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.
Sorry for showing up to argument late, seems like i missed it by a couple of days. Everything seems interesting so far, but I always wonder why are we in a command economy.
Camp #5: Market Economy (Similar to #4)
3. Resources are always available throughout your empire at a very expensive cost $$$$$.
4. The more resources production sites or Industry you control the cheaper that resource becomes.
5. The more Industries you have that consume that resource the more expensive it becomes.
6. Caravans carry resources and cash, and are driven by these price differences.
Player A Is super rich he has won the powerball. He buys Iron Ore off the market, because there are no nearby Iron mines. He then sends the Ore to his blacksmith to turn it into a sword. He buys +1 potion, to enchant the sword. After much cost, he has a single sword he can use himself.
Player B Deided to build a Iron mine to mine for Iron, then builds a gem mine to harvest gems. Builds both a blacksmith and alchemy lab. After several weeks of investment is able to build tons of +1 swords to equip his soilders.
The Argument:
This essentially makes resources a variable cost. You don't have to micromanage all 110 resources. Only those that you want to produce cheaply. You could always focus your empire on wealth generation instead to help finance your purchases of low volume goods. This also reduces sprawl of building every type of building every where, since buildings will be significantly more expensive.
I have rethought my ultimate vision. Lucky you!
The main thing I didnt like about it (my previous ultimate vision!) was that multiple caravans would be sent out every turn from each resource, the map would become a glut of caravans! From a mine that produced 10 ore/turn, it might send out a caravan with 5 ore to one town, 3 to another and 2 to a third. The more I thought about this the more I thought it was a mess!
Too many caravans. Caravans carrying unrealistically tiny payloads. I do like the priority pull system that I outlined, I will link it later. Here it is https://forums.elementalgame.com/352821/page/13/#2222631
Anyhow, I like the idea of it takes one iron ore to make one sword, one crystal to make 1 +1 potion, etc. Assuming a turn = 1 day let's revisit our mine cranking out 10 ore/day.
A caravan is formed when 100 ore (or crystals, or horsies, bears whatever) are harvested.
The caravan asks itself, "Self where do I want to go today?"
It's top priority is to go to the designated top priority city for this mine, if the player set one. This would be the only player involvement.
It's next choice would be to go to the nearest city whose production was stalled due to lack of this resource.
It's next choice would be to go to the nearest city that had available warehouse space.
If none of the above were available it would go nowhere, the resource gets stockpiled at the mine. Everything but the first choice is automated. Easy to code and minimal (but meaningful) player intervention.
This provides caravans to be raided. This doesn't clutter the screen with hundred of small caravans, or "mini-vans".
Each "factory" has the capacity to store 100 (one caravan's worth) of every type of raw material that it can use. This means that each town that has a smithy, alchemist's shop, etc. has at least some capacity for raw materials without having to build warehouses. Warehouses should be to really up that storage so if your supply lines get wiped, you have the CAPABILITY to be prepared for a rainy day. Pretty much everything else, refer to my "other" ultimate vision post which I will link to if I can find it. I think this would provide an utterly easy non demanding system but still provide the sovereign with a realistic level of control should he wish to step in and direct distribution of resources.
Note: Caravans need to be relatively fast units.
You could set empire-wide "rules" for caravans, i.e. "always maintain x number of spaces from enemy/unexplored territory" or "route all goods through city X before proceeding to your end destination" (not sure why you would want that rule, but throwing it out as an example) or "Pay x gold /turn to provide each caravan with armed guards" (force a fight if someone tried to raid). etc etc.
It wouldn't scale well especially in the aerly stages of the game, like if you only wanted 10 swords but had to wait until you amassed a 100 ore
Sure it would. 10 ore produced/day = 10 days to form a caravan. Caravan goes to town you want to produce swords, and fills the forges storage capacity of iron. Forge uses 10 iron to make swords and has 90 available for IMMEDIATE use for future production.
Essentially at the beginning of the game things are a bit slow to get things distributed to where they need to be. NOT confusing, overwhelming but a bit of delay as production gets started and distribution happens. This seems completely reasonable to me as if you are rebuilding from a cataclysm, everything doesn't just go back to business as usual the next day. It's not unbalancing because everyone is dealing with the same "disadvantage" if you want to call it that.
