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Topic: questions about the economy

mxb2001
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Joined: 2019-05-20, 18:49
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 06:58

My 2 Pfennig: As a newbie wells made 2 impressions on me 1) Ugh have to call a geologist every time I need one of these little things? 2) They do what? Run out? How bizarre. 3) Wait they only go from 100 to 66% when they run out? Oh how pointless 4) So I wasted a lot of time looking for wells when in fact you can just plop them down anywhere. Umm yeah got carried away there that's 4, heh.

Whatever change you decide on I'd address point 3 because as a newbie it kind of gives a bad impression (of course by the time a newbie learns this they are hooked so it's not a fatal flaw or anything...)

The best thing would be to make them rarer so searching has value but I actually saw a editor map with water symbols on it and realize that this is a map problem, not a program problem, so that's impractical. So perhaps if they went from 100% to 5% (like mines) that would give the water dowsers some point and actually make it as interesting to find fresh water as it is minerals. So in short, make water work exactly like minerals because they're interesting. OK just had a inspiration, what if when a water resource is first tapped a die roll is made to see if it is a never exhausted supply (you hit an artesian well say), this would actually emulate my suggestion that water is rarer, so now only a % of water resources are permanent and the rest are small amounts that get used up quickly. This would let you sink wells at random at first but once the ones only surrounded by temp water dry up you have to start looking for more until you get some permanent ones. And maybe the geologists only locate the permanent ones (the spam when sending them out is another irritation they find dozens and it bings like a school bell ringing : ( ). So the roll is made also when a geo searches to set which water is permanent. Anyways, it's probably not programmable so haha oh wel...


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 09:51

I'd be OK with 1, 2 or 5.

I think making water a surprise package would introduce too much of a random element that has nothing to do with player skill.


Busy indexing nil values

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 10:03

1) remove water resource. wells are 100%, period.

strongly against

2) remove water resource amount, make it just a yes/no. if the well has water, it will produce forever. otherwise, it will never produce.

against

3) wells can be enhanced to deep wells. once a well runs out of water, you have to enhance it to a deep well to keep producing. A deep well produces without the need for water.

Agreed. This makes sense though only if

  • there is some reason not to enhance all wells immediately, e.g. worker experience, and

  • empty wells are less efficient

4) wells produce according to soil humidity

Agreed. But your point about blackland etc is a problem here, so how about replacing the water resource with a water probability for each terrain then?

5) we keep wells as they are.

Better than 1) or 2)

6) water becomes a finite resource

My favourite


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teppo

Joined: 2012-01-30, 09:42
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 10:59

In my point of view, the most single annoying thing about water resource is the fact that geologists go digging soil, while I am short of iron/coal, which surely is not there. If wells are modified, the reverse would become similarly true. Therefore, the biggest improvement would be to prevent geologists from going to buildable terrain when sent to mineable one, and vice versa.

Having said that: I think that if the wells do deplete, then the probability of finding water should exceed the probability of finding ore at depleted mine. In case of option 2 of KoN list, the "no" -case should have a probability of success rate of >5% (and <60%). And generally, if wells are made less efficient, one should consider whether an empire mine should still require marble to build. In the Roman cities that had many structures of marble, it was not that scarce resource.

I am okay with options 1, 2 (remarks above), 3 (remarks above), 4 (remarks below), and 5. No strong preferences between these (but modifying the geologist would be an improvement).

I made the implicit assumption that in option 4) the success rate (instead of resource amount) would depend on soil humidity, and the water resource drawn on map would boost that probability from the baseline value. Geologist would report success rates when dowsing. However, without reading the posts, I would not have written this assumption down. I wonder how many other silent contradicting assumptions still lie around. (edit: soil fertility => soil humidity)

Edited: 2019-05-30, 13:27

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 11:09

Therefore, the biggest improvement would be to prevent geologists from going to buildable terrain when sent to mineable one, and vice versa.

If the terrain east and southeast (r+d) of the flag where you send the geologist is mineable, he will search only on mountains, otherwise only on meadows. When searching mountains, he will find water resources only if they lie directly on the border between mountain and meadow and vice versa.

