[Mod] Uchronia - Another Humankind History (W.I.P.)

As you've seen above, you'll have stockpile in settlements (exchanged automatically between settlements of the same Empire), and you won't trade resource individually with other Empires, but will buy the access to a settlement stockpile, the type of resource exchanged (food, luxuries, strategic, equipment) still being dependent on the diplomatic trade level.

So I've made a new district ("Market Center") that generate a luxury resource ("Trade Destination") which is the only *resource* that can be traded now. (see screens) they will be unlocked in the first era. I'm looking for better names for both. IDK if "Trade Center" would fit so early for a district. "Trade Hub" ? Not sure of the resource name either, as it's more of a trade source from the PoV of the Empire buying the access. "Trade Access" ? simply "Trade Route" ?

Suggestions ?

Spoiler :

 

I think I'll go for "Trading Hub" for the district and "Trade Route" for the pseudo-resource, and I'll adapt the text on the "buy" screen to make it say "Sponsor" ("a Trade Route") instead of "Buy".

 

Development update, I've no ETA for the next alpha, as implementing stockpile as they were used in the civ6 project is kind of a full economic overhaul.

But I'm progressing, here is a screenshot of my tests with the visualization of a pathfinder supply line result, here over a river in the context of resources collected in a settlement (to calculate satellite territories to main territory transport cost)

Then there should be supply lines between settlements, and the "usual" trade routes between Empires using the new pseudo-resource to set the source/destination settlements.

 

A first draft for Supply Lines, looking for feedback.

My current implementation is to have stockpiles in the main district of a settlement (aka the city center).

Administrative Centers of attached territories would (try to) have a supply line with that main district (screenshot posted previously)

Resources are collected in territories that have a supply line to the main district, and processed/stocked in the main district.

Some other districts (harbor, garrison, ... ?) would try to set a supply line with the Administrative Center of their territory or the Main District if they can't reach them. Those districts would act as alternative supply source for armies. Note that I think of limiting garrison to one per territory.

Armies in your territories would try to find a path to the nearest supply source (Administrative Center, Garrison, Harbor, ...) of that territory, which would give them access to the Administrative Center stockpile. If they fail, they'll use the foreign territory method below.

In foreign territory, only the biggest army in that territory will try to find a path for a supply line to one of the supply source in a nearby territory (only adjacent first, further away after some techs/eras). If it fails, then the second bigger army will try, etc...

The other armies in that territory will try to find a supply line path to the "central" army.

That way most path finding computation would be made inside territories, limiting the processing time a lot.

The problem I have with that design, is what happen when a Main District is under siege ?

It should not be able to receive new resource, but it should be able to process those that are in its stockpile.

But what about your armies ?

Should they be able to access the (then considered "virtual") stockpile of that City via the previous supply sources ? (meaning I'd remove the check for a supply line between them and the city, else that solution won't be viable)

Or no supply at all ?

I could have them try to find a path to another City, like if they were in a foreign territories but that would require more processing power, and with the huge size one settlement can be, while their supply lines would be short, they surely won't be able to reach one (or it would mean using unrealistically long supply lines)

It would be strange to have them unsupplied in some of your own territories when only one is under siege. OTOH it would be strange to have a sieged city still providing supplies for armies outside its walls...

So I'm pondering using more stockpiles, one in each administrative center and supply sources, with more limited stocks (and limited to equipment only for garrison for example). That would mean the city itself will have access to less resources, and it will require more processing power each turn (to transfer the resources), but would also make the effect of siege being less dramatic and/or more realist depending on the choice made if I keep the actual design.

 

Yep, I've set a late game replacement with range 2, and I do want to change the adjacency bonus too that way. I'd also like to differentiate biomes if that's possible from the DB (maybe a lot of work to try to implement that code-side if it's not already handled)

Exploitation tiles will be important in the mod, because it's those tiles (and mines/artisan quarters) that will give the resources

Armies will "live from the land", especially pre-industrial, additional resource capture/pillaging is also planned.

I'm switching from "settlement" to "territory" stockpile, will also make it easier to handle merge/split of territories.

Basically Camps, City Centers and Administrative Centers will provide the stockpile, and some other districts (military) will provide alternate source point to that stockpile content for the Armies supply line if it's closer than the center/camp.

 

progress on the UI

Spoiler :

Now I need to add a line of buttons to select which Territory stockpile to display in a Settlement.

 

the civ6 mod had a similar "buffer", the stockpile of units was split in 3, the "Frontline" /"Ready" that defined its health, the "Reserve"/"Camp" and the "Rear"/"Supply Train"

I'll use something similar, a stockpile at the unit level, the "Frontline", and another at the Army level, the "Reserve" and "Supply Train" that will provide a limited supply (growing with eras) to the army's units when the line is cut.

 

Almost anything possible, the issue is time needed. ID biomes is simple, coding an option is much longer, and providing long term support for options is exponentially more time consuming, meaning I'll limit them (already removed a lot from the TCL setup, and I will remove more)

That said I pondered biome-based placement, and hadn't discarded it, but I can't say if I'll implement it (won't be an option, would still be something using relative to real earth coordinates for randomly generated map, and what I would do is give more weight to latitude over longitude then change the biome of the starting territory to fit the culture)

ATM I'm only allowing auto-resolve as it's much simpler to develop around that than changing the tactical battles to something more to my liking while fixing some of the issues I have with them. I may add a switch in the XML files to allow tactical battles, but won't support using them (modding time factor again)

So only siege can take more than one turn to resolve, and the siege area is limited to the city center and all adjacent tiles, nothing more.

Supply lines will avoid the area, armies inside will use the city stockpile, armies outside will need a supply line coming from the adjacent territories (linked to that city or to another)

"Trading Charter" sounds good, thanks.

Straight line distance or path distance ?

Both are possible, I started by using the game's pathfinder for armies (calculate number of turns to reach a destination tile to tile based on army capabilities and terrain), but switched to my own implementation of the A* pathfinder as I had specific need for calculating the path cost of supply lines over river/sea and could not do that with the game's pathfinder without also changing drastically the movement of armies.

 

not by using the modding tools, it's part of the patched code using BepinEx

or do you mean which function is patched ?