It actually makes it a bit more important to step in and get things delivered where you REALLY want them at first, but then the "merchant" economy kicks in handles things for you (still subject to your over-rides).
I'm not dismissing your concern, but I disagree with it.
Or to address your concern, you could order the mine to send each turns total production to City X (at an additional cost) So you could send a 10 ore caravan every turn, but it would cost you. Again, that would not be overly complex, and would likely only be used in the early game. An example would be that the "cost" of a caravan is 5 units of whatever was being shipped. So you could send a "rush" caravan every turn and after 10 turns have a total of 50 iron at the destination, or you could send it in a normal 100 unit caravan and have 95 units.... For your 10 sword example, it would take two turns worth of production to meet your immediate need. I kind of like that option, it provides another decision that depending on the situation either one could be the smart move.
I appologize in advance for duplicating anything Pidgeon has already said.
Well done, point made! I'd never have thought to use Starcraft, it's so... Blizzardy? Why are you providing an example for my argument? Starcraft, a game with actual workers carrying actual resources from their extraction point to a storage facility, allows you to raid that resourcing operation and kill actual workers, stopping actual resources from being recieved. Non abstracted raiding is not dependant on complexity, just on actual resources. What you can't do in Starcraft is raid the supply lines between the main base and any satellite bases, because they don't exist. A forward production center is just magically supplied with all the resources it's using. End result, with nothing to raid, there's nothing to protect, and main armies tend to be the entire army. RTS games are typically one dimensional fights, the lack of a supply system is a major contributor.
This, after agreeing that an actual resource system is a good idea.
You're working at a problem from the solution, and going in reverse. An abstraction isn't part of a system, it's abstracted from it. When you have an actual system, balancing each individual input is all that's required. You wouldn't balance bear cavalry, you'd balance bears. As long as the base inputs are balanced, nothing will throw the system out of wack by being added to it. When you create a higher level output, you simply maintain a uniform method of production. I prefer a logarithmic scale myself, base 2 should be quite effective at discouraging an all elite unit army, while still making that better weapon a rewarding investment in the long run provided you take care in how you deploy your forces.
When you abstract the system, you can't balance the inputs that don't exist. You just have cost. Instead of actual bears, you have the cost of getting bears, an unlimited supply of bears. No more natural limitation on number. You then have to abstract a system to deal with that unlimited supply of bear cavalry, because as everyone knows, an all badass army is always better than not. The most common methods are jacking up the cost to a prohibitive level, or giving everyone a bear counter that wipes them out with the greatest of ease. A less common, but far superior system tries to mimic what reality would do and puts either a hard or soft cap on the number of identical units you can have. Rise of Legends for instance has a soft cap, Dawn of War has a hard cap. They work better than the less advanced abstractions, but still not that well. They're also hell to balance.
To take the 110 resources in Elemental specifically. Instead of balancing the thousands of units you'll be able to create with those resources, a monumental, and quite frankly impossible task, you balance the much smaller subset of raw materials. You then balance the refinement processes that turn them into more advanced goods. If each tier is balanced, the task is finished. Comparatively, it's an excecise in simplicity. Any new input is simply balanced with whatever it's being added to, instead of trying to rework an entire abstraction to accomodate a new unit that breaks the house of cards you've built using specific counters.
#1 is not full manual control. Manual control of the automation is still automated. It's not the nightmare you're thinking it is. It would likely be more work than 3, as 3 will be defaulting itself to a distribution model more likely to please the user since it will be demand driven. I was pointing out that there is a real time game with a higher work requirement already in use, and it's negligible. Calling The Settlers an economic simulator is a really low blow. It's better than most I guess, but it's by no means a simulator. They barely scratched the surface in a resource system, what's there is partly superficial too. If you want to see what a complicated simulation really is, you need to look up some of SSG's war simulations. Sword of the Stars is more of a simulation than The Settlers is.
I did state that I meant no offense to multiple amputees. It's not as if I had cause to assume you were one so you shouldn't be taking it personally anyway.
