Topic: New Cost Design for Ship-Building
toptopple
Topic Opener
Joined: 2013-10-30, 07:11
Posts: 156  At home in WL-forums |
Posted at: 2016-12-07, 14:11
On my work on Widelands I found time to ponder about the Shipyard and the building of Ships. I judged the game would in general benefit if some building activity became more expensive, ship construction belongs to them. So here is my suggestion on how to improve the settings.
Edited: 2016-12-07, 14:23
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SirVer
Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18
Posts: 1445  One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich |
Posted at: 2016-12-07, 18:40
My 2c on this: I find ships are very wood expensive (22 logs!) - and that is a scarce resource for pretty much all tribes. Also you need many ships for the transport to be reasonable, so seafaring is IMHO a very big investment already. Also, from my point of view, grout and crystal are very cheap (i.e. plentiful in a normal game) while marble column is very hard work, so I feel this suggestion disfavors Empire. In general if you want to make it feel more expensive, I would crank up the use of wood and throw in some gold - but gold also delays the seafaring until much later in the game which I would find to be a downside again.
A builder is already sent with the expedition.
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king_of_nowhere
Joined: 2014-09-15, 17:35
Posts: 1668 One Elder of Players |
Posted at: 2016-12-07, 18:53
depending on what you want to achieve, seafaring is already expensive. if you only have 2 ports, reasonably close, then you just need one or two ships, but if you have many ports, then it becomes a mess and you'll need tons of ships to have reasonable travel time. In fact, bring in enough harbors and you will never have a guaranteed reasonable travel time. ship transportation algorithm are already not good, and they discourage seafaring except when no alternatives are available. Also, I see no reason to discourage seafaring. what's wrong with it?
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kaputtnik
Joined: 2013-02-18, 19:48
Posts: 2439 OS: Archlinux Version: current master One Elder of Players Location: Germany |
Posted at: 2016-12-07, 19:43
I agree with SirVer and king_of_nowhere. Fight simulator for Widelands:
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einstein13
Joined: 2013-07-28, 23:01
Posts: 1118 One Elder of Players Location: Poland |
Posted at: 2016-12-08, 08:12
I agree as above: ships aren't cheap now. In Settlers II ships were rather cheap: I got about 70 ship in short time, while here I have not enough resources to build well transporting fleet. If you add non-renewable resources to build ship/shipyard, some of the maps will be unplayable any more, they were designed for current state of ships/shipyards/ports costs. einstein13
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toptopple
Topic Opener
Joined: 2013-10-30, 07:11
Posts: 156 At home in WL-forums |
Posted at: 2016-12-08, 18:14
This looks like a convincing vote here! ;) I see there are some arguments I have to respect, like there is a need for many ships. Just to give an explanation, you see from the settings of my proposal that the drift of these changes is to make shipyard and ships an expression of a mature and well-functioning economy. Adding to the multitude of required resource types works in this direction. So the multitude is a strategical element in itself regardless of the amount of items that have to be supplied. I agree Gold shouldn't be part of this, but perhaps Iron should. And at least Stone (needed material for wooden ships) and Beer (needed for the workers). Logs could be scrapped totally because they are contained in Planks already.
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einstein13
Joined: 2013-07-28, 23:01
Posts: 1118 One Elder of Players Location: Poland |
Posted at: 2016-12-08, 19:49
Maybe you should try playing "Colonies" map (https://wl.widelands.org/maps/colonies/) with other player. There are two races: to reach centre of the island, plus to build first ship, port and send an expedition. I remember that it took about 30 minutes to do so. If you change the settings, you will make the time longer. And probably not playable any more this map (lack of terrain for player to build up first economy). Second map in my mind is "Wideworld". Blue player has "an expert position" to start. His (/Her) main task is to build first defence (castle? evade-training camp?) and go across the sea. Longer it takes, less chance for the player to survive. Last thing is Barbarian tribe: they need iron to build up the port (the rest needs only gold, no iron). In some situations barbarians can't build their first expedition, because they use all iron for tools and axes. More iron for expedition means less chance that AI (or player) will do that in a short time. Please consider those thoughts and find solution for them in your predictions about new settings. I will agree with you if you provide logic arguments einstein13
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king_of_nowhere
Joined: 2014-09-15, 17:35
Posts: 1668 One Elder of Players |
Posted at: 2016-12-08, 22:17
i am working on a challenge map where you have 20 small island to colonize and you must build an economy scattered on them. on a 512x512 map. Let me tell you, even with 4 shipyards working at 100% for 15 hours, I still don't have enoough ships to guarantee efficient transport. I haven't released the map yet because it needs balancing.but let's say that making ships more expensive would really be bad there.... EDIT: also two other challenge maps, "the big escape" and "concentric rings", require the pllayer to make ships without having a full economy. and while those are all exceptions, the general point is that sometimes you can make an economy and then build ships, but some maps require you to build ships befoore you can create a full economy. Edited: 2016-12-08, 22:23
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GunChleoc
Joined: 2013-10-07, 14:56
Posts: 3324 One Elder of Players Location: RenderedRect |
Posted at: 2016-12-09, 09:20
Whenever we manage to add a garrison to ports (C++ coding needed here), we could make starting a military expedition expensive - maybe that would add the full economy aspects that you are looking for? Planning this in detail right now isn't a priority though, we need to have the engine support it first. Edited: 2016-12-09, 09:22
Busy indexing nil values
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toptopple
Topic Opener
Joined: 2013-10-30, 07:11
Posts: 156 At home in WL-forums |
Posted at: 2016-12-10, 08:14
I can accept some of the arguments; I don't accept extremist maps like the one King mentions with 20 islands to colonise. King's maps are mostly more of a torture than an enjoyable setting, but that is just his personal style. On a side note, I am a bit puzzled by Barbarians having to supply Iron for Ports. Why this disadvantage? Perhaps in due time Barbarians need a little overhaul.
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