Forget everything you know about the WoM economic model. Food is gone (as it exists in WoM), housing is gone, global population is gone, specialists are gone (improvements don’t use population), materials are gone, resource multipliers on city level up are gone, fixed build times are gone, unlimited improvements are gone (you can never make more than 1 of an improvement in a city).
In Fallen Enchantress a city has one production queue. The amount of production a city generates is based on its population, with some modifiers. Small cities take a long time to produce big things. Since there aren’t specialists (ie: consumed population) or materials if you have the tech to produce a unit or improvement you can generally stick it in the queue*. It’s not hard to fill up a city with 60 turns of things to produce (or to cancel items out when something changes).
Population is local and a city’s population is broken into Farmers, Workers and Rebels (we may change the name for this last one, Dissidents? Angry Hobos?). Farmers produce food, a little production and pay taxes. Workers don’t produce food but they produce more production and pay taxes. Rebels don’t produce anything and don’t pay taxes. You cities automatically allocate enough farmers to feed your population and armies (meaning the more armies you have, the more farmers you need, the less workers you have and the slower your production is). Your goal is to have as many Workers as possible. Minimizing Farmers (by investing in food producing buildings and capturing food resources) and minimizing Rebels means more of your population is Workers.
The player can set his Tax Rate. The tax rate determines how much your population pays you each turn, but it also increases Unrest. Unrest creates Rebels. Although it never hits the point where more Unrest means less gold (higher taxes always give more money), higher taxes always mean less production. Life in Fallen Enchantress is expensive, monsters don’t all give gold (in fact few carry gold).
Growth replaces Prestige and is the rate at which population is added to your city. It is influenced by improvements, local resources, champions in the city, and the amount of cities in your kingdom (the more cities the slower your growth to balance small empires vs large empires). Since population determines your production and taxes, your high population cities are the backbone of your empire.**
Whenever you build a unit the population comes out of the city that produced it. In effect armies are population that isn’t contributing to production. Making a stack of 9 spearmen is a serious investment. Disbanding units returns the population to the nearest city (if you are in your borders). When you build Pioneers you can build them at all the same unit sizes as your other units, and the amount of Pioneers in your stack takes that amount of population away from the building city, and starts the new city with that population.
Improvements have fun with these mechanics. Slums increase the cities Growth and Unrest. Governmental type buildings reduce Unrest, the Mint of Ruvenna provides +1 Gildar per Worker in the city, etc.
Most importantly, from a city specialization standpoint, when you level-up a city you get a random list of improvements that you can unlock for that city. They are based on the city level so the improvements you get at city level 2 are a different list than those you get at city level 5. There are rare improvements that may popup in these lists, especially at higher levels. For example, when leveling a city to level 3 you may have the option to unlock any of the following improvements for that city:
Apothecary- consumes a little mana, provides research, champions can buy Healing and Growth potions.
Bazaar- +2 Caravans, the city produces +50% more Gildar when nothing is in the build queue.
Bell Tower- Improved Production and free Peasant defenders if the city is attacked.
Brewery- Reduces Unrest and reduces Production.
Infirmary- Small Growth bonus and all injured units in your city are completely healed.
The player can pick one, and it is only unlocked for that city. The player still has to build that improvement. We may decide to place it for free, but I like that the player has to build them because it allows me to balance them on build costs, but in general they have low build costs. This is how we specialize cities, and this is our reward for players that choose to run small empires so they can race to getting up to city level 5 unlockable improvements like the Onyx Throne (-50% Unrest, -10% Unrest in all cities), Pyre of Anniellum (provides mana and increases the power of Fire spells), etc.
Terrain matters. Terrain has tile yields, and a city gets the tile yields of the tile it is founded in and all surrounding tiles. In the beginning this is a significant amount, as the city grows this is less and less of the total food and production amounts. A city on fertile land by a river will get some bonus Food and Gildar each turn as well as having access to improvements that can only be built on a River. A city in a desert won’t get any of these base yields, but may be worth it to grab important resources. Tile yields don’t extend as the city extends, they are only those 9 tiles. Tile yields aren’t intended to be the root of the game. They are a boost to new cities, turning a city that may take a while to produce anything real, into a reasonable city relatively quickly (your capital gets free starting population so it skips the new city slowness). City on good tiles are better, but it isn’t game winning, especially later in the game.
* Metal and crystals are still resource requirements for some things, most notably advanced armies. So we still have the concept of “you can’t build that until you build up x resources” but its used for special things, not everything.
** When a city is taken in combat half of its population is lost. Also when units die their population is forever lost, giving us some outputs for the population system, it doesn’t continually build. And, although warring successful wars has its benefits, it can be costly too.
