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.
Haven't read the whole thread yet, but wanted to throw my vote behind Camp #1. When I want "Simple and Fun" I'll play a shooter or action RTS game. When I play TBS, I want sophistication and depth to my decision making.
I like camp #1.
Since Elemental is a 4X game, you need to keep a strong management side. Yes camp #2 is simple and fun, but after 10h it's also boring.
Please keep that. I really enjoy this kind of things in Settlers, Anno or Caesar. It give more "reality" to the system, it's not just some data with +10, +5 in dozen of crappy table.
Bust most of all, don't do it like Civilization. For me it's not fun, it's not simple, and it's an old system. And I already played it, like many other people who have played turn based games.
This is assuming you will actually be using all resources to make all weapon types. Personally, I'd be unlikely to be producing simultaniously: Longwordsmen, Shortswordsmen, Axemen, Greataxemen, Spearmen, Pikemen, Halbadiers and Foot Knights. (for just the infantry) I'd more likely be using Spearmen, (for basic garrisons) Axemen with Shields (for front line garrisons) and Foot Knights (for crack assault troops) at most. You'd have 110xManufacturing options, but most people would largely standardise their resource use. Heck, I'd probably go for Swordsmen/Heavy Swordsmen/Foot Knights, with my economy centralised around iron production and sword making (with armour for the better units). Sombody else would perhaps prefer a Spearmen/Pikemen/Halbadier army. But we'd both have the option of building, say, an axe army instead if we wanted to. And yes, you'd go insane if you wanted to make optimal use of every single recourse available, but that's your choice. And there is a reason why modern (and not so modern) armies use standardised equipment. Using all the possible option in the real world would drive real world logistics managers insane too
If your empire is big enough you might get specialised regions (places with loots of wood and little metal have spearmen garrisons instead of swordsmen, for instance), but that would be the extent of the swirling complexity of diversified resource usage. And have specific regions having unique army composition would be kind of cool. Provincial troops in your empire and all that.
My vote is for Camp 1. Although it would be nice to have an option for Camp 2 also. I could see players wanting to select an easier resource option at times. If I want to play a quick game, I wouldn't mind switching to the "easier" system.
If thats not an option, I vote for 1. Sounds fun to me.
I'm for camp 1, I don't see how people keep claiming that it doesn't add strategic value... it certainly does. On the other hand, I have confidence that SD can create a sufficient AI/UI to make these things smoother as they will need to be to handle 110 resources. It's a 4x game, it needs to be complex.
well 20 seems a bit low even if much depends on other things you have to do in game
btw i loved galcivII but i would try and lower a bit the number of combinations
im still in love with camp #1 maybe with some less combination of gear
totally agree civ has been the best game ever but now im done
its not fun and not strategic to have 1 iron ore into the capital and produce 231232131 musketeers in 25 towns
I still think you've overplaying the complexity of Camp 1. It's not like you're going to be doing all the resource management every single turn. You're gaining these resources as you go along, you create the caravans, and then it's automatic.
And, here's the kicker - once you have a chain going, you only care about the *final* resource, not anything in between. Let's say you developed some super-long chain that uses 50 resources along the way to create some super powerful sword, and this sword then gets equipped on your units. You absolutely don't care about the 50 intermediate resources used to make that super powerful sword. You've spent the entire current game setting up that chain little by little as you're finding those resources. The only thing you care about is where that sword goes. If you need it in another town, all you have to do is re-route the final product.
You know what I would recommend? Taking a page out of the X3 games. Let me explain.
