This next week we’ve got a ton of things to do. Most of what we’re working on doesn’t show up in the game.
In no particular order, here are some things on the high priority list:
1. Gotta expose the AI to Python. Need that so that I can start doing serious surgery on the AI without constantly having to recompile and re-run the game.
2. Nail down what resources we want to have in the game.
I keep thinking that it’s better to have more resources than fewer. I’d love to hear how others feel about this.
I also am of the opinion that controlling a resource shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for building something but rather controlling the resource acts as a bonus.
For example, if I research metal weapons then I should be able to build metal weapons. metal deposits will be displayed on the map which can be controlled but those should act as a very large bonus.
I.e. every city produces say 0.1 metal per turn no matter what. If you control a metal resource then that amount goes to 1. If you control 2 then it goes up to 2. And the city that actually has the resource gets another bonus.
This is scheduled for the next beta.
But what we haven’t decided is how many resources should be in the game.
I was thinking there could be resources that give bonuses to research, prestige, along with resources that let you add equipment to your soldiers that give them more hitpoints or increase the speed of their attacks or increase their healing rate or how fast they level up and so on and so on.
Obviously, the more you add, the more micro-management you potentially expose yourself to.
For instance, let’s say we have a “twilight honey” which is a resource that is displayed on the map when you research it. It is a type of equipment that increases a soldier’s HP by 10%. Now, if you have the resource, equipping it adds no time to the time it takes to produce the soldier. But if you don’t have the resource and have a design that uses it, then it would add say 3 more turns.
So you can see some of the problems that this could introduce if it’s implemented that way.
With enough UI work, you could also have an option to make it so that a given piece of equipment can be picked as “required” versus “optional”. That is, if it’s optional and you don’t have the resource, it won’t use it when constructing the unit.
There are many different ways to address the issue but each one has its own pros and cons.
How would you guys like to see this sort of thing done?
Personally I would like to see as many diff. resource types, as possible. Diversity = fun in my book.
I think if you don't have the resource, you should severely be limited in building the unit of choice that requires that resource. Sure you can scavenge a bit of it, but if you had a deposit of that resource it would be in abundance.
I like alot of different types of resources. It makes trading and such much more pleasant. I'm also on the bandwagon that cities farther from the resource do not benefit from it as much as a city right next to it. Maybe there are some techs that allow for more efficient trading within your empire that reduce these restrictions on far away cities.
So essentially I'm essentially agreeing with what you have written.
Diversity is definitely the way to go with resources. More resources will encourage trading and warmongering to get the resources you don't have (as long as said resources are actually useful). I loved Civilization 4 but one of the things that really bothered me about the game was that:
1. Trading resources was near useless for the majority of the resources that existed in the game. Since for most of them they were really only useful if a city was working the tile they were on.
2. Having more than 1 of a resource did nothing other than providing extra production to the city that worked that tile (if no city was working that tile then that resources was utterly useless, you could trade it but see # 1).
3. It was far too easy to get all the useful resources.
Natural resources should be the catalyst for wars, diplomatic alliances, and trade deals. Having a large diversity of useful resources will help acheive those goals.
Also I like the idea of having optional resources in unit plans so you can still build them without that resource but then as soon as you get it all future units of that type will automatically be stronger because of it without any boring micro-management on your part.
In my personal opinion, the resources should be similar to the way they were in Civ 4. With some obvious differences, of course.
1. Many of the resources should be required for the units/eqipment/buildings they offer. One needs iron to produce steel equipment and such.
2. Some resources should be optional. They just make things easier. If you dont have access to stone, building some buildings could take MUCH longer. Maybe 25% longer.
3. Sevral resources should be just pure bonus related. High-Quality Timber to make building 10% quicker or something.
Some of the resources could be used in lieu of another, but they have to be related. There could be 20 Iron Ore locations on a map, but maybe only 4 High Quality Iron or what not.
4. All resources should be tradable and worth something to the AI. That way the person with an exess of Iron and to Timber has a good reason for maintaining good relations to GET those resources. Or a good reason for conquest. Contested resources make good for conflict and add meaning to wars.