Taking this silliness seriously, currently, you're quite likely to be faster than I am. Satellite internet is inhospitable to RTS games. In combination with the arthritis, my dexterity has dropped rather significantly with the lack of practice. It's downright pathetic how bad I am at FPS games right now, to get killed in single player at standard difficulty in a game like Doom 3 would have been unimaginable five years ago. I used to be a micromanagement god, would have made it into the top 50 on RA2 no problem, unfortunately people in the top 50 were telling me I needed a map hack if I wanted to get there. Making a cheat standard practice is not cool. I'd never be professional gamer material, the reflexes were maybe fast enough for something like CAL when I played Counter-Strike 16 hours a day, but you can't really maintain anything resembling a life while doing that. If it was me back then saying The Settlers were easy, you'd have something to argue. The crippled out of practice me is just more evidence that a complex resource system doesn't have to be a lot of work. If I can use it, anyone can.
Yes, I admitted to playing playing Counter-Strike 16 hours a day. In my defense, it wasn't quite so generic before they sold it to Valve and nerfed the physics.
My sarcasm is better than yours.
First, you're wrong. Complex economies have been done. There are plenty of economy sims with decent interfaces. The City Building series started by Impressions Studios is an excellent example of a complex economy with a decent interface. A much more complex economy than needed for a 4X. You wont be managing the wealth of your citizens to keep taxes high while not losing workers to retirement for instance. If they can go into the nitty gritty in a city simulator in real time without bogging you down, they can scratch the surface in a 4X without bogging you down too.
Second, Stardock is quite possibly the number one company on the planet for interface design. WinCustomize is the biggest site in desktop enhancements. They're top dog in the widget market.
To correct your statement. No one else has tried to put a relatlvely deep resource system into a 4X game, but Stardock can easily accomplish the task.
As far as a central warehouse goes. If it's not being transported somewhere, there isn't anything to raid. Either your warehouse is symbolic and irrelevant, or you still have to ship resources to the production source. In which case, you might as well ship them to a production source in the first place. The joy of abstractions, make something simple and break something cool.
For the massive flood of caravans concern. I really doubt this is a problem. The description says regular shipments. I expect they wont be shipping them out each and every turn. Getting them each and every turn wouldn't really be of any benefit either. You might be thinking you could use them each and every turn and that delay is harmful, but everyone is getting the same delay.
Pigeon, you're starting to scare me. Quick, find something disagreeable in my post.
This is why everyone that isn't a Blizzard fanboy wants to kill Blizzard fanboys. A generic, archaic game with polish and little else becomes the greatest RTS of all time. It is to strategy what McDonalds is to the hamburger. Market penetration with good advertising and not much else.
I suspect most Blizzard fans just haven't tried anything besides one of the equally safe and unimaginative games in the same vein.
I'll buy that for a dollar. Blizzard did zero innovation. There was really nothing breathtakingly different from Starcraft/Warcraft that had not already been well done in Command and Conquer or even Dune/Dune2000.
Blizzard definitely takes good ideas and polishes them and markets them. I really liked the Diablos. I even had fun with some of their other games, but no one could accuse them of originality.
Essentially at the beginning of the game things are a bit slow to get things distributed to where they need to be. NOT confusing, overwhelming but a bit of delay as production gets started and distribution happens. This seems completely reasonable to me as if you are rebuilding from a cataclysm, everything doesn't just go back to business as usual the next day. It's not unbalancing because everyone is dealing with the same "disadvantage" if you want to call it that.It actually makes it a bit more important to step in and get things delivered where you REALLY want them at first, but then the "merchant" economy kicks in handles things for you (still subject to your over-rides).I'm not dismissing your concern, but I disagree with it.
On reflection its not that I actually disagree with your idea, its just that the bar is too high. I would recommend that it actually be 10. That way, if you have multiple cities requiring something and one basic resource source; you won't get caravans carrying 1 or 2 ore a turn, but won't have to wait ages for it to arrive - when you need those swords to see off a sudden invasion.
Sure, I can see that. It would add complexity, but this could even be another slider bar - you could either set it empire wide for ALL resources, or set each individual harvest location. The main thing, I think would be to make it costlier/less efficient to be sending many small caravans as opposed to a few large ones.
At the beginning of the game, or when you capture your first resource, you could be asked for a default caravan size. Each additional resource that you captured could bring up an interface, the caravan size would be set to your default empire wide setting and you could easily tweak it for each location.
I know it's not well liked, it's not even my preferred option (1 and 3 are). But it is going to be easier to work with, and for aiming at the "not us" demographic, that matters. When you start having 30 cities and each city has a stockpile of 110 resources, and there's caravans moving all that around, trying to sort through it all could get daunting.
