Today we’re talking about different ways we can streamline the creation of resources. A long time ago, we wanted to put in a system where I could mine ore which could be turned into ingots and so on. Basically, one resource being turned into another resource.
You make a sandwich for lunch. You get out your grain, grind the shit down, mix it with water, eggs, yeast, some sugar, and let it rise for a few hours. While that's going, you get out your peanuts and some strawberries and start mashing them up for your peanut butter and jam. Several hours later, you finally start munching away, at dinner time...
There are a lot of people enjoy making their own bread, peanut butter, and jelly. And guess what else. Homemade versions of all those items taste better, are overall less expensive, and are typically more healthy for you than their store-bought, preservative-laden counterparts.
But both sandwich eaters have the option of doing either and get the same overall results in the end by getting fed.
"In my mind, this whole thing becomes less and less interesting, as it does not necessarily make the economy more complex. In general, this kind of resource system merely bogs down economic choice into the minutia of making a sword or a shield. Personally I would like to see the caravan system enhanced greatly to allow for various resource flows between cities. This would add strategic depth as it would add a complexity that would merge naturally with other systems, such as combat and diplomacy. You could add diplomatic treaties for a metal trade, whereby a caravan had to actually travel from one of the enemy cities to your own. Here we could say that if the caravan makes it the trip back and forth, you get a diplomatic bonus, but would get a negative bonus if it failed to reach its destination. You could even expand this by randomly spawning a bandit to try and raid the caravan, which would act like a make shift quest. Maybe you could add "flagless" units, that is a trainable bandit unit, which can raid caravans for your faction without war. Kind of like privateers in civ 4. All of these things would add an interesting angle to your economic affairs without bogging the player down with trivialities."
Ok, under this idea, what do the Caravans carry? Obviously raw materials, as refining ore(s) down to usable components is simply "bogging the player down with trivialities".
The issue I foresee here is that unless the Caravan system gets a major overhauled, it will remain an activity in frustration as we currently cannot defend our Caravans at present and when on a Large Map versus max. enemies, having to replace Caravans ad nausea is totally un-fun. A total piss-off would better describe the activity to be honest.
In order to make the Caravan feature more exciting and Fun would be to have them carry various refined products that could be pilfered/raided thus negating the need to produce those specific items yourself. Defense of said Caravans then would be even more critical to a winning strategy and if done properly, would/could become a sorta of Game with in the Game. "Caravan Wars"
This game would force all players, even the AI, to redirect valued offensive resources, properly equipped soldiers, to defend these Caravans when ones goal at the start may be to field a large standing army. The scaling would even look after itself based solely on the growth rate of your Empire and how much Goods have to be moved to maintain said Empire size.
Just to reiterate. Complex economic systems do not require that a players require Spreadsheet mentalities if that is what you fear. All that is required is, that once mined, an Ore must be dealt with to create those items that your citizenry needs in order to perform their duties properly.
As noted, we already build/place the Buildings. Why not have those Buildings be the time savers for there specialty versus it being at the end of the chain, when after X Turns, based on currently "must have" on-hand resources, a trained unit is then hatched.
If anything, the current system is so simple as to be convulsed because you are always forced to be reactionary (can't save a caravan from attack for example) versus being given the chance to be proactive (place (stack) an appropriate defensive force with each Caravan as it departs a City).
That, to me personally, is one small component of what is currently holding back the would be awesome FUN factor in E:WoM currently.
The main problem, now, is that there isn't any strategic depth to really any economic decisions. I think a lot of this will be alleviated by the addition of a maintenance cost for most buildings. As it stands, with no maintenance costs, you just build every building available in every city, and the only times you have to make a strategic choice is where to build the one-per-faction or one-per-gameworld buildings.
I think I would like to see local resources and the need to transfer raw materials to a few cities with the infrastructure to process them. Now, I don't want to see resources refined all the way to the level of the sword. At that level you have to choose whether to produce swords with your steel or axes or daggers and so on. That is unnecessary and does not actually add any strategic depth. I'm content with how that portion of the resource system works, now. Different equipment can simply require different amounts of the refined resouce (steel, we'll say).
