Arcen Games

General Category => Skyward Collapse => : Mick May 07, 2013, 02:27:38 PM

: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 02:27:38 PM
I noticed you plan to remove chapmen in the next update. The reasons you lay out make a lot of sense.

I have to ask though, what is to prevent me from being all my red resources next to the blue town, and vice verca - thus providing convenient targets for the military to attack, while still providing resources until they convert to the other team?
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 02:28:51 PM
We are not done yet with the changes -- stay tuned. :)

The chapman removal is not the most severe change in some senses, although it is one of the two biggeset.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 02:30:28 PM
I can't help myself. I seek to exploit your game even when I'm not playing it.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 02:32:08 PM
Oh, it's a great thing.  And the reason for these changes is how exploity people have been with the basic economy in some circumstances.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Cinth May 07, 2013, 02:33:02 PM
I kinda saw this coming.  Economic strangulation through military action is fun but the player can kill the econ just as easily by not having enough producers/chapman.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 02:36:41 PM
Yep.  Next part:

* The distinction between "town buildings" and "resource buildings" has been completely removed.  Thus you now must place all of your buildings, period, within the two rings around a town.
** This makes for more opportunity cost with building placement, and keeps the towns more visually compact (and easier to target -- no hiding a rice field way off in the middle of nowhere, etc).
** This is also less confusing for new players to learn, as an added bonus, but honestly this is more about preventing exploits at a more experienced level of play.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 02:46:55 PM
I like this, I always wondered what the real incentive was to make more than one town, and now you will have to if you want to expand your economy.

It also makes it easier to find spots to place other towns, since they can't clash with resource buildings.

Will military units require that the entire 'supply-chain' be within that town's borders, or still only the finished goods? I think it would be cool if traders could have the purpose of expanding resource distribution between towns instead of just magically producing random goods out of thin air.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Cinth May 07, 2013, 02:49:31 PM
So each town gets 24 usable tiles.  That's pretty much forcing a lot of choices and multiple towns (can no longer place all buildings in one town).  Talk about needing to specialize?

Side note (something to consider maybe?), a 3 ring radius would give 48 usable tile spaces ((7*7)-1)) and would allow larger single TC games :)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: madcow May 07, 2013, 02:53:23 PM
Thank god. This is a great change. Will make things much less confusing. Also managing the chapman traffic jams I was getting was a pain.  Apparently plopping down a dozen chapman for one village was counter productive, who knew.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 02:54:18 PM
Will military units require that the entire 'supply-chain' be within that town's borders, or still only the finished goods? I think it would be cool if traders could have the purpose of expanding resource distribution between towns instead of just magically producing random goods out of thin air.

Nope, that's not changing, and really can't, because of all the direct actions that require resources.  Having to decide which town it takes the resources from is awkward as heck.  At any rate, so the finished goods distinction and so forth is staying.

So each town gets 24 usable tiles.  That's pretty much forcing a lot of choices and multiple towns (can no longer place all buildings in one town).  Talk about needing to specialize?

You bet, I'm super happy about this.  Originally we were going with one ring of just 9, but we shifted it to 2 rings because that's just too small.  But 24 has demonstrably been waaay too large without the resource buildings having to be in there.  This hits a pretty happy medium.  This is supposed to be a game about a countryside of towns, not cities or sprawling strip mining, heh.  The way that the games were looking was really far from what the goals had been envisioned for it...
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 02:57:07 PM
Honestly, I'd advocate for only allowing ONE ring of buildings! Really force you to choose, and having a town getting taken over can cripple a supply chain.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 02:59:06 PM
Honestly, I'd advocate for only allowing ONE ring of buildings! Really force you to choose, and having a town getting taken over can cripple a supply chain.

It sounds on paper like that would work, and it's what I originally wanted, but it isn't even possible to build military units that way -- too many buildings needed!  Two rings is still slightly generous even with the recent changes, but it's in a good range.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 03:03:21 PM
It sounds on paper like that would work, and it's what I originally wanted, but it isn't even possible to build military units that way -- too many buildings needed!  Two rings is still slightly generous even with the recent changes, but it's in a good range.

Hmm, what about something in the middle? The first town is a "capital" with two rings, but all the new towns only get a single ring.

