Population as a resource evolves in v1.3

from JoeUser Forums

Most of the excitement in the Elemental universe has been about Fallen Enchantress.  But War of Magic continues to move forward too, albeit in a different direction.

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There’s a lot of changes in v1.3 to gameplay that I’ll talk about later but one change that I’m working on is the scaling of costs of things in terms of population.

As many people know, in “the real world” it’s one thing to find one specialist nearby for your company but it gets progressively more difficult to find more and more. This happens to work out as a nice game mechanic because in v1.3, the cost of a study, workshop, archivist, or anything else that has no duplicate limit will slowly get more expensive in terms of personnel cost.

Your first study will only cost 1 (instead of 5). Your second one will cost 2. Your third one a bit more and so on.  This helps get the game moving early on but also makes it hard to get the crazy, out of control, late game scaling that has been typical. It also makes bigger cities more important because higher level settlements are the ones with the best resource multiplying improvements.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Your first study will only cost 1 (instead of 5). Your second one will cost 2. Your third one a bit more and so on. This helps get the game moving early on but also makes it hard to get the crazy, out of control, late game scaling that has been typical. It also makes bigger cities more important because higher level settlements are the ones with the best resource multiplying improvements.

Is there any way we can get localized populations as well? While I think this is a really good change, low level cities will still be able to leech population from the rest of the civilization under the current global population system. In my mind, it would be cool if population was both local and there existed a unit capable of "moving" population.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

An interesting idea.  Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Maybe one way to handle the leaching would be an influence "reducing" building perhaps?

 

Unsure what would be the best way to do this.

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top



Your first study will only cost 1 (instead of 5). Your second one will cost 2. Your third one a bit more and so on.  This helps get the game moving early on but also makes it hard to get the crazy, out of control, late game scaling that has been typical. It also makes bigger cities more important because higher level settlements are the ones with the best resource multiplying improvements.

I like this idea cuz it addresses to issues for me 1) the monotony of making 20 studies in every city and 2) city spam.

P.S. Welcome back Frogboy... I hope that bone ogre wasn't too rough on you.  Now you're back with us bone ogres.

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 2
An interesting idea. Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

Perhaps, but I think it would be worth the effort since there is little that keeps large cities from supporting large amounts of smaller cities. Let's look at a good example from 1.2. Currently, if I have one city with 300 population, I can have support 60 studies at 5 population. Now, let's consider a gradual increase of 1 per study. The same 300 population city could support 24 studies instead of 60. Thus, one 1200 population city could support 24 studies, archivists, and workshops as well as 25 12 size units across any number of cities.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

This makes sense.  Is there also going to be a change in how many buildings I need of something to make a noticeable difference?  Seems like a million tech buildings is needed by late game.  Not very satisfyingly to have to keep building the same thing over again to get a decent result.  I would fill up my starting cities queue for constructing buildings early in game and not ever catch up.  One hut or archive after another for eternity. 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Nice this fixes several different issues at the same time.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Wrong direction!

This is going to make city spam and monotony even worse because you will want many more small cities so that you can take advantage of the cheap producing buildings that you can create at each one. This choice will make cities more monotonous because you will want to spread out your generic production buildings among many cities rather than having cities specialize! Do the math and (given the numbers you are throwing out) you will find much better ROI for building production buildings in many different cities and having no resource boosting buildings than in specializing a city and having % boosts. Furthermore this move in no way models the real world. In the real world finding specialists is related to LOCAL populations, local populations have no effect in elemental. Therefore you provide the user with the utterly counterintuitive idea that finding 4 specialists of a given field in a large city with hundreds of people is HARDER than finding 3 specialists of a given field in some podunk little village with only a dozen people living in it.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sarudak, reply 8
Wrong direction!

This is going to make city spam and monotony even worse because you will want many more small cities so that you can take advantage of the cheap producing buildings that you can create at each one. This choice will make cities more monotonous because you will want to spread out your generic production buildings among many cities rather than having cities specialize! Do the math and (given the numbers you are throwing out) you will find much better ROI for building production buildings in many different cities and having no resource boosting buildings than in specializing a city and having % boosts. Furthermore this move in no way models the real world. In the real world finding specialists is related to LOCAL populations, local populations have no effect in elemental. Therefore you provide the user with the utterly counterintuitive idea that finding 4 specialists of a given field in a large city with hundreds of people is HARDER than finding 3 specialists of a given field in some podunk little village with only a dozen people living in it.

