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.
If anyone still wants Camp #1, maybe Stardock should just get in touch with Oracle or SAP and OEM one of their enterprise-grade ERP systems. Camp #3 sounds like a winner. Does this count as crowdsourced development work?One final point: Camp #3 sounds very elegant because it allows the sovereign to set direction, without being a central command-and-control logistics application. It has a more realistic feel to it: any given single thing might not be produced exactly as you'd like, but the overall pattern will be what you want. The player controls strategy, and leaves the day-to-day management to others.
As people who follow the forums regularly might infer, I actually don't mind imperfect control in a strategy game. Sometimes subordinates just don't do as they're told.
Thanks Winni! I think I know you, today I see a winni watching EWOM all day in the office! I am trying to elaborate the micromanagement issues of manufactured resource streams for Camp #3. My focus is different from you, as I like having physical caravans roaming the map, as long as we are not talking about over 100 routes. You are right on about the 'distance tax'. Devs should decide on how that should be handled. In OP, it does not "quite" matter where the Alchemy lab is. If it is moved far away from the Crystal mine to the SW city of Toppled Castle, magical potion can still be produced for the Eastern town.
Origionally was in Camp #1.
Now I am liking Camp #3.
As long as there are options for governors, AI, so those that want to micro-manage if they wish to.
Thanks for giving us a glimpse and listening to our feedback!
I see people talking about taxing routes, various other games based on an active economy where the population has an opinion.
But I'm curious - Does the population have an opinion?
Games like Civ, all players are "human". Cities can rebel against each other and join the other guy.
So, is that possible here?
Can a city join the enemy? Does it have "morale"?
It seems to me its more God vs. God, or ideology vs. ideology, or just plain avoid genocide.
If the enemy wants to kill you not because of your beliefs, but because of your very species, then isn't the ability to defect pointless?
Because the population would know they can't join the enemy, the enemy wants their species dead.
So in this case, things like Morale, taxes, etc - I can't see them coming into play as much?
Plus, your some all-powerful ruler. Its not like your need their vote?
Its not like other games that having a voting Senate.
And if you die, the whole species dies with you, right?
Resources, yes - Iron, Horses, etc. But trade route tax is for ally to ally, maybe? Not between your own places, because they are fighting a "Fight or become extinct" situation. In that situation the population probably just wants to live?
Basically, its not the same kind of "economy" as games like Civ 4, or even GalCiv (your just another human, you need senate to back you, etc).
I very much prefer camp 2/3.
From my days of playing MOO2, MOM, Civ, I've always found that a simpler model for resources is more engaging. Games that have tried to create the more complex resource models ultimately wind up requiring too much user attention (which would beg the need for "Governors" as suggested).
Let's take Civ4 as an example. One of the things that are really needed is good management of the outlying city development (irrigation, roads, mines, etc.). Early in the game, it would be manageable and fun to be able to maximize the output of your certain cities. However, as the game extended and your empire grew very large, this becomes really unscalable and I often found myself just automating it, despite the quirks in the Settler AI that would sometimes irrigate spots where mines provided better value.
Simiarly, looking at MOO2, I loved the option to build your colony on a planet, in contrast to MOO1, where it was just a bunch of sliders. That decision placed a lot more emphasis in MOO1 on fleet construction/design and tactical battles. Not much more than that. Still it was fun, but just the sheer joy of seeing your colony packed with production was great. The downside? Again scaling, as your empire grew, it quickly grew cumbersome to requeue the colony structures, etc. Ultimately you would just rely on automation mechanics to continue building stuff (despite a poor AI again).
Really it all boils down to whether or not the AI can make it good enough to provide the option to sate all camps. Realistically though, that may not be possible. I wonder if another option would be to have the extra micromanagement, but not emphasize it so much that it requires a lot of attention. But rather just give small perks if you feel you want to. So somewhat like a Camp 3, but with a way to specify some preferences to help optimize things. But not such big perks that the player would feel obligated to manage it. Really I guess that's the same as having the AI, except you have an expectation in that case where the AI performs reasonably well.
I'm just one who prefers to not be bogged down by the game, unless I find it entertaining. My analogy to other well known games is, I prefer not to have to fight the game to enjoy it (ala MMORPG grinding vs. playing it for fun).
