offworld trade and resources
- Thread starter davidlallen
- Start date
I know you all are busy with redoing the tech tree, but the offworld screen is now in a condition where we can talk about concretising the rules.
We have to decide:
What is about the Fremen? Arrakis is their homeworld. They hate doing business with the guild. If we exclude them we have to give them another advantage.
Should the guild itself get a discount? Personally, I'm supporting the idea making the guild non playable.
Currently I have these rules implemented:
- unit has to be in same era as player
- unit is no animal (no, you can't buy a sandstorm)
- unit combat type is not -1 (None)
This is a good question. It defines the impact the homeworld screen will have on gameplay. Should units be bought only in emergency situations or is it a regular alternative for training them? The current price is calculated by CvUnitInfo.getProductionCost(), which is maybe too cheap.
Imho no limit. A discount for buying multiple units would be nice.
Currently they are spawned in your capital city. But I would prefer having a more flexible solution allowing you to choose the city. Maybe we can make a national wonder (space port).
Don't know... 1-2 turns? Maybe we can have an express delivery option (costing additional money)?
We definitely are needing more features. Right now the home world screen is just a gloryfied hurry button, think about it. There was some talk about special services by the guild (satellite maps). Maybe we can manage offworld resources via offworld screen.
This is for flavor. We have to decide if we really want to make a background for each civ. Another possibility would be using some space guild related background. I will need help with these graphics.
Tell me what you think.
Here is a link for the current (very early) version of the homeworld screen. It is 100% working (interface + ai) but not balanced/polished. You'll need 1.4.4 or 1.4.4.1 to make it play: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1jymiidenym.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Some good design questions!
I'm a little unsure about the value of this mechanic, partly because of the issues that arise here, and because I'm very unsure about the ability of the AI to use the mechanic intelligently.
K01
I would let Fremen hire units though the screen.
They're not getting them from the guild, but they're coming in from outlying Sietches via worm (or the deep south, on the Arrakis mapscript).
I understand the instinct to make the Guild non-playable. They *are* scrupulously neutral in this era.... but its nice to have a trade civ. They're clearly distinct, and fun to play, and you can set up mechanics that encourage pacifist neutrality.
K02
I think the mechanic might be a bit boring if you're just getting regular/normal units, though realistically this might have to be how it is implemented. But it would be cool if these units were special somehow.
Some possible ideas to throw out there:
a) This importation mechanic is the *only* way to get most mechanized/aerial units, or to get special faction UUs or URUs, like Ixian Meks, Sardaukar, Worm riders, etc. You simply don't have the means of producing these things locally; they take manufacturing equipment or manpower or whatever that don't exist on Arrakis. OR
b) The units you get from the mechanic start with a Homeworld or Offworld promotion, that gives them an intrinsic bonus - strength first strikes, whatever. These guys are the elite that you are bringing in, not just local yokels.
K03/04
I understand the realism argument for wanting to discount large purchases, but is that really the best for gameplay? I'd probably put it at the opposite; cap the number of units you can import at 1-2 per turn. No fun if you (or the AI) can just instantly spawn a massive army in one of your cities right next to the enemy and go on the warpath before they can respond.
As for cost, that really depends on the purpose for this. Is this designed to be a fun way to turn hold into hammers? Is it supposed to give you special elite units, or units not normally available? Is it supposed to be an expensive way of getting the units you want when you want them? ("the enemy is incoming with thopters, quick, better buy me some missile launchers).
K05
Is it possible to have them delivered to any of your cities? What I would have in mind would be something like the old FFH (or Fall Further?) mercenary/slave hire. Any of your units in a city (or in a city with a landing stage, or spaceport) get a "spell" ability that you can press that opens the homeworld screen. You then select your purchase, and it shows up in that city.
It would be hard to get the AI to do this well.... so maybe just dumping them in the capital is the best.
K06
I'd have no real problem with them showing up immediately, as long as they couldn't move that turn. Otherwise, next turn would be fine. You want to make the purchase decision and the arrival of units still obviously tied together.
I'm a little unsure about the value of this mechanic, partly because of the issues that arise here, and because I'm very unsure about the ability of the AI to use the mechanic intelligently.
K01
I would let Fremen hire units though the screen.
They're not getting them from the guild, but they're coming in from outlying Sietches via worm (or the deep south, on the Arrakis mapscript).
I understand the instinct to make the Guild non-playable. They *are* scrupulously neutral in this era.... but its nice to have a trade civ. They're clearly distinct, and fun to play, and you can set up mechanics that encourage pacifist neutrality.
K02
I think the mechanic might be a bit boring if you're just getting regular/normal units, though realistically this might have to be how it is implemented. But it would be cool if these units were special somehow.
Some possible ideas to throw out there:
a) This importation mechanic is the *only* way to get most mechanized/aerial units, or to get special faction UUs or URUs, like Ixian Meks, Sardaukar, Worm riders, etc. You simply don't have the means of producing these things locally; they take manufacturing equipment or manpower or whatever that don't exist on Arrakis. OR
b) The units you get from the mechanic start with a Homeworld or Offworld promotion, that gives them an intrinsic bonus - strength first strikes, whatever. These guys are the elite that you are bringing in, not just local yokels.