The training time issue is a completely different problem, though not unrelated. Again, I think that a lot of this will be alleviated by the addition of maintenance costs and the ability to specialize cities' production. The problem, here, seems to be related to mills and other production buildings producing this arbitrary "materials" resource. I find that by about 100 turns into a game (in fact, really after my first 3 or 4 cities), I stop building anything that produces materials, because I've already produced much more than I'll ever be able to find a use for. These buildings should affect production time. It does not make sense that a city without any production buildings of any kind can build new buildings as quickly as a city with the highest level construction buildings. You can use these buildings to reduce production times or have the number of materials produced per turn by a city define the rate at which they can build new things or refine materials or something like that. This way, you will have only a few production cities where you have built up the construction facilities, in order to be able to refine raw materials quickly.
This can also lead into troop training. In order to produce troops quickly, you will need both production facilities (for the weapons, armor, and equipment), as well as training facilities (to reduce basic training time). This would further limit the number of troop training cities you would be able to maintain and may define the level of skill of the troops produced. All cities would be able to produce troops, but perhaps it would take 40 turns to produce a unit of axemen in a city with low production levels and no training facilities, rather than 4 turns at a city with high level training facilities and a high level of production.
This. Indeed.
Specialists can do that job too. If you only have 30 people available to work at the buildings, you're going to have to choose them more carefully. Allowing duplicates of buildings will also help. (The choice of a study or nothing isn't a choice. The choice between a study or a second forge is, depending on what you're trying to do and how many people each building takes.)
I don't think you actually need a gold maintenance per building to solve the problem if population is balanced properly. Particularly not one like the Civ 5 building maintenance. THAT system is a great fun killer.
While that does sound fun , having to guard long caravan lines can also bog down quickly. What do we have for guards? Normal units? Can we "attach" units to a caravan route so they patrol it automatically? How do guys on foot stop a raid from faster units? How do they even see it coming without "scout" style units mixed in? Done wrong, either lining guys up all over the place or moving them along with the caravan will get very tedious.
Now if we can do something like build a Fort along the road that when filled with a garrison exerts a Zone of Control? Interesting.
About that building maintenance. Could you consider other negative effects of some buildings as well. If you build too many markets (or similar buildings) you will attract more attention from bandits. If you neglect hygiene buildings then rats and such will come knocking, or even diseases that will reduce population slowly but surely.
The end unit problem cannot be "fixed" by economic remodeling. It can only be rebalanced to occur later or earlier. What this type of system does is shift the cost of production off of actually training the end game unit, so that you can spend 40 turns making equipment without actually making the unit. There are things it will aid, but only with an equally scaled combat system.
Fixing the end unit problem requires a game of equal scale, not just another aspect of equal scale. Why end units exist like this is because you can build something a thousand times stronger than your weakest unit, but you can't send a thousand of them up against it. Our economic model is too limited for it as well, a production system will alleviate the strain by changing the distribution of work, but it can't fix a broken combat model. Units either have to be rescaled to fit the craptastic combat, or the combat has to be rescaled to fit them. If you actually could field thousands of units in armies, you'd never make it right now. The upkeep costs would butcher you long before you got there because you can't stockpile weapons ahead of time. You're taking six hours to fix a sandwich for lunch.
Did I say anything about the other being store bought? One setting is someone that had the components on hand for the task they were undertaking, the other is one where only the raw materials were on hand. One can be done in a reasonable amount of time, as the work involved in getting there was already done. One cannot.
That doesn't really break my extrapolation, but thanks for your clarification.
"While that does sound fun , having to guard long caravan lines can also bog down quickly. What do we have for guards? Normal units? Can we "attach" units to a caravan route so they patrol it automatically? How do guys on foot stop a raid from faster units? How do they even see it coming without "scout" style units mixed in? Done wrong, either lining guys up all over the place or moving them along with the caravan will get very tedious. Now if we can do something like build a Fort along the road that when filled with a garrison exerts a Zone of Control? Interesting.
I sort of proposed the ability be one of "Stacking a Guard" with each Caravan and they would travel together.
If attacked, the Caravan would bring up the "Tactical Interface" and if Battle was selected the enemy would face the guard force/unit + the unarmed Caravan. I could even forsee having the Guard be destroyed and the Caravan attempting escape off the Tact map in hopes of outrunning the enemy force. (If given the Retreat ability of the SoV and Hero's in game now of course)
If any Trade Route was known safe after arrival at the destination, they could be un-stacked for use in thew city in question.
That would even make Caravan's more of a "when do I send it" vs the current, send immediately and if lost cost is of no consequence. (perhaps it could be implemented that every Caravan sent after the first one, would have an escalating cost increase to the City in question.)
Meh, caravans are a unit. Let us upgrade the squad size and arm them and we've got a driver and guards to fight.
Also, you broke ze formatting!
I know I did. Sucks to have no Edit button too.