So I think a combo of both required and optional resources would be best and they should all be tradable. In a nutshell. ^^.
I think there should be a monetary cost for using resources you don't have direct access to, which should be related to how many other civs have the resource and good trading relations to you. For example, if one civ embargoes you but many others have it to trade, the cost will only increase a little. If there's no other civs willing to trade with you, the cost should be nearly prohibitive. The monetary cost should be in addition to the extra time.
Brad, sounds good. Even if you do go with fewer resources please make sure (if feasible) that the moddability envelope will allow more resource diversity.
On the issue of "no resource = 0.1/city production" vs "no resource = "0.0 production", I have to give the worst answer possible from the programmer's perspective: it'd be great to have some resources the first way, and some resources the second way. For example, "iron ore" and "wood" should be available in some quantities to anyone, but if you want "adamantine" you simply _must_ have an adamantine deposit in your control somewhere. You may be able to avoid implementing two different systems to accomodate this by making the "X" in "every city produces X of this resource once it is revealed by tech" defined by an element under the ResourceType node for that resource type in the CoreResources.xml or whatever. Then admantine could just have "0" for that value and we'd be good to go.
Anyway, thanks for the update
I like that idea. It will let you construct thing you researched for.
Why not adding a "availability" value to each resources ? adamantin would get a 0 (you don't have a mine? you've none) and wood a 0.5 (or even higher if there's woods newt to your city). The availability could depend on the resources next to your cities (you get higer chance of finding faery dust if you're next to shard)
Moreover you don't need 31432451345 resources to create as much effects. think about Morrowind and the way you could create potions. Each resources had some effects attached to it. If you melt two resources with the same effect you get that effect. There were negative effects in morrowind and it was really interesting to find "good" resources that didn't have bad effects.
I would love such a system in elemental.
Or something else : you have 4 resources, sheets of fire, earth, wind, water. If you put 4 sheets of earth and 1 sheet of life you get a twilight honey. Adding 4 sheets of water, 2 sheets of wind and one of fire, you get an oil you can apply to a sword that will let it cut through hard armors. With only 4 resources you can create a lot of effects.
There need to be lots of resources to avoid empires that would get all of them (thus creating no need to trade).
The more the merrier. You only get problems like really slow unit production due to missing resources if you allow the .1 scavenging thing to happen. Pros and cons. I'd say throw it in and we'll playtest it. I would probably prefer no resource = no unit of that type but I see pros and cons each way.
I like resource scarcity having an effect on play. This was badly implemented in CIV3 because critical unit types depended on them (with no alternatives initially) and the player had only one recourse - seizing the resource square by force.
Don't forget, commerce raiding should yield whatever resources are being shipped in the caravan - another reason for players to pursue small conflicts rather than city-taking, more variety of play, all pluses. It also gives resource starved players a means to lay hands on the goods without a massive war to take a well-defended resource square.
What about theft or smuggling as possibilities too, rather than open warfare or attacking caravans? Also, how about privateer forces - you commission and control them but they act like bandits in your non-enemy's territory. So I can raid people's commerce without going to war on them. Risk of a big diplomacy hit and reputation hit if the 'bandit' leaders are caught, tortured and talk...
The norm is that your civilization develops techonologies for resources they don't have and that once developed, you can see those resources to exploit them. It's an abstraction, obviously, as it just means that the civilization gets access to some cuantity of that resource to investigate it and only once the investigation is complete, the resource per se is considered something that can be exploited by the civilization.
Honestly, I'd prefer that you can see the resources from the beginning and only can research things of resources that are close to you (appart from trading). If you don't have access to iron and no one to trade for it, you tell me how you develop Iron Dirk. Maybe Stone Dirk. Or Obsidian Dirk. Even a Bone Dirk? But Iron Dirk? But I understand that for balance issues is a no go. (unless you can only see the ores when your area of influence takes them? Unless you research/trade the proper tech, then you discover all of the researched/traded type on the map) But I'd still prefer something like that if that was ever possible.
