Treasure transports

[ConjurerDragon]

In the trading posts for native villages thread it was mentioned that the gold created by trading with the natives should be added to a treasure transport unit that could return to the home colony once the player escorts it back (or takes the risk to have it travel unescorted).

Having the overland gold transport not being limited to the fixed random amount that can be gained through first contact, ancient ruins or plunder but being able to added to could be used in one other instance:

Transport of the gold unit by Galleon back to Europe

In the original colonization the only ship able to transport treasure was the Galleon and it could transport only 1 treasure unit (of random value), in WTP a Galleon can transport 2 treasure units (of random value).

If the game is able to have treasure units that can stay at a native village to gain some gold with each turn a trading post exists, would it then not be possible to merge treasureunits before loading them on a Galleon?

e.g. 2 treasureunits - regardless of value, even if only 2 X 300 gold - completely fill the hold of a Galleon

Would it be possible to have treasureunits move to a port city (if necessary with some prerequisite for breaking up, counting, weighing or whatever) to the merge smaller units into larger ones, so that the Galleon would sill transport 2 (or even again, only 1) treasure unit, but that this treasure unit could contain the merged treasure of several landtransports (e.g. landtransport 300 gold+1200 gold+1500 gold etc.) up to a maximum amount to be set for unminted treasure (e.g. say 10.000 treasure worth of gold or silver)?

 

[raystuttgart]

... would it then not be possible to merge treasureunits before loading them on a Galleon?

Of course that is technically possible. It is even really easy.
Every Civ4Col modder (with programming skills) could do that in a couple of hours.

I am just not sure if this is really wanted - because some could consider it an exploit or dislike it for other reasons.
A poll in this thread could help to clarify it.

Remarks / Questions):
A) This needs a "Merge Treasure" Command Button (2D Graphic) --> Somebody would need to create it.
B) What should the "Max gold amount per treasure" be? (Of course it needs to be scaled by Game Speed - just as it is with cargo / goods)
C) Should it be allowed to merge treasures in Cities only?
D) AI treasures on the same City plot would always merge automatically. (So there is no real AI logic involved.)
E) What should be the "merge order" if there are e.g. 3 treasures on the plot. (I do not want to mess around to create a new popup to select the 2 treasures to merge.)

Summary:
If community and team want to have it, I would volunteer to do it (unless another team member wants to implement it).
But we will need a Button for the "Merge Treasure" Command.

Edit:
Alternatively the "merge" for Treasure Units could be done automatically when loading on a Galleon that already has a Treasure Unit loaded.
(It would probably even be the better solution, because it will not need a new button and it will not need to care about "merge order".)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

I’ll propose another alternative: in the galleon you can load 6 units of treasure (of any value), instead of the current 2. honestly, I do not understand this restriction.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I’ll propose another alternative: in the galleon you can load 6 units of treasure (of any value), instead of the current 2. honestly, I do not understand this restriction.

The restriction originally was only to be able to load 1 treasure on a Galleon. It was a restriction to represent that you did not load mainly golden coins in neat staples orderly in treasure troves, but the plunder of the natives consisting of golden statues, totems, silver amulettes, pearl necklaces in such a variety of sizes and forms that it - packed in a fashion that the voyage would not destroy it - would take up the limited space in the hold of even the largest ship available.

 

[raystuttgart]

Well guys, I can live with each of the 3 solutions.

A) Current Solution (2 Treasures on Galleon - without any merging)
B) "Conjurer Dragon Solution" (2 Treasures on Galleon - with merging up to a max gold limit)
C) "Mr. Zorg Solution" (6 Treasures on Galleon - without any merging)

To be honest, I do not even really care to change because the current solution is ok to me.
But since it is so little effort to change, I would still volunteer to do whatever team and community majority want.

However, I will not implement any change without knowing what team and community majority want.
To clarify that we will most likely need a poll.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
A) Current Solution (2 Treasures on Galleon - without any merging)
B) "Conjurer Dragon Solution" (2 Treasures on Galleon - with merging up to a max gold limit - e.g. when loading onto the galleon)
C) "Mr. Zorg Solution" (6 Treasures on Galleon - without any merging)

To be honest, I do not even really care to change because the current solution is ok to me.
But since it is so little effort to change, I would still volunteer to do whatever team and community majority want.

However, I will not implement any change without knowing what team and community majority want.
To clarify that we will most likely need a poll.

