Construction Supplies (Alternative to "Hurrying") [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Game Concept

Inspired by some other games, I realized that it might be interesting if one City could help another City to build its Infrastructure.
However I do not want to have this as "beaming of Hammers" or anything too easily exploitable.

So my Solution Concept would be:

1) Create a new constructable Unit "Construction Supplies" (e.g. Combining Unit graphics for Tools / Lumber / Stone)
2) This Unit would however be immobile - meaning it could not move by itself but needs to be transported by e.g. Carriages or Ships (Cargo Space 1)
3) The Unit would e.g. cost 50 Hammers to be produced - and have an Action "Use Construction Supply" giving 40 Hammers (to the City it stands on)

So basically you would have an Option to ship "Hammers" from one City to another, with an efficiency rate of 80%.
(20% is simply the overhead cost that comes with production of materials vs. usage of materials.)

Generally the balancing should ensure that it is still cheaper than "Hurrying Construction".
(Which is actually a feature I really dislike and personally hardly use - but understand that AI needs it and some players like it.)

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Gameplay:
Just imagine you have found this really great location for a City and want to fully exploit its riches.
But building all the Buildings to sustain enough Population is slow and you do not want to hurry all the time.
Then you could allow some other Cities to deliver "Construction Supplies" to get that City on track a lot faster.

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Summary:

The feature is supposed to give a more immersive and fun alternative to the bland and boring "Hurrying".
Yes, it involves time to actually construct stuff in one City and yes it also involves transporting the "Construction Materials" to the destination city.
But it could be balanced so it is economically cheaper i.e. the better alternative in terms of overall costs.

Comment:

Also, it would allow to actually also transport a bit of stuff to newly fledgling cities.
Currently my Wagon Trains travel to new small cities just to pick up stuff, but most of the time bring nothing.
So it may also make the "roundtrip" overall a bit more worthwile because both directions may transport something.

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Effort:
It is pretty easy actually if we implement this "human only".
Maybe 10 hours in total for the complete feature incl. graphics.

Risk:
The risk i.e. for bugs or performance is almost 0 if we implement "human only".
Only if we have AI use this I could imagine quite a lot of tricky logic to become necessary.

Potential:

I could imagine these "Construction Supplies" to e.g. also become a "Goody Reward".
I could also imagine these "Construction Supplies" to e.g. be used in Events.
I could even imagine that in the future we further expand on this concept for further features.

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@devolution
Maybe this could even be used to help AI build its infrastructure in the future.
(Currently however I think that AI can still fall back to hurrying and does not need to use the feature.)

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As I said, it is a pretty easy concept to implement.
(At least if we make it "Human only" and maybe compensate AI a bit otherwise.)

Looking forward to feedback.

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Just to ensure that there are no misunderstandings:
I have no intentions to remove the "Hurrying" mechanic. - I just also want to give a bit more immersive alternative.
(So if players still like to use it, it will still be there - also as I said, AI needs to use it sometimes.)

 

[raystuttgart]

@Kathy
I know I asked you for a lot of favours already recently, but could you combine some of the graphics attached in the ZIP to a new graphic for "Construction Supplies" ?
(It does not need any animation or anyhting else that might become complicated.)

If you have good assets already to create the Unit, feel free to create whatever you feel looks best.
The ZIP is just supposed to save you a bit of time searching for assets.

 

[Kathy]

Do you think something like this will do?

 

[raystuttgart]

Do you think something like this will do?

It is perfect.

 

[raystuttgart]

This is now also fully implemented.
(As "Human only feature" - which does not cause trouble to AI.)

- Construction supplies cost 50 Hammers to build and give 40 Hammers when used.
- Construciton supplies can also be bought in Europe, but get expensive really fast.

- Construction Supplies cannot move by themselves, they need to be transported by another Unit.
- Every transport in the game that can transport Goods can also transport Construction Supplies.

- Construction Supplies can only be used on a City Plot - also it must be your own City.
- Construction Supplies can also be captured by another Player - although currently only Human knows how to use them.

- AI currently ignores them - meaning it does not build them (because it is not smart enough to transport them where needed).
- The UnitAI use is the UNITAI_YIELD, Domain used is DOMAIN_IMMOBILE - meaning it is a pretty dumb immobile Unit.

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As I said, this is nothing really spectacular - but maybe this little addition will still be fun for some people.
It basically just offers an alternative to "Hurrying", i.e. actually shipping Production from one City to another instead.

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I am pretty happy with this feature, since it offers another small strategic option that we did not have so far.
(I will most likely use it - since I always kind of disliked to use "Hurrying" - it kind of felt like cheating in late game with almost unlimited money.)