What is your dream / vision for WTP?

[Nightinggale]

Especially the fact that throughout the game the building- and unit variety keeps expanding, is a great way to keep the mid- and late game interesting. So no more unlimited access to all sort of units (military and non-military) right from the start, but a gradual expansion of features. They did this with era’s (see spoiler below), but this might also be achieved with some sort of royal permissions/tech tree, which has already been suggested by other people on this forum.

I think we all agree on this one. We need to unlock "stuff" during the game. We also have the technical implementation figured out. What we need to figure out is what triggers unlocking new buildings etc. If we use eras, then they will need work because currently eras seems somewhat random and irrelevant. That in itself could be a good argument for reviewing how we use eras.

Other features from DOANE that I like and could be candidates for WTP:
Mixed cargo: a wagon train can transport 200 cotton, but not 1 cotton, 1 tobacco and 1 fur. Allow transport based on combined cargo amount rather than slots makes it more interesting to have a low production of something valuable and could make it easier to code how automated transports can work efficiently.

Waypoints. The ability to control which plot a ship will arrive on when arriving from Europe. In general the ability to have named waypoints for (semi) automated movement is a nice concept. This could also be used for automated patrols.

Last, but not least: we shouldn't copy everything we see in other mods just because we like it. We have a unique DLL file with unique features meaning we can code some features better. We also have a different mod meaning a 100% copy of gameplay mechanics might not be what we want even if we want something of a similar nature.

Map mechanics

Interesting, but how is the AI able to handle this? Also I might want a different implementation, like each unit having a BoolArray of plots, which lists the plots known to the unit, but not the player. When the unit is selected, all those plots are revealed, but switching to a different unit will hide them. Plots known to the unit, but not the player should be displayed with circles or something to make it clear what the unit knows. When two units are on the same plot, they both end up with knowing the plots known to either.
Sounds like a significant amount of work, but any less and it risks being annoying rather than fun. I'm not happy with the ship going into a bay and then it returns, the same ship has to discover the bay again the following turn. I don't view that as an ideal implementation.

 

[Kendon]

Choosing your starting units

At the very beginning of the game (jan 1492) you can chose your two terrestrial starting units; it’s quite a small selection to pick from (veteran soldier, lumberjack, fisherman, carpenter and blacksmith), but is quite a nice strategical feature IMO.

I might add a choice of ships, either the caravel or the fluyt. I like the idea of choosing opening units. When I started I played openings as each of the leaders. Usually now I play the Portuguese to get the carrack but it can be too much of an advantage.

I did a quick accounting of the opening contingents offered in 2.8.1: 400 gold to make any unit a settler, 1,200 to have a dragoon, 800 for an expert, 1,200 for a master, 500 for a free colonist. I agree the choices should be limited.

There are also three units on the first ships that can’t be bought: the Jesuit Missionary, Seasoned Scout and Native Trader. If each is valued at 1,500 gold, various expeditions can be assembled for 4,400 gold with 100-200 left over for trading.

I don’t know whether this is hard to program. There might also be imbalances among the colonial nations that are addressed by the current grouping. It’s not important or urgent but it might be a small easy choice to get people involved early.

 

[jaeyeom]

The dream I had was mostly done in this MOD. I've been playing many trade games and what I really wished for Colonization is implemented with Domestic Market. Goods (like sailcloth) are used to produce units and products are actually used by people. Goods in vanilla used to be only to be sold in Europe and I didn't like that. The goods actually improves citizen's happiness, so I like how Domestic Market integrated with happiness.

Europe doesn't stock sold products and runs its own economy (like what they do with cotton, etc), but I think that's okay not to implement that details, but the price change can handle it in a nutshell.

WTP also supports automation that makes player's life easier. I'd wish to have better trade automation with colonial powers and natives, but it may not be easy to implement. It'll be also useful to have a one-time task settings. For example, "I'd like to move 100 goods from colony X to Y, just one time regardless of the import/export settings, and automatic transportation should pick up this task."

 

[nci]

Scouts and ship crews (see later) automatically get experience by traveling. It’s not regular experience points were you can choose a skill, but they level up in movement points. For example; after 100 tiles traveled a ships crew levels up with +1 movement, capped at +3 after 300 tiles moves.

I believe this is a terrible idea unless existing scenarios are dramatically reworked. Should it be implemented, any merchant ship will be able to either sail to Europe, or retreat to nearby native village or settlement in single turn, effectively killing off piracy.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

I would like to see late game expansion with industrialization.

Possibly an event (like the Governor event) at the late game stage allows an 'Industrialist' (new unit) to join your colonies. Placing him in city hall unlocks the building of railways by pioneers. As an alternative, the industrialist could unlock a new building 'railway company' which when built, has the same effect:

-Reintroduce railways instead of one of the country roads. They would be costly to build to represent how heavily subsided railway companies were.
-New unit 'railway carriage' is unlocked. Of course it would be very fast with large capacity, and can only travel on rail tracks.

