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.
When I think of the resource/economy system, I don't think of the word "complex." Instead, I think of the words "sophisticated" and "elegant."
I almost think of the resource system as a tech tree with some basic paths and some advanced paths. Yes, I can mine gold to be used as a raw resource. But I can also mint coins if I want a more evolved economy for my empire. Or I can make jewelry to enhance trade. I don't have to do the last two items at all, but the option is there if I wish to pursue it.
I am curious, however, if this discussion is centered around the core game of Elemental or if this takes modding into consideration. In other words, is this an initiative to recreate the resource system from the gound up (code), to change the resources from the XML side of things, or somewhere in between?
I don't want to have to manage every caravan manually by clicking on a caravan and sending it between cities every time I need to ship weapons or armor. That's not streamlining anything.
That being said, I very much would like to drop the global economy and go to an automated trade network created through roads.
For example, I have 3 cities. City A and City B are connected by a road. City C is an outpost seperated by vast wastelands. City C should not get resources from A or B. However, A and B should be sending resources automatically to one another. What do I mean by this?
Say, A has the iron mine with a stockpile of armor and swords. I queue an iron swordsman in city B. I ran out of stockpile at B. City A should automagically ship weapons and armor to city B upon this request. Each mine/producer should have a menu where I can say: Stockpile 50% of your production in your home city, ship 25% to X, ship 25% Y. Or, tell each city to request stockpiles from your trade network until a # of products is met. Caravans that travel on the trade network should be protected by some sort of guards without me having to manually move the guard up and down the city. In a world with roaming monsters and bandits, I take issue to unprotected caravans. Or, add a patrol option to soldiers so I can automatically assign a squad of guards to patrol between my two cities.
Roads need maintenance costs. The longer the road, the more it costs. This would make it super expensive to build a road to my City C. If City C needs resources, that's when a manual caravan needs to be created, stocked, protected and sent into the wilderness.
Sieges aren't necessary - they aren't really in this game, and don't follow Elemental's goal to keep tactical battles to an all or nothing event. We just need an option to raze roads. Oh, and spies that can infiltrate and destroy stuff vital to production. I love me some spies.
Untapped resources need to be much more visible. The first couple of turns the resource becomes available, I can easily see it. But, after that, it disappears. RogueCaptain is right: hotkeys to move between untapped resources.
True, but read the context into Brad's post.
"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."
Sentences 2 and 3 here are nodding at the camp 1 guys. (I was around when this discussion was proliferating, I just never participated, and honestly, it's been long enough that I don't remember what's what.) Only the first sentence actually indicated that he was talking about streamlining, but the context of the whole post actually says otherwise. Also, while this thread's been proliferating, Brad hasn't hopped in to say, "No no no, you're all getting it wrong." So we can assume the context of his post is something along the lines of, "Okay, Camp 1 guys, we talked about using this economic model back in the day. How do we streamline that model?" I know, assumptions are bad, but it's a short enough post that I think I can safely make one without shoving my foot down my throat. That's also not to say that this thread is specifically for the Camp 1 Guys, but like I said, he's nodding at them.
I do agree that we need an easier way to identify workable resources though. Hotkey-tabbing is a great idea.
To be honest, I think that refinements, as in crafting, because that's what you are really getting at, don't belong in a 4X. Yes, maybe, just maybe, a bit for something really special. But a true crating system? Even with the RPG-elements in it, it would not be what we are after. If I wanted to chain resources, I'd be playing the settles. I want to blast mine enemies with spells, walk over their lands with my well-armored foot-soldiers, and wreck havoc on their armies with my dragons, drakes, elementals or daemons. As an Evil Overlord (TM) I could care less if someone made me an ingot of steel or directly produced that steel armor from ore... it is irrelevant for the grand scheme.
As for more realistic: My Dragon thinks you taste good with ketchup. Special resources like shards and crystal are ok, but lets not overdo it. There's even a special special resource you can't mine but need to find (how the *bleep* was it made in the first place then, but ok). Keep the basics simple, and focus on the Magic and Mayhem (a nice game, btw... not spectacular, but had some nice approaches to magic).