Wow. I probably should have used a less subjective description, like "most successful RTS of all time", because that is impossible to dispute. Marketing alone can't make a game stay on the bestseller list for years the way Starcraft did. It can't make it a big part of competitive gaming leagues for years, and it certainly can't turn it into the crazy obsession that it became in South Korea.
I'd be interested to see what you consider to be a real strategy game. If something like Starcraft doesn't qualify, we had better run out and tell Stardock marketing to change what they're calling Sins of a Solar Empire, which is really just a Warcraft 3 clone (albeit a good and fun one).
This is not directly related to the economy, but one thing that i don't wanna do is micromanage hordes of workers ala Civ IV(which is what seems to take the place of a decent economy in those games). What I would like to do is simply tell my serfs to build a particular building using a building selection screen and have them simply hop to it, rather than having to select any one individual serf.
I just want to say that if there are going to be close analogies to Civ IV workers in Elemental, then I agree with Szadowsz more than I've ever agreed with any idea ever.
Correct me if I'm wrong but... I don't think there's really been such a thing as a 'market economy' in any Medieval setting. Market economies have lots of requirements before they can be made to work, few of which could have been satisfied under the conditions of the day. Additionally, dictatorships don't tend to lend well to market economies. Another argument against a market economy is the setting of Elemental: it's a broken world that is only just starting to rebuild itself after a cataclysmic disaster. Market forces aren't going to control resource flow, the powers that be will. That said, it would be cool if we could transition from a command economy to a market economy if we so desired, but that's going too far. Asking Stardock to implement two totally different economy models, then allow us to transition from one to the other, and making them different enough without one being inherently better than the other would be way too tall an order
@ Denryu: I like your idea about caravans only setting out once they've accumulated a large enough load, so long as we are able to expedite things if we need to for extra cost (by extra cost, I mean per resource. Caravan costs should be uniform whether they're full or not). I'd also rather that it cost gold, rather than resources (for uniformity and intuitiveness). After all, a caravan filled with Flaming Swords of Doom shouldn't cost more to send out than a caravan filled with bean sprouts unless I decide to escort one and not the other (but that would be a separate cost) - and if the cost is taken as a percentage or flat # of resources, the Flaming Swords caravan will cost a LOT more than the beans.
It also allows for another potentially neat feature that has been hinted on before by someone else here (don't remember who and this thread is too long to find out). It could be cool if we could build trading hubs or central warehouses or something which would accomplish the following: caravans bring resources from their origin to a trading hub once they accumulate to a certain level, and then once any combination of resources in demand by a given city reaches a certain amount a caravan of mixed goods sets out for it. Example: I have a Trade Hub in Crossroads City. The Capital City can't support its high population by itself so it has to import food from more productive farmlands, and currently has a demand for 30 bushels of wheat. The Trade Hub has 40 bushels of wheat in stock, but that's not yet enough to fill a caravan so nothing happens. The next turn I order my blacksmith to make 20 swords, creating demand for 40 units of iron ore; the Trade Hub has 50 available. So now there are 30 units of wheat and 40 units of iron ore marked for Capital City, but still no caravan sets out. Two turns later, I put in an order for 30 bows, of which I have 100 stored in the Trade Hub. Now I have a total of 100 units of goods marked for Capital City, and a caravan containing 30 wheat, 40 iron ore and 30 bows sets off for Capital City.
There could also be a time limit (should be settable) after which a caravan should set out its destination even if it isn't full. One really good incentive for some mechanism like this is that there will be times when I'll want a relatively small number of resources in a city as a one-off thing; if I want 15 swords I don't want to have to pay for a mostly empty caravan but I also don't want 85 more swords than I am going to need anytime in the near future. With something like a Trade Hub, that problem is solved by being able to ship the swords along with other resources.
Another thing to consider (though this might be too complicated) is caravans servicing several cities. If I have two cities in more or less the same direction each with a demand for iron, a single caravan could set out with a full load and drop off half in each city. Now that I think about it, there are so many possible ways to handle caravans and it's kind of making my head spin - I can't decide which I prefer most... And then there's also the issue of how many resources can a full caravan hold. 100 units seems like a lot in that it might cause a lot of frustrating waiting, but it also doesn't seem like enough considering the aim is to field many armies of thousands of troops each. I guess that's something that'd have to be tweaked if it's pursued. I can see issues with the Trade Hub idea as well and it might actually make things less efficient...
