This is actually an interesting point. I know there is a mod for a fishery which gives a real bonus to those sea side cities, but I think it would be interesting if this were taken one step farther, to include water resources and perhaps a water based caravan unit. I think this would really add a nice expansion to the current resource model and could easily be added to any expansion to the existing model.

Regarding the training time added by equipment, it should not be the same for all experience levels you can train troops at.

You know, I'd really like to see Stardock to an RTS- I think with your strengths as a game studio you'd do quite well with it.

Of Course! This would be the optimal solution. A system which pleases everyone at once, sign me up. Now, I have been following this thread fairly closely, and I think that there are a lot of great ideas here. However, I don't think any one idea does this. On the complex resource side, there have been some really interesting ideas, but almost all of them have the caveat that there would need to be some kind of automated system to appease the simple resource people. For anyone who has played a 4x game, it is obvious that the automated systems are always worse than manually setting things. This is not due to a deficiency of some programmer, but simply that the automated system does not know what the player is planning and simply makes choices for a median strategy. Therefore, the players who like the complex system and desire to utilize it to its fullest would have a clear advantage over players who do not want to deal with complex resource management. If you play civ and automate all your workers while I manually place each and every improvement, my civ will be far superior to yours as you will be playing against the AI's choices while I will be playing along with mine.

This was merely an simplistic example meant solely to outline a point, and it was meant to be extreme. The point was simply to ask the question of added fun with respect to these types of chains.

I will make my statement again, that my opinion is simply that the best way to please everyone is to make an incredibly simplistic vanilla model while expanding the ability of mod makers to add any kinds of resource chaining they want. Honestly, most of this is already available to modders, save for the ability of caravans to specify the end to end modifiers, which would be necessary for adding complex, multi-city infrastructures. In this way, simple players and complex players can tailor the resource system they like, and the mod community can develop incredible resource mods. And again, the reason to not do it the other way- complex vanilla with mod support for simple - is simply the larger complexity of removing mechanics v the simplicity of adding mechanics.

This is fairly strange. The only thing I can't do with resources is utilize some functionality to move a local resource, but beyond this limitation, I can do a lot of crazy things with resources. Actually the underlying mechanics of the wizard's tower utilizes a complex resource network to emulate certain building mechanics which are not currently in place, and HeavenFall was working on a mod using resources to dictate which the number of buildings of a given type in a city. I have a fair amount of experience with modding the resources of Elemental, if you would like to pm me with what exactly you were trying to do I may be able to help you get past your hurtle.

As for this point, I actually disagree. The point of allowing for automation v. Manual control is not to confer an advantage to one side or another, but to increase the fun of the players who like one way or another. If you are the type of player who wants to press the big button that say play and it is fun for you to do so, then who am I to say one way or another about it. At the end of the day, automation of game mechanics is merely a way to allow players to minimize those interactions they find unappealing and maximize those that they care to engage in. If there were inherently some advantage to manual play in the underlying game mechanics, then the player would either be stuck with the disadvantage for a system he did not care for or would be forced to endure a less than fun mechanic.

This isn't to knock the guy, it's just fact.  Signal officers in a trench for four months aren't learning war.  WW1 was a titanic fuck up of incompetence from start to finish, most of the generals didn't know anything about it either.  They didn't even do close air support.  Trench warfare was instantly antiquated with the advent of the bomber.  Buzz down trench at a couple hundred yards and drop bombs straight into it, no more trench warfare.

If you want to learn about war, you look at campaigns that were actually successful, and the people that made them so.  Patton fueled his advance using enemy supplies.  All that fuel his tanks burned crossing Europe didn't come from his supply lines, he typically outran them even when he was given sufficient supplies to do the job.  Serving in a war only makes you knowledgeable about war if you actually learn something about it besides how horrible it is to die in a trench.  That, he learned in spades.

Since the mid 16th century...  You have ten thousand years of fairly descriptive human history and you latch onto 500 years of it.  By the Renaissance, we already had gunpowder weaponry.  Even the Dark Ages came after Rome had come and gone as a power.

The feudal system, which dominated Europe and much of Asia for centuries, was based around feudal lords that were well equipped and well armed.  They then had peasants under them that were drafted into service, and only a few arms men.  It was the norm for the manor guard to be the only regular forces.  Not until the advent of the English longbow did Europe have highly trained regulars after the fall of the Roman empire, and they did it by making archery the only legal sport, not by having a standing army.  Much of the time, Rome itself only had a standing army because they were in a constant state of expansionist war.  It wasn't so much a standing army as it was a perpetual state of conflict.  If you go further back, they become even more a rarity.  The Romans kicked so much as a result of others not having one themselves.  The typical empire was a coterie of guards and civil watch to keep down crime and protect the leadership, armies were comprised of largely conscripts.