I think this would be a nice new feature to boost the late game.

 

[Nightinggale]

Progression with unlockable content
The game should have some sort of tech tree or similar to unlock units, buildings and similar as the game progresses.

Better trade routes
The current way of automatically get cargo between colonies suck. Rather than building on top of vanilla code, write something brand new to make it work like classic colonization trade routes. This will likely end up as an addon, which can coexist with the current system.

New diplomacy screen
The diplomacy screen is hidden in the exe and can't be modded. It's full of issues and it would be really nice to have a screen where we have complete control. It's a big task and might not happen. It is however also on the wishlist for BTS mods, so maybe it can happen as a multi mod joined effort at some point. Drag-n-drop UI elements are only supported in Colonization, but otherwise it is possible to write code, which unmodified works for both BTS and Colonization, including network code for multiplayer support.

Code cleanup
Make the code consistently use enum types and add code to make enums even more strict than they already are. This will result in cleaner code and make the compiler more likely to reject imperfections, both wanted as that will reduce the risk of bugs. Maybe not a gameplay dream, but a bug resisting code design makes both modding and playing more fun. For the most part this is more of an ongoing change than a one time crunch creation like most features are like to create.

More mods
Make the setup in xml rather than hardcode as this allows other mods to use our DLL/python without ending up as reskins. One of the big restrictions in getting mods to work is programming and several mods have not turned out to what they were supposed to be because of lack of programmers. I tried working on Medieval Conquest, Religion and Revolution and Colonization 2071 at the same time (well looked at and considered col2071) and it's just not a doable approach. Whenever a bug is fixed, it's extra work fixing it in some other mod and copying the change has a high risk of messing up and causing new bugs. A design to let mods share one source code is way more time efficient not to mention way more fun for modding because it's a boring and annoying task, which we avoid.

 

[Schmiddie]

"Bump"

Going through the different threads reminded me that we have this nice little thread with some very good ideas...

 

[Hibernian]

When I talk about "vision" it is primarily the "big game changing new game mechanics and overhauls".
They can be understood as fundamental pillars that many many smaller features are built (and balanced) around.

The WTP mod is already a dream come true, I would not play the game without it any more. There is so much work and detail in it that it is basically a new game. It's great to see that you still care for the game after so many years, that so much dedication is put into it and that the community is asked for their input.

I am really looking forward to Large Rivers as the next big ting, the dream is to implement the graphics we saw in a different topic; the topic where you showed screenshots from Melcher.

 

[schueler]

This is likely way too much, but maybe a simple weather system for land tiles might be nifty as well... i.e. heavy rain/storms affecting movement costs/productivity/line of sight. Droughts. I bet it is too much though and might be more something giving the player a headache instead of a challenge. And it might be computationally too intense, albeit I guess there are sufficiently efficient and semi-realistic weather simulation algorithms out there.

An awful lot of historical events were contingent on weather conditions after all.

 

[raystuttgart]

... but maybe a simple weather system for land tiles might be nifty as well... i.e. heavy rain/storms affecting movement costs/productivity/line of sight.

We actually considered and discussed having Weather on Land as well, when implementing "Winds and Storm" on the Ocean.
(The original discussion is already 10 years old at least.)

And there basically very similar ideas as you had and even more.
(Changing Yields, Movement, Line of Sight, Damage Effects, Combat Terrain Bonusses, ...)

Since the idea itself is really logical once you see that "Winds and Storms" exist on the ocean I can completely understand that you and most likely many other players were thinking about this as well.
(The idea really seems logical until you start thinking about the consequences of such a feature from the perspective of a modder ...)

----

However we soon figured out that there are 5 major reasons against it.
(Since we were still "modding beginners" in the first years of RaR, we learned some of these lessons the hard way ...)

• Annoyance: Trust me, constantly changing situations is not fun, it is annyoing and makes strategic planning impossible
  
• Performance: Having the engine recompute Yields, Movement, Line of Sight, ... on Land would totally ruin all turn times
• AI: AI would go absolutely crazy readjusting Profession, Movement Paths, ... and become totally helpless
• Effort: We would go crazy maintaining the feature and handlig all of the side effects (and randomness) to other features
• Balancing "Good and Bad": Every feature that adds negative effects also needs to be balanced by positive effects and vice versa. (Asymetric balance is fine though.)

It only works on Ocean because the effect are really really limited by design.

• It does not e.g. affect Yields at all which was part of the original idea but removed soon from the concept.
• There are many many Units less on the Ocean than on Land. (Thus less effects on Movement or Line of Sight)
• We thoroughly ensured that side effects to other performance hungry sysems were as limited as possible
• We heavily limited damage and destruction of ships compare do original concept

By the way: Story about the origins of "Winds and Storms"

Spoiler :

The absolutely first version of this feature was mostly coded in Python (by another team member).
Considering performance it was a nightmare ... but still it was important to him, because it was one of his first features.

