Water: the essence of life

from Elemental Forums

Below is my further refined version of population growth model

  1. Material can be globally stockpiled, including food and prestige
  2. 1 pop consume 1 food, 1 prestige and water per turn.  Thereby, current population of your empire = current per turn food, water and/or prestige production, whichever is the lowest.
  3. max population of each city is further restrained by the max capacity of local housing
  4. High prestige slows pop lost, hasten pop growth, but the equilibrium mentioned above will be eventually reached without player's intervention

Food and prestige is globally stockpileable (sorry Brad.. I am trying to find if there is a good way to do it, without causing internally created food crisis).  Whenever there is sudden production deficit of life sustaining resource (food/water/prestige), population decline even if you have already  stockpiled what is lacked.   

However, there is a empirewide button that "distribute stockpiled Food/Prestige" to where it is needed.   The pop drop will halt almost immediately as long as your stockpile is not depleted.  It is a one button 'starvation crisis management'.  This, hopefully, should not be considered as micromanagement.

Resources stockpiled can be used for trading, and especially used for supplying your army ration.   Some simplistic supply mechanism should be in for EWOM, and food is essential part of it.

Ok, above is just the basis of this post.  Below let's talk about water.

Water production (supply) is instantly perishable so it cannot be stockpiled locally nor globally.   When you spend 5 essence, the land is imbued with water supply that is sufficient for a L3 (for example) city max.   If that city is next to a river, it may reaches L4 (building aquaduct to help etc etc).  Or some fraction consume less than 1 water unit per turn, so it may even reaches L4 population level.  

Spending 1 essence starting a city give you only enough water supply for a L1.  In case you want to develop it to a L3 (& onwards), more than 4 essence will needed to be spent.  You need more essence to make the already habituated land more fertile.

Water supply is displayed in the 'local warehouse' of each city.  Farming uses water, so food production consume and compete with its local population.   It will be displayed as water production vs consumed per turn at the local warehouse.    During siege, river can be re-routed, adding extra dimension to the game.

(Optional) The 'fertile' land eventually expands.   Cities while can develop on the new land, but its water supply will not be as good, may be the water supply is only sufficient for L1 halmets. 

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

  Sorry Climber I don't think I'm really understanding your intent here and want to give you some constructive feedback.  Only thing I can think of atm is that when the Soverign imbues the land to make a city, the water in that area becomes cleansed as well.  This would allow for wells, dams(they had these in ancient times as well-so historically we have had them; ie real life), creeks, streams, rivers and lakes of fresh potable(drinking) water.  And like you said "Farming uses water".  As far as Prestige being a global resource that you can save doesn't make sense to me but maybe you can give another illustration as to why we would want that?  For me, prestige is something you receive for doing said action/inaction and not something you can decide when and where you use it.  It is more of others perception in what actions you take or don't take.

  "Your actions speak louder than words."  That sums up Prestige to me.  Maybe help me get beyond that idea..?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

This seems like adding complexity for complexity's sake. Having to manage Food & Water instead of just food. Plus the whole different essence cost approach.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Ok.  I am puttng fusing several suggestions together in 1 post.  Without focusing in one particular idea, it can be confusing.  So let me elaborate the main point of the idea.


So far, food and prestige cannot be stored/accumulated globally in beta.   I want that changed.   If they can be stockpiled, it mean it can be traded or used for real special occasions.


While suggesting any new feature will surely increase complexity of the game, I think the OP additions are worth the trouble, as it is easy to grasp and execute.   I have kept this in mind when suggesting OP.

One thing I think is missing from the current system is city placement decisions having a larger impact.  Currently, all i need to do is build a city close-ish to a resource or two, and I can make the city awesome if I choose to put the population there.  Perhaps there needs to be a mechanic in place that requires certain characteristics of the surrounding countryside of a city to make people want to settle there.  Meaning, not Every city is able to be housed up to lvl 5, rather a mix of huosing + gographical features are required to get a city beyond lvl 3.
End of quote

Quoting Frogboy, reply 25

I think that could be resolved by looking to the real world: Water.
Lack of access to water, particularly fresh water has been the key limiter historically.
Right now, because the river system is being redone, the world doesn't have rivers in it. But it will in Beta 3 again.
Thus, you could have some sort of sanitation system (Aqueducts, Wells, etc.) could be improvements that show up only for level 3 and higher cities and provide a % bonus to existing housing and they can only be placed on tiles that have access to water. No water, no Aqueduct. No Aqueduct, getting to higher populations much harder.
End of Frogboy's quote


I believe if water is considered in EWOM, there can be more entertaining way to implement than what Frogboy mentioned. 


Water should be locally stockpilable and perish instantly.  What I mean is the production of water is restricted mostly to the ground beneath the city.  If it is not used locally now, it is quickly evaporated.  And it is economically infeasible to transport freshwater, so it exist only in the city's 'local warehouse' (very different from food or other materials).   Citizen drink 1 unit of water per turn.   If there is insufficient water supply, people leave the city.  Similar to houses in this context, it limits the population of any city.  But different to houses/food/prestige, you cannot 'build' water supply.

In the OP, I imply the reason why there is water underground is because the SOV spend the essence to create it.   But the quantity depends on how much essence is spent.   This require an interesting decision when player first establish a city.   If you don't think this city will ever become L5 city, only spend a small amount of essence is needed.  This city will not have enough water to grow beyond, say, L3.   If somehow thisdecision was wrong, you want to have it grow to L5 instead, much more essence is needed to improve water supply later.

The most common and main form of freshwater supply is river.  River can be fun if there are some means to dam it, re-route it, build water channels, by either mandune or magical means.   OTOH, if river/freshwater have no impact to the population in the world of EWOM, there is no point to implement sophisticated river manipulation mechanisms.