Then stop arguing with me?  You're the one complaining that being able to loot equipment and roll out untrained troops is a problem.

This isn't even applicable.  We can't make mismatched units to begin with.  We can't equip previously made units with new weaponry either, how this would detract from fun I don't know, but you have such strange ideas I'm sure there's something you'll complain about, completely forgetting context by the next post.

You were arguing that looting the battle field for weapons was something people didn't do in war.  You weren't arguing that untrained peasants shouldn't slowly gather new equipment over time and turn into armored knights.

Yeah, I do, it does.  It's really simple.  No, really, simple is the whole key point here.

Right now, we mine "metal" and everything has to be cost descriptive simply in metal.  A better sword has to cost more metal, it can't take more time to create because there is no creation time.  It can't take more manpower to create because there is no manpower.  It's not created, it just appears magically in abstracted shit.  So, we have "metal" and the world goes round.

When you add a new sword to the game, you have to look at all the other equipment and compare costs, factoring in what percentage of those costs is penalty for abstracted manpower, and what percentage is based on actual material usage.  You're not just training a unit, you're training the unit and creating all the components that go with it, your components have to factor that in to their properties.  This explains the unholy shitfest that is current balance as well, the mechanics behind production are too simple.

It's much like ranged units in the typical game having some magic number where they're just right, but in larger and smaller armies they're either too powerful or overpowered.  It's not that ranged weaponry is inherently unbalanced, it's that the mechanics are an abstraction.  The physical reality of melee weapons is preserved in that you can only hit units that are next to you(this would be why our grouping sucks dick in Elemental, they don't) while the physical reality of ranged weaponry is not.  You can't aim at something you can't see, and you can't shoot something that is obstructed by another object.  Add in friendly fire, line of sight, and volley mechanics and you have a functional ranged combat system.

Iron -> Refined Iron -> Steel -> Sword Blade -> Sword

It's not the chain, it's the process.  You start off with simple iron ore.  Refined iron products are simply refined iron that has been shaped into a tool.  Your iron sword is made at the same forge that your iron hammer is.  They're all produced in terms of refined iron, simply so that iron is a discrete value.  Your forge is then simply producing iron products in terms of a usage rate of that single input.

Refined iron then has further usage, steel is invented.  You're still using iron, you now have a better use, one that requires more resources.  Now, instead of all of your iron going to forges for iron weapons, some of it is going to other smelters that make steel by puddling it with other materials in the mix.  Your inputs are all simple, easily balanced.  Steel weapons don't need to be more expensive for arbitrary reasons, steel is.  Working iron is easy, high carbon steel compared to iron is like iron compared to lead.  You can practically work lead cold.  Forging steel requires more manpower, you need a hotter forge, and you have to work it longer.  This is why even after the invention of steel, a vastly superior metal for weapons of war, wrought iron was still use in large quantities where it was greatly inferior.  They couldn't afford to make everything out of steel.  Only when they discovered easier ways of making it did it completely take over the roles it was superior for.  Your weaponry boils down to complexity of the work done to the inputs in return for the output.  Want to make a new sword?  Adjust a couple numbers and you'll be close even if you're way off.  Much of the work has already been done, so that portion of the weapon is already balanced for you.

Enchantments become infinitely easier.  An enchanted sword isn't a new sword, it's just a sword.  You can have a thousand different enchantments to choose from, and you only need one sword.  You balance the base inputs in terms of manpower, you balance the refinements in terms of manpower, you balance everything in terms of manpower.  The only thing you have to balance for an enchanted sword is the cost of enchanting it.  You've already balanced the sword itself.  It's simple input and output.  In a well automated system with a good interface, you could be researching enchantments that had a broad application, auto generating their necessary files on the fly.  Want a sword that throws bursts of flame on impact?  Piece of cake, it appends the enchantment to the selected sword and generates the item for the production list.  Want a hammer instead, or a knife?  Simple input and output thanks to "complicated" design.

Whether your workers have soap or not is something to leave to the imagination.

I find this quote kind of ironic since Elemental's combat was originally supposed to be real time.

I am not 100% sure what you mean exactly by removing a default resource, as resources in the XML of Elemental are simply a value one acquires in a number of different ways. Now, If one wanted to remove this value, then one would only need to mod those elements which give this value. So you could make a modded claimed Lost Library which gave 5 gold instead of the 5 research. To do this, you would simply take the 5 research ( by placing a 5 research per turn cost) from the improvement and add 5 gold. This would effectively take out the value. Now say you don't want the building at all, then you could add a prerequisite that can not be fulfilled, like an empire tech but an alignment of the Kingdoms. However, let's say you simply don't want gold deposits to spawn at all. This one is by far the easiest. Which is simply

Here we can see that gold deposits will now only show when they are "unlocked". Yet since there is no such time, they will never spawn. All of this can be done without modifying core files.

