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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 12:53

I thought about it some more and want to change my suggestion:

I don´t have enough experience with empire to judge well, but as far as I can see, their tavern is all right.

Barbarian mines have 3 levels and they should get more expensive to operate when upgraded. So the ration should cost 1 ware, the snack 2, the meal 3. It should not be possible to operate the tavern/inn/big inn without bread or without fish and meat. I now propose the following new working cycles for the barbarians:

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) = 2 rations

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 2 beer = 2 snacks

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 1 strong beer = 1 meal

I also suggest not to change the time required to produce a ration/snack when enhancing the building. Perhaps the time limits should be fixed like this:

·Ration: sleep 14s, work 24s, produce 2 rations (average: 19s for 1 ration)

·Snack: sleep 10s, work 48s, produce 2 snacks (average: 29s for 1 snack)

·Meal: sleep 5s, work 34s, produce 1 meal (average: 39s for 1 meal)

I´m not sure how good these times would be, though.


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JanO
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 13:25

I don't like the idea of having different sleep-times. And although I don't know the code, I guess there is only one value anyway.

The idea to have longer production time for more complex meals seems logical to me. But you have to consider the fact, that you need an additional building (l2 brewery) for running deepest mines.

What about changing the production times in a way like

  • l1 tavern produces only rations in time x1 (using the amount of ingredients Nordfriese suggested)

  • l2 tavern produces rations in time x1/2 or snacks in time x2

  • l3 tavern produces rations in time x1/3 or snacks in time x2/2 or meals in time x3

so upgrading the tavern would make it faster on smaller rations and snacks.

Edited: 2017-03-01, 13:25

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 13:49

JanO wrote:

I don't like the idea of having different sleep-times. And although I don't know the code, I guess there is only one value anyway.

Actually, the sleep times range from 14s (tavern) to 5s (big inn)...

The idea to have longer production time for more complex meals seems logical to me. But you have to consider the fact, that you need an additional building (l2 brewery) for running deepest mines.

The micro brewery produces only beer, the brewery only strong beer. But the cost of 1 beer and 1 strong beer is identical (1 wheat and 1 water). Besides, beer is used only for miners but strong beer also for soldier training.

What about changing the production times in a way like

  • l1 tavern produces only rations in time x1 (using the amount of ingredients Nordfriese suggested)

  • l2 tavern produces rations in time x1/2 or snacks in time x2

  • l3 tavern produces rations in time x1/3 or snacks in time x2/2 or meals in time x3

so upgrading the tavern would make it faster on smaller rations and snacks.

Perhaps making enhanced tavern more efficient for low-level food should stay after all...

But I think the time should not change that much by enhancing the building. How about the following times (work and sleep times added):

  • Tavern: 38s → 2 rations

  • Inn: 32s → 2 rations; 54s → 2 snacks

  • Big Inn: 24s → 2 rations; 47s → 2 snacks; 72s → 2 meals

If rations and snacks are always produced 2 at a time, then it might be consistent if meals were the same.

Another possibility to consider would be not to have separate working cycles for rations, snacks and meals in inns and big inns, but only one that might look like that:

  • Tavern: consume 1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat); produce 2 ration; working time: 36s

  • Inn: consume 1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 1 Beer; produce 1 snack AND 1 ration; working time: 50s

  • Big Inn: consume 2 bread AND 2 (fish OR meat) AND 1 Beer AND 1 Strong Beer; produce 1 meal AND 1 snack AND 1 ration; working time: 68s

This would make it more difficult to supply inns and big inns with all required wares. It would also have the side effect that the enhanced buildings cannot produce low-level food without beer/strong beer any more. The micro brewery and the metal workshop lose the ability to produce certain wares when they are enhanced. Taverns and inns, on the other hand, don´t just keep but even improve their programs by upgrading.

Edited: 2017-03-01, 14:05

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 14:29

Sleep times are defined for each production program separately https://wl.widelands.org/docs/wl/productionsite_program/

As you said, joining the production programs into 1 means that you won't be able to produce rations in a Big Inn if you run out of strong beer. The question is if that won't make food production too expensive compared to the Atlanteans.