Okay, here's what I don't like about camp 3 as I currently understand it. In order for a resource to arrive at a town, a corresponding structure must be built there (ore needs smithy, swords needs barracks, etc). But, from what we've seen so far, the town spaces have limited land resources to build structures on. This forces you to downselect what a city will be doing very early on in it's development, and then you have to stick with it. Changing your mind based on changes in strategy for a town buildout will be very difficult. If this town is to produce warriors with enchanted swords, then it must have at least a barracks (to "attract" swords to it), a magic forge (to "attract" potions to it). If you also want to make the swords and potions there, you've got to have something that attracts the ore (smithy) and something that attracts crystals (alchemist?). If you're attacked and you want to quickly change what that town is doing in response to the attack, there's no "quick response" option; it looks (at least to me) like you have to knock down buildings, and build up the new ones you want, let the trade routes get reestablished for your new products, and hope you were fast enough. In the other 4x games I've seen (with the exception of GalCivII, as I think about it), this wasn't an issue because land for building was essentially infinite.
Will there be a way to "buy" the building of a resource attractor quickly (instantly)? How long will the trade routes take to reestablish themselves once a change is made?
I can see a really easy kill for advanced units. I just have to find your one town that's making some base resource available to all of your other specialization towns, and take it out, and collapse your entire economy. I send in my channeler, and devastate it, and I've brought you effectively to your knees.
Winnihym
Camp 3 seems to be Camp 1 automated. In other words, exactly what I wanted.
However, I would like to be able to redirect caravans if needed.
It should be easy enough to change maybe you would get a build time reduction if you were converting a similar structure
And you would be silly for selecting on one town to make that basic resource, you should take that into account when you set up your network. Redundancy/Backups is/are good.
One thing I would like to get out is NO WAREHOUSES. It overcomplicates things and makes players dendent on such an unmajestic building. Jus make an unlimited national resource pool.
No. 3. It's important to make the economics easy. If you want to create an economic simulator, that's fine, but that doesn't seem to be the direction you're taking Elemental. One of the great strengths of, say Master of Orion 2, is the extremely basic economic model. It's simplicity makes for a more strategic experience.
3 would need only one thing to be perfect - the ability to set a trade route as safe or risky. If it's safe, it'll divert through player controlled terrain, trying to spend every turn (where possible) in the same spot as a town or military unit. If it's risky, it'll go directly for its destination.
That way you don't have to worry about stupid AI controlled units blindly wandering into harm's way and preventing the player from building the units they need.
Another way to do it would be to abstract the caravans out altogether. Depending on how long a turn is in game time, you could make resources something tracked as in a RTS - tickers up the top of the screen or something, which you spend like gold. You can assign stockpiles to a particular city if you want so that they can survive or continue to produce units during a siege (ie an enemy unit next to the city) but otherwise they can use empire or local resources to build things. This kind of system would make the economy really easy and intuitive. You wouldn't even need to read the manual to figure this kind of thing out.
A governator will never be as efficient or productive as a human micromanaging(sp?) his assets. No matter what, you'll always have the upper hand in this context. Can I, through superior skills, compensate in other areas? Most likely. But I'm still shooting myself in the foot.
So in order to win, if I want to stay effective, I will have to micro-manage - simply because you do.
It's like Automated workers in Civilization 4 (which I'm sure you're familiar with). I can automate them. But even if automated, they'll never be as effective as if I go in and manually tell them when and where to do what. Same deal here, only much more extensive. In single-player, this is more or less moot (it's just a measurement of difficulty) but in a multiplayer game, we wouldn't be playing on the same field.
We're kind of getting back to camp 1, though, aren't we? If the AI is making the decisions about where a resource goes based upon what buildings are in what town, then the complexity is still there, you just don't exercise direct control over it. Now, instead of having to micromanage a caravan route set, I have to micromanage what buildings are in what towns over time to affect what trade routes the AI sets up for me. I still have the huge number of trade routes (essentially one trade route for every resource/building pair), I just don't get to have a say over them. The suggestion of being able to idle a building in a specific town to effectively "shut down" a trade route isn't really any different, in my mind, from working with the trade route directly.