I tried to put the suggestions into a poll.
As the poll allows only a limited amount of text what I mean is

1) leave it as it is (Galleon has 6 cargo spaces, treasure unit regardless of size occupies 3 spaces so that a Galleon can transport only 2 treasures with vastly different values),
2) return to the past: 1 Galleon, 1 treasureunit
3) Mr. Zorgs suggestion: 1 treasure unit fills 1 cargo unit, each treasureunit will be the random amount it was found
4) a Galleon can transport 2 treasure units which each fill 3 cargo spaces, but the treasure units can load more value by merging smaller treasure units to one ---> depending on a maximum limit that each treasure unit can hold and that has to be set somehow (e.g. you can merge but only to the amount of X where X is 10000+1000*mapsize)
5) 4 but the whole load/merge thing can’t be done on any beach but needs experts on the job - so you can merge while loading the Galleon only in a port city with a pier / dock...
6) merging as before, but if merging is allowed to a maximum value then why stick to cargo units : 2? Simply allow 1 treasure unit that can be merged up to the maximum value, just like the storage hold in cities is not 100 of each good, but a storage that can store everything.

 

[raystuttgart]

Puh, with so many options, I doubt we will get a majority for any option.
(For me a "majority" is something like 66% ...)

But ok, let us see what the poll will show.

 

[devolution]

Apparently I'll have to teach the natives to raid and hoard all these shiny and unprotected treasure units

On a related note, if we're going down the path of spawning treasure units to represent gold that was collected from trade, shouldn't this then be the generic mechanism for obtaining gold from natives?. At least this would be more consistent and thus avoid the "beaming problem" ?

 

[raystuttgart]

Apparently I'll have to teach the natives to raid and hoard all these shiny and unprotected treasure units

This thread was just about generally:
"How much treasure gold can Galleons transport?" (indirectly by either allowing Treasures to merge or not)

So it should not directly be dependent on concept "Trading Posts" (which will spawn Treasures once Trading Post has collected enough gold).
But the concept "Trading Posts" might have triggered this discussion thread.

By the way "Raiding Natives" (Feature "Native Raids") will already now attack / raid Treasures.

If I implement "Merging Treasures" I would also implement that AI Treasures (on the same City plot) will merge automatically.
(The "load on ship" functions would also change if merging would happen when a Treasure is loaded onto a Galleon that already has a Treasure loaded.)

First Feeling:
There should not be any further new AI logic needed for this.

On a related note, if we're going down the path of spawning treasure units to represent gold that was collected from trade, shouldn't this then be the generic mechanism for obtaining gold from natives?. At least this would be more consistent and thus avoid the "beaming problem" ?

For "Trading Posts" we would definitely need it because there might be no "Wagon Train" in the Native Village.
Everything else would feel artifical to me and make "Trading with Wagon Trains" less valuable.

Interesting thought to apply this for Selling goods to Natives by Wagon Trains.
(Basically this already happens with "Treasures from Scouts" as well.)

I am open to it and yes, it might feel more realistic and would also be more consistent.
But for others it might also be more tedious.

However, then we definitely need "Merge by Command Button" because we will need to merge treasures in Native Villages or other Cities.
Otherwise it will become too tedious.

Summary:
We now ended up with 2 different aspects.

1) Allowing Treasures to merge up to a max. gold amount (scaled by GameSpeed)
(by "Merge Treasure" Command in Cities and automatically by loading onto a Galleon)

2) Spawning Treasures when Selling Goods to Natives instead of "beaming gold"
(which would be consistent to "Trading Posts in Native Villages" and "Treasures from Scouts")

If we implement 2), then we will definitely need to implement 1) as well.
(Otherwise it will become too tedious.)

Remark:
If we do it like that, I think we should keep the restriction of "max. 2 Treasures per Galleon".
(Basically 1 Treasures uses 3 cargo slots. It will thus still allow to transport some other goods.)

 

[raystuttgart]

2) Spawning Treasures when Selling Goods to Natives instead of "beaming gold"
(which would be consistent to "Trading Posts in Native Villages" and "Treasures from Scouts")

A small remark on this:
I am not yet sure if this is easily doable at all.
The trade diplo dialog is pretty much "hidden" in the exe, which we cannot really touch.
So we would need to check first if we can access that part of the logic by DLL changes.
If it is accessible by source code for the DLL it should be a piece of cake though.

