offworld trade and resources

Ahriman said:

But what will the Ecazi player be trading *for*?

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Anything they want. In the succession game, you were trying pretty hard to get Fremen to be friendly to get Water Debt. Similarly, Ecaz may want one of the other URU, or to start or end a war, etc.

It would seem relatively harmless to have the +N% per resource available, since for any of these you could have at maximum two copies. So, CHOAM Directorate could give say +5% gold per copy of soostone, opafire, wine, semuta, or pundi rice. So, if you had 2 soostone resources and 1 semuta resource, it would give +15% gold.

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I have not copied back the enhancement which Afforess did to make a list of resources trigger the benefit. Also, I have not planned to reduce the number of resources from a contract; it would still be 3. I would like to allow the possibility that a civ has two friends to trade with. Only the labor contract will be limited to one, because I can't think of any other way to implement it. It gives a building like the vanilla wonder which increases the worker rate for the civ.

The problem with this is the human exploit; trade for the resource, build the building everywhere, then end the trade - but keep the buildings.

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So what? If the resource is lost, the benefit is lost. You have a building taking up space not doing anything. That does not seem to be an exploit.

My design here didn't put it on the temple; it put it on a "Tleilaxu population" building.

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Sorry, I still think this is clumsy. The user will see "+2 health from slig" and "-2 health from unavoidable building" as separate entries in all the hover help. Making sure that building appears and disappears as needed also requires careful tracking; it should not exist until the landing stage with contract is built, and if the contract city should be lost, then the population building should also be destroyed.

In the succession game, you were trying pretty hard to get Fremen to be friendly to get Water Debt.

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Yes, we were trying to get Water Debt, partly for roleplay reasons, and partly beacuse its valuable. Though we wouldn't have needed offworld goods to trade for it, normal trade resources would work too.
We weren't able to get it because the diplomatic relations weren't high enough; they wouldn't trade because we weren't their friend enough. They required a bit too much friendship; I think I lowered this parameter in the latest leaderdesign.
Nothing to do with the value of the resource.

I have not copied back the enhancement which Afforess did to make a list of resources trigger the benefit

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I'm confused. I thought you just said you *could* do that.
"I have added an sdk change which is +N % *per resource available*. Then a civ which has a contract for 3 of the resource would get 3N % gold while a civ which had traded for one of the resource would get N % gold."
If you can do this, then we can use this mechanic.

Also, I have not planned to reduce the number of resources from a contract; it would still be 3. I would like to allow the possibility that a civ has two friends to trade with

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I think if you get 3 copies of everything, then it becomse too easy to trade for them, and too many civs have too many unique resources. Particularly, too many civs are running around with Sardaukar or Walkers. I think 2 copies will work better. Also, 2 copies will work better if we use the + n% per copy mechanic.
I would rather have fewer copies of powerful resources, that feel like they matter, than many copies of weak resources that are just the same as on-map resources.

So what? If the resource is lost, the benefit is lost. You have a building taking up space not doing anything. That does not seem to be an exploit.

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Not as currently implemented, and as it sounded like you were suggesting.

The ice trader building gives +3 water, and requires the polar ice resource.
So, you can trade for the ice resource, build the +3 water building, cancel the trade, adnt hen you get left with the +3 water building, which still provides its bonus.
The bonus does not require the resource, only the building required the resource.
The building gives "+3 water"; it does not give "+3 water with polar ice".

I thought this was what you were proposing here; a building that required say the soostone resource, that gave +10% commerce. This would be vulnerable to the exploit, because if you lose the soostone resource, you would lose the ability to build any more copies of the building, but the existing buildnig would still be there and would still give +10% commerce.

If you can already gives +10% commerce with soostone (ie lose the resource, then lose the bonus), then you can just tie that into the CHOAM directorate directly; why do you need a separate building? The equivalent would be having the ice trader give +1 water per polar ice resource.
But I thought you just said you could not do this?