How about "malcontents" instead of the rather modern sounding dissidents?
or perhaps town IDioTs or fools( i think that these were the traditional terms for the nonproducers).
harpo
Because of the way FE will handle production, I agree that a single queue is the best way to go. GalCiv indeed has this problem but you could also focus your planet's resources.
From what I see, FE is going to be a lot like Civilization, which is good, the only thing that stopped me from buying Civ 4 was the fact that knights could attack helicopters. I haven't played MOM so I can't know the similarities, but FE is looking good.
I agree with most of that. I totally agree with the idea of just one production queue. However.. I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but that last bit there, about both avenues of production (either units or buildings) being a viable path to victory.. I don't agree with that. One of my biggest gripes with games like this one and with Galciv2, and even SoaSE is.. Military might perception. The damn computer always thinks it is a great idea to make demands or threats against you just because you have a "seemingly" weaker military presence. They do not take into account the production power that you have, nor your technological/magical might. I always found it so damned annoying when I'd get threatened by someone who has been at peace with me for dozens, if not hundreds of turns just because my military rating has dropped below theirs.
Here is what always happens to the computer when they make these threats... they annoy me by artificially creating tension where there wasn't any before. Even going so far as to break treaties just because they've got a one-track mind of "hes weaker than me, I should take his lunch money". Next is I tell them no thanks bro, I'd like to keep my monies for making my cities more pretty and my people happy. Even though I do often give the AI money so that they can fund their war effort against *other* empires, not mine.. So of course, the next thing the computer does is get salty and decides it is time to attack me. Well, at this point it is too late. They've woke daddy. I stop being nice and building up my city and using my diplomatic skills to keep the game going, so I just crush them with either magic in Elemental or I switch to heavy production in Galciv2/SoaSE and produce a massive fleet within a few turns, utterly destroying everything they've ever known and loved. When it all could have been avoided by letting me get by with just diplomacy.
It really annoyed me when the "nice" races of Galciv2 would make demands of me, out of the blue because they were "stronger". Sigh.. I blew up their home stars. Just because of their hubris. Perhaps it is just my playstyle, but I like to have my own little corner somewhere and watch the AI change the landscape of the game. At which point I keep the peace with diplomacy, or force the AI to distrust one another. Good times..
I think the AI should have a way of knowing what has happened to other AI that have attacked you in the past, and take into account their single most important stat of "military might" and see that it didn't help them in the end. Which I assure you, was quick and dreadfully painful. Whats worse, is sometimes they've even used ships that I designed for them, sold to them (cheap, very cheap) just so they could stand a chance against a larger empire's ships. The nerve! I do not know if it is a technological limit on the design of the AI, or if it is a design decision that they should be always hyper aggressive towards those that are perceived to be weaker(militarily) then they are.. but I'd like it if the AI would at least look at the player as if they had just had their best friend Krillin killed in front of their eyes. That damn monkey of a player at any moment will bend the AI over its knee and make a hand puppet of them. But anyway, I digress..
Speaking of Galciv.. It has been a while, I think I'll go play some.
*Edit* I forgot to add my point.. The sadness of my past experiences being sullied by a bully AI overtook me. I would very much like it if the path to building could lead to victory, but I just don't see that happening with overly aggressive AIs. The moment they encounter you and see that you have a far inferior fighting force, they will simply take you for a chump and force you to play their way. Now if using a build path that wasn't strictly offensive, perhaps a defensive building strategy to protect your cities and have a way to win the game without the need of large armies.. That'd be cool. Just need the AI to have a way of knowing that you wouldn't be an easy meal.
CRIMINALS! I say criminals are better than rebels because then we have a legitimate excuse to make dungeons and what fantasy game would be without dungeons no? Plus rebels in fantasy plots too often are the heroes/lead characters unlike the sovereign. In game, think of contented happiness as affecting the crime rate.
I understand because I play strategy games in a very similar way to you (as do many I imagine).
However what would you have the computer do? By your own admission you are neglecting your military in order to keep compounding your economic growth so that you can outstrip your opponents (the AI). Faced with that strategy the only sensible thing the militarily stronger AI can do is launch an attack.
Arguably the real problem is that in your example the AI has waited too long. They should have gone after you much earlier. Or they should ally together and go after you in a group. Or build up their military even higher, mass on your border and hit you so hard that you take significant losses before you can use your economic advantage to build up your military. Or they could follow your strategy, run a low military themselves and build their econ faster so they keep pace (although this is a difficult strategy for most AI's because they are not usually as good at running a lean defence as human players).
All of the above would be sensible strategies for an AI to take. Sitting back and just watching you econ up with no military while they fall further behind would not be a sensible strategy though .
I like the population for troops mechanic it makes you husband your troops rather than spam them like some demented South Korean. I love the randomness (along with random events) it will hopefully give the feel of a differant game every time rather than like Civ 5.