I tried... I really did. The closest thing to disagreement I can get is that, while I agree with your stance on Starcraft, I do really like that game (but then, not really any more than other RTS's, as they tend to be the same). But I suspect that isn't disagreement and all, and probably just more agreement.
Why not? Do computer games somehow follow different rules than the rest of the world? McDonald's is one of the most successful food chains in the world, and yet it's hardly even food. Starbuck's makes relatively crappy coffee and yet there's between one and ten of them on every block in Manhattan. Starcraft is a good game, but it isn't really any different than any other decent RTS of its time. What made it stand out over the rest were its marketing and (for the time) a very functional multiplayer matchmaking component. And your statement about Korea's crazy obsession with it is irrelevant - Korea has, and has had, crazy obsessions with much stranger things than Starcraft.
Plan for Camp 1 with option to allow player to "turn on" AI, especially later in game. Pose this question again during beta testing and reevaluate. It should be easier to disable functions later than trying to add later.
Elements of #4 sound also interesting - points 4-6
@pigeon - I very much agree with everything you said - nice points! I like the gold cost of caravans as opposed to a percentage of what is being hauled.
I liked your trading hub/mixed goods caravan idea - wonder what SD thinks? Since it seems like we are leaning towards kind of a fixed cost per caravan, you could send your mixed goods caravan at any point (i.e. when it only had 70 total things, or even 10) but it would be much more cost effective to send as much stuff each trip as possible. Maybe rather than having a set size for a caravan, have the cost per unit vary based on the size of the caravan. That way you can determine where the best balance is.
For example only:
1 unit/1gold (this would be to ship the rare single artifact to a destination city!)
2-9 units .8 gold /unit
10-49 units .7 gold/unit
50-99 units .6 gold/unit
100+ units .5 gold/unit ....etc
The rates I just threw out there, SD could determine what the actual values should be, if there was a distance modifier, etc.
I like the concept of caravans servicing several cities, I also like the idea that they can pick up additional stuff on their way to the destination. This would require forming a trade route Go from Iron Mine A to Crystal mine Alpha, and then to destination - that COULD be too much complexity and not much fun.
That counts, the campaign was too boring to play through. Story, check. Cutscenes, check. Fun, che... Skirmish is slightly more entertaining, but it's such a godawful interface that I just couldn't make myself play it long enough to get good. There were so many better games when it was released, and they're too numerable to count now.
I've actually got it installed right now after my last attempt to get through it, I made it about halfway through the terran missions.
On to the on topic part before delving further into Starcraft.
A market economy... You can't actually play a market economy. It's the perfect economy, but it's something you watch, as opposed to something you do. If you're building the production, it ain't a market economy.
Adding cost to caravans. I actually like this idea, provided it's to caravans in general. There is a drawback though, if your caravans cost money, anal retentive optimization will be an advantage. If it's only applicable to certain caravans and not others, it will erroneously attribute added cost to various activities that will be hard to balance. Operating costs don't really add anything to a war game, they can't be captured and, unlike having the resources themselves, wont add anything but realism. As it will create irritation, it should probably be left out entirely.
I think caravans would be much better served by regular transport, instead of filling up. For instance, assuming daily turns, weekly shipments. A reasonable, fairly realistic time frame, farmers markets on the weekends for instance. 7 turn stockpiles would not be an arduous wait, and showing how much is there by increasing the wagons in a caravan from a large production point shipping greater amounts at a time would be a good indicator for raiding parties of their targets value. This would also make those key pipelines from refinery to barracks extremely important to protect, as a significant investment could be lost by failure to do so.
Why sort through it? If resources are only going to places that use them, which is what 3 will do without any changes at all, you're either using your infrastructure, or you aren't. If you're not using it, junk it or let the storage facilities cap out for emergency production at some later point. If you are using it, the resources are going to arrive anyway, so why bother keeping track of individual caravans? I don't see why I'd have to micromanage the position of the resources I'm going to use when the unit production system is already going to tell me how long it will take based on that and other factors. You do remember that from the earlier post on unit production right? This takes x turns to arrive, that takes y turns to arrive, etcetera etcetera, end result gets put out as z turns to unit completion.