It's wonderful how that works, break the formatting and blow away the edit button so you can't fix it...
If you use an edit button from earlier on the page, then just change the post number in the URL manually to the one in the URL for the "Reply #X" direct link, you can still get to the edit page.
Like this: https://forums.elementalgame.com/reply/edit/2819697
Can't seem to find one with an Edit button. Anyways, I apologize for busting it and have already given myself the requisite 6 lashes. (ouch)
Caravan Wars! (ftw)
Yes Caravan Wars ftw. I think the more that can be done to make infrastructure more interesting the better.
It would be interesting to get some feedback from Brad and/or Derek as to a direction that they would like this discussion to go in. We've done a lot of speculating so far, and steering this into potential mechanics would be the next step, and fun in and of itself.
Agreed. Talk is cheap, direction is boss...
Please No! Lesson learned from Galciv2, caravans or trade ships are a real pain. Very easy to destroy and then they need to be manually rebuilt afterward. Only the Korx were immune to this through some auto persistent trade ships ability. Trade ships were never really meant to be combat unit in any situation.
So here's my suggestion, make trade routes stay "destructed" only as long as an enemy unit is occupying the road/route.
1. Caravan is player created and traveled to adjacent city with dirt road following in its tracks. No pun intended.
2. Trade route is now established.
3. Enemy unit occupies road.
4. Enemy unit moves and destroys caravan, trade route halted.
5. Enemy unit remains on road, city's automated caravan rebuilder on standby waiting but taking no action yet.
6. Enemy unit leaves road.
7. City automated builder now sends new caravan, trade route reestablished.
Laying Siege would nullify the automated system. If you wanted to manually cancel a specific route then click the caravan and press the DELETE key.
Side note, it would be cool if the occupations would provide some free intel, like your traveling citizens reporting a foreign legion is blocking the road south.
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Why should training primarily consume unit construction time? A blacksmith could increase efficiency by reducing armament cost and production time versus a settlement without one.
Screw that player created stuff. Skip creation entirely. Caravan is automatically generated at need to transport stockpiled resources to a point of demand.
Management should be after the fact. Drag and drop pathing to change their routes to go around danger zones, manual override for optimal routes you don't want to have. Say you have an armory you want to keep loaded up, a nice Boolean switch or slider to keep it so supplies are pulled from elsewhere first.
With very few simple operations, a complicated supply system isn't work to manage at all.
When you have actual resources being transported in caravans, you don't have to worry about idiocy like replacing lost caravans either. Your enemy, or roaming NPC depending on the circumstances, just captured them, depriving you of something of value. They can be free and automatic and you're still paying through the nose when you lose them repeatedly, you just don't have to micro manage their replacement.
I think this idea of automated caravan replenishment is really good. Though I think it would be cool if you could as the pillager could steal the contents. Like if a caravan is transporting gold or food or whatever, then you get a certain amount of that resource. "With very few simple operations, a complicated supply system isn't work to manage at all."
This statement seems like it would be nice and easy. Yet, one does not simply wish away the complexity of managing any such system. To remove such complexity, one would have to either create some kind of grand abstraction, which is not what you were suggesting, or handle all of the complexity in the background using equally complex back end mechanics.
"When you have actual resources being transported in caravans, you don't have to worry about idiocy like replacing lost caravans either. Your enemy, or roaming NPC depending on the circumstances, just captured them, depriving you of something of value. They can be free and automatic and you're still paying through the nose when you lose them repeatedly, you just don't have to micro manage their replacement."
Is it possible for you to expand this some? For someone who has taken the position of the fun of making each and every sword used in the game, it seems moderately out of character for you to express such a non-realistic suggestion. What bandit "captures" a caravan? I was under the impression that caravans are generally burned to the ground after they are pillaged.
"Agreed. Talk is cheap, direction is boss..."
I completely agree.
I actually like how resources are presented in Elemental. Food, for example, come in several varieties (Apiaries, Orchards, etc.), each which provides a slightly different bonus. I wouldn't mind seeing more of this concept. Take the Lost Library for example. Perhaps that also comes in several varieties (read: sizes). Perhaps you have an ancient forge nearby, which provides a lesser bonus than the Library does. Or perhaps you've found an old wizard's tower (smaller arcane bonus).
Having varying levels of different resources presents the opportunity for more resources to be spawned, and provides more drool factor when the big ones come up. Plus, it reduces the odds of the 'mega' resources all appearing next to each other, making those rare occasions when they do the subject of your next military campaign...
