Dynamic Food Consumption in RTS
I like it. It certainly maintains the historical approach. One thing that you might add is the ability to "capture" or (using modern terminology) "liberate" your oppenent''s food supplies. Many ancient armies simply took what they could find as they rolled across the country, and it would lead to some interesting tactics. Perhaps even the appearance of marauding groups. It would also help keep the focus on the importance of the economic supply.
>My only real qualm about what I''ve read here is the lack of
>food only hitting morale - it looks like you''d be able to crash-
>produce an oversized army by letting your food stockpile a lot
>then pumping out units as fast as possible. Unless the morale
>hit is crippling, then the sheer weight of numbers could be too
>unbalanced.
Well, it wouldn''t only impact morale. More significantly, you will be unable to produce additional units should you have no food stocks left in your stockpile (a more gentle alternative would be to affect your training rate based on the state of your food stockpile; it''d slow to an absolute crawl if you had no food).
So you''d have to not only maintain an equilibrium between your incoming food and your outgoing needs in order to keep your existing units above the "morale drop", but will have to ensure that you provide additional sources of food to sustain any additional units you create.
We could even forego a generic population cap (increased by building houses or whatever), since the state of your food income will determine your ability to produce additional units.
Hope that helped to clarify the situation.
>One thing that you might add is the ability to "capture"
>your oppenent''s food supplies.
Well, firstly you''d have the Pillage tech mentioned earlier to gain resources when destroying enemy buildings.
Secondly, we''ll probably be able to capture enemy structures, in a similar fashion to Red Alert''s Engineers, so that''s another way of acquiring enemy food and their economic infrastructure.
Thirdly, we''re using a similar technique to the Age games where it comes to herding and hunting wild animals. So you''ll need to protect your herds from rustlers, since an opponent can take control of your domestic animals simply by coming within range of them.
Cheers,
Acumen
>food only hitting morale - it looks like you''d be able to crash-
>produce an oversized army by letting your food stockpile a lot
>then pumping out units as fast as possible. Unless the morale
>hit is crippling, then the sheer weight of numbers could be too
>unbalanced.
Well, it wouldn''t only impact morale. More significantly, you will be unable to produce additional units should you have no food stocks left in your stockpile (a more gentle alternative would be to affect your training rate based on the state of your food stockpile; it''d slow to an absolute crawl if you had no food).
So you''d have to not only maintain an equilibrium between your incoming food and your outgoing needs in order to keep your existing units above the "morale drop", but will have to ensure that you provide additional sources of food to sustain any additional units you create.
We could even forego a generic population cap (increased by building houses or whatever), since the state of your food income will determine your ability to produce additional units.
Hope that helped to clarify the situation.
>One thing that you might add is the ability to "capture"
>your oppenent''s food supplies.
Well, firstly you''d have the Pillage tech mentioned earlier to gain resources when destroying enemy buildings.
Secondly, we''ll probably be able to capture enemy structures, in a similar fashion to Red Alert''s Engineers, so that''s another way of acquiring enemy food and their economic infrastructure.
Thirdly, we''re using a similar technique to the Age games where it comes to herding and hunting wild animals. So you''ll need to protect your herds from rustlers, since an opponent can take control of your domestic animals simply by coming within range of them.
Cheers,
Acumen
I think it''d be cool to stockpile food then create a massive army. They may not stick around for long, but since you''re most likely using them for cannon-fodder it''s not too big a deal.
And as for the morale thing... what about a bad general who consistently mismatches his tactics and sends (for example) foot soldiers against cavalry. He''s going to suffer a lot of needless losses. Shouldn''t that effect his buying power and the morale of his troops as much, if not more so, than food?
And as for the morale thing... what about a bad general who consistently mismatches his tactics and sends (for example) foot soldiers against cavalry. He''s going to suffer a lot of needless losses. Shouldn''t that effect his buying power and the morale of his troops as much, if not more so, than food?
quote:Original post by SoaringTortoise
here''s something for you:
You have virtual "foraging" units. These folks would always be able to gather food, and would not appear in the game world in any way. Their ability to gather food is dependent upon the amount of territory you have in your possession, so the more territory, the more food you get per second.
You can define territory control as an area around a particular unit or building. This would basically be like your traditional sight-range. So... the more of the map that you have actively visible, the more food you''re going to get.
Buildings like farms would have a greater foraging range, foot soldiers would have less, etc.
Also, you can not have more than a single unit gaining food from a particular area. So... if you have a farm and a soldier near the farm, only the farm gets food, not the soldier.
Any organic unit that is not in its own place (like a soldier by himself on a hillside), is using up your food reserves.
This is quite a neat approach as it caters for a lot of flexibility:
1) An untrained soldier has a small foraging radius, but can be trained to have a greater one, making him more self-sustained.
2) Massed armies will not be able to forage, and so will consume mostly from your stockpile. This tends towards smaller combat groups.
3) Towns, while necessary, wouldn''t be able to get much food because they would overlapping foraging radii. This would force a player to expand with farms, plus a seige would hurt a lot.
4) Expanding only to resource sites (like goldmines in War3) is still valuable, but you would also need to expand to other areas as well to avoid overlapping foraging radii.
5) If you add in a foraging value for different land types, I think you''ve got it made. A farm would have a higher yield per squareunit than open grassland. A battlefield would have a lower yield.
I really like this idea and would be happy to defend it/argue the case for it more if you like.
This would be nice since you could prevent the abuse of ''rush'' tactics this way.
If Love is blind, does that mean Hate has the advantage of sight?
It''s a little different, but it''s kind of like Warcraft 3, I thought. While units don''t constantly consume food, it does become prohibitively expensive to run a large army. Likewise, in the suggested system, a large army would also be prohibitevly expensive, and would mean that players would be encouraged to attack often (which is a good thing, I think)
The seasons and harvest time ideas mentioned, reminds me of Lords of the Realm 2. You had a set number of fields in each county if you chose to plant gain in those fields you set your laborers and set the fields to plant. If they weren''t set to plant when winter hit (each turn equaled a season) then they wouldnt produce that year. If they were destroyed or you changed them somehow before the harvest in the fall you would have wasted those turns when they were set to grow. Other factors that could affect them were random weather events, number of workers working in the fields affected how much grain was harvested, and perhaps the most thought provoking was fertility of the soil. Every few years it was wise to leave fields fallow and allow for crop rotation. This is nice because it means that theres still some thought required even after you have a set economy. It doesnt overwhelm the player with micromanagement and at the same time doesnt necesarily set things on cruise control. I guess it depends on how much control you want to give the player over the little things.
Don''t know if any of this provokes thought but it was just a...well, just a thought.
Don''t know if any of this provokes thought but it was just a...well, just a thought.
Yes, but you could still amass an army. You''d just have to break them up into smaller groups so that each group would have enough foraging room. The problem in War3 is that the limit is hard-set and there''s nothing you can do to exceed it. This way, you''re really given the freedom to make your army as large as you want, but it does come with an increasing logistics burden - you either need more farms (which need more space to be successful anyway), or more space... which weakens your ability to form a coherent force, even if it is large.
This concept could spawn some nice strategies... You can do a daring hit and run on his fields just before they are ready for harvesting, then build up again and attack. His troops will have bad morale, and even if you don''t win, you can just rebuild fast and he can''t since he has no food. Will make people watch their resources better I think.
How about this, give players a bonus for cultivating multiple food sources. People don''t want to eat the same thing over and over. Cultivating multiple food sources would at least boost morale. It wouldnt be necesary but for those who want to micro-manage that much they will recieve a small boost this way.
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