automatic rebuild of farms

[mimo]

As I was tired of always rebuilding the same farms (specially because usually you only notice that you are out of food when you urgently need some), I've made a patch to automatically rebuild the farms. For those who want to try it, I've attached it here (to be more precise, I speak about farms but this patch would apply to all resourceSuppliers which have a construction cost).

But for the time being, I've made it so that these resourceSuppliers with construction cost have an automaticRebuild property set true. I think it would be nice to have it false by default and, when we select them, have a button to say if we want automaticRebuild or not. But I've no idea how this could be done. Any help or advice on this gui stuff would be much appreciated .

farm.patch

[zoot]

Have you seen this: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1318

[mimo]

Thanks zoot for the link. I didn't knew it.

I agree completely to all what is there (specially the diminushing rate with additionnal farmers and its dependance on the terrain), but the first point "farm fields are infinite".

This is quite vague : for the moment, 2000 food are produced with 100 wood. How is the infinite managed :

- 100 wood for infinite food ? that's much too cheap

- increase the cost of farms ? but they will then be too expensive for first phase of the game

- automatically deduce 100 wood every 2000 food ? that's more or less what my patch does, except that it also accounts for a small maintenance stop of the farm (by requiring it to be rebuild).

So my patch is equivalent to all farms being infinite with some cost and maintenance from time to time. The point I still want to improve is that now, all farms are infinite. But it may-be better to have the possibility to have some farms infinite, and some others not : in the first phase of the game, we won't have the choice of the terrain, but then when we expand and find a good location, we may want to have new farms and remove the old ones : of course, we may always destroy them, but it would be much nicer to then put them finite and let them be exhausted.

To be able a set a farm finite or infinite by the gui when selecting it would be a solution.

[Pedro Falcão]

- 100 wood for infinite food ? that's much too cheap

Well, the low cost will be balanced with the production rate in a way that hunting will be chosen for early gathering, but as the match goes on, farms become the main source of food and eventually the only source. Economy management is an important aspect of a RTS game, yes, but the map's resources aren't infinite and i think the game has to end by skill, not by lack(luck) of resources. Also, if you keep an eye on your economy all the time, you'll hardly achieve the concentration to plan the great military strategies, that are the main focus of a RTS, uh?

[Mythos_Ruler]

- 100 wood for infinite food ? that's much too cheap

Compared to hunting and herding, farming would be rather inefficient until later when all of the farming technologies have been researched and huntables are exhausted. Plus, farming is less micro-intensive, which would make you want to farm in mid/late game instead of hunt.

[mimo]

Lion :

What's your question ? I've not played AOK since years and do not remember how it works ?

Pedro :

I disagree on your second sentence : the interest of having different maps with different amount of resources is that you have to adapt to it, and find the best way to win with a limited amount of resources. Infinite resources is for me quite antinomic to strategy : the only thing which then matters is your mastering of control keys and your clicking speed. Futhermore, with bartering and trading, resources are never limited, but we should ensure that they are not too easy to accumulate.

But I fully agree with your last sentence that we should avoid micro-management. But for that, infinite farms or auto-rebuilding farms are equivalent : you do not have to care about them. The advantage I see with auto-rebuildings farms is that it will cost some wood and some time, which is more realistic (i.e. no production during winter). Also, if your territory decreases a bit so that the farm becomes outside it, it won't rebuild.

Mythos_Ruler :

Sure, but you do not discuss the point of infinite farms compared to auto-rebuilding ones ?

[Spahbod]

Compared to hunting and herding, farming would be rather inefficient until later when all of the farming technologies have been researched and huntables are exhausted. Plus, farming is less micro-intensive, which would make you want to farm in mid/late game instead of hunt.

I think the best thing to do would be to make a gatherer limit for it.

[Pedro Falcão]

I disagree on your second sentence : the interest of having different maps with different amount of resources is that you have to adapt to it, and find the best way to win with a limited amount of resources. Infinite resources is for me quite antinomic to strategy : the only thing which then matters is your mastering of control keys and your clicking speed. Futhermore, with bartering and trading, resources are never limited, but we should ensure that they are not too easy to accumulate.

But I fully agree with your last sentence that we should avoid micro-management. But for that, infinite farms or auto-rebuilding farms are equivalent : you do not have to care about them. The advantage I see with auto-rebuildings farms is that it will cost some wood and some time, which is more realistic (i.e. no production during winter). Also, if your territory decreases a bit so that the farm becomes outside it, it won't rebuild.

