Proposal to add water as a resource

[Grautvornix]

Dwellings typically depend on the availability of water. A good location is one that has good and sufficient water supplies.

Should we therefore possibly add a kind of water supply concept ?

How would that work:

- CC could get a population bonus of a few percent if

1. there is a river/lake next to them. For this we would need adding a "water source" tag in the code to designate a lake as supply source, and add an associated aura (this may however turn out to be complex as these are new objects and they are irregularly shaped).
2. build a wells (that has a water supply aura next to the CC.

- production system for crops now including water as a new aura or resource? How could that work?

1. again, either build your fields next to a river or lake,
2. or build a well next to your fiield. Cannot build more than, say, 4 fields per well. Rice would need more water, of course.

Just an idea.

 

[phosit]

I like the idea for the "bonus for fields". Plants need water to grow.

I don't see the direct relation to the "more population in CC".
People might be less busy carrying water so they can participate in economy or military.

[Grautvornix]

Thanks for the thumbs up!  @phosit I particularly noticed that fields can be built anywhere, even in the desert, on snowy land, or on paved areas. I believe the game does not distinguish different undergrounds or soils and their respective fertility and may only have occasionally preferred/preset locations for fields (shown as "raw farmland") that (I believe) give a slight bonus to farming. Similar argumentation would possibly go for livestock stables.

Building a well next to it could be used to create a similar or even higher bonus on farming yield, similar to the treatmill that was existing for gauls and/or britons in earlier versions of the game. 

 

With respect to the CC, the point I was coming from was that:

• in many oasis scenarios the oasis itself has no real impact on gameplay except it represents an obstacle, and provides predefined trees and wildlife.
• in nomad mode you can select any point for CC that is strategically suitable,e.g. next to valuable resources, or a place that can be better defended. These considerations in the game do not look into supplying population with water. 

So, if I select a nice location with easy access to metal or stone, but do not have water, I should build one or two wells to mimic water supply in game - or I place my CC next to a water body (river, lake or the like).

Discovering and capturing pre-installed "forgotten" wells  or having to stay next to an oasis in a desert scenario could possibly influence game strategy.

 

I do acknowledge that adding water as an additional resource in game could entail a significant redesign (which I'd like to avoid). Hence the proposal adding bonusses for wells as a minimum.

[Grautvornix]

Taking the water-as-a-resource-idea a bit further , Romans as an example could have aquaeducts as a special building, guiding water from a well to a CC. Aquaeducts could be implemented as a kind of wall structure that provide a water supply aura for CC, fields, stables etc.

Possibly a "water aura" could give a very small population bonus to houses (e.g. +1) within the aura.  

I do apologize for putting such crazy ideas out for discussion as they may impact development and gameplay alike...something to consider for version A39 possibly . 

[krt0143]

Hmm, I'm in two minds about this:

Is this a civilization management simulation, or a combat game with some generic resource management to spice things up? If the latter, it's actually irrelevant what those resources pretend to be (specific metals, food, gems, magic dust, whatever), all that matters is that the player finds enough sources (no pun intended) on the map, and controlling them becomes a strategic issue.
In this case it would all boil down to the question, "how many of those generic resources do you want"? Traditionally it's 4, since the ancestor of all RTS games, Warcraft (the first). 

Now if you go for the simulation, you'd need to go all the way, i.e. on the map separate water bodies into drink water - saltwater - brackish water, create natural sources to place on maps, but also streams, and of course allow digging wells (with a % of success!), and also build reservoirs and irrigation channels (the player would have to defend/sabotage)...
No fields should grow without water, each living unit you have would automatically use a given amount/time, so your population limit depends mostly on your water supply... You would also need some water transport unit to carry water over long distances and/or feed your troops during expeditions in arid places (pack animals, like horses/camels/mules). Prost. 

 

[Grautvornix]

Well, I  believe 0AD is a bit of both - a civilization management and combat simulation. Personally, I would not mind if there were a few more economic aspects. My point was that , currently, the desert maps featuring an oasis use that feature only as a kind of eye candy and road block. For these maps , I believe water as a resource might add an interesting  strategical aspect to the game. 

Just I would not take it that far as you suggested. I would not recommend making the economy completely dependable on water (although it always was and still is) but use water sources as a kind of slight boost for certain functions (crops, stable, CC).

Please note that while we do need food in the game we do not transport it to the troops for surveial either, so water transport.

Just my twocents...

[krt0143]

8 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

For these maps , I believe water as a resource might add an interesting  strategical aspect to the game.

Agree. This bothered me too, especially when I plant a farmstead in the middle of sand dunes and build thriving farms...

 

8 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

I would not recommend making the economy completely dependable on water

But it is vital, as you said yourself.
What I'm saying is that if you introduce water, of all things, you'd have to use it to its full extent. Else just add another symbolic stylized resource ("fertilizer" or some such). Not water, water is special.

You need to go all (or at least most of) the way, because some time later people are bound to start asking why things don't far enough.

