DESIGN: Economy/resource system thoughts

[Maquiladora]

I can see what hes saying, but i dont like the idea of gold being magically turned into science by some internal calculation, why not just make Trade, Commerce driven and be done with it?

[Ekmek]

I like the resource consumption system. But to prevent the spreadsheet disease perhaps strategic resources should be introduced through techs at various ages. About 1 or 2 per age (moddable of course)
example: ancient is horse and Iron
middle ages wood (for larger ships, i like the forest idea)
industrial coal
modern oil and uranium

of course we can work on this, but introducing a few at a time will allow the player to adjust to the resource and get a feel how to manage it instead of throwing a lot on them at once. As they adjust to it, it wont be a spreadsheet and besides people have been able to cope with RTS games.

Luxuries could work as Locutus said I think with a consumption based on population points. But I think it should be a one max, market saturation thing.

For trade I like MrBaggins stuff, but also maybe an open market system like you see in RTS's to buy goods too at a higher rate etc so you arent totally screwed. Also the ability of certain technologies to increase the profitability of trade.

I like the wonders goods system, yeah it might make things too complex or unbalancing. But if they are small bonus's like armor etc and they only last a few 20 turns, a high expense extraction rate or consumption rate (unless its just a simple all get it ala Civ3), it would add to the risk element when fighting or a bonus in war either defense or you got to use it now in offense. A random appearance upon a certain tech could make it a usefule code especially if people have acces to SLIC it for fantasy mods or something.


OVERALL, these features should not be the cornerstone of the game but an additional feature. Or an economic victory route.

Yeah you need some resources but implement a three times more expensive system. Or if anything have it direct the player more, letting the AI get bonus resources periodically instead of trying to get them thinking.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I can see what hes saying, but i dont like the idea of gold being magically turned into science by some internal calculation, why not just make Trade, Commerce driven and be done with it?

Well... you don't want regular internal trade to be commerce driven. Its too powerful and the human will have the advantage. The point is restricting the science benefit to international routes.

[Maquiladora]

Yeah id agree with that, otherwise the human would never need to trade outside its borders or even to interact with the AI. Having said that, there needs to be some kind of advantage to trade internally, or would internal trade routes be took out completely?

[Solver]

Internal trade routes are advantageous because you don't have to maintain a good relationship with anyone for them.

[MrBaggins]

No. Keep the current system (for internal trade routes) or thereabouts. You get gold for it. Which might be worthwhile, depending on how you rebalanced the valuation system of gold.

[Maquiladora]

Yes, rebalancing the value of gold in CTP2 is especially important.

[MrBaggins]

I was thinking about gold rebalancing briefly this afternoon.

The issue is that gold and science have parity (income is split amongst those dependent on your slider) and is 1:1 before mods.

Science has relatively large goals, for each advance. Gold is naturally abundant because of this.

We could rebalance by:

* reducing the base gold gained from income by a certain factor
* increase the city improvement maintainance cost for science buildings SIGNIFICANTLY
* have equivalent gold support requirements for each units IN ADDITION to shields. (E.G. a unit with a 5 shield maintainance cost, would cost 5 shields, 5 gold)

[Ekmek]

No one commented on my two cents, but another possibility i thought of is that if we have a consumption system with a market to trade goods, micromangaing could be reduced by having an economics minister like a governor that purchases on the market to meet your needs without you having to do it all the time. the result is that your gold would go down.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
* have equivalent gold support requirements for each units IN ADDITION to shields. (E.G. a unit with a 5 shield maintainance cost, would cost 5 shields, 5 gold)

Too simulate logistics you can also increase this rate per unit when they are outside your borders. i.e. for every 5 tiles away the cost doubles. Or something like that. The AI wont know this so you might have to give it "free gold" but it'll be a challenge to the player and make it harder to send a chariot from china to europe.

Certain techs like (logistics, force protection), alliances, and improvements like airports (called depots) could reduce it. For the AI have the computer give it extra cash so its not limited.

I know this is for a logistics thread but relates to economics.

[MrBaggins]

I think that focusing on logistics is an unnecessary complication. Unit support is an abstract way of representing it. I think that not including gold in the equation is a mistake. I don't know that we need to go so far as increasing support costs.

[Straybow]

resource comments

Solver
Through the ages, though, there should be upgrades to those terrain improvements like Iron Mines, that increase the output of a strategic resource.