I'm working from some assumptions here. Am I right in thinking that the only places resources can land are towns? Is there anyplace else that resources would be shipped to? I'm thinking specifically here of your earlier dev post in which you stated that population is also a resource; will population be taken to produce caravans or workers for the raw resource generators (mines/crystals/nodes/forests/etc)? How do you assign populations to those resources, if that's indeed the case? The other assumption I'm making is one that, if there's a caravan, then it is a discrete unit. Rather than a rate, in which ore arrives every turn from a mine resource along a caravan route, the thought that a caravan can be attacked means that there's a discrete unit represented on the map that has, say, 100 ore on it, and it's moving across the map, and will take X turns to make it to the town, at which time all 100 units of ore are deposited in the town. Is that correct? Do we account for return time, too? This is a CivII model. Shields were discretized into caravans/freight that the player controlled like any other unit in the game. In this, resources were abstracted to shields. Now we're talking (perhaps) about caravans that have specific resources on them. If they're not map represented units, how do you attack a caravan route?
Just to get another random thought out there, if cities are really the nexuses (nexi?) where all resources eventually end up, maybe a way to represent this would be to have a map overlay where you can click a city and get all the "goesinta" and "goesoutta" pathways for all caravans currently working in that city, along with markers indicating how many turns out they are from arriving at their destinations.
Luckmann, your lowest common denominator arguments really suck. It isn't enough for you that you have an easy option, you want to eliminate the micromanagement option because - GASP! - it might give someone an edge in multiplayer!
No kidding! Micromanagement SHOULD reap benefits. Your premise that everything should be made simplistic with no option leaning toward complexity because it might hurt your MP rankings is selfish and stupid.
Grow a pair. Don't demand that the game be designed around your wants INCLUDING removing anything optional that might disadvantage your preferred play style. Seriously.
Quoting Luckmann Oh my god. This is Hellgate: London all over again. I can't convey how this absolutely killed E:WoM for me, just now. Completely.I no longer harbor any hope whatsoever for this game.
Quoting Luckmann
Oh my god. This is Hellgate: London all over again.
I can't convey how this absolutely killed E:WoM for me, just now. Completely.I no longer harbor any hope whatsoever for this game.
/drama
Wow sounds like this game may not be your cup of tea.
I don't want to eliminate micromanagement at all. I'm being cautious, because there's a thin line between having a "good" amount of micromanagement, and having overly convoluted complexity that ends up being detrimental to gameplay. You've completely ignored my premise, substituting it with your own assumed premise ("that everything should be made simplistic with no option leaning towards complexity because it might hurt your MP rankings"; especially ludicrous since I'm not much of an MP) and the foregoing discussion where I make my own premise on the subject in it's entirety clear.
I even make it clear that I'm not in Camp #2. I usually use a lot of sarcasm, that is often not conveyed too well over the interwebs. So a lot of missunderstandings are acceptable. I either put too much weight behind it, so that people think that I'm insulting, or too little and people don't get it. But when I even say that I'm using hyperbole, I just don't see how you can missinterpret what I'm saying. I really don't get it how you can be that dumb.
I was arguing against the argument that is constantly brought up in defense of added, sometimes (arguably) needless, complexity - that argument being "add governators for those that dun't want to micro, lol".
It's in the nature of the problem that micromanagement is rewarded, because it's only natural. There is no way around this, and any kind of 'boost' for those using the AI to do their work for them would be nothing short of cheating.
And about optionals.. What? This isn't something optional. This is a thread about how core mechanics are going to be carried out in the game. You can't possibly expect there to be three (or more) completely different economic systems in place, where a player can pick and choose whatever he prefers. I'm all in favour of as many 'optionals' as possible, but there's a line where two players simply aren't talking about the same game anymore.
Not that it has anything to do with the thread. I do have to ask myself where you got that from.
/dramaWow sounds like this game may not be your cup of tea.
It is true. If that does make it into the final game, I'm not going to support it. It's pretty much non-negotiable. But the game itself is shaping up extremely nicely, so for what it's worth, I'll continue to follow the progress and give constructive critique. No matter how hard you try to troll, drag threads off-topic or go in 'hardcore' for personal insults.
Cunt.
Yeah, I can see that you aren't taking the position because it is how you feel, so you are making the case just for the sake of argument I guess? Playing devil's advocate?
Thanks, you did give me a new experience today, and that is being called a cunt on the interwebs. Really, that was a first, and I have hung out for years on libertarian political forums.
