticated (as internal advocates put it) should the Elemental economic system be?
We have the code in for handling a pretty sophisticated/complicated economic engine. But the debate is, is the system sophisticated? Or just complicated.
Let me give you the arguments of each camp.
Camp #1: “Sophisticated”
1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you name it.
2. Resources can be processed into other resources. Iron Ore into a Sword.
3. Part of the fun of the game would be running a proper empire (or letting AI governors take care of it).
Example:
A mine is built on an iron resource. The mine produces 10 units of iron ore per turn. That iron ore is then directed to go to the city of Torgeto where a blacksmith is able to produce 5 swords per turn. The unused iron ore is stored in a warehouse that can store up to 100 units of iron ore.
Those swords can be directed to be shipped to various other places (with sliders or other UI means to determine what ratio goes where).
In some of those places, the swords are issued to soldiers. In other places, the swords are sent to an alchemist workshop who, taking potions that have been shippped in from Wellford which in turn had taken Aeoronic crystal mined in another town to turn into those potions. The resulting magical swords are then shipped out to various places with the player (or governor) able to control the ratio in which they are shipped.
Caravans appear on the map to show the items being shipped. If those caravans are attacked, the items are lost.
Camp #2: “Simple and Fun”
1. There are only natural resources (food, iron, crystal, horses, etc.).
2. When a natural resource is controlled, the player assigns that resource to a specific town.
3. Only that town can make use of it. Towns that don’t have a resource assigned it cannot build units that require those resources.
Unlike camp 1, there are no ratio sliders to mess with. A resource is assigned to a particular town. That makes certain towns more strategic than others and a lot less micro management. On the other hand, it means that there will be many towns that can only build weaker units. Players can research technologies that increase the base (weaker) unit that cities can build over time but some cities will simply be more important than others.
Caravans would still flow from the natural resource to the target town and if those caravans are attacked, the enemy player gains a bonus and the victim player would get a penalty to their production until the next caravan arrives.
The Argument
Camp 1 argues that a lot of fun can be had in putting together ever more sophisticated and specialized items. If natural resources can be processed into new resources that can in turn be processed again and again and again, you can reward players who might be able to equip elite crack soldiers with very rare but very powerful weapons and armor.
Camp 2 argues that while some people would enjoy that, it would result in a lot of people who would find that system burdensome and turn them off to the game entirely. It also says that those who do like the camp 1 system would still be satisfied with camp 2 where those who like camp 2 would probably be totally turned off if the camp 1 system were used. In addition, they argue that Elemental has so much other “stuff” to it (sophisticated diplomacy, tactical battles, quests, etc.) that many players might find they have to rely on AI governors which would put a heavy burden on having really “smart” AI.
Now personally, I could go either way. I do like the idea of players having to choose certain towns that are absolutely strategic. But I also like the idea of being able to have “processed” manufacturing that can keep specializing things until you get some rare but very valuable things.
On the other hand, I’m also worried that a complex system could turn out to fall apart in actual practice (the user interface for it would have to be incredibly good) and then we’d be stuck having to go to camp 2 late in development.
What do you think?
UPDATE: 5/21/2009
Camp #3: The Merchant
Today we looked at the feedback from here and Quarter to Three and came up with a way that may satisfy both camps and increases the fun overall.
1. Everything is a resource.
2. Resources can be processed into other resources (iron to swords, crops to food, crystal to potions).
3. Resources are sent automatically to other towns based on the resource needs of that town. No micromanagement, no AI.
4. The fun of this portion of the game would be in watching your empire grow organically.
There are no ratios to set. If I build a town with a blacksmith, then one presumes I did that because I want to produce stuff that requires a blacksmith. If I build (or upgrade) more blacksmiths, then one presumes this town is a place where I want to crank out a lot of stuff.
Similarly, if I build a town with multiples barracks it presumes I am trying to train soldiers which means that stuff should be shipped there, particularly if I’m in the process of building a particularly type of soldier.
Caravans (which aren’t player controlled) send out regular shipments of resources to the various towns. When these shipments arrive, they’re available for use on demand or, if the town has a warehouse, they are stored.
When players design a unit, they choose a category of weapon and that category of weapon (whether in the field or in a warehouse) will automatically upgrade as my tech gets better. A short sword doesn’t become a long sword or anything like that. But A short sword would automatically become a better short sword if I research tech that improves is in order to remove the complexity of having to “upgrade” units. However, the cost of keeping a soldier in the field will be fairly high and since soldiers come from population, there’s a real down side to keeping throngs of soldiers idle.
In addition, by building roads, my caravans will arrive a lot quicker (3X faster). Similarly, I have to keep my supply lines secure.
This also opens the door for a lot more trading. Rather than just having “food” you can have “crops”. Crops are processed into food and can be traded with other civilizations or used by special buildings (Inns, restaurants, etc.) to increase prestige (which adds to influence).
It also allows players to have the game be very simple (just keep everything local) or highly sophisticated (have weaponry go through multiple processes – a magic sword processed by a Aereon Forge doubles its damage. The town with the Aereon forge is the one that would get on the priority list of magic swords and the Aereon blades produced would be sent to the town with the barracks that is producing your “Night Guard” or whatever you call your designed unit.
