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[gameplay] Make colonization tech more most useful
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Authored by borg- on Mar 16 2021, 5:43 PM.

Details

Summary

There are some problems with this tech:

  • Build time alone is not attractive enough.
  • its cost is expensive, almost the cost of a new cc.
  • is only available in phase town, which makes it basically useless in team games. Team games are usually population 200, when you get to town phase, you basically have a full population, so there is no reason to build more houses for example.

Patch proposal is make the tech a real gain for the player.

  • Researched in the village phase.
  • Decreases the cost of buildings by 25%.
  • Decrease its cost from 500s / 500m to 250w / 250s, changing metal for wood, less essential in village phase.
  • Decreases the research time from 60 to 40. It is not a fighting technology, and as it is researched in the center, in the first phase, it seems to be more appropriate.

    Food and metal added to tech is only for future consistencies.
Test Plan

If there is the desired effect proposed in the patch.

Diff Detail

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rP 0 A.D. Public Repository
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Event Timeline

borg- created this revision.Mar 16 2021, 5:43 PM
borg- requested review of this revision.Mar 16 2021, 5:43 PM

Why civic structures?

I like this. But I think it still a bit too expensive. A 20% discount would mean you need to make 2 CCs to recoup the total amount of invested res (although these wouldn't be the same res). It's pretty rare that one player makes two extra CCs. Also, by keeping it in the CC players would have to sacrifice their pop boom in order to research

Possible modifications to make it a little more likely to be used given the above considerations:

(1) Make it cheaper. Something like 100w/200s or 100 w/100s might make sense
(2) move it to a different building so CC unit train time isn't reduced by researching the tech
(3) apply the construction cost decrease to all buildings. This would make it a "invest now to boom later" tech, which would also make the researcher more vulnerable to rushes since it would take away CC unit production train time
(4) if possible, make the tech also apply to allies' CCs. This would make it more worthwhile from a cost input perspective since it is more likely that 2 CCs would be built on a team than by 1 player, would introduce an element of team coordination/strategy, and would be an interesting way for one player to sacrifice some of their own growth to boost allies.

I would prefer (3) but (1) also makes a lot of sense to me. And, option (4) could make for an entirely new TG dynamic.

borg- added a comment.Mar 17 2021, 4:15 PM

Why civic structures?

I believe that it is due to the description of the tech.

borg- added a comment.Mar 17 2021, 4:18 PM

I like this. But I think it still a bit too expensive. A 20% discount would mean you need to make 2 CCs to recoup the total amount of invested res (although these wouldn't be the same res). It's pretty rare that one player makes two extra CCs. Also, by keeping it in the CC players would have to sacrifice their pop boom in order to research

Possible modifications to make it a little more likely to be used given the above considerations:

(1) Make it cheaper. Something like 100w/200s or 100 w/100s might make sense
(2) move it to a different building so CC unit train time isn't reduced by researching the tech
(3) apply the construction cost decrease to all buildings. This would make it a "invest now to boom later" tech, which would also make the researcher more vulnerable to rushes since it would take away CC unit production train time
(4) if possible, make the tech also apply to allies' CCs. This would make it more worthwhile from a cost input perspective since it is more likely that 2 CCs would be built on a team than by 1 player, would introduce an element of team coordination/strategy, and would be an interesting way for one player to sacrifice some of their own growth to boost allies.

I would prefer (3) but (1) also makes a lot of sense to me. And, option (4) could make for an entirely new TG dynamic.

(4) For allied ccs I think it doesn't work because if you have a team with 4 Carthaginians, then the discount would be huge.
(1) I particularly like that it is only for centers, houses and temples, so the discount can be higher, so I think leaving it cheaper is the best solution.

borg- updated this revision to Diff 16557.Mar 18 2021, 4:23 PM
borg- edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)

Up.
Decreases the cost of buildings by 20% --> 25%.
Wood and stone cost 300 --> 250.

From what I know this technology affects temples too and Carthaginians train their infantry champions from there. So this would also be very useful for setting up champion production.
In general I like this as a unique technology. It would help set up infantry champion production more easily and help in taking map control with cheaper CC's. It's hard to say exactly how useful it will be at current values, but I doubt it's op.

This seems like an OK bonus to me, the cost/benefit looks alright, and I agree it's unlikely to be OP.

colonization.json
10 ↗(On Diff #16557)

Just remove this then

wraitii accepted this revision.May 24 2021, 3:39 PM
This revision is now accepted and ready to land.May 24 2021, 3:39 PM
marder added a subscriber: marder.May 25 2021, 8:24 AM

Very good change, the tech is mostly not used now. I agree with @chrstgtr . From my feeling it could be even cheaper, but maybe better to try the balance with this values.

This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.
Owners added a subscriber: Restricted Owners Package.Jun 1 2021, 9:26 AM