revjwh revjwh

Until they fix the economy this game is unplayable as a TBS-strategy/wargame

▼

Until they fix the economy this game is unplayable as a TBS-strategy/wargame

from Elemental Forums

I have 4 cities, all level 3.  I am making... wait for it.... 2.6 gildar a turn.  Between a few soldiers to hold off the hordes (Epic pace, all AIs on Ridiculous, Large Map, Max # of opponents)...

WOW I get to build one thing every 50 turns or so.... how FUN. 

If my frustration is palpable - it's b/c it IS.  I WANT to like this game.... but it's basically King's Bounty right now but much, much less fun or engaging (that had amazing different graphics by land and quests that were real stories etc. b/c it actually *wanted* to be an adventure game - this is a pale imitation)

PLEASE fix the economy so that monster farming/locations do not have to be the only way of making income.

 

Argh.

J

elemental
26,708 views 53 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Baleurion, reply 49

As for your sub-replies, many of us have better things to do than to read every reply and every refinement of your original point. Edit the topic instead before you act like an ass to people who read the topic and tried to help. Expand near a gold mine or your 4 cities wouldnt make 2.6 gildar a turn. Which is the only thing you talked about.
End of Baleurion's quote

Read revjwh's last sentence:

"PLEASE fix the economy so that monster farming/locations do not have to be the only way of making income."

This is spot on and a very good point...

As others have noted monster and quest loot should be greatly reduced and taxes and caravans should provide gold.

 

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 50


The problem with this is you'd have to alter the whole item store price scheme & trade item price perception. If you're going to reduce the gold gotten from monsters then the prices at the store need to be changed as well: 300 gold for amulet of life, 195 for ceder crossbow, 100 for great helm, 2700 for kwarazami (whatever the hell it's called) magic  sword. These are all way over-priced.
End of cpl_rk's quote

I'm fine with making such changes. I don't do monster farming so the few playthroughs of the game I've had so far left me going "How in the Hell am I supposed to afford this stuff?" But the prices are out of whack anyway.  

 

Add an oak spear to a peasant. Cost: 10 gold 3 material    Trade Store Price: 52G

Add a war staff to a peasant. cost: 12 gold 1 material  Trade Store Price: 45G

 

Assuming there's a 30% markup for the store that leaves production costs at roughly 36.4G for the spear and 31.5G for the staff. If you subtract the gold costs of production to get the material costs (in gold equivalent), you get 26.4G for the spear and 19.5G for the staff. So the spear's equivalent material cost increased by only 35% even though the raw inputs increased by 200%. That implies some sort of economy of scale in materials manufacturing. How well does the rest of the game's pricing adhere to a consistent cost curve? I have no idea, and I doubt anyone else does either, including the developers.

 

Hell, why does it take 10 gold and no materials to build a Hut but 50 materials and no gold to build the MINT of Ruvenna?



Frankly, I don't really see a need to rationalize a fantasy type game' economic system; you can rationalize that the skin of troll or giant spider venom is "worth its weight in gold" hence justifying the large loot/booty gotten from "monster harvesting".
End of quote

I got my Bachelor's in Economics so rationalizing the economic system is kinda a given for me.  B)   If troll skins and spider venom have useful properties in this RPG-seeped game we have here why can't we utilize them, perhaps for making or modifying equipment, instead of having them auto-converted in gold?

Dragon Age: Origins, as an example, has potion-making and limited armor-crafting, giving some actual reason to hunt certain monsters. 


My experience has been this: all that additonal cash I get from "monster harvesting" just gets spent outfitting champions. You can spend 2000 gold easily outfitting one single guy with all the armor, amulets, medical pack, longbow, etc
End of quote

While that may slake every RPG'ers thirst for accumulating loot, it doesn't really serve much purpose because champions do so little anyway. What good does it do to spend $50,000 turning a Honda Civic into a 500WHP monster if I can only use it to get my groceries, just like I did when it was stock?

 

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 50
The problem with this is you'd have to alter the whole item store price scheme & trade item price perception.
End of cpl_rk's quote

I believe this would be easily solved by making monsters randomly drop appropriate items to compensate for the less gold.

Right now you (and Stardock) are assuming that the gold from monsters will be used to buy the horribly overpriced store items and therefore it is balanced. But what if you use regular squads of troops (or even mass summons) to go monster hunting? You don't need to buy any store items then and are suddenly swimming in far more gold than you can make any other way.

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 50
In my opinion, scaling the game to get more income from mines (especially when it's hit and miss as to if and when you can find them) would more than likely unhinge the AI tremendously, even more than it is now
End of cpl_rk's quote

I don't believe that is what is being suggested, gold mines are also overpowered relative to other gold sources (just not as overpowered as monster killing). I would leave gold mines as they are but increase the other sources so they are noticeable.

For example a settlement could make the following gold at different levels: 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 8

With that system a level 4 settlement is equivalent to a gold mine and a level 5 settlement is worth more. You could use different numbers, but basically something to make it more worthwhile building bigger settlements.

Similarly there should be more economy buildings that provide base gold, probably buildings that can only be built in higher level settlements.

After doing this the gold costs for buildings and troops MIGHT need to be tweaked higher to compensate for gold being easier to get (although reducing monster hunting gold would help a LOT here) but that is part of what balancing is about.

Quoting cpl_rk, reply 50
My experience has been this: all that additonal cash I get from "monster harvesting" just gets spent outfitting champions.
End of cpl_rk's quote

Exactly my point. If you choose NOT to spend your gold on outfitting champions then you have ridiculous amounts of it spare, likewise if you try to accumulate the gold to outfit champions via any method OTHER than monster hunting it will take you forever. The champion/monster hunting side of the economy is completely out of step with the city income/building construction/troop training side of the economy, almost by a factor of 10.