In X3, you can build single factories and then you can create "complexes" for them. Let's take an easy self-sufficient complex that produces a weapon. All weapon factories need ore, energy cells, and food. Ore mines need energy cells. Power plants need crystals, crystal factories need energy cells and silicon wafers, and silicon mines need energy cells. Food plants need energy cells. So you can set up your complex with an ore mine, a silicon mine, some crystal fabs, a solar power plant, some food plants, and finally your weapons forge. There are are base resources that make the whole thing run (though in this case after the initial infusion the complex is entirely self-sufficient), there are intermediate resources/products (the crystal fabs produce the crystal that the solar plants need so the crystal is both a product and resource), and there's the final product which is your weapon. Then you have a basic setting that reads: "Allow trading of intermediates: Buy/Sell/Buy&sell". So if you want to, you can sell your intermediate products (let's say you you have an XL power plant that produces way more energy cells than you need, you can sell extras), or you can buy extra resources (maybe your crystal fab isn't producing quite enough to feed the XL power plant and you want more). You assign trading ships to your complex and then you set their AI on repeated trade runs to buy or sell whatever you want depending on how you set it.
This is complex and strategic, but it's not overly complicated. Why couldn't the same thing be done with Elemental? In X3 you can put your whole complex in one sector in space of course, and in Elemental it would have to go through several towns, but why not put in a UI window to set up your production routes that's tied in with the item creator? Say you want to create a new sword. You have a bunch of resources on the map. You open the creation window, select "sword". It has 2 tabs: basic and magic. Basic is for making the actual item, and magic is for enchanting or what not. You have to finalize the basic product before enchanting opens up. Basic shows you your owned ore mines and the nearest towns that can work with it. You select the town to ship it to (or close the window and build a smithy in a nearer one). Now it shows you that you're producing a basic sword. Maybe you have some second resource that can be applied to that basic sword to make a better one. You can select it and now you're producing both the basic and the advanced sword. The basic becomes an intermediate product, and the advanced is the final product. You have a checkbox that allows you to trade in intermediate items (let's say if you want to make more swords based on it) or not if you want the whole production line to be focused on the final. Then you have your Magic window that uses your product (which can either be the basic or the advanced sword based on how you set it up) that works similarly only with different resources.
And here's the kicker: Once you are making a product, like the basic sword, you don't need to worry about how it's made anymore. If you need another weapon that uses it, you just select it as the base, you don't need to re-create the production line that leads to it because it already exists, you're already producing it. Instead of assigning resources to cities, just assign resources to the production lines and let the AI calculate the caravans. Like if you have one mine supplying the ore for your advanced sword production but you want to make more, all you have to do is set a second mine to supply that production line, and the AI will check which city processes the ore and forges the basic sword and route the supply caravan there.
Then you can mold this production line however you wish. You could see all your intermediate products and branch off it. So if you have some item that takes 20 steps to make and you want to use it as a starting resource for 3 more advanced items, you don't need to re-create the entire 20 step supply line, you just right click the item, set it to "allow intermediate supply", set the percentage to 25% for each of the 3 branches (so 25% goes to the original production, and 25% each to the 3 new items) and you're set.
This is great depth, but it's not hair ripping out complexity
Why not have a background economy, sort of like what Thanaeon was saying? The end-user gets the depth of camp 1 and some of the simplicity of camp 2. You build blacksmiths in your population-heavy capital, you have an outlying city that mines iron . . . and then you have a limited access to steel in your capital. Factors like distance, populations of cities, etc could come into play in how much steel you have, and you could have trade lines (maybe in an overlay view) that your enemies could place troops on to disrupt. That way you aren't constantly re-attacking caravans all the time whenever they pop up. Then you have complexity of economy without burdening the player too much. You'd hide it so that lazy people like me can just build a city near iron, build a blacksmith where I want to make knights, and then not worry about it anymore. (Unless I need more steel, then I need more iron or blacksmiths or whatever.) . I don't like this idea of having perfect information. I'm playing a mage-lord in a pre-modern fantasy world. Why do I have access to so much ultra-precise logistical information? As a gameplay function, it would be nice just to know how long it takes to make something and maybe what is scarce and slowing things down. Information overload makes my head rattle.
I guess the biggest problem with that is setting it up and also what kind of computational cost you are looking at with a complex model humming in the background on a gigantic map with 110 resources and a ton of cities. You'd be calculating a lot of resources from a lot of cities and a lot of distances, a lot of times. Balancing would depend on a few constants, like the effects of population, distance and whatnot on production, but still wouldn't be a thrilling task.