[man_s_our]

what I did as start is making a resource of water and splited it to two:

well water (but it includes river water etc)

groundwater

for well water I made templates for wells and invisible templates that's meant to be placed on lakes and rivers (because this is the easiest way to distinguish between salt water and drinkable water without hardcoding and breaking maps)

for groundwater I also made an invisible template that would serve as resource. action/reaction auras can be used to make the plants and wells reduce the groundwater while these plants and wells get benefits from it. the problem is if you want some quantity limitation for groundwater you have to use scripting instead of auras.

[Grautvornix]

@man_s_ourLooking forward to your mod! 

Will that involve wells that are actually built (possibly a small building like a pump room or well house) or is that more like a new technology? Wouldn't this also work in the same way for ground water, e.g. if we can have ground water available depending on the map texture and/or plants? (maybe too complicated)

My thought was originally to allow drilling for water near fresh water bodies (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams) as well as near oasis kind of places that obviously have ground water underneath. This is specifically important for the arid maps in game.

 

Anyway just a few thoughts. Eager to see your mod in action! 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Grautvornix

[man_s_our]

9 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

@man_s_ourLooking forward to your mod! 

Will that involve wells that are actually built (possibly a small building like a pump room or well house) or is that more like a new technology? Wouldn't this also work in the same way for ground water, e.g. if we can have ground water available depending on the map texture and/or plants? (maybe too complicated)

My thought was originally to allow drilling for water near fresh water bodies (lakes, ponds, rivers, streams) as well as near oasis kind of places that obviously have ground water underneath. This is specifically important for the arid maps in game.

 

Anyway just a few thoughts. Eager to see your mod in action! 

buildable wells would be introduced after I code the mechanisms for limited groundwater.

but for now I'm busy debugging the separation between horse and rider mechanism.

[Grautvornix]

12 hours ago, man_s_our said:

buildable wells would be introduced after I code the mechanisms for limited groundwater.

but for now I'm busy debugging the separation between horse and rider mechanism.

Awesome! Looking forward to it!

[LienRag]

The idea is clearly fitting, but I haven't seen any proposed implementation that seems to do the job...

I may try Al-Mansour's mod as I don't understand his explanations so far, but I'm not really convinced from what I've read.

[JC (naval supremacist)]

i think that having a great pop should have somehow a downside ..  water shortage could work for this

[Grautvornix]

Right - unless you manage your water resources properly (i.e. build more wells, settle close to an oasis etc.)

[LienRag]

1 hour ago, Grautvornix said:

build more wells

Thing is, if you just need to build more wells, then it's just another resource to manage, there's no real tactical implications, so it's basically boring.

And if water is a more clearcut constraint (like it was historically) then game balance is quite hard to achieve...

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'd rather combine any kind of water concept with Food, and then make the food resource more important and lessening Wood reliance.

[JC (naval supremacist)]

20 hours ago, LienRag said:

Thing is, if you just need to build more wells, then it's just another resource to manage, there's no real tactical implications, so it's basically boring.

 

mmh no , since it can work differently , it can be something that decreases over time  and has limited stocks (like pop)

 Imagine that having 0 water stocks decreases the hp of your units slowly ( like the fire effect but slower) .     Losing units by thirst . Water is life after all

Also, there's a real tactical implications :   forcing a turtle player to go out of his walls to defend its city weak point : water supply arrival

Water buildings type :

•   those that collect and bring water : Wells, Bridge, Pump near river (similar to a dock - it's ok for storage) , Rain captors ,  Mobile unit (just like maurya worker elephant)
•   those that stock water and have limited capacity (basically to secure long siege )

 

-> The stocks of water will go down as soon as the water supply is inferior to the demand

-> Each unit will require a certain amount of water over time.  Op elephants will require a lot

 

The downside of having a great pop can be materialized by having big needs in water and so it would act like the weakest link in a strategic game.

 

Also, since early rush is becoming too risky to beat the  celts-mainland-ecobot-spam-cav "strategy"  in TG,   We need something that needs to reward early attacks more.

 

0ad needs really needs some innovations. Game has stagnated since 5 years

[man_s_our]

2 minutes ago, man_s_our said:

hello fellow 0 A.D players. today I started the open beta testings stage for realism mod (Alpha 27). if anyone is interested in participating in testing the new features and reporting bugs feel free to download the mod from github repo and giving us feedbacks.

main intentions of this mod is:

increasing realism.

reducing micromanagement by increasing units' autonomy.

giving more advantages for players that can do good tactics.

for now, I need more tests for the separate horse and rider entities. try it through ordering any unit to turret any horse (even if owned by gaia or enemies) and report any unwanted behavior.

it also has hunger and thirst mechanisms which needs few tweaks but usable with no problem for human entities.

the resources mechanism now changed. instead of being able to put the resources in a very far storehouse and immediately use them to build some building, the builders will need to carry the needed resources to build (which requires the resources or storehouse be closer for faster building). todo: adding workshops for delayed converting of a resource to another (like using forgery to convert metal to swords).