Either you *can* do the +N % commerce per copy of the resource, in which case we can use that mechanic.
Or you cannot use the +N% commerce per copy of the resource, in which case you have the stop-trading-exploit.

Sorry, I still think this is clumsy.

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It is a little clumsy, but its a neat flavor easter-egg too. If you don't think the clumsiness is worth the flavor, that's fine with me.

I think the distinction is that a building can give +N% gold from a resource, but any specific building can only do it for one specific resource. So you cannot have one building give +N% gold per resource A and +M% gold per resource B; you'd have to use two different buildings to get both.

Ahh. So you could have CHOAM Directorate give +5% gold per soostone resource, but you could not have CHOAM Directorate give +5% gold per soostone resource AND +5% gold per opafire resource.

And you cannot have CHOAM Directorate give +10% gold with (any number of) Soostone resource.
[I know other mods have this possibility though.]

Is this what you're saying?

I think if you get 3 copies of everything, then it becomse too easy to trade for them, and too many civs have too many unique resources.

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It is a minor point, but I think 2 is too rare.

Ahriman said:

I'm confused. I thought you just said you *could* do that.
"I have added an sdk change which is +N % *per resource available*.

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I did not think this is so confusing. You can think of four different methods:

a. +N% per connected resource of one type
b. +N% per connected resource among a list of resource types
c. +N% if you have at least one of a resource or +0% otherwise
d. Building requires a resource to build and provides +N%

I have done (a). Afforess has apparently extended that to (b) but I have not put his code into DW. I am sure there are implementations somewhere which do (c) but there isn't one in DW. (d) is an existing vanilla feature.

The ice trader building gives +3 water, and requires the polar ice resource.
So, you can trade for the ice resource, build the +3 water building, cancel the trade, adnt hen you get left with the +3 water building, which still provides its bonus.

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This is a vanilla feature. We apparently disagree on how it works. I believe that if you lose the resource then the +3 water goes away. You believe the +3 water stays. It is easy to test, which I can try in another 6 hours from now.

It is a minor point, but I think 2 is too rare.

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Perhaps we can compromise; 3 copies of the luxury goods (semuta, wine, etc.) but 2 copies of the strategic goods (Sardaukar cooperation, Water Debt, Ixian Technologies).

You can think of four different methods:

a. +N% per connected resource of one type
b. +N% per connected resource among a list of resource types
c. +N% if you have at least one of a resource or +0% otherwise
d. Building requires a resource to build and provides +N%

I have done (a). Afforess has apparently extended that to (b) but I have not put his code into DW. I am sure there are implementations somewhere which do (c) but there isn't one in DW. (d) is an existing vanilla feature.

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Ok, this is succinct. My desired methods require being able to do b) or c).
c) seems like it would require nontrivial work; would b) be easy to implement?
Otherwise I will try to think of a design that can be done using only a) and d).

I believe that if you lose the resource then the +3 water goes away. You believe the +3 water stays.

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Yes.
I am pretty confident that as long as the resource is only required to complete the building (case d) above) then losing the resource does not affect the building yield. As you say, easy to test.

Ahriman said:

My desired methods require being able to do b) or c). c) seems like it would require nontrivial work; would b) be easy to implement? Otherwise I will try to think of a design that can be done using only a) and d).

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Any solution involving (b) with a single building can also be done with (a) and multiple buildings. There are always more releases, but I will not have the opportunity to merge Afforess's solution for (b) into 1.7. If you like, please go ahead and try a design with (b) and we can put it into 1.7.1 or similar. Or, try the experiment with (d), observe that I am right , and use (d).

I will decrease the happiness benefit of these items in 1.7 from 2 to 1. This may make them temporarily underpowered, or not. If we agree they are underpowered, then we can address that in 1.7.1 with these additional buildings.

Any solution involving (b) with a single building can also be done with (a) and multiple buildings.

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Yes, but.... doing it with multiple buildings can be illogical or clumsy.

