Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.950

[Cinth]

Alternatively, they could spawn within within a range of the keep instead, so they would only be blocked if every tile is covered.

I think this has merit.  Either ranged units need to force a one tile move on spawn or spawn them at +1 tile form the keep.

[Mick]

Putting too much cost into building a new town has the danger of making starting builds/towns more homogeneous. I'm not saying it shouldn't be increased a bit, but if "being able to build towns too fast" is the problem, I think it needs a more comprehensive solution.

After all, it's not going to be much fun if you balance things by making the player unable to spend all their AP.

[Pepisolo]

Personally it will take me 4.5 turns to have the cut stone at 30 (4 quarry).  I think requiring lumber might have been a good choice too.  It would eat up 4 spaces in the first town just to be able to expand though. 18 lumber would be the same amount over the same time frame.

Could you hazard a guess at what you think the optimal resource requirements would be? Overall do you think the resource increase is a good thing? As I say, for myself, I found it pretty easy to just place whatever Town Centers I chose to without struggling too much on resources which made things like kiting bandits a bit too easy. I was also doing stuff like directly placing rock onto the field which seemed to help this strategy, although I didn't really concentrate on the numbers too much. Also, without even thinking about the numbers 10 stone for a Town Center seems like a real steal.

[Misery]

Putting too much cost into building a new town has the danger of making starting builds/towns more homogeneous. I'm not saying it shouldn't be increased a bit, but if "being able to build towns too fast" is the problem, I think it needs a more comprehensive solution.

After all, it's not going to be much fun if you balance things by making the player unable to spend all their AP.

Why not just make it so that the building cost of a TC increases with the Ages?

Increasing the base cost overall is going to just screw up the Age of Man stuff..... but it's true that it's *much* too easy to build most things in the second half of the game.  With the resources the player has at that point, they can keep up this constant stream of buildings without trouble, aside from the distance requirements.

But if the TC in the Age of Gods cost an extra 10 diamonds to build (arbitrary number I pulled outta nowhere), that would not be the case.

It seems to me like TCs should get a bit tougher to build as the game goes on.

[x4000]

* Ranged units of any kind are no longer allowed to just stand on a military production building that they are on, blocking further unit production while they fire off volleys.
** Instead they will move until they are no longer on such a tile, and then fire from where they wind up.
** If it's not possible for them to move without needing to attack somebody, THEN they will stay where they are and fire at the target, but those are the only circumstances.

[Misery]

* Ranged units of any kind are no longer allowed to just stand on a military production building that they are on, blocking further unit production while they fire off volleys.
** Instead they will move until they are no longer on such a tile, and then fire from where they wind up.
** If it's not possible for them to move without needing to attack somebody, THEN they will stay where they are and fire at the target, but those are the only circumstances.

That's a good one, that was always pretty obnoxious.   Not being able to send out more guys because some jerk is standing on the steps throwing rocks at things.

[Cinth]

Putting too much cost into building a new town has the danger of making starting builds/towns more homogeneous. I'm not saying it shouldn't be increased a bit, but if "being able to build towns too fast" is the problem, I think it needs a more comprehensive solution.

After all, it's not going to be much fun if you balance things by making the player unable to spend all their AP.

TC only needs stone and a mason to build.  If lumber is added, wood and a carpenter.  3 of those are already going to be in your first town with the carpenter being slightly optional.

@Misery:  Later in the game your resources should be stressed by unit production and mythologicals.
@Pepisolo:  Build more units if bandits are really an issue.  I'd think that kiting bandits with TCs is a bit of a cheese.  As far as where I think it should be?  I dare not hazard a guess.  Really the only time resources are stressed is early in the game when you need to be able to expand at a reasonable pace.  Later on you should have the resources to pay whatever it takes

[Misery]

@Misery:  Later in the game your resources should be stressed by unit production and mythologicals.

I dunno.... I have yet to have a game where this was the case.  I generally end up with hundreds of pretty much everything, and no way to even halfway spend it.   The production of materials keeps going up and up and up as I build more things and the game continues to last, but the COSTS do not go up whatsoever.   In the earliest parts of the game, it can be tough, because there's few resources yet I'm generally building 3 seperate buildings per turn, for instance.   Later in the game though, I have LOTS of resources and LOTS of buildings making more, yet.... I'm still only dropping 3 often-rather-cheap buildings (or whatever) per turn.  The gain increases, but the cost never does.    Rock, for example, I often have a bit of trouble with on the Norse side early on, but generally by the Age of Monsters, I can completely ignore the numbers of how much of it I have, because it's high enough at that point to not really matter much.

[Cinth]

I generally have 4 or 5 of each resource producer built.  The rest goes to military unless I find myself needing something more.  But I'm only building 4 or 5 towns on each side so I dunno.

[Mick]

@Misery:  Later in the game your resources should be stressed by unit production and mythologicals.

I dunno.... I have yet to have a game where this was the case.  I generally end up with hundreds of pretty much everything, and no way to even halfway spend it.   The production of materials keeps going up and up and up as I build more things and the game continues to last, but the COSTS do not go up whatsoever.   In the earliest parts of the game, it can be tough, because there's few resources yet I'm generally building 3 seperate buildings per turn, for instance.   Later in the game though, I have LOTS of resources and LOTS of buildings making more, yet.... I'm still only dropping 3 often-rather-cheap buildings (or whatever) per turn.  The gain increases, but the cost never does.    Rock, for example, I often have a bit of trouble with on the Norse side early on, but generally by the Age of Monsters, I can completely ignore the numbers of how much of it I have, because it's high enough at that point to not really matter much.

I think this ties well into the whole "buildings do not die fast enough". If your buildings are getting scorched often, then resource management should become an actual issue. If not, then yeah, it's pretty much easy to build forever.

[Pepisolo]

Since nobody seems to have any strong opinion on the matter, the increase to 30 stone seems fine to me for the moment. No drastic surgery needed I don't think.

Build more units if bandits are really an issue.  I'd think that kiting bandits with TCs is a bit of a cheese.

Building more units wasn't really possible, the bandits were just too strong which is why I eventually needed Wrath of the Gods to get out of it. Kiting bandits did seem a bit of a cheese which why I recommended the increase in resource usage in the first place.

[x4000]

Good one Misery:

* The costs of placing buildings now increases as you pass into the ages of monsters and gods.
** Generally speaking it's 2x in the second age and 3x in the third age, but for some of the more expensive resources to produce it's less than that (steel, jewelry, pottery).
** As one example, the cost of placing town centers goes up by age as follows: 10, 20, 40.

[Pepisolo]

Good one Misery:

* The costs of placing buildings now increases as you pass into the ages of monsters and gods.
** Generally speaking it's 2x in the second age and 3x in the third age, but for some of the more expensive resources to produce it's less than that (steel, jewelry, pottery).
** As one example, the cost of placing town centers goes up by age as follows: 10, 20, 40.

Don't really like this change. It seems like an unnecessary complication to me.

[Mick]

I'm.. skeptical.. that increasing the building costs between ages is the correct solution here, but I'll try it and see how it feels. I think it's fixing the symptom and not the disease.

[Pepisolo]

I really was only concerned about those few instances of bandit kiting that I was forced to do to survive, which felt a little cheesy. I didn't really have any problem with the other building costs, whatever the age.  Now the costs are going to be different in some Ages and not even always uniformly so by the sounds of it. Makes this game way more complex than it should be, I think.