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Topic: new tribe: amazons

JanO
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Posted at: 2019-12-12, 14:01

Ok, wrong assumtpion. But I think, I have to be more precise, because as you explain it, the system is still quite similar to what I have guessed. I mean, just pick the terrain 'mountain meadow' as an example (it has been quite a while, since I made my last map, this one comes to my mind first). This 'mountain meadow' always comes with the same three values, correct? Same for beach, desert and so on. My proposal would result in only the value for fertility is given by the terrain type. The temperature would be calculated by the elevation and humidity by surrounding water. Humidity calculation by map design would be tough, but temperature by elevation maybe not that extreme complicated.

As benefit a map designer would gain some interesting possibilities and the complexity of the system would gain some more meaning. This thread is a nice example that the possibilities you mention in favour of having three values instead of one are yet mostly theoretical and need a lot of trial-and-error to be taken to benefit (see the excel-calculations).

Strange combinations like beach on the mountain would be more hostile to trees than in the current model, while it would be possible to adapt palms much better to real beaches. face-smile.png

Do I remeber correctly, that the tree-growth model is older than the fusion of the biomes?


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-12-12, 14:44

JanO wrote:

Ok, wrong assumtpion. But I think, I have to be more precise, because as you explain it, the system is still quite similar to what I have guessed. I mean, just pick the terrain 'mountain meadow' as an example (it has been quite a while, since I made my last map, this one comes to my mind first). This 'mountain meadow' always comes with the same three values, correct? Same for beach, desert and so on. My proposal would result in only the value for fertility is given by the terrain type. The temperature would be calculated by the elevation and humidity by surrounding water. Humidity calculation by map design would be tough, but temperature by elevation maybe not that extreme complicated.

As benefit a map designer would gain some interesting possibilities and the complexity of the system would gain some more meaning. This thread is a nice example that the possibilities you mention in favour of having three values instead of one are yet mostly theoretical and need a lot of trial-and-error to be taken to benefit (see the excel-calculations).

Strange combinations like beach on the mountain would be more hostile to trees than in the current model, while it would be possible to adapt palms much better to real beaches. face-smile.png

Do I remeber correctly, that the tree-growth model is older than the fusion of the biomes?

I don't know for sure, but from the values the model ensures to have the right plants in the right terrain currently (except the frisian bushes and amazon rare trees yet).
Anyhow currently the model does little more then calculate the best spot available for a tree (bush), choose one of the best suited plants for the spot and checks whether it still survived at 3 maturity stages. So I doubt it will be worth the effort to implement your model while keeping the separation of the blackland and desert trees from winter and summer. If our model would effect growth time that would be a different case. But we don't need to be to precise imho, as long as the woods and berries economies work sufficiently well for all tribes.


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JanO
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Posted at: 2019-12-12, 15:12

Just dream of rotating the four seasons face-wink.png

I've got a lot of ideas here to boost the economic + ecological aspects (to be honest, the military stuff stands above all at the moment).


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-12-13, 20:43

Some new test playing showed me that Amazons can train a supersoldier fast enough. But I'm not sure enough if they are strong enough on small maps, because they need then a lot of rare wood (military buildings, training), and they start only with one master cutter and 2 junglemasters. (btw it's weird that the junglemaster doesn't plant the rare trees in the jungle masters hut.)

So maybe I should test them a little bit more on small maps.

I've thought a little bit about collectors and realized that amazonian gold is extremely expensive, it could give like 15 points instead of 3.

Suggestions for the other wares (Imperial Wooden spears (1 Point) are an interesting benchmark) :

Wooden Spear and Stone tipped Spear: 0 Points

Hardened Spear: 1 Point

Tunic: 0 Points

Wooden Armor: 1 Point

Wooden Helmet: 1 Point

Warriors Coat: 16 Points

Sturdy Boots: 1 Point

Swift Boots: 1 Point

Heros Boots: 16 Points

Padded Vest: 2 Points

Padded Protetctors: 17 Points

Looking at this, I think that one could reduce the goild points a bit to make golden armor more meaningful.

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Lianas are only needed for rope, so there is no need for a rope eco setting. Exactly as Imperial whine.

ok understood will be corrected.

Ok

And in the test match I reached the point where Eco didn't need any more rare trees, so it was a pity for some wasted resources face-wink.png

good to hear this is possible. However in this case I would recommend setting new economy demand values. should be easy with +10 button.