We had already had a discussion on that before my absence here, though i don't know exactly where. Out-of-territory farms are slowly damaged, already. Plus, i don't believe it will be a clicking race, have you ever played Rise of Nations? Well, Starcraft 2 is well known to be a clicking race and it has limited resources, while in Rise of Nations all resources are infinite and it's not a clicking race. We could increase the wood cost for each farm built, though. And no, it's not much more realistic, since the farmers used to save a part of their own harvest to plant another harvest.

[Sighvatr]

I always set my females to farming early in the game after foraging nearby berry bushes.

[Enrique]

Nerfing the farms a little at least on the early game would make herding/hunting more attractive, which I think it's a good thing

[oshron]

This is quite vague : for the moment, 2000 food are produced with 100 wood. How is the infinite managed :

- 100 wood for infinite food ? that's much too cheap

- increase the cost of farms ? but they will then be too expensive for first phase of the game

- automatically deduce 100 wood every 2000 food ? that's more or less what my patch does, except that it also accounts for a small maintenance stop of the farm (by requiring it to be rebuild).

an idea occurs to me: what if farms are technically infinite and have a relatively low cost, but each farm deducts wood from your stockpiles as long as they are being farmed, but produces food at a rate of several times faster than wood is lost (say, at a rate of 5-to-1; for every five units of food you build up, you lose one unit of wood) and the farmers stop farming if you run out of wood. researching farming technologies will increase the rate at which you gather food from farms, both the rate you get it and the number of food per one unit of wood. it could perhaps advance first to 7 units 10% faster, then 10 units 15% faster, and so on: 12 to 20%, 15 to 30%, 20 to 35%, like that all the way up to getting 30 units of food for one unit of wood twice as fast as when you started

[Phaedros]

Also making Huntables more noticeable on the minimap could help make it more attractive as well, as I had a difficult time on my first game spotting any huntables and went bushes>chickens>field for food. -.-

[Pedro Falcão]

Also making Huntables more noticeable on the minimap could help make it more attractive as well, as I had a difficult time on my first game spotting any huntables and went bushes>chickens>field for food. -.-

Maybe some tool to auto-hunt would solve this problem...

[mimo]

an idea occurs to me: what if farms are technically infinite and have a relatively low cost, but each farm deducts wood from your stockpiles as long as they are being farmed, but produces food at a rate of several times faster than wood is lost (say, at a rate of 5-to-1; for every five units of food you build up, you lose one unit of wood) and the farmers stop farming if you run out of wood. researching farming technologies will increase the rate at which you gather food from farms, both the rate you get it and the number of food per one unit of wood. it could perhaps advance first to 7 units 10% faster, then 10 units 15% faster, and so on: 12 to 20%, 15 to 30%, 20 to 35%, like that all the way up to getting 30 units of food for one unit of wood twice as fast as when you started

That's in practise equivalent to the patch I've attached. Farms cost 100 wood and produce 2000 food, and when exhausted, they rebuild themselves automatically, so cost another 100 wood and some construction time and then produce 2000 food, and this infinitely except if you run out of wood or if you are no more allowed to construct it (decrease of territory for example).

I use it in my games in order to avoid the hassle of always rebuilding farms, and find it much more realistic than purely infinite farms. The construction time can be seen as the planting and the gathering period is the harvest.

[Pedro Falcão]

We already have an infinite source of food: sheeps; yet you complain just because farms provide a steady income.

[mimo]

I'm not complaining but proposing something. Secondly, your example goes just in my direction : sheeps need food to produce (more) food. That's fine. What I want is that (the future infinite) farms need wood to produce (more) food, and not that its food is free and unlimited once the farm is built.

But it is impressive how people succeed to pollute the forums, without adding any useful information. So let's try to refocus this discussion :

- most people (including me) think that infinite farms are needed; that's also the first point of the link given by zoot.

- but there are different ways to implement infinite farms.

- I've made a patch to make them automatically rebuild when exhausted, that patch I proposed here for people to test and discuss

-> discussions with pro/cons about the other ways to implement such infinite farms are interesting points for this thread

- In order to improve this patch, I've asked for infos or docs on how the gui works

-> technical details or advices on it would be also very interesting for this thread

Other discussions on sheeps or hunting or whatever, and their compared merits would be more appropriate in the "general discussion and idea" forum. I thought the goal of this one was technical points on development.

[Phaedros]

I'm not complaining but proposing something. Secondly, your example goes just in my direction : sheeps need food to produce (more) food. That's fine. What I want is that (the future infinite) farms need wood to produce (more) food, and not that its food is free and unlimited once the farm is built.

But it is impressive how people succeed to pollute the forums, without adding any useful information. So let's try to refocus this discussion :

- most people (including me) think that infinite farms are needed; that's also the first point of the link given by zoot.