But in this way, there’s no real UI other than providing players the ability to close down shops in a city or expedite their priority to get more stuff sent to them. The player remains the king/emperor and not a logistics manager but at the same time is the architect for success of their kingdom’s economy if they so choose.
UPDATE: 5/23/2009
Camp #4: Quarter To Three concept
Having read a lot of posts both here and QuarterToThree we’ve thought of another way to do it that might be interesting.
2. Resources can be processed into other resources.
3. Controlling a resource automatically makes it available throughout your empire at a basic level. The more resources you control, the more that basic level is provided.
4. If there is a road to a city that connects you to where the resource is provided, that city gets a bonus amount of that resource.
5. Cities can build improvements that have caravans deliver bonus amounts of that resource to that city from the source.
6. Cities can optionally build warehouses whose only affect is that they can store caravan deliveries for later use. I.e. if I’m not currently building death knights, I can store caravans of “stuff” so that when I do build them, I instantly get the bonus at that point.
I want my army to be filled with trained knights who have plate mail, steel swords, plate helmets, etc. Those things are expensive. If I control an iron deposit, I can build them though any town with a barracks. Let’s say it will take 30 turns to create that unit. 10 of those turns is the training of the soldier and the other 20 is the production of the equipment. If I control 2 iron deposits, that production is knocked down to 18. If I have a road that connects this town to the the iron resource (directly or indirectly) then I can knock it down another turn for each resource.
I can also build a blacksmith shop. By doing this, caravans will be sent from the iron resource production area to the town with the armory. When that caravan arrives, it will reduce the time even further.
Similarly, if I want to make a magic sword that requires Aegeon crystal to be turned into a magic potion then as soon as I build 1 Alchemist lab in any town, then any town can build magic swords at a base level. If I build 2 alchemist labs, I won’t get any further bonus unless I control more than 1 Aegeon crystal.
So basically, it’s a much simpler system that provides fairly straight forward bonuses for players who want to create a more sophisticated economy.
The trick is to find what parts of the sophisticated model are the real killers in terms of model/UI/AI complexity and find a shortcut that isn't too maddening to us strategy grognards.
It probably isn't. "Make it optional" sounds wonderful from a gamer perspective because it sounds like everyone wins. In reality, something like "both camp 1 and 2 with an option to switch between them" would probably cost as much development time as both camps combined plus a little extra, and almost inevitably be pretty messy.
Camp #4 seems to be leaning back in the direction of the micro-heavy of Camp 1. Possibly even worse because now I'm going to want to be planning ahead many building periods for every city (might as well start moving resources right away, rather than wait to need them moved) I guess it would give something to do between turns. Really I think this camp causes camp #1 not to even be a consideration. I still think camp 2 or 3 are the best though. If I'm going to have 100+ resources, I want it to be automated and easy to manage.
Good point. I suppose I should have said "widest audience possible without compromising your vision" But I guess I figured that went without saying...
-- And you're right, it may not be possible to add options for those things. If not, I guess it should be the most simple in terms of the economy. I am a fan of the ability to customize and enable/disable features though, and while it may be tougher there are plenty of games that did it. Even simple things like in MOM you could turn tactical combat on/off. Some people would never dream of turning it off, and others would turn it off once the game was all but won and they just had some cleaning up to do, and others always left it off because they liked a more 'civilizations' type feel.
I just spent the better part of the evening reading the past 302 posts... This is probably the most constructive forum thread I've ever seen, though! It's stayed on topic for over 300 posts and has really evolved. By the time I actually post this there'll probably be a dozen new posts...
Anyways, I'd have to say that Camp #1 is my favorite, followed by Camp #3; and I don't like Camps #2 or #4.
There are really only a few things about Camp #3 that I don't like, actually:
• Universal auto-upgrade of equipment on tech research - this removes the decision to choose how well to equip your troops• Distribution of goods is too limited based on what the computer thinks is expedient
On automatic upgrading - it's totally unintuitive and mildly broken as others have pointed out. One of the great things about Camps 1 and 3 is how intuitive they are, this is definitely a step backwards. I do understand the equipment upgrading is often a source of tedium and annoying micromanagement (like in Total War), but I think there are better solutions. The way I like is, in order to upgrade troops' equipment you can either trade their old equipment for new (assuming it's available wherever they're stationed - maybe it could even be shipped out to them via caravan), or recycle their current equipment. To do this they would have to be in a town capable of producing the new gear, their current equipment would be used plus some extra resources and other relevant costs. In order to prevent the "must somehow bring everyone home to upgrade every 10 turns" syndrome, it could be made significantly cheaper to upgrade in few large steps than in many incremental ones (eg. upgrading from Spear 1 to Spear 3 would be cheaper than from Spear 1 to 2 to 3).
Another related issue to this is customizability. in ALL 4X-ish games, the economy model is the foundation of everything. A sophisticated game economy makes possible much more variety in other aspects of the game. I don't want to be forced to equip my Dire Bear Riders and my lowly conscript spearmen with the same spear: I want my Dire Bear Riders to have the best spear I can produce, and I want to equip my conscript spearmen with cheap spears so I can churn them out en masse. Camp 3, it seems, would make that impossible - I would be forced to equip my 'cheap' conscripted spearmen with the same highly upgraded spears that I researched in order to make my powerful Dire Bear Riders. To make it easy for the player to see what quality of equipment a unit has, they can use a symbol system like Total War's (though it'd need to be expanded to represent all their equipment).
