Design: Resources

[Sureshot]

its why i rarely ever edit my writings or poetry, i figure my errors were subconscious and add to the flow

 

[QES]

its why i rarely ever edit my writings or poetry, i figure my errors were subconscious and add to the flow

I was going to tease along the lines of "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"-style poetry pains, but decided not to.

How often do you write poetry? Will we see any of your fine works in flavor-style texts in the game?

-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

um.. not too often and no

 

[QES]

um.. not too often and no

Ha. I sense fear young padeawan. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to hating. Dont be a hater.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

im amoung the better, and the better part of valour is discretion (another word you've errored up previously!)

 

[QES]

Bah, at least ive the courage to err with out the regard for others' sense of grammar and good english. When's the last time you espoused poetry online without the concern for the thoughts and feelings of others? Where is your callousity? (Oh yeah, thats a beauty).
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

heh, ive errored (which is an error if im not mistaken, it should be erred) and don't really worry about it. as i've said, errors are usually subconsciously intentional and have meaning, but also i dont believe in a hard definition of language, as the only restriction on language i require is meaning.

 

[QES]

Fair enough.

So is it possible to create different qualities to resources?
Let us take the lowly axeman.

He needs copper (bronze). This makes sense. But if one had iron, the axes would be superior, less breakable, and thefore perhaps the axeman would have more stamina than his counterpart the copper wielding axeman. And what of steel? I notice that there is no steel in FfH. Which, truly is just a strengthen iron, but still, could not this lovly phase of existance be noted? Or are we already noting it and not truly considernig iron to be seperate?

Finally, Mithril, a lovly material, but surly mithralian units should be lighter and more mobile than their iron counterparts?

Finally, i think it'd be neat (very late game) to introduce Adamantium. Perhaps ONLY workable by magic forges or other forces. Adamantium, once accessed would be the next veritable Iron.

Now, the only issue I have, is that our lowly axeman requires but one of these metals to exist, but the axeman with the best metal is no different from that of the worst. Is it possible to code a difference? Since everything deals with "very large scale" design, i understand that micro differences wont show up. The units themselves must represent the advance.

We dont want to alter % wise the strengths of units (in one type) for the variances for their resource choice, but perhaps we could do something simpler.

It IS programable to increase production speeds with resources. Why not simply increase the speeds of units according to the resource available?

Let us pretend (becuase i dont know the specifics) that an axeman takes 1000 hammers to build. Thats a nice round number.

Having copper is a must. So having copper would allow the builidng of a 1000 costing Axeman. Perhaps having better quality materials allows for the more rapid production of these units? Iron would make it 10% cheaper to build. Really this represents not the easy of the metalurgy, but the "less" people you have to equip to reach the same str level.

Mithril should do this for faster units (as its supposed to be a very light weight material). Any cavalry or recon units that require iron/copper would benefit from mithril (10%) faster production. Adamantium would provide the same benefit for Iron units.

In this T2-4 melee/heavy cavlary units would benefit from copper then iron then adamantium (not mithril persay)
T2-4 Archery/Light Cavalry/recon units would benefit from copper then iron then mithril.

Any unit that required X material, would receieve production bonuses from the next level of material. Iron requring units would be built 10% faster with mithril or adamantium (depending on the line). Again, this doesnt represent speed of production, but instead the superiority of contruction, meaning you need less "troops" to equal the same "Strength".

This sound cool?
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

thatd prolly be a good way of doing it, they already have "double production speed with copper" for things like Form of the Titan, so it shouldnt be too hard

 

[QES]

thatd prolly be a good way of doing it, they already have "double production speed with copper" for things like Form of the Titan, so it shouldnt be too hard

Exactly. And the only units to benefit would be units lower on the tier structure.

A Copper requiring unit would benefit from iron and benefit from mithril/adamantium Thus potentially providing a boost for very cheap units.

A Iron requiring unit would only get a production boost from mithril/adamantium

And a Mithril/Adamantium requiring unit would never get a production boost.

In this there is a DIRECT advantage to owning superior materials, even if one does not possess the technology (or ability) to produce specific material-requiring units.

And seperating Mithril from Adamantium could prove very useful for creating further differences between the recon/cav line of units and the melee units.

Archers should require nothing, but Bowman and Crossbowman should require at least copper or iron.

