 |
|
|
How's the game coming along?
About how far off are you from a playable demo? I must say, I am interested...
On a related subject, how did you decide to do your economic modelling- I know that can be really difficult to work out in these sorts of games... did you use any specific mathematical distributional formulas?
|
|
| |
|
|
Emperor
comming at ya, with banana breath
|
Sep 2002
time: 11:34
| |
|
|
inquiring minds would love to know
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Actually, progress is coming along better than I had hoped!
Apologies for the delay in responding tho...had another trip to the hospital that delayed me from the board.
I have been considering something, and wanted to get your input.
I've got a list of features I need to put in Build 0.10 (societal model, the latest version of the economic model--which I will describe in detail later this evening--and several other things (a complete list will be forthcoming this evening as well).
I would like some player feedback on what's in place so far, so I can know what needs further tweaking.
Please keep in mind that this is NOT the finished game.
In fact, without an AI yet, it's more of a kingdom management sim, with sieges of neutral provinces that just sit there waiting for you to move in.
Nonetheless, it is important to me to get what's in place right before moving on, and if there's any interest in seeing this early stage, I will make it available as soon as I get Build 0.10 completed.
Thoughts?
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Okay, so I'm back now, coffee in hand, and ready to do some typing.
Here's what's gonna be in Build 0.10, and how it works and hangs together:
First, the boring stuff. There are two bugs I'm trying to hunt down and kill.
The first is that you're only supposed to build 3 improvements in a province, and sure enough, when you go to build the fourth, you get a message saying it's not possible...and then you get to build it anyway. 
Second, when you use spells and miracles, you're only supposed to be able to use one at a time. That is to say, you use one, wait until the effect is completed, and then use it (or some other) again.
This is important because if you can use multiple iterations before the first finishes, you get some of them "free" (the mana/influence reduction has not been deducted for the first iteration before you trigger the second). So...gotta fix that.
Now for the more interesting stuffages:
I. Changed the way troop training works.
Not the actual training mechanic, but the way it is determined how many troops you CAN train. The reason for this change is that, previously, provinces had an artificial (hard) population floor of 2000. This felt cludgy to me, so I changed things around a bit.
No longer does the population figure represent the total population of the province, but the population of the largest city IN the province (akin to EU2). So the way the new system works is: At game start, we'll total the listed population of the provinces you control, and multiply that by 0.001. This gives you some number of companies that can be trained (companies are the basic unit of measure for troops in the Candle'Bre universe, and consist of 100 men each).
This then, is your manpower rating.
Note that the manpower displayed will be (Total Pop * 0.001) - Number of Companies you currently have afield.
In essence this number tells you how many additional companies you can raise.
This number can be raised over the course of the game in four different ways:
1) As you conquer new provinces--per the mechanic described above
2) By way of events (that will arbitrarily increase the number by a small amount)
3) Natural population growth. Fractions are tracked, so as your population increases in the provinces you control, so too will the manpower number
and
4) The starting value assumes that only a small fraction of your population will be available for wartime mobilization. Each turn, this value (the multiplier, which starts at a scant 0.001) increases until 20% of your total population can be mobilized--and there will eventually be ways that this value can be increased further still, but there will be some sort of (probably soft) cap to it, as the majority of your population will be busy growing food, making war materials, raising children, etc.
So...there's that.
II. Mercenaries are finally in the game.
There are a set number of Mercenary Companies available for hire (currently ten). Each turn, there is a 10% chance per province that a Mercenary company will be availble IN that province. If one is available, an icon will appear on the city of that province indicating as much. Click the icon to get the stats on said company, and decide if you wanna hire them (Mercs do not count against your manpower).
Because of the unique history of Mercenaries in Candle'Bre, eventually the appearance percentages will be slanted in favor of the smaller kingdoms--the Free Companies are more interested in helping the underdogs--but this is not in place yet. Of course, Mercenary Companies will never be hired out by the "neutral" provinces, even if they should appear there, which will give them increased "longevity" (take longer for all the companies to be contracted.
Since there are a set number of companies (eventually ~60 or so, with more added in each succeeding build), once they're all hired, that's it--again, because there are few ironclad rules in the game, there may be events that allow for the creation of new Mercenary companies, but this is completly outside the control of players, and part of the "stuff happens" in the game world, independant of your own actions.
III. The Social Power System!!!
This is probably my favorite part of the newness that's been added to the existing framework. The social power model works like this:
Each province has some population number listed.
That population number is broken down demographically, by percentages into five different social groups.
Aristocrats, Clergy, Acadameans, Merchants, and Peasants.
These are arrayed such that each social group has two kindred groups, and two diametrically opposed groups, thus:
Aristocrats are kindred to Clergy and Acadameans, and oppositional to Merchants and Peasants.