On distribution of goods - I want to be able to ship goods to places in anticipation of future needs. Maybe I have a blacksmith under construction and want a store of iron ready for when it is completed. Or maybe I have tons of iron in a city that's about to be overrun and I want to ship it off to another city so I don't lose it. Likewise, if I have a city with a blacksmith on my North, East, South and West borders and currently only my North and West borders are in danger, I want to be able to have, say, 70% of my iron going to the Northern city and 30% going to the Western one.
Camp #3 seems to me to be how Camp #1 should function in regular times. But I want the ability to wrest control out of the hands of the computer in peculiar or urgent situations. So yeah, I vote for Camp #1, but for it to be set up by default as Camp #3 (minus the whole auto-upgrade disaster).
Some other things I have on my mind:
Don't abstract away caravans! I think they would provide a wealth of richness and depth to strategy and ambience. They'll make the world feel alive and dynamic and provide all sorts of fun options including actual guerrilla warfare, functional blockades and all those nice things that you know you've always dreamed about! They also add strategy in other ways; to be most efficient you need to consider they layout of your nation and which cities to focus on doing what, and having defensible borders becomes more meaningful.
If for some reason you must abstract away caravans, please don't make diminishing returns based on distance traveled! Sending out 100 swords, and having only 70 arrive for no apparent reason would just be frustrating. It'd be like corruption in Civ 3 - I hated corruption. If caravans have a physical presence, then there is a preventable risk of losing their contents. There is no way to prevent loss of goods in an abstracted caravan system with diminishing returns / distance.
Another thing is I would like the ability to place my caravan routes. The computer should choose routes automatically, but I would like to modify them if I see fit For example if I'm engaged in a border dispute with a neighbor to my east, I don't want my caravans to run North-South along the road running along that border. I would much rather route them westwards and then north. This feature would become much more important if external trade is carried out via caravans (but there was a VERY long discussion between me and NTJedi on that a few months back, so I won't elaborate on that here...).
And the very last thing I'd like to mention is that the saying "If something needs to be automated, then you did it wrong" is wrong. It's just not true. Automation is very useful when there are features that you usually don't need but occasionally are extraordinarily helpful - and sometimes even for things we use all the time. An example is the simple "Go To" order. There was a time when you had to move units one square at a time, and remember exactly where you were headed turn after turn. Anyone who isn't grateful for not having to do that is either masochistic or in denial. More generally, waypoints are wonderful things. So are Rally Points.
Type 4 has an unitiutive abstraction that doesn't really make sense. It will work n the same way civ4 works, but it will not be the step forward that camp 3 would be. Camp 3 makes you actually have to ship raw amounts of things here and there and use those to construct things. Cap 4 seems too abstract for my tastes, but will still work.
I like camp #3, but I'd like to add something about roads. It'd be interesting if roads kind of built themselves. Or at least started automatically. If you have two locations, people will move betwee the two locations over certain paths more often than others. (Ever notice places on collage campuses where the grass is worn into a path when the sidewalks don't take people where they want to go?)
So if paths grow (organically) based on traffic, then resources (money) can later be expended on improving those paths to allow for faster/smoother travel.
In addiiton to the player not controlling the caravans, there could still be the option of spending resources of some kind to up the security of an area, so that moving goods would be more protected. i.e. some percentage of goods traveling between two cities is lost, but if you assign more guards to the area the percentage goes down.
So you can add management features, without the MICRO.
Option 4 is a must have
Thanks Frogboy for updating this on a weekend!Camp#4 is no good. Way too much micromanagement. Every city can produce all kinds of MR. Those MR will all need to (micromanage) caravan to the barrack for unit production. The issue of obsolete & unused MR stuck in warehouses is not addressed.Camp#3 is better so far. But I still like my Reply 271’s Pull Economy (PE) best. Under PE, all MR produced is used. Warehouses are basically empty all the time, so almost no micro. If Frogboy does not see it yet, please check out Reply 271Below is Reply to Winni’s 283; but anyone interested in my Reply 271 is welcomed!“Would towns that have intermediate MR then accumulate them like an NR would?”In my example, intermediate MR like the Potion +2 will not be accumulated because it will be consumed immediately when producing the Sword +2. Potion+2 exist only at the caravan unit. OTOH, Gamer has the option to order the Alchemy lab to produce Potion +2 (say for trading, or 'speed up' production of Sword +2).I discourage this kind of MR production 'speed up' because it is micromanagement. This is one of the reason why Factory should have unlimited conversion capacity. If the Alchemy lab converts only 1 crystal per day to Potion+2, gamer will sure try micro that by sending the crystals to the lab many turns earlier. Also, if the gamers’ guess is wrong, the warehouse will be stuck with Potion+2. If we have 110 MR types, factory conversion happens very often. Gamer will be more tempted to micro.“With unlimited MR, I'd just put all the necessary factories in the same town, and have the NR shipped there continually.”This is how industrial city become efficient. However, there are cons. The town needs to ship all kinds of NR from further distance. And the Unit produced (e.g. Soldier) has to travel far to frontline. Frogboy mentioned in Camp#4 that Caravan should walk 3X faster on roads. Caravan should walk faster than most units anyway. The Pull economy sort of minimizes the issue of obsolete MR, by reducing the instances where MR get stuck in warehouses. Assuming when I order of upgrade soldier holding Sword+2 to Sword+5, what is the best way? Your Reply 283 did propose some ways to do it. I have some ideas now but haven’t decided which one I like best.For me, Karma means Appreciation.
