Regarding fields and storage facilities

[Eilat]

Should the construction of fields right next to the civic center be reconsidered? I know it's intended to utilize the civic center as storage, but it looks rather unsightly. Also, what if the storage actually contains resources - the amount workers collect and load into it—and it could be looted?

[Thalatta]

Regarding your first line, not allowing fields next to CCs was discussed not long ago, I don’t know what was the conclusion. I think it’ll be implemented at least in one mod for now.

Regarding your second line... I'm confused about “storage actually contains resources”, RTS don’t tend to work like that… not that that’s an invalid mechanic, just that you are stating it like it’s the obvious default, if I even understand correctly what's going on.

[Emacz]

fields can't not be built within 50m of CC in CWA if you want to see what its like

[Eilat]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I'm confused about “storage actually contains resources”, RTS don’t tend to work like that… not that that’s an invalid mechanic, just that you are stating it like it’s the obvious default, if I even understand correctly what's going on.

The idea is to turn storage buildings into actual resource containers, so the economy becomes spatial, resources are stored locally, not globally. If you deposit 500 wood into a specific storage, that storage literally holds those 500 wood. If that storage is attacked, up to that exact amount can be looted.
 

[Emacz]

8 minutes ago, Eilat said:

The idea is to turn storage buildings into actual resource containers, so the economy becomes spatial, resources are stored locally, not globally. If you deposit 500 wood into a specific storage, that storage literally holds those 500 wood. If that storage is attacked, up to that exact amount can be looted.
 

I like this, its something we briefly discussed with Classical Warfare AEA, just not really sure how to implement something like that.

You would hold it at your storehouse until its transferred somewhere else ie cc, forge.

[Eilat]

25 minutes ago, Emacz said:

You would hold it at your storehouse until its transferred somewhere else ie cc, forge.

So what do you think about the idea that trader and trading ships would actually carry resources and could also be robbed?

[Emacz]

I like that... in some ways that is what "loot" is, but its standard. We have also changed the amount of loot a little.  Farmsteads were I think 20 wood, same as storehouse.  It was 20% of cost, or maybe 10%... anyway we for now are 75 food for farmstead, and 25metal, 25wood, 25stone for storehouse.

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Eilat said:

The idea is to turn storage buildings into actual resource containers, so the economy becomes spatial, resources are stored locally, not globally. If you deposit 500 wood into a specific storage, that storage literally holds those 500 wood. If that storage is attacked, up to that exact amount can be looted.

Yeah, then I understood, just that you proposed something that happens in basically no RTS (if any?) so casually that I was confused. I'm always happy to propose and discuss changes to the base game, but this, honestly, is not going to make it. It's just too radical. You'll have to try it in some mod.

Edited April 21 by Thalatta
If I remember correctly, Caesar III does it, I mentioned it recently.

[Perzival12]

7 hours ago, Eilat said:

Should the construction of fields right next to the civic center be reconsidered? I know it's intended to utilize the civic center as storage, but it looks rather unsightly. Also, what if the storage actually contains resources - the amount workers collect and load into it—and it could be looted?

I suggested something like this a few months ago, where there is a resource storage cap (similar to pop cap), and the player needs to build more storage buildings and farmsteads in order to continue to store gathered resources, much like how you need to build more houses to train more units. ATM storehouses are kind of ignored in combat, which is actually very inaccurate to history (a very common tactic of raids was to burn storehouses and fields to cut off supplies to a settlement, both of which tend to be overlooked in 0ad.)

While I think giving the attacker the amount of resources stored in the storehouse is maybe too much, giving them a quarter of the resources or figuring out some sort of looting mechanic to destroyed buildings might be useful.

[Outis]

1 hour ago, Perzival12 said:

I suggested something like this a few months ago, where there is a resource storage cap (similar to pop cap), and the player needs to build more storage buildings and farmsteads in order to continue to store gathered resources, much like how you need to build more houses to train more units. ATM storehouses are kind of ignored in combat, which is actually very inaccurate to history (a very common tactic of raids was to burn storehouses and fields to cut off supplies to a settlement, both of which tend to be overlooked in 0ad.)