Also, the introduction of heavier cavalry units (Knights) or (armored cav) would be a good idea, and could benefit from adamantium, making that metal particular to a specific style of play.

Mithril conversely would benefit the mobile tactician.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

i wouldnt mind seeing promotions given to new units based on the metals you have available too tho.

then if silver was introduced and you had it, then all your units could gain a "silver weapons" promo that gave them +50% versus undead, vampires, and werewolves.

 

[QES]

i wouldnt mind seeing promotions given to new units based on the metals you have available too tho.

then if silver was introduced and you had it, then all your units could gain a "silver weapons" promo that gave them +50% versus undead, vampires, and werewolves.

The only problem with silver (my RL favorite metal), is that it is realatively common compared to gold. Considering how easy it is to get a single resource of gold, it strikes me that were silver to be as common or more so, then the whole of the world would likely be reicieving these "Silverized" promotions. At that point silvered weapons would be mundane and common place.

How would you introduce silver, as a common luxury material, that would in very rare and specific moments provide bonuses to SOME very lucky units?
-Qes

EDIT: Perhaps a Wonder that needs silver? Like a magic silversmith?
EDIT2: Another option would be to make gold roughly 40% of its current commonality (liklihood of appearing) and silver 50% of gold's current comonality. (90% total because of the nature of luxuries providing happiness, and now with the potential of 2 happiness instead of 1)

 

[Sureshot]

i dont think silver should be more common than gold, and in general it can be hard to find any 1 specific resource.

 

[QES]

i dont think silver should be more common than gold, and in general it can be hard to find any 1 specific resource.

Unless the FfH world is generally very dissimilar to normal fantasy, silver is more common and the smaller brother of gold.

Remember rarity = value.

If silver is rare and Gold is common, then your effecitively just switching their words. What they "are" doesnt matter, only their relation to themselves, and to other materials.

If the gold market itself throughout the world was cut in half, and then divided up between gold and silver (with silver being more common) that might solve the issue.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

i mean in civ resources don't seem to be any more common than one another

 

[QES]

i mean in civ resources don't seem to be any more common than one another

Are you kidding? Mithril and Reagents are increadibly rare. There are many games where i never have reagents. For that matter Insence is fairly uncommon. I dont always have that in my boarders.

I often pan out to look at the "wider world" view, and select the little "highlight resources button" I have been surprized by just how many resources there ARNT.

I once searched and found 3 reagents in a completely explored world in which there were 6 civilizations. That game there were only 2 Mithril. Now, perhaps the odds have changed since that version of the game, but generally there are some resources that are very rare. This can be because of their rarity variable, OR because the type of terrain they require to appear in might itself be very rare. Regardless, Finding cows and Horses wine is generally pretty easy. Finding specific materials like mithril can/is very hard. Hell one game there wasnt a single ounce of copper on my continant (shared with 3 others). It was all on another smaller continant with 1 civ! Everyone had to deal with that civ until iron came along if they wanted copper.

Personally i love that sort of thing.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

ive had maps where theres no corn, or no rice. ive had games where i cant find a pig for the life of me. games where theres no pearls, or no copper anywhere near, , or maps without any sentry towers.. so as i said, i don't think any one resource is more or less common, its just that certain resources are alone in their class and as such are more needed, so they seem more rare.

never do i specifically need rice, so i never notice the games where there is no rice because corn and several other resources do the same job.. but when copper is needed, theres nothing else at the time that will do, and when you need gems for your rune priests, they seem to have become rare as well... all are as common as each other from what ive seen.

 

[Endovior]

Hmm... I've never had a problem with reagents... they've always been within about 10 squares of my starting point. I don't always get them, because there are other people out there, too... but they're there, and I know who to kill to get them.

That being said, in my current game, there is no copper on the continent as far as I have explored (pretty damn far), and none of the AI have copper-using units. There are a couple deposits on small frozen islands near the north pole (which I grabbed), but that's about it. I actually got Iron first (I used a GE to rush Mines of Gal-Dur).

 

[Endovior]

Another resource idea... the Arena.

It should look sorts like a colliseum... while your units wait on it, they get the "Training" promotion, as they battle with the creatures that inhabit the arena. The Training promotion gives -20% healing, but +1 XP per turn (to a maximum of 20-ish)