jecjackal

Join Date 04/2009

Production Thoughts

When I play a game of Elemental, I get the feeling that it is a little too "chunky". What i'm referring to is the fact that all of the changes in the game, whether they are technology upgrades, or production come in rather large chunks. Technologies take a while to research and give large changes (in most cases) and units take a while to build. Here are some thoughts on the matter.

Production

Currently each city can build 1 building at a time and concurrently train 1 unit at a time. I feel that especially large cities should be capable of doing more than the smaller outposts. I realize that the barracks, and some other upgrades are designed to reduce training time and give larger cities superiority in the unit production capability but the fact remains that a well placed outpost is worth more than an upgraded city. The outpost will get reinforces to the front quicker. To this end I would suggest 1 of two approaches.

Method 1: Multiple Build Queues

A technology will unlock something called a "Training Ground" This would allow the city to train multiple units at one time (1 additional per training ground). This should have a large citizen cost as well as upkeep cost to ensure it is not abused. This would allow for bigger armies to be assembled putting some more War into Elemental: War of Magic.

The major problem with this approach is that it would be code intensive to implement. Thats why I came up with my alternative below

Method 2: Production Resource

I have played sword of the stars recently and I love how they produce things in that game. A planet has so much resources to spend on production. You could say build 1/3 of a dreadnought, 1 cruiser or 3 escorts in a turn. What was nice was you were not capped at producing only a single vessel a turn, allowing for a spam tactic if desired.

To adopt this to elemental, we could add a city resource known as production. This could start at 1. Then if the user builds a "Training Grounds" they would increase their production by 1.

This would allow for some larger cities to produce units quicker especially if they are specialized in military production.
It would also give another repeatable building to be constructed beyond labs and libraries.
It also would be less code intensive than the first method.

Anyway just some thoughts.

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I'd suggest a tech that reduces the time to complete structures, or train units. This SHOULD be something that could be done via modding.

example: Construction time/2.

This might accomplish what you have in mind sorta kinda, without extensive recoding. Something for me to ponder once I get caught up with my own mods. Heavenfall, etc. might have an idea how to do this though!

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I can't say that I agree with the OP. I think that build and training times are a bit quick to begin with, and this is only exacerbated by various spells and buildings. It takes the same amount of time to build a major building as it does for many units to walk a screen away to the next town over. Granted, I generally play on a modified Epic setting...

Problem for me is, with a very quick training time, who cares if you lose an army? By the time your enemy marches to a city, you have a new one trained. Anyway, I understand that it's a personal preference, but... I sure hope that the devs don't go any further towards the quick production and building.

To answer your question explicitly, there are lots of spells and buildings that reduce training and build times.

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Quoting LightofAbraxas,

reply 2

I concur.

Several of the upgrade buildings increase building speed of both troops and buildings. There are also a couple spells that do the same. Because I personally view a silent build queue as wasted production, these are game components that I pointedly, never, ever use, and to speed up our already ludicrously fast production would be silliness at its highest.

Seriously, how many other 4x games allow you to build from 2 queues from the same production hub? Elemental is the first I can think of...

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Yeah, I really wish that there was a build time scalar similar to those in the tech and arcane tree. That would make it easier to mod this to personal preference.

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The unit groups are particularly time intensive for training. I play on epic as well as they forever to train. A group of 3 empire soldiers takes around 20 seasons to complete. I understand about the barracks, call to arms and the other method of producing troops faster but it is a little absurd at the moment.

I've never had to wait more than 5 turns for a huge hull ship in Gal Civ 2. This was because they took the production approach, not a time approach to training. What this approach does is allow for bigger armies. Right now after turn 100, gilder runaway occurs making gilder a non-factor. At least with larger armies, the upkeep would help keep it inline.

However I do understand that some people like the numbers as is. I think the suggestion to allow this to be modded would be best (I might even see if I could make a repeatable barracks or something).

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Now, the difference between two units, one untrained and one with basic training but otherwise identical, shouldn't be so big that the untrained guy doesn't stand a chance. he should be able to get lucky and kill the trained guy.

Maybe the training level could be tied to the level of the city in which the units are trained. So an outpost can only produce untrained units, and a level 4 can produce expert units.

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But if you only have 2 cities, reducing build times can be a lifesaver. I think they were put in to balance this. I do think a higher maintenance would be logical though.

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One way you can slow down unit production is to increase the time required for various pieces (armor, weapons, etc.) to be completed. Of course, this requires the editing of a LOT of items...

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Quoting Satrhan,

reply 6

Here's an idea; I've always found it a little odd that you can train 'veteran' troops. How about changing those options to training options? So the lowest level would be no training, basically giving your troops a weapon and shoving them out the door. Production time would be 1 turn, though maybe material costs would have some influence. Next would be basic training, where you take the time to explain how to hold the weapon and which end goes into the enemy. Next advanced training, and beyond that master/expert training.

Now, the difference between two units, one untrained and one with basic training but otherwise identical, shouldn't be so big that the untrained guy doesn't stand a chance. he should be able to get lucky and kill the trained guy.

Maybe the training level could be tied to the level of the city in which the units are trained. So an outpost can only produce untrained units, and a level 4 can produce expert units.

Sounds like a pretty solid idea to me. I also found it odd that there are veterancy and levels. You can have a level 4 elite soldier and a level 8 veteran soldier. This seems really odd to me.

In addition, it would be nice if health wasn't the sole difference in veterancy. Maybe increased accuracy/dodge or damage (not a huge amount per level of veterancy but enough that you can tell the difference).

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What I find odd about the "train as veteran/expert/elite" options isn't so much that it only increases the health but rather that it increases the health as much as it does. I think the health bonus is +50/100/150%, which meant that while I was playing around in the campaign I had some level ~8 regular troops who had LESS health than level 1 expert troops. I do not think that this is a good way to go about implementing this kind of thing. Perhaps having giving health bonuses worth an extra 2 or 3 levels, and reduce a little the amount of time required for the training. The health bonuses as they stand are currently a bit too much.

Also, I agree with jecjackal that having small accuracy/dodge/damage bonuses from veterancy would be nice.

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