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Topic: Economy limits - limit total number of builders, geologists and perhaps other types as well

teppo

Joined: 2012-01-30, 09:42
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Posted at: 2020-05-09, 16:55

Limiting the total number of builders would be powerful, too, especially if a construction site would order wares only after a builder has been assigned to it.

This way, player would not accidentally end up with huge number of half-finished buildings: Only so-many construction sites are ongoing in parallel.


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simplypeachy

Joined: 2009-04-23, 12:42
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Posted at: 2020-05-10, 20:25

Welcome to the forums. I'm not going to make myself very popular with this reply to your entrance but I hope you can accept constructive criticism made in good faith face-smile.png It's always heartening to see new players join the forum and make detailed, thoughtful requests to share new ideas that may not have been considered. Thank you!

megaloman wrote:

The goal is to satisfy my OCD and to save resources used

The former is not a reason to change the game, and the latter has a very small impact.

There are scarcely enough resources to build so many buildings at once

On smaller maps, perhaps the available resources exacerbates your problem, but if you are building 40 structures simultaneously, on a map with scant resources, you need to learn not to make that mistake. The same goes for using many of the other transient workers. The same reason why one would not build very densely-packed mines, an excessive number of expensive buildings, et cetera. Resource management in the context of the map and its resources is a key part of the game.

**The problem: I would like to control total number of builders...

Whilst I appreciate you see this as a problem, I am not convinced that makes it a problem.

The disadvantages for this feature are the extra complexity for the player, UI clutter and a more complex codebase. On a large map I may end up with say 40 builders, 12 geologists and maybe the same stonemasons, usually fewer spare lumberjacks. These workers do not represent "wasted" resources: they will likely be used again. On larger maps I may have several occasions where I wish to build many buildings at once, clear many stone piles at once, send many teams of geologists at once. They are not expensive: the resources needed for these workers is tiny in relation to the total resources available to my tribe. Maps with long seafaring routes render this feature is even less useful as one needs a bigger reserve of workers to maintain lower latency for worker arrival.

I am not sure the perceived gain will be worth the actual disadvantage and effort needed to realise it.

Edited: 2020-05-10, 20:38

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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2020-05-11, 19:48

IMHO simplypeachy turned out valid points face-smile.png

I remember a tournament match where i had chosen to build many many stonemasons (empire) to quarry all available rocks just in the beginning of the game. The result later on was that i hadn't enough picks anymore for the miners to mine iron and coal to get some picks. Bad mistake... face-grin.png but i have learned this lesson face-wink.png


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WorldSavior
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Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
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Posted at: 2020-05-16, 18:37

teppo wrote:

especially if a construction site would order wares only after a builder has been assigned to it.

But this shouldn't be the default


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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charney
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Joined: 2020-05-19, 14:52
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Posted at: 2020-05-19, 14:59

megaloman wrote: - Add economy setting of maximum number of workers of particular type for worker types: builder, geologist, stonemason, lumberjack and perhaps for empire tribe fishermen and hunters. For other tribes their equivalents (except fishermen for atlanteans, hunters for barbarians) - Don't allow creating of a new worker when total number of workers of the type in the economy is greater or equal to the setting. - Default setting should be 0 (zero means "create when necessary")

I was thinking about the same thing so +1


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teppo

Joined: 2012-01-30, 09:42
Posts: 423
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Posted at: 2020-05-21, 16:00

WorldSavior wrote:

teppo wrote:

especially if a construction site would order wares only after a builder has been assigned to it.

But this shouldn't be the default

If there are options in addition to builder count, then why not have more:

  • Current - construction site orders everything immediately
  • Resource-efficient, wastes builders' time - Construction site orders wares only after worker has been assigned
  • In-between - Construction site orders wares unconditionally if there are surplus wares in economy immediately, and the rest after builder has been assigned.
  • Optimized in-between - Construction sites with builder and the one that will have the next vacant builder order wares, while the others (2nd or 3rd bullet)

and so on.

The important question is whether this should be implemented. Now, it is sometimes useful to plan buildings in advance, for example by making construction sites without connecting those to road network. Sometimes that can be a bit of a pain, if the road network suffers from avoiding those flags. One can prohibit wares from arriving if connected to network, but builder still comes. Is all this part of playing skills, or a work-around to a flaw in the game design?

Regardless of all this, should it be possible to send a builder away from construction site? Should it be possible to prevent a builder from arriving to a construction site?


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-05-21, 16:40

teppo wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

teppo wrote:

especially if a construction site would order wares only after a builder has been assigned to it.

But this shouldn't be the default

If there are options in addition to builder count, then why not have more:

  • Current - construction site orders everything immediately
  • Resource-efficient, wastes builders' time - Construction site orders wares only after worker has been assigned
  • In-between - Construction site orders wares unconditionally if there are surplus wares in economy immediately, and the rest after builder has been assigned.
  • Optimized in-between - Construction sites with builder and the one that will have the next vacant builder order wares, while the others (2nd or 3rd bullet)

and so on.

The important question is whether this should be implemented. Now, it is sometimes useful to plan buildings in advance, for example by making construction sites without connecting those to road network. Sometimes that can be a bit of a pain, if the road network suffers from avoiding those flags. One can prohibit wares from arriving if connected to network, but builder still comes. Is all this part of playing skills, or a work-around to a flaw in the game design?

IMHO this is too complex. Especially new players will see these options and just think, Help!!
I vote to keep this as it is. If you don't want wares yet, just ctrl-shift-click any decrease button and keep a watchwindow open and wait until the builder arrives.

Regardless of all this, should it be possible to send a builder away from construction site? Should it be possible to prevent a builder from arriving to a construction site?

+1 for an evict button, like for productionsites. -1 for preventing workers from coming because the UI would become too messy with not-that-important functions that would confuse new players,


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WorldSavior
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Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
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Posted at: 2020-05-24, 19:19

teppo wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

teppo wrote:

especially if a construction site would order wares only after a builder has been assigned to it.

But this shouldn't be the default

If there are options in addition to builder count, then why not have more:

  • Current - construction site orders everything immediately

+1 This should be the default, feels like a bug otherwise (currently, some wares will be sent too late to constructionsites)


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niektory
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Posted at: 2020-05-24, 20:47

WorldSavior wrote:

  • Current - construction site orders everything immediately

+1 This should be the default, feels like a bug otherwise (currently, some wares will be sent too late to constructionsites)

Are you referring to the fact that they don't request more than 3 wares of the same type? This does delay the construction when the distances are long and should probably be changed.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2020-05-24, 20:59

niektory wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

  • Current - construction site orders everything immediately

+1 This should be the default, feels like a bug otherwise (currently, some wares will be sent too late to constructionsites)

Are you referring to the fact that they don't request more than 3 wares of the same type? This does delay the construction when the distances are long and should probably be changed.

Yes, but I didn't know that it was 3 wares - it should definitely be changed


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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