K03/04
I understand the realism argument for wanting to discount large purchases, but is that really the best for gameplay? I'd probably put it at the opposite; cap the number of units you can import at 1-2 per turn. No fun if you (or the AI) can just instantly spawn a massive army in one of your cities right next to the enemy and go on the warpath before they can respond.
As for cost, that really depends on the purpose for this. Is this designed to be a fun way to turn hold into hammers? Is it supposed to give you special elite units, or units not normally available? Is it supposed to be an expensive way of getting the units you want when you want them? ("the enemy is incoming with thopters, quick, better buy me some missile launchers).
K05
Is it possible to have them delivered to any of your cities? What I would have in mind would be something like the old FFH (or Fall Further?) mercenary/slave hire. Any of your units in a city (or in a city with a landing stage, or spaceport) get a "spell" ability that you can press that opens the homeworld screen. You then select your purchase, and it shows up in that city.
It would be hard to get the AI to do this well.... so maybe just dumping them in the capital is the best.
K06
I'd have no real problem with them showing up immediately, as long as they couldn't move that turn. Otherwise, next turn would be fine. You want to make the purchase decision and the arrival of units still obviously tied together.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
Good stuff Koma, I'll check it out.
KO1 - I quite like the idea of the Fremen having Southern/Outlying sietches, but it might be strange for them to pay gold for them, particular if that gold goes to the Guild. Are there other ways or yields that could be used to produce units via this mechanism that would be more appropriate for them? Alternatively, we can come up with an alternate power - some kind of gathering of the tribes type ability.
I'd prefer getting rid of them as a playable civ too. Casting them as traders is not a perfect fit, their income comes from a monopoly on shipping which is not quite the same as haggling over commodities which is what 'trader' makes me think of.
The background to this idea is the vague post-apocalyptic backstory and at some point making connection with the outside universe and your homeworld. This could only happen via the Guild, so the Guild as a playable civ in the game doesn't make a lot of sense pre-offworld contact.
We don't have a compelling or interesting unique mechanic for the Guild yet, and giving them military advantages, powerful military UUs just gets less and less thematic in my opinion.
The way the Guild was modelled in the board game is described here. If we really want to keep the Guild as a civ, then I'd suggest that all the homeworld purchase gold goes to them as their main revenue. To compensate, they do not get any revenue from spice since I all goes to the Navigators to keep the space-folding going.
If you want a trading faction to replace the Guild, then we can re-add Ecaz as the traders - they are pretty much a blank canvas, apart from being a source of various narcotics. Alternatively, make the Smugglers a civ with Esmar Tuek as a leader, then replace the Barbarians with non-aligned Fremen/Waterstealers.
KO2
UUs/URUs only/mostly being available through this mechanic makes sense. Sardaukar or Atreides pilots trained offworld should be stronger. You could make it so that UUs/URUs produced on Arrakis have a penalising promotion - perhaps until they have accumulated enough experience.
KO3/O4
I think it should be all these three things and hopefully more.
K05
Picking would be good, but teaching the AI might be hard.
KO6
Perhaps you could separate training units from shipping them to Arrakis. I'm thinking Colonization again - we could have the equivalent of the quayside with units being added to it ready for transportation. Transporting units en masse can be more cost effective (group discount), but you have to pay to train/produce units in the first place. If want stuff quickly you'd pay much more because you pay for faster training and get less group discount for transportation. Units can be added to the quayside very gradually over time perhaps. Transportation should take until the next turn maximum - travelling without moving, etc. I think it should be made pretty hard but not impossible to build up a massive army and then deploy them in numbers. That way if you can turtle with a small military for long enough, you can deploy a large army of reinforcements.
KO7 - Incorporating the offworld resources in some way would be good. We could even use this to replace the current Contract building implementation. We'd need to add more offworld goods to expand the set and make the effects more interesting.
KO8 - I'm happy to help create backgrounds. I think each civ should have a different one. We should probably test whether mechanic is working/interesting before putting into too much effort to the art though.
KO1 - I quite like the idea of the Fremen having Southern/Outlying sietches, but it might be strange for them to pay gold for them, particular if that gold goes to the Guild. Are there other ways or yields that could be used to produce units via this mechanism that would be more appropriate for them? Alternatively, we can come up with an alternate power - some kind of gathering of the tribes type ability.
I'd prefer getting rid of them as a playable civ too. Casting them as traders is not a perfect fit, their income comes from a monopoly on shipping which is not quite the same as haggling over commodities which is what 'trader' makes me think of.
The background to this idea is the vague post-apocalyptic backstory and at some point making connection with the outside universe and your homeworld. This could only happen via the Guild, so the Guild as a playable civ in the game doesn't make a lot of sense pre-offworld contact.
We don't have a compelling or interesting unique mechanic for the Guild yet, and giving them military advantages, powerful military UUs just gets less and less thematic in my opinion.
The way the Guild was modelled in the board game is described here. If we really want to keep the Guild as a civ, then I'd suggest that all the homeworld purchase gold goes to them as their main revenue. To compensate, they do not get any revenue from spice since I all goes to the Navigators to keep the space-folding going.
If you want a trading faction to replace the Guild, then we can re-add Ecaz as the traders - they are pretty much a blank canvas, apart from being a source of various narcotics. Alternatively, make the Smugglers a civ with Esmar Tuek as a leader, then replace the Barbarians with non-aligned Fremen/Waterstealers.
