Planning for D6

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks for implementing that request so fast! Now, is there a way to tell it Not to cycle? Sometimes you want to move through the TFs (ideally in some kind of order relative to geography) and sometime you want to do it by hand and then activate moving through TFs when you think you're done. (Just an idea, doesn't need to go in D5).

Unit / Command hookups.
I think Commands for different geographic sectors is the right way to go. But IMO when a unit is born it should register with 'Central Command' that is responsible for the whole civ military. Then Central can interpret arbitrarily complicated orders to it to assign the unit to whichever Command best suits it. Those Commands will know where they want to assemble units or whatever. I still don't think the economy should have anything to do with it, although passing econ an order isn't too revolting.

[Gary Thomas]

Thanks for implementing that request so fast! Now, is there a way to tell it Not to cycle? Sometimes you want to move through the TFs (ideally in some kind of order relative to geography) and sometime you want to do it by hand and then activate moving through TFs when you think you're done. (Just an idea, doesn't need to go in D5).

There is a button on the button bar that says "Next TF". If you click on it, the next task force is selected, changing squares if necessary.

The sort order is left to right by squares, then top to bottom. Within a square the order is the order they appear in the TF box. So, if the first TF in the box is selected, it will move to the second, and so forth.

Unit / Command hookups.
I think Commands for different geographic sectors is the right way to go. But IMO when a unit is born it should register with 'Central Command' that is responsible for the whole civ military. Then Central can interpret arbitrarily complicated orders to it to assign the unit to whichever Command best suits it. Those Commands will know where they want to assemble units or whatever. I still don't think the economy should have anything to do with it, although passing econ an order isn't too revolting.

I agree entirely. However, until we get Central Control (I prefer General Staff, or some such term) going, my suggestion gives a quicker way to implement it. However, there are GUI issues.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Gary: Sounds Great on handling TF moves! On the other, I didn't realize you were just talking temporary hacks. In the short term I don't have any problem with orders piggybacking on the econ stuff.

Laurent:

I will soon be making modifications as a first shot at the economy supporting units. For now it will just be a civ-wide support. I had in mind that there is a need for each unit of a certain amount of supplies. Since what I am doing now is just temporary, I think the supply needed can just be Money. What I need (it may already be in there) is a way to let the troops know how much they are being paid, and change their combat strength and movement effectiveness appropriately. Troops will all be paid at an identical pay % for now, so if you can just ask the CivEconomy what the troop pay rate is using float getMilitaryPayRatePercentage() that should be all you need from me. For now I will just have it return 100 (percent), and modify it to something better as soon as practical.

For now my notion is effectiveness should go from full at 100% pay to 1/4 at 0% pay. I want to still leave some effectiveness at 0, and since this is temporary I've just picked a number.

[Mark_Everson]

One more D6 issue:

I am hoping to be able to use the technology interface as a template for the forthcoming econ interface. For my own selfish purposes, it would then be best for you (Gary) to bring the whole tech model into the D6 framework (albeit in an inert fashion for now). That way when I steal part of the design to implement the econ interface, it'd be sure that all the support stuff for NamedObject etc (that I'm sure I won't really understand) is there. Please let me know if you think this is practical in the short term, or would best be put off till later.

[LDiCesare]

Mark, is there any maintenance interface in the econ code? I was wondering, since infrastructure probably has the same problems of funding as the military, so there should be something in common: Since I am splintering Army into several interfaces, I don't really know where the upkeep cost should go. I am planning to leave it at the lowest level only.
I currently (as of D5) have an upkeep() method, which can call your method, but is not called today. I'd like to have a run of infrastructure upkeep at the beginning or end of each turn, so I could upkeep the armies, and probably also infrastructure could be attended to at that time. Does that sound sensible?
It would mean registering the armies at the econ level, but I think that will be needed in order for the econ to know what to pay.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Laurent:

Infrastructure doesn't have anything like you're looking for. It decays automatically, so if you don't build replacements, it eventually fades away. For that reason I don't think there is any advantage to handling unit upkeep and infra upkeep together.

If you want your upkeep() method to do the work, that works for me! What I am setting up is just temporary anyway. I think in the long term, the Command for an army should place orders for supplies to go various places. Then the Econ model (thru merchants) will satify those orders. But IMO there should not be a direct supply connection between provinces and units, because it may be more natural for a completely different province to supply a certain unit. You don't want to send food half way around the world when you can purchase it locally .

[Gary Thomas]

I am hoping to be able to use the technology interface as a template for the forthcoming econ interface. For my own selfish purposes, it would then be best for you (Gary) to bring the whole tech model into the D6 framework (albeit in an inert fashion for now). That way when I steal part of the design to implement the econ interface, it'd be sure that all the support stuff for NamedObject etc (that I'm sure I won't really understand) is there. Please let me know if you think this is practical in the short term, or would best be put off till later.