Just so that I get it straight:Camp #1: The player decides everything on his (or her) own (where the resources are being transported and what kind of products are being produced). He can use governors, which try to automate things. This will be very micro heavy, but allows the biggest possibilities with respect to variability. However, this might involve a step learning curve.Camp #2: The easy way. A certain town is responsible for a specific resource and only that town can create sth involving the specific resource. Besides assigning resources to a town, there is no more micro. However, the player might not be able to create the "spear of doom wielding bear cavalry" as this would need all the proper resources and buildings assigned to the same town. Or, quite the contrary, certain towns might be able to create ueber units.Camp #3: Reminds me of the settler series. You decide to build a sword man with a magical sword in a defined town. If you have the prerequisites (magical potion in town A produced by a magical guild, ore produced by an ore mine B and further processed by a blacksmith C and finally the barracks D, in which everything comes together to result into the sword man) for your endproduct, you can decide to build it and everything else is done automatically. Has nearly no micro like in camp #2 and the possibility to create a huge variety as in camp #1.Camp #4: You own a resource and thus it is automatically available everywhere. It can be processed into other resources, which then become automatically available everywhere as well. By creating caravans, roads and similar, you get bonuses. Otherwise, it is the same like Camp #3.If I got this right, I would like to vote for camp #3. Camp #3 has the biggest possibilities combined with the least microing. For camp#4, you will have to micro the trade routes and caravans and so on... And I don't like it, that everything is automatically available everywhere... It should take time, until the resources have arrived...But perhaps I misunderstood one or the other concept here...Hm, I would love to be able to build (fortified) warehouses outside of towns. They could function as some kind of hub. You build a warehouse in the middle of your empire and the resources not needed are transported there and stored. In times of need, they would be distributed to the various towns. Thus, you don't have to wait until the ore produced from one side of your empire is transported to the other side for processing.
Just my two cents
Yes, some of my earlier ideas were based on ideas from Capitalism 2. The exception is in the UI. Cap 2's manufacturing UI is based on supplies. For those who don't know, here's a short description. Manufacturing is based around inputs and outputs. I set up a purchasig unit to buy inputs, and a manufacturing unit processes those into something else, which the sales unit then sells to other factories/retail outlets.
Let's say I want to build computers. Assuming I already have all the raw materials necessary (silica mine, oil well).
1. Build a factory.
2. Tell the purchasing unit to get Silica. The game knows Silica can be turned into Silicon, so the manufacturing starts. (Unless it chooses another thing Silica can be turned into, in which case you can tell it you want it to make Silicon.)
3. At this point I can sell the silicon (to another factory), or set up another manufacturing unit at this factory. Either way, Silicon can be made into CPUs and Integrated Components (ie: chipsets).
4. Set up another factory. Tell it to buy oil. Plastics come out.
5. Set up another factory. Set up 3 purchasing units. One I link to the CPUs, one to Integrated Components, and one to Plastics. Computers come out.
#5 to me is where it goes wrong. To make computers, I have to know which 3 resources to use. I have to hook them all up, and in a multi-city game I have to *find* them in the UI, which with a lot of products is really time consuming. A better way of doing it would be:
5a. Set up another factory. Go to the manufacturing unit and choose computers (which is in the list since all the required components are available somewhere). The game then hooks up the purchasing units to the necessary supplies, and off it goes.
Camp 3 is a lot like that. I say "I want to make +2 magic swords", and the game will ship the Swords/Potions to that location automatically. It doesn't require micromanagement of how to hook up or ship supplies. It still requires I have the supplies and that I protect the caravans, which #4 doesn't. The caravans to me are one of the most interesting things here towards producing a living world, I really don't like the idea of losing them in favor of a Civ 4 style model.
[...]
So are Rally Points.
I totally agree with you
I vote for that, exactly as stated in the quote.
For the sake of replay value, in the single-player mode, it's better to have the multidimensional challenge provided by a lot of sophisticated complexity ... with the condition that you have access to A.I. managers as options to simplify or speed-up gameplay for those users who are not micromanagers or who wish to have a faster multiplayer experience.
@Tridus - I agree. I also had the same issue with it as well from time to time but that was part of the charm for me but this game is not a nuts-and-bolts business sim so it should be changed accordingly. In short, the learning curve was step but as I suggested earlier (and you also touched on in your post) going to pull econ functionality would alleviate all the inherent raw material network and processing issues and allow the player to focus on finished goods distro as Climber noticed. I think it is a win/win situation with a warehouse and city area of influence system. I dont think anyone here wants this to turn into a Stars! type of resource system. Note: I also loved Stars! for that exact reason however.