That's a little bit like there would be an economy setting for meat and you would suggest me to simply increase the eco setting if when the hunter-gatherer stops working face-wink.png

ok noted but not on the priority list. sorry

New test playing showed me a dissatisfying situation: I didn't need 1 kind of rare wood, but the other 2. What happens? The unneeded trees are not cutted and take all the space for the plantation away, almost nothing works anymore. My suggestion would solve this problem.

Imho the exhausted gold digger dwellings are also too unefficient. Maybe they should get also 20% chance instead of 5?

why should they be able to mine more gold than other tribes?

Because of their brilliant method to wash gold out face-wink.png and because gold dust is very expensive for them, as it also needs some carcoal. 1 gold dust needs 1 bread, 1 meat and 0.5 carcoal, while for atlanteans 1bread and one smoked meat give 1.5 gold ore, so 5% chance might be not enough for amazons. Atlantean gold ore is expensive as well, by the way.

In case you don't know it: You can check the probability for each terrain if you

-open an amazon match

-press F1 and select immovables, then the trees.

damn I forgot that thanks for reminding.

You're welcome

JanO wrote:

Regarding the tree-growth problem: Did I understood correctly, that the three parameters temperature, humidity and fertility are basically constant values for each biome? Being a farmer myself, this does not make very much sense to me. So maybe the problem can be solved by not editing the trees, but editing the ecosystem. Let's say temperature should not be a constant value but instead depend on level of elevation. Humindity could depend on distance to the next water or marsh, maybe also elevation or water-resources placed in the map editor. Fertility may be the one which is set by the individual terrain. In reality it's the most complex parameter of those three, which makes it very complex to calculate a reasonable value for it in a game.

I have no idea about the current implementation of those tree-growth determining values, but I fear that this means somewhat hard codework and may have noticable impact on old maps, too. But if the current implementation is as static as I think, I wonder why we have three given values instead of only one.

Why making the complicated tree growth model even more complicated?

More bugs:

  • If you press F1 and want to check out wooden spear, the help is a little bit broken?

  • Ships unload wares very slowly, why ?

  • Wood has an eco setting, too. For what?

  • Gardening centers cannot work on winter snow? @king_of_nowhere is this intended?


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-12-13, 21:02

Ships unload wares very slowly, why ?

Wasn´t it always like this?
Personally I find it a bit unlogical that they unload slowly but load a lot of wares instantly, perhaps that should be changed… (a bit off topic)


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-12-13, 21:04

WorldSavior wrote:

Some new test playing showed me that Amazons can train a supersoldier fast enough. But I'm not sure enough if they are strong enough on small maps, because they need then a lot of rare wood (military buildings, training), and they start only with one master cutter and 2 junglemasters. (btw it's weird that the junglemaster doesn't plant the rare trees in the jungle masters hut.)

If this would be the case the rare tree plantation would be useless. Rare tree need special treatment before being plant so we need a medium building for that and an expereinced planter.

So maybe I should test them a little bit more on small maps.

I've thought a little bit about collectors and realized that amazonian gold is extremely expensive, it could give like 15 points instead of 3.

Suggestions for the other wares (Imperial Wooden spears (1 Point) are an interesting benchmark) :

.......

Looking at this, I think that one could reduce the goild points a bit to make golden armor more meaningful.

Thanks for the values. I will give it a first start with that.

And in the test match I reached the point where Eco didn't need any more rare trees, so it was a pity for some wasted resources face-wink.png

good to hear this is possible. However in this case I would recommend setting new economy demand values. should be easy with +10 button.

That's a little bit like there would be an economy setting for meat and you would suggest me to simply increase the eco setting if when the hunter-gatherer stops working face-wink.png

ok noted but not on the priority list. sorry

New test playing showed me a dissatisfying situation: I didn't need 1 kind of rare wood, but the other 2. What happens? The unneeded trees are not cutted and take all the space for the plantation away, almost nothing works anymore. My suggestion would solve this problem.

ok this is a point. went up on the list then face-wink.png

Imho the exhausted gold digger dwellings are also too unefficient. Maybe they should get also 20% chance instead of 5?

why should they be able to mine more gold than other tribes?

Because of their brilliant method to wash gold out face-wink.png and because gold dust is very expensive for them, as it also needs some carcoal. 1 gold dust needs 1 bread, 1 meat and 0.5 carcoal, while for atlanteans 1bread and one smoked meat give 1.5 gold ore, so 5% chance might be not enough for amazons. Atlantean gold ore is expensive as well, by the way.