On topic:
Number of resources? As long as it's playable with a "few basic" ones, then you can add as many extras as you consider it balanced, fun and good. If I can win just using some "common" resources, extras should be okay as they would mean just extra options. Be them extra materials for weapons/armours, or food sources or...
About building something that requires a resource that you don't have... Why? If you don't have access to iron, you find a way to obtain it (war with someone who controls some, trade it, steal it...) or be ready to fall behind in the armamentistic race. Want to build a stone temple to FrogGod and only access to wood? Well, pray that FrogGod likes a wooden temple. So you haven't met any other civilization yet and have never seen a horse (or cows, or any other animal of such style... maybe with luck you found some wolves) in your whole life and pretend to build some stables? Like... no, you can't?
I really like this idea. I want to avoid the Civ4 system for strategic resources: you just researched unit X but you need resource Y to build it, if there happens to be no Y in your kingdom, you're completely screwed. Your system makes more sense - even if there are, for example, no mithril deposits in Gondor, there are still -some- mithril weapons floating around that originated in a Dwarven mine somewhere. Therefore any city should be able to scrounge up a little of any resource (gained by trade/plunder/etc), but obviously having that resource naturally occuring in your kingdom should provide a huge bonus.
As far as number of resources, the more the better, I think. Instead of - for example - having a resource that could increase unit health by 10%, I'd rather see four different resources that stacked and provided a 5% bonus each. Therefore no single resource is essential, if you don't have it game over - but there's still a significant bonus to gaining as many resources as possible through trade/conquest (up to 20% unit health theoretically, although having access to all four of these resources should be extremely rare). Same principle as the luxury/health resources in Civ4, which I feel they did an excellent job with - any given resource can be replaced by half a dozen different ones that have the same effect, so lacking any single health/luxury resource won't cripple you, but since the effects stack you're still rewarded for gathering as many different resources as possible.
[Of course, this could be a pain from a programming perspective, I don't think your current unit design model allows for stacking 4 similar effects. The example applies to other things that do stack well however, such as prestige or research. I'd much rather see four different resources with a 5% research bonus each than one with a 10% bonus.]
This can be turned around: "Because I have metal to give to my researchers, I can research metal weapons." How do you know your idea for making metal weapons will work if you don't have the metal to try it out, eh? An idea that looks good on paper may be unworkable in actuality; think of some of da Vinci's drawings. If you want adamantine longswords for your knights, you need to have a source of adamantium so you can do the proper reasearch. Research has a resource cost.
I like what keithLamothe and vieuxchat have said; the more basic resources should be widely available one way or another, and special resources should only be directly available from an appropriate source - mithril only comes from mithril deposits and ironwood only from ironwood tees in ironwood groves. Indirectly, as Kuloth said, resources can be made available from trading, commerce raiding, smuggling, etc.
My gut says lots and various resources are better, but my brain says proper execution will make any number feel right.
I am also in favor of this idea. What I like about it is it doesn't totally cut off the option of powerful units for smaller/disadvantaged players - if we were to go with the "no resource, no unit" model then I can see it as all too possible that smaller kingdoms would simply be overrun, which if this were Civ would make some sense - but it's not Civ, it's a fantasy kingdom! And at least in *my* fantasy worlds, smaller kingdoms could legitimately have some chance to defend themselves if they put a lot of effort into a small-number, high-quality force.
I also like the diverse resource model, since I think that especially for a fantasy-themed game such as this one, variety is the spice of gameplay - it should be all about giving players as many different tools to go in different directions as possible, and thus maximize strategy as well as play with the theme.
Would it make some sense if you had to have a certain resource before a technology was unlocked on the tech tree? Like say you discovered a resource called "Ironwood," a magical tree tile found in the forest, which would then unlock an "Ironwood Weapons" tech branch for weapons made out of the stuff, which might provide an equivalent or weaker bonus than iron but be a boon to those civilizations that could not find an actual iron deposit for the normal build bonus. Just an idea I figure I'll throw out there
Wow, you beat me to this idea by 10 minutes. Damn my slow typing time! Weird synchronicity, anyways.
I like the idea of many resources.