Busy indexing nil values

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 14:58

Currently, the reason why I upgrade taverns early even though I don´t need snacks and meals yet is that inns are more efficient. My suggestion improves level 1 tavern a lot compared to current taverns (except for the need for bread AND meat/fish). There would be no more reason to upgrade taverns when you have only level 1 mines. By the time upgrades are required, you can be expected to have enough level 1 and 2 breweries so you don´t run out of strong beer.

The only actual difference between the proposed and current inns/big inns is that they cannot make rations if there is no beer. The new tavern produces 1 ration in 18s on average; the new inn needs 50s for a snack and just 1 ration. Therefore, if you need lots of rations, it is better to build lots of level 1 taverns which you don´t upgrade. If you want snacks, then you build some inns, because they make snacks faster than big inns. Enhancing would only be useful when you actually need more complex food.

Therefore, barbarian food economy won´t become much less efficient. In the beginning of the game, barbarians become stronger. There is one other thing which I haven´t mentioned yet: Bread is really expensive; the bakery needs 3 wheat and 3 water for 2 bread. It only stores 6 of each. The weakness compared to the Atlanteans could be balanced by improving bakeries and making bread cheaper. For example, one of the following suggestions could be used:

  • Bakeries store 10 wheat and 10 water. This makes filling up easier and shortens the idle working cycle.
  • Bakery working program: Consume 1 wheat AND 1 water AND 2 (wheat OR water); produce 2 bread. This would reduce the average cost for 1 bread from 3 wares to 2.

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 20:32

Nordfriese wrote:

The sensible thing in the game is to enhance taverns immediately after they´re finished (provided there are enough wares), which is just annoying.

If you think that this is annoying, think about changing your strategy face-wink.png

Nordfriese wrote:

I thought about it some more and want to change my suggestion:

I don´t have enough experience with empire to judge well, but as far as I can see, their tavern is all right.

Barbarian mines have 3 levels and they should get more expensive to operate when upgraded. So the ration should cost 1 ware, the snack 2, the meal 3. It should not be possible to operate the tavern/inn/big inn without bread or without fish and meat. I now propose the following new working cycles for the barbarians:

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) = 2 rations

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 2 beer = 2 snacks

·1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 1 strong beer = 1 meal

I also suggest not to change the time required to produce a ration/snack when enhancing the building. Perhaps the time limits should be fixed like this:

·Ration: sleep 14s, work 24s, produce 2 rations (average: 19s for 1 ration)

·Snack: sleep 10s, work 48s, produce 2 snacks (average: 29s for 1 snack)

·Meal: sleep 5s, work 34s, produce 1 meal (average: 39s for 1 meal)

I´m not sure how good these times would be, though.

-1

So you make suggestions, but the theory behind it contains mistakes. For example you have forgotten that the time which the workers need to go the flag and back is not included in "work" or "sleep"!

JanO wrote:

I don't like the idea of having different sleep-times. And although I don't know the code, I guess there is only one value anyway.

The idea to have longer production time for more complex meals seems logical to me. But you have to consider the fact, that you need an additional building (l2 brewery) for running deepest mines.

What about changing the production times in a way like

  • l1 tavern produces only rations in time x1 (using the amount of ingredients Nordfriese suggested)

  • l2 tavern produces rations in time x1/2 or snacks in time x2

  • l3 tavern produces rations in time x1/3 or snacks in time x2/2 or meals in time x3

so upgrading the tavern would make it faster on smaller rations and snacks.

-1

That would not be that logic. The Inn contains only 1 worker, same as the tavern, so why should it be twice as fast as the tavern in producing rations? Furthermore you could argue that the tavern is specialized in making rations. Etc...

GunChleoc wrote:

Sleep times are defined for each production program separately https://wl.widelands.org/docs/wl/productionsite_program/

As you said, joining the production programs into 1 means that you won't be able to produce rations in a Big Inn if you run out of strong beer. The question is if that won't make food production too expensive compared to the Atlanteans.

I think that this would be the case. The barbarians would look soon very bad compared to atlanteans and empire. And they have worse military buildings and so on...

Barbarians are the only tribe which is able to mine without farms. And they really need that advantage.