Where did they say the effect was localized? You seem to be needing your medication. Settle down there spazoid. Now mind you they didn't say they were doing this globally, but its implied to be a global cost by frog's response.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sarudak, reply 8
Wrong direction!

This is going to make city spam and monotony even worse because you will want many more small cities so that you can take advantage of the cheap producing buildings that you can create at each one. This choice will make cities more monotonous because you will want to spread out your generic production buildings among many cities rather than having cities specialize! Do the math and (given the numbers you are throwing out) you will find much better ROI for building production buildings in many different cities and having no resource boosting buildings than in specializing a city and having % boosts. Furthermore this move in no way models the real world. In the real world finding specialists is related to LOCAL populations, local populations have no effect in elemental. Therefore you provide the user with the utterly counterintuitive idea that finding 4 specialists of a given field in a large city with hundreds of people is HARDER than finding 3 specialists of a given field in some podunk little village with only a dozen people living in it.

1. Local specialists do matter because the price increases locally not globally because that's where the shortage is.

2. City spam is hardly the biggest problem in the game, it arguably doesn't even exist anymore because of the 1.1 patch. I know I don't use it and I handily beat medium maps in 200 turns. Having more then 5-6 cities is just a pain, because they require so much micromanagement. Sure more cities would help but at end game each of my cities is pumping out a couple hundred of whatever resource it is specialized in, so I'm not hurting for tech or gold.

3. If done probably this might actually fix several more pressing problems like tech spam and resource insignificance. I usually have around 5 workshops in my kingdom. 5! I also never specialize in gold because I only run out when buying hero equipment. With increasing building costs maybe I will be forced to actually build workshops and hoard gold instead of just spamming tech places, which comprise 90% of my buildings. Right now build time is the only constraint on building improvements because they are so dirt cheap. I mean specializing cities is kinda a joke when only tech matters, and maybe magic tech if your into that.

4. If city spam is such a huge issue with you then this patch will actually help because as I said above the only reason it might work is because buildings are so cheap that only build time constrains how many libraries you can build, and only tech matters. Thus more cities can always out produce fewer cities.

I applaud Frogboy and his team for coming up with such a innovative solution. It fills me with hope for the future of WoM.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

This was posted in the irc channel before, note that the increased cost is civ-wide.

 

16:30 <Frogboy|Coding> I'm in the process of implementing a new cost system for personnel
16:30 <Kadrium> Personnel meaning..?
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Your first study will cost 1 person
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Your second one will cost 2
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Your third one will cost 3
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> and so on
16:32 <Kadrium> Ahh, you mean the population usage for improvements?
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Yea
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Gets things moving faster early game.
16:32 <Frogboy|Coding> Keeps them from getting crazy later.
16:32 <Kadrium> Right, thats one issue I've had since the improvements changed to be re-buildable.
16:33 <Kadrium> Spamming tech research is essentially auto-win
16:34 <Kadrium> is that cost going to be per city or per improvement?
16:34 <Kadrium> that is, if you build 10 studies in one city, does your first study in a new city cost 11 population?
16:35 <Frogboy|Coding> per improvement.
16:36 <Frogboy|Coding> civ wide
16:36 <Frogboy|Coding> So more cities = pain.
16:36 <Frogboy|Coding> better to concentrate.
16:36 <Kadrium> That's probably best, I suppose.
16:37 <Kadrium> Any thoughts about tech or faction bonuses to the population consumption?
16:38 <Kadrium> I'd be concerned that there'd be a bit of a 'critical mass' where you will essentially reach a soft cap of reasonably sustainable building counts
16:38 <Frogboy|Coding> Eventually.
16:39 <Frogboy|Coding> Yea, I'm going to have it be N^0.75 rather than N for that reason.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Sorry, but this idea still seems like a stop-gap measure rather than a solution to me.

The game mechanics should be looked at first - then enhancements to the application of the mechanics should follow. Not the other way around.

Fixing the tech tree should be number 1 priority before figuring out how to apply the current broken model in a slightly better fashion. This won't fix or even address the core issues in any meaningful way.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sarudak, reply 8
Wrong direction!

This is going to make city spam and monotony even worse because you will want many more small cities so that you can take advantage of the cheap producing buildings that you can create at each one.

From the IRC transcript, it seems that the population cost is civ wide and not city wide. So there IS an interest in specializing cities instead of spamming monotonous cities.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

>>> Most of the excitement in the Elemental universe has been about Fallen Enchantress.  But War of Magic continues to move forward too, albeit in a different direction.

