[0.983] Crystal income

from Elemental Forums

Now Crystal Quarry gives only 0.5 Crystal per season. You need 15 Crystals to build Ash Mage. So you should wait 30 seasons to build Ash Mage. It is too long. Ash Mage don't worth waiting 30 seasons. You need also Crystal Mine to speed up the process. Crystal Mine gives additional 0.5 Crystal per season but costs 270 production. It is too long for the effect. Imho Crystal Quarry should give 1-2 Crystal per season. Consequently, Crystal cost in Gildar should be reduced in diplomacy to prevent disbalance.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Consequently, Crystal cost in Gildar should be reduced in diplomacy to prevent disbalance.
End of quote

Dafuq. 

Crystal is hard to mine, requires infrastructure investment and is indispensable for advanced troop production. :yes:

Ergo, we need to make the AI value it less?!  :omg:

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 1
Ergo, we need to make the AI value it less?!
End of Tuidjy's quote

Its a trap!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 1

Consequently, Crystal cost in Gildar should be reduced in diplomacy to prevent disbalance.

Dafuq. 

Crystal is hard to mine, requires infrastructure investment and is indispensable for advanced troop production.

Ergo, we need to make the AI value it less?! 
End of Tuidjy's quote

Trying to explain: Now Crystal Quarry gives 0.5 Crystal per season. I suggest Crystal Quarry should give 1-2 Crystal per season. So sell price of 1 Crystal should be reduced in diplomacy. Otherwise Crystal Quarry is super gildar mine.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top


Would hate it.

Rather reduce what they give you per turn. I tend to build out iron and crystal mines rather late and not prioritizing those buildings early on. It should be something you'd like to build out as early as possible, to start storing up sufficent amounts, making it a harder priority next to other early buildings for the cities.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonius_, reply 3
Trying to explain: Now Crystal Quarry gives 0.5 Crystal per season. I suggest Crystal Quarry should give 1-2 Crystal per season. So sell price of 1 Crystal should be reduced in diplomacy. Else Crystal Quarry is super gildar mine.
End of harmonius_'s quote

But you gain gildar now, gildar is fairly easy to get access to, the AI gets access to precious crystals, the player with the most amount of crystals will control the most magically boosted army, therefore its a fair trade, and can be pretty stupid to trade crystals to any AI player which have none, since now they will also control better military...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonius_, reply 3
Trying to explain: Now Crystal Quarry gives 0.5 Crystal per season. I suggest Crystal Quarry should give 1-2 Crystal per season. So sell price of 1 Crystal should be reduced in diplomacy. Otherwise Crystal Quarry is super gildar mine.
End of harmonius_'s quote

I am not sure whether the crystal mining income should be increased. My gut actually agrees with you.  But even if it were to be increased, that still would not mean that we have to make the AI value it less.

You can get a lot of Gildar in the early game when the AI has no stores. But it is a terrible idea to do so.  When the AI gives you 200 Gildar for 10 loads of crystal, it is cheating the hell out of you.  50 turns later, when you have use for that crystal, you will be able to get 200 Gildars easily from taxes... but those 10 crystal will be unobtainable, because both you and the AI will have use for them, and no reserves.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 7

I am not sure whether the crystal mining income should be increased. My gut actually agrees with you.  But even if it were to be increased, that still would not mean that we have to make the AI value it less.

You can get a lot of Gildar in the early game when the AI has no stores. But it is a terrible idea to do so.  When the AI gives you 200 Gildar for 10 loads of crystal, it is cheating the hell out of you.  50 turns later, when you have use for that crystal, you will be able to get 200 Gildars easily from taxes... but those 10 crystal will be unobtainable, because both you and the AI will have use for them, and no reserves.
End of Tuidjy's quote

AI should not value crystal less, but AI should not buy crystal for high prices. Some players don't use trained units at all. So these players can use Crystal Quarry as super gildar mine in early game.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harmonius_, reply 8
AI should not value crystal less, but AI should not buy crystal for high prices. Some players don't use trained units at all. So these players can use Crystal Quarry as super gildar mine in early game.
End of harmonius_'s quote

So? If the AI needs the crystal, and a player is willing to sell it for a price advantageous to the AI, why the Hell does anyone care that the player is getting some extra income?

By the way, the developers are making decent progress toward making the game pretty much require trained troops on large maps at difficulties at and above Ridiculous.  They are not there yet, but they are getting there.  Selling crystal for cash is becoming more and more of a bad decision.  I know, I did it in my last play-through, and it was a mistake.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Some players play on Medium and Small maps. So they don't need trained units.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top


I would leave crystal as is and rebalance on the other end. If Ash Mage is not worth 15 crystal and Stardock is aware, they'll look at reducing crystal requirements to 10.

On a side note, someone with a great deal more beta testing experiance than I should go through all the units that can be built and judge whether their crystal and metal and production amounts are weighted appropiately for their power. Might be somewhat awkward to do considering that troops are not cost effective at the moment, but it would be an interesting starting point.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

I agree with the current 0.5 crystal. It is like the 0.5 horses you get when building stables and NOT HAVING the Mounted technology. The iron mine I think it is the same, but can't remember.It should be the same anyway.

In fact, I even would lower it to 0.4, so if you want more, then you must do the research. That means, that without proper technology, big part of the resources are wasting on the process of getting them, or on the other side, even being ignorant on how to harvest, you still can get a little of resources.

 

Talking about resources costs, the problem I see is that the requeriments in crystals/iron is not well implemented.  An axe 2 iron, and a sword only 1?  Or the helmet, 2 iron for 2 defense, but the shield 2 iron for 3 defense? Sorry if that is not correct numbers, I can't remember now, but I realized of that... Maybe they should introduce decimals in the requeriments to make items more balanced cost-benefit,. For example, 2.1 an axe and 1.6 a sword... But that...it is more a tweeking...