Nordfriese wrote:

Currently, the reason why I upgrade taverns early even though I don´t need snacks and meals yet is that inns are more efficient. My suggestion improves level 1 tavern a lot compared to current taverns (except for the need for bread AND meat/fish). There would be no more reason to upgrade taverns when you have only level 1 mines. By the time upgrades are required, you can be expected to have enough level 1 and 2 breweries so you don´t run out of strong beer.

The only actual difference between the proposed and current inns/big inns is that they cannot make rations if there is no beer. The new tavern produces 1 ration in 18s on average; the new inn needs 50s for a snack and just 1 ration. Therefore, if you need lots of rations, it is better to build lots of level 1 taverns which you don´t upgrade. If you want snacks, then you build some inns, because they make snacks faster than big inns. Enhancing would only be useful when you actually need more complex food.

Therefore, barbarian food economy won´t become much less efficient. In the beginning of the game, barbarians become stronger. There is one other thing which I haven´t mentioned yet: Bread is really expensive; the bakery needs 3 wheat and 3 water for 2 bread.

And this thing makes your whole argumentation very questionable. You don't see that bread is many times more expansive than meat for barbarians, but you make a completely new model for the economy.... Plus you don't know the empire that much, and it seems that you don't know atlanteans that much neither...

It only stores 6 of each. The weakness compared to the Atlanteans could be balanced by improving bakeries and making bread cheaper. For example, one of the following suggestions could be used:

  • Bakeries store 10 wheat and 10 water. This makes filling up easier and shortens the idle working cycle.

Why not 8 and 8, like the atlantean bakery? But even then, barbarians wouldn't have any buildings anymore which are hard to supply, but atlanteans (smokery) and empire (mill) would still have them.

But nevertheless, I would give you a "+1" for the idea to increase those values. Why should barbarians be worse than the atlanteans in storing wares in the bakery, even if they need higher values there?

  • Bakery working program: Consume 1 wheat AND 1 water AND 2 (wheat OR water); produce 2 bread. This would reduce the average cost for 1 bread from 3 wares to 2.

Sorry, but that is just funny now. Why should identical bread contain sometimes 25% Water, sometimes 50% or sometimes even 75%? face-grin.png

But I can give you a "+1" for the idea to make 2 breads out of 2 water and 2 wheat. I don't know why barbarians don't need mills for baking bread, but as their farms are significantly slower than others, they have got a big disadvantage, of course.

Edited: 2017-03-01, 20:38

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-03-01, 22:56

the barbarian economy seem balanced enough as it is. they are stronger in the early game, but not so strong as to be insta-win, and they are weaker in the later game, but not so weak as to be insta-lose. And all those changes you suggest are VERY radical for the balance. that's because bread is EXTREMELY more expensive than anything else for barbarians. you can make one meat with two small buildings and about one minute. water with a single small building. but you need a large building with extra space around to make 1 grain every 100 seconds. so adding one grain to the ration cost would completely cripple barbarian early game, leaving them with a crappy early game and a crappy late game. and allowing to make bread with 3 waters and one grain rather than 2+2 would practically halve the cost of bread, making barbarians strong both in early and late game. doing both things at once, barbarians would be ok early game (the negative impact of adding bread to the ration cost is smaller) and still great later.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2017-03-02, 12:42

I calculated the accumulated cost of all wares required to start 1 mine working cycle in all tribes.

Definition of accumulated cost (acc-cost):

  • If the building produces without consuming anything, this is the time needed for 1 ware. Example: A well needs 20s sleep + 20s work for 1 water. The acc-cost of water is 40s.

  • If the building consumes wares to produce, the acc-cost is the time the building needs to sleep+work plus the sum of the acc-costs of all consumed wares. Example: The brewery sleeps 30s, works 30s, consumes 1 wheat+1 water and produces 1 beer. The acc-cost of beer is 30s + 30s + acc(water) + acc(wheat). acc(water) is 40s, acc(wheat) is approx. 100s (it is not possible to give an exact value for buildings with a working radius).

Time for transporting wares is ignored (because it is different in every case). I also ignored the time the worker needs to carry a ware to his flag (I think it´s about 4 seconds, so it wouldn´t change the statistics much).

I have calculated the acc-cost for all mining-related wares for all tribes.