@GHenrikG - You pretty much have a correct understanding of the options. I am however proposing yet another option.
@pigeonpigeon - I agree there should be no auto upgrading. If a unit is to be upgraded then I think it should be sent to a building to do it. Moreover any obsolete supplies should be able to be exchanged for some percent of value or traded to other players or AI black market -etc...
I don't think warehouses in each city with unused/unusable NR and MR are necessarily a bad thing in a pull based economy; they're overstock, sure, but they're not actually causing any harm (assuming they don't decay in the warehouse, or that the economy slowly devalues them as they become obsolete, or some other "real world market" physics happens to them). They become stockpiled in various cities, awaiting being called for by the next build order somewhere. THe thing reverts to a SMOP, as the UI must make it easily and quickly visible what and how many items are in the warehouse of a town. Colors, filters, and good organization will help here.
Spartan, I found a demo of Capitalism II last night and played it for a bit. I think you're right, it's kind of what we've been discussing here for a bit; it's a pull economy based on what you want to manufacture. I never got as far as computers (I was struggling making bread... ), but the idea is the same, only without the indicators for supply and demand; so far, we've thought that the only demand is the sovereign's demand, and the only supply is what's limited by the NR production capability and the MR conversion rate (unless you go with Climber's infinite MR conversion system, which he's now got me having to go back and spend ANOTHER day at work thinking about...). Seaports and other places "supply" raw resources, factories and such convert them, and a ghostly city populace consumes them based on demand. If you'd like some nostalgia, the demo is here:
http://www.fileplanet.com/83839/80000/fileinfo/Trevor-Chan's-Capitalism-II-Demo
I'm settling in to liking the pull economy; it's a variant of camp 3, I think. I think upgradable NR to increase production from them, and buildings in cities to build MR, and placing an order on a design and tech you've researched to put it all into motion would work. Maybe you can upgrade factory buildings to increase produciton rates (I still haven't let go of non-infinite MR conversion; can you tell?). Maybe you do a Stronghold like economy for buildings where you don't necessarily upgrade a building to make a new type of MR, but the existance of other buildings in the same town enables a new MR to be manufactured (a smithy can make swords only. If a sawmill exists in the town, it can make quarterstaves, but having both in the same town enables the smithy to make arrows and the sawmill to make pikes). I'm a little concerned that we haven't necessarily moved away from the "one building per MR that pulls for that MR"; I'd like to have fewer total buildings, again because I'm concerned about land resources.
I can go with infinite MR conversion if the limiter for troop production becomes training instead of equipping. In that case, rates of MR conversion don't really matter (since they'll always be less than the training time). Which brings a point that Frogboy made that I think is dead wrong; he described camp 4 as taking 30 turns to make a knight, with 10 turns being training and 20 turns being making the gear; unless there's a specific reason to do this, I'd argue that it should take 20 turns, the rate limiting step is the manufacture of the gear, and the training of the troop can occur while the gear is being produced. You can do things to speed up gear production (build roads to speed caravans in the scenario we're considering here, since MR conversion happens quickly compared to that), and hope to drop this 20 turn rate limiting step below the 10 turns for troop training. Now you can make choices about how well trained the troops are; 10 turns produces excellent soldiers (+3 atk, +3 def), 2 turns, you get Bill Murray in "Stripes" (-1atk, -1def, +1cohones).
You'd need to be able to cancel an order somehow still. I don't see how to do that once a caravan is underway; those NR or MR are alread accounted for, and they're going to arrive at the city in a certain number of turns and deposit their goods in the warehouse, no matter what, unless you make them evaporate and redeposit their NR or MR in the resource of origin instantly. Otherwise, changing a build order (or even changing priorities so that town B now needs the ore enroute to town A) involves waiting for ore to arrive at A, even though build orders at A have been cancelled, and then waiting for B to pull the ore from A's warehouse and start it on it's journey to B. All the other things that also started enroute to A that weren't ore (potions, wood, etc) are still enroute, and not needed at B, so they arrive and sit in A's warehouse until they're called for again.
I vote for camp 1(preference) or camp 3.
I would also point out you could make a general resource control model. Where there are only certain general resources like metal, timber, stone, food/drink, crystals, and animals or whatever you guys want. While there would only be general resources to manage the variety of each resource could be large. For example while the player would only mess around with the metal sliders/buttons metal could actually break down into copper, iron, steel, mythril, etc. At this point you could combine any resource to make more advanced supplies or whatnot. For example metal + crystal = magic plate armor or sword, timber + crystal = magic bows, metal + timber = spears, axes, etc, animal + metal = armored mount, stone + metal + crystal = reinforced magic walls, crystal + food/drink = magic potions, etc, etc, etc. These more advanced supplies could then be combined again to produce varying results.
This way the player would only have to worry about two things allocating generic resources and controlling that resources on the map. However, the player would be rewarded for paying attention to what specific resources he controls and creating more advanced supplies. So if you want to upgrade your knights to mythril but you only had iron mines you will need to find some mythril mines somewhere on the map and something similar would apply to almost every resource. The ability to mix the general resources into advanced supplies and further combine the more advanced supplies while not capable of the same sophistication as camp 1 it would allow for a great variety of player created items / units.