I made the implicit assumption that in option 4) the success rate (instead of resource amount) would depend on soil fertility,

Fertility, not humidity?

and the water resource drawn on map would boost that probability from the baseline value.

-1, since no terrain (except lava etc) has 0.0 fertility, so all terrains come with a built-in "baseline"

Geologist would report success rates when dowsing

Three resource indicators for water would suffice IMHO: 0-33% (low resources), 33-66% (medium resources) and 67-100% (high resources)


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teppo

Joined: 2012-01-30, 09:42
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 12:22

Nordfriese wrote:

Therefore, the biggest improvement would be to prevent geologists from going to buildable terrain when sent to mineable one, and vice versa.

If the terrain east and southeast (r+d) of the flag where you send the geologist is mineable, he will search only on mountains, otherwise only on meadows. When searching mountains, he will find water resources only if they lie directly on the border between mountain and meadow and vice versa.

ÉDIT: You are right. In my memory it worked differently in the distant past.

I made the implicit assumption that in option 4) the success rate (instead of resource amount) would depend on soil fertility,

Fertility, not humidity?

Humidity. Sorry for sloppy writing.

and the water resource drawn on map would boost that probability from the baseline value.

-1, since no terrain (except lava etc) has 0.0 fertility, so all terrains come with a built-in "baseline"

still humidity.. Scaling factors are of course debatable. On most maps this would lead into "find an unused red slot, build & forget" approach, while some desert maps would show a difference: 60% is not that different from 100%, but around 20-30% the motivation to pay attention starts to outweigh the nuisance of using geologists everywhere.

Geologist would report success rates when dowsing

Three resource indicators for water would suffice IMHO: 0-33% (low resources), 33-66% (medium resources) and 67-100% (high resources)

No strong opinions on details, although I would make a distinction between ~16..32% and 0..15.

Edited: 2019-05-30, 17:27

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 13:30

Here is my vote in order of preference:

6) easiest to implement (the map ressource is already finite), needs probably small changes for the default amount values. With a range of 5 and default 10 a well produces 910 buckets of water -> no big change in gameplay and AI. Assumption precautions in empty well efficiency to cope for higher empire and frisian need for water.
4) could be enhanced by new terrain value of water percentage instead of using humidity. could either use the mean value of fertility and humidity to cope for some blacklands.
5)
3) with the precautions that Nordfriese mentioned


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 13:52

WorldSavior wrote:

In my opinion, every building is pointless unless it has some kind of requirement. This can be input wares, nearby immovables, resources in the ground, free space, or whatever. The well has no such requirement as the only applicable one (water resource) is merely a small boost factor, and the well still works way too fine if it is missing.

  1. wells still require space

  2. That's just your opinion, you don't have to expect that other people share it.

this applies for all opinions I strongly believe. But everybody her could expect that his opinion is respected. As I respect your opinion on not having a finite ressource which is different from mine.

It's stupid to have to replace wells then all the time

The same is true for mines.

Question is, if the game should be changed or not. It is like it is and most of it is good. One can see: The principle "building has to be rebuild because resources are out" is already covered by mines. And by other buildings too. That's enough. If also wells would be like that, it would be too much.

With the numbers given I tried to point out that with proper values the change wouln't be that much different from the current implementation. Depletion would only occur very late on normal maps taking a default of 10 anf radius of 5 resulting in 981 buckets and a 40 second working cycle the well would operate smoothly for over 10 Hours. which is 10 hours it works at 100%

And you can keep depleted wells around, since they´ll still produce for free now and then. You only have to build new wells now and then.

... Which can be annoying, because one needs a lot of wells already. So I don't see how this could improve the game.

At least you have more options in map and scenario design.

If you want that Widelands changes so radically

This is not more radical than your proposal: "It could be good to remove the resource water completely and let wells always run at 100%."

Yes, it is. My suggestion wouldn't let deplete wells, so the wouldn't drop to 66% productivity, which is not a big difference. But in case the change goes into the other direction, one has to build new wells all the time, which is obviously the bigger change.

see above a depleted well after 10 hours is different from all the time. even with half the time running it would be not to often.

You don't even play online matches.

Please explain the relevance of the ability and habit of playing online matches for the permission to make suggestions.

People who play online matches need official builds for compability. People who not play online matches don't have exactly this requirement.