  • Atlanteans: Every mine needs 2 bread AND 2 smoked meat OR smoked fish for 1 working cycle. The acc-cost for 1 cycle is 503 seconds.

  • Empire: A level 1 iron or coal mine has acc-cost 325s, level 2 iron/coal mine 470,5s. Level 1 gold or marble mine acc-cost 345s, Level 2 490,5s.

  • Barbarians: Level 1 mine 130,67 seconds, level 2 503,5 seconds, level 3 506,5 seconds. (I noticed while calculating that inns/big inns aren´t that much faster at making lower-level food after all. The increase in efficiency is very small. I assume in this calculation that big inns make only meals and inns only snacks.)

I assumed the following working times for buildings with a working area:

  • Atlanteans: Farm or blackroot farm: 90 seconds; woodcutter 30s; hunter 35s; fisher 16s.

  • Empire: Farm 100s; Vineyard 80s; hunter 35s; fisher 17s

  • Barbarians: Farm 100s; hunter 35s; fisher 18s

I took the sleep values for woodcutter, hunters and fishers. The actual time should be larger. I got the values for the other buildings by testing them in the game. I can also post the detailed calculation, if anyone doesn´t believe me. In cases where a ware can be produced in several ways (e.g. hunter or piggery for imperial meat), I took the average time.

It follows:

  • Atlanteans have a very expensive economy; only barbarians enhanced mines are more expensive, and the difference is very small.

  • Barbarians have extremely cheap mines while at least 67% resources are left. After that, it jumps to the highest cost of all tribes. Enhancing from level 2 to 3 makes almost no difference.

I am not sure whether it is reasonable to expect barbarians to have the most complex food economy after their mines have got only 33% of the resources, especially since they are so cheap in the beginning. It makes sense to lower the cost for snacks so barbarians don´t get that huge jump, which increases acc-time by more than 285%.

I already proposed the following new working cycles for tavern, inn and big inn:

  • Tavern: 1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) → 2 rations; sleeping/working time sum: 36s

  • Inn: 1 bread AND 1 (fish OR meat) AND 1 beer → 1 ration AND 1 snack; sleeping/working time sum: 50s

  • Big Inn: 2 bread AND 2 (fish OR meat) AND 1 beer AND 1 strong beer → 1 ration AND 1 snack AND 1 meal; sleeping/working time sum: 68s

WorldSavior agreed that bakery should be cheaper, e.g. 2 wheat AND 2 water → 2 bread.

With these new working cycles (including the new bakery), the acc-cost changes like this:

  • Tavern: Acc-cost per ration is reduced to 116,25 seconds. This gives the barbarians a slightly larger advantage in early game.

  • Inn: Acc-cost for 1 working cycle is 446,5 seconds. It can be assumed that 2/3 of that are for the snack and 1/3 for the ration. Therefore: acc(ration)=148,83s, acc(snack)=297,67s. The ration is more expensive in an inn than in a tavern, but the snack becomes much cheaper.

  • Big inn: Acc-cost for 1 cycle is 861s. 1/6 is for the ration, 2/6 for the snack, 3/6 for the meal. acc(ration)=143,5; acc(snack)=287; acc(meal)=430,5. Therefore, big inns are cheaper than inns for snacks and rations (but more expensive than taverns), and meals become cheaper.

The barbarian enhanced mines become cheaper than the atlantean mine, but the level 3 mine is still more expensive that empire level 1 mines. The level 2 mine is slightly below the level of the empire level 1 mine.

The acc-cost for bread is reduced from 240s to 170s. Atlantean bread costs 181s, imperial bread 185s.

Since this suggestion lowers the barbarian´s average food cost (exception: rations are more expensive in the new inns and big inns than in current taverns), barbarians are actually given an advantage. There is no need to worry about becoming weaker in contrast with Atlanteans (as GunChleoc warned). As WorldSavior said, each tribe currently has a building that is hard to supply (bakery for barbarians). The bakery would become easier to operate, but the taverns, inns and big inns can easily be tweaked to make them the new hard-to-supply building. If they stored the following maximum amount of wares:

  • Tavern: 3 bread, 2 meat, 2 fish

  • Inn: 3 bread, 2 meat, 2 fish, 2 beer

  • Big Inn: 4 bread, 3 meat, 3 fish, 2 beer, 2 strong beer

Then it would be very hard to operate an inn/big inn several times without refilling. The tavern would be harder to run, too, though not so hard that it would give barbarians too great a disadvantage in early game. (Currently, tavern/inn/big inn store 4 of each ware type.)