Anyway, I like dissident or dissenter for rebels. 'Dissident' mean to sit apart, disagree whilst 'Rebels' implies armed struggle or angst-ridden non-conformist teenagers spraying graffiti whilst eating a Big Mac.
Umm... Please tell me you have automated the damn caravans? I hate these things in WoM.
"a spider destroyed a caravan going from Ogopugtykjfv to Defjkjtxy" makes me just exit the game without saving.
Sorry, the moment seems to have passed, but can I just add my thoughts on a build queues and numbers of improvements.
For me, being a realist/enjoying immersion, it just doesn't make any sense, generally speaking (I suppose war machines might be an exception), for a build queue to impact on a training queue or vice versa, so much that one stops, as in a one-queue system. Why should those few blokes who are off training my peasants or making spears for them, have any influence on that other group of workers who are building my lovely new library for me? I guess you could argue that there would be less people around to help, but that rather assumes that all people are equally good smiths/military trainers/stone masons etc, which doesn't make sense. Two queues is one of the things that I, like many people here it seems, love about Stardock games. Surely, rather than saying "we just think it'll be better with one queue," your job as designers is to stay true to something your fans like, and make a two-queue system work? Make the choices matter. It doesn't have to be a case of a building in 10 turns, a peasant in 5 or both in 15? Too much Civ influence is a bad thing imho.
As for the building limits. So, you're saying, even in a vast, level-5 city, I can't have two libraries?! Again, from my point of view, that makes absolutely no sense. It annoys me and would make me enjoy the game less. I agree that the Civ method of having to build ever building asap for fear of falling behind is a pain. I think some sort of limitation on the complete number of buildings, like WoM has at the moment, works well. Once you reach level 5, you can always go in and destroy a few monuments if you want some more research, or perhaps you don't need that barracks anymore, as this city is so far from any serious enemies...
I would beg Stardock to follow the successful and popular pattern of their previous games, and not make FE a game which could easily have started life as a Civ-style game. I LIKE WoM, despite it's flaws (and the fact that it crashes a lot on my machine), please don't just bin it and all it's ideas.
Thanks - I shall now step down off my soap box!
EDIT - sorry, I forgot to add that I does sound great, despite my grumbling - really looking forward to it!
I had taken the time to write out about five paragraphs worth of response in how I'd like the diplomacy and all that to matter and how I'd like for the computer to have an actual reason behind attacking me. Racial enemies, a location of strategic value, a rare resource that I am not willing to share, etc, would all be good reasons for attacking me. But you make a good case as to why they can't just beat me at my own game. As the AI isn't nearly as good at rapid defense as a human player is. Though in my experience the AI plays better in most games than actual people do... Not always mind you, but often enough that I worry at times. However, in thinking about it.. I just may have came up with a solution to my own problem.. Surprise attacks! None of this declaring war and then starting a slow march on my cities.. But the ability for the computer to literally surprise you. Just some clear blue sky day, suddenly.. out of the forests, or from behind the mountains shrouded in the FoW, an army of unimaginable size has just appeared and is marching in on your capital city. No declaration of war, nothing. Just an ass whoopin' headed your way.
Though I understand that'd be damn near impossible to balance for the AI to use and with Stardock being as it is, anything we can do the AI can do, and vice versa. Giving a human player that ability would be broken. However... That sorta reminds me of the Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master books from Raymond Fiest (great books btw). That'd be a kick ass random world event. Other worldly invaders come in on a city, with a surprise attack.. Take it, start a foot hold, new universally hostile faction enters into the game that then proceeds to conquer the lands. And have it be something on the order of requiring a massive alliance to defeat it, I mean after all, you would be fighting to defend your world as a whole. Kinda like The Borg in Star Trek: Birth of the Federation tbs game, if the Borg showed up, it was time to stop fighting the other factions and unite to fight the invaders or die one by one. But I digress..
Perhaps the AI isn't the issue, it could just be that my play style is hard to counter for the AI, and they simply have no choice but to attack me full force.. However, considering it almost never works, they need to try something a little different. The AI in Black & White had a good way of countering my strategies. The asshole would set my cities on fire. I would still win though, as I had a bigger creature that didn't take too kindly to watching my villagers burn. It just was a lot harder to do so when the villagers would lose the will to pray to me to give me power... something to do with being on fire or whatever, I don't know, I didn't pay attention. I was busy skipping rocks across an ocean. Sir! Your cities are burning! As are the people! How dreadful! Well, if they want to be put out that badly, you are getting low on rocks boss.
I thought about the name criminals too, but it really depends a lot on what kind of effects the non-worker non-farmer citizens cause and what kind of effects buildings have on them.