Or... completely overdo it. Visit any MMO (I'd prefer LOTRO, I play that), and take a good look at the crafting system, crafting guilds, and other stuff... and add that on an individual champion basis so champs must be the crafters. And then make it so you can still win without them.
I have 2 suggestions, which while they don't really make a system on their own, can modify another idea to make it better
1) People should be the main resource. You should be able to raid towns and villages to capture people and force them to work for you (maybe for the empire races) and conversely free enslaved workers from towns and have them join your towns out of gratitude. This should not require you to defeat a city, perhaps citizens need to be allocated to resource camps, and that makes them vulnerable to such raids.
2) You should be able to magically transform resources. I think that there should be rare magical resources like ironwood, mithril, unicorns, etc that should be well guarded and fought over, give a significant advantage in trade/warfare, but require high level technology to exploit. And the transformation I mentioned earlier is that you should be able to learn spells that transform normal metal, wood, horses, etc into the magical/exceptional equivalents once you reach high level magic (spread it amongst the different books). You should be able to trade resources using Caravans, and You should be able to convert one resource to another using spells (horses -> wargs, metal -> gold, forest -> orchard, etc)
I haven't played the game so can't comment on the resource system. All I can say is that too many resources is bad, micromanagment of resources is also bad. I only want to have to choose which resources to focus on, or what order to get resources. I don't want to have to juggle resources and its better to have a simple resource system that adds little depth to the game than a resource system that bogs down the game.
Options are never bad, particularly when implemented correctly. Personally, I prefer a robust resource mechanic. It adds an incredible amount of depth and character to each city, as they are less carbon copies of each other and become more unique, and with purpose.
This also, naturally and seamlessly, makes some of these cities strategic targets for your opponents. Do you take the opportunity to strike that remote mining town to disrupt it from providing ore to the main city? Or do you instead attack the farming village which is the main supplier of food?
Currently, there really are limited strategic decisions like this to be made. It's just "amass an army and start sweeping cities." My version does not eliminate this possibility, per se, but it doesn't make it the only choice. My version, however, does grant someone that may have a crippled army, the ability to strike key targets to cause your opponent to have to address them, potentially slowing them down, perhaps buying you time to replenish your forces.
Depends on how it is done. If you have raw resources that are local that are then used (like houses use food, only this would be local) by the refining structures then it is XML (at least I assume local resources work, the XML supports them but I do not know if it will be handled correctly). To make it so you can get the resource directly from the mine if you do not have other buildings that 'convert' it then there would need to be code changes. Specifically it would need to be possible to have buildings be able to dynamically produce resoures based on other factors in the city (in the case of a mine the 'ore' that is not used by other buildings like smelters would result in the city hub producing metal equal to the surplus ore).
That is what I am trying to figure out. Brad's post is vague. Being Brad, I now assume that was intentionally done to provoke conversation and theorycrafting.
Agreed. Just wish I was better at theorycrafting, that'd be oh so helpful to this discussion.
I come bearing another idea, and a bit of theory crafting. Had a few ideas on the first page of the conversation, but as I thought about it another idea popped into my head.
From a theory craft standpoint I guess the big issues with complex economics and intermediates is that its such a large amount of micro management that it becomes the game. Its why a lot of resource interchange games have very streamlined diplomacy and warfare. Also complex systems (and gamers who make them) hate interruptions. Not great when it comes to warfare and city capture and catastrophic economic failures. Another irk of mine is that complex economics often comes down to huge empires and sprawl, since you have to lock down certain economic points.
So my ideas on the first page of this thread were more treating resources as mini cities to keep all the economic webs in one place, and reduce the micro. But a totally different system popped into mind -- for lack of a better term, a guild based system.
The basic idea would be your populous is pretty innovative in a post cataclysmic world, and will find some way of doing what you want, even if its horribly inefficient. As a player, you would have your guild screen where you pick whatever end resource you want to have - say a sword. There would be no prerequisites or needed resources, other than the technology, and perhaps even that would be negotiable. Your guild would come up with the best way to make that sword-- automatically-- considering what resources and buildings you have. If you have iron and the like, great, its an efficient path with few steps and low upkeep per turn. But if you don't have iron, your people may use that ancient forest and perhaps that alchemy lab to harden the wood like iron, and a much deeper and more complex intermediate path, or maybe that lost library can find a way to harden your clay to fit the bill. Or perhaps you use a dozen specialists to scrounge the wastelands for old rusted weapons to melt down. The point being there's some path to what you as the player choose, it just might have a large number of steps (all of that taken care of by the guild automatically) that leads to a large upkeep in specialists/ gold/ food/ whatever.