Therefore, my suggestion would affect the balance only slightly, but in the middle of the game, barbarians would become easier to manage. It seems to me (correct me if I´m wrong) that barbarians are a tribe which is particularly easy to understand for beginners. At the moment, inexperienced players see the mine economy run wonderfully, then they enhance the mines for the first time and suddenly, everything takes 4 times as long. After the second enhancement they expect more trouble but there is no more than after the first upgrade. I´m not saying that there is no logic behind that, but it can be hard to understand.

SIDE NOTE: I know it may seem as though barbarians get a real disadvantage by forcing them to produce lots of bread early and making it impossible to operate inns and big inns without beer ans strong beer, but anyone who thinks that: Please prove that my statistics are wrong ore useless before arguing about that. Mathematical facts and human intuition disagree very often.


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JanO
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Posted at: 2017-03-02, 13:17

I like the enthusiastic discussion here face-smile.png

After reading the posts of king_of_nowhere and WorldSavior I think the answer to my opening post would be "Yes, the tavern behaves exactly as it is supposed to do" so my vote would be not to change anything now. I always just built lots of farms and bakeries to support my taverns with "enough" bread and never considered that they did not really need that face-wink.png

According to Nordfrieses calculations, maybe there should only be a change to the normal inn or small brewery to make snacks a bit cheaper. Something like normal beer gets a higher water content (1 wheat + 2 water -> 2 beer) ...or introduce the need of hop/humulus to produce strong beer (and and very slightly increase the growing rate for wheat)


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-03-02, 13:51

While I must tip my hat to you for the deep mathematical analysis, I believe your mathematical model is not accurate for two reasons.

First reason, you are only considering working time, but you are not taking into account space requirements. By your numbers, if a well produces in 40 seconds and a barbarian farm in 100 seconds, it seems grain is 2.5x more expensive than water. But a farm takes much more space than a well. On a perfectly flat map, you can make 4 wells in the same space you can make a farm, making grain actually 10x more expensive. This number may change for a map with a different layout, and for different tribes. Empire has nothing to do on small slots other than wells, so in a map with plenty of rough terrain, water could be considered completely inexpensive for them. On a large map, instead, you could go through the whole early and mid game without worrying about space at all, so farms are less of a problem. But either way, your estimate that grain = 2.5 water is grossly underestimating the cost of grain.

Second reason, you consider the cost for mining a resource, but not the cost for using that resource. Ok, with their mines barbarians can make level 0 soldiers extremely fast; then they send them all to attack, and two fully promoted soldiers wipe them all. Promoting soldiers is a necessity, and it must be done already in the early game: a pro player can make the first soldier with evade in less than 30 minutes and the first fully promoted soldier after 70-80 minutes (ok, only me and worldsavior can do it that fast, but when considering balance one has to consider the best way to play), and level 0 soldiers are absolutely useless against them; barbarians level 0 are very weak against anything with a bit of promotions (see for example the notabilis-tando from the second turn of the 2016 tournament for a good example of a handful of atlantean soldiers with a few promotions holding against great barbarian hordes of cheap soldiers) So while barbarians have very cheap metals, they still spend a lot of money to upgrade their soldiers, because they need lots of expensive bread. Because of this, the actual difference in terms of soldier cost is much smaller than what could be assumed looking only at the metals, and that keeps the game balanced. Otherwise, barbarians truly would be unstoppable early game.

So, long story short, bread is more expensive than you assume it to be, and barbarians already need bread - and a lot of it - to start promoting soldiers from the beginning, which is the only viable strategy against a strong player. Adding more bread on top of that would penalize them too much, negating what advantage they have in the one phase of the game where they shine.

P.S. Your numbers for farms are a bit wrong, barbarian farm produces every 100 seconds while imperial and atlantean (both types) farms produce every 80 seconds. that was determined experimentally by me over dozens of farms and hours of gameplay.

Edited: 2017-03-02, 13:52

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