Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Ok, so I feel we are still in desperate need of getting on the same sheet of music here as a team. We could quickly resolve all our problems with these but we MUST be in agreement as to how to proceed forward. There are a lot of issues we currently have and a lot of issues being made where we don't have one. There are things we need to accomplish to get it all aligned and working properly and the AI cannot be fully fleshed out on these subjects until that happens.
@Dancing Hoskuld I can empathize with RL getting in the way of you completing this and other projects at the moment and I can also empathize with the frustration that thinking through and rethinking through all this has led to and the frustration of the massive volume of effort that it takes and has taken to try to get things all working the same way and how much you've rethought things in the middle of the process and where that has us now. I'm not starting this thread to complain but to put an end to this - we as a team must come together and correct our problems here once and for all and then we will never have to worry about this again.
Whisperr and I are both very frustrated about the state of things on this and I don't think we're alone. Many players are also cocking their head in confusion. I know everything we've all decided about this was in the effort of reducing confusion but much of these decisions have only served to increase that confusion.
The main thing causing an issue right now is the renaming of the National Breeders and Smelters to 'Not in any city X'. Huh?
I get it actually, but I don't see how any player would. Besides, that's also missing the point severely.
I spent a lot of time previously speaking with Hydro and others on these matters as they were coming together and as a team we decided on the way things would operate. It's important to note that they were meant to operate in a different manner and for different reasons between metal supply and animal supply chains.
Part of the confusion regarding the terminology 'National' that DH was trying to clear up is that with Metals, National Smelter gives nationwide access to ingots, but with Animal Breeders, it gives mere vicinity access in the city they are constructed. It was supposed to work that way.
Metals are supposed to work as follows:
With X metal type ingots, provided by a Smelter or National Smelter, you can build the X metal type forge that gives access to wares.
Since National Smelters GIVE national access to Ingots AND are National Wonders, they should be called National buildings. This makes it clear to the player that it is intended that they CAN provide what they deliver for the whole nation. They provide ingots to all cities in the nation.
You don't NEED a National smelter for that if you have vicinity access to a source of Ore - where you have this, you can then construct a local Smelter. Said local smelter building still gives national access to ingots.
However, the National Smelter is constructable (at much later tech prereqs) purely for having national level access to Ore. Thus you can trade for Ore and be able to build a National Smelter anywhere (limit 1) but you cannot build a normal smelter just for having access to Ore through a trade - you must have it in vicinity for that.
Therefore, if you don't have a local vicinity access to the metal ore, you must wait until your shipping infrastructure, represented through the techs Seafaring or Road Building, is enhanced to the point to enable the full on trade of such ores in volume enough to enable the National Smelter.
With national level access to Ingots, the Forge of that type of metal is constructable in any city you possess. Those forges give access to wares. With access, national or vicinity, to wares, you can train any unit that requires said wares.
Thus you can cut to the chase and trade directly for wares, which is something even the AI will tend to want to produce a lot of since the Forge buildings that produce them are worth constructing everywhere you can for the added production and gold benefits (but could be wisely avoided in some places due to the unhealth penalty, something I will need to teach the AI at some point since they don't understand causes not to build something, only causes to).
Even if you are just trading for wares, you can now train units and construct buildings that require that metal in it's most refined form.
However, the animals are supposed to work a bit differently. You are required to have vicinity access to a breeding source, be it a herd or a map resource that's been improved and routed in local city vicinity, as well as a training building, to be able to access animal units.
The National Breeder was not intended to be giving a vicinity source level access to that animal to all cities in your nation. Instead, it was intended to be the building you could construct that converted a source of that animal (be it outside your city vicinity but improved and routed back to your nation nevertheless, or traded for from another nation) TO a vicinity source in the city it was built. Now, because it gives a bonus in production and a few other things, I balk at saying it should not be constructable in ANY city, whether you currently have vicinity access there or not. I believe it should be something you CAN construct in your capital or whatever production or gold center you want to add that bonus to. THE point is that if you ever do lose vicinity access via other means or if you haven't got vicinity access yet, this building is the keystone to making vicinity access possible and from there you can then spread that animal to other cities in your nation, giving those cities vicinity sources as well. In fact, it's even nicer to build all these in the same city so that you know which city you have dedicated to being your source for all animals to be spread.
Since this gets confusing for players to have National Smelters and National Breeders work differently, they should not both be called National. IMO, we should change the name of the National Breeders to Central Breeders. Where these are built has been designated as the city where you collect and breed central breeding specimens for distribution.
2 other ways can get you the Animal access... Either the resource is there in vicinity and you have improved it and routed it or you have built a Herd (or Common Breeder) building there with an animal of the type that can do so. From there you can then train a Tamed Animal, good for battle even in some cases, that can be transported to another city and used to plant another local herd or common breeder. I balk a bit at making myths and legends have anything to do with this to be honest because although they CAN stand in as a record of the people having interacted with that creature, they do not imply that you actually have domesticated access to that creature. It is my assertion, and I'm fully willing to put the work in to make this happen, that vicinity access to the animal should be based on Herd/Breeder buildings only.
