Topic: Farming and workers handling

dodomorandi Topic Opener Joined: 2011-03-18, 12:21 Posts: 2 Just found this site	Posted at: 2011-03-18, 12:46 I was thinking about a couple of things related to farms and "upgradeable" workers... -- Farms -- Until you have to generate wheat for mining-related purposes, there's no problem at all. However, if you start creating high-level soldiers you can notice that you'll always need more and more farms. In the last game I played I had 25 farms (in practice nearly 50% of my territories were covered by fields :P), but my warehouse was always without a single unit of wheat or bread. However I noticed that crops grows fast, and the main problem regards the farmers slowness. Can be a good idea to develop a farm upgrade, that simply add a working farmer inside the building? I think that's it's quite unbalanced having 2 hunters and more than 400 meat unit compared with 25 farms and any wheat or bread, isn't it? -- Workers -- I know that you're developing some new system for workers handling (mainly related to mines), however... What do you think about letting a worker leave his working place in case he's "more skilled". Here an example: a miner becomes a chief miner, but the mine isn't upgraded. If there are available pickaxes it could leave the mine and let another miner in. This will bring an automatic skill rising for workers, and especially with miners would be a great thing. What do you thing about it? Thanks for your huge support, and for this beautiful game! -- dodomorandi Top Quote

Astuur Joined: 2009-02-28, 09:08 Posts: 733 One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany	Posted at: 2011-03-25, 18:55 Hello dodomorandi, and welcome to this forum! Well, I don't belong to the developping staff here, but I have some experience in playing this game. So I'll give you my comments. Farms: It is true that you need a lot of farms (and bakers) to support your economy, once you have some mines going and especially when you have several training sites. That is intended to be this way and no disadvantage, since it is the same for all tribes -- including your opponents. There is nothing wrong with dedicating 50% of your realm to farms. There is not much else you could be using it for ! This is not a highly technical farming, driven by fertilizers, but a basic rural society; so I don't even think it is very unrealistic. Workers: There is still a bug (unless it has been fixed very recently) when you upgrade some buildings. The team is aware of this and will find a solution. I think what you suggest would lead to an endless production of skilled workers, which in turn would create an endless demand for tools. But it definetely is a good idea to build one or two spare mines to have chief or master miners at hand when they are needed. What should be done, however, is to redistribute the skilled workers among the corresponding production sites so that all have their requirements fulfilled, if that can be done. I am sure, we will see this soon. Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills. I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino). Top Quote

ixprefect Joined: 2009-02-27, 13:28 Posts: 367 Tribe Member	Posted at: 2011-03-26, 09:33 About the workers: I think it's a reasonable approach to allow players to manually kick a worker out of their building. Combined with some tweaks to the economy code to always prefer the least skilled worker possible for a position, this should be enough to fix all the issues. I don't think an automated worker reassignment would be such a good idea, because it would probably be hard to understand the computer's decision, and as Astuur said it would likely lead to infinite worker generation. Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18 Posts: 1445 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2011-03-26, 16:47 Slightly off topic: Well, I don't belong to the developping staff here, but I have some experience in playing this game. I just want to inform you that this is not the way I see it. You have contributed to numerous discussions and made a lot of suggestions and therefore you very well are part of the "developping staff". The widelands development team is a group with fuzzy edges for me, but it does not only contain the people who commit stuff to trunk. Top Quote

dodomorandi Topic Opener Joined: 2011-03-18, 12:21 Posts: 2 Just found this site	Posted at: 2011-03-26, 18:03 Hi everyone... and thanks for your reply! About workers: what do you think about mining mountains previously occupied by another player? With high probability a not upgraded mine won't get anything. So you would need an upgraded version, and you can't upgrade your workers with these mines (ok, a low probability to get materials still exists, but you will get mad trying to get experienced miners in this way :P). A solution is "manually store experienced workers" as proposed by Astuur. The question is if Widelands wants this kind of "millimanagement" (it's not properly micromanagement, it's on a greater level :D)... I'm asking because I really don't have a sure answer for this question. Maybe another possible way to handle workers upgrading would be simply give a bit of experience also when no resource is found (like 1/3). What about this? ...and thank you again for your support. It's fantastic to share ideas with a great open source team like this! -- dodomorandi Top Quote

Astuur Joined: 2009-02-28, 09:08 Posts: 733 One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany	Posted at: 2011-03-26, 20:41 Thank you for your kind words, SirVer -- But in all fairness ... someone who lacks any progamming, artistic, or musical skills ... is a just a user in my thinking. Yes, I care about the project, and I do invest time trying to come up with something reasonable to make a good thing even better. The way I see it, this is no more than the fair compensation to the folks that in turn invest their time (and probably a lot of it) to deliver to us (the users) a game, free for all, to install and have fun. I have always done so with freeware - and I think it is what such generous people deserve. So thank you very much; I'll try to perform no worse than usual, and will gladly keep on presenting my own ideas as well as commenting on those from others. If you do me the courtesy to consider them and comment on my thoughts, that is fine. I understand and accept your standpoint and feel a bit flattered. But I will not from my side make so bold as to count myself among the staff for reasons I have just tried to explain. And above all else: No matter where you sort me into, it's just fun to contribute Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills. I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino). Top Quote

SirVer Joined: 2009-02-19, 14:18 Posts: 1445 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich	Posted at: 2011-03-27, 06:59 Astuur wrote: Thank you for your kind words, SirVer -- But in all fairness ... someone who lacks any progamming, artistic, or musical skills ... is a just a user in my thinking. Well, as stated: not in mine. People like you give me (and other coders) the freedom to skim the forums and not post replys on gameplay questions/most technical questions because I/we can rely on the forum dwellers to help out. This gives us hands free to work on other issues. This is very valuable for widelands as a whole. Hans Joachim does a similar job for the bug tracker. Others do as well of course, but you two show a lot of consistency in your work so you are taken as an example here :). And above all else: No matter where you sort me into, it's just fun to contribute well that is what it boils down to in the end, because that is the idea of the whole thingy. Enough of this now, I already feel a bit guilty that I derailed this thread from its original topic. Top Quote