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Topic: Every ware producable

LennStar

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Joined: 2010-04-27, 20:00
Posts: 23
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2010-05-09, 15:45

We all know the situation: error: Out of stones or: You just need to kill 5 more soldiers, but you have none yourself to do it. Game Over?

At the moment, yes. But is this necessary? I think it would be better to make all wares producable. You propably need a high amount of other wares, but at least it is possible. But high? Turn wood into stone by magic? Basically: yes ^^

Priest, Shamans and the like were very important the most time of human history. So why ignore them? We could use the heavenly personal to magically change the nature of wares. For example the Water Shaman of the Barbarians could turn three hardwood into iron ore. (both is hard ;)) The Fire Shaman would turn two iron into one gold. An Earth Shaman would make one stone out of hardwood and coal. That leaves the Air Shaman... He could possibly live in a high tower and strike every enemy with a bolt of lighing. To prevent towering you cannot build them near to each other, as that would be a sure way to have them battle each other, as it is with thee guys ;) Pure defense buildings, these could prevent a player from beeing overrrun and allow him to win by reaching the victory conditions (see other post).
It is also possible to have other magicians that improve certain productions (or are needed for research etc.). Of course, Shamans need a lot of beer (and food?) or Mead (see houses ) to do their magic, we all know that!

This method would prevent player and AI getting into a dead end late in the game. But it would also be very expensive to work with this kind of economy, so not your first choice. But it could be choice on a mountain-free map for example. I would really like to play a wood-and-food-only map with these settings face-grin.png You would need a really good planning and street network there.

This is an example for the Barbarians, but could be extended to every race. (Even atheistic by using "alchemists")


"Scratch any cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist."

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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367
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Posted at: 2010-05-09, 17:06

Actually, the most advanced mines produce wares indefinitely (I think?). They just have a very low probability of finding something in the end, i.e. a barbarian deeper mine should produce two coal for every ten meals consumed even after it claims to be empty.


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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
Posts: 1445
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Location: Germany - Munich
Posted at: 2010-05-09, 17:33

ixprefect is correct.

about dead locks: they are part of the game's principle and easy to avoid once you know the economy of your tribe. Making all wares producible will likely kill balance, I see very little chance for such a thing.


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NightElfik

Joined: 2009-09-14, 18:53
Posts: 3
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Location: Czech Republic
Posted at: 2010-05-15, 14:03

I thing that it is not such bad idea. As I can remember Settlers IV, there was shaman which could (for example) summon fish into sea, summon some random sort of goods on ground, create rocks etc. Every cast of spell rises its cost, so it was balanced. Something like this will be really great! It will not break balance, because summoning will be more and more expensive. And you need to build some buildings which produce sort of goods for shaman (like wine in Settlers) so it will slows you.


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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
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Location: Germany - Munich
Posted at: 2010-05-15, 14:25

I didn't like this micro management aspect of settlers III (I think it was the first game to introduce those magic). I think it would give widelands a twist into a direction away from our focus.


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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367
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Posted at: 2010-05-15, 23:55

I agree with SirVer. Besides, we've already established that you can obtain wares indefinitely with no upper bound, so there's really no need for an additional game mechanic that does the same thing.

By the way: I check in the source code, and indeed miners only receive experience when they've mined successfully. This is particularly annoying for deep mines, where they have to mine successfully twice in order to gain experience.

Would it hurt to change this so that miners can gain experience even if the mining was unsuccessful? In other words, if there was a chance that they could find something and produce some wares, but just by random bad luck they failed to do so, I think they should still gain experience. After all, you learn from your mistakes, right?

This probably requires rebalancing of the amount of experience needed for the next level, but it prevents situations where you start out with very little resources so that you have to upgrade to deeper mines very quickly - in such situations, it becomes painful to train your people.


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Schmendrick

Joined: 2010-05-13, 02:51
Posts: 3
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Just found this site
Posted at: 2010-05-19, 02:42

(This is drifting off topic, but) wouldn't it be easier to move experience earning into the scripts? Then the deep mine program could be Sleep, Eat, Mine, Give XP, Mine, Give XP. You could even, then, adjust XP granted for performing different tasks. Plus, it moves the entire experience issue off to designers, instead of coders.


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abtools

Joined: 2010-01-08, 16:31
Posts: 31
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Pry about Widelands
Location: Munich
Posted at: 2010-06-15, 14:55

Hello togehter,

just came across this thread by accident and it's really great that mines produce wares indefinitely (I didn't know that before).

But I have two questions about that:

  1. does it mean that also e. g. an deeper iron mine produces (very, very slow) iron inside e. g. a gold mountain where never before any iron existed?

  2. does the same occur also for e. g. a fisher: does it also still find very slow new fish if there was a message before that there is no fish anymore?

Thanks Andreas

Edited: 2010-06-15, 14:55

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ixprefect

Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367
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Posted at: 2010-06-15, 16:45

No, mines only produce the resource type that used to be in the mountains. If they do otherwise, that would be a bug. And I believe the fisher really does run out of fish entirely, but maybe someone will correct me on that.


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abtools

Joined: 2010-01-08, 16:31
Posts: 31
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Pry about Widelands
Location: Munich
Posted at: 2010-06-15, 17:10

Hello ixprefect,

first thank you for your fast answer.

ixprefect wrote: No, mines only produce the resource type that used to be in the mountains. If they do otherwise, that would be a bug.

I played around a little bit with it and I indeed think they slowly produce on very mountain not depending of the resource type that used to be in the mountain itself. Maybe someone can confirm that?

Maybe that is a bug, but it is also a little bit problematic if it would be otherwise: imagine the player build iron mines on every mountain that has iron and destroys the mines again if the mountain is empty (just as normal). Then at the later progress of the game the player recognizes that he really needs some more iron and would accept therefore that it takes very long and costs much food to get it. So he wants to build a new iron mine, but he does not know where, because a geologist won't find any iron. So how the player can know where to place the iron mine to produce (very slowly) new iron?

ixprefect wrote: And I believe the fisher really does run out of fish entirely, but maybe someone will correct me on that.

Oh, that's a pity, because I am one of that players that really likes if the resource are endless - but, of course, takes very, very long to produce at a certain point. Therefore I found the idea that the mines produce very slowly endlessly really good. But if fish is not available endlessly, this would restrict also the mine production, because they need fish (at least for the Empire) to get a meal. Although fish is not a big problem most of the time, I'd find it better if also the fisher would find endless fish very slowly after the normal limit has been reached (just as the mines).

Best regards Andreas

Edited: 2010-06-15, 17:10

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