 

[Nightinggale]

As for the galleon issue, why do the natives even give you gold? Wouldn't it make sense to have a unit, which can move to a colony and then disband itself to add yields to the warehouse. One of those yields could then be YIELD_GOLD (like from the goldmine), which can then be transported to Europe without the need for a galleon. The issue I see with creating a treasure from each trading post is that we could end up with treasure spamming, which would require way too many galleons.

If it's a treasure, which grants yields when disbanded, we could also make the trading station gather percentages of the yields produced in the settlement, meaning you get silver if there is a silver mine, fur if the natives produce lots of fur etc.

 

[raystuttgart]

The issue I see with creating a treasure from each trading post is that we could end up with treasure spamming, which would require way too many galleons.

It will not.
I will not create mini-treasures as I had written many times.
The gold will be calculated and stored in the background and only if the total amount has grown over a certain threshold it will spawn a treasure.

If it's a treasure, which grants yields when disbanded, we could also make the trading station gather percentages of the yields produced in the settlement, meaning you get silver if there is a silver mine, fur if the natives produce lots of fur etc.

A "treasure which grants yields when disbanded" simply does not yet exist in WTP.
This will also not spawn more or less treasures than in my suggestion though and is more complicated to implement.

But if somebody wants to code this, it would be ok for me as well.
(I am absolutely fine if another team member wants to implement "Trading Posts in Native Villages".)

 

[raystuttgart]

Guys, if we are discussing all of this just because you are afraid of "Trading Posts in Native Villages", again I can assure you, it will not spam micro-treasures.
(It will only spawn Treasures once the gold amount calculated for the Trading Post in the background is more than a threshold set in XML.)

Missions are not spamming "Converted Natives" either ...

For discussions about "Trading Posts in Native Villages" we also have this separate thread.
(Although the discussion in this thread really is not directly dependent on it.)

----------------

This thread was originally supposed to clarify the following aspects:
(Treasure Unit Handling)

A) How many Treasure Units should we able to transport per Galleon.
B) If a feature "Merging Treasures" (by "Merge Treasures Command and automatically by loading on Galleon) should be implemented
C) How much gold per Treasure Unit should we have as max. value if we create feature "Merging Treasures"

--> Really easy to implement.

The discussion however added these topic:
(Trade Dialog System)

D) Should we implement "Spawning Treasure Units (with gold) instead of beaming gold" when Selling to Natives (by Trade Dialog)
E) Should we implement "New Treasure Units that carry goods instead of beaming gold" when Selling to Natives (by Trade Dialog)

--> Might be impossible to implement (by using current Trade Dialog) because Trade Dialog is inside the exe.
(We might end up creating a new ugly looking trade dialog screen to replace the nice looking current trade dialog screen.)

D) might still be possible with current Trade Dialog Screen
E) I could bet it is not possible with current Trade Dialog Sreen (because it uses simple gold internally)

Remark:
Once we had "E)" we could of course also use it for "Trading Posts in Native Villages". If not, then there is no point in using it at all anyways.
But I am not really sure it is generally a good idea to have other "Good Carry Units" because we already have "Wagon Trains".

----------------

Summary:

Let us please clarify each aspect separatly.
Otherwise we will simply mess up the discussion and the poll.
Then we will definitely end up by doing nothing at all ...

Thus let us for now clarify "Treasure Unit Handling".

 

[Tugboatspotter]

I did not vote on this poll because I can't predict which option would play better, or if it would make much difference. Unless there is a clear reason why it needs to be be changed then I would lean towards leaving it alone.

 

[raystuttgart]

Unless there is a clear reason why it needs to be be changed then I would lean towards leaving it alone.

The discussion "Merging Treasures" (and "How many Treasurs per Galleon") is basically just about these 2 factors:
(There is absolutely no real problem with the way it currently works.)

1) Personal Taste (considering balancing of gold amounts to be transportable by Galleon)
2) Comfort Funtionality (to have less Units to move)

To be honest, we already spent almost as much time discussing it, than it would most likely have needed to implement it.
And looking at the current poll, I feel again that we will not get a clear majority.

However:
Looking at the poll I feel that there is a tendency to implement a "merge" in some way.

I will thus most likely just implement this option:
(Edit: Checked the poll again.)