Clergy are kindred to Aristocrats and Peasants, and are oppositional to Acadameans and Merchants.
Peasants are kindred to Clergy and Merchants, and are oppositional to Acadameans and Aristocrats.
Merchants are kindred to Peasants and Acadameans, and are oppositional to Aristocrats and Clergy.
Acadameans are kindred to Aristocrats and Merchants, and oppositional to Clergy and Peasants.
Thus, dynamic tension is created, and expressed in a variety of (not yet fully implemented ways that I'll be discussing in detail in future builds)--some will be covered here.
Each group is given a social power number.
(Group Population * Social Power number) = Total Social Power for the group in question in that particular province.
At game start, initial social power values are set by giving each group 12 turns of social power to establish some entrenched values.
The group with the highest social power in a particular province is said to be the dominant social group in that province. Unsurprisingly, at game start, this will, in most cases, be the Aristocracy, being an essentially Feudal Kingdom.
The values for social power in use at the moment are:
Aristocrats: 50
Clergy: 20
Acadameans: 15
Merchants: 13
Peasants: 2
* (subject to further tweaking for balance)
Depending on which social group is Ascendant, the province will gain various characteristics, described below:
If the dominant group is....
Aristocrat:
* The province has increased maximum loyalty (Aristocracy helps to maintain order)
* Provincial loyalty is less impacted by training troops.
* Decreased provincial income (pensions for the Aristocracy)
Clergy:
* More build points in the province (strong work ethic)
* More Influence with the Church (thus, more Miracles can be performed, more quickly)
* Decreased provincial income (tithes)
Acadameans:
* Increased Research in all branches, simultaneously (research will be enabled in this build)
* Fewer troops may be trained in any given province
Merchant:
* Significant increase in provincial income
* Less Influence in each province (if Influence producing buildings are present)
* Greater impact to the loyalty hit caused by training troops.
Peasants:
* Slight increase in provincial income
* Slight increase in build points
* Slight increase in research points per turn
(note that because it is very difficult to gain Peasant Ascendency, this group is the only group that carries no downside).
Also....if ALL provinces you control are dominated by the same social group, then all the positive benefits listed above are doubled, while the negatives stay as they are (this provides peaceful players who pursue a consistent strategy with a significant bonus).
More in the next post!
-=Vel=-
Last edited by Velociryx on 23-08-2008 at 01:14
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
IV. The Economic System
The Economic system is in its third incarnation. It gets (slightly) more complex with each build, and this one is no exception. Here's where it is at the moment:
Provincial Income can be broken down into two categories:
Taxes
and
Resources
The Taxation portion of provincial income is derived via:
(Province Population/50) * Loyalty
The Resource Portion of provincial income is NOT tied to loyalty. Instead, it's tied to the value (arbitrary, for now) of whatever the primary resource for the province is, thus:
(Resource value/12)
These two components added together give you the income for an individual province. Add them together for all provinces you control, and you get the total per turn income for each player.
There are SEVERAL things that can modify the income of a province. Among them are:
Provincial Improvements
Events
and, most importantly in this build
The setting of individual taxation rates
For each province, you can (if you desire) tweak the tax rates for each social group.
The taxation rates are set via the following range of choices:
Exempt (the social group in question pays no taxes whatsoever)--this increases the group's social power and causes them to recover loyalty faster
Very light (-60% to taxes gained from this social group)--this has the effects above, but to a lesser extent
Light (-20% to taxes gained from this social group)--even less effects than Very Light taxes, but still offering some small boon
Medium - in-game default. No bonuses or penalties
Heavy (+15% to taxes gained from this social group)--group's loyalty recovers more slowly
Crushing (+30% to taxes gained from this social group)--group's loyalty will decrease over time, eventually and inevitably leading to rebellion unless you boost their recovery rate via some other means, so in most cases, this can only be used temporarily, and most commonly vs. the peasants, who constitute the bulk of any given province's population
This allows for significant variability, even tho the economic system is still relatively simple (note that eventually there will be a supply/demand mechanism in place that will create a "floating" price for the resource component of the income equation, and this will likely be the last piece to the puzzle for a while, unless we get some additional ideas from you guys!
V. Rebellions
Rebellions are in, and when a rebellion occurs, you'll get a popup message stating as much, but so far, the rebellions don't have any sort of impact on you (that's coming in the NEXT build).
The % chance of a rebellion occuring is based primarily on the loyalty of a province, and can be modified by a number of factors, for now, chiefly via Event, but others will be added).
It should be noted that since loyalty is tracked per social group (and then combined together via weighted average to arrive at the loyalty of a province), that more than one social group in a province you control could rebel on the same turn.