As for the 'refine resource x into good y' concept, that's fine if I'm playing Sid Meier's Railroads (Ore becomes Steel becomes Autos), but when I'm playing Elemental, I'm usually a LOT more focused on exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating, so getting distracted with making cloth out of cotton is NOT what I'm looking for in the game experience.
Now, if I had to use 'x' number of the Crystals I just mined to build that Temple of Essence, that's a concept I can get on board with. Also, it'd be nice if we had a trade option that said "I'll trade you 'x' number of crystals each turn for 'x' number of metal". That way, having a surplus production has diplomatic potential. As it stands now, the AI is generally only interested in stuff it doesn't have on hand.
In short, making more interesting use of the resources we already have (as far as rarity and potential for trade) would be nice. I'd also like to be able to, as Kingdom, do SOMETHING with that Warg Pit or whatever it is. Sure, I can't use them for my troops (but my heroes buy Wargs instead of Horses anyways, 'cuz it looks cooler), but perhaps I could trade said Warg production for the horses the Empire isn't using...
Something I was briefly excited about when playing the campaign was those dark ore mines. Unfortunately, Relias wasn't allowed to mine these... Being able to mine different ores might have some potential for trade as well. Perhaps Ventri Metal is better than regular metal, with Ventri metal providing a higher % bonus to attack or defense strength. Or weapons made from Dark Ore have special traits... Dark Destroyer Blade has a nice ring to it!
While I'm on the subject of mounts, I'd like to see more of these, specifically Bear Mounts, Shrill Mounts, Slag Mounts... horses are 'boring' by comparison. This is high fantasy, after all!
Another idea would be to make Alchemists more interesting. You would provide an Alchemist with Crystals and Metal, and he makes you a supply of Elementium. You use said Elementium to make Elite Guardians that wear Elementium armor. Alchemists Shops might be a city improvement, or appear randomly on the map, perhaps as a resource or as free agents. He's the guy to talk to about Dark Destroyer Blades!
"Hi, I need a Dark Destroyer Blade" "Excellent! I assume you have the required amounts of Crystal, Dark Ore, Shards, and Shrill blood?"
"Hi, I need a Dark Destroyer Blade"
"Excellent! I assume you have the required amounts of Crystal, Dark Ore, Shards, and Shrill blood?"
[/quote]Having varying levels of different resources presents the opportunity for more resources to be spawned, and provides more drool factor when the big ones come up. Plus, it reduces the odds of the 'mega' resources all appearing next to each other, making those rare occasions when they do the subject of your next military campaign...[/quote]
I actually like this idea very much. I think it would be cool to have a small/medium/large/huge gold deposits which give +2/+4/+6/+8. I think this would enhance that PQ 36 feeling from galciv 2. I think this poster was correct in this idea, as it would all us to have small gold deposits which are the back bone of your economy but also give us some incentive to go out exploring for that rare huge gold deposit just beyond the FoW. In general, you could have all the resources be multi-leveled, though It would probably be much more interesting if most of them were not just small, medium and large.
This - it gives you opportunity for all sorts of interesting quest rewards without overloading the standard economy, and ties it into the theme of the game.
So you then get -
"Hi, I need a Dark Destroyer Blade""Excellent! I assume you have the required amounts of Crystal, Dark Ore, Shards, and Shrill blood?"
"Nope got no shrill blood or dark ore for that matter - what can you make with troll blood, shards and crystal"
"Well let me see - let me research a bit with the troll blood - not used that much before,"
... time passes...
"If you get me some more troll blood I could make you a crystal dagger of acid with the shards and crystal, and if you see any fire giants...."
A quick followup on uses for resources.
If roadbuilding is implemented (not the auto-build roads we have now), you'd need resources to build sections of road.
I'm thinking paths would not require anything (other than a machete and axe perhaps, no game resources required), but more improved roads (dirt road, gravel road, paved road) would utilize resources.
Dirt roads would either use 1 clay per section, or require 2x the time and 2x the gold to build (player's option), to reflect hauling in/grading of said road.
Gravel and paved roads would require 1 clay (brick) or stone per section, to 'upgrade' that section of dirt road.
Also, buildings could be built using clay, wood, or stone (i.e. no change to how it is done now). Bridges could use all three resources as well. If destructable buildings/walls ever get implemented, the building material you use would factor in to the defense strength of said structure.
Bows, spears, and similar would use wood to build, instead of metal.
This makes the type of resource you are mining more significant, again giving you reason to trade with other kingdoms/empires that have what you need.
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