Hm. expense of gold was meant as compensation for not needing iron as far as I understood. So having more gold in a map if all gold is exhausted might be to powerfull as the other tribes need to mine iron from exhaust as well.
but we could try a little more chance let's say we start with 10%.

More bugs:

  • If you press F1 and want to check out wooden spear, the help is a little bit broken?

maybe I made an error with tribe specific help. need to analyze.

  • Ships unload wares very slowly, why ?

that should not be a problem of amazons. but general --> investigation needed.

  • Wood has an eco setting, too. For what?

to prevent normal woodcutters cutting rare trees in their vicinity accidentally

  • Gardening centers cannot work on winter snow? @king_of_nowhere is this intended?

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-12-15, 16:27

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Some new test playing showed me that Amazons can train a supersoldier fast enough. But I'm not sure enough if they are strong enough on small maps, because they need then a lot of rare wood (military buildings, training), and they start only with one master cutter and 2 junglemasters. (btw it's weird that the junglemaster doesn't plant the rare trees in the jungle masters hut.)

If this would be the case the rare tree plantation would be useless. Rare tree need special treatment before being plant so we need a medium building for that and an expereinced planter.

Sorry for not exactly saying that this is just about the names, not about the game mechanic.

So maybe I should test them a little bit more on small maps.

I've thought a little bit about collectors and realized that amazonian gold is extremely expensive, it could give like 15 points instead of 3.

Suggestions for the other wares (Imperial Wooden spears (1 Point) are an interesting benchmark) :

.......

Looking at this, I think that one could reduce the goild points a bit to make golden armor more meaningful.

Thanks for the values. I will give it a first start with that.

You're welcome. The values are supposed to fit well to the values of other tribes.

And in the test match I reached the point where Eco didn't need any more rare trees, so it was a pity for some wasted resources face-wink.png

good to hear this is possible. However in this case I would recommend setting new economy demand values. should be easy with +10 button.

That's a little bit like there would be an economy setting for meat and you would suggest me to simply increase the eco setting if when the hunter-gatherer stops working face-wink.png

ok noted but not on the priority list. sorry

New test playing showed me a dissatisfying situation: I didn't need 1 kind of rare wood, but the other 2. What happens? The unneeded trees are not cutted and take all the space for the plantation away, almost nothing works anymore. My suggestion would solve this problem.

ok this is a point. went up on the list then face-wink.png

Good face-smile.png

Imho the exhausted gold digger dwellings are also too unefficient. Maybe they should get also 20% chance instead of 5?

why should they be able to mine more gold than other tribes?

Because of their brilliant method to wash gold out face-wink.png and because gold dust is very expensive for them, as it also needs some carcoal. 1 gold dust needs 1 bread, 1 meat and 0.5 carcoal, while for atlanteans 1bread and one smoked meat give 1.5 gold ore, so 5% chance might be not enough for amazons. Atlantean gold ore is expensive as well, by the way.

Hm. expense of gold was meant as compensation for not needing iron as far as I understood. So having more gold in a map if all gold is exhausted might be to powerfull as the other tribes need to mine iron from exhaust as well.

I see the point.

but we could try a little more chance let's say we start with 10%.

10 might be better than 20 indeed...

More bugs:

  • If you press F1 and want to check out wooden spear, the help is a little bit broken?

maybe I made an error with tribe specific help. need to analyze.

Maybe because the spear is for soldiers and workers, which is unusual.

  • Ships unload wares very slowly, why ?

that should not be a problem of amazons. but general --> investigation needed.

Maybe it's supposed to be a secret new "feature"? : (

  • Wood has an eco setting, too. For what?

to prevent normal woodcutters cutting rare trees in their vicinity accidentally

Okay... Not sure if that will work. Usually you need a lot of wood, so this will not stop the woodcutters. And you want to keep your woodcutters working all the time because of the high wood demand... Another point: In case that woodcutters could not cut those trees anymore, the setting could be removed...

  • Gardening centers cannot work on winter snow? @king_of_nowhere is this intended?

I've investigated this again and see that they actually can work, but I would have to investigate more to see why they didn't work in that one case.


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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JanO
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Posted at: 2019-12-16, 16:21

WorldSavior wrote:

Why making the complicated tree growth model even more complicated?

