Topic: Balancing ports and expeditions

To balance out the Port demand (not speaking of the entire economy here) I suggest:

BAR
- remove Iron
- +1 Grout
- +1 Blackwood
- + 4 Cloth

ATL
- +1 Plank
- +1 Quartz
- +1 Cloth

EDIT:
To suit above changes, you should also apply + 1 Column for Empire to make the building not stand back behind other large buildings.
EMP
- + 1 Column

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Every map should contain some stone (mines) near every Headquarters as well some water. Otherwise Empire & Atlanteans can't play.

einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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einstein13 wrote:

Every map should contain some stone (mines) near every Headquarters as well some water. Otherwise Empire & Atlanteans can't play.

toptopple wrote:

It's true, Empire already relies largely on Stone mines so ATL can too. We cannot provide for every imaginable scenario. In the contrary, scenarios must adapt to the game. Btw, some Marble and Crystal reserves are available at start. Perhaps one has to see if they are balanced enough among the races.

there are big differences between empire and atlantean need for stone. empire needs lots of them, but quarries are fine. atlanteans need very few, and in fact can function pretty well even without - the only limitation that they cannot make ports, warehouses, the highest level military buildings, and more than one copy of the soldier-enhancing economy. so, right now it's already fully reasonable to have an island with nothing but quarriable stones, and empire can work fine on it. atlantean can start an economy and then leave the island just fine. if they require quartz for ships, they cannot.

another limitation is that quartz is scarce. you need to get tons of stones for a handful of quartz. but hey, that's fine, because you need very little of it. as long as you need very little of it. if suddenly you need one for every ship, then whole water maps would become impossible to play satisfactorily. Even worse fact: if you need a metal, you can get it, because mines have a 5% chance of working regardless. producing quartz, however, requires the mine to do two succesful work cycle in a row (or maybe 3? I never could figure it out). This brings the chance of getting new quartz at 0.25% And let's not even talk about diamonds. But wait, there's even worse: if the mine only get food every once in a while, the working cycle will restart every time, and it will never produce quartz. But it will still produce stones. and when there are no more stones, there will also be no more quartz to be found. And this means that a weak player will find himself unable to get ships on a regular base. and what little quartz he gets, will be used fo new ships instead of for a new port.

I like limitations. Limitations force you to adapt, to get smarter, and they are satisfying to overcome. but that only applies to limitations that CAN be overcome. hard limits are no fun.

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King's expertise on Widelands is undoubted, but here we must clarify some points. First, the topic is building Ports, so talking about building ships isn't of a large relevance when it comes to adding a single Quartz for the Port cost. Second, I may point to your attention that both Diamond and Quartz are already elements in the building cost for ATL Port, and what is noteworthy is that it has functioned so well that you didn't even notice! :)

Someone would have to investigate the ATL stone/crystal mining algorithm, my suspicion is that they produce loads of products there without appropriate cost and time, which adds to the ATL preference in the game. SirVer uttered opinion that LOADS of Crystal (Quartz) are available normally, but I can't really confirm that. If he is right, more Quartz for ATL Port should be no problem. On the other hand, why shouldn't ATL suffer a little difficulty in the game? I don't like their overall preference. So I'd say: Yes, add Cloth and Plank, but also try it out with one more Quartz. We can always see if some scenarios are fainting, which I don't expect.

If above is implemented, I don't oppose to lifting Quartz base stock of ATL to 12, say. So they have a reserve for the first Port + expedition.

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toptopple wrote:

King's expertise on Widelands is undoubted, but here we must clarify some points. First, the topic is building Ports, so talking about building ships isn't of a large relevance when it comes to adding a single Quartz for the Port cost.

woops! I thought we were talking about adding the price to ships! my bad.

Ok, that would be more manageable. yes, i know ports already cost crystal and diamonds, but it's a small enough price that with your starting stock you can make plenty of ports. if you need to make a port to start your expansion, then you have enough. Adding the price to the port... I don't know. you could only make 3 then. but ok, they are enough, so i would not object to it. yes, i cuncur that quartz and diamonds are normally plentyful because you need so little. i thought you wanted to use them for ships, in which case they really would have become scarce for some maps.

By the way, where do you see this huge atlantean preference? barbarians can make a tavern, a hunter, a smelting works, an axe factory, and two mines, and they are producing soldiers already. for empire it is only mildly more difficult, as they also need a farm and brewery, but their rookie soldiers are almost as strong as atlanteans. atlantean cannot do that. While everyone else is just feeding their miners with fishes, atlanteans need a full economy just to start. they start with less wood than the other tribes, and they need that wood also for the smokery. they need less farms, but they need plenty of space to plant trees for smoking. No, I don't see that atlanteans have it easy, that they have a preference or that their life should be made harder. but even if it were, then it would make sense to nerf them in the late game, where they are stong, not in the early, when they are already weak. and adding building costs is a problem in the early game, not in the late, when building resources are plentyful. In fact, if it was decided to nerf atlanteans - which I'm not convinced is needed - I would increase food cost to get the higher weapon promotions and slow down a bit the working of the bakery; possibly increase a bit the waiting time of the mines too. But here we are not talking of balance in general, only of port balance.

Oh, by the way, the OP asked to swap iron for something else for barbarian ports, which I approve. Why has the discussione turned about increasing the cost of ports in general?

EDIT: I would not add quartz in the starting stock. atlanteans already have enough, and giving them too much of it could remove the need for a mine. already on a small map one can play without crystal mines.

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