This next week we’ve got a ton of things to do. Most of what we’re working on doesn’t show up in the game.

In no particular order, here are some things on the high priority list:

1. Gotta expose the AI to Python. Need that so that I can start doing serious surgery on the AI without constantly having to recompile and re-run the game.

2. Nail down what resources we want to have in the game.

I keep thinking that it’s better to have more resources than fewer. I’d love to hear how others feel about this.

I also am of the opinion that controlling a resource shouldn’t be a pre-requisite for building something but rather controlling the resource acts as a bonus.

For example, if I research metal weapons then I should be able to build metal weapons.  metal deposits will be displayed on the map which can be controlled but those should act as a very large bonus.

I.e. every city produces say 0.1 metal per turn no matter what. If you control a metal resource then that amount goes to 1. If you control 2 then it goes up to 2. And the city that actually has the resource gets another bonus.

This is scheduled for the next beta.

But what we haven’t decided is how many resources should be in the game. 

I was thinking there could be resources that give bonuses to research, prestige, along with resources that let you add equipment to your soldiers that give them more hitpoints or increase the speed of their attacks or increase their healing rate or how fast they level up and so on and so on. 

Obviously, the more you add, the more micro-management you potentially expose yourself to.

For instance, let’s say we have a “twilight honey” which is a resource that is displayed on the map when you research it. It is a type of equipment that increases a soldier’s HP by 10%.  Now, if you have the resource, equipping it adds no time to the time it takes to produce the soldier. But if you don’t have the resource and have a design that uses it, then it would add say 3 more turns.

So you can see some of the problems that this could introduce if it’s implemented that way.

With enough UI work, you could also have an option to make it so that a given piece of equipment can be picked as “required” versus “optional”.  That is, if it’s optional and you don’t have the resource, it won’t use it when constructing the unit. 

There are many different ways to address the issue but each one has its own pros and cons.

How would you guys like to see this sort of thing done?