You could say this system would be easy to learn somewhat difficult to master.
Rather than talking about "camps" why not discuss what individual concepts that we like/don't like and then make the system that incorporates as many as possible of the most popular concepts.
1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you name it. Strongly favor
2. Resources can be processed into other resources. Iron Ore into a Sword. Strongly favor
3. Part of the fun of the game would be running a proper empire (or letting AI governors take care of it). Strongly favor
1. There are only natural resources (food, iron, crystal, horses, etc.). Dislike
2. When a natural resource is controlled, the player assigns that resource to a specific town. Neutral
3. Only that town can make use of it. Towns that don’t have a resource assigned it cannot build units that require those resources. Dislike
1. Everything is a resource. Strongly favor
2. Resources can be processed into other resources (iron to swords, crops to food, crystal to potions). Strongly favor
3. Resources are sent automatically to other towns based on the resource needs of that town. No micromanagement, no AI. Favor, as long as there is the ability to force distribution where the player wants it.
2. Resources can be processed into other resources. Strongly favor
3. Controlling a resource automatically makes it available throughout your empire at a basic level. The more resources you control, the more that basic level is provided. Hate it
4. If there is a road to a city that connects you to where the resource is provided, that city gets a bonus amount of that resource. Dislike
5. Cities can build improvements that have caravans deliver bonus amounts of that resource to that city from the source. Dislike
6. Cities can optionally build warehouses whose only affect is that they can store caravan deliveries for later use. I.e. if I’m not currently building death knights, I can store caravans of “stuff” so that when I do build them, I instantly get the bonus at that point. Unclear. Warehouses yes, storage of resources yes, bonuses no.
I don't remember where it was mentioned but I absolutley hate the idea of auto-upgrading units in the field when you research a new level of a weapon.
Here is my ultimate vision!
Everything is a resource, but Natural Resources (NR) are treated differently than Manufactured Resources (MR).
Natural resources:
When you control a resource, you get a pop up showing how much of the resource is produced per turn, You can set a single priority towns from a drop down menu of all your towns. You can also select how many units per turn should go to the priority city, including ALL production. You can double click the resource at any time to change the priority town and/or priority amount. Alos, if you get a second source of the SAME NR, you can set that mines priority city and amount to be different than the first one.
This is the end of the player control. There are no "AI" governors. Distribution then is automatic, but follows the following rules;
A city must have storage capacity to receive NR OR the city must have production queued that uses that NR.
Priority city gets designated amount of ore first.
Then any cities that have production that is waiting for that NR in order to proceed, prioritized by distance from the NR source.
Then all cities with storage capacity get an equal share of the NR.
If there is still remaining NR, it is stockpiled at the production site.
Example: Iron mine produces 10 iron per turn. Town A is chosen as the priority town at 4/turn. Town B is making swords which uses 1/turn. Town B also has a warehouse. Town C is farther from the Iron Mine than town B and is making Pikes at both of it's smithies, using 2 iron/turn.
4 iron/turn is sent to town A (town A must either have storage or production capacity, or this 4/turn will also be sent to town B's warehouse). 1/turn is sent to town B smithy. 2/turn is sent to town C smithy. And the remaining 3/turn is sent to town B warehouse.
Next turn, some disaster happens and Iron ore production is halved for a few turns. 4/turn go to town A, 1 goes to town B.
A few turns later, production is back to normal, in fact you have upgraded the iron mine to produce 15 iron/turn. Town A has filled up its warehouse, but still has production demand of 2/turn. Also, town B's warehouse only has room for 5 more iron ore.
2/turn goes to town A. 1/turn is sent to town B smithy. 2/turn go to town C smithy. 5 are sent to town B warehouse, which is capacity. The remaining 5 production remains at the mine. If the mine is captured by an enemy, they immediately get access to any resource that has been mined and stored at the mine.
I think this gives a good balance of player control without complexity. (Most of the above is obviously automated)
MR on the other hand, I believe should go to an empire wide stockpile. Thru JIT delivery, all MR gets where it needs to be when it needs to be there. So production of anything requiring MR simply determines if the required MR is available, and if all needed MR is available, it is assumed that "you've got people" that make sure the MR (armor, weapons, potions) are delivered.
This is my idea of a good deal of control, without it being cumbersome or a pain.
@Denryu - your system is what a "pull system" would entail at a fundemental level.
Moreover with city and outpost zones of influence/control and transportation systems and upgrades coupled with national reserves and local storage capacity the tactical and strategic elements of the game are enhanced with a minimum of micro action.
I really don't like the Civ4-style concept that controlling one source of a natural resource makes it available throughout your empire. Yes, it is simple. But I feel like it's a cop-out. I love Civ4; it's a great game. But one thing that has always been deeply unsatisfying about it was the way that resources were implemented. On the turn that I acquire my iron mine, I can instantly allow every city in my empire to build swordsmen. That one iron allows me to build 2,117,857 swordsmen. It is infinite and everywhere. Not only is this totally unrealistic, but so much strategy that could have been present in the game is eliminated.