Compatibility will still be given no matter if and how we change the game. I can't see how this is baccking up your position.

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

What is the point of a building that produces infinitely without input wares and without any other requirements (not even spacial)?

That's not the question. The question is: Why is it a difference if the building requires space or not?

Because it matters where to place this building. In the current design and in the proposed design of 100% you could place wells everywhere, without giving a thought.

Well, one still has to pay attention to not waste big building spaces for wells.

which is no real challenge

Expectation is further that other people and their opinions are not discredited by whatever personal fact (not playing online games isn't a good fact for this anyway).

It didn't discredit him, I just made a point.

You did. your sentence was telling him off, because he has no right to do so due to him not playing online.

GunChleoc wrote:

I very rarely play online matches, so I guess I better leave too?

No? Who talks about leaving?

You did as you told Nordfriese to leave and doing his own mod.

Don't worry, just kidding, but please don't tell people they don't have a right to their opinion because their playing style differs from yours.

I'm not going to to that.

see above. you did.

The goal is to see if we can find a solution that's better for everyone than the solution that we currently have.

Looks like it's not the case.

I am of the opinion that if a majority can be achieved that is enough.

Nordfriese wrote:

So you see, there are big differences between the terrains. Conclusion: Your proposed change would lead to further problems,

Why?


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king_of_nowhere
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Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 17:16

regarding soil humidity: it is a value set in all terrain types that regulates tree growth.

on desert world, the most humid soils are meadow, mountain meadow, steppe, and high mountain meadow, with values of 0.6, 0.5, 0.5 and 0.4 respectively. those are the only soil where it's practical to build wells. productivity would be a bit lower than it currently is. fits with desert that water would be harder to find.

on green world, all the meadow terrains are betwee 0.55 and 0.65 humidity. mountain meadow is 0.75. steppe is also acceptable at 0.4. same productivity of current wells.

winter is the terrain where it's easier to find water, as the various taiga terrains all have humidities from 0.7 to 0.85. well, amid snow getting water is not a problem.

on wasteland, hard ground hummidity is average 0.2. with a well productivity of 20%, it would require 3.5 times more wells than now. changing humidity value would screw up all the trees, so maybe it could be made that well productivity is 10% + humidity; then blackland wells would work at 30%, one would need twice as many wells as now, annoying but no tragedy.

EDIT: regarding consumable water, the problem with the assumption of 900 buckets for a well is that it requires:

  • 10 water resources per corner

  • no other nearby well

  • no dry spots in all those corners.

those are fairly unrealistic expectations. You'll generally build your wells close together when you have strands of land where you cannot make large buildings. Many will be made in the small bits of space close to the mountains, so they won't be getting water from the mountains. And most maps don't have many water resources.

I'm thinking of something like the nile econmy challenge that einstein made last year; on a 24 hours game with limited fertile soil, well depletion would be a real nightmare to deal with. Maybe that's a corner case, but still. I'm also thinking of something like a no metal challenge map; if you have a 5% chance of getting a well to work, and the food you produce has a 5% to make a mine work... ouch!

In the end I only see two possible scenarios:

1) you can build wells and forget about it. You can get away with ignoring water resources. You may need some more or some less than you need right now.

2) You can't get away with dry wells. You must seek water.

And option 2 would not be a big deal in short online matches, but it would definitely cramp some styles of play (all those involving long games, when water would invariably run out). It would also impact some small maps, where you may be forced to dismantle a farm to tap into your few remaining water sources. that's why I'm against making water limited.

Edited: 2019-05-30, 17:25

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fuchur

Joined: 2009-10-07, 14:01
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Posted at: 2019-05-30, 22:52

Ok, here are my thoughts about wells.

I think I never bothered to send geologists to search for water. Maybe only at the very beginning of playing widelands. It's mostly build one and forget it, build a new one if water is scarce.

Now there are different suggestions to change that. Partially with a potentially high impact on gameplay, balance or old maps. And I'm not sure if all of them are thought through in all details. And that would mean a lot of work needs to be done. In my opinion that time could be invested better in working on other features.

Conclusion: I vote for option 1 or 5. I could live with option 2 as well, but I don't fancy the other ones.


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