Like anything it has taken time for the community to develop the knowledge to do some of these things. I agree it is not elegant as I didn't have the time to dream one up. However, I think it would be a good starting point for you. If you use the code I provided, it will cause any resource location not spawn until it is "unlocked". As for the other solutions, if you utilize them properly you will be able to remove enough references to make any remain more anachronistic. This said, there are some resources which you will be unable to "get rid of" like population which appears to have direct reference hardcoded.

And not to appear snarky, but I would suggest you read the companion book for Elemental.

In the game proper some semblance of mechanics "sense" has to exist, be it how a sword is made or how I deal diplomatically with the other AI based factions.

Both should require some strategic thought, as well as sound planning.

Strangely, that brings up a another point. Why in a War game "E:EoW" have Diplomacy be of any great depth anyways? Because some people like the intricacies that "Diplomacy" can provide in a game.

So why not provide the same level of intricacies in the model for those who enjoy the same, but only under the "Economic" model which should have at least the same level of tangible depth.

Which accents my point above about the Diplomacy in the Game. There seems to be little to no argument that most want a deep and complex Diplomacy feature to be available for, if and when, they decide to go the Diplo route even if it is but once in 400 games.

Why can't the same be done for "Economics" as well?

Because it adds RATPOO(t)?

Where is the difference between the two? Such that one doesn't appear to add it (complex Diplo) and the other (complex Eco) does or would?

Now that is not to say E:WoM has a deep Diplomatic base, but no one has griped about it possibly being to deep that it is not FUN to use.

Who asked to equip peasants pulled out of nowhere with a new sword they tried to loot?  Are you retarded?

It's really, really simple.  You make actual swords, from actual resources.  They're a bloody stored value, done!  Looting corpses would be taking swords from dead people, increasing your stored value just like if you made them at your forge.  There isn't anything complicated or confusing here.  Complicated and confusing is the shit fest of arbitrary modifiers we have now.

I feel like a fucking genius talking about quantum physics or something.  It's two plus two for Christ's sake.

I don't even know what Kenata's argument is.  It's as if complex resources magically result in hell on earth or something.  His brain shuts down at the thought of it.  I just want "training moron to use pointy stick" and the whole fucking industrial sector behind making his pointy stick to be two different things.  They aren't when you have this half ass bullshit economy from the dark ages of pc gaming.  It's been an antiquity for a decade now and people just will not leave it alone.  You can't field a bunch of end game units now either, instead of requiring work to create the materials needed, you just get to wait an awe(or horror) inspiring number of turns to collect the resources they need, and then wait 30 turns for them to finish "training" with their not any harder to use than normal sword of doom.  This after painstakingly configuring your cities for the optimal bonus stacking to get the obscenely high production numbers you'll need to accomplish the task at all.

Building an actual army is a process of elimination, you eliminate your enemies and absorb enough infrastructure to get them out in a reasonable amount of time.  They're so goddamn powerful with these one size fits all resource reqs that they're still invincible even when you take forever to create them.  It's lethal.

It's not like it has to establish profitable businesses and perform in a down economy...

If the AI can grasp utilization of resources, it's already there.  You have iron income rate of 4pt, you need to use 4pt producing refined ore.  It already has to know what types of units to build, it already needs to know which units are best.  They just have more values to fill in.  You need X swordsmen, Y archers, Z cavalry, so produce components in those ratios, adjusting for resource shortages and surpluses.  The economy sim games usually have pretty good AI, and they're designed to be a pain in your ass, not streamlined for automation.

I now understand why you said peasants come from nowhere.  Now that I do, it makes complete sense why it didn't make sense.

This is irrefutable proof that the ability to field armies in comparison to the ability to gather population sucks donkey balls.  What does it have to do with the mechanics of production?  Perhaps you're saying that because the population system currently sucks donkey balls, we should screw everything else equally?  Quests should be a random text and result spawn!  The game is already complicated, it's too late to go simple.  It was too late when they started simplifying the shit out of it to avoid whatever horrific time constraints they were up against upon discovering they wouldn't make everything work the way they'd originally envisioned it.  Doing so anyway is how we got retarded crap like utterly irrelevant population growth that can't possibly be hindered by casualties of war.

So you want the same level of management, but none of the benefits.  Do you grasp the advantages to being able to store equipment, not just units?  You already build the buildings.  You build mills, forges, armories, all the shit you'd have to under a production economy.  The difference is you're just getting some modifier out of it instead of a new stage of production.  You load all of your production to the end product, training the unit.