Everything hinges on whether you have a single source of a resource or not. I recognize that you're trying to fix this by allowing additional sources of the resource to reduce production times, but think about it this way. How big is the difference between going from 0 iron mines to 1 iron mine compared to going from 1 iron mine to 2 iron mines. Even in the case you've laid out for Camp 4, going from 0 iron mines to 1 iron mine takes you from being able to build swordsmen nowhere to swordsmen everywhere, instantly. Going from 1 iron mine to 2 iron mines takes you from being able to build swordsmen everywhere to swordsmen everywhere a little bit faster. There's just no comparison in terms of which transition is more important. Almost everything will still hinge on getting that first source of a resource. The others will matter only a little.
I think that acquiring that second iron mine needs to be more important and meaningful. It doesn't make sense that one source of a resource can power an entire empire, no matter how large and far-flung. There's no strategy there. It makes much more sense that one iron mine produces some fixed quantity of iron (that can increase through improvements/tech/magic/etc.); for sake of argument let's say that it's enough iron to run five blacksmiths at full capacity. When my empire is small, that's all I need. But now that I'm expanding, I need ten blacksmiths. Improved production at my iron mine lets that one mine provide for seven of them, but I still don't have enough iron to feed my growing empire and my growing needs. Thus, I need to go out and find a second iron mine. I now have a very real strategic incentive to find that second mine. It's not just that finding that mine will make everything go a little faster. It's that I'm resource-limited. I CAN'T run all of my blacksmiths until I get that second mine. Will I care about finding a second iron mine with this kind of model? You bet! Will I care with the Civ4-style model? Not really.
I remember thinking how ironic it was that I really didn't find the Civ4 resources to be strategic at all, because the concept of having resources was such a neat idea for a Civ game. But honestly, in how many games of Civ4 that you played did you end up having to make exciting strategic decisions based on resources? For me, I can't remember a single one. You almost always had at least one of everything nearby, and that was that. It was all you needed. End of story and end of strategy. One of the amazing things about a great turn-based strategy game is that constant itch of "JUST ONE MORE TURN!!" I always want to play just one more turn because then I can capture that city I really want, or research that spell that will let me summon a dragon, or finish forging my hero's Flaming Sword of Death, or finish building that bank in my capital that will finally get my economy back on track. How exciting would it be to add to that mix "control that iron mine that will let me start running these blacksmiths that I don't have the iron to run right now"?
There's also another large failing in the Civ4-style resource model that was discussed earlier by Keith Lamothe. It just doesn't make sense that one iron mine in the northern half of my empire can supply iron instantly and everywhere, including the entire southern half of my empire that lies across a huge ocean. There's no strategy there. If my northern continent produces plentiful iron and my southern continent produces plentiful wood, then it should be easy for me to make iron things in the north and wooden things in the south. To transport either the raw materials or processed goods between the two continents should require . . . caravans!! These caravans should be vulnerable to attack, and furthermore the distance that they have to travel will correspond accurately with the difficulty that it would truly represent to move goods between far-flung parts of the empire. Indeed, I think that is one of the true strengths of Camp 1 and Camp 3, which would make these economic models truly innovative and strategic. It MATTERS where the resource is located, it MATTERS how long it takes to get it to your production centers, and it MATTERS that you be able to protect your vital shipping lines. Furthermore, I now have new ways to attack my enemies through the cutting of supply lines and by cutting off the flow of important resources. If my opponent's iron mine is surrounded by my troops, it makes no sense at all that he should still have access to that iron in all of his cities everywhere.
I would extend this argument to say that I think it is important for both natural resources and manufactured products to be stored locally in the individual cities of the empire and not in a global empire storage. If I'm producing magic swords in my capital, I shouldn't be able to use those swords in my beseiged city to build magic swordsmen that can then, magically, save the day. I should have to ship those swords to the city where I'm building the unit, and if I try to ship them past my enemy's troops, then I should run the risk that the swords will be destroyed or captured.
In short (or perhaps in long, as this has become a rather long post!), as I'm sure you can tell, I remain a staunch supporter of either Camp 1 or Camp 3 (as long as Camp 3 retains the ability for the user to jump in and do some re-directing if we so choose). As pigeonpigeon said, the inclusion of caravans provides a wealth of both strategy and ambience. What a shame it would be to lose that! Camp 1 and Camp 3 provide a wealth of strategic options that truly matter and at the same time (particularly in Camp 3) allow the implementation of a feasible system that shouldn't overwhelm the user.
I read the thread over at Quarter to Three, and pretty much everyone over there is beating the drum to dumb down the economy as much as possible. I'm sure that they're good guys and that they have lots of good ideas, but I think they're just plain wrong on this one. Why should Elemental settle for restricting itself to the same simplified, strategyless formulas that have been used before on similar games? Just because every time I've gone on vacation I've always driven a car doesn't mean that I have to keep driving one the next time I go. Maybe it's time for me to take a plane.
Brad, it might be worth you guys thinking about Beta 0 being just this; the economic model alone on the cloth map. No combat, just unit design and moving resources around. Economic models, especially since you good folks want E:WoM to "redefine 4X economies", will underlie both the research trees (magic and tech) and the unit production model. Maybe it might be wise to take some time now, early, and get this part right, or as right as it can be when something is designed by Stardock and 5,000 of their closest friends...