KO2
UUs/URUs only/mostly being available through this mechanic makes sense. Sardaukar or Atreides pilots trained offworld should be stronger. You could make it so that UUs/URUs produced on Arrakis have a penalising promotion - perhaps until they have accumulated enough experience.
KO3/O4
I think it should be all these three things and hopefully more.
K05
Picking would be good, but teaching the AI might be hard.
KO6
Perhaps you could separate training units from shipping them to Arrakis. I'm thinking Colonization again - we could have the equivalent of the quayside with units being added to it ready for transportation. Transporting units en masse can be more cost effective (group discount), but you have to pay to train/produce units in the first place. If want stuff quickly you'd pay much more because you pay for faster training and get less group discount for transportation. Units can be added to the quayside very gradually over time perhaps. Transportation should take until the next turn maximum - travelling without moving, etc. I think it should be made pretty hard but not impossible to build up a massive army and then deploy them in numbers. That way if you can turtle with a small military for long enough, you can deploy a large army of reinforcements.
KO7 - Incorporating the offworld resources in some way would be good. We could even use this to replace the current Contract building implementation. We'd need to add more offworld goods to expand the set and make the effects more interesting.
KO8 - I'm happy to help create backgrounds. I think each civ should have a different one. We should probably test whether mechanic is working/interesting before putting into too much effort to the art though.
Ahriman
Tyrant
KO1.
I think you could just rationalize the gold as being equipment or supplies or used to buy water to pay for bringing units in. Easiler than devising another mechanic.
I don't like the idea of the gold going to the guild either, or of this being their primary income source. Its a cool mechanic in the boardgame, where there is a fixed gameboard and a fixed number of players and a fixed game length, but I think would work really badly in randomized civ scenarios. What if there are only 3-4 players? The guild has no income. What if there are 12 players? The guild has massive income. The mechanic surely shouldn't operate until the Space Guild tech, so the Guild would have no income in the early-midgame?
KO2
Or add a new unit 'House Guardsmen' to all factions that is available only through this mechanic, with a national limit.
I think you could just rationalize the gold as being equipment or supplies or used to buy water to pay for bringing units in. Easiler than devising another mechanic.
I don't like the idea of the gold going to the guild either, or of this being their primary income source. Its a cool mechanic in the boardgame, where there is a fixed gameboard and a fixed number of players and a fixed game length, but I think would work really badly in randomized civ scenarios. What if there are only 3-4 players? The guild has no income. What if there are 12 players? The guild has massive income. The mechanic surely shouldn't operate until the Space Guild tech, so the Guild would have no income in the early-midgame?
KO2
I think it would be easier to easier to give offworld units a bonus than onworld units a penalty. And you could make it so some of those offworld units were available ONLY through the Guild.
Or add a new unit 'House Guardsmen' to all factions that is available only through this mechanic, with a national limit.
KO1
Outlying Sietches is a solution I can accept. About Gold. I think that was already discussed before but can't we rename gold to spice? It's good for flavor and would make spice in dw mod more important.
A space guild getting income from homeworld screen will be hard to balance. What happen if there are only 2 houses left, you and the guild. Would you buy units?
KO2
In this category we can be creative. We can add promotions, xp's, hitpoints, random stuff, whatever.
Here is another mercenary mod I can use for inspiration.
KO3/4
Ok, I will try cheap units and few limits first and if that has too much impact on gameplay we can increase costs and thighten limits.
KO5
Yes, it's possible to make the city directly selectable. Of course the AI will be hard to teach. But I think it's enough to send defending units to cities in most (potential) danger and all other units to the capital city.
KO6/7
Units showing up immidiately are much easier to code.
A unit pool would be nice. We can add random units and heroes. What is about being able to purchase resources or water from your homeworld?
KO8
Great, Deliverator. True, we shoud test it before spending too much time. Maybe we can just make a placeholder background, something that would work for all houses.
Thanks for the feedback.
Outlying Sietches is a solution I can accept. About Gold. I think that was already discussed before but can't we rename gold to spice? It's good for flavor and would make spice in dw mod more important.
A space guild getting income from homeworld screen will be hard to balance. What happen if there are only 2 houses left, you and the guild. Would you buy units?
KO2
In this category we can be creative. We can add promotions, xp's, hitpoints, random stuff, whatever.
Here is another mercenary mod I can use for inspiration.
KO3/4
Ok, I will try cheap units and few limits first and if that has too much impact on gameplay we can increase costs and thighten limits.
KO5
Yes, it's possible to make the city directly selectable. Of course the AI will be hard to teach. But I think it's enough to send defending units to cities in most (potential) danger and all other units to the capital city.
KO6/7
Units showing up immidiately are much easier to code.
A unit pool would be nice. We can add random units and heroes. What is about being able to purchase resources or water from your homeworld?
KO8
Great, Deliverator. True, we shoud test it before spending too much time. Maybe we can just make a placeholder background, something that would work for all houses.
Thanks for the feedback.
Ahriman
Tyrant
But most tiles don't provide spice. Should you really be getting spice from a cottage tile, or a windtrap tile, or a well?
K05
Agreed.
I don't see any particular reason to have delayed units; if its easier to code immediate, then do it that way. Can you make them show up as having already moved though?