Thus we had to recode in DLL + XML and rebalance "Winds and Storms" at least 5 times in the first 2 years of RaR.
It originally was annoying as hell and wasted way too much of the performance and ate way too much effort considering its gameplay value.
(The original version was balanced kind of like a "Storm", while the current version is just a "Soft Wind" in comparison...)

We even considered twice to completely remove it

• In the first year of the mod due to the heavy problems and efforts we had in balancing and improving performance.
  
• And then in the "reduced version" with such limited effects many players said it had become a pointless and useless feature...

However since we had agreed to only remove a feature from the mod if we absolutely could not save it, it is still in the mod.
(Step by step we also added small improvements like e.g. Promotions.)

Now many years later, people do not remember the original problems we had with it.
And now also everybody got used to it and does not want to remove it of course.

Even myself does not want to remove it anymore although I sill consider it one of the least impactful features for gameplay we ever did.
(Considering "good game design" I would however never do such a feature again.)

----

Small advice about "self checking your ideas or feature concepts":

Spoiler :

First, before you think about anything else answer these question first:

• What is the purpose / the reason for gameplay?
• Why does it make the game more fun?
• Can the player have influence (by choices) or is he a passive victim of the new feature?
• Are "pros and cons" / "good and bad" balanced or does it feel overpowered (too much good) or unfair punishment (too much bad)?

Forget all other considerations if you cannot find good answers considering gameplay first.
(Immersion, technical side, effort ... can all be answered later.)

 

[schueler]

Thanks for your very detailed reply, ray! Of course, such a fundamental idea must have been discussed before, I just did not find it on the forums.

I'll self-check better next time but my hunch already was that it is not quite feasible.
I am a bit surprised that recomputation of the various scalars assigned to each tile (max 500 x 500) would still be a problem (I guess LoS, yield etc. are represented that way), though, sadly, I've never really gotten far.
with my programming and O-notation skills. And of course, this is only a part of the whole process every turn. Enough, I'm talking out of my ...

Thanks again!

 

[PlanarFreak]

Adding Cannons to the types of Goods and giving colonists the option of Cannoneer and Artillerist Professions would be amazing!

Someone mentioned adding Crews to ships, which could be an interesting system. But then we start looking at other Vehicles like Wagons and Caravans... are we going to add Crews to those as well? For simplicity's sake it might be better to keep the current system. I'm torn on this one.

I do like the idea of Ships (or Crews) gaining XP for things beyond Combat and Exploration, perhaps based on time in service or on goods moved. Could also be interesting to add a simple promotion tree to vehicles like Wagons and Caravans, but I could also see the argument for leaving them out for the same reason that Crews would only apply to Ships.

On the flip side of things being weirdly coded as Units instead of Professions, I've always thought it was weird to have a Seasoned Scout Unit instead of a Seasoned Scout Promotion. I know that's how it was designed in Classic, but it sticks out. I guess I would implement it similar to the Veteran Soldier - the Seasoned Scout Unit comes with the associated promotion(s).

 

[Nightinggale]

This is likely way too much, but maybe a simple weather system for land tiles might be nifty as well

Lesson #5 Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun"

(lesson #5 at 14:36)

Weather on land for historical accuracy is certainly interesting, but I fail to see it as adding fun to the game. Instead I view it as annoying.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Lesson #5 Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun"

(lesson #5 at 14:36)

Weather on land for historical accuracy is certainly interesting, but I fail to see it as adding fun to the game. Instead I view it as annoying.

The hurricanes and droughts work well in gathering storm. I think it provides flavor and challenge, but I can understand your viewpoint.

 

[raystuttgart]

I think it provides flavor and challenge, but I can understand your viewpoint.

What is flavour and challenge for one player is unfair punishment for the other.

On Land we already have very very rare Tornados and Hurricanes.
I always hate it, when they hit me and destroy my Improvements without me having the slightest influence.

With "Winds and Storms" it was extreme in the beginning:

• After 3 turns more that 75% of the Ocean was covered with Wind and Storm Features.
  
• Ever second ship was extremely damaged after sailing through the ocean for a couple of turns.
• About every 10th turn one of your Ships got sunk by a Storm.
• AI was completely helpless and not able to recover because it was not as smart as now in repairing Ships.
• ...

Challenging ... maybe.
Fun ... definitely not.

But I start repeating myself.

----

Everybody who really wants to have it, shall implement it, publish it in a modmod and show us that it is actually fun and not causing problems.
If it is actually really fun, performant, working for AI, ... and well made considering quality, we will definitely take a look and discuss integrating.