If I *had* to choose between these two, despite my love of economics and me being a math guy, I would always choose camp 2. I've preordered and I'm already going to buy it regardless, but I would really not like managing every resource unless it is completely abstracted. Rather just have my iron town and my horse town and my really great iron-and-horse town.
I like resources management to be as simple yet vital as possible, put the meat and potatoes in the units, abilities, battle system and spells instead. Make THAT sophisticated. If people wanna play economy games they could already play civilization and those kind of games.
Well, there's a disagreement on what "fun" is. To me, system 2 isn't fun. It's even worse then the "one iron mine somehow feeds a transcontinential empire" method that Civ 4 uses. The idea that only one town can make use of a resource is not something I'm a fan of, it'll lead to having one town with 15 resources pointing at it and 20 towns with nothing.
Most of the issues with #1 are really UI issues. There's no reason why I should have to dictate where Iron is going. I don't care where Iron is going, really. I care that I want town X making swords. So if I tell town X to make swords, the game should be able to figure out where I'm capable of getting the necessay materials from, and prompting me with the options (or just setting it up if there is only one option). If I want two towns making swords from the same iron resource, once the stockpiled iron runs out I may run into supply issues unless I can upgrade the mining effort, but that's on me. Maybe I only want to do it until the stockpile runs out, because I need a sudden rush in sword production. You can't do that in the simple one town-one resource model.
What's actually happening is that the Iron mine is mining iron, which is going to the nearest town and being stockpiled. That town is then using caravans to send it to wherever I want to make swords. The caravans are a great idea because they require me to protect them, so there is a risk in trying to manufacture swords in far flung places, but there's potential reward too (getting the items created where they're needed most if I can protect the caravans).
As long as the UI is focused on the goal (I want to make swords), and not on the supply-side (I want to hook iron up to this town before I get the option to make swords), it shouldn't be a big deal to manage.
What I would suggest in a situation like this is to look at the intended core game play and ask yourself the question: Which economic system supports the core of the game play in the best way?
Now, I can’t say what is written in your game play design documents, or what kind of discussions you’ve had on this matter, but I would say that it boils down to this: is the core game play that you want to make closer to 1) a fantasy empire simulation with some elements of a strategy game, or 2) a fantasy strategy game with some elements of empire simulation?
I guess that I have always seen the core game play of Elemental being focused on strategy choices as in GalCivII. If that is the case, then the detailed economy system is most likely going to detract from the core game play of making fun strategy choices. That is not to say that the detailed economy system is a bad design in an absolute sense. It could probably be implemented into a really fun fantasy empire sim game. But is that what you envision with Elemental?
The problem isn't that you'll do all of them, its that you'll be doing some of them quite a bit. Say the game lasts 300 turns. You start with 9 resources and end up with 100+ at the game end, so for simplicity you gain 100 new resources over the game. That's 1 every 3 turns on average.
So, on turn 202 you create Sword +3. You go into your sliders for several cities and set up Sword +3 resource management and also need to fiddle with Sword +2 so it stops shipping them around (presumably shipping isn't free and you don't care about them, or you want them funneled to low priority defenders now.
Turn 204 you get Helmets +2 and have to do the same thing. Then again on turn 206 with Boots +4, etc, etc. The idea of going through a half dozen cities every 3 turns to adjust resource sliders just doesn't sound like much fun. I don't want Civ4's overly simplified resources, which is what Camp 2 sounds like, but I'd like to stay away from Camp 1.
Simple and Fun sounds good to me, and not just because of its name. I prefer to spend my strategic and tactical thinking on managing the military. Realism takes a back seat to fun in my book!
Another larger point to consider- what's the lure of having caravans at all? From my understanding:
*They allow resources to be attacked/captured
*It could add a visual element to identify why/how resources take so long to transfer from one location to another
Anything else I'm missing here?
