Option C for me.

I'm not a big fan of unit design in the first place, but I think the game must avoid building units late because a resource is missing. If something is missing, then the player must be informed and be able to change orders and adapt. This will lead to micromanagement.

I don't like strategic resources in Civ because they can break a game and it's not fun when you can't build things, so option A is not very fun either. Option B would be fine, but it should not be silent.

With both warehouses & a market place of some sort, all 3 options would be viable.  I vote no on A, as I've played with A for years in Civ4, and it's a gamebreaker far too often.

An important part of the game that must be discussed in order to better choose A, B, or C is "Counters".  If there are going to be counters in the game (and I truely hope there will be, as opposed to vanila units that you just want the highest damage and armor on all units), then option B is almost a must.  A player must always be able to "build" a counter (even if much slower) rather than the game saying "NO, your up a creek".

Are the rates at which units are constructed tied to the size of the city/city improvements?

it should be  a mix of A and C

ofc if you miss resourses there should be something you CANT build otherwise you could just skip most of resourses and play for zerg which is no fun and brainless, that something can be a single shield or weapon maybe but *something* need to be missing (added by some resourse)

also its important than having N resourses is a higher bonus than having just 1 and in this case the speed could be handy, having 10 iron would make a iron sword warrior faster to produce or such

It seems a lot of this has to do with what happens if you lose a resource while a unit is in production.  It seems that we could make this simpler if we just said that you could finish the unit you had in your queue as it is (i.e., no degradation), but then that unit is "greyed out" in your unit build.  Other (assumed lesser) designs would be available, but not the one needing these lost resources.  If you regain control of the resource, you can bring the units back through the city, and choose to upgrade them the normal way (ie, select them, then choose the design to upgrade to).

It seems to me, also, that we could simplify the resoursing.  If you capture a resource, let's make it like capturing a city in Civ4: there's a certain time that you can't use the resource (it's in revolt).  If the original owner can retake it in that time, then no harm, no foul, no lost production resources to your cities.  I seem to recall that resources can be upgraded as well, and so if I'm the attacker, maybe I choose to raze the resource improvements instead (netting me an "instant" shot of these resources, but then a reduced supply if I keep it).  I can only raze while it's in revolt, and revolts should probably last about twice as long as it would take to raze it completely (ie, remove all upgrades).  If it flips then, the original owner is faced with the task of upgrading the resource again.

That leaves the original problem of caravans, and their utility in the game.  Maybe the way to time the "turn on" of the resource is to have a caravan dispatched from the resource x turns after you capture it.  Once that caravan reaches a city, it establishes the trade route, and you get the bonus from that resource.  That makes the caravan of a newly captured resource as important to protect as the resource itself; it's the thing that will establish the mine as "yours", with the benefit that if someone else takes it from you, it will revolt, and if you take it back before your opponent establishes HIS traderoute, it flips back to you instantaneously with no revolt.  Caravans don't move resources, they establish ownership.

It's a little bit like Civ2, if I recall correctly.  You had to physically send a caravan the first time; after that, the traderoute is in place until one of the nodes (ie. city, resource) is taken.  You could also establish a trade route from city to city, and all of the resources at city A then become available at city B.  Maybe city B only gets 3/4 of the benefit that city A gets, since it's not directly tied to the resource, but only through another city.  You could connect the resource directly to city B by sending another caravan route directly from the resource to city B, and now it gains the full benefit of the resource.  If you have two of the resources, and you've established trade routes to city A from both resources, then city A gets 2x the bonus of a single resource. 

At any rate, the micromanaging that comes here is in establishing the trade routes the first time; after that, the resources are automatically available to those cities connected via routes.  If a traderoute is disrupted while you're building a new unit, you get to finish that unit, but then must retake the resource before you can build more of that unit.  If you take it quickly enough, you get back the resource immediately (and traderoutes are automatically reestablished how you had them), if not, you have to build back up the traderoutes again.  If the resource is razed, it disrupts all trade routes, and no one gets it.  It should take a lot longer to establish the first trade route than to establish all the others.

Winni

I like C, but the problem of managing units of the same name but variable equipment and stats would be problematic, and dealing with the notices and changes could be pretty annoying.

My vote is for a variant of B for most resources (and A for ultra "rare" resources should there be a distinction, depending on how the resource system pans out).


Reason: Today, and in ancient times, you could pretty much get anything you wanted to for the right price.  Wether through smuggling, bribing, or raiding, it has always been possible to procure a handful of something you need.  However, unless one was insanely wealthy, obtaining enough of such items or resources would be prohibitive.  If, however, that item or resource was readily available in your native territory, it should not cost you much at all to make use of it.