• "Merge by Command Button in Cities / Native Villages"

I will also implement it in the following way:

• AI treasures in Cities / Native Vilalges merge automatically.
• As a "max. gold amount per treasure" I will just configure what I feel suited for now. (It will be an XML setting anyways.)
• Number of Treasures by Galleon (currently 2) will stay untouched.

I will wait for this until next major release anyways.
(It does not really have high priority for me.)

Maybe somebody will come up with reasons that speak against it.
(There should be enough time to do so until I start any implementation.)

The main effect considering gameplay:
2 small treasures will not use up 6 (2 times 3) cargo hold slots anymore in a Galleon.
Since you can merge small treasures to a bigger one that will (still) only use 3 cargo hold slots in a Galleon.
Thus transporting Treasures to Europe will get more efficient and the game a tiny bit easier.

Remark:
Do not worry that this will become an exploit or cheat.
The "max gold amount per treasure" will be balanced to not allow to create "giant treasures" by continuously merging without limit.
The biggest treasures you will be able to get from a "merge" will be at most just slightly bigger than current large treasures.

----------

It will not really make the game any different since we are basically just talking about a "comfort function".
It is not yet decided / accepted either because a single "veto" from any team member will kill it.

But it is also relatively little effort to do.
There is also almost no risk involved.

----------

@team:

If somebody else wants to implement this, just let me know.
I really do not care who is going to implement it.

If there are any reasons that speak against it, no problem.
I personally could also live without it but again it is little effort to do it.

 

[rah]

I voted for merging but have no problem with it being limited to cities with piers or whatever.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Currently the range is not great between the highest and lowest treasure. With merging presumably we can expect to see a wider range, which leads to the question of how low can a treasure go? or how high? would it be possible to be carting around a treasure worth 1 gold? of course this would be silly, but what would be in place to stop it?

If there is a 999 limit for instance and I merge two 500 gold treasures will I end up with a 999 treasure and a 1 treasure?

 

[raystuttgart]

I voted for merging but have no problem with it being limited to cities with piers or whatever.

I would most likely not limit it to "piers" or any other building.
I would allow it for any (friendly) city plot (incl. Native Villages) because this will make the "Merge" feature more versatile.
It will also prevent to have too many small treasure to move over the map.

Edit:
I also removed the automatic merge when loading / moving a Treasure onto a Galleon from my post here.
(Which is my current implementation concept.)

Reasons:

• This will prevent a small exploit because you will still need the "being in a save City" condition and can not simply merge treasures by picking them up from any coast by your Galleons.
• It is more controlable and will prevent annoyance in rare conditions when you would purposely want to keep the Treasures separated on a Galleon.
  
• It is also more consistent and less effort for me to implement if I only need to implement "Merge by Command Button".
• Majority of current poll votes did not care about "Automatic Merge when loading on Galleons" anyways.

 

[raystuttgart]

Currently the range is not great between the highest and lowest treasure.

Well, at normal game speed it is somewhere between 500 and 1800 currently.
(So the range is not that small.)

With merging presumably we can expect to see a wider range, which leads to the question of how low can a treasure go? or how high?

"How high" is what I will need to be figuring out in balancing.
(Currently I am aiming for e.g. 3000 gold on normal Game Speed)

Would it be possible to be carting around a treasure worth 1 gold?

Theoretically possible if you have e.g. a treasure with 1500 gold and another one with 1501 gold and merge them.
Treasure A would then be 3000 gold. Treasure B would then be 1 gold.

But it should really be a quite rare case.
Most of the merges will probably create treasures smaller than 3000 gold.

I do not really believe it will be a problem and nobody is going to force you to merge at all.

If Treasure B (with 1 gold) is really annoying you, simply disband it.
Otherwise wait until you can merge it with another Treasure C again.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Theoretically possible if you have e.g. a treasure with 1500 gold and another one with 1501 gold and merge them.
Treasure A would then be 3000 gold. Treasure B would then be 1 gold.

But it should really be a quite rare case.
Most of the merges will probably create treasures smaller than 3000 gold.

I do not really believe it will be a problem and nobody is going to force you to merge at all.

If Treasure B (with 1 gold) is really annoying you, simply disband it.
Otherwise wait until you can merge it with another Treasure C again.

That sounds reasonable.

If you can send a transport with one unit of goods, then a treasure worth one gold is not an issue either.