It seems like the caravans, while adding the benefits above, also introduce a LOT of additional complexity that could be added behind the scenes.
Here are the scenarios that frighten me with Camp #1:
*I want to build a stellar unit. In order to do this, I'm going to have to first produce tons of stellar stuff. In order to do this, I'm going to have to find all the various places raw materials are produced, decide which places are best suited for that production, and then tell them to get to work. After figuring all of this stuff out, I'm then going to have to figure out how to get all that amazing stuff to the location where my unit is being created. But how do I decide on that location where I want to build my unit until that stuff arrives? Is the creation of that stuff a pre-requisite before I can even create that unit? If I have to wait until all of this stuff is manufactured, I may forget where I created everything, where it's housed, etc. And even if I can create my stellar unit while I'm manufacturing the goods to equip it, I still need to pick a location where I will create the unit. How do I determine the timing on all of this? And estimate the costs? This makes my head hurt....
*I want to build boats. I have 10 cities with harbors. Before I can build a boat, I'll need wood. Some cities have wood nearby and some don't. I'll also need cloth (for the sails), and iron, too (for nails, hinges, etc.). So, if I want to simply make a freaking boat, I'm going to have to see all of the possible locations that can build one, figure out the time it takes each location to generate that boat, and then also manually route each resource to that location. I imagine in some cases there would be some cities that can produce the boat quickly but at a higher cost, whereas others can produce it more cheaply but slowly. And what about capactiy? Can I have 1 city with 1,000 boats? How do I take all of these variables (resources, manufactured goods, and production facilities) into play in a convenient fashion. I'm really afraid that if I just want a freaking boat, I'm going to have to spend 10 minutes analyzing the "best" choice before one can be created. And if I don't, you can rest assured the AI will (it has the time and patience to do so), so failing to do this manual task puts me at a disadvantage with the AI
Moving around resources manually sounds really, really tiresome and a job in which the AI would be much better qualified and suited to do. Having caravans either generated automatically or gone from the game may alleviate some of the concerns I've voiced above.
I think this is what it all comes down to...
Personally, I like the sound of Camp 1, I think it's interesting, but it might be a bit too complex. Camp 2 sounds a lot easier and also more boring.
I'm a programmer myself, so I know how it feels to spend a lot of time on a piece of software and then have to say 'Nope, this isn't going to work, we'll have to start over'. I'd suggest making something between Camp 1 and Camp 2, but in such a way that it will be easy to change / expand in both directions by you (during beta) or after launch (by modders).
In the end I guess the only way to be sure what would be the ideal option is to make them both and let us try them in beta, but I guess that might be too costly.
For now, my vote goes with Camp 1.
As long as we have complete control on where we choose to build all of the cities, Camp 1 makes complete sense and looks like a lot of fun. My only suggestion is to have a Check Box option on the towns recieving resources allowing you to toggle which resources you want to handle automatically. One Toggle Per Resources.
Simple and Fun doesn't look like much fun to me, because it reminds me of how many planets in GalGiv 2 had better resources. They became juicy little targets for me to depend on even if they were in a remote location far away from the front lines. This annoyed me, and Simple and Fun looks to be more of that crap.
At first glance, Kyro's model seems to be a good compromise. There are two issues I see with some of the complex models suggested:
1) The potential for tedious micromangement as the game develops.
2) The ability for an opponent AI or player's governer to deal effectively with the complexity. I see no value in having a very intricate economic system in the single player game if an effective AI can't be developed to manage it. A question I have for the programmers is - what kind of economic models could be intelligently managed by the AI, without making that the major focus of the game's AI development.
I like the idea of siting cities and villages with the local resources in mind. Not that you can't process iron ore far from the source, if you've built the appropriate structure in the town, but you pay a penalty for not having easy access to a local resource.