I mean I have been called a douche, asshat, a bunch of stuff that can't even be posted here, but you went out on a limb, and got me with a completely new (for me) ad hominem. Thanks for that.
I am sorry that I misread that you were just "for fun" taking the position that you did and it wasn't your real position. Actually, I had just come from the other thread where you were saying if they hosted all MP and would not let you play peer-to-peer that this game was dead to you. So, I was expecting the worst based on recent experience. My bad for not reading more carefully tho.
I did unjustifiably and rudely "go after" you. for that I apologize.
In this case, the position that "I want more complexity" is alright. It can be valid. But (one of) the argument(s) in favour of it, "Those that don't want complexity can use the governators" doesn't validate the aformentioned position. If it's still treated as a valid argument, the discussion becomes moot.
Ultimately it's like having a discussion with a bunch of Ralph Wiggums. "Personally, I feel that the ongoing paradigm is detrimental to the cultural climate in society at large" ; "I like the color red!". It's nonsensical. It doesn't mean anything.
I know it's going slightly off-topic, but I was a participant in one of the bigger gaming-wide arguments not long ago. That of the Diablo III art direction. I found myself constantly battling with those that supposedly supported me, simply because they were unable to differentiate between the concepts of "Art", "Graphics" and "Colors". The ones in favour of the classic Diablo art direction were constantly beset by legitimized arguments pertaining to "color", while actual color had nothing to do with it.
Basicly the same thing.
Complexity in itself isn't bad.
Bad complexity is complexity that causes headaches for no reason, like workers in Civ building stupid shit where they shouldn't, forcing you to manually control them if you want anything resembling a reasonable infrastructure. The infrastructure system is effortless if you do just automate them, the problem is they go fort crazy, cut down all of your forests, and build railroads on every bloody tile so your enemies can run halfway across your empire as soon as they declare war.
If the workers had a different setting that only built a network, instead of going road crazy, and left forts alone, infrastructure management in civ would be effortless.
If they do it right, those of us with no wish to work at it, wont have to. It can still be complex and bring all the wonderful things complexity brings, like a modable resource system that lets you build damn near anything you want to in a realistic fashion. This isn't just metals for swords and swords for swordsmen, you could mod everything down to nails into the damn thing and have a life like building system that went from the ground up.
Looking at things from a demand side of things with a focus on "simplicity", if an automated system is to be implemented and effective I would like to be able to select something to produce at a given city, from a list of options that I have the appropriate resources for within my empire and have the AI automatically deal with sending everything needed for that unit to the city.
The list of course would change depending on tech and resources dynamically. Moreover I would also like an upgrade center for existing units with a similar mechanism. This "system" factored in with a warehouses would be the best of all the options.
Additionally the building queue should tell me how long it will take to create the unit based on resource travel time and if a resource becomes captured or destroyed I would get a notice about it and given the option to cancel the unit or try again.
Finally once a unit is produced or upgraded I would like to have rally points to send them to mass an army.
Camp#3 uses the building of Factory (e.g. Alchemist lab, blacksmith) to approximate the long term supply of Manufactured Resources (MR). This approximation will never be equal to the actual demand; there will be unused (or obsolete) inventory of manufactured resources. Gamer can try matching supply & demand by micromanaging the factories, turning factory on/off to avoid wasting precious Natural Resources. This micromanagement cons of Camp#3 is proportional to total # of MR available, # of cities, # of factory types, etc.