You're making work for yourself that isn't likely to exist. They've thought of highly functional management systems already, you're not going to have to figure everything out manually. 1 would definitely be a little work, 3 should be as close to none as it gets without going back to everything costs gold and hanging it all.
To add to what my long lost clone said, or perhaps I'm the long lost clone depending on which of us is the old fart. The best is rarely the most popular. It's been shown repeatedly in blind taste tests on just about everything. Coffee, burgers, ice cream, soda... The list is basically endless, sheeple are fucking morons and really do buy shit because of advertising. Consider the premise of modern advertising, little to zero factual information on the product, massive inference of what it means to use it. When was the last time you saw a commercial that actually made sense?
Your implication that Sins is a clone of Warcraft 3 is... Lets just pretend you didn't say that.
A list of real strategy games, or, more accurately, better strategy games. It does have some after all, it's limited and more a battle against the interface than against the opponent, but it is still a strategy game. I'll stick to real time and limit myself to thirty seconds of thinking, since I'd be here for an hour remembering them all.
In no particular order: Kohan, The Settlers, Warlords Battlecry, TA, DoW, AoE, Rise of Legends... and I can't type fast enough to get anymore out.
Most of those are a series of games. All of them are worth your time significantly more than Starcraft is. Kohan in particular is a vastly more deep game than Starcraft could ever hope to be. The squad based combat and control zones alone set it on another level. I found Warlords Battlecry the most entertaining, but it does have crippling balance flaws that need to be played around. If you look into it, you should find the scope rather impressive. I recommend picking up the second, better balance, a little more stable. The hero system in Warcraft 3 was a joke by comparison. 12 unique sides alone was an impressive feat, but they had persistent rpg quality heroes with attributes, skills, race and class specific perks, and a massive spell system. TA, which predates Starcraft by over half a year, had actual physics. This allowed fast, weak units to actually be fast, weak units. Big and strong units had actual trouble hitting them, instead of getting magic damage modifiers where the marine survives the armor piercing warhead tipped anti tank shell after it cuts the poor bastard in half and leaves little smears of his incinerated flesh a quarter mile away. It was a real blast, still is.
Starcraft is down with Command and Conquer, fun but stupid. That's not to say it's of no value. The interface makes me want to kill people or I'd probably enjoy it as much as I have various iterations of the Westwood franchise. As far as a strategy game goes, it's simply simplistic. Using it as the standard by which other RTS games are measured is like using the McDonalds hamburger as the standard by which all other hamburgers are measured. Sure, they're popular, but even most of the people that like eating them will admit that a real charbroiled burger with lettuce, tomato and onions is ten times as good.
By the way, when I was stupid and hadn't played anything interesting, I thought Command and Conquer was the end all be all of strategy games. Of course, I was 12 or something, so it's understandable since it actually was when it first came out.
Sadly I dont have the time I need to make the post I want to respond to questions and provide some more feedback to the current discussion so this will be a quick post....
For what it is worth this thread has started to make the gaming news cycle - pretty cool methinks.
Additionally, several of the past posts were in bad form in my opinion, with a strong orientation towards flaming. Lets try to keep the thread on topic and leave that shit at the door please.
I did think of that as well, but I decided it might be too much and would probably result in people feeling like they need to make sure all their shipments are just right for ultimate efficiency. The problem with it is that it functions in steps, and thus (taking from your example) shipping 49 units is significantly cheaper per unit than 50 units. And in fact, shipping 49 units. I think it'd be better just to have a flat rate for caravans.
Yeah it's a neat idea, and maybe worth fiddling with, but right now I have no clear picture of how it would work. It's something that I think would be nice as long as the computer arranged it all; but I feel like the moment I have to step in and override it for any reason I'd just get a headache...
I liked your description, but i think it's too much to manage. One of the problems is that there are just too many screens and too much information. And that interface is not action-oriented. I mean, ok, you can see all that data, but so what? What you really need to know is what's wrong and how to fix it. With so many screens to look at, you'll find it hard to answer that question.
If we remove a per-city resource storage from the game, it will significantly reduce interface clatter - there will be just a handful of screens instead of dosens.