That sounds really similiar to the system the Settlers-games are using:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers#Economic_aspects
Hm, it seems like the classic Totalitarian resource management scheme is a bit worn out, in my opinion. Rather than being the end all be all dictator that is able to meticulous guide commerce and raise soldiers wherever you'd like, why not employ a more indirect approach?
I've been batting around the idea of a vassalage system in which you don't have direct control over how towns or cities are governed, but instead they grow organically depending on their strategic location relative to other cities and resources. Basically, cities would grow on their own, ship resources to other allied cities based on supply and demand, and generally manage themselves. All of the resources, like iron, swords, crystals, etc. will go wherever your empire merchants want to make a buck and wherever the opportunity lies. What's more, cities would spring up wherever the opportunity happens to be: a new resources or verdent farm or ranchland that has recently been freed of danger. Cities can have various scores on how magical, armed, or wealthy they've become, as well as how many soldiers they can field in time of war or militia when the city is under attack.
Most of the game, you would not have a massive, permanent standing army. Each city will have a pool of available citizens who may arm themselves in the event that the city is attacked or war breaks out. When it appears you will be going to war or war is declared upon you, you issue a call to arms and citizens arm themselves for war with whatever is available in the Empire's cities. If you have captured a lot of military resources like iron or horses, you will see numerous horsemen and well armed swordsmen raising to fight for you. If there are numerous fighter's guilds, they will be better trained. If you have captured a lot of magical resources and subsidized mage guilds or alchemist guilds, a greater number of warmages and clerics will come to your service. Smaller frontier towns with little wealth would raise less soldier, poorly equipped soldiers. Your larger, wealthier cities will more than likely raise stronger, better equipped soldiers. You could technically issue a call to arms whenever you'd like (for instance, if you want to be the aggresser in a war) but whenever you issue a call to arms, it would produce a steep decline in the productivity of your empire. There could even be varying degrees of Calls. For instance, a casual call to arms to storm a menacing dragon's lair would bring your better armed retainers and professional soldiers to the field for you to command. A desperate call to repel an arch rival empire from invading your lands would bring your vassals, as well as pitchfork armed peasants, to your service (which would create even more severe productivity deficiencies while they are away at war and, in the event your army is defeated, severely depopulate your empire.) Any soldiers raised in this way are automatically equipped with whatever accessories or weapons are available. Once a war is over or a large threat defeated, your soldiers would return to their families and bring productivity back to former levels. The longer your citizens are called to arms, the more penalties accumulate, especially if you've called your peasants to fight for you.
Now, I bet you are wondering, "So what is the player supposed to do??"
Well, the player acts as the sovereign that encourages growth or subsidizes certain activity as well as acts as general and adventurer. For instance, let's say you kill a roving pack of hellhounds near some oppulent farmland and a crystal mine. Over time, settlers will begin to arrive on their own accord from a neighboring Metropolis to colonize the region to exploit it's riches, but in your opinion, it just isn't happening quickly enough. So you can inject tax money into the new town--- perhaps subsidize a merchant's guild or farmer's guild--- to get the growth going more quickly (the subsidy would be cheaper if there is an abundance of building materials in your empire). Normally, the town would have eventually founded the guilds on their own, but at a much, much slower rate. So the hamlet quickly grows into a town now that there is infrastructure--- but wait--- a feared orcish tribe lives nearby, and raids are likely possible once the settlement grows ever larger. So you could invest tax money into the town watch, allowing them to purchase swords and armor from the rest of your empire to arm themselves or import them from a neighboring friendly empire. You could even spend tax money to encourage the growth of a frontier fort town where none would spring up on their own, if you wanted to gain a foothold in a wild land.
In larger cities, you could invest in fighter's guilds to have better trained soldiers in times of war or alchemist guilds or mage guilds to encourage a more magical society. You could invest too in higher level infrastructure projects to improve population growth, commerce, or attract immigrants from neighboring empires to your own. And of course, you could invest in your own personal assets (your mage tower, magical artifacts, and your own personal retinue, which I will mention next.) The whole while, merchants and their guards travel in caravans from city to city, transporting whatever the market demand in a given town calls for.