While I think giving the attacker the amount of resources stored in the storehouse is maybe too much, giving them a quarter of the resources or figuring out some sort of looting mechanic to destroyed buildings might be useful.

Do you mean to say, 

Edited April 21 by Outis

[Thalatta]

2 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

I suggested something like this a few months ago, where there is a resource storage cap (similar to pop cap)

Well, a resource cap, with dropsites increasing it, is an interesting and not complicated idea, as long as it’s not too disruptive and only penalises under-building dropsites. Loot can be calculated as some fraction of total resources, divided by the amount of dropsites. Something I was thinking is that CCs are given too much importance as dropsites, and this just comes from other RTS, but it’s historically inaccurate (when compared to the other specialised dropsites), and causes fields to end surrounding it. Of course the idea is to have a dropsite at the beginning, but I wonder if, while one progresses, adding some penalty to them, or some bonus to the other dropsites, wouldn’t restructure things to look better, or maybe something else is better, with those consequences in mind. I have other ideas, but are more radical.

[Deicide4u]

The game is complicated enough as is. 

Let's just keep it simple, people. Improve what we can, but let's not add feature bloat.

EDIT: For context, if we implement both of these, then that will break a lot of existing stuff, mainly involving the AI. And now you need to fix things that were working fine for decades. 

Edited April 22 by Deicide4u
Added context

[Thalatta]

2 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

 let's not add feature bloat.

Yes, I was thinking, people build enough dropsites anyway to get fast access to resources, there's no point adding rules to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. But I think some simple addition to make new territory a bit more relevant is in order, after all, besides making other CCs more city-like, it has been mentioned in the past that there are not many reasons for expansion, that fields around CCs are unsightly and inaccurate, and even that CCs could be specialised. Maybe just adding a gap around the CC where no resources or structures can be located could tackle some things. I’m not sure how to easily make relevant building houses somewhere else though, and one has to be careful with snowballing.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 21/04/2026 at 10:56 AM, Thalatta said:

Regarding your first line, not allowing fields next to CCs was discussed not long ago, I don’t know what was the conclusion. I think it’ll be implemented at least in one mod for now.

DE has implemented a "Civic Spaces" aura around the CC which reduces grain gathering by 50%. 

[Alexandermb]

11 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

DE has implemented a "Civic Spaces" aura around the CC which reduces grain gathering by 50%. 

Thats a better implementation, black and white 2 had fértile áreas were the food rate was improved if the área was green wich means pretty fértile  and the amount of Grain produced is better, and near some structures like temples or military spaces was almost red/yellowish.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, Alexandermb said:

Thats a better implementation, black and white 2 had fértile áreas we're the food rate was improved if the área was green wich means pretty fértile  and the amount of Grain produced is better, and near some structures like temples or military spaces was almost red/yellowish.

Indeed. And as a way to prevent the need for terrain computations and overlays and things like that, I added capturable Farmstead objects to skirmish maps, where farming is boosted by +50%.

[Emacz]

But is it clear what buildings poitentially hurt frarming, the range of each aura ect?  The concept is interesting.  

One of the things we have discussed with CWA is what exactly is the Civic Center.  Is it the actual city? If so farm should be able to be outside the city.... is it just the "main building" of the city/village/town?  Then their probably wouldn't be farms right next to it.  What else could it represent?

[Alexandermb]

Civ center is the center of the the city itself, it should be the beginning of the civilization. The concept should be either improve by aura political/religious concept's like theater's for Hellenic cultures, Libraries, improve the efficiency of political or fundamental investigation's, rather than being an elegant drop source, In fact, civ center should be a city conquest objetive instead of resource dropsite and maybe even bring a new concept of early game by giving a new existent building non buildable dropsite that decays over time, then we continue making dropsites by default as the storehouse.