[Feature] Limited Resource Effects

[Leoreth]

If I look at how e.g. colonies usually functioned, that often was not the case. Extreme example, but places like Saint Domingue certainly weren't any more happy because they were growing sugar.

 

[hnrysml]

Maybe a certain civic(s) could allow for a city to be guaranteed allocation of the resources in it's BFC, to kinda represent forms of government where cities, especially peripheral ones had more autonomy, such as elective or ancient republic, and for cases like colonialism, despotism and (absolute) monarchy, this would not be so? Or maybe the trade civics would affect this instead?

I'm not sure at all if this would be practical or doable, but I think it'd be not only a fun but also useful addition to this limited resources concept, which I'm excited for as it could create complexity and realism in a great way.

 

[1SDANi]

Maybe a certain civic(s) could allow for a city to be guaranteed allocation of the resources in it's BFC, to kinda represent forms of government where cities, especially peripheral ones had more autonomy, such as elective or ancient republic, and for cases like colonialism, despotism and (absolute) monarchy, this would not be so? Or maybe the trade civics would affect this instead?

I'm not sure at all if this would be practical or doable, but I think it'd be not only a fun but also useful addition to this limited resources concept, which I'm excited for as it could create complexity and realism in a great way.

It'd probably have to come down to Government. The economic cities seem more fit for a Core vs Gold resource division, while Government seems fit for your local vs core suggestion. I'm just going to jot down all the resource splits I can come up with:

Government: Do Local Cities keep their resources, or export them to the Core?

• Local: Republic, Elective, Democracy
  
• Core: Despotism, Monarchy, State Party

Religion: Are Cultured Cities prioritized, or the Core?

• Culture: Deification, Monasticism, Secularism
  
• Core: Clergy, Theocracy, Tolerance

Legitimacy: Are Scientifically Advanced Cities prioritized?

• Science: Citizenship, Meritocracy, Constitution
  
• Core: Vassalage, Centralism, Ideology

Economy: Economic Powerhouse Cities

• Gold: Merchant Trade, Free Trade, Public Welfare
  
• Core: Redistribution, Regulated Trade, Central Planning

Honestly I'd rather keep things simple with the current Culture mechanics, but if we really wanted to give players more control over where their resources go via civics, this would probably be the way that gives the most control while being the most intuitive, making the most sense, and helping steer new players to prioritizing their Core.

 

[ozqar]

what if it was the wealthiest city in the empire that took resources first, instead of the most cultured one?

 

[Leoreth]

(By the way, I also have a more complex system drawn up that also interacts with trade routes and diplomacy, but that will wait until later in the development process. I realised that I could implement this element of my plans relatively easily while leaving all existing game rules intact.)

Just leaving that here again.

 

[Leoreth]

Rebased the branch on develop.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm going to repeat this here again, please do not include this in any modmods until the feature is complete and merged into develop. The whole point is to test new features in isolation.

 

[Leoreth]

New update:
- adjust missing resource display in cities
- calculate culture ranks based on trade network (i.e. separate rankings for separate networks)

 

[Leoreth]

New update: new resource value AI according to the new rules.

Like explained in the OP, I have first reverted previous changes to the resource trading AI (including the AI being more reluctant to trade when the trading partner is larger). Then I added awareness of culture ranks so the AI can determine how much happiness it actually gets out of a trade. Please report back how the AI behaves when trading. In particular I am worried if the relative value of strategic resources and happiness/health resources. Now that the latter can provide value multiple times their weighting had to be changed.

 

[Leoreth]

Merged a pull request by merijn_v1: extensive interface improvements around resource effects.

 

[Steb]

I played a Khmer game and it was interesting to manage the resources, although the fact that it's linked to culture means there isn't much flexibility in controlling the distribution of resources. But overall it's a nice change!

What exactly does the number in parentheses mean next to each resource in the city screen? It really isn't obvious. At first I thought it was the number of cities that have access to this resource, but that doesn't look like it. Also the numbers may change from city to city.

 

[Leoreth]

It basically means the number of resources available to this specific city. So a positive number means the city has access to the resource. A negative number means the number of resources required to supply the city.

It's not that easy to communicate this information without cluttering the city screen and that's the best I could come up with. But I am open to suggestions.

 

[Steb]

Then I'm not sure it's working as intended. For instance, if I recall correctly, my most cultured city displayed "12" for bananas, and other cities displayed 12, 11 and 10, but I certainly didn't have 12 banana resources (I had 3 or 4?).

But in any case, I feel like some of the information is unnecessary. The most important part is whether the city has access or not. Beyond that, the negative numbers might be useful, but the positive numbers not really.

 

[merijn_v1]

1 banana can support 3 cities. 4*3=12 . It basically indicates how many cities should loose access to a resource before this city looses access to a resource.

Maybe it's better if this number indicates the number of resources, instead of the number of supplies cities. Something like the following:
Green (x>0): You have a surpluss. Even if you loose x copies of that resource, you the city still has access to the resource.
White (0): The city has access to a resource, but if you loose one copy, the city looses access.
Red (x<0): The city has no access to the resources. You need x additional copies to give this city access to a resource.

Alternatively
Green (x>0): If you loose x copies of that resource, the city will loose access to the resource
Red (x<0): You need x additional copies to give this city access to a resource.

 

[Leoreth]

I agree that it's somewhat confusing because you usually think of actual resource instances and not about the number of cities they affect.

So I guess what you are proposing is to display the number of actual resources lacked or in excess but otherwise use the resource effects per culture level rules to decide if the number/colouring is positive or negative?

I would still avoid ever using zero. Basically a positive number is the number of actual resources the city has access to if it has the effect, which can be green if it is more than one (i.e. city keeps the effect if you trade the resource away for example). A (red) negative number is the number of resources required to reach the effect.

 

[merijn_v1]

That is indeed what I meant.

EDIT:
Maybe the hoover text can show some additional numbers, so they are available, but don't clutter up the city screen.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, but if I recall correctly there is no hover text in that part of the interface at the moment.

 

[merijn_v1]

I'm pretty sure there is a hoover text when you hoover over the resource icons.

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, good. But it's probably the normal resource information, so that still necessitates a different widget type to use city context specific information.

 

[Steb]

I think my ideal solution, if you can put hover texts, would be:
- white/red color (and appropriate number of /) to indicate if the city has access
- total number of resources in the empire (same number in each city)*
- additional details in the hover text, along the lines of: "Given current culture, this city requires 2 additional copies of Bananas to gain access to this resource" or an equivalent message when the city has access.

*The rationale for this is that it's how it used to be, so it's less of a change; and it's good to have information on the total number of resources easily accessible. Also the calculation is a simple one in most cases.