Now, while the main bulk of your army would not be constantly available, your soveriegn can have a personal retinue or professional standing army that you can raise with tax money and equip in a customizable fashion. If there are numerous swords, armor, magic, and well trained soldiers in your empire it's much cheaper to arm a capable force. Perhaps if you have high loyalty, they require less maintanance from your treasury. This standing army, albiet much smaller than a wartime army, can be used to plunge ancient ruins, tame wild beats, reinforce frontier forts or towns that are underarmed, or supplement your wartime army during a call to arms.
Basically, this new system covers both elements of system 1 and 2, mentioned in the original post. If you wanted to, you could simply invest your treasury heavily in your own personal retinue and magical assets and plunge dungeons and go to war and your cities would grow on their own accord (and would react and prosper as the riches an knowledge of your exlpoits reach your empire's markets!) If you wanted to play an active hand in encouraging growth in your empire, however, you could spend time investing capital to encourage economic development tailored in the ways that are in accordance with your vision (for instance, investing in ranchland that will generate wealth in the town of its origin as well as introduce more horses to your empire.) What's best about this system is that, when your empire swells to a great size, you won't have to worry about subsidizing elementary farmer's markets in frontier villages if you don't want to (although the option is still there for those that enjoy micro managing). One of the greatest pitfalls of Master of Magic, and other games of its kind, is how unwieldy late game play became. You end up spending more time in city managers than you do on the world map or commanding soldiers.
What's more, this system should be much easier on an AI opponent. The AI won't need to chart a complex commercial structure as to where to ship goods, in what order, and to what cities. Even if they behave relatively irrationally, it won't be game breaking because their cities will be growing organically in the same fashion that the player's is.
But most importantly, this new system would give the player a feeling that the world is an autonomous, growing, and changing entity in its own right. Rather than being something that you create entirely on your own, it will be a living, breathing organism that adjusts and adapts to the stimulus that you provide it.
Lemme know if I'm crazy
Well, BoogieBac said in an earlier post that they want it to be fun and exciting to play the "peaceful magician". It seems to me that playing with the economy is part of that.
I hate to say this, but several of the above posters are right- Elemental can't do everything. Our computers can't handle it.
My real concern is how the AI handles it- cause ultimately, most of us will be playing this single player vs the AI, and if the AI is gimped due to this, the game won't be much fun no matter how good the mechanics are. You guys do a bang-up job with AI in general, but even you guys can't do everything here (your resources are limited).
I think vectored resources might be best. So I'd vote for an option 3.
I'm also going to throw this out there as well: this is a fantasy game, so some abstractions can be handled in the name of magic potentially.
Really, the system you're trying to do right now reminds me of a Paradox game called Victoria- which didn't do that well- due to excess micromanagement.
Well, I don't play games like Galactic Civ, MOM, Etc to get to the exciting end game cut scene. The fun for me is in the game itself. Sure, its a total hoot being able to place my score into the metaverse, but I'm not playing 40 hours of Gal Civ in a huge galaxy so I can whip through it fast.
I like the idea of "Sophisticated" with an ai will manage it choice. I liked it when the planetary govenors showed up on gal civ, I could use them or not. Maybe Lords of towns? I could choose what lord I wanted to put where and he would run the town unless I gave him specific instructions. They could have distinct personalities ala Jagged Aliance, or even cooler would be I can get the lords to run towns after I have a knight I can promote to do it.
But yeah, give me control over those little suckers.
I'm sorry but option 1 gives me a headache just reading about it.
I remember Master of Magic being a great game without a needlessly complicated economy. The fun stuff is using the magic and micromanaging combat with cool units in it. I'd much rather focus on exploration, spellcasting and combat instead of an endless maze of shipping and production lanes.
Option 2 has all the strategic elements that are needed. I just don't see any benefit of shipping stuff all over the map instead of focusing my resources on key locations that can produce the final product.
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