My preference with b) would be:
Soostone = +1 happy, +1happy with theater, +5% gold per soostone with CHOAM Directorate
Opafire = +1 happy, +1 happy with theater, +5% gold per opafire with CHOAM Directorate
Caladaanian wine = +1 happy, +10% gold per wine with CHOAM Directorate, +1 happy with Banquet Hall, Atreides only.
Semuta = +2 happy, +10% gold per semuta with CHOAM Directorate, Ecaz only
Pundi rice = +1 health, +1 health with banquet hall, +10% gold per rice with CHOAM Directorate.
Slig meat = +1 health, +1 health with banquet hall, +5% gold per slig with ?Zensufi temple?, Tleilaxu only.


One possiblity with a) would be:
Opafire = +1 happy, +1 happy with theatre, +5% gold per opafire for CHOAM outpost
Soostone = +1 happy, +1 happy with theatre, +10% gold per soostone for CHOAM Directorate.

Wine = +2 happy, +1 happy with Banquet hall, (requires Atreides)
Semuta = +2 happy, +5% gold per semuta with sculptor's garden (requires Ecaz)

Pundi rice = +1 health, +1 health with banquet hall
Slig meat = +1 health, +5% gold per slig meat with ?Zensufi temple?, Tleilaxu only.

Or something like that.
But that makes them pretty weak.

Just to double check, you want all of these +gold bonuses to come from a single building. So without this religion, you can't get any bonuses, and once you build this single building, you get all these bonuses. Doesn't that seem a little too centralized?

Just to double check, you want all of these +gold bonuses to come from a single building.

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Pretty much. Or potentially spread across the 2 Landsraad religious buildings.

So without this religion, you can't get any bonuses, and once you build this single building, you get all these bonuses.

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You still get the base happy/heath bonus and potenially another bonus from another building. These are the main reasons to get the trade good.

Doesn't that seem a little too centralized?

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No, not really. The bonuses are minor- particularly if there are only 2 copies of each resource and so its hard to accumulate lots of them.
The purpose is to encourage a synergy between trade-goods and the trade-religion. If you're playing Landsraad religion, you should have more incentive to try to get more trade goods. This also gives a synergy for Ecaz with Landsraad religion, since they get more trade goods (3x Landing stages).

But the main bonus by far is still the happiness/health bonuses, which is available to everyone.

Or, try the experiment with (d), observe that I am right , and use (d).

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Unfortunately I can't test this anymore; the version I have has the water shipper at +0.5 water per polar ice resource, not "requires polar ice, gives +3 water" anymore.

I will try this experiment in a few hours. But, to do so I will build a fresh 1.6.1+1.6.5 area. Anybody can do this. Whatever stuff you have in your Dune Wars directory, leave it there. Rename the Dune Wars directory to something, like dw-165-with-wonders. Then install 1.6.1 and then 1.6.5 to create a new Dune Wars directory. Actually for this just 1.6.1 will do it. Once you are done, either rename this Dune Wars directory to something like dw-161-pure, or just delete it. You can manage any number of different installations like this. You just need to be careful to rename and rename back, and not get confused which name is which.

davidlallen said:

I believe that if you lose the resource then the +3 water goes away. You believe the +3 water stays. It is easy to test, which I can try in another 6 hours from now.

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Well, you are right. Using 1.6.1, I gave myself ice and a water shipper, and got the +3 water; then I removed the ice extractor, and I still had the +3 water. I would almost consider this a vanilla bug. I suppose the rationale they are using is that the resource is used to actually construct the building, and after that it doesn't matter if you have access to the resource anymore. So the 1.6.1 mechanic where the water shipper requires ice and gives +3 water is actually the wrong way to go about it. Fortunately, in deliverator's wonder patch, the water shipper now gives +0.5 water per ice resource, so this exploit is gone.