I also think there are some resources that there should be nodes of everywhere. They are common, and these should be the resources needed for building most of the basic equipment. Iron, wood, crystal. I do not like the idea of the cities producing a basic minimal amount automatically. I much prefer that these "backbone" materials are so readily available on the map that no one gets blocked from producing things. However holding multiples should give bonuses, the guy with 10 iron mines should be able to produce iron things faster than the guy that owns 3. I really prefer that mined materials mines produce a given quantity and they get stockpiled or whatever, So that you are dealing in units of crystal/wood/iron. But I don;t think that is the current direction.
I also would like for some resources to be uncommon and even rare. I think there should be a lot of different ones of these - so even if you don't get one of everything, if you control much land at all you will likely get at least one or a few. these should be for upgrades, for instance mounts - horses should be the common one, something else for the uncommon and bears the rare. If you did not have bears or could not trade for them, you wouldn't research bear cavalry tech. there could be some rare metals that add to the durability of armor, or another that makes more powerful weapons. Again, you wouldn't research the technologies unless you had the associated resource. So resources I think should be visible early on (with possibly a few popping up at random times due to "weathering" or whatever - so you might get the occasional pleasant surprise of a new resource appearing.
So I think there should probably be maybe half a dozen common core resources that are all over the place. Then maybe a half dozen to a dozen more uncommon ones, and then literally as many rare ones as you guys have time to code a use for. Having even dozens of different rares could provide for some interesting surprises. Bear cavalry with adamantium armor and riders with metorite shard swords? Possible but unlikely! I think having them tiered common, uncommon and rare would make it pretty fun and easy. And I prefer that having a given resource be required to make something rather than providing a bonus (trading for it with another civ is alway an option).
I like the thought that resources you don't have just make the unit more expensive and/or take longer to produce (maybe based on how far away the nearest supply is, and how friendly that supplier is?). Trade tends to imply that there'll be a bit of everything everywhere.
In terms of resources, I can see a two tier system being handy - there are a few common resources (wood, iron, gold, food?) that are everywhere. And then there's a bunch of rare resources that may only exist in one place, or a particular region. This would give different parts of the maps a distinct 'flavour' to them ("Mithril, the rarest of rare metals, found only in the depths of the Broken Spine Mountains. Many a war has been fought over that desolate land"). OK, so it doesn't need to be quite so black and white, there could be shades of rarity. But you get the idea.
Gold common?
Sorry. I know that we base the game's economy in gold based currency but now that I have read that... I'd prefer some kind of "credits" system. Maybe just call them Coins.
I'm also in favor of a lot of resources.
I'm also of the opinion that in most cases it should be possible to obtain something in small quantities that you don't have. Black Markets, Pirates and Brigands who sell things, or just finding a lucky chunk of iron ore in a mountain as that rare meteorite pellet or whatever. However, the rate at which you produce should be very small indeed. Not just maybe .1 but also say maybe impossible to produce so you can only produce units of 1 without the resource. So if you work hard enough at it your heros might have some good gear but your armies will still suck.
By the way I'm for maximum diversity that can be reasonably balanced. I love the various mana node types and would like to see resources of tin and brass as well as iron (You shouldn't skip from the stone age to the late iron age in tech). Plus I hope to see either the finding or creation of mystical metals like Orichalcum, Mithril, Adamantium, "Cold Iron", etc. It would be nice to have a variety of rares that could be super-uncommon so that each civilization is unlikely to have more than one each of them granting them a unique "found" advantage in the game.
How about salt as a resource? Salt and Spices were some of the most important resources to militaries because they meant you could preserve foods for long marches to the enemies far away. You might put a "range away from city" limit on non-sovereign or scout units if you don't have food preservatives. You could double the need for it in "Death" infused lands because clean water and food is so rare.
While the diversity does add micro-management, I'd like to see ways of getting around it through excellent trade or piracy.
I recommend having a base level of resources... say 8 or 10... then each of the base level resources can be combined with other resources to create one of the second level resources. Naturally a player would need to research each method of combining resources. Stardock could even create third level resources where a player combines two resources from the second level. Naturally the higher level resources are more valuable. The benefit with this design strategy is anytime in the future new important resources can always be created by Stardock from the combination of current resources. Depending on modding functionality players could also create their own combinations.