Actually, Saruman tricked Gandalf into coming to Isengard, then simply imprisoned him. There was no fight (even if Gandalf could have contested Saruman, he couldn't contest Saruman and a fortress full of orcs and other nasties). There was no fight, just deceit. And regarding Saruman's activities in the Shire, he did steal, connive and shroud his activities in secrecy - largely out of jealousy of Gandalf.
In a moive version there was a fight. However, it looked more like a fight of floor-polishers instead of wizards. Well, Hollywood sucks when it comes to magic battles, the only semi-decent one was in Dungeons and Dragons I when dragons attacked a wizard's tower.
In order to be able to raid convoys, there need to be convoys to raid. In an economic system that doesn't use convoys, there won't be any convoys, and thus there won't be any convoys to raid. I don't know how you can come to any other conclusion.And regarding your strange comment about things not working just because we want them to - no shit sherlock. They would work presumably because Stardock would make them work. An economic system with trade routes and resource distribution lays the groundwork for features and content that many of us are excited about, it wouldn't make those features pop out of the ground magically.
Nah. Even if game uses universal resource storage, it can calculate how many goods should be transferred along each route (based on supply and demand). When you're raiding some route, game may assume that you plundered that calculated number of resources. That way, there will be a convoy raiding but economic system will not use convoys so to transfer resources. I thought it was obvious what i wanted to say
I find it hard to argue with you because you don't understand even basic arguments. Your argument was that you need a complex economy for convoy raiding. I said it's not nessesary because it works fine in Starcraft with a very simple economy. What exactly is a convoy raiding? It's some way to deal meaningful economic damage with raiders. It doesn't matter if it's a simulation or an abstraction as long as it's efficient. So, you don't need a complex economy and complex simulations for a convoy raiding.
Specifically crafted abstractions can cause as many unintended consequences as a sophisticated 'simulation'. Every aspect of a game is in some way connected to every other, and thus if you cut out or abstract away part of a chain of events or a mechanism that would normally exist, those other aspects can see completely unexpected effects. You are nonetheless correct when you say that simulations can often lead to focuses on unexpected (and sometimes undesired) things, but if done well they also give players more freedom and provide many more places to hide strategic decisions. A pertinent example: universal storage vs. caravan distribution. Universal storage is binary - you have something or you don't, everywhere; there is no opportunity to intercept transport of goods and disrupt economies via harassment and specialization becomes much less relevant. However, it achieves its goal of providing a simple, care-free method of 'distributing' resources. A caravan distribution model, on the other hand, forces players to make strategic decisions about where they want their resources to go (danger, transport time, and use all factoring into this decision); it gives players the ability to fight unconventionally, against any opponent (but probably most helpful against big scary ones). A system like this would definitely require more tweaking than an abstracted one, but it provides a wealth of strategy and depth and atmosphere that is utterly lost in the abstraction.
A caravan emulation model will work just as good as a caravan distribution model, and it has all the advantages of a universal storage.
You're really good at not reading, and making a fool of yourself by laughing at people for things they never said. He said that in Settlers you control 28 resources with no automation and that it takes almost no effort or time. In Elemental, we would control a maximum of 110 resources (probably far less at any given time), and there would be heavy automation. #1 is only insane if you don't know how to read, considering the only difference between #1 and #3 is the method of automation, not the amount of it (though I agree that #3's method is superior, especially if it draws from some of the suggestions in this thread).
In Settlers, resources are transferred automatically. You claim there is no automation. Sorry, you lose, try again. And don't forget to RTFM.
And besides, as far as I know no one else as tried to implement an economy like the one we're suggesting, yet alone failed.
How do you know they didn't try? I say they tried and failed. It never was in a popular game because it's impossible to make a good interface for such case.
Bigger empires have smaller borders relative to their area. So technically it may be easier to protect a larger empire. And even if you split a larger empire in two halfs, who cares if each half is still stronger than you?
Making giant static spreadsheets with all the information for every town is the straightforward, unimaginative and terrible way of going about interface design for such a thing. In other words: complaining about how bad such an interface would be (and thus how the idea is not feasible) is a waste of time, because Stardock would never do such a thing; and thankfully they are much more experienced and innovative when it comes to interface design than you, me, or probably anyone else on these boards.
You can show shipping lanes for one resource or two, not for 110.And you still didn't say how it may possibly look, other than suggesting minor improvements to spreadsheets.