I also believe that each and every animal type that is also a resource should have a Herd/Breeder and an accompanying Tamed Animal type unit, with a specific Animal Training building for that type to give final access to training units based on those animals.
I don't know why we should need 'breeding pairs'. These should just be simplified back to being Tamed Animal unit types which we assume are a breedable sample as well as potentially trained for fighting.
Not all animals need to be resources. Those animals CAN be spread by giving universal access through a generic Animal Trainer building that enables any tamed animal which you have a myth for so that those tamed animals can be used to spread about the myths. That said, I honestly think that myths should be separated here again into new Animal Breeder buildings. Not all of them must give production, maybe most are just for pets and give a little gold and/or culture or something. These would be generated with the Tamed Animal of that type.
I know it's a lot to smooth over all the animals so they operate like this, but wasn't this the original plan? Wasn't this what we were all enjoying the most when it was nearly put together in full this way?
This way, trading units CAN be used to spread animals internationally but is not required, which is good because the AI is never going to understand it properly if it is a requirement. You can simply trade for the animal, Construct the Central Breeding facility for that animal, and now you have a vicinity access from which you can build a trainer and then Tamed animal units of that type and spread those to all of your cities.
If we can all agree THIS is the approach to finalize and finish and complete, than I would gladly dedicate time to dramatically improving the AI on Tamed Animal use and spreading and give us some more automation options for being able to do this a lot easier as well. I also think a little screen work could be done somewhere that can give us an overview of what animals we have access to where.
THIS would be the most wonderful thing to have completely sorted out for a new release, IMO, because once we have this done and adding new animals is just a simple process of checking off boxes of tasks, then we can finally move forward and never have to worry about reworking this stuff again. And we can get this done as a team rather than heaping all the responsibility of it up onto one modder.
Note: To complete this properly there are animal resources that must be made into units, both wild and tamed, and the accompanying buildings as well.
Also, having animals be able to place themselves as bonuses on the map is also cool BUT will require some extensive additional AI to do it in a way that won't cause dramatic problems in the game. Again, I'm happy to do this work and we've begun by making the tag that enables such placement, though I also think a rancher unit would be good, maybe even a better way to go about it tbh. But that's more food for discussion. And a lot more effort, both in text display design for that tag and certainly in AI, no matter how it is implemented.
If this doesn't make sense to anyone or if anyone wishes to suggest a different course to what this is mapping out, please discuss. I'm not looking to start up on doing this right away but rather to define who's doing what part of this and to make sure we are all in agreement that we have mapped out a plan that will work for all players and modders.
@Dancing Hoskuld I can empathize with RL getting in the way of you completing this and other projects at the moment and I can also empathize with the frustration that thinking through and rethinking through all this has led to and the frustration of the massive volume of effort that it takes and has taken to try to get things all working the same way and how much you've rethought things in the middle of the process and where that has us now. I'm not starting this thread to complain but to put an end to this - we as a team must come together and correct our problems here once and for all and then we will never have to worry about this again.
Whisperr and I are both very frustrated about the state of things on this and I don't think we're alone. Many players are also cocking their head in confusion. I know everything we've all decided about this was in the effort of reducing confusion but much of these decisions have only served to increase that confusion.
The main thing causing an issue right now is the renaming of the National Breeders and Smelters to 'Not in any city X'. Huh?
I get it actually, but I don't see how any player would. Besides, that's also missing the point severely.
I spent a lot of time previously speaking with Hydro and others on these matters as they were coming together and as a team we decided on the way things would operate. It's important to note that they were meant to operate in a different manner and for different reasons between metal supply and animal supply chains.
Part of the confusion regarding the terminology 'National' that DH was trying to clear up is that with Metals, National Smelter gives nationwide access to ingots, but with Animal Breeders, it gives mere vicinity access in the city they are constructed. It was supposed to work that way.
Metals are supposed to work as follows:
With X metal type ingots, provided by a Smelter or National Smelter, you can build the X metal type forge that gives access to wares.
Since National Smelters GIVE national access to Ingots AND are National Wonders, they should be called National buildings. This makes it clear to the player that it is intended that they CAN provide what they deliver for the whole nation. They provide ingots to all cities in the nation.
You don't NEED a National smelter for that if you have vicinity access to a source of Ore - where you have this, you can then construct a local Smelter. Said local smelter building still gives national access to ingots.
However, the National Smelter is constructable (at much later tech prereqs) purely for having national level access to Ore. Thus you can trade for Ore and be able to build a National Smelter anywhere (limit 1) but you cannot build a normal smelter just for having access to Ore through a trade - you must have it in vicinity for that.
Therefore, if you don't have a local vicinity access to the metal ore, you must wait until your shipping infrastructure, represented through the techs Seafaring or Road Building, is enhanced to the point to enable the full on trade of such ores in volume enough to enable the National Smelter.