EXAMPLE:
LEVEL_1 =RESOURCE_A...............RESOURCE_B.................RESOURCE_C..................RESOURCE_D
LEVEL_2 =..........RESOURCE_E ( is A+B )....................................RESOURCE_F ( is C+D )
LEVEL_3 =............................................RESOURCE_G ( is E+F )
I like the tiering ideas as well as having a variety of resources that are absolute requirements, while others are merel bonuses.
I would prefer more resources versus less as even if you have too many you can do the same thing you are doing with techs where not every resource is part of every game.
Whether or not you choose many or few resources make sure the game can support an unlimited number of resources so that modders can go crazy.
How about the game rolls a dice every time you build a city and then a city might produce 0.1 metal. But perhaps it produces no metal at all but 0.1 blood crystals. This would require the player to adapt his strategy now and then. Makes a game more interesting and avoids "perfect" strategies you play over and over again.
I liked how Sword of the Stars used this with the variable tech tree.
Opinions?
What about such 'resources' as races/species? For example - you rule some region where are elven settlements so you should be able to have units being 'made' of elves (who have different abilities)? Or this will be in independent kingdoms?One more thought about minerals: IMHO it should be done like this. Basic materials like iron and copper are available for all cities; however, if you control one of such resource's mine, you should be able to pump units from this city much, much faster. As for some high-end materials like mythril, gold, crystals: you can only produce units if you own such resource or you have a trade alliance with a kingdom/empire that has it.
It's arguable if you should be able to build more units (faster) in EVERY city because you own a resource in some city, or you have the bonus present ONLY in the city that has it. It's all matter of whether or not we allow resource trading between cities (caravans filled with mythril attacked by an enemy - how does that sound? ) or not.
ResourcesQ) How many?A) Only as many as you need.How many resources do you need to make the resouces system you want fun?List the things you want to get bonuses from resources.ResearchPrestigeIncomeProductionUnits Attack Defense HP Speed XP HealingShould all resources be created equal (Is Silver as good as Gold)? Copper +1 Income Silver +2 Income Gold +3 Income Gems +4 Income OR Gold is the only Income ResoucesShould there be Muli-Use and Compound Resources (Tell me about Copper and Bronze)? Copper +1 Income AND +1 Production (Can also be used to make up to +1 Att/Deff equipment) Tin +1 Production Bronze +3 Production (Can also be used to make up to +3 Att/Deff equipment) ** - Not found on the map, becomes availible when you control 1 copper and 1 tin resource.Should there be different Resource Levels and a Default Resouce Income? Basic +1 per city (Stone and Wood) Standard +0.1 per city (Copper and Iron) Advanced No city Income (Coal, Gold, Marble) Resources as bonuses vs Resouces as requirements I would like to see Resources as requirements to build equipment (If you have Default Resource Income). When you research Copper you can then add Copper Weapons and Armour to unit designs. You can only build these units if you have enough Copper equipment (And you can only build that if you have enough copper). You get Copper from; +10 Copper Mine (Improved Copper Resources) +5 Copper Resource +0 - ?? Trade +0.1 per City
Sammual
I like the idea of bonus given according to who controls the resource rather than making them prereqs for crafting items. Made me think of watered down honey or varying metal mixtures. Controlling the mine means you can add more of that metal to your armor in turn making it better quality.
As far as resource numbers are concerned, it really depends on how big an impact on gameplay they have and what the focus on the map is. Should they be important enough to fight over or are they only nice to haves? If they give great advantages, the number of different resources and the amount of each type that appear on the map could have a large inpact on gamplay. You dont' want too many different types if they negate the enemy's bonuses or yours without much effort by the player.
For example lets say you have two resource types, horses for riders and giant trees for long spears. If they both cancel each other out as counters to one another and one player controls both, is the other player at a great disdvantage? I think they should be and should have to find a way to compensate by some other means or regain control over one of the resources. Now if you have a third resources that adds hitpoints which reduces the advantage of riders and better spears from the opposing player, then why care about trying to acquire either of them?
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