How should resources be stored?

Campaigner

Join Date 12/2004

+15

How should resources be stored?

We got the possible Elemental way where warehouses will store resources like wheat and iron. Don't know how they intend to do with mana though. (I don't know of any games which handles resources this way)

Then there is the Age of Wonders way which is how the popular RTS games like StarCraft, WarCraft and Dawn of War do it. You get the resources but they are not stored anywhere.

At first I wanted maximum control'n'stuff like "everything's a resource" and warehouses for storing stuff. But now I got second thoughts since I've been thinking about it....

Will a "real" resource system with warehouses and stuff make the game more fun?

What are the up and downsides with the two systems?

From my experience, the AoW way is better since it allows for comebacks and building far away from home. Like if I have some flyers in the northwest that are striking at some undefended backwater cities while at the same time an enemy is launching a fullscale invasion of my homearea and captures/destroys my cities then in AoW I would be able to build up the cities I conquered but in the possible Elemental system my resources would be in some stupid warehouses in my cities which I wouldn't be able to effectively use/save/get rid of.

And even if I'm not invaded, I can just build less in my homearea and get new armies up at the newly conquered place.

Another serious thing with the warehouses is that they SLOW DOWN the game since I wouldn't be able to build troops like in the AoW system....

Realism be damned. Gameplay is the thing for me.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

elemental

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting lwarmonger,

reply 50

I have to agree. One of the pillars, and often a make or break, for a 4X game is its economic system. If you dumb it down too much you make it superfluous... if you make it too complex (or have an inadequate UI to handle its level of complexity) then you make it frustrating. The key to making a successful local inventory system work isn't to try and have your cake and eat it too (which will simply irritate a lot of players who had supported what, is in my opinion, a fairly workable system), but to make a transparent and easy to manage UI so that a player can get immersed in the economic system if he wants to, but doesn't necessarily have to micromanage it if he is less interested in economics. I think one of the few good things about MoO3 was the way they handled the economy. You could micromanage if you wanted to tweak the system just the way you want, or you could ignore it after setting a few broad guidelines and still be ok with the result.

I don't think I could have said it any better myself. Well said indeed. +1 to you my friend.

On a side note I liked MOO 3 Except for the stupid Space Lane implementation. Whoever had that idea needs to be dragged out into the street and beaten with a baseball bat for ruining what could have been such a fun, freeform game.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Denryu

Join Date 07/2006

+93

No, moo3 without space lanes would still have been a piece of shit, just without space lanes.

I remember during beta (which I was not in) how they kept saying "we are going to make it it's own game". And boy, did they, they had no business putting the Master of Orion name on that stinker.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Denryu,

reply 52

No, moo3 without space lanes would still have been a piece of shit, just without space lanes.

I remember during beta (which I was not in) how they kept saying "we are going to make it it's own game". And boy, did they, they had no business putting the Master of Orion name on that stinker.

I can go with that. There were still a few aspects of the game that weren't bad though. The other thing I couldn't stand was how small they made the ships in combat. Even capitol ships were tiny specs.

Successfully updated karma reason!