With national level access to Ingots, the Forge of that type of metal is constructable in any city you possess. Those forges give access to wares. With access, national or vicinity, to wares, you can train any unit that requires said wares.
Thus you can cut to the chase and trade directly for wares, which is something even the AI will tend to want to produce a lot of since the Forge buildings that produce them are worth constructing everywhere you can for the added production and gold benefits (but could be wisely avoided in some places due to the unhealth penalty, something I will need to teach the AI at some point since they don't understand causes not to build something, only causes to).
Even if you are just trading for wares, you can now train units and construct buildings that require that metal in it's most refined form.
However, the animals are supposed to work a bit differently. You are required to have vicinity access to a breeding source, be it a herd or a map resource that's been improved and routed in local city vicinity, as well as a training building, to be able to access animal units.
The National Breeder was not intended to be giving a vicinity source level access to that animal to all cities in your nation. Instead, it was intended to be the building you could construct that converted a source of that animal (be it outside your city vicinity but improved and routed back to your nation nevertheless, or traded for from another nation) TO a vicinity source in the city it was built. Now, because it gives a bonus in production and a few other things, I balk at saying it should not be constructable in ANY city, whether you currently have vicinity access there or not. I believe it should be something you CAN construct in your capital or whatever production or gold center you want to add that bonus to. THE point is that if you ever do lose vicinity access via other means or if you haven't got vicinity access yet, this building is the keystone to making vicinity access possible and from there you can then spread that animal to other cities in your nation, giving those cities vicinity sources as well. In fact, it's even nicer to build all these in the same city so that you know which city you have dedicated to being your source for all animals to be spread.
Since this gets confusing for players to have National Smelters and National Breeders work differently, they should not both be called National. IMO, we should change the name of the National Breeders to Central Breeders. Where these are built has been designated as the city where you collect and breed central breeding specimens for distribution.
2 other ways can get you the Animal access... Either the resource is there in vicinity and you have improved it and routed it or you have built a Herd (or Common Breeder) building there with an animal of the type that can do so. From there you can then train a Tamed Animal, good for battle even in some cases, that can be transported to another city and used to plant another local herd or common breeder. I balk a bit at making myths and legends have anything to do with this to be honest because although they CAN stand in as a record of the people having interacted with that creature, they do not imply that you actually have domesticated access to that creature. It is my assertion, and I'm fully willing to put the work in to make this happen, that vicinity access to the animal should be based on Herd/Breeder buildings only.
I also believe that each and every animal type that is also a resource should have a Herd/Breeder and an accompanying Tamed Animal type unit, with a specific Animal Training building for that type to give final access to training units based on those animals.
I don't know why we should need 'breeding pairs'. These should just be simplified back to being Tamed Animal unit types which we assume are a breedable sample as well as potentially trained for fighting.
Not all animals need to be resources. Those animals CAN be spread by giving universal access through a generic Animal Trainer building that enables any tamed animal which you have a myth for so that those tamed animals can be used to spread about the myths. That said, I honestly think that myths should be separated here again into new Animal Breeder buildings. Not all of them must give production, maybe most are just for pets and give a little gold and/or culture or something. These would be generated with the Tamed Animal of that type.
I know it's a lot to smooth over all the animals so they operate like this, but wasn't this the original plan? Wasn't this what we were all enjoying the most when it was nearly put together in full this way?
This way, trading units CAN be used to spread animals internationally but is not required, which is good because the AI is never going to understand it properly if it is a requirement. You can simply trade for the animal, Construct the Central Breeding facility for that animal, and now you have a vicinity access from which you can build a trainer and then Tamed animal units of that type and spread those to all of your cities.
If we can all agree THIS is the approach to finalize and finish and complete, than I would gladly dedicate time to dramatically improving the AI on Tamed Animal use and spreading and give us some more automation options for being able to do this a lot easier as well. I also think a little screen work could be done somewhere that can give us an overview of what animals we have access to where.
THIS would be the most wonderful thing to have completely sorted out for a new release, IMO, because once we have this done and adding new animals is just a simple process of checking off boxes of tasks, then we can finally move forward and never have to worry about reworking this stuff again. And we can get this done as a team rather than heaping all the responsibility of it up onto one modder.
Note: To complete this properly there are animal resources that must be made into units, both wild and tamed, and the accompanying buildings as well.
Also, having animals be able to place themselves as bonuses on the map is also cool BUT will require some extensive additional AI to do it in a way that won't cause dramatic problems in the game. Again, I'm happy to do this work and we've begun by making the tag that enables such placement, though I also think a rancher unit would be good, maybe even a better way to go about it tbh. But that's more food for discussion. And a lot more effort, both in text display design for that tag and certainly in AI, no matter how it is implemented.
If this doesn't make sense to anyone or if anyone wishes to suggest a different course to what this is mapping out, please discuss. I'm not looking to start up on doing this right away but rather to define who's doing what part of this and to make sure we are all in agreement that we have mapped out a plan that will work for all players and modders.
