Thalatta

@Eilat I recommend you to have a look at the game Earth 2150. It's near futuristic war and the way it deals with supplies is great, the best I've seen yet never found it in another game. Size of maps shouldn't be an issue if you concentrate on particular missions as part of a larger campaign map, for which there are also projects around.

In what historical period, as in exact years, do you want to focus?

Maybe this channel could be useful for you, they explain the models they use for their other channel, Yarnhub, and describe the capabilities of each machine in quite some detail:

Of course they aren't the same thing, those would somewhat correspond to independent Newton's laws after all. I was referring to the effects of their combination. What I noticed is that when cavalry change direction they go a bit into each other, and I wondered how their movement would change without doing so. But you say both "it wouldn't much" and "cost more to simulate", along with representing a "balancing change", the latter I think should be considered since far too many sword infantry seemed to be having a go at that poor elephant (avoidance and ranged attacks, mainly javelins if I remember correctly, is how the Romans dealt with them), although of course that's another discussion, but good if "with this PR it's only just one tweak".

Hardly , just pointing out history, realism, and possible improvements, more so considering many have stated a preference for tactics and formations becoming more relevant, which units not going through each other would automatically provide, in good part Sure, but it's a theory/practise issue. Shouldn't increasing the radial repulsion force at a given distance (in physical terms, the elastic constant k, or stiffness) of land units achieve a more "solid" effect? Would this be costlier to simulate? I wonder how your cavalry turning would look in that case, for example.

Already ships not going through each other is an astronomical improvement (although realistically, for the more direct impacts the ram would perforate the other ship and reversing would be needed to separate them). I hope the same could be implemented for land units, making their movements more natural and their tactics more relevant.

I haven't even looked at the Romans in vanilla yet

Sure, but as with many things, that's just an abstraction. No battle represents an actual battle, but a whole conflict, at least in a game like this, and how things are represented is always a decision to be made. A possibility could be for corpses to be robbed to get Loot, and after that for them to disappear fast. This would naturally be more safely done after the end of battles. But I don't know if this has been discussed, nor it seems a priority to me, compared with so many other things. Maybe I'd go 75% for stone and metal, and 50% for wood (or 50% 25% if from a gameplay point of view those are too much): easier to remember, takes into account stone and metal are highly reusable, and the process has to be worth it (this considering they are unbuilt/unproduced as I mentioned, which is part of the balance when compared to just deleting them). Actually, this way to get stone and metal should be an important one (at least realistically), not even Catholic Popes would eventually resist melting Roman bronze statues to make cannons, for example.

Do you also have triarii units? I guess that could be useful not to just lose spearmen.

The game does have "ruins" in many scenarios, which provide stone. The problem would be to take care of a more seamless transition between all kinds of buildings and their corresponding ruins. Maybe later on all these concepts could be unified in a coherent framework, but right now unbuilding/unproducing seems the simplest way. The game already includes Loot from killed units. Realistically, to the victor should belong the spoils, but as you say, in a game like this it's hard to determine when a battle ends, thus individual opportunism is what's accounted for.

I think the point could be to keep selectable options limited and uniform among civs, while allowing for actual differentiation and evolution if wanted. I've come across this issue so many times, and one has to end anachronistically simplify things, which could indeed be solved if "a unit can represent more than just the soldiers equipped in the exact same way". For example, the Athenians had hippotoxotai (cavalry archers) substituted by prodromoi ("scouts") in the first half of the 4th c. BC. With the proposal, both could appear, depending on progress, but the icon, or just the "generic" name, could be the same, and quite common for most civs (Mounted Skirmisher could be an option), but the actual model would change (among civs and with progress), have different stats, and the "particular" unit name also be written somewhere, but the "generic" name would tell you basically its function. Other examples I came across just this last week is that Alexander's mounted skirmishers went from javelineers to archers, and his prodromoi apparently from javelineers to lancers. And I guess it would simplify dealing with things like the Roman Army. Regarding mixins, if you can irreversibly upgrade them such that they also change in the buildings that produce them, and show also their "particular" name somewhere, maybe it could work, but those working on it would have a better understanding on why it wouldn't.