To improve efficiencies of whatever path you're using to make your sword, the guild would use the questing system. Perhaps a large input of gold, escorting a researcher, clearing out a cave of beasts, providing a dozen peasants to dig somewhere, whatever. But the player could choose to activate the quests and do them, making a bottleneck step easier for the guild, reducing the upkeep costs to provide you swords. The intermediates that might be used in a lot of end products (like using wood+ magic instead of iron) that could be used in swords or armor types would then all have the bottleneck eased . .so intermediates are still important, its just that the player doesn't have to pay attention to specific numbers of any middle product, just the overall efficiency.
I thought it would be an interesting system. Its pretty straightforwards for the player - just say "make this available" and if you can afford all the upkeep its good - plus that strategic choice of how many specialists and gold to sink into any unlock adds some depth of choice. If you capture resources and there's a more efficient path opened up, the guild handles it without you having to micro your whole economic system. If you lose your cities, the same happens in reverse. Still the player does have continual input in the economics, and if you want to focus on quests for the guild you can, and make your economy more robust. Because of this a small but guild focused kingdom could end up making high end goods and not be dependent on sprawl or on any specific lacking resource as their economy would bypass it completely. The system could even be balanced to encourage small efficient kingdoms by adding a small tax multiplier for number of cities to the upkeep (for shipping/ taxes/ whatever). Properly balanced, the paths of producing end products in the most efficient ways might end up focusing players down production paths, and thus lots of troops based on iron weapons, or another race focusing on herbal products for their troops, since going outside those specialations would be inneficent without lots of questing for the guild, and not worth the upkeep and effort.
So just adding another possibility that would be streamlined for the player, but lead to some strategic choices and flesh out the economics. Will be interesting to see where everything ends up going as there seems to be arguments on if the system even needs changing at all, but I guess I'm all for something that adds a bit more choice and complexity so long as it is offering actual strategic depth and doesn't draw the player experience away from the central thrust of the game (the war of magic). Props though to anyone that spent the time to read through all of that.
A guild/black market system would be an interesting integration, particularly since they could actually function on their own, networking between all factions to earn profit for themselves. I think it would be an excellent suppliment to a resource mechanic, since it would help those players that are struggling to find specific resources. For a price, of course.
What is broken though is combat, unit design, quests, magic, etc.
Oh my god.... Look the game is already complex enough, though there is one way to improve it tat wouldn't take a player a long time to figure out how to get his troops better swords.
Simply increase the amount of resources mined, as the city levels up. This makes no sense, "My lord! We have two thousand people in this city, there is no more advancements we can make as a civilization, and I'm happy to report that the amount of gold we can min has never increased once!"
More people + more tech should = More gold mined. I'm not talking about the buildings that say +X% to _____ production. Your mine will never actually provide more of that resource, your settlement will produce a bit more gold (or food, lumber, iron.. extra) thanks to those buildings. but the amount you harvest/mine never changes. That gold mine will always produce 5 gold per turn, and that makes no sense! As your civilization progresses and more labor and tech becomes available you should be able to get more of that resource per turn.
Exactly (oh and Kohan? Best RTS game ever. Bar none).
I wouldn't say Elemental is currently too complex but it IS too disjointed and shallow.
Maybe a more complex economic system with more resources could help Elemental if it was used to add more depth to everything else AND was done in a really streamlined and transparent way which didn't require large amounts of micromanaging.
But a more complex economic system WITHOUT carefully integrating everything together will just be one more timesink in the game, one more disjointed mechanic stopping Elemental from being fun.
Which is why I'm not sure there is even any point in us (the players) commenting on more complex economic systems. We don't know how you guys intend to fix Elemental by integrating the game mechanics together and since that is the ONLY thing that really matters right now there is little point us talking about one mechanic on its own!