Really stresses the importance of keeping that initial town for your faction, allows military units to be built (but on the outer towns you'd really only be able to support a few types) and provides a good 'base' for generating the needed resources on other towns.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 03:06:14 PM
If you do the math, it still doesn't work.  Just to build a barracks with any real function, you need (presuming resources like pig farms are elsewhere): a butcher, a smithy, and a barracks.  That's 1/3 of your tile cap right there.  If you need something else specialized like a smelter for steel, or a brewery for ale, then forget about it.  And so on.  Literally this is what we started with, but it was intensely uncomfortable as a way to play even to me.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Cinth May 07, 2013, 03:06:18 PM
You bet, I'm super happy about this.  Originally we were going with one ring of just 9, but we shifted it to 2 rings because that's just too small.  But 24 has demonstrably been waaay too large without the resource buildings having to be in there.  This hits a pretty happy medium.  This is supposed to be a game about a countryside of towns, not cities or sprawling strip mining, heh.  The way that the games were looking was really far from what the goals had been envisioned for it...
Funny how I seem to find ways to play your games in "unintended" ways ;)


@Mick: One ring gives you 8 usable tiles.  Marauders, for example, take a minimum of 5 buildings to produce.  They need more than that to produce one every turn.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Mick May 07, 2013, 03:07:50 PM
Alright alright, you convinced me!

I've never been able to build ale so I didn't really consider that.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Cinth May 07, 2013, 03:10:26 PM
Two real good things that this change hammers in are the resource chains and the division of raw/finished goods.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: iozay May 07, 2013, 03:10:57 PM
Too be honest, I personally had the habbit to make hidden backyard town(That was only accessable by passing a guard tower) after a huge path of straight tiles to hide my resources from the war :P It was my trick  to not lose if I was hiding a bit too much ^^

This makes things harder to protect though if you still wish to maintain an economy and might be risky in combination with crime. Let see how it works out :)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: PokerChen May 07, 2013, 04:51:34 PM
 Well, good riddance!

 Next step: manufacturing building are no longer capable of produce an infinite amount of the manufactured (local) resource on demand. You can no longer support 5 barracks with a single lvl 1 butcher, as it can only support a maximum of 40 resource conversions per turn (this means 40 pork from 20 pigs, enough to feed 2.86 soldiers). In order to increase capacity, you must either level up your buildings or build more of them in town.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 04:53:26 PM
Next step: manufacturing building are no longer capable of produce an infinite amount of the manufactured (local) resource on demand. You can thus no longer support 5 barracks with a single lvl 1 butcher. In order to increase capacity, you must either level up your buildings or build more of them in town.

I think that would be extremely confusing, especially when paired with the costs of things in the direct placement.  I think that limiting available space per town with the resource producers being a part of them will accomplish more or less the same thing, honestly.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: orzelek May 07, 2013, 04:58:55 PM
Are you planning to make upgrades increase raw resource production along with this?
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 05:00:32 PM
No, I don't think that's a good idea; I think that makes things too easy.  The only way I'd consider that is if we cut the baseline production pretty harshly.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: PokerChen May 07, 2013, 05:07:49 PM
Next step: manufacturing building are no longer capable of produce an infinite amount of the manufactured (local) resource on demand. You can thus no longer support 5 barracks with a single lvl 1 butcher. In order to increase capacity, you must either level up your buildings or build more of them in town.

I think that would be extremely confusing, especially when paired with the costs of things in the direct placement.  I think that limiting available space per town with the resource producers being a part of them will accomplish more or less the same thing, honestly.

Resources for global tokens are themselves already obfuscated, because it is far clearer to write e.g. "40 iron + smelter" instead of "10 steel" when steel is a local resource but you can place the resulting token anywhere. I expect such things to be resolved soon. ;)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 05:09:19 PM
I don't.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: PokerChen May 07, 2013, 05:11:37 PM
Ok.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 05:14:09 PM
It's really a matter of clarity on there; plus if you lose your finished goods producers.  Thematically it makes more sense for them to need those kinds of resources, which I've explained before.  And also if you lose your last producer of X type, you lose access to that good.  Plus there are certain finished goods like venison or ale or water flasks that are only in the town itself and are unlocked (basically they produce finished goods for free, directly), and those again are used by the global tokens.

In other words, suggesting something like that is a pretty hefty revamp in ways that I feel affect both gameplay and theme negatively, while simply having the goal of doing some equivalences that are simpler.  I've noted that elsewhere, though not quite in this much depth, hence my rather short reply. ;)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: PokerChen May 07, 2013, 05:28:01 PM
Well, please ignore me then since I'm really reductionist when doing my accounting. :P When I see a hammer, I see iron and wood.