The unit pool idea is also interesting. So you can pay a little gold to buy units from your homeworld, but only from the units that have shown up in your pool.
And the units that show up there are indenpendent of what is happening on Arrakis.
This sounds like a nice anti-slippery slope mechanic; no matter how weak your faction's foothold is on Arrakis, you have basically the same imported unit pool as everyone else, available for just the gold to import it. So small factions can hang on by cheaply importing a ton of units, relative to the size of their civ.
Actually I like this a LOT. Its a great balancing mechanic; you don't have to worry about the units being cheap, because there are only a limited number of them for sale.
We could hard-code separate spawn lists (either random or deterministic) for each faction.
So the units that show up in your pool are independent of your techlevel too, and tie them to the turn counter, or to the tech age of the most advanced faction, or of your own faction.
For example, we could have:
Fremen:
First 100 turns
Desert raider shows up 5% chance per turn.
Bladesman shows up 5% per turn.
Turns 101-200
Elite bladesman shows up 8% per turn.
Master guardsman shows up 8% per turn.
Turns 201-300
Worm rider shows up 10% per turn.
Turns 300+
Fedaykin shows up 10% per turn.
Corrino:
First 100 turns
Imperial militia shows up 15% chance per turn.
Turns 101-200
Elite bladesman shows up 8% per turn.
Master guardsman shows up 8% per turn.
Turns 201-300
Sardaukar shows up 10% per turn.
Turns 300+
Sardaukar shows up 20% per turn.
Atreides:
First 100 turns
Infantry shows up 5% chance per turn.
Light thopter shows up 5% per turn.
Turns 101-200
Elite bladesman shows up 8% per turn.
Light hornet shows up 8% per turn.
Turns 201-300
Falcon thopter shows up 10% per turn.
Assault hornet shows up 10% per turn.
Turns 300+
Sonic tank shows up 5% per turn.
etc.
We could tweak the spawn rates so they're roughly balanced across factions.
And there could be an expensive national wonder that increases the spawn chances by 50%.
Even if the guild was left in-game, they could just have free unit import costs, but still be limited by the spawn rate of their pool.
davidlallen
Deity
How about providing this screen *only* for the guild?
I agree that being able to produce the units in any city with a spaceport seems good. I like the idea of an action button on the city with the building. On the other hand, the spaceport gives airlift, so it is "only some micromanagement" to get the units to the desired city after the fact. How does your new AI decide whether to purchase units? After that, it may be possible to add some logic which picks the most relevant city with a spaceport, and put the unit there.
I agree that being able to buy standard units is not too exciting, unless it is the primary way the spacers get units. I think there should be a category of units like "elite" or "house guard" units. These could be UU with a national limit. But we can control the availability of the units anyway, so we may not need to make them UU. They could also just start with 1-2 promotions.
There is a mechanic in some other games I like, where slightly more powerful and unique mercenaries are available, and you *bid* against the other players. That is, when a mercenary is available, you can bid for the contract that turn. Whichever player bids the highest wins that unit for a period of time before the contract is up. It is not an "auction" since there is only one round of bidding. I think that is fun, but nothing in the Dune universe really suggests this. Maybe we can consider this under the category of heroes, post-1.5.
EDIT: I see this is very similar to TheLopez's mercenary mod which koma has just posted a link to. It may be worthwhile to try that out on its own and see how it works.
I agree that being able to produce the units in any city with a spaceport seems good. I like the idea of an action button on the city with the building. On the other hand, the spaceport gives airlift, so it is "only some micromanagement" to get the units to the desired city after the fact. How does your new AI decide whether to purchase units? After that, it may be possible to add some logic which picks the most relevant city with a spaceport, and put the unit there.
I agree that being able to buy standard units is not too exciting, unless it is the primary way the spacers get units. I think there should be a category of units like "elite" or "house guard" units. These could be UU with a national limit. But we can control the availability of the units anyway, so we may not need to make them UU. They could also just start with 1-2 promotions.
There is a mechanic in some other games I like, where slightly more powerful and unique mercenaries are available, and you *bid* against the other players. That is, when a mercenary is available, you can bid for the contract that turn. Whichever player bids the highest wins that unit for a period of time before the contract is up. It is not an "auction" since there is only one round of bidding. I think that is fun, but nothing in the Dune universe really suggests this. Maybe we can consider this under the category of heroes, post-1.5.
EDIT: I see this is very similar to TheLopez's mercenary mod which koma has just posted a link to. It may be worthwhile to try that out on its own and see how it works.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think this is probably an awful lot of work for a mechanic for only 1 faction.
I'd prefer to have the Guild player be able to import for free (using the limited pool idea) while the other factions must pay gold.
Yes, the House Guard I think works well - I was thinking sort of Huskarls type thing from Saxon England. It could be a UU for each faction, or could just be a single unit available to everyone, with a National limit.
I don't really like the bidding idea. That can work great in games with multiple human players, but its unlikely to work well when you're playing primarily against the AI. Plus these aren't really mercenaries you're importing; you're paying the Guild to import your own troops.
I'd prefer to have the Guild player be able to import for free (using the limited pool idea) while the other factions must pay gold.