Because, just like in real life, a strong economic and resource system is potentially the single-most important foundation to build upon. This can easily be paralleled into strategy games, particularly a strategy game that has the aspirations that Elemental does. Once that foundation is established, everything else starts falling into place.
So yes, there are excellent reasons to discuss the economy here. One is because it needs some TLC. Two is because we were asked to discuss it.
And while Kohan is an excellent game, it's an RTS. A basic, streamlined economy/resource system is an important prerequisite to successful RTS's. Turn based strategy games have the luxury of being able to offer more depth and layers of complexity without impacting gameplay experience negatively, but rather enhancing it when it's done correctly.
I don't think adding micromanagement in terms of making things- is going to help at all, at least in terms of making the game more fun. We need to be looking at ways to add complexity, with minimal added micromanagement. Let's put it this way- I don't want this to turn into Recettear.
This would also make roads more important, which is something I think should be encouraged.
I think something like a Sins-style exchange of resources supplementing outright trades via diplomacy should be added in an expansion.
It's too easy to get a stockpile of resources, and not be able to do much with them due to not having other stuff.
Crystals, I suggested using them to make equipment +1, +2 etc, in addition to other stuff. That's better then what they're being used for now.
I'd suggest a formula like this, (materials+metal cost of unit)*(level of enchantment^2), so if armor costs 20 materials 5 metal, making it +1 would add 25 crystals to cost , +2 100, +3 225, etc.
Horses- maybe you could spend 20 or 30 horses to make a breeding farm to get better horses? (breeding farm would cost 30 horses, 50 materials, 50 gold, 10 people, 5 gold maintenance perhaps)
As for mining rates- I think you should be able to improve mines, at a cost of using a serious amount of your population, or using a spell.
This, totally. How it fits together with everything else is more important then how fancy it is... unless the goal really is to create a highly complex empire builder. In that case it fits together because everything else is secondary to the economic part and will be simple. But if this is intended to be a MoM style game, then the economy isn't the focus. Magical warfare is. Slapping a super complicated and time-consuming economy onto MoM wouldn't have made it better. It would have drawn attention away from what the game is really about.
Just to throw it out there, I'm going to suggest the opposite of what has been talked about: remove most of the resources entirely. A city with an iron mine produces armored units faster then one that doesn't. A city with a quarry produces buildings faster. Libaries provide bonuses to research but aren't the main source of it (specialist researchers are). Spend the development time on beefing up tactical combat and the spell system instead.
With all due respect, and I appreciate and understand where you are coming from, but if you go that route, you are really risking alienating a good part fo the the modding community and likely part of the player community. As it currently stands, it's already oversimplified and doesn't work. I should not be mining Clay Pits or Forests and be returned something called "Materials." You may as well name them "Booger Mine" and "Crystal Meth Factory." I know this is not what you are saying. What I am saying is that the carrot has been dangled, I want a bite.
Now, I do like your idea that there are special resources that provide various bonuses. That is that layer of "elegance" that I was alluding to, and if the core Elemental game wants to go that route for its entire economy/resource mechanic, I could not object.
This is one of those rare scenarios where it is within our power to have our cake and eat it too. It can be incorporated as both simple and complex, with the ultimate decision on how in depth it goes being made by the player. To parallel, this type of mindset is already in the game. Tactical battles can be played out or auto-resolved. Units can be created using the templates provided or be hand-crafted.
Give us the ability to micromanage or to check a box and have an advisor do the micromanaging for us. Heck, you could even make it a specialist so you actually use one of your population to manage your resources. But please don't make the resource/economy mechanic feel like an afterthought.
I like the system we have now. It's fairly simple, but it will have added depth to it from the 1.1 building/population system (a much more clear city->resource production chain, for one).
It doesn't sound like fun gameplay to have a building that turns iron ore into iron ingots, just so I can build a sword from iron ingots instead of iron ore. If you go down that road, why not make each weapon/armorpiece a "resource" of their own, that you have to produce before you can train units? It's just extra stuff tacked on to mimick something complex, when it really is not complex at all.