My idea of complete abstraction of Manufactured Resources is on Reply 63.In this post, I try to suggest a way of partial Manufactured Resources abstraction. Hope SD devs will look at its feasibility. My new Idea:1. No Manufactured Resources (MR) is produced at Factory unless explicitly ordered2. Factory can produce unlimited amount of MR per day.3. Warehouse store unlimited amount of MR or Natural Resource (NR)
Example
At turn 1, Gamer order 20 “Soldiers with Sword +2” at the Barrack in Village E.At turn 2, 20 Ore is caravanned from mine A to C. 5 crystals are caravanned from B to D. At turn 3, Blacksmith at town C produced 20 Swords; the sword starts travelling to village E. Alchemist at town D produced 5 potions and starts moving them to Village E.At turn 4, 5 potions & 0 Sword arrived at Village E Warehouse. At turn 5, 5 more Potion arrive. Since 10 potions & 20 Sword are available in warehouse E, the Barrack make the best use of its inventory. 10 Soldiers has Sword+2. 10 Soldiers has normal sword.At turn 6. 5 more Potion arrive at E. Village E has 15 “Soldiers with Sword +2”, 5 with normal swords.At turn 7. 5 more Potion arrive at E. Village E has 20 “Soldiers with Sword +2”When there is no order, the natural resource mines will automatically accumulate in their warehouse. Accumulated resources can be used immediately for new orders, or be caravanned away by gamer.Suppose the Gamer make another order of 10 “Soldiers with Sword +2” from another village F, at turn 6, this order also need the Crystal mined at B. The game will exercise this new order first. After the new order is completed, the game will continue the previous order at turn 1.Where there are more than 1 Crystal mines, the game will need to calculate if extra mine(s) will speed up unit production. If yes, 2 or more caravan will arrive at the Alchemy lab at town D.Pros:There is minimal increase in micromanagement, even if EWOM has 110+ MR.MR can be re-processed to make even higher end MR.NR is not wasted, compared to Camp#3.The rate of producing unit depends on 3 factors only:a. Distances from the NR mines & factoriesb. NR mine production ratec. Unit Production Building’s unit production rateWhat do you think? What is the cons you can think of for this method?
Climber, your post makes sense, but what is the advantage of all the complexity. If there is a national treasury that collects resources as they are built, then you can set production to draw from it, then you achieve the same results.
The only differences are:
1. The rate of producing units depends on the distances from the NR mines & factories - lets be realistic about scale here. How long is a turn? Is it an hour, day, week, month??? I really think a grand strategic game that is turn based should be closer to the week/month+ scale, than the hour/day scale. If you agree with this, then most goods can be transferred in a turn or two. If the difference is just 1 or 2 turns, then why even add this complexity. It creates so many unknowns that anticipating the production for a turn will be a nightmare.
2. Attacking trade routes... like I wrote in my earlier post (page 9), I would abstract raiding and caravan defense. In a turn based system defending trade routes by moving armies will be a nightmare. Much better to strategically protect key locations with armies and use allow players to assign troops to "caravan duty" to defend against raiding. Allow armies to raid when in enemy territory, and depending on where they raid and the quantitity of troops defending the kingdom, they can steal production.
I still contend that if you need AI to automate the micromanagement, then you should abstract the system to make it less complex. I can't think of a single game where AI goveners have ever been good or added to the gaming experience.
In addition, I think a discussion of scale is warranted. Are we talking about hex type movement or region type movement? Is the game goint to be strategic, operational or tactical? What is the timing for turns? All these factors are very important when determining what economic options are viable.
Why don't we just have sliders on the towns that distribute the production between research, military and infrastructure?
Abstractions bite, it's time to leave the infancy of strategy gaming and go on with our lives. Having to think isn't a drawback for a 4x, it's the only point in playing them. They didn't abstract the hell out of everything because it was the best way to do it, they did it because they didn't have any choice with 66mhz processors and 8 megs of ram.
That is pretty much what I posted with far fewer words and no example in my prior post maily due to time issues. Great job! Karma given
Grow a pair.
AAAARRRRRGH LANDISAURUS TROLL SMASH!
(I'm sorry, I made this a while ago, but the thread I intended to use it in was closed by mods. I was praying for another chance to use it, but considering the maturity of this forum I wasn't sure if I'd get it. Nothing short of an almost 300+ post thread would create such a chance. Honestly, the fact there has been a "sorry" for such words justifies Elemental being one of my favorite forum communities!) (I'm the troll on the right, if you couldn't tell )
Actually I came to comment that I at the general productivity of this thread, not to jump up and down like a troll. (I appriciate my chance )
I have to say that we cannot ignore both resource groups. Camp 1 and 2 have different management of resources. But I fear if we agree entirely to 1 camp we will be hurting the mod group. In theory this game will be modable, but the different between adding a resource to a total of 110 resources is very different from adding to maybe ~20 natural resources.
If we do go with camp 3 (which I feel is the best in terms of management) I emplore that we have both "natural only" (~20) and "include manufactored" (~110) resource sets be available as default. I'd add a 3rd "food and money only" resource set (I'm too much of a fan of MoM that I ask for a early 90's resource list)
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