Yes, the House Guard I think works well - I was thinking sort of Huskarls type thing from Saxon England. It could be a UU for each faction, or could just be a single unit available to everyone, with a National limit.
I don't really like the bidding idea. That can work great in games with multiple human players, but its unlikely to work well when you're playing primarily against the AI. Plus these aren't really mercenaries you're importing; you're paying the Guild to import your own troops.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
Had a quick play. It was fun spending my first goody hut gold on some suspensor gunships! And the Guild chat-back at the bottom of the screen made me smile too.
I did a very quick and crude mockup of art ideas for the homeworld screen (attached). I like the idea of having both a view of each homeworld from space as well as a landscape view in there. The layout very much depends on what additional stuff goes in it. Art-wise, this is great opportunity to have something that adds to the atmosphere and immersiveness of the game.
I've also taken a few stills from the film and TV that could be used to make better placeholder art.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2221nrncdvg
I like the concept or these two. How would they both work?
We could effectively move the contract mechanic for offworld goods into the screen and make the contracts cost a certain amount of gold each turn. Then the more powerful offworld resources could have a higher price perhaps.
I did a very quick and crude mockup of art ideas for the homeworld screen (attached). I like the idea of having both a view of each homeworld from space as well as a landscape view in there. The layout very much depends on what additional stuff goes in it. Art-wise, this is great opportunity to have something that adds to the atmosphere and immersiveness of the game.
I've also taken a few stills from the film and TV that could be used to make better placeholder art.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2221nrncdvg
I like the concept or these two. How would they both work?
We could effectively move the contract mechanic for offworld goods into the screen and make the contracts cost a certain amount of gold each turn. Then the more powerful offworld resources could have a higher price perhaps.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think the offworld resources work pretty well now, and I think inter-stellar transport of water is just not going to be even close to economic. They certainly don't do it in the books.
davidlallen
Deity
Ecaz for Spacers?
Now that we have something working for this purchase screen, maybe it makes sense to remove the Spacing Guild as a civilization. How about we substitute Ecaz for Spacing Guild. We already have the flag, leaderhead, etc from Deliverator's previous work. Then we can use the leaderhead art for the spacer guy, as the button for invoking the build screen. This way, we can use the concept of money you pay to the guild, and not worry about the guild civilization actually spending the money.
Anything we were going to do in terms of economics and trade for the spacer guild UU/UB or mechanics, we can do for Ecaz instead. Deliverator had originally proposed that some of the offworld trade items should be limited to Ecaz only, which I can now easily implement.
If there are no objections, I will make this change in 1.4.7.
What can you buy?
One thing I think we should avoid is the need to "poll" the mercenaries screen. If units show up according to some event script, or rare/unique mercenaries show up occasionally, then the player must bring up the mercenaries screen each turn to see what is there. This is not efficient. So I don't think we should try for unique mercenaries or units arriving by a timed script.
I think "house guard" or "elite" units make sense; we could give them 1-2 promotions over base units. If they are expensive, there is no need to make a separate limit; money is its own limit. Perhaps each purchaseable unit could have two varieties, normal and elite, where elite is 1.5x the cost or similar.
The barbarian civ has some rules for what units it can build. Some units can be straight out disabled in civilizationinfos.xml; but among the available units, the game decides when the higher tech barbarian units can be introduced. I think the rule has something to do with, awarding techs to the barbarian player once 1/2 the players in the game have it. So if you are lagging in tech, you could face barbarian units which are more advanced than your own units.
Can we use the exact same rule for availability of mercenary units? This way, a player who is behind, but still somehow has a lot of money, could buy units which he could not build.
Where the units appear
I like the idea of a button on each city with a spaceport. The AI could randomly pick, or randomly with a 50% weight to the capitol. It would be nice to pick cities under attack, or cities from which an attack is about to be launched. Perhaps this could be accomplished by giving a higher weight to cities which already have more units. This may be a city under attack or a city which is building a stack of doom already.
One complexity which may be interesting later, is what happens when a city under siege buys a replacement. The Guild ship lands at the spaceport in the target city. In traditional warfare today, cargo airplanes coming into a city being attacked would be at high risk from SAMs, so probably you would not try to reinforce a city this way.
What happens if the besieging player has antiaircraft troops? Should he have the opportunity to fire on the Guild ship? This may have serious penalties, as the Guild embargoes you; you might lose the ability to buy new units or to receive any offworld resources. But still, if you are not dependent on any of those things, you might not care; you might go ahead and shoot down the guild ship.
In one tactical modern wargame I play, cargo planes can move units, but the plane and the unit will both be lost if there is an unexpected SAM site. The plane physically moves across the board to show this. If we wanted, perhaps we could make a unit for "Guild Transport" which would appear *next to* the city receiving the reinforcement. That way a besieging player might choose to attack.
This may add some "fun" but also a lot of complexity, so we can leave it for later / never.
Now that we have something working for this purchase screen, maybe it makes sense to remove the Spacing Guild as a civilization. How about we substitute Ecaz for Spacing Guild. We already have the flag, leaderhead, etc from Deliverator's previous work. Then we can use the leaderhead art for the spacer guy, as the button for invoking the build screen. This way, we can use the concept of money you pay to the guild, and not worry about the guild civilization actually spending the money.