It would make sense, then, to price unit equipment in terms of COINS rather then TIME.  The results would be:

1) If you really, really want to build the mithril armored warrior you just researched then you should be able to.  However, doing so would nearly bankrupt you from all the expense.  This should be made very obvious to the player, perhaps by showing a cost breakdown of the designed unit or highlighting the most expensive pieces of equipment.

2) Units that make use of resources you have in abundance would be very, very cheap.  Sure, that mithril warrior is way tougher then your mounted archers, but because your lands are full of horses you can recruit legions of mounted archers for less then one mithril warrior.

3) Trade should be designed so that you share a significant portion of the resource bonus of a nation you trade with.  This should enable small or resource-deprived nations to still produce effective units.

Such a system encourages a player to play toward his strengths (iron abundant nations producing armored warriors, horse abundant nations producing mounted warriors), keeping games fresh and interesting.  Since cost will scale with availability, loosing an already-rare resource would not be such a huge shock as the price would be pretty high anyway.

Ideally wages (or maintenance) should be related to this as well, perhaps as a fraction of the current cost of that unit.  It was very hard for Japan and Germany to keep their modern armies running after they lost easy access to oil.  Loosing a resource should encourage the player to either recapture it, make peace and trade for it, or disband their now-expensive units before they go bankrupt.

Again, the whole idea of representing equipment in terms of costs rather than time is because it makes more intuitive sense to me, and hopefully to the player as well.  In the end, adjusting unit cost (in time or money, whichever works best) would be a great way to make each game a new and unique experience.

Perhaps here should be minor and major (Greater and Lesser?) Resources, or some resources that are region specific/hard to export.

You could for example make a certain type of unit that has certain types of armor and certain weapons. Maybe you want their armor to be an especially strong form of steel (That requires special coal/craftsmanship) or a special kind of wood.

Rather than letting an entire empire fill itself with soldiers armed and armored with rare resources, perhaps some resources are naturally more scarce, and so you can 'omit' them in the creation of a unit.

I personally would also like the option of being able to form an empire /without/ a certain resource and with another, and I don't really like the idea that EVERY Empire should be dependent on, or require certain resources. That sounds a little too linear to me, like civ.

It'd be nice if you could have a rich trade empire that's mainly about wood, and leather, and silver, and copper, and doesn't have gold or iron, except from imports, and functions fine.

If i am not mistaken, Civ did allow you to trade resources with your allies. You didn't have to actually control a particular resource. You could just set up a trade with allies for resources that they controlled and it would be as if you actually controlled the resource yourself. Worked just fine for Civ.

Having re-read the thread. 

I think I’ll rescind the training individual peasants and leave all that to the heroes… – I’d enjoy it but I think the game should be able to be easy enough for a novice to get into it and have the options for an advanced player to enjoy and the novice player to learn. 

I think that a warehouse is a great idea for storing resources or for storing what you make with the resources. Trading would be enhanced and the idea of trying a diplomatic game where trading is very important instead or war would be a variation of those possibilities. (Something you could try instead of war not the whole game design) Also it would be interesting while trying to enchant items for heroes to have to go out and find or trade certain resources for the enchanted item...

I still believe that declaring some "base" resources and taking them off the map would be a good idea. Iron - Wood - Leather - giving them no pluses or minuses   --- that way a novice player could play without ever having to consider special equipment.  It also gives the difficulty level of the game somewhere to go. Normal the AI uses normal units Hard it uses custom templates with rare resources it has.

I also agree I don't want to have to make too many almost the same unit templates.  Dread Knight with Mithril sword - Dread Knight with iron breastplate and Mithril sword. etc etc would be dull and over micromanagement ---- the game should have standard templates using "base"(free) items.  So if you want to customise a unit you pick a base unit and give it non base equipment - if you run out of non base equipment then the computer AI sends a message and asks if you want to stop construction or revert to the base template.

In my opinion:

If you create a unit for which you miss resources, the unit should be produced in the same time, but needs to cost more (just initial cost, not upkeep).

The reasoning is that resources can be bought on the market and delivered to the smithy (or whatever). If you dont have a market (or a special market upgrade that makes it possible), you simply wont be able to acquire the needed resources and wont be able to produce the unit.

To keep it simple i would just add a factor to each equipment cost that gets used if the resource is not available and mirrors the rarity (like copper x1.1, iron x1.3, steel 1.4, mithriel x2 etc.).

Edit: Or like fimiki said

You could do an option D. make the mithral swords, boots, etc, and stockpile them.  Than you can only produce the final unit if you have the equipment on hand.  (or only make the swords, boots, etc if you have the raw materials on hand).

But if you don't want that detailed of a supply chain, than I would say finish all units currently in production normally but no new ones can be made without the reasoure.

Currently, I understand that troops will NOT be, currently are not; able to gain XP.  A portion of xp earned by troops is given to the sovereign instead.