You make a sandwich for lunch.  You get out your bread, spread your peanut butter from the jar, scoop out some jam, slap the sucker together and start munching away, yum!

You make a sandwich for lunch.  You get out your grain, grind the shit down, mix it with water, eggs, yeast, some sugar, and let it rise for a few hours.  While that's going, you get out your peanuts and some strawberries and start mashing them up for your peanut butter and jam.  Several hours later, you finally start munching away, at dinner time...

It's not complicated, it's simple.  Mobilizing for war isn't possible because mobilization requires already having stockpiles to utilize.  Rapidly pumping out raw recruits isn't possible because raw recruits still need weapons and armor to use.  If you can't make it, you can't make it in advance.  You can't steal it.  You can't do anything with it, it's abstracted out of the tactical and strategic depth of the game.

Ahh, the joys of simplistic models... 

AoW falls to the same problem.  The design is too simple for the scale.  The combat system is too simple to use them, and the economy is too simple to make them viable even if you could.

Kohan works.  Why does Kohan work?

The grenadier, the badass of all badass melee units, takes twice as many resources as basic infantry.  It's only slightly better.  With the right support, grenadiers are nigh invincible, but you pay through the nose for a slight edge over those basic infantry, and you sacrifice a lot of mobility for it.  In return, properly screened cleric/channeler supported squads can chew through basic infantry indefinitely.  Power is in tactics, the parity of units from top to bottom is narrow.

Squads don't change in size.  Squads stay the same size from start to finish.

Technological advances over the course of the game amount to minor boosts.  On a good day you might end up being twice as powerful by the end of it.

Simple only functions on a small scale.  Everything in Kohan is simple and tightly scaled.  You don't range in unit strength from 1-10, or from 1-200 in the case of Elemental.

For AoW to have worked, or MoM for that matter(breakingly cheesy spells for killing breakingly cheesy heroes doesn't count as working), it needed to be on the scale of a game like Warhammer.  Warhammer has proper scale for such a parity of power.  When you have units that can eat a dozen swordsmen for lunch, you need to be able to field a dozen swordsmen against them for there to be a point to having swordsmen.  Elemental needs Total War scale.  You need thousands of peasants with pointy sticks to kill a company of heavy plate armored, claymore wielding cheeseballs with every magic item in the list.  We can neither produce them nor field them in our current state if simplicity.

On this you will get no argument. I think in general this thread has been a bit derailed and my points have drifted to being more reactionary than I would like. I don't mind at all the idea of a complex economic system in Elemental, and I think that you make an excellent point by saying that a good economic system should have a complexity which is purposeful and fun. My contention in this thread has simply been that a complex resource system is not necessary to achieve this purposeful and fun system. In fact, I think that adding such a resource system would add no greater depth to the game.

The thing about Elemental is that end units seems to go away from the underlying philosophy of behind custom unit creation. If one type of unit is inherently superior to another, then this is the unit that players will build. It doesn't matter that the player has various options for armors and weapons, as this "end unit" will be the unit that players are attempting to create. Now, say you want to make this rush harder by implementing a complex resource system, players will simply min max this system to move as close to the optimal unit as possible. You are not adding strategic "challenge" as this is boils down to resource pokemon, where you are trying to catch em all. On top of this, you have made the system much more complex and by doing so the AI now has to function on a much more complex system.

In my mind, this whole thing becomes less and less interesting, as it does not necessarily make the economy more complex. In general, this kind of resource system merely bogs down economic choice into the minutia of making a sword or a shield. Personally I would like to see the caravan system enhanced greatly to allow for various resource flows between cities. This would add strategic depth as it would add a complexity that would merge naturally with other systems, such as combat and diplomacy. You could add diplomatic treaties for a metal trade, whereby a caravan had to actually travel from one of the enemy cities to your own. Here we could say that if the caravan makes it the trip back and forth, you get a diplomatic bonus, but would get a negative bonus if it failed to reach its destination. You could even expand this by randomly spawning a bandit to try and raid the caravan, which would act like a make shift quest. Maybe you could add "flagless" units, that is a trainable bandit unit, which can raid caravans for your faction without war. Kind of like privateers in civ 4. All of these things would add an interesting angle to your economic affairs without bogging the player down with trivialities.

I agree with this, but my point earlier was simply that while there have been many ideas thrown out in this thread concerning more complex systems, you don't appease both sides of the resource conversation by simply saying "Oh and we will add automation so that the other side doesn't really have to do this." As was well pointed out, if the game just boils down to pressing go and sitting back, then you have let out all the fun.