Are you saying that this mechanic is not being implemented in FE, but only in WoM? Just curious, that would be interesting. I'm looking forward to see how this change will work out, it surely looks promising! I do believe, however, that making more incentives for fewer cities (and disincentives for many, fewer cities) needs consideration.

Quoting dragoaskani, reply 9

 You seem to be needing your medication. Settle down there spazoid.

Remarks like these make it really difficult for people like me to sort through your posts for possible constructive feedback. In general, they give me a disincentive to read and actively partake in these forums. Do you think you might just be able to say what you want without the superflous venom?

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

forums go boom double post sorry

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 2
An interesting idea.  Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

How about capping the max number of workers a city can use at the max population it can house? Would that be doable?

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Gwenio1, reply 16

Quoting Frogboy, reply 2An interesting idea.  Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

How about capping the max number of workers a city can use at the max population it can house? Would that be doable?

I'm not sure. I like the concept.  I am wondering, however, if we might be better off having the limited number of tiles that a city can build per level again.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kadrium, reply 18
Brad, how do you plan on tackling potential problems when you conquer another faction? Suddenly inheriting 15 extra studies may really throw a wrench in my population usage.


EDIT: I'm on board with limiting city tile space, too. I'd like to see terrain affect it as well, so building near woods or in hilly terrain might cause space issues and give me a reason to chop down woods or use magic to raise/lower land and give myself some elbow room. Limited space also forces you into making decisions about how to best utilize it, and city building can use some added depth. Right now, laying out a city is essentially a completely cosmetic affair. Maybe you could give pioneers a 'survey' ability of some sort that would show a tinted overlay for usable space and available tiles at a potential city location.

 

I've been wanting the location of a city to matter more for a while now. It would be nice if the city got a bonus for being near certain enviornments.

 

For example, being adjacent (as in the city is in the adjacent square)

Mountain: +10% unit def when defending.

Woods: +10% materials.

Water: +10% food.

 

Just some ideas. To simplify this idea, you could always make the bonus only apply if the founding square is adjacent to one of these terrain types. That way you don't get string bean cities touching all the resources.

 

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Oops, I posted in the other topic.

 

The thought occurs that a pop-per-city should be easily moddable if we create a local 2ndary resource that population buildings produce.

It might even work pretty good with the AI, because the AI only builds buildings it can produce so it will default to population buildings once it runs out of the local resource.

Edit: Nope it was pointless. the AI just goes "hurr... let's put some cheat multipliers on that shit!".

 

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

I would agree with a city tile limit for each level of a city, but as long as that bug where you hit the tile limit and then the city stays stuck in "too many tiles" mode (even when the city levels up or you delete buildings) doesn't make a reappearance. ;-)

Best regards,
Steven.

Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top

If the cost for the Nth study is the same no matter where you build it, how does that help with city spam?

You could build 10 in one city or one in ten.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

It helps in two ways,

first cities that level up get a % bonus if you choose to do so. That means you should place them in a few high-level cities rather than many low-level cities.

second, high-level cities also gain access to new buildings from the civ tech tree, which further boost production by a %.

I, for one, am more anxious how the AI will handle this. The AI already has problems managing its population.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Here is an idea I had for the MOM mod:

The more you add, the less efficient they are. For example:

Your frst workshop gives 3 point, while your second gives 2 while your last gives 1. You can build all 3 if you want, but it consume much more space. (Space was much more limited in the mod design).

So it was an opposition between having a more specialised but less optimised city VERSUS having a more generalised but optimised city.

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 17

Quoting Gwenio1, reply 16
Quoting Frogboy, reply 2An interesting idea.  Unfortunately, probably beyond the scope of what I can do in v1.3.

How about capping the max number of workers a city can use at the max population it can house? Would that be doable?

I'm not sure. I like the concept.  I am wondering, however, if we might be better off having the limited number of tiles that a city can build per level again.

 

I think that could work.

 

Right now I'm thinking the best model would be 1 supercity, then satellite cities for resources/troop production.  Because of this, and to give an incentive for levelling up multiple cities, I'm thinking certain types of equipment should require a certain level of city.

 

Maybe dumping the archery ranges/weaponsmiths/armorers isn't a good idea- but I'd reduce the time it took to build them by a large amount.  Maybe, in addition, super bowyers/weaponsmiths/armorers should be hero types, which can give the ability to lower level cities, and maybe boost the buildings if they are produced.

 

Now I'm really racing with wild ideas, so I'll stop.