Anything we were going to do in terms of economics and trade for the spacer guild UU/UB or mechanics, we can do for Ecaz instead. Deliverator had originally proposed that some of the offworld trade items should be limited to Ecaz only, which I can now easily implement.
If there are no objections, I will make this change in 1.4.7.
What can you buy?
One thing I think we should avoid is the need to "poll" the mercenaries screen. If units show up according to some event script, or rare/unique mercenaries show up occasionally, then the player must bring up the mercenaries screen each turn to see what is there. This is not efficient. So I don't think we should try for unique mercenaries or units arriving by a timed script.
I think "house guard" or "elite" units make sense; we could give them 1-2 promotions over base units. If they are expensive, there is no need to make a separate limit; money is its own limit. Perhaps each purchaseable unit could have two varieties, normal and elite, where elite is 1.5x the cost or similar.
The barbarian civ has some rules for what units it can build. Some units can be straight out disabled in civilizationinfos.xml; but among the available units, the game decides when the higher tech barbarian units can be introduced. I think the rule has something to do with, awarding techs to the barbarian player once 1/2 the players in the game have it. So if you are lagging in tech, you could face barbarian units which are more advanced than your own units.
Can we use the exact same rule for availability of mercenary units? This way, a player who is behind, but still somehow has a lot of money, could buy units which he could not build.
Where the units appear
I like the idea of a button on each city with a spaceport. The AI could randomly pick, or randomly with a 50% weight to the capitol. It would be nice to pick cities under attack, or cities from which an attack is about to be launched. Perhaps this could be accomplished by giving a higher weight to cities which already have more units. This may be a city under attack or a city which is building a stack of doom already.
One complexity which may be interesting later, is what happens when a city under siege buys a replacement. The Guild ship lands at the spaceport in the target city. In traditional warfare today, cargo airplanes coming into a city being attacked would be at high risk from SAMs, so probably you would not try to reinforce a city this way.
What happens if the besieging player has antiaircraft troops? Should he have the opportunity to fire on the Guild ship? This may have serious penalties, as the Guild embargoes you; you might lose the ability to buy new units or to receive any offworld resources. But still, if you are not dependent on any of those things, you might not care; you might go ahead and shoot down the guild ship.
In one tactical modern wargame I play, cargo planes can move units, but the plane and the unit will both be lost if there is an unexpected SAM site. The plane physically moves across the board to show this. If we wanted, perhaps we could make a unit for "Guild Transport" which would appear *next to* the city receiving the reinforcement. That way a besieging player might choose to attack.
This may add some "fun" but also a lot of complexity, so we can leave it for later / never.
True, No water and spice in same tile.
I am using an already existing method called CvPlayerAI::AI_unitValue. Everything with a value > 0 is getting purchased.
Have a look inside sdkDbg.log to see which units are bought by ai. Bidding could be interesting for hero units in a global pool. It should work like ebay (several turns).
Hehe, but don't trust him too much... I first had only that 3 lists but got bored and added a guild ambassador. For the background I would prefer a more solid/consistent image, the Caladan background is imho too much looking like a post card.
Maybe Ahriman is right. I will focus on mercenary system first.
davidlallen
Deity
I am using an already existing method called CvPlayerAI::AI_unitValue. Everything with a value > 0 is getting purchased.
My question is how does the AI decide how much money to spend? Suppose it has 100 gold, its maintenance is 20/turn, and there is a cool unit available for 90 gold.
We can add a message to the main log.
Ah ok. I have included an AI_isFinancialTrouble()/AI_goldTarget() check. The financial check will prevent ai to buy units if nearly bankrupt. AI_goldTarget should allow the ai to accumulate a larger gold sum before buying units. This check is only made once at the beginning of a turn, means ai right now is a shopping addict, spending most of its money for units.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I understand the point about not wanting to have the player check the screen every turn, but I still really like the idea of a finite pool of units that the player can recruit. Is there any way we can combine these two?
I have no strong objections to removing the Guild as a playable faction, as long as there is still a Trader faction and as long as the Guild still features prominently in the game.
I'd be fine with no possibility for shooting down Guild frigates.
a) they're probably heavily shielded
b) the consequences in Dune lore of defying the guild are catastrophic; they'd blockage your homeworld and all your trade and choke you to death.
I'd really emphasize thinking of this as a Homeworld Import system rather than a mercenary system. You're not hiring mercenaries; you're paying the Guild to transport your own soldiers to Dune.
This is part of why I like the idea of differentiating unit availability by faction. Atreides can get good air units in, Corrino bring in Sardaukar, Harkonnen bring in artillery and scorpions, Fremen bring melee infantry, etc.
I'd also make sure that they screen isn't available before (at minimum) the offworld trade tech.
It also needs to be generally cheaper to build the thing on Arrakis, so your main bonus is instantly getting what you want-when-you-want-it, unless you go with the limited recruitment pool idea.
I have no strong objections to removing the Guild as a playable faction, as long as there is still a Trader faction and as long as the Guild still features prominently in the game.
I'd be fine with no possibility for shooting down Guild frigates.
a) they're probably heavily shielded
b) the consequences in Dune lore of defying the guild are catastrophic; they'd blockage your homeworld and all your trade and choke you to death.
I'd really emphasize thinking of this as a Homeworld Import system rather than a mercenary system. You're not hiring mercenaries; you're paying the Guild to transport your own soldiers to Dune.