The game has far more pressing concerns than making a complex resource system. The most pressing one, after 1.1, will probably be the tactical "combat" and lack of diversity. You'll always build the strongest unit you can because there's no point building anything else. All the units lack any special abilities to set them apart. This all really comes down from the idea that you are "only upgrading a peasant". While it makes for a cool system where you get to design your units (which is AWESOME), it also makes for an extremely boring combat system because everyone's the same.
If anything, in my opinion, you need more rare resources (like crystals!) to truly set units apart. These rare resources could be used to produce unique units - just like crystals, but they could add items that give the unit special abilities (passive or active).
This is already in 1.10, by allowing population to determine how many resource (and other) buildings you can have.
Agreed. But if there is a building that turns iron ore into iron ingots, and that building adds to the efficiency of the process, then it could add a lot of flavor.
Iron ore --> Blacksmith --> Sword
Iron ore --> Iron smelter --> Iron ingots --> Blacksmith --> Sword
Both options can be used by the player. The option is completely up to him/her. The latter may simply save you a certain percentage for unit building or allow the units to be built slightly faster. Nothing imbalancing, simply a slight bonus. It may not even be a noticeable change until you are building groups of units (i.e. when you may need more efficiency).
The use of iron can then be as generic or more complex, as the player likes.
Iron ore --> Armorer --> Plate armor
Iron ore --> Forge --> Steel plates --> Armorer --> Plate armor
So, a player that is not focusing on producing many units that require iron can go with the more simplistic route whereas a player that does can go with the more focued and complex route. The transparency would be built in with the fact that the Blacksmith produces iron ingots before the sword, he just does so behind the scenes and less efficiently as the smelter. Same with the armorer and the forge with regards to steel plates. Thus, the player never has to micromanage this aspect of the game, per se.
Now, you could also simply provide iron smelter and forge buildings, and have them grant a bonus to their respective professions, but this is where the elegance shows. By making another resource, even behind the scenes, I could offer up other buildings which make use of that other "secondary" resource in the same manner. For instance, steel plates may be used when crafting a siege engine or a boat.
Essentially, it can open up an abundance of options for players and modders alike without being intrusive to the player's experience.
Exactly. I think the focus should be the spell system, the tactical battles and the diplomacy system, because these areas need a lot of work and the economic system is already working.
I see what you mean, but I still feel that it would just end up with players taking the shortest route to the strongest armor/weapon. I think armor and weapons need to diversify in what they do, not just "it's stronger, k". However, you have a fair point that it would make for a more interesting resource system, which is what this topic is really about.
To combine the above with other ideas posed. How about...
Mine --> (5 specialists) --> Iron ore --> (1 Sword/15 Turns) Blacksmith --> (1 specialist)-(1 Sword/10 Turns) Sword
Mine --> (5 specialists) --> Iron ore --> (1 Sword/15 Turns) Iron smelter -->(1 specialist)-(1 Sword/12 Turns) Iron ingots --> (1 Sword/9 Turns) Blacksmith --> (1 specialist)-(1 Sword/6 Turns)
OR
Mine -->(5 specialists) Iron ore --> Armorer --> (3 specialists) Plate armor
Mine -->(5 specialists) Iron ore --> Forge --> (3 specialists) Steel plates --> Armorer --> (2 specialists)Plate armor
All these could be done behind the scenes (.XML based) so modding can also be done easily. Just note the upgrade bonus for each building as it relates to any of the chains.
It may help at least alleviate the current blandness that currently makes game play relatively flat...
Changing Clay Pits to Stone and Forests to Wood is OK by me. You'd have to make sure people have access to some sort of weaponry though.
Converting resources into better resources for better units should be a building feature, and probably should be pretty obvious.
If you have stone, wood, and iron- would you need materials period? My suggestion would be to keep Clay Pits as materials, and have Materials be the catch all for early game and early weapons such as clubs and slings. There are options if you can't find wood and iron, such as diplomatic tree (spiderlings), and magic (summons). The addition of a Sins-style market system would be another failsafe.
That said, hasn't it been said that bonus resources are going to be reduced? that might make a model like this more imbalanced. I'm concerned on that ground.
The key is to not drag the player into micromanagement hell- there's a reason I didn't like Victoria, and some of what seems to be suggested here would turn the game into Victoria 1 in some aspects.
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