Because it already is (a bit more then mid-) complicated but does not pull adequate benefit of it. I think there is a reason, why someone initially has set it up like this and not as simple as possible. My proposal would add only a little bit of complexity but add a lot of possibilities.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-12-16, 17:08

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Some new test playing showed me that Amazons can train a supersoldier fast enough.

i know you want to protect your advantages, but could you give us a benchmark time? if i recall correctly, mine was around 70 minutes, which was slightly worse than with atlanteans and empire.

Hm. expense of gold was meant as compensation for not needing iron as far as I understood. So having more gold in a map if all gold is exhausted might be to powerfull as the other tribes need to mine iron from exhaust as well.
but we could try a little more chance let's say we start with 10%.

yes, it was always meant that this tribe should have something good (its foresters are great, especially on mediocre terrain, and several of their basic buildings are better than other tribes counterparts) compensated by something else bad (expensive rare woods, no coal from mine, expensive gold).

the concept is that they still haven't figured metal working; they know their jungle well and they can really make the best of plants and animals, so they are superior in those regards. they can grow trees better, they can make armors out of hardwood and padded with rubber that are just as good as the metal ones. but ultimately, metal has its uses that cannot be really replicated. i wonder if an allied game with the option to trade resources could create a great synergy between amazons and other tribes.

i have an idea, though, gold mines also can only dig only 50% of the available gold before being depleted.

so, if not too complex to code, we could have that after depleting 50% of the ore the gold mine will work at a lower percentage, that would drop finally at 5% after depleting all the ore.

i wouldn't worry much in the "end of metal" scenario. not only it never happens in practical gameplay, but if metal runs out amazons don't care because they still have their hardwood. they are going to pay more for their gold, but not needing to get iron - and getting coal more easily due to the sheer amount of lumber they can get - offsets this.

Gardening centers cannot work on winter snow? @king_of_nowhere is this intended?

are we talking about the buildable terrain, or the walkable one? with the walkable one it's intended, i don't want to turn a walkable terrain into a buildable one. i'm not sure about buildable snow, though. it may have been accidentally forgotten.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-12-20, 20:27

JanO wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Why making the complicated tree growth model even more complicated?

Because it already is (a bit more then mid-) complicated but does not pull adequate benefit of it. I think there is a reason, why someone initially has set it up like this and not as simple as possible. My proposal would add only a little bit of complexity but add a lot of possibilities.

I'm not really convinced face-wink.png

king_of_nowhere wrote:

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Some new test playing showed me that Amazons can train a supersoldier fast enough.

i know you want to protect your advantages, but could you give us a benchmark time?

Well, why not. Under 39 minutes, but that doesn't say a lot because I build only the needed buildings, so no military buildings except for one; minimalistic building material economy and so on.

Hm. expense of gold was meant as compensation for not needing iron as far as I understood. So having more gold in a map if all gold is exhausted might be to powerfull as the other tribes need to mine iron from exhaust as well.
but we could try a little more chance let's say we start with 10%.

yes, it was always meant that this tribe should have something good (its foresters are great, especially on mediocre terrain, and several of their basic buildings are better than other tribes counterparts) compensated by something else bad (expensive rare woods, no coal from mine, expensive gold).

the concept is that they still haven't figured metal working; they know their jungle well and they can really make the best of plants and animals, so they are superior in those regards. they can grow trees better, they can make armors out of hardwood and padded with rubber that are just as good as the metal ones. but ultimately, metal has its uses that cannot be really replicated.

I see

i wonder if an allied game with the option to trade resources could create a great synergy between amazons and other tribes.

As far as I understand, amazons would be the tribe with the best synergy by far: They can import much cheaper coal and gold, and export various wares easily due to their super cheap economy (stone tools...).

i have an idea, though, gold mines also can only dig only 50% of the available gold before being depleted.

so, if not too complex to code, we could have that after depleting 50% of the ore the gold mine will work at a lower percentage, that would drop finally at 5% after depleting all the ore.

i wouldn't worry much in the "end of metal" scenario. not only it never happens in practical gameplay,

I'd "very rarely" instead of "never", but okay, the difference is not huge.

Gardening centers cannot work on winter snow? @king_of_nowhere is this intended?

are we talking about the buildable terrain, or the walkable one?

Winter snow is the buildable one, "Summer" snow is not even walkable.

with the walkable one it's intended, i don't want to turn a walkable terrain into a buildable one.

Makes sense

i'm not sure about buildable snow, though. it may have been accidentally forgotten.

It wasn't forgotten. As I said, I might investigate this again.


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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