Ok, working this idea from multiple angles, and including the existing text in the game, here are my ideas.

If items will have a cost, be stockable, and discrete, then the need for unit design will be reduced.  If they become an abstract assigned to a city, then unit design requirements are reduced.

1.  Start with Training Kits dependant on resources and research.  Notice the Scout Kit and the Bandit Kit available.  These should be a basic unit with all required kit and skills.  Expand this idea out to City Guard (researched under defense), Mounted troops (Requires access to Mounts and research), Armored Knights (requires basic heavy armor), Archers, etc....  Since troops are taken from a village or city production, you can probably also create Resource Production kits to generate the Twighlight Beekeepers (it requires a special kind of person to harvest honey from bees that live off of magical steroids.)

2.  Select the minimum training level for a completed unit.  Basically, researching advanced training is already put into the game and should affect the quality of the the troops developed with the cost of time.  Figure about 10 turns per extra level of training.  Give bonuses for better trained troops based on the kits they have trained up.

3.  Assign the Extras that will be assigned to a particular model, such as Flaming Swords, Repeating Crossbows or Twilight Honey.  Note that certain gear should only be equipable to certain kits, Steel armored scouts generally aren't stealthy.  By assigning Gear to a particular level of training you can ensure your "angelic knights" will always be an elite trained force. 

4.  If higher training is researched, existing troops will automatically start training to the new level over a long period of time, say 50-100 turns per rank.  New troops can be trained during creation to a higher rank for 10% of the time.  I never want novice knights and will only "knight" them when they can be veterans or Elites.  Additionally, when a troop "levels up", give me a list of templates I can assign them to. 

In practice, I start my game and create a guard unit.  I go to unit creation, select a guard kit, select any options I want a novice quard to have, probably none unless we can start factions with specific techs or gear.  The guard unit will stay a green troop until I research Basic training.  Let's say I give my basic guards Staves.  I don't want to waste precious metal resources on untested troops.  When Basic training is researched, the Guard units across the kingdom will start SLOWLY training up to Basic level.  When they advance, I get a notice that Joe the Guard in my capital city is now Basic, I can check the qualified templates I have saved and/or create a new one for this game and assign it to Joe.  Joe will then get a Pike and some armor.  If Joe survives until elite, I'll promote him to Imperial Guard and give him some magic bling.

At the end of the game, I want more people in my Imperial Guard.  I'll queue up some in my training list but, regardless of resources, I'll need time.  Figure 10 turns extra for higher trained troops per level and you'll choose between fodder and highly trained forces that'll hurt to lose.

A further alternative is to pull a MoM and require facilities in cities for providing Magic Weapons, Higher Tech Troops, or Better Trained Troops.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/331361

Yes it is OLD but it was the Thread that got me initially worked up about Elemental and the possible gameplay.

It seems Tech is progressing quite fast in the current build. Can it be slowed way down perhaps.

I agree, I think we should be getting some x units of mithril a day as long as we own the resource and this should be stored in our stockpiles.  When we build our dread knight he would require 20 mithril or whatever and it's drawn from our stockpiles.  It's not as simple but I like it better.  It also prevents you from building 10 dread knights in your 10 towns at the same time just because you have a mine.  It should take time to build up the resources to build an army like that.  Just not sure how things like potions and your honey pack would work though.  They could use a similar system but you look like you want many of these and it would be unwieldy to have 20 resources to keep track of.  Perhaps these could use the system you were looking at while metals and building materials would acculate as I suggested.  You would just need access to them to build your dread knight and if you lose access you build them without the special items (with warnings).

You want to ballance micro/macro in a simple intuitive way.

Every resource can be @ one of three stages: common, uncommon and rare.

Every city creates a little bit of every resource and every mine creates alot of that resource. This accumulates every turn, and every turn you have a fixed % resource decay.  When you meet certain thresholds your state changes  to a new state, ie rare=>uncommom, uncommon=>commom, etc..

What does this mean:

>Loss of a resource, does not mean you suddenly cannot produce something but over several turns you will lose it

>Gaining resources does not mean you can suddenly produce tons of something.

>As game progresses all resources become more common.

> upgrading mines/trading posts(upgrade base city generation, think ebay) means you can get to common faster

On a per material basis:

A common sword is 1x

A uncommon sword is 3x

A rare sword is 5x

So if you are bunch of dwarves that live in mountains with lots of mithryl mines well your mithril hammers are common and are much cheaper to produce.While other people need to barter and hunt down every last drop, and collect mithryl dust flakes to forge it into anything.

A unit card should display its weighted average of all its equipment into common,uncommon and rare. This makes things simple and easy to understand. ie this unit on average is 3x penalty, or 5x penalty.