There are also four different TYPES of rebellions, and each social group is weighted such that it "prefers" certain types of rebellions over others.
The types of rebellions are:
A) Armed Insurrection (fight troops for control of the province--if you lose, the province will revert to Neutrality).
B) Tax Evasion and General Strike (this can shut down income from a province entirely, and perhaps even cost you more money than the province is worth economically...very bad).
C)Flight from your Kingdom (you lose population and some other lucky player has an opportunity to "adopt" them.
D) Rabble Rousing (increases the liklihood of rebellion in all other social groups in the province, which can make your life a living hell).
V. Issuing Military Orders
This is in, but won't do anything yet.
It's envisioned as a three tabbed screen that allows you to issue standing orders to an army you control, dictating its orders for offensive operations, defensive operations, and an overall strategy to pursue.
The offensive and defensive orders essentially dictate how long you'd like the force in question to stand their ground and give battle before withdrawing, and the strategy tab is per the previous "strategic interactions" thread on combat.
VI. Tech Trees
Will be in, and you should be able to set various research levels, but thus far, a tech advance will not net you any advantage. This is just a test to make sure the basic mechanic is working before I go adding a bunch of stuff on top of it.
VII. Events
There will be twenty random events in the game (ten will be added with each successive build)
There are also four story driven events in the game that apply only to the Fury family. These are taken direct from the novels and adapted to the game, presenting the player with the same choices the main characters in the books face.
VIII. Miracles, Spells, and Espionage Missions
One of each of these will be available for use, so that those points can do something, rather than just sit at the top of the screen.
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Summary of What's to be included in Build 0.10
EDIT: I found an old buglite list (these aren't bugs, they're just things that bug me), so I'll add them in with the two official bugs, and will report the progress here:
BugLites (Bugkins?)
* Tooltips aren't very visible. I've just figured out how to fix that...whooohoooo! Now it's a matter of hunting down all the code for each tooltip...GRRR. - Completed 8.23.08, all tooltips are now using the improved configuration and reading them is worlds easier. It got the nod of approval from my wife... 
* Siege counters in info pane aren't updating to reflect progress in an ongoing siege. Few people will probably even look at it, but I do, and I want it readin right! So there. LOL (it's a nit and not very important, so I'm putting this one on hold as well)
And then...onto the new stuff:
* Get with Chev to find out why MP isn't tracking quite the way we need it to. Resource is there, but still needs a little work. Soon tho...soon.
* Mercenary Companies (10), and the ability to contract with them (new map graphic indicating their appearance)
(Code's in place for this, but not working. Also on the Chev question list, but I will continue to work with it).
* Social Power System, and benefits/penalties derived from it
At present, I am mired in getting all these new variables put into the framework, and it is a massive job! We're talking about a set of variables 22 deep that need to be individually tweaked to match the province they're going to...so that's 60*22 or a harrowing 1200 new variables I've got to place and keep track of...UGH.
* Economic System 3.0, with variable taxation enabled
Variables are all in place, and currently in testing
This is on hold, pending the completion of the socpow matrix.
* Rebellions (no effects, but notifications of all four types)
also on hold, pending the big project mentioned above.
* Military Orders Screen (on further thinking, I can do this with dropdowns, and keep it all on one screen)
* Research in all four tech trees enabled (mechanics established, but no impacts for gaining a tech level yet)
All of the above is on hold, pending the completion of the social power matrix. Literally, with the changes coming into the game as of this build, NOTHING can be done in these areas until the matrix is operational. So...that obviously takes top billing! Get it in and working, then we can start testing some of these other neat widgets... 
The (below) spells, events, and effects have already been selected for this implementation, and these are my bits of fun that I work on during those "in between times" when I'm waiting for word back on something, or mired in research, or whatever.
* 20 Events
* 4 Story Driven Events (faction specific)
* 1 Spell, 1 Miracle, and 1 Espionage Action
-=Vel=-
Last edited by Velociryx on 01-09-2008 at 02:25
|
|
| |
|
|
|
quote:
Each turn, this value (the multiplier, which starts at a scant 0.001) increases until 20% of your total population can be mobilized--and there will eventually be ways that this value can be increased further still, but there will be some sort of (probably soft) cap to it, as the majority of your population will be busy growing food, making war materials, raising children, etc.
|
Unless there are hefty modifiers, this would mean that it could take 2000 turns to reach 20% of mobilization (barring any negatives)... How long does a turn represent? One day, week, month, year? If a turn represents a month, I would STRONGLY suggest upping the speed with which mobilization can be effected- or starting provinces at a higher initial mobilization amount.
Hm. The merc companies seem like an interesting mechanic.