This is part of why I like the idea of differentiating unit availability by faction. Atreides can get good air units in, Corrino bring in Sardaukar, Harkonnen bring in artillery and scorpions, Fremen bring melee infantry, etc.
I'd also make sure that they screen isn't available before (at minimum) the offworld trade tech.
It also needs to be generally cheaper to build the thing on Arrakis, so your main bonus is instantly getting what you want-when-you-want-it, unless you go with the limited recruitment pool idea.
davidlallen
Deity
Do you mean each player has a finite pool, or there is some shared pool? Assuming you mean a pool for each player, why is a *finite* pool important? If the pool refills slowly, I think polling is unavoidable. The problem with a log message is that these are transient, and it may be that there are several units available, and I think that this will generate too many log messages which scroll out of view and then vanish.
I agree that is a better name; let's use it.
Once we define UU, I guess all the UU should be added to the screen for their civ. I think it may get too complicated if there are UU which can *only* be imported. To keep with this and emphasize that Fremen live here, I would say that Fremen UU are not available for purchase. You can't pay the guild to import troops that already live here.
Agree, my suggestion is that the button to invoke the screen only shows in cities with spaceports built.
@ Koma, what determines *what kind* of units are available? Is it ever possible to buy a unit you can't build? I think this is good for players who are behind on tech.
EDIT: re-read announcement; any unit of player's era is available. So it is possible to buy a unit slightly ahead of your tech, when you just enter an era.
davidlallen
Deity
Feedback on homeworld screen:
DA32. Please filter out other civs' UU from the list. In 1.4.4, Imperial Militia is one UU; you can test with this.
DA33. Should we filter out units which require unique bonuses? For example, Ginaz Warrior requires Kindjal; should this unit appear in the list if you do, or do not have Kindjal?
DA34. Please show the total cost of the selected units, and the amount of gold I have. As I select or unselect units, these should update.
DA35. I do not think there is a need for the "transit" section. The screen will be simpler if clicking "OK" directly makes the units appear and exits the screen.
DA36. Is it possible to draw the units which I cannot afford, in red color and make them unclickable?
DA37. Is it possible to show the icon of the unit?
DA38. After DA37, is it possible to show the hover help of the unit when I mouseover the icon?
DA39. As requested in an earlier post, is it possible to trigger this screen on a button, which appears in cities that have the spaceport building?
DA40. Is it possible to add an "elite" unit selection which has 1-2 promotions, for 1.5x the cost?
DA39.
DA32. Please filter out other civs' UU from the list. In 1.4.4, Imperial Militia is one UU; you can test with this.
DA33. Should we filter out units which require unique bonuses? For example, Ginaz Warrior requires Kindjal; should this unit appear in the list if you do, or do not have Kindjal?
DA34. Please show the total cost of the selected units, and the amount of gold I have. As I select or unselect units, these should update.
DA35. I do not think there is a need for the "transit" section. The screen will be simpler if clicking "OK" directly makes the units appear and exits the screen.
DA36. Is it possible to draw the units which I cannot afford, in red color and make them unclickable?
DA37. Is it possible to show the icon of the unit?
DA38. After DA37, is it possible to show the hover help of the unit when I mouseover the icon?
DA39. As requested in an earlier post, is it possible to trigger this screen on a button, which appears in cities that have the spaceport building?
DA40. Is it possible to add an "elite" unit selection which has 1-2 promotions, for 1.5x the cost?
DA39.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Yes, I mean a finite pool for each player. A finite pool is a self-limiting device for preventing the mechanic from becoming too strong. Its much easier to balance a finite pool for each player; an infinite pool is much harder to balance and risks messing up the entire game balance; it can easily allow you to run a big economy with small military, and then instantly create a huge army if you happen to get into a war. It breaks a lot of core civ mechanics, like the need to build your army *before* a war; you have to plan ahead normally, but if you can just buy in an army with whatever units you need, and never need to worry about running out, then you lose a lot of strategic depth.
An infinite pool is also much harder to get the AI to use intelligently. The AI is already designed to build units appropriately with hammers; to get a bigger army if it needs one, and to build units that are counters to yours. If you're fielding a big army of chariots, the AI will build spearmen. If you're attack with a ton of macemen, the AI will build crossbows. If you've got a lot of aircraft, they'll build SAMs. But with an infinite recruitment pool, you risk transfering the primary unit acquisition method out of city construction (which the AI knows how to do fairly well) and into this spaceport mechanic where the AI isn't going to perform well.
You lose a lot of the civ AI.
Its much easier to code the AI with a finite pool, because it doesn't matter if you make the units cheap; you can always
Is "polling" the screen really that big of a problem? With a fixed pool, you can leave the units there (and not pay maintenance) until you want them, then buy whatever there is when you need them. Its not really worth checking for just 1 new unit every turn. Or get rid of the randomless, so 1 unit enters the pool every x turns, and it is a predictable pattern. You can even create a popup event message for the player when this happens, so the player doesn't have to check.
As noted above, a finite pool is also a good anti-slippery slope mechanic. If every faction has access to a fixed number of cheap offworld units, then even a faction that is doing badly can still put up a decent fight for a while because of their cheap imported units.
