Winnihym

Join Date 03/2006

+17

Economy and Time to build

Folks,

Is there a place we're having the economy discussion on the forums that I'm missing? I'm interested in getting some more specific information on how exactly "time to build" is being calculated now that we've abandoned direct resourcing as a limiter to building buildings.

On a related note, can we get a mouseover that lets us know how resources are being allocated? I can see that I may have 2 iron, 3 wood, 25 food, or whatever, but those numbers don't seem to be changing, and I'm not sure what they're being used for (I was assuming that they were affecting my build times, but a little experimentation found that not to be the case).

The economy, currently, is very much a black box to me, and I'd like to start peering under that hood a little bit.

Winnihym

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Right now every city, no matter the size, takes five turns to build a house, six to build a market, right? I'm pretty sure nothing but the food- and gold-producing part of the economy is implemented yet. I don't see much use talking about it until it is.

I do look forward to it being useful to harness the other resources, though!

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In fact the resources system work. If you mouse over the time needed for a building you will see what it needs.

For instance a house need 5 workforce. You can't go lower that number of turn (at the moment. Maybe a letr build will allow us to decrease that number)

But ! Some buildings need workforce AND lumber like the watch tower. If you don't have any lumber mill it will take 36 turns to build a wtach tower : 15 workforce + 16 lumber. If you don't have the resource it is replaced by workforce. If you have the resource, for instance 4 lumber, it will need 15 workforce + 12 lumber (4 lumber already there) = 27 turns.

Try it : buid a watch tower without any lumbermill constructed, then build acity near forest, build two lumbermill, then a watch tower. If you click on the watchtower before the lumber mills are built, then the game will calculate the long number of turns. But as soon as the lumber mills are built, the turns needed for the watchtower will decrease.

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Ah, I'll have to look out for that, thanks VC

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So, the function for resources right now is to buy down production time on a 1 for 1 basis; one workforce for one resource? VC, have you had a chance to see if the ore resource is working too? I can't get enough stability yet to get to the advanced armors, so I'd be interested if the same thing is working for the other resource in game now.

Does the computation handle caravans correctly yet? If a caravan carrying 4 wood hits a town building a watch tower, does it drop the build time of the tower 4 turns when it arrives?

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So per Vieux's prompting, I've noticed that a couple of structures require lumber, but can still be built at a turn penalty. I'd like to see more buildings that require lumber if that's the way they're going to use it. I don't want Elemental to become Firaxis' Colonization, though. If you're going to be warehousing multiple resources, you might as well be playing Caesar III: way too complex.

I think that EWoM would do better to have lumber mills provide a production benefit to certain classes of buildings, marble quarries for palaces, stone for something else, etc.

Or under the current system, it would also be cool to be able to make a treaty ask another empire to provide X marble to you for X turns, the amount of turns it would take to complete a palace or whatever. Maybe it's a little too "Settlers of Catan" but it could work! It would require a Diplomatic research topic that not everyone would care to pursue.

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The current system is really perfect. No stockpiling, easy to understand exchange rate (1 on 1).

And ore does work : if you want to build an army with swords, plate mail and so on, you'll take forever (even with barracks) if you don't have some ore.

The only thing i'm not sure about is the way caravans work. Because it seems they deposit things, but they aren't stockpiled. So it may be remnants of the ancient implementation of the economic system. Anyway I should try something like that : build a unit with lot of "ore-related" things in a town with no ore. But with a road to a city with ore. And see if the unit production is boosted when the caravan get in town.

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I have been using Peasant Builds to notice the often subtle differences. With every new Tech under the Military Tree that I research, I add whatever component becomes available to see how the Turns to Build (TTB) is affected.

I have not been documenting the changes per say but will do so for the next little while as next Beta update won't until after the DGC is over, and the lads/lasses have a chance to recoup.

I have definitely seen changes (or appearances of TTB changes) to Peasant TTB's as a Towns gets more Military Tech, Barracks/Forges etc. but will monitor more closely to see if some definitive #'s can be had.

Yes those # will change a thousand times as we move forward but it would be nice to have a base set to use as comparison for possible Balancing in the future.

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Quoting vieuxchat,

reply 6

And ore does work : if you want to build an army with swords, plate mail and so on, you'll take forever (even with barracks) if you don't have some ore.

Ahh, understood. Because of the way combat works right now, I've never needed units beyond Patchwork armor to defend my cities and usually don't need anyone but my Sovereign and his kids to conquer the enemies

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Exactly : if you don't build things that need special resources .. then you only need time to train your unit (some equipments raise the time needed for the training, not because of resources like a sword need ore, but because the unit need to learn how to use that special equipment)

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Maybe it's a little too "Settlers of Catan" but it could work!

I love that game!

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