Besides my previous comments on why I think most of these rules could simply be removed, following that same line, I didn't comment on "entities you captured or converted from another player (or from Gaia) are not refunded", I wonder why this is the case: tons of monumental architecture has been dismantled by conquering states, using then the stone to build in their own style (even the Ayyubids tried to dismantle the Pyramids of Giza, Menkaure's has been left with a big gash since). That's what's great with stone and metal, quite reusable… which makes me think if wood should have some penalty, but also wouldn't want to add rules, my philosophy being the exact opposite.

Oh hell naw! Just by pressing Learn to Play one can read "Civilisation", no one cares about guidelines . Will consider it for my upcoming renaming PR.

Just something to consider: I don't think there are any examples of ancient sword guards looking like a nihonto's tsuba.

Wouldn't it be better to use what the game uses? "Civilisation" appears in the UI, UK English then. Although I don't know how consistent this is.

That's why what I propose is simply reversing what's already there. You could leave fields and think of it as "transplanting": avoid unnecessary extra rules. Peace time and ownership rules are also incoherent: you can build while attacked, you can Self-Destroy while owning over 50%, and you can gather resources while being attacked. It's again hyper-realism when similar processes are already abstracted, which doesn't make it intuitive. The building should build down (reverse of build up), and the workers animation could be that of gathering wood, stone or metal: looks different and it's appropriate. I think you'll need an icon for Salvage different from Self-Destruct, otherwise you fall into making salvaging too simple and rewarding by merging both concepts, as previously mentioned. The panel needs reworking anyway since important icons like Capture are not being shown, which is an abysmal design mistake. In the meantime, further down I'll mention a possible solution not to have both icons in the panel. I know, the parenthesis was there to have only relevance when combined with the parenthesis in "I agree doing so should be part of the game (with those big engines being extremely slow in return)", since I agree with this only for the big engines. I see, but one has to check for that weird condition, greatly harming players' attention, and adding micro if one wants to move things around just in case. I have an idea to solve both this and deal with the two icons: if you want to select units and buildings, you have to do it quite on purpose, since a drag selection ignores buildings. Considering this, and that for now it's not ideal to take button space with both Salvage and Self-Destruct, I'd do things like this: -if you select either ships and a Dock, or siege engines and an Arsenal, the button that appears is Salvage. When pressing it, the units would move to garrison in the selected building to be salvaged (which should be queued and each could take the same as their production time, to reverse that process, or at most accelerated by a certain factor, but this is just adding rules). -if you select workers and any structure, the button that appears is Salvage. When pressed, what happens is what was previously described regarding animations (which should take the same as building time, to reverse that process, or at most accelerated by a certain factor, but this is just adding rules). -for any other kind of selection, the button that appears is Self-Destruct. This should work as now (no rewards), except that I'd make it take a time depending on HP (1000/s drain, or building/production time accelerated by a certain factor, which in this case is indeed necessary), and I'd queue buildings and units independently to avoid its abuse (from AI mostly, apparently). All this minimalistically does what you basically want to do, removing the visual checking of an arbitrary radius for Salvage to work, by instead selecting who does what where, and if elements are not correctly specified, then the default action is the less rewarding Self-Destruct. Only one button would show up at a time. All as mentioned: draining times should be variable, cancellation by attacks doesn't seem coherent with present rules, and not queuing is not reversing the process, while not queuing in Self-Destruct would not solve the collapse issue mentioned, of course.