It also makes the decision whether to vassalize or eliminate an enemy faction more strategic; normally its better to wipe them out (no more cultural/happiness problems), but if they still get their homeworld units, there is a tradeoff and you might want to keep them around.
Finally, I think its just more fun. There are only so many troops that your homeworld can spare to come help you. The mechanic will be boring I think if you can instantly create huge armies in a manner limited only by your gold supply. Building a conquest army should take time.
As above, I'd just argue that the Fremen are getting units from the deep south via worm, you're just using the same mechanic and load screen for convenience; you could easily make the displayed "Fremen" planet be a worm with a bunch of guys on it instead of Caladaan or Giedi Prime or whatever.
Or landing stage, since spaceports come in the late-midgame in my tech tree design IIRC.
Another way you could implement this to eliminate the "polling" phenom; limit the periods where you can access the screen. So for example have the screen be triggered by an even that comes every X turns; "the Spacing Guild have a heighliner en route from your homeworld to Arrakis; do you wish to pay them to transport some of your forces?" and then trigger the screen.
Deliverator
Graphical Hackificator
Part of the inspiration for this concept was Colonization. Here's a screenshot of koma's screen for Colonization.
The jetty to the right gradually fills up with units, more quickly as you produce the Crosses yield in the new world. You can also pay for particular units that you want. As the game goes on it takes more and more Crosses to earn units on the jetty, so you become more dependent on homegrown units.
I think a unique pool for each player is what I envisioned for this - which is similar to the Colonization jetty although different in several ways. I don't think there is a need to make it finite. You just need to control the rate at which units are added to the pool dependent on how long you are into the game and how many units you have purchased. You effectively need a throttling mechanism so that the pool fills up more slowly if you are buying a lot of units. I prefer throttling to a finite number than just runs out.
I don't think polling the screen to check what units are available is necessarily a big problem if the screen is a big element of the game. That's what you have to do in Colonization and no-one complains about it. Perhaps have a regular pop-up that lists the currently available homeworld units as a prompter/reminder.
Agree with all these points.
The primary means of getting units should still be to build them normally.
I'm happy with swapping Ecaz in for the Guild. I think this will set us free to use the Guild as a game concept, which I think will leads us into some more interesting mechanics. We can also have a colour nicer than pale lilac for Ecaz.
If we don't want to give the Fremen the screen, you could give them the auto-spawning mechanic that the Atreides currently have which needs to be toned down as well. I'm not sure this mechanic fits the Atreides too well, whereas the Fremen would have a great free supply of fighters. The Atreides unique abilities can be diplomatic bonuses, a small number of better-than-Sardaukar fighters (Ducal Guard?) and better flying units and pilot promotions.
I think that there are two cases. One where the required resource is a civ UR like Sardaukar Coop, and one where the resource does not belong to a faction like Kindjal (which I still think should be renamed Ginaz Swordsmanship/Ginaz Sword Training). I think only Corrino should be able to get Sardaukar from their homeworld (first case), but everyone should be able to get Ginaz Swordmasters (second case). This would be achievable if every Civ has a list of units that can appear at their homeworld as Ahriman suggest. These lists would be free from resource requirement restrictions.
How URs/URUs and the Homeworld screen interact does need to be thought through a bit more.
Spoiler :
The jetty to the right gradually fills up with units, more quickly as you produce the Crosses yield in the new world. You can also pay for particular units that you want. As the game goes on it takes more and more Crosses to earn units on the jetty, so you become more dependent on homegrown units.
I think a unique pool for each player is what I envisioned for this - which is similar to the Colonization jetty although different in several ways. I don't think there is a need to make it finite. You just need to control the rate at which units are added to the pool dependent on how long you are into the game and how many units you have purchased. You effectively need a throttling mechanism so that the pool fills up more slowly if you are buying a lot of units. I prefer throttling to a finite number than just runs out.
I don't think polling the screen to check what units are available is necessarily a big problem if the screen is a big element of the game. That's what you have to do in Colonization and no-one complains about it. Perhaps have a regular pop-up that lists the currently available homeworld units as a prompter/reminder.
Agree with all these points.
The primary means of getting units should still be to build them normally.
I'm happy with swapping Ecaz in for the Guild. I think this will set us free to use the Guild as a game concept, which I think will leads us into some more interesting mechanics. We can also have a colour nicer than pale lilac for Ecaz.
If we don't want to give the Fremen the screen, you could give them the auto-spawning mechanic that the Atreides currently have which needs to be toned down as well. I'm not sure this mechanic fits the Atreides too well, whereas the Fremen would have a great free supply of fighters. The Atreides unique abilities can be diplomatic bonuses, a small number of better-than-Sardaukar fighters (Ducal Guard?) and better flying units and pilot promotions.
I think that there are two cases. One where the required resource is a civ UR like Sardaukar Coop, and one where the resource does not belong to a faction like Kindjal (which I still think should be renamed Ginaz Swordsmanship/Ginaz Sword Training). I think only Corrino should be able to get Sardaukar from their homeworld (first case), but everyone should be able to get Ginaz Swordmasters (second case). This would be achievable if every Civ has a list of units that can appear at their homeworld as Ahriman suggest. These lists would be free from resource requirement restrictions.
How URs/URUs and the Homeworld screen interact does need to be thought through a bit more.
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