Bonus Resources and Bonus Placement

davidlallen · Jul 17, 2009

Deliverator said:
I did actually think about health when designing these resources.

When I did the first reorganization of this, I also took into account the amplifying buildings. For each bonus, there are five checkpoints: (a) what tech tier makes it appear, (b) what is the initial benefit from just working it, (c) what is the additional tech tier and benefit from an improvement, (d) what is the early building tech tier and benefit (granary, harbor, forge), (e) what is the late building tech tier and benefit (market, grocer).

So you can chart how many health and happiness benefits are possible as you progress up the tech tree.

Then the second question is, how many of these are available on the map; I have some python which counts this up and reports it. I didn't update the python for your reorganization and I no longer have the variant which ran on vanilla (revdcm vanilla) but some method of counting them on the map may be helpful.

Here's what I suggest:
1) Give the Groundwater bonuses +1 health.
2) Make the Water Cache amplify the health bonus from the Groundwater Bonuses, Sword Grass, Spiked Paintbush, Barrel Cactus, Creosote Bush
3) Make a new building called Stores (or something) that amplifies the bonus from Cereal, Spice Honey, Desert Hawks, Desert Hares

There are three different size groundwater bonuses. Does that give +3, one each from small medium and large? I am still not a fan of three different ones.

Agree on the other points, this is the granary and harbor equivalents.

Ahriman · Jul 17, 2009

I like the 3 sizes, creates a little more variation.

I see no reason for +health from groundwater at all, they already give big enough bonuses. Definitely not +1 health for each of the different resources.

There are a lot of buildings that need to be tweaked or culled IMO. Many are also ridiculously cost-ineffective; some high level buildings that are like 300 hammers for a +15% gold bonus?

I think there are too many buildings that provide happiness bonuses. The shrine of the worm in particular is far too easy for often a +4 happy bonus.
If you want this building, why not tweak it so that its an alternative cult to the established religions, and so gives +1 unhappy for each religion present in the city.

Deliverator · Jul 17, 2009

Keldath asked:

-why is there so much resources on the map - mainly ground water

Wells are meant to be the primary water source so I've set it up so that wherever you start you should not be too far away from Groundwater. With Windtraps, Dew Collectors and Qanats (what used to be Drip Farms) improvements it may be that you can get reasonable growth without access to Groundwater in which case we can thin it out a bit to make room for other resources.

We need the map to be pretty full of resources, particularly if many units have strategic resouce requirements.

The way BonusInfos is set up now means that everything is relative to the total number of available squares. I'm going to simplify the explanation in the OP when I update it to say roughly x% of the bonuses will be Groundwater, x% with be Iron Ore and so on. That may make it easier for people to suggest adjustments.

There are three different size groundwater bonuses. Does that give +3, one each from small medium and large? I am still not a fan of three different ones.

I was suggesting +1 on each of the three, not +3 health on the Plentiful one. Would you like it more if we had three different names and graphics for the three resources? I'm a bit undecided myself...

davidlallen · Jul 17, 2009

The text inside the spoiler may be useful for balancing improvements. It is based on the 1.3.5 bonus, improvement, and building xml files. It shows for each bonus, what is the base benefit, and any benefits given by (i)mprovements and (b)uildings. So, we can see for example that Desert Hares give one gold when worked, no additional benefit from having a Hunting Camp, and one additional health from the Hierag building.

Spoiler :

If there is some additional detail or organization which would be useful, please let me know; it is a pretty simple script (in the Tcl programming language.)

Deliverator · Jul 17, 2009

Thanks david, this looks really useful. There is a lot of messiness to sort out for sure.

BTW, it looks like Keldath misunderstood me about renaming the Mining tech to Surface Mining and the improvement has been renamed to Mineral Extraction. Surface Mine is a better name I think, can we change it back? Mineral Extraction is a completely different tech...

I've still no idea what Refined Water/Spice are. As things stand I think I'll remove them when I do the Imported Goods.

Deliverator · Jul 20, 2009

OK, I am starting to look at patch 1.3.8 and bonus refinements.

Thoughts and Plans:

+ A main focus will be sorting out strategic resources and their relationship with units. Some of the 1.3.4 bonuses are working better idea-wise than others right now:
Iron Ore -> Swords, Steel, etc -> later Melee Units, etc
Diamond -> Lasers, Lasguns, etc -> ranged infantry, etc
Crystal -> Flying/Hovering, etc -> later thopters, hovers, etc
Stravidium (with Iron Ore) -> Plasteel = Heavy Armour -> tanks, anything armoured, etc.
Nitrates -> Explosives -> Missiles, Artillery, etc.

... and then there's Jasmium Quartz (which makes Metaglass), Sulphur and Borax. I'm thinking of cutting the number to six, since I want them all to have clear distinct uses. I'm thinking of scrapping these last three and having a new sixth resource. Going to six instead of eight means that you will be much more likely to start close to one or two of them. Any ideas for the sixth. It needs to be associated with a type of unit that is not already covered by the 5 I've listed. There is also Iridium that I want to turn into Uranium so we could just use that as the sixth one for atomic reactor type uses.

+ Have Desert Hares and Desert Hawks appear only on the Desert Waste (coastal) tiles, this will free up more land space for the other bonuses in the mix.

+ Add Date Palms bonus and Palmery improvement at Desert Plantation for flavour and diversity. Might scrap one of the plantation bonuses to make room (perhaps Cotton?).

+ Sort out health by changing the Water Cache building and adding a new Food Processing building, that amplifies the health bonus from Cereal, Spice Honey, Desert Hawks, Desert Hares, etc.

+ Rebalance bonus placement so that strategic resources are frequent enough. Make Dew Plants less prevalent to free up space.

+ Implement Imported Goods idea as described earlier.