Historically, new sources of known resources get discovered within settled territory, especially in existing mines. For example, just before the Renaissance there was a huge silver deposit discovered in Geisenthal. In the early 1900s a huge iron ore source was found in Michigan. Just a few years ago a huge nickel source was found on the coast of Labrador. All these locations had been extensively prospected or even mined before.

New resources are frequently found alongside existing resources. Up until the late 19th century platinum was unknown or had no commercial value. When that changed for whatever reason, mining towns and roads in Bolivia were literally paved with platinum ore which had been discarded from the tin and copper mines. Tailings of ancient mines were often the best sources for "new" minerals.

If you build a standard mine, say, you get 12 units of Iron from that source – and the standard Mine production increase for the tile. Or, you can build an Iron Mine there, and get 15 units of Iron, but no production increase. This will add the necessity of deciding between higher production and higher amounts of strategic resources.

The way CtP2 does improvements, farming/mining/commerce are exclusive activities. If you don't mine a tile you get only the nominal value of production or any special minerals. That's already enough of a strategic decision. You might find that your tile with a commerce improvement has the new resource, and without a mine you only get a trickle of it. If the tile already has a mine, no new PW has to be added to mine the new resource.

The way to add a strategic element is to have prospecting as a PW. New resources only appear if you prospect for them (subject to whatever selection process is used to distribute the resources on the map).

Locutus
…you could for example (temporarily) extract 40 units of Iron per turn instead of the usual 20, but this would also deplete the stock of Iron resource at a rate of 80 units per turn.

What causes this mystery waste; are they in such a hurry half the ore falls off the carts? Gaia takes away the resources because the naughty humans aren't in balance with nature?

New technologies however could not only be used to increase the output of a resource, but also it's total amount (i.e. you'd become more effective at extracting the resource, loosing less to waste and stuff).

"Depletion" is entirely dependent on tech. Flooding is the number one problem with deep mines. It doesn't matter how much is down there if you can't get to it. The steam pump made sites long abandoned productive again. Electrical power made even deeper mining possible. Industrialization made ever bigger mining equipment possible, opening played-out deep mines to pit mining techniques profitable at low ore concentrations. Now modern processing techniques can profitably extract Cu, Ag, Au and "trace" metals at concentrations so miniscule they can barely be classified as ore at all.

My idea: if you produce 20 units of Ivory in your empire, you could create +20 happiness with it, but at a rate of +1 happiness per pop… However, you could also decide to set up 2 trade routes with two size 5 cities and export 5 units to each (keeping 10 units for the original city). …Note that I would use trade routes here rather than a road network, in more or less the same form in which they already exist in CtP2 now, with routes that can be set up and pirated and everything.

Trade routes, plus separate trade routes for each type of special resource or even for each special resource individually? On top of that, micromanaging the quantities in each route? Lord, deliver us from evil!

Even if you have 0 Oil resources, you should IMHO still be able to build units that ordinairily require Oil, only they should be a lot more expensive in terms of regular shields (and maybe have slightly inferior stats or something).

Special resources should represent unusual marketable quantities, like the massive oil fields of Texas, Persian Gulf, etc. But there are usually quantities sufficient for limited (ie military) use widely available. For example, the Japanese home islands are just too small to offer them a representative sampling of mineral resources. Any largish, geologically diverse country on Earth could sustain modest military oil requirements—the Poesti oil was enough to keep Hitler in fuel.

So this isn't only about realism, but also about gameplay. I don't like Civ3 where you almost have to fight over resources.

[Ekmek]

Fighting over resources? technically thats what you are fighting for by going after cities.

I thikn the resource system should be added, in order to add an economic path to the game. As it is now the only reason to trade or develop science is inorder to build a bbg army and conquer everyone which gets old fast.

ctp2 has the potential now to be many games in one, and whenyou start it, it shouldnt be obvious what you are going to do in the end but something you have to decide as you go down your civlization's path of history... add an economic path, with trade and resources.

[The Big Mc]

i would go for upgrades

a city that makes a battle curser with a supply of uranium would be able to build a slightly faster battle cruiser

However if you did nor have uranium you would get a slandered battle crusher which would be a few movement points a turn slower

This would force the player to try to take a city with uranium if they were a major navel power

[Ekmek]

It sounds resonable and doesnt close out units for a lack of resource. o in this case I guess resources would merely be a bonus/wonder good. i.e. increased speed, attack, build speed, etc. for units or improvements.