Good. Just give a name to the first percentage, it's salvageability, but maybe you can think of some other name. You could start with a 50% default for everything, to be fine-tuned later on if wanted (and food maybe could be ignored, because it's weird to salvage it). Incredibly complicated! And why? Why shouldn't walls and towers give a refund? Their stone was among the most salvageable resource. You said it yourself how things should be already, at least for buildings: And that's it! You later used the word "elegantly", then do it so: simple, no steps, no caps, no gaps, no radius, no more parameters, emulating existing processes, or their reverse. There you basically proposed to use unit(s) to unbuild structures, to be rewarded what I quoted from you at the beginning. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get why you would need ANY extra rule. What I quoted from you produces a simple rule: salvaging is unbuilding. For units, I can't help but keep saying that you don't need any extra rule! You use the same rule as with buildings: just unproduce them. Why complicate the ship rule with a radius, if you could just click a Salvage button on the ship, and then click a Dock, and all should be automatic from there? The ship would travel to the Dock, garrison, and get salvaged. All the radius thing is not simpler, not needed, not realistic, and not intuitive because the unproduce rule imitates that of buildings. Same with siege engines. Besides, you state you can dismantle (some of) them in one's territory, when one is not able to construct them there in the first place, incurring a logic gap. I agree doing so should be part of the game (with those big engines being extremely slow in return), but that's not yet there. When it is, yes, dismantle them wherever they can be constructed, to keep following the simple unbuilding/unproduce rule, but in the meantime it would be incoherent: the disassembly being realistic, while the assembly isn't. No. Scorched earth tactics should not be ultra-fast, that's exactly the point not to get the unsightly simultaneous collapse of everything (by the AI at least). What should be ultra-fast is deleting some building or unit that is bothering the player (I'm exaggerating with "ultra", it could take a very few seconds). The whole point is: you can use Self-Destruct, but you can't abuse it. The key is what I said: "only gets noticeable the more buildings at a time one wants to destroy". Thus, the best way to deal with all these and other issues at the same time seems to be modifying Self-Destruct the way I explained before (queue buildings, queue units in parallel if considered, and sequentially in each of both queues drain their HP at like 1000/s, etc), and all this has nothing to do with Salvage, there's no resource reward, because it's simpler and faster to execute.

Not really, right now in the game, when you abort ship or engine training, you get the whole refund. This might be unrealistic, but maybe it would be too punishing and different from other RTS to do otherwise. I didn't think of the second point, and although it makes sense, you can't get a refund from engines that cannot be garrisoned, and you are using a different rule than with ships. That's why I thought for them to go back to the Arsenal. Sure, but that's what salvaging would be. Right now the game only destroys. That's why you return the ship to the Dock to get resources back, it's not the same as scuttling. It's not so much about an actual exploit, but a gap in the logical working of things. If at 70% built I realise I want to destroy the building without benefiting from it, waiting for completion would give back more resources, making this refund scheme unnecessarily irrational, while ignoring calls for it "not to be too simple and rewarding". This is exactly my latest Salvage proposal: "do what you want to do, but require unit(s) to do it ("salvager(s)")". If you just garrison it you don't even need animations, which could be just construction in reverse. If the refund will be the corresponding loot or a "fraction of the materials used" (maybe the first is calculated as the second?) it's just a choice that can be discussed (it's all the same for me, as long as the rule is simple, but in reality salvaging is of course more rewarding than loot). But, on top of that, I didn't want to remove the Self-Destruct option because some people will surely want to delete things ultra fast without any salvaging. That's why I now proposed for it to work like always, but in a queue (you imagine the arsonists, they were supposed to do things ultra fast and as an excuse to solve the collapse issue anyway). Other things to consider regarding the destruction queue: when queued at the same time, elements should be ordered from lower to higher HP. Whatever addition to the queue comes at the end of it. If 50% of the ownership is lost (I think this is the limit to destroy them in the first place right now), elements have to be unqueued (limiting a player's ability to destroy a lot of buildings just before losing ownership, which is what the AI always unsightly does). While units, if considered, should have their own queue (running in parallel), a single queue icon (skull) should appear on the right, showing the remaining time of the whole process (that is, the longest time considering both building and unit destruction queues), which can be aborted by right-clicking on it (already destroyed/dead elements remain so of course, while whatever was being processed at that very moment ends damaged/injured). Unqueuing individual elements should also be possible, maybe by pressing some icon indicating that they are in the destruction queue. The HP drain could be around 1000 or 500/s.