I'll also be sure to take everything posted in this thread so far into consideration.

Lord Tirian · Jul 20, 2009

Deliverator said:
Crystal -> Flying/Hovering, etc -> later thopters, hovers, etc

Sorry for getting slightly off-topic, but here's a small pet peeve of mine: Stop calling it "hover" - please call it "suspensor", because that's the name used for the Holtzmann suspensors. Hovering sounds pretty generic, like "hovercraft". Suspensor tanks, suspensor sleds etc. sound more fitting and would make it less generic.

Cheers, LT.

koma13 · Jul 20, 2009

Ok, about names: I noticed Ahriman is always saying thoptor but everybody else is calling it thopter. Which one is correct?

EDIT: I like the idea of having uranium in game again. :goodjob:

Deliverator · Jul 20, 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter

Like the animated gif...

Ahriman · Jul 20, 2009

Never noticed my spelling :-)

Suspensors sounds good.

davidlallen · Jul 20, 2009

Deliverator said:
OK, I am starting to look at patch 1.3.8 and bonus refinements.

I agree, except for one point. The key thing about desert waste and deep desert is that it is hard to walk there. So I don't see how desert hares would survive. Without hares, hawks would have nothing to eat. I would prefer to keep the desert empty except for spice. Also, since spice and hawks/hares are both bonuses, it means that a hawk nest would prevent spice from appearing. To free up space, I notice that a lot of your plant resources come in clumps. This rarely happens in vanilla. When I see three squares of the same resource, I think, "What a waste, I wish I had two different resources instead of three the same". The second and third plot give a small water bonus and they *might* be useful for trade, but I'd much rather have a second health or happiness bonus in the BFC.

davidlallen · Jul 20, 2009

Lord Tirian said:
Sorry for getting slightly off-topic, but here's a small pet peeve of mine: Stop calling it "hover" - please call it "suspensor", because that's the name used for the Holtzmann suspensors.

Hm, those generators are the things that attract worms, go nuclear when hit by lasers, and cannot be used in the desert because of blowing sand and maintenance, right? I was thinking of units with fans underneath.

Lord Tirian · Jul 20, 2009

davidlallen said:
Hm, those generators are the things that attract worms, go nuclear when hit by lasers, and cannot be used in the desert because of blowing sand and maintenance, right? I was thinking of units with fans underneath.

No. There's a so-called Holtzman effect in the Dune universe - think of it as something like "electromagnetism", a new force.

There are several technologies that harness the Holtzman effect:

Holtzman shields: Inpenetrable for everything at higher speeds than knifes/swords/punches (this causes vibrations in the air/sand etc. as well, so they attract worms). The shields also go nuclear if hit by lasguns.
Holtzman drives: FTL drives, uses the Holtzman effect to fold space, but only navigators can navigate folded space safely (and thinking machines, but they're banned).
Suspensors: Make things lighter than they are, essentially an anti-gravity device. Baron Harkonnen uses them to be able to move because he's so morbidly obese! :lol:

Glowglobes: Well, they glow and make light and float around.

So only shields have the worm and "kaboom!" problem. Suspensors don't have that, but they harness the same "physics" so to speak. And units with fans underneath would probably produce hilarious dust clouds - making "seeing" rather hard...!

Cheers, LT.

Ahriman · Jul 20, 2009

to free up space, I notice that a lot of your plant resources come in clumps. This rarely happens in vanilla. When I see three squares of the same resource, I think, "What a waste, I wish I had two different resources instead of three the same". The second and third plot give a small water bonus and they *might* be useful for trade, but I'd much rather have a second health or happiness bonus in the BFC.

I like the current implementation. Yes, it woudl be more valuable if you got multiple different resources, but more valuable doesn't mean better from a design perspective.

I like that you only get one health resource, but get the tile yield from multiple tiles. If you want multiple health resources, you shoudl have to expand in different directions, not get them all from the same cluster.

davidlallen · Jul 20, 2009

Lord Tirian said:
There are several technologies that harness the Holtzman effect:

OK, thanks. The other Holtzman effects are very deep in the tech tree, so if we want to use it in the mid game, this part of the tech tree should maybe be redesigned.

Deliverator · Jul 20, 2009

@LT: Looks like you read the same Wikipedia page about the Holtzman effect that I did...

I've posted on the unit prog thread about the current unit combat classes. I think we should probably settle those before we decide whether to call them hovers or suspensor craft or whatever.

I like the current implementation. Yes, it woudl be more valuable if you got multiple different resources, but more valuable doesn't mean better from a design perspective.

As a compromise I can make the clumping slightly less probable.

keldath · Jul 20, 2009

hey ,
i really like the term suspenders instead of hover - ,

1. suspenders are more native to the books

2. hover is too common name in the future mods available...i rather have more distinct terms

maybe we can rename the hovering tech to holzman suspenders.

deliverator,
your suggestion on the stratigic bonuses sound good, i like that analysis.

i also support to cut down some bonuses, as david once said, "more" is not necessary "the merrier".

and i indeed misunderstood the mineral extraction.

and for patch 1.3.8 -
how about adding a second feature? maybe not as abundant as spice or salt, but something to give the map more meat into it -
i offered a few kinds of minerals - phosphates, rock salt, there are ton of salt kinds and minerals fit to be in the desert.
for art we can use the same art as salt with different textures.

Ahriman · Jul 20, 2009

Holtzman suspenders.... sorry, just the mental image.

Deliverator · Jul 20, 2009

That's two in two days, after keldath called david's work 'impotent' the other day.

keldath · Jul 20, 2009

hehehehehe

damn...i hate this spell checker!

your gonna see more of it, i tend to do a lot of spelling errors when i write...,
but im glad i amuse you guys

Bonus Resources and Bonus Placement

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