Traders and Merchants

From main suggestions thread

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Sparth introduced about 20 new trader units with his new Cultures. Traders have not had a review so I thought I should post some ideas here. If necessary we can move it to a new thread.

There are merchants for , and by land and sea. They currently fit the modes foot, pack animal, wagons and combustion engine. However they don't have any promotions specific to merchants and can't get some that may be useful to them.

The following may require new tags and dll or python code to implement I will try and remember to mark those with *.

• terrain movements - none are available for merchants at the moment
• terrain damage immunity if terrain damage is on
• improved returns *
• special cargo that gives extra returns not necessarily of the same base type and based on vicinity bonuses *

Specific proposals.

Remove access to:-

• City Garrison

Add

• Armed Guards - defense same as City Garrison but not restricted to cities or forts.
  
  
• Fighting Merchants - +10% defense requires Armed Guards
  
  
• Improved yield* - +10%, +25% and +50% are suggested
  - % increase in the return on the base product only
  -this may be related to reuse where the unit delivers its goods then returns back to where it was built or not
  
  
• Special cargo XXX* where XXX would be a bonus, this promotion would be assigned by the building processing or making the bonus and would only apply to the base type. Stone and Copper Ore would be on the merchants while Wheat and Pumpkins would be on the caravans and Resin and Spice on the merchants.

Click to expand...

These new cultures do not work for players that are still using XP machines.

At the moment they can be removed by deleting the folder in "My_Mods"

If you start to add new features based on these cultures to the mod - will they only be added to the "My_Mods" folder?

If not that might make the game unplayable to all XP players.

Why are they not working on XP?

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Why are they not working on XP?

Click to expand...

C2C just CTDs when trying to load. If the "New_Cultures" folder exists.

I think some schema files were omitted. XP must be less tolerant than Win10.

EDIT

From "Cultures thread - June 15th.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

@Harrier I think I have figured out why you are CTDing with these. There are no schema files in the folder. Sometimes this does not matter but on other times it does. I missed one or two in my folders also.

@Sparth You need to have a copy of the necessary schema files in your mod folder and they must be renamed. Usually we prefix them with the name of the folder.

The reason for doing this is to ensure the files access the correct schema version and you don't accidentally over write the core schema files with old ones.

I am going through fixing a bug in the Unit Schema file so will fix your New_Cultures at the same time.

Click to expand...

They are fixed on the SVN.

A lot of your ideas are pretty cool. But I was deeply hoping that someday soon we could get merchants to not be one use units but rather 'pickup and delivery' units that would take material from one city to the next or from a city to units in the field.

The benefit of this kind of system would be tremendous in enabling supply line interaction and deeper purpose for criminal and bandit units, particularly pirate units. Furthermore, it could make them developable units that accumulate XP to improve themselves, which would play nicely into some of the ideas you're floating there.

Generally speaking, when a trade mission is enacted, what's in the inventory should be delivered to the city while some commerce is obtained by the transaction (taxes). But how do you fill the inventory and what with?

1) Resources of any kind - a city's access and proximity to it could be the basis for a 'sale price' and the goal would be to buy where the resource is plentiful thus the price low and sell where resource is scarce and thus the price is high.

2) Production materials - hammers taken straight from the base the city would be generating that round, then delivered to the base the city dropped off at to enhance that city's base that round. Some commerce benefit to be had for each transaction.

3) Food - As production materials. But very important for supplying units in the field that may be capable of starvation if they aren't able to collect enough from their surroundings (a mechanic I intended to tie in to the food collection and storage methods employed in Nomadic Start.)

4) Equipment - To take equipment upgrades from the city to the units in the field. And to collect dropped equipment in the field left behind after battle so as to go sell it in town or take it to other units that would accept them as upgrades.

Not much reason for unique types of units to be able to perform all these roles really... Just one type of merchant may be all that's necessary.


Now that criminals can wait in hiding and have units that cannot see them move right through, I was hoping to implement a 'pickpocket' or 'holdup' mission where the criminal, rather than attacking the next unit to move through its position, would try to subtlely take whatever the other unit may be carrying in its inventory (not its direct in-use equipment) and would try to do so without even being detected in the process.

All this really requires is a new inventory system and some interesting means of interacting with it. At one time I had intended to make this a project for this version but its a little much for now I suppose.

Anyhow, this is the way I hope to eventually have it work eventually. How that factors into considering shorter term goals for these unit types I'm not sure.

Thunderbrd said:

But I was deeply hoping that someday soon we could get merchants to not be one use units but rather 'pickup and delivery' units that would take material from one city to the next or from a city to units in the field.

Click to expand...

The only problem I have with this idea is that you need more units and I have a limit on the number of units I can handle. With the splitting of crime fighters into fighters and investigators I have lost a whole era I can play for

@Thunderbrd pls watch out that those plans you mention here don't add too much micromanagement. My first impression of your plans is that they sounds like a "click every turn to get a small reward" that is usually great fun in MMORPGs but would be excessive in C2C.