I suppose the rationale they are using is that the resource is used to actually construct the building, and after that it doesn't matter if you have access to the resource anymore

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Well, in vanilla there *aren't* really buildings that require a resource, at least that I can think of (maybe nuclear plant and uranium?). The power plants provide power *with resource X*, rather than just requiring resource X to build. So if you lose the resource, you lose the power.
I think the rationale is really just that they want to keep the requirements to construct a building really just that, and unrelated to whatever effects they may have once they are there.
Its the simplest and most precise design, really.

You are correct that the change to the ice trader prevents the exploit (though, at +0.5 per polar ice they're also a little underpowered; maybe +0.75?).
But we would have the exploit if we added buildings that just required the trade goods to construct them.

Summary is, any effects need to require the resource connected in the city after construction.

(Redirected from Succession Game 2 thread)

You will probably agree that the best strategy for a human Corrino player is to select something else with the first landing stage, and select Sardaukar with the second landing stage.

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I agree that this is optimal. However, moving to force the AI to pick Sardaukar first and something else second is only very slightly suboptimal.
With high probability, the AI and the human player will start building 2 Landing Stages as soon as they reach the offworld trade tech, so the 2 buildings will be completed in rapid succession, and the probability of being losing a contract you want in between building the first and the second is very small.
Hence why I think forcing Ixian weaponry/Sardaukar cooperation as the first landing stage pick (eg with very high probability) is the best thing to do.

I bet only one of the Corrino players would even be offered the chance to select Sardaukar, and the other would have no opportunity even if they built the landing stage first.

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I agree that this would be bugged. Presumably, whichever is the "earlier player" (human player= player 1, AI players = players 2.... N) is the one who they would be accessible by.

I could make a weak argument that this bug is a feature; if there are two Corrinos, the Sardaukar will not serve both, so they will have picked one faction to support.

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I could equally make an argument that if House Corrino split, and there were two House leaders each of whom thought the other was pretender, that the Sardaukar loyalty would probably split too; some would support the first, others the second.
In a Corrino civil war, I would think there would be a Sardaukar civil war too.

I think the right behavior is to have the two Corrinos race for the first landing stage, and only one of them should get the contract.

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I do not think that this is the desired behavior.
Sardaukar are basically the only reason to bother playing Corrino. If a Corrino player was unable to build Sardaukar, they would be a pretty pathetic faction.
Similarly with Ix. There is little point in playing Ix if you can't build any of their Mech units.
It would be lame to get locked out of your faction's key features simply because somewhere else got there first, that would be poor design IMO.

I think the correct behavior is for each Corrino player to be able to get 1 (and only 1) Sardaukar Cooperation contract, regardless of whether or not they are first to build a Landing Stage.
And similarly for Ix.
I realize this is more complex to code.

Ahriman said:

Hence why I think forcing Ixian weaponry/Sardaukar cooperation as the first landing stage pick (eg with very high probability) is the best thing to do ... I think the correct behavior is for each Corrino player to be able to get 1 (and only 1) Sardaukar Cooperation contract, regardless of whether or not they are first to build a Landing Stage.

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Changing the weight is easy, I will do that. Having one civ-specific UR for each of a civ's multiple copies is harder, but I will put it on the list. I will make it apply for all civ-specific URs, including Semuta.

I will do that. Having one civ-specific UR for each of a civ's multiple copies is harder, but I will put it on the list

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Thanks.

I will make it apply for all civ-specific URs, including Semuta.

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I think its less important for the others. Semuta isn't a major part of Ecaz strategy in the same way that Sardaukar Cooperation is for Corrino.

Still, including an adjustment for other civ-specific resources will help offset the fact that with more players (and you need lots of players to have multiple civ copies) the offworld resources will get claimed much faster.

Sardaukar are basically the only reason to bother playing Corrino. If a Corrino player was unable to build Sardaukar, they would be a pretty pathetic faction.
Similarly with Ix. There is little point in playing Ix if you can't build any of their Mech units.
It would be lame to get locked out of your faction's key features simply because somewhere else got there first, that would be poor design IMO.