 

 

[sternstaub]

Water resource might be an interesting topic regarding regenerative resources. Please consider this: if you build more wells, there is not more water, but you drain more water. Water is not infinite. Question is - how fast does the groundwater in a certain area replenish? More wells make sense when there is enough water in the ground (and new water coming from rain, rivers or underground sources) to keep them all supplied.

Also, the farming and fertility component has been addressed. What if we try to organize and discuss under a bigger abstract topic?

I suggest micro-biomes (EDIT: environmental patch?). Like territory borders, there can be a micro-biome mask for each map. On map creation, the borders of different micro-biomes can be set or alternatively the areas can be painted with a brush (background being a generic micro-biome, derived from map biome). There could then be many effects and properties applied to such mico-biome, like slowdown / speedup for units, fertility / field gain rate, build restrictions, water regeneration rates, currently available water amount, et cetera. Having an ever-refreshing resource would however require background processing. I can imagine that the multi-threading problem/discussion (0ad utilizes only 1 CPU core and does not compute asynchronously, AFAIK) could play a role when more background processing is, or is supposed to be, introduced.

That way, not only the current lack of water dependency would be addressed; it would also introduce another level of mechanic. Which places offer the requirements for settlements? What about fertility and farming? Where to find good ore? Peoples fought and pillaged each other over such matters!

This is just an example of how we may try to pull multiple factors and ideas together into a larger topic, so that this topic may be discussed, refined and improved until it's due time. Only adding a water player resource would, in my opinion, not be as fancy as it sounds, since a lot of other mechanics would have to be adapted, the cost would have to be added to all the buildings and units, then the resource would offer more playstyles which need to be balanced et cetera. And in the worst case, the playerbase, or parts of it, dislikes the feature in the end.

With the micro-biome dependency, there would not necessarily be another player resource. It could be realized by adding a fountain building type, draining water either from the ground or from the rain, for example. Those could grant a "water supply" aura, affecting fields and refreshing units in some way.

 

Also, i would like to clarify that the content of this post here alone is very likely to introduce a massive workload. Such thinking only makes sense if there is a plan for, say, 10 years. It may seem like a long time, but consider that 0ad is already being developed for quite a long time. With good results, exspecially the next Alpha! Good software takes time, testing, effort and vision. That i believe.

But be that as it may - i believe that we can indeed agree to assume that the final, or even beta release of the game will still take a lot of time and a lot of community effort.

For such an community effort to be utilized effectively in the sense of enhancing and stabilizing the engine, a long-time planning / strategy and public communication would certainly be a great help. The whole development might be subdivided into 10, 20, 30 patches with certain topics. At the moment, we have the suggestion thread, but posting there feels a bit like lost echo, because so many ideas and topics are being mixed up into this idea thread.

If there were one thread (or Subforum) for each game component / each patch / macro-topic that has been planned to take place in the future, the ideas from the general idea thread can be just sorted into the existing system. Like tickets on trac, such ideas may be unattended for quite some time. But when the time is ripe to create the patch in question, all the community effort from all the time can be bundled and addressed. The ideas can then be realized in mods for testing, for getting an idea of how such feature would feel, how it would impact the game. As it seems to be with map-rheinland mod: i create it once, play the map a few times and then get a feeling for how it plays. If i afterwards recreate the map, it is a chance to make it better when i apply the experience from the first run.

The same way it is done with bugs, AFAIK. They are lower priority until the release goals have been reached - afterwards, for the rc, the bugs will be searched and fixed.

That does not mean that, for example, a demo mod for A43, which is now good and implements features which are planned to be implemented in 2034, would just be copied into the mods/public/ of the main game when the time comes. But the experience beforehand can help the devs to see and avoid problems and issues before they actually decide whether to implement a planned feature, and weather to implement it into the core engine or as js.

The same way it is done with bugs, AFAIK. They are lower priority until the release goals have been reached - afterwards, for the rc, the bugs will be searched and fixed.

However, I do not know of such long-term overview for the 0ad development, although i would be very interested in it. Any hints or ideas are welcome.

what else to say?

..."Enjoy the choice " (not my quote)

EDIT: I should give some example ideas for such macro-update-topics:
- flora overhaul: try to add as many specimen of trees, bushes, fruit as we can, collect data about them, have meshes, add tooltips, add biome conditions / where those trees do grow. the meshes could be collected from existing mods, maybe? due date: 2031
- diplomacy and trading overhaul: bundle diplomacy and trade into a single window, add an resource overview for allies and buttons to quickly send res to the UI, discuss resource transportation (as addressed in the forums and, afaik,  @man_s_our's realism mod), road systems. due time: 2034
- naval overhaul - WIP 2024/25 ?
- formation, hero and combat overhaul: discuss different dynamics for commanding units, the effect of heroes on civil soldiers, behaviour and control of ranged units (sniping!), levels of combat automation (through heroes? Give heroes strategies which they actually used as automated command?), battalions and formations, continuous status effect system. many possibilities. due time: 2027?
- ...and this one here, which can be called "environmental dynamics update" (better than micro-biome). Maybe bundle it with wind directions /effects, general environmental dynamics and such things?

(i just shaked those out of my head, please do not take it too seriously)

Edited December 15, 2023 by sternstaub