- but there are different ways to implement infinite farms.

- I've made a patch to make them automatically rebuild when exhausted, that patch I proposed here for people to test and discuss

-> discussions with pro/cons about the other ways to implement such infinite farms are interesting points for this thread

- In order to improve this patch, I've asked for infos or docs on how the gui works

-> technical details or advices on it would be also very interesting for this thread

Other discussions on sheeps or hunting or whatever, and their compared merits would be more appropriate in the "general discussion and idea" forum. I thought the goal of this one was technical points on development.

Why not do what AoK did, iirc, the farm had 2 states, bare and planted, it becomes planted when you initially build it, but once you deplete it then it becomes bare, then it costs said 100 Wood to replant it (probably handled by a replant button in the Field's control panel?), and as state a toggle button to be able to auto-replant for 100 Wood would always be good.

Just my 2 cents

P.S. This is the game development section as well as technical discussion, game development can be a discussion until itself as pros and cons are weighed for the implementation of different options, please keep this in mind, and everyone remember to keep it civil or Mythos_Ruler shall unleash his horde of historically incorrect flying monkey men armed with lazor rifles. =P

[Pedro Falcão]

You misunderstood again, mimo. As you said, "discussions with pro/cons about the other ways to implement such infinite farms are interesting points for this thread". And since i disagree with your opinion (i like the way it is now), i tried to expose another examples of infinite sources that do work. Want to go for realism? Sure, i don't think one uses planks neither "builds" a harvest, as i said, part of the harvest is used to replant it. Want to go for gameplay? Sure, Rebuilding farms is just one more thing you have to keep in mind while IMHO it adds nothing really productive to the game.

You threw us your patch and showed your opinion, okay, i said this was a matter already discussed, you could find the topic of discussion to read more the pros and cons, hoping for you to see the merit of the team to make things this way. But you take it personal and becomes aggressive. It is fine, i may have insisted too much, and i won't disturb your technical discussion anymore, but don't talk to anybody that way, like you or not one's opinion, it is a public discussion thread.

[mimo]

You misunderstood again, mimo. As you said, "discussions with pro/cons about the other ways to implement such infinite farms are interesting points for this thread". And since i disagree with your opinion (i like the way it is now), i tried to expose another examples of infinite sources that do work. Want to go for realism? Sure, i don't think one uses planks neither "builds" a harvest, as i said, part of the harvest is used to replant it. Want to go for gameplay? Sure, Rebuilding farms is just one more thing you have to keep in mind while IMHO it adds nothing really productive to the game.

You threw us your patch and showed your opinion, okay, i said this was a matter already discussed, you could find the topic of discussion to read more the pros and cons, hoping for you to see the merit of the team to make things this way. But you take it personal and becomes aggressive. It is fine, i may have insisted too much, and i won't disturb your technical discussion anymore, but don't talk to anybody that way, like you or not one's opinion, it is a public discussion thread.

I may-be have misunderstood you, but because you are contradicting yourself.

You say you like the way farms are now (so finite farms), but in the same sentence, you seem to support the way infinite sources work ? how should I understand it ? Then you say that having in mind to rebuild farms does not add anything to the game, which I fully agree. But then, how can you like the way it is now ? and futhermore, that's exactly what I proposed the AI to take care : managing automatically the rebuild of farms.

So yes, I have still not understood what you meant, nor what are your propositions.

Concerning agressivity, I do not see any in my previous post : to my knowledge, "Pollution" is not a nasty word ? it was meant to be direct, but not agressive. Otherwise, attribute it to my bad english practise. But I still support what I meant about out-of-subject contributions : look at the post "please read before posting" and I think that corresponds to what I said in my previous message.

[dialectric]

Farms currently produce the same output/ have the same total food available regardless of where they are placed. One possibility for more realism would be to have three or four levels of either output rate or total food, A, B, C, with D being none/can't build there. Nobunaga's Ambition has a system like this for all buildings, with a site suitability rating as you move around the build icon. The A,B, and C correspond to different color icons, green, yellow, red, for how much output the land will produce.

Having land vary in output would make farm placement somewhat more strategic without requiring constant management or getting too far down the path of city building games, which devs in other threads have said they want to avoid. It would prevent unrealistic layouts like building farms on the stone courtyards in the middle of towns, and might help balance the power issues related to infinite or reseedable farms discussed in this thread.

How hard is it code-wise to get the info on what kind of texture is under a given building / under the cursor? I'm a programmer, haven't work in C, but might give coding this a shot anyways.

- dialectric