Actually, it was GW Swicord who used an example of Saruman vs Hobbits. I said that in context of Elemental it's more logical if it will be Saruman vs Gandalf. So, go complain to GW Swicord about an absurdity of his comparison. KK thx bye
It's not like he backstabbed Gandalf in the sleep or stolen his staff. I consider it a fair fight, but YMMV of course.
ROFLMAO
You seem to think that a role of Gandalf is to be a homeless bump. I think a role of Gandalf is to be a relatively equal opponent to Saruman and so obviously he should have his own empire in Elemental. That's what i said from the very start when i said it will be Saruman vs Gandalf in Elemental, not Saruman vs Hobbits. After that stupidity, you tell me that i don't get it. LOL
I think a game will be fine as an improved MoM. I don't want an economic system so bloated that it's more complex than the one in economic simulators. MoM is not Spore. And board warrior tricks like a straw man argument you just used don't work against me.
Well, let's say I want to make some kind of mounted unit (light cavalry or something), and I want to give them +2 spears. A border town is in trouble, and I want to make them there. The trouble is that it'll take 15 turns for my +2 spears to *get* there, because I just started making them a few turns ago and the automated resource distribution hasn't shipped them to my border town yet.
I've got another town closer to the spear production center that has gotten some shipped already, and is closer to the supply anyway. If I build the units there, it'll only take them 5 turns to run up to the border town after I build them (light cavalry is pretty fast compared to a caravan).
What I really want out of this situation is units at my border town ASAP. To find out what ASAP is, I have to look at different towns to figure out which one is closest to my border town that already has a supply of +2 spears.
I suppose if Caravans are the fastest thing on the map, the problem doesn't exist (supplies can get there faster then any unit made elsewhere).
Camp 1: Sounds both simple and fun.
Honestly, given Stardock's fantastic use of UI - any 'complex' resource management would likely be a breeze. That, and the simplicity of Camp 2 sickens me.
I am assuming you meant it is cheaper to ship 50 units than 49, not the other way 'round. And you are right, and I noted that, but you almost always have a overlap like that when you have prices decrease with quantity. And there's really nothing inherently wrong with that, it just rewards you for making shipments 50 rather than 49.
Example for which your argument? Do you have a delusions or something? You said that deep ecomomic system is better because it allows disruption of production. I said it works fine in Starcraft without a deep economic system. So, that counters your argument. Implementation specifics, be it convoy raiding, or worker raiding, doesn't really matter as long as economy disruption is effective.
And don't make a fool of yourself by saying that there is nothing to protect in Starcraft. You should protect your workers from raids.
Well, that's how things are being done. You want a feature like caravan raiding, you decide how it should work and how it fits the gameplay. Then you implement it. Instead of that, you want to add another, much bigger feature in hopes that caravan raiding part of that bigger feature will magically fit itself in the game and it will be fun and playable.
Hmm, we're talking about a different things when we're talking about abstraction. Anyway, instead of a simulation that puts a cap on units, Rise of Legends and Dawn of War just set a hardcoded limit. That's exactly what i want - instead of a simulation of caravans just "hardcode" that they do exist when we need it for pillaging.
...
You can't balance raw minerals. They worth nothing by themselves, they worth only as much as potential reprocessed goods do worth.
If it was me back then saying The Settlers were easy, you'd have something to argue. The crippled out of practice me is just more evidence that a complex resource system doesn't have to be a lot of work. If I can use it, anyone can.
Settlers is very slow. And you have nothing else to do there anyway, almost everything is automated.
Starcraft had the best multiplayer by far. Many will say that it still has the best multiplayer (especially if you'll ask in South Korea).
Starcraft is down with Command and Conquer, fun but stupid.
As far as a strategy game goes, it's simply simplistic.
ROFLMAO. That was a nice one. It's so stupid that there are university courses about Starcraft. AFAIK it's the 2nd one in USA. As a bonus, in the 14th week a student explains that even Zergling Rush is not as stupid as noobs think. However, i prefer a lecture about deception in the 11th week.
http://www.berkeleystarcraft.com/
http://www.sirlin.net/blog/category/starcraft-class
Progamers in South Korea spend all their work time playing Starcraft for years and yet they say they're still far from perfecting their play. Yes, this game is very simple
Humping Blizzard's leg does not really bring much to this discussion <IMHO>.
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