The tech stuff can go in right now. It is self-sufficient. The only reason I didn't include it in D5 is that there is a technology object in the model already and I didn't know whether it did anything. I don't think it does.

On another topic, I would like to get rid of the terrain class. At present, as far as I can tell, its only function is to provide resources to the economics model. If specific terrain is intended to automatically provide resources, then this fact should be built into the new terrain code, which is much more complex and sophisticated than the old one.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Gary:

Great news, bring that Tech on. I never heard back from you on the email I sent about how to get rid of Terrain. I think the ball is in your court on that one.

Army maintenance:

I have added an infrastructure class that supports the troops civ-wide called Army Supply. (this is just temporary till Merchants come on line) Laurent, in addition to my previous requests to enable crude troop support, I need a way to figure how many need support. My best guess is that we should just require X amount of Army Support per element. Element because I wouldn't want to charge by unit, and have a unit with only a single element left pay full freight. Is there something in there already to do this? Ideally I'd just like a getMilitaryManpower() method in Civ that could just give manpower (or # of elements) so I could go ahead and finish this part off.

[Gary Thomas]

OK, I have:

• Carefully read your email
• Checked out the Resource class
• Checked out the ResourceInfo class
• Thought

The structure of the information (as opposed to the code) is very similar to that for terrain.

I have two questions:

• Do you mind if I refactor the resource material along the same pattern as my terrain classes, building to an easily useable interface?
• Do certain types of terrain automatically have associated resources?

This will give me the information I need to kill the old terrain classes.

I do, however, feel that the resource material is properly part of the economics model (and hence, in D6 will go into game.economics).

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

Army support:
Each element has an ElementCost which can bear the info. It is a little better than a straight X per element, since it depends on the element cost and can take training into account. I'll try to compute the lump sum in a civ-wide method.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Laurent, that sounds great.

Gary, your approach is fine by me.

Do certain types of terrain automatically have associated resources?

Well Everything automatically has a value for the basics: farm, and [natural] resources. Other than the basics the quick answer is no. For specials, their appearance will be correlated with terrain (or landform, whatever the right term is). However mountains, although more likely to have Gold, Tin, etc. aren't guaranteed to have them.

[Gary Thomas]

Three of the resources are "res", "prod", and "serv". While "prod" is a word, it is unlikely to be the full name of a resource. So I imagine that these are abbreviations. Of what?

The "farm" resource presumably doesn't produce farms. Does the economics model establish the kind of products per resource, depending on the resource, or what?

Farm production is likely to be related to the kind of terrain and the type of land cover (as described in the Terrain thread ), and hence be tied to a LandForm, LandCover combination.

Is there provision for forestry?

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

The names are used to map which economic sector the resource belongs to. "prod" means production, i.e. manufactured goods. But as I thought I said in the email I sent you, all that are needed is
1. "res" meaning natural reources (including forrestry, mining, etc.)
2. "farm" meaning farmland.
3. Those associated with specials, which for now are only Gold Mining, but I'll be putting some others in soon.

You can change the names to be full names if you like, and I'll work around it. I want to go to better names eventually anyway.

Does the economics model establish the kind of products per resource, depending on the resource, or what?

If I haven't answered this question then you need to reword it, since I'm not sure what you mean.

LandCover etc.: So long as I can get the info I need (sites for X kind of resource) from the interface, by getResourceValue(square, resourceName) or some such, I expect you will put them wherever you think are appropriate.

I hope I've given you what you need!

[Gary Thomas]

1. "res" meaning natural reources (including forrestry, mining, etc.)
2. "farm" meaning farmland.
3. Those associated with specials, which for now are only Gold Mining, but I'll be putting some others in soon.

Since these are number of sites, I will name them accordingly:

Forests, Farms, Mines, all of which can extend Sites.

On the other hand, isn't GoldMine a mine?

I notice that you use strings to identify the resource type. Can't you use the class itself, if I provide a static instance of each type. Perhaps the best way to see how this works is to look at game.model.military.Category class.

If you are only interested in the number of sites, I don't need my question about products answered.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
On the other hand, isn't GoldMine a mine?

Yes, but all mines don't have gold so I think the simplest way to handle specials is to make them have dedicated sites for just them.

I notice that you use strings to identify the resource type. Can't you use the class itself, if I provide a static instance of each type. Perhaps the best way to see how this works is to look at game.model.military.Category class.

My problem with that is there will be 30, 40 or 50 specials by the time we're done. I frankly think its silly to have a class for each. Also its just not resources. The whole econ system runs using strings, and I really don't want to redo all that. There will be perhaps 30 infrastructure classes plus one for each type of unit, I don't want to have to make a class for each!

You can try further to 'educate' me, but Its going to be a hard sell.