: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 05:56:46 PM
Hahaha.  ;D
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Aquohn May 07, 2013, 06:14:56 PM
Hmm, I think a bunch of people (including me) have floated this on Mantis, but can we have some visual guide as to what constitutes the boundaries of a town (i.e. highlighting the squares when we're constructing)? This becomes especially important with this update.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: LaughingThesaurus May 07, 2013, 06:55:48 PM
I'd actually like just having the radius of a town always be displayed, a la civilization. It's pretty important information to have.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 07:40:08 PM
Aquohn: that's already in the release notes for the next version:

LaughingThesaurus: I think that gets superfluous with the new way of doing things, as the boundaries will be SUPER obvious when not in placement mode.  That's what I'm seeing so far.  But we'll see.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Misery May 07, 2013, 08:00:18 PM
Whoa.

Ok, I sleep for like 8 hours, get up, and you guys have exploded half the game again.


Though, I'm getting used to that by now :p


Now, lemme see.   My (initial) thoughts on this are....


Chapmen, I dont think are a bad idea at all by themselves.... trying to keep everything related to them efficient was decently challenging, at least.   As UNITS though they were somewhat ignored, you'd place them.... didn't really matter which city you put them in, as they MIGHT stay in that city, or they might not.... and then you could ignore them.   The idea of having to constrain everything into the cities themselves is a decent one..... but what's to keep the player from just spamming cities?  And in some cases, they might HAVE to.  I'm thinking of my current game, where the Greek just never seem to have enough rice or wheat;  heck, I'd set up a seperate little area.... cut off from the main island.... that had a town building, 10 or so of both wheat and rice fields, and a few dedicated Chapmen just to get those moved.   Alot of the time, you need *alot* of resources.   I dont think that should be changed, actually..... but restricting them to cities ONLY suddenly alters the balance, if you need to build a town hall EVERY time you need a new group of things.


There's also the idea of building destroying/capturing to worry about.   Like, ok.  Currently, resource buildings are decent targets for the enemy to attack, particularly as you CANNOT keep all of them super close to cities (the easiest to defend areas).  This means that resource destroying/stealing will actually HAPPEN, and is something the player must watch for and think of.... I think this is a good thing, and further adds strategy to the idea of WHERE you're placing these things.    This change will alter all of that.   Building stealing/destruction will become much more rare, as these things are now going to be both super compact, never in small groups on their own, and will have the tendancy to be near places that can fart out constant units.   This is the part of the change that I DONT like about this.  Cities seem very hard for units to grab as it is, and damage to them often seems kinda vague and easily dealt with, as you pretty much HAVE to have a massive invading force to knock one down.  I think this might actually hit siege units pretty hard;  these guys wont be able to do a blasted thing MOST of the time, at least not based on what I've seen so far.   Currently, they CAN do stuff even on their own, because resources often end up placed out in seperate areas.   But they do near nothing to cities without a huge force backing them up (and are really not very good at fighting troops most of the time).  Every other unit type in the game can DO stuff on their own (which is exactly how it should be).


Not to mention, this means that as buildings go, there will literally be only one in the entire game where it actually MATTERS where you place it, in a strategic sense, which is the town hall.  No other current building.... NONE of them.... will have any strategy whatsoever, in terms of where.  You'll have strategy in terms of WHICH city you put them in..... but that's it.   I kinda liked that I often had to think about where I was putting each resource building, often seperate from the main city areas. Which was different from the various city structures like military buildings or schools or whatever;  you only choose a city with those, beyond that it dont matter where IN the city you put them.


So, all in all, I'm thinking there's some good stuff in this idea.... but there's definitely a few problems that might crop up as a result.  Particularly since various parts of the game were designed with the idea of this somewhat-core concept always being there.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 08:08:48 PM
In terms of the cities, the idea is that you have a variety of them, and what you put in each one matters hugely.  THAT was always the core idea of the game, and was not expressed in actual gameplay so far.  It was expected that you would have 3-5 cities per side routinely, whereas people have been doing 1.

In terms of units farting out constantly, that's also not something that was expected.  There may need to be a cooldown there or something of that nature.  I had expected resource shortages to mean that that couldn't be constant, but that isn't balanced that way so far.

In terms of the placement of individual buildings within a city, that actually does matter because stuff near the front gets attacked first.  But also, it's supposed to be about city-by-city, not mass cities.  All the AI logic is actually built around that, as are the god powers.  But thus far it's been moot with only one city at a time.

Ok, I sleep for like 8 hours, get up, and you guys have exploded half the game again.