After sleeping on it, it seems to me like most people actually prefer Camp #1 over Camp #3. Most people who have voted for #3 have qualified their vote with "as long as I can override the automatic distribution when I need to." But really that's the only difference between Camp #1 and Camp #3 (besides non-specific equipment and auto-upgrading). Camp #3 is Camp #1, just with a competent automation system! What scared people away from Camp #1 to being with was the fear of having to constantly micromanage distribution (even though automation was implicit); so once the same proposal was made, but with automation explicitly included, people hopped up and down. The fundamental difference between Camps #1 and #3 is non-existent, unless it isn't possible to override the automated distribution, which quite frankly would be annoying and unintuitive (I am the supreme ruler, why can't I order my resources to go where I need them in times of need?).
I also like the pull economy system, but I think it's perfectly compatible with Camps #1 and #3. The pull system is just the deterministic mechanism behind the automation system. Unless I'm seriously misunderstanding things, in which place please correct me! The economy of Elemental is one of the things I'm most excited about, so I want to understand all the options!
But perhaps I misunderstood one or the other concept here...
Well, as stated in the OP Camp #3 wouldn't allow you to be very specific about your troops' equipment, as everyone in your military would always be wielding the latest and greatest that's available to you based on tech. However, I don't see this concept as being fundamental to Camp #3's general direction and could be left out without changing the rest of it.
I like this idea (although maybe it could be implemented in other ways). Being able to provide some sort of storage/transport infrastructure to make distribution more efficient would be nice. Roads are actually a very basic form of this (and serve other purposes as well), but strategically placed warehouses and maybe other types of buildings could add nicely to it.
Edit: And I totally agree with Rogue Knight's above post. Couldn't be said better!
Edit Edit:
Yes! I really, really like this idea. It reminds me of a discussion a while back about having synergies between buildings, so that the best strategy is never (or hardly ever) spamming the most advanced economic building (for example), but rather building a wide array of economic buildings, and maybe others, that would all work together to give a much greater overall boost to that city's economy. You've basically applied the same concept to production, and I like
I’ll apologize in advance for the crudity of my altered picture.
Here is a bit more descriptive version of what I was talking about in my previous post on this subject. Essentially you would apply the above template to most or all of the resources in the game. You would also be able to stock pile resources thus reducing the chance of you needing to pump metal or crystal production to 100% for your empire.
Everything you build or create would come from the stock piled resources and cities would only be able to make use of the resources they have infrastructure to process. So a city with only an iron smith would only be able to make iron supplies where a city with a foundry, alchemy lab, quarry, stables, and logger’s guild would be able to combine the general resources into advanced supplies. These advanced supplies could be further combined to make even more valuable supplies.
Caravans would go out from the general resource centers to the cities as designated by the player’s manipulation of the general resource slider / individual city sliders. The player could expand a city's stock pile by building general storage buildings that could hold any type of resource or supply. Also you could trade, sell, or destroy stock piles of resources you no longer want or need.
You are correct in your assessment of the situation at least as far as I understand things. Additionally a "pull economy" - lets call it "demand economy" for academic and clarity reasons, as you noticed would inherently work well with a complex system. There are several well developed global models to this end used in the world today, but I digress...
To put it simply, it is more of a focus issue vs a functional one to greatly oversimplify things.
Still camp 3, Camp 4 sounds less fun to me, because to me, it feels like the same method as Civ IV uses and I'm looking for something else
I think, therefore I am? Your sense of humor is your friend, get to know it.
Complaints regarding MOO3. Horrific enemy AI that never really did anything. Monumentally fucked up interface that was a pain in the ass to use. Six tabs for planet management? Clunky fleet control that made manual control a hassle?
What does Stardock specialize in? Interface design... What does the president of Stardock excel at doing in video games? Writing competent AI.
I'm not worried about Elemental being MOO3 just because they have actual resources for resources. Whether prioritization of delivery is controlled by manually set sliders, or the level of production requiring them doesn't matter to me. I'm still deciding what goes where, and it isn't going to require manually creating caravans to send them from one place to the next. If I had to manually create all the caravans, I'd be seriously bummed out. Stardock isn't stupid.
An actual resource system with a real supply chain, instead of the neolithic bore we have in most games, has a multitude of advantages. Raids don't have to be abstracted bullshit, you can actually raid the supply lines. The effectiveness of your raid wont be some nonsense calculation, it will be getting a group of units in contact with a supply caravan and wiping it out or taking it over. Concrete damage based on your actual effect. Someone can't just magically produce units from a far flung settlement with no local resources to do it, they'll have to actually ship stuff the distance to get it there, protect it on the way over, and only then utilize a forward production center. When you lose a city, the resources in danger are the resources that are actually there, instead of some arbitrary number. You can prepare in advance and evacuate them before the fall. Your opponent can prepare in advance and position hidden units along your supply lines and capture them without a fight. I could go on for hours just thinking of things I could do, that I can't do in Civ 4.
If utilizing the resource system takes more than ten seconds a turn, they've royally screwed the pooch. Even camp 1 is much less work than that even if they can't design interfaces worth a damn. It's the occasional change of a slider, mostly when founding a new city or utilizing a new resource.
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