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In the original outline for offworld goods each faction had its own unique Landing Stage that provided its own URU only. The concept of choosing when you build a landing stage confused things somewhat, in particular for the strategic URUs.

My ideal solution would be that if Corrino is in the game then they only get a choice on one of their two Landing Stages - the other should automatically provide Sardaukar Coop, in the same way that Fremen palace produces Water Debt and the BG Palace produces Sisterhood Covenant. IMO it should even be possible for Corrino to pick two resources neither of which is Sardaukar Coop. A new player might do this not understanding the implication and miss out on what is one of the key strengths of Corrino as Ahriman says. In fact, even in general, I think a faction should always select its own URU if it has one since it is part of their faction flavour.

On Slig, the "controlled by Ecaz" makes no sense and there are issues with the Tleilaxu ownership, so lets just make it a non-controlled resource like Opafire and Soostone. (Also, I think as a luxury meat it should be giving happy not health.)

There are plenty of other canonical options for Ecaz, the planet being so rich in plant life:
1) Since the +1 Trade Route Scultor's Garden is possibly overpowered. You could instead make Fogwood the second Ecaz URU, and give it +1 happy, + another 1 happy with Mushtamal. Or use alternately use Pleniscenta - "Pleniscenta perfume has a benign psychomimetic effect: it overwhelms the olfactory nerves and causes localized synaptic responses which the brain interprets as indescribably pleasurable smells."
2) Krimskell Fiber - the strangler vines of Ecaz - perhaps there could be some special effect associated with the that.
3) Pneumofungus, Skinseeds or Hairoot are all damaging substances mentioned in the Dune Encyclopedia that could potentially be used as weapons. Acidmold and Rustroot are powerful enough to damage glass and metal and could be used against vehicles.
4) Canonically, Ecaz would control Sapho, but that would overpower and already overpowered civ most probably.

Part of the reason for Ecaz having mulitple URUs is to communicate this diversity of plant-life.

Deliverator said:

IMO it should even be possible for Corrino to pick two resources neither of which is Sardaukar Coop. A new player might do this not understanding the implication and miss out on what is one of the key strengths of Corrino as Ahriman says.

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Is there a "not" missing in your first sentence, ie, "It should not even be possible"? Otherwise you are describing what we have today. I'm not sure we should force a Corrino player to choose Sardaukar, but we should make sure new players realize it is a good idea. For example, we do not force a player to station a soldier in their capital at all times, but most players realize it is a good idea (perhaps after losing because their city gets taken over by barbs.)

On Slig, the "controlled by Ecaz" makes no sense and there are issues with the Tleilaxu ownership, so lets just make it a non-controlled resource like Opafire and Soostone. (Also, I think as a luxury meat it should be giving happy not health.)

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My goal was to have Ecaz control one +2 happiness resource and one +2 health resource. I would love to have a different suggestion for the health resource name, besides slig. None of the items I could find in canon seemed health related. I suppose we could always add to canon and just make up some new Ecazi plant with a health bonus. Vita-Vegamin maybe?

davidlallen said:

Is there a "not" missing in your first sentence, ie, "It should not even be possible"? Otherwise you are describing what we have today. I'm not sure we should force a player to do this, but we should make sure new players realize it is a good idea. For example, we do not force a player to station a soldier in their capital at all times, but most players realize it is a good idea (perhaps after losing because their city gets taken over by barbs.)

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Yes, I missed the not. Perhaps we should highlight the civs own URU in a different colour and/or put a star or your civ logo next to it when the popup appears.

My goal was to have Ecaz control one +2 happiness resource and one +2 health resource. I would love to have a different suggestion for the health resource name, besides slig. None of the items I could find in canon seemed health related. I suppose we could always add to canon and just make up some new Ecazi plant with a health bonus.

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I still think we should be trying to make their URs a bit more interesting than just a health and happy (albeit super-powered ones). There is some good canon stuff there that we are not drawing upon. If we do have to invent some then some kind of root or medicinal herb would be more appropriate than Slig.