offworld trade and resources

[Deliverator]

Paying the guild to get units from offworld/your homeworld is the key part of the Homeworld idea. I'm happy to be patient and wait for Koma to get back to do a prototype. He has the experience of creating custom screens. In the future we can maybe combine offworld goods and offworld units/mercenaries into the one place.

 

[davidlallen]

how about the possibility to buy units from offworld

I agree with the concept; we have mentioned it a couple of times in different threads. I haven't played Civ Col, but Deliverator and koma13 have discussed the "Europe screen" where you can order units. I have not thought too much about how that would work. I suppose there would be a new button in the user interface, which would bring up this screen. Each unit you could order (UU and regular units, based on your tech) would have a button on this screen, and some cost in gold.

I don't know how to build new user interface screens; I suppose it may be possible in python. Adding the unit and deducting the gold is easy.

 

[Deliverator]

I actually think it may be interesting to be able to obtain one or two units AHEAD of your current tech level if you can afford a very large amount of gold.

I'm pretty sure Koma has the python know-how to do the custom screens. In Civ4Col he modded the vanilla Europe screen quite a lot - moving things around, adding new dialogues and graphics, etc. For example, he added a dialog where you could change which specific port your ship sailed to in the New World - which is not a feature in vanilla.

 

[keldath]

yeah - getting units from the future can be cool and interesting.

 

[AstralDream]

You could add a new screen to the game called homeworld that actiwates after bulding spaceport.
And simulate trade with homeworld.
Homeworld will get spice from dune for some homeworld goods like caladanian wine or other reosurces.
You could maake option for "buying" some units from homeworld planet...
like starport in dune 2 or dune 2000.

 

[Deliverator]

If you read the subforum some more, you'll find that we have already discussed the homeworld idea and we plan to do a prototype.

 

[AstralDream]

i know but now i don't have much time to read all posts...
so i just write my ideas...

 

[keldath]

feel free AstralDream

 

[davidlallen]

In 1.3.10, I will revise the set of buildings for these offworld trade items and use the "contract" mechanism I have described a few posts back. Once you have a space port, there is one generic building "Offworld Contract" you can build. When it completes you get a picklist of the available contracts. The following contracts are available:

Caladanian Wine (Atreides)
Slig (Tleilaxu)
Sardaukar Cooperation (Corrino)
Kindjal (Fenring)
Thinking Machines (Ix)
Opafire (Ordos)
Semuta (Ecaz)
Sapho Juice (Ecaz)

If the named civilization is in the game, only that civilization may select it. Otherwise, any civilization may select it. Each contract may only be selected once per game. Each civ may build any number of contracts, as long as there is at least one available contract when they start. Once a choice is made, the appropriate building appears in the city, and gives whatever effect the building has (for example, providing three units of the resource, or whatever.)

Suppose there is a game with Atreides, Tleilaxu, Ordos, Harkonnen and Chouhada Fremen. This means the other contracts, Sardaukar, Kindjal, Thinking Machines, Semuta and Sapho Juice are available to all. Suppose Atreides completes the first contract building. They can select any one of Caladanian Wines, Sardaukar, Kindjal, TM, Semuta or SJ. Suppose they select SJ. Now suppose Harkonnen builds a contract building. They can select any one of Sardaukar, Kindjal, TM or Semuta.

Any additional things we should put into this system?

 

[keldath]

now thats sounds like something cool,

i like it alot.

how will you base it? via python?

 

[davidlallen]

now thats sounds like something cool, i like it alot. how will you base it? via python?

Thanks. The details were suggested by several other modders in this thread. It is a random event triggered by the contract building.

 

[keldath]

oh that the think you posted a pic of,

i liked it a lot.

its different then ub's, its better.

 

[Deliverator]

For 1.3.10, I think the Landing Stage should stay to give the initial civ unique bonus resource. I'd like for each civ to always get their own.

Then when you build the Space Port you get an opportunity to choose a couple of other imported resources to add to your civ unique one.

 

[Ahriman]

For 1.3.10, I think the Landing Stage should stay to give the initial civ unique bonus resource. I'd like for each civ to always get their own.

Then when you build the Space Port you get an opportunity to choose a couple of other imported resources to add to your civ unique one.

I like this.

 

[davidlallen]

For 1.3.10, I think the Landing Stage should stay to give the initial civ unique bonus resource. I'd like for each civ to always get their own.

Then when you build the Space Port you get an opportunity to choose a couple of other imported resources to add to your civ unique one.

There are two cases: a huge game where all the civs are in use (could also be a smaller game where all the civs with interesting offworld resources are in use); or a game where some civs with interesting resources are not in use.

For the first case, we have said that if a civ is in the game, other players *cannot* contract that resource. So the spaceport would not be useful from that standpoint.

For the second case, it seems simpler to me to have one buildable object with a picklist; so if you are Atreides and Ecaz is not in the game, you could contract for Sapho Juice first if you wanted to.

It's easy enough to implement either way; let's just agree first.

 

[Deliverator]

we have said that if a civ is in the game, other players *cannot* contract that resource.

I think this might be too strong. Bear in mind, Space Ports does come quite a bit later than Off World Trade at the moment. We could say each imported bonus is available to the owning civ, plus one unit being available to any other civ who builds a Space Port and chooses it, representing the securing of a secondary source from smugglers/black market. No more than two civs would have a source of each imported good.

Part of the idea of having two buildings for imported goods is that Landing Stage comes at Off World Trade which is available much earlier. Space Ports represents the expanding of off world trade to include more goods.

 

[davidlallen]

We are discussing simultaneously in the unit progression thread. If other civs can get my unique bonus, then they can use my unique units against me. I do not think that makes sense.

 

[Ahriman]

I see no reason not to combine both ideas. The landing base gives you your own resource, the spaceport gives you a pick of any resource not in the game (or more copies of your own resource if everyone else is in the game).

 

[davidlallen]

I see no reason not to combine both ideas. The landing base gives you your own resource, the spaceport gives you a pick of any resource not in the game (or more copies of your own resource if everyone else is in the game).

This would certainly work. But in some games, there aren't any interesting unplayed resources; and it isn't clear that 6 copies of a bonus lets you do something that 3 copies didn't. One possible solution is to add a few offworld resources which are not civ-limited and can be chosen more than once. The original Nutrients Convoy is an exact example; it can have a few copies, and anybody can get them. If we added these, then the spaceport would always be worthwhile. Then the only question is whether we need two buildings for this, or if one is enough.

 

[Ahriman]

The original Nutrients Convoy is an exact example; it can have a few copies, and anybody can get them. If we added these, then the spaceport would always be worthwhile.

This sounds fine to me, but I'd probably just add 1 default option and make it slightly weaker than the other ones. Imported goods should ususally be better than the default.

Then the only question is whether we need two buildings for this, or if one is enough.

I like the idea of 2 buildings spreading it over the tech-tree more, and making it easier to access your homeworld resource than those of other civs.