Since now I see your mod applies to "finished" buildings, I guess you are not considering that. Independently of Salvage working with "salvager(s)" to avoid the issues mentioned, got a better idea to deal with Self-Destruct: make a destruction queue, each structure getting sequentially destroyed by quickly draining their HP (giving a little time to each element for the queue to work). This solves the unsightly collapse issue, only gets noticeable the more buildings at a time one wants to destroy, doesn't involve other units ("arsonists"), adds absolutely no micro, and opens the possibility of eventually aborting the process before it starts or while it's under way (in that last case, one ending with a damaged structure because of the HP drain). Doing the same for units is a possibility, for them to die in fast succession instead of all at the exact same time, which, like the collapse issue, is quite goofy.

But automatically deleting the building for usable resources is exactly that, plus being automatic, plus getting resources back, plus the animation makes less sense. The only purpose of the "arsonist" (which was never intended to be a new unit, but a role present units take) is to avoid the simultaneous collapse of everything. Besides, you are defeating the purpose of how the game works. As mentioned: when you delete a building, "the amount of resources you get back depends on how much has been actually built. That is, if 35% of the structure has been built, one gets 65% of resources back, and so on". This implies "100% built means 0% of resources back". The present behaviour "makes perfect sense if one thinks of it as the resources having been set apart beforehand for construction, the resources already used being lost". If you want to press just delete and get resources back, you'd need to change how the whole thing already works, otherwise it makes no sense (if you get back, say, 30% with your method, if a structure is already 70% built and you want to destroy it, it'd be more rewarding to wait until it's completely built and then destroy it ). EDIT: Unless you are already considering all this, and what you get back is the unbuilt fraction and a fraction of the fraction already built, which would be the general rule (at present the fraction of the fraction already built is 0%, and you want to give it a value). There's another possibility in between all of this: do what you want to do, but require unit(s) to do it ("salvager(s)"), the action is just Salvage, could be quite fast (unrealistic since it should be like unbuilding it, but whatever), and not only avoids the collapse issue, but ends not being in contradiction with present implementations or "too simple and rewarding". One assumes they got out just before destruction I guess, but sieges are completely weird in the game anyway (which I think needs fixing).

Salvage then, as has been just discussed: returning something (a ship) to a store (the Dock) and getting store credit (salvageable fraction).

No new actors are needed for anything, it's just the present units doing or getting stuff done when garrisoned (unseen). Simplest would be that it can only be attacked (but the process should be fast enough for this to have no relevant use case). It shouldn't be capturable or salvageable, unless there's a method to stop its ongoing destruction (implying complicating things).

Excellent work @nifa!!

Sure, it'd be all contemplated, just takes more time. That "while" would only make the "ugly simultaneous collapse of everything" happen a bit later . That's the main reason to require an arsonist. To reduce micro to just one extra action no matter the case, Set on Fire could work like this: select (all) building(s) and (all) arsonist(s), and just press the Set on Fire button/hotkey. This should make the arsonist(s) move to the closest building(s), garrison, "start the fire" and ungarrison (and automatically repeat the process until all buildings in that initial selection are set on fire). The only difference with Self-Destruct would then be the addition of arsonist(s) to the building selection to be destroyed. Self-Destruct for organic units is ok as it is now.

That's adding rewards to something that's already too automatic My proposal for Salvage was the simple rule of just doing things "in reverse": I mean, if you are already near the Dock/Arsenal, you might as well be inside it (it's not that a siege tower is literally inside an Arsenal, but surely when Demetrius' Helepolis was being disassembled by the Rhodians they set up some temporal depot right there, with people that actually knew what they were doing involved, represented by the "engineers" an Arsenal is supposed to have). Regarding the "fraction" mentioned for the salvageable resources: Independently, and personally, to avoid the ugly simultaneous collapse of everything, I'd require one nearby (or better, garrisoned) unit for Self-Destroy to work. I'd rename that then "Set on Fire" or something, it would work only on one's buildings (supposedly being done also from inside), and once triggered the building can be left alone and gets destroyed fast. No time invested in getting the resources back, then no resource reward, but useful for quickly clearing up stuff and scorched earth policy.