Considering the current complexity of C2C I would be more a fan of "build and forget" additions that only need some monitoring and the occasional extra steering. More player tools to keep track of it all later in game when micromanagement becomes more and more tedious would be welcome.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

The only problem I have with this idea is that you need more units and I have a limit on the number of units I can handle. With the splitting of crime fighters into fighters and investigators I have lost a whole era I can play for

Click to expand...

This is really getting to the point where it is going to need some explanation how more units makes the game less playable somehow.

(Especially for a guy with the kind of brainpower you have to be able to program as well as you do!)

Noriad2 said:

@Thunderbrd pls watch out that those plans you mention here don't add too much micromanagement. My first impression of your plans is that they sounds like a "click every turn to get a small reward" that is usually great fun in MMORPGs but would be excessive in C2C.

Considering the current complexity of C2C I would be more a fan of "build and forget" additions that only need some monitoring and the occasional extra steering. More player tools to keep track of it all later in game when micromanagement becomes more and more tedious would be welcome.

Click to expand...

This is a situation I planned heavy automation for - I'll need it for the AI anyways so it's only one step further to open that AI up to the player to rely on. I think I can make AI good enough to work this.

Thunderbrd said:

This is really getting to the point where it is going to need some explanation how more units makes the game less playable somehow.

(Especially for a guy with the kind of brainpower you have to be able to program as well as you do!)

Click to expand...

I know what all my units are dong, when they will be able to use their existing points towards the next promotion I want them to have and so on.

It takes 30+ units to settle a new city and that does not include the workers needed to build the roads and lookouts to the new city site (usually before settlement occurs). Nor does it include the guards that keep the roads free and protect travelers while they are in neutral territory. I use national limits on units because it helps me keep playing by limiting the number of cities I prepare for at any one time to 5.

Well... interesting. Whether a merchant is 1 use or not doesn't mean you end up with more or less overall units really. You might need less rather than more.

You certainly wouldn't have to build them as often if merchants were multi-use.

30+ units to found a city... out of curiosity, what's the breakdown of the units you're referring to (in general terms)?

Two suggested lines for promotions for Trader units

Land Units

• Guards I, II (at Archery), III (at Iron Working) - each adds 5% strength, and 5% defense all terrains.
• Speed
  1. requires Guards I - ignore terrain cost (at Tracking)
     
  2. +1 movement (at Animal Riding)
     
  3. +1 movement ( " )

Water Units

• Marines I (at Archery), II ( at Siege Warfare), III (at Cannon) - each adds 5% strength, and 5% defense all terrains.
• Speed
  1. requires Marines I - ignore terrain cost (at Rudder)
     
  2. +1 movement (at Rudder)
     
  3. +1 movement ( " )

At the moment there does not seem to be any other merchant useful tags. Some to increase yield on use would be useful.

They should loose access to "City Defense" promotions.

I like it!

Rats! bIgnoreTerrainCost is only available on the unit not on a promotion. I will need to rethink this.

Do they get access to Withdrawal/Early Withdrawal promotions? If not, that's another possibility. Also, there's always the -1 Terrain Movement Costs effect. Not nearly as strong, but it'll do. Oh, and Use Enemy Roads could probably be useful.

TrippedOnACloud said:

Do they get access to Withdrawal/Early Withdrawal promotions? If not, that's another possibility. Also, there's always the -1 Terrain Movement Costs effect. Not nearly as strong, but it'll do. Oh, and Use Enemy Roads could probably be useful.

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Agreed. I was going to suggest the -1 Terrain Movement Costs effect as a highly valid substitute.

If this idea WEAKENS merchants, I'm all for it. As it is they are significantly more powerful than they need to be.

TrippedOnACloud said:

Do they get access to Withdrawal/Early Withdrawal promotions? If not, that's another possibility. Also, there's always the -1 Terrain Movement Costs effect. Not nearly as strong, but it'll do. Oh, and Use Enemy Roads could probably be useful.

Click to expand...

I can see the withdraw promotions working for the merchant fleets but not for caravans as they are not able to be manoeuvred easily.

Use Enemy Roads is a good idea. I think I would add that to the second movement promotion.

Shoobs said:

If this idea WEAKENS merchants, I'm all for it. As it is they are significantly more powerful than they need to be.

Click to expand...

Indeed they should normally be at least one point weaker than any normal unit of that era. The promotions should be able to make them as strong though.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

I can see the withdraw promotions working for the merchant fleets but not for caravans as they are not able to be manoeuvred easily.

Use Enemy Roads is a good idea. I think I would add that to the second movement promotion.



Indeed they should normally be at least one point weaker than any normal unit of that era. The promotions should be able to make them as strong though.

Click to expand...

Wrong definition of power. They come too early, too soon, and with proper support, can turn a new city in the prehistoric era into a near new capital city in terms of power even before the sedimentary lifestyle is researched, ignoring culture of course. I think it takes ~15-20 turns worth of production on snail speed.

Shoobs said:

sedimentary lifestyle

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I got a good giggle out of that. Such a lifestyle would truly 'rock'!

I feel the food ones were too strong the last time I used them, and for similar reasons, but they may have been nerfed since then. Been a while.