I can see how you'd think that, but honestly it's a matter of we exploded the game you were actually playing, not the game that we were designing from the start.  People were playing this radically differently than we ever expected, just way off in left field from our design, and so we're taking steps to rein that in some.  Not that we don't want flexibility or whatever, but the god powers start meaning entirely different things when you have only one town per side, for instance, versus 3-5.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Misery May 07, 2013, 08:24:55 PM
In terms of the cities, the idea is that you have a variety of them, and what you put in each one matters hugely.  THAT was always the core idea of the game, and was not expressed in actual gameplay so far.  It was expected that you would have 3-5 cities per side routinely, whereas people have been doing 1.

In terms of units farting out constantly, that's also not something that was expected.  There may need to be a cooldown there or something of that nature.  I had expected resource shortages to mean that that couldn't be constant, but that isn't balanced that way so far.

In terms of the placement of individual buildings within a city, that actually does matter because stuff near the front gets attacked first.  But also, it's supposed to be about city-by-city, not mass cities.  All the AI logic is actually built around that, as are the god powers.  But thus far it's been moot with only one city at a time.

Ok, I sleep for like 8 hours, get up, and you guys have exploded half the game again.

I can see how you'd think that, but honestly it's a matter of we exploded the game you were actually playing, not the game that we were designing from the start.  People were playing this radically differently than we ever expected, just way off in left field from our design, and so we're taking steps to rein that in some.  Not that we don't want flexibility or whatever, but the god powers start meaning entirely different things when you have only one town per side, for instance, versus 3-5.


Cooldowns (or something) on military buildings is not a bad idea here.   I like the idea of having "pure military" themed cities.... if I want to have a city that is constantly making siege units (and I will), it makes sense if I have to build a city that has like 6 of those siege-factory buildings in it (whatever they're called).   That's alot more interesting (to me) than just one or two of these military factory buildings being able to make a constant stream.   HOWEVER.... this might slow the pace of the game early on.   Wont be an issue once things get going.... not whatsoever.... but early on it might be.
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Oralordos May 07, 2013, 08:25:58 PM
It might reign me in a bit. When I play I usually manage to streamline everything to the point where I will have 6-8 cities on each side, each with 7-9 unit producing buildings with enough resources to build a unit on everything whenever the buildings are open. I actually get enough units on the board that when it goes into the unit turn, it actually pauses for a noticeable amount of time while it calculates what everything is doing. I also used to get multi-million points before that was removed. The sheer number on both sides maintained a stalemate even if one side was stronger altogether. The update that increased the costs of everything didn't even effect me. ;)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 08:33:20 PM
Oralordos: Holy crap! ;)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Oralordos May 07, 2013, 09:03:22 PM
Am I the Cinth of Skyward Collapse Alpha?  ;D
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 09:05:07 PM
Yes, yes you are.  Send me your save and I'll give you a pull-quote for your sig if you want. ;)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Oralordos May 07, 2013, 09:12:20 PM
I'll send you my current one once I get far enough.  >D
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: x4000 May 07, 2013, 09:18:30 PM
 ;D
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: mrhanman May 07, 2013, 10:49:20 PM
6-8 cities on each side, each with 7-9 unit producing buildings

(http://th565.photobucket.com/albums/ss94/jaybo2099/th_468_jaw_dropping.gif)
: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Cinth May 07, 2013, 11:23:06 PM
Am I the Cinth of Skyward Collapse Alpha?  ;D

Awesome!  Just wait until I really get started ;)

: Re: Chapmen Removal
: Oralordos May 08, 2013, 12:28:32 AM
My first game kinda fizzled.

My second game I managed to get my Norse economy up to my levels but not the Greek. Luckily I was able to set up a chokepoint. I stuck a level 4 guy with adamantine there as a guard for the last 10 turns, and by the end of the game, he was down to half health. This is guy with more health and damage than one of the gods, and he was taken down to half health on a chokepoint in 10 turns, when facing the comparatively weaker Norse. Did I mention that the Norse units were all at level 2 and 3 too? Not level 4s? This was back during 0.801 too so there was massive chapman congestion. That game I could actually see waves of units incoming. Everything would produce, then the next turn everything would move, then everything would produce again.

My third game was a game where I tried diplomacy. You can see my diplomacy area here (http://s1187.photobucket.com/user/TyberZann324/media/Screenshot_2013_05_04_13_56_36_zpsd210d45c.png.html). Note that there are six town centers with at least two military buildings on each on screen, there are two more to the lower right, and 4 more that are pure military off screen to the upper left. This was on 0.802 so the chapman congestion problem was solved, and I am informed that prices more than tripled on that version as well, but I had a high enough surplus that I didn't notice. There were at least 6 deaths every turn in the battle area as well.

I'll finish my current game on 0.804 tomorrow and send post the save so everyone can see what kind of crazy things are possible when you go crazy.