--
Why should you want the peasants to be ascendant? Are you promoting communism? I'm not saying that perjoratively, but if you want to encourage the players to overthrow all monarchs and other groups- then giving peasants no negatives is certain to guarantee that. Unless you want the ideal situation of government to be a situation where peasants rule, I'd suggest giving them some negatives... or making the positives very minor.
On another subject- peasant rule being all good is confusing. Peasant rule has never historically succeeded... a la Reign of Terrors, the Russian Revolution, Communist China, etc.
I especially don't understand why peasant ascendancy would lead to an increase in research.
Economics seems interesting.
-DC.
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Hiyas!
I'll answer your questions from the top and work down.
Regarding Mobilization: Yep...those numbers definitely aren't set in stone, and may well be modified upwards (my initial thinking was that the low starting value is a way to show that the kindom was not on a war footing when the King was assassinated, and the great houses were essentially caught off their guard). 1 game turn = 1 week, so the current values may work (mobilization increases fairly rapidly, not at the rate of +0.0001 per turn, so you could definitely reach max mobilization before the game ends). I like the approach of modding the starting value and leave the incremental alone. That'd give you a bigger starting manpower and put you closer to the max (which will prolly wind up being softcapped, allowing for a certain amount of float depending on how you structure your game).
Peasants and ascendency - Rather than communism, the peasant ascendency as it is expressed in the basin is meant to show the transition from an essentially feudal society to the firsts tentative steps toward democracy (this is a sentiment expressed in the books and will be (hopefully) translate in-game.
The main reason that the peasants have no downsides, is they start off with 30x less power than the ruling Aristocracy, so it should take the better part of the game to achieve that state of tentative democracy. One possible downside to give them would be to make them more prone to rebellions (free speech leading to all sorts of trouble, though their rebellions would be less likely to be armed insurrection...what do you think?)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Okay, so the goal of the game IS peasant ascendancy. In that case, that makes some sense.
I think making them more prone to rebellions would definitely be appropriate.
I still think the research bonus should also be replaced with something else... a productivity bonus?
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Yep, they get that (increased build points), but I wanted to differentiate them from the clergy, who also get that bonus. Of course, one fine way to do that might be to give them some sort of combat advantage (+1 HP, or better defensive values or something).
You definitely don't have to play with Peasant Ascencency on your mind. In fact, I'm hoping that the benefits to some of the othere groups ascendency are compelling enough that players will experiment with all of them, but I'm sorta considering making it a victory type (get all your holdings to the point where the Peasants are ascendant and you win). Not sure, but it's rather intriguing to me, and would be a unique win type (of course, we'd have to attach some minimum number of provinces to it and such)
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
King
Nashville, TN
|
Mar 1999
time: 13:34
| |
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Yep, they get that (increased build points), but I wanted to differentiate them from the clergy, who also get that bonus. Of course, one fine way to do that might be to give them some sort of combat advantage (+1 HP, or better defensive values or something).
-=Vel=- |
Defensive bonus sounds lore-appropriate. After all, who knows the land the best? certainly those that work on it every day. Thus, when roused to arms, they should be able to make use of the land in a very defensive oriented way.
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Got manpower working...kinda.
The values show up on the interface, but only for the province you most recently conquered. Not sure what's up with that...still wrestling it to the ground. But that's a fairly major piece of the puzzle, so...getting closer! And while I'm ruminating on it, I'll go ahead and add in the new variables we'll be needing for the social power thingamabob....
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Today's progress:
* Added terrain variables to all province objects. Terrain will come in three basic flavors (hills, plains, and forest), and will be used to determine terrain bonuses and penalties for armies.
* Reduced the Merc. Appearance. I had originally set it to 15. Now 10 (this will actually be tweaked on a per province basis, but for now, they're 10 across the board--some provinces have a more mercenary history than others, and this will be reflected by greater access to them).
* Added Resource variables to all provinces (this is for the resource component of the economic engine...pretty shortly, all provinces will have one or more resources to add to their income calculation routines).
* Toned down the power of "Binding Chant"
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
Today's progress:
Mostly, been wrestling with the social power matrix today.
Got it installed in 7 of the province objects, but have no real way to test it until I can get them coded for all the objects, which could take some number of days.
And apologies if there are any typeos here...my evening meds have kicked in, and one off the things we have discovefd about that is the fact that when themeds kick it into high gear, my concentration goes, and without that...poof. My eyes betray me, leters flip and swirl all around the page, and I lose all ability to read. So...I can';t honestly say that what I'll see here when I look tomorrow will be anything I'm mproud of, but I'll give it a go! In any case, got a LOT of work done on the model, and am trying to develop methodologies to streamline the process. Gettin' there!
-=Vel=-
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
Moderator
of Candle'Bre
|
Apr 1999
time: 19:34
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