Atmosphere-wise it would be cool to have this sort of an "underworld" in your kingdom that grows depending on how much you alienate your citizens from the government. Then with certain choices in your kingdom you could actually use the underworld to gain more power. Work both sides of the aisle, so to speak. However I believe these are too big of features to consider anymore and the system in place probably won't accommodate this. And calling the dissidents criminals can be kind of strange if all they do is not work. Rebels on the other hand sounds like they are organizing to overthrow you.
It really depends much on what kind of a role they serve in the game. I would like it most to call them collectively as the Underworld, which grows in size depending on how many people participate in it.
Why should it be tough? Is it in the game's design doc that we should be scraping around in the dirt for every spearman we can get?
Personally, I think the game would be more fun if people had epic armies of elite warriors in shining plate, dragons at their side, beautiful cities with walls and towers rising high, and wizards raining down death every turn.
The game should be won because my wizard paralysed your dragon in the crucial battle, or my well drilled pikemen were perfectly created to counter your warg cavalry, or I cast the spell of ultimate doom just as you were on the brink of victory. It should not be won, as it is now, because i managed to recruit a bunch of guys with clubs before you did. Right now all the cool stuff is a luxury that comes too late. You don't need any of it to win the game and that's the problem.
We need less austerity, not more. The game is being won based on who gets to a basic, functioning civilization level first, when it should be won on choosing the right cool things to cast or create, and using them better than the enemy.
A very good point, please someone take notice...
I would have to say that I am in favour of FE becoming more Civ-like. Civilization was a worldwide hit for a reason (ok, forget Civ5 which was made for consoles..). If there can be a game that merges EWoM with Civilization, then I'm all for it. We have already seen that the majority of machanics in WOM just did not work, and are still undergoing modification as I write - that should say all that it needs to, about these. I know that WoM was the beloved brainchild of a well-intentioned obsessive, but that will not necessairily make it fun for all, as the Civ's before 5 most certainly were.
FE strikes me as a salvage operation, of the best and most creative elements of WoM - except Lineage, which could have been the best thing of all, if handled with imagination, boldness and vision. So, I say salvage what can be salvaged, and add what needs to be added - if that is inspiration from Civilization, then so be it.
Bravo! Derek, Brad, and co. - you're finally showing us investors something worthwhile.
Keep up the good work and let's get a beta out soon.
I think Heavenfall nailed it. What level of complexity should the economic system have? It really boils down to providing relevant player choice balanced against the proper level of micro. The devs could overkill it by giving 10 queues per city and then we could have a slider saying how much % of the effort should apply to each queue, adjust over time, etc. But that's a hell of alot of micro. One queue is simple and elegant and meets the dev design focus. Just my opinion of course.
I agree. When each city was doing two things, those things just got lost in the accumulation of 'stuff' to remember. One queue is definitely the way to go, I think.
It seems to me that Fallen Enchantress is copying Civ5 with it's unique buildings, lack of meaningful global resources, and with build time being the main constraint on buildings. Personally I found that system to be annoying and constraining, but I guess some people really loved it in Civ5.
How do you get from this:
to that?
--------------------------------
Ok, tile yields don't expand later on, that's ok. But cities in Elemental and presumly in FE usually sprawl out pretty wide very fast. Thus, if my city reaches a river a bit farther away, can it then build the river only construction, or can it only do that when the river is right next to the city hub tile. If it's the latter, then it's kinda a strange thing and would be quite artificial and feel wierd, since you have a river, but since you didn't build right next to it in the beginning you can't use it at all. :/
Curious on which way you've decided.
Building times are supposed to be negligible by comparison to Civ5. I am constantly trying to find an accelerated production and AI fix mod for that damn game. For some reason those two things crash when combined; not that the game isn't good at crashing without them. It doesn't seem to be anything like Civ5 as far as I can tell. Of course we need the beta to really decide.
Population is local and a city’s population is broken into Farmers, Workers and Rebels (we may change the name for this last one, Dissidents? Angry Hobos?)
Maybe the term you are looking for is "hippies"?
@Vandenburg: The mere fact that they have to point out that resources like metal and crystal are still necessary for "special things" is perhaps the strongest argument in my favor, beside they are talking about units not improvements. Civ5 actually has strategic resources as well, in fact it has more and they are rarer because they don't accumulate.
Cities will be a lot smaller without unlimited improvements and housing.
I'm not saying the new improvement system will necessarily be really bad, just that it does sound a lot like Civ5. If resources aren't the main constraint for building improvements and we are forced to make strategic choices about what we want in our queues because they are always building something... well that's Civ5.
I think there should be only one queue, but military units should not require production time, because they already require population and a low population reduces the production and income. If a military unit is disbanded the population should be returned to the city as rebels. This would remove the tactic to build units only for one battle and disband them after the battle.
Wizard is describing a militia. That would be a good addition to the game, but does not really make any sense as a way to build a professional army.
If every turn in the game is equal a year it would make sense
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