Upkeep?

[Unarmed]

I hope this is not already in the game or planned, this is alpha after all. I searched at Google, tracs and the forum. It was mentioned 3 times on the forum but not discussed in depth.

Company of Heroes has upkeep, which I like. But I wasn't sure how this could be implemented in 0 A.D. , especially without making people upset.

I looked at Warcraft 3 review because we were talking about other strategy games. And I see that it had upkeep, you would gather less if you had a big army. It is basicly the same as Company of Heroes but still slightly different. (Company of Heroes has territory supplies that gives you resources, and you would gain less of it when you had a lot of units)

I'm making this thread because I want to make a poll. I'm curious if people would like or dislike upkeep, or think it's not needed.

On a side note, I feel like economy is a bit too easy late game (hence I would like this). I float resources most of the time. But maybe in multiplayer this is not the case?

I mean, it shouldn't be that extreme that you can't build big armies and lots of fortresses late game. But in late game I can make in theory 100 fortresses and lose 500 troops in a short amount of time. I would like to be able to build 10-15 fortresses and 300-400 troops in a short amount of time. (badly explained but I hope everybody gets what I'm saying).

[NoTowerPushing]

On a side note, I feel like economy is a bit too easy late game (hence I would like this). I float resources most of the time. But maybe in multiplayer this is not the case?

I agree once i get an army I don't even look at my hometown, because I have so many resources.  I think upkeep could be interesting though, I think it should mainly be on metal and stone so that it doesn't effect the earlier stages.

[alpha123]

On a side note, I feel like economy is a bit too easy late game (hence I would like this). I float resources most of the time. But maybe in multiplayer this is not the case?

I generally don't float more than 1000 resources until I'm maxed out, but I agree macro is really simple in this game.

I tried playing StarCraft II recently and was blown away by the amount of macro attention that game requires (which is a good thing IMO). In 0 A.D. it's enough to check that your buildings are training something, build an extra house every so often, and build an extra barracks when you start to get too high on money.

I'm not really familiar with the concept of 'upkeep,' but any way to make macro a little more difficult would be nice.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I see that upkeep in a historic based game, upkeep is like pop max capacity. If you don't have enough food you can not have a big army. The game was Sparta Ancient wars saga they can mix between Warcraft and Age of Empires gameplay. Not was a good game, very buggy and have poor optimization and look as never was tested enough.

[Unarmed]

Upkeep means that a large amount of (military) units means that your income is decreasing. Imagine if you have a big army in real life.

It costs to manage this army even when it's made, for example supplies. I think that's why Company of Heroes has upkeep but also to give players that do not have enough of the map in this game (the game is about capturing territory) a chance.

The latter I don't think is really needed. I think most players want to win because they are doing great, and not give someone who isn't doing so great a better chance to win.

But the main reason for upkeep would be to similate the costs of maintaining an (big) army, and also to make it in late game not float that much resources.

Though that seems to be not the case in multiplayer:

I generally don't float more than 1000 resources until I'm maxed out, but I agree macro is really simple in this game.

I begin to float when I have a big army and have built about enough (I think you mean this). And AI is rather easy to fight as they do not retreat and so upgradable soldiers do not upgrade. I can imagine at this stage I would have little trouble against a player too, but a player would of course not let you reach that stage.

I tried playing StarCraft II recently and was blown away by the amount of macro attention that game requires (which is a good thing IMO). In 0 A.D. it's enough to check that your buildings are training something, build an extra house every so often, and build an extra barracks when you start to get too high on money.

I have been mostly playing Company of Heroes, a very different game. Late game I have it easy in 0 A.D. Only when I'm attacking I forget about my workers, and my farms would be gone but that's about it. I guess I have trouble with the farm thing since I'm so used to Company of Heroes, where you don't have resource gaining and can focus on combat. You only need to look at your base in that game to reinforce troops.

Though of course, it is very important that the game does not get too demanding when it comes to management; casual players are important for 0 A.D. But I guess management increases by the skill that you are playing. When I played Company of Heroes competively, it needed my full attention and I needed to be fast. But I played a game with someone on a forum for fun against some bots. I could relax and the game did not need my full attention.

I agree once i get an army I don't even look at my hometown, because I have so many resources. I think upkeep could be interesting though, I think it should mainly be on metal and stone so that it doesn't effect the earlier stages.

I have not thought about that and how Warcraft 3 does that. If I would implement it I would suggest it like this:

-upkeep begins when the population reaches x, I think 100 or 150 would be good

-than it slowly increases as the population increases

Maybe it should not apply to citizen-soldiers.

There are many things possible. Important: I do not even think upkeep is necessary per se, what I feel is more important is late game, seems too easy at the moment but that might be because it is Alpha. Upkeep could be a solution to this but maybe there are better solutions to it.

[FeXoR]

Actually most realistic would be a function the gather rate would be scaled by a function:

gatherSpeed = baseGatherSpeed * (1 - 1/populationCap) ^ actualPopulation

...and have the fixed population cap removed.

If actualPopulation = populationCap the gather rate will then be about 1/3rd of the baseGatherSpeed.

Units can still be build but the efficiency of resource usage would shrink.

That would simulate the administration effort needed to organize vast amounts of citizens and soldiers and the growth of corruption that will appear if a social system becomes big and inflexible.

Edited June 27, 2013 by FeXoR

[Lion.Kanzen]

Sounds good for second part of the game when a rich Roman Empire enters to stages of decline. Even in tactical campaign map mode the nations can invade the rich nations in order to loot that land.

[sanderd17]

Fexor, why would you want the populationcap in the formula, wouldn't a fixed number (something like 400-ish) be better?

With the formula you propose, you'll be able to gather faster when the population cap is bigger given your population is at the max. That seems odd. I think population cap shouldn't matter, just the number of units you currently have.

It could be a technology or a hero thing (something like "administrator") to enlarge that number, so you gather quicker.

Edited June 27, 2013 by sanderd17

[Unarmed]

Actually most realistic would be a function the gather rate would be scaled by a function:

gatherSpeed = baseGatherSpeed * (1 - 1/populationCap) ^ actualPopulation

...and have the fixed population cap removed.

If actualPopulation = populationCap the gather rate will then be about 1/3rd of the baseGatherSpeed.

Units can still be build but the efficiency of resource usage would shrink.

That would simulate the administration effort needed to organize vast amounts of citizens and soldiers and the growth of corruption that will appear if a social system becomes big and inflexible.

I don't understand? This is what I'm saying?

I did not say anything about a unit or population limit. Or do you mean the population limit needs to be removed (a big no-no, some people need population limit for performance reasons)

EDIT: Sanderd makes it a bit clearer for me but I still don't understand.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Unarmed

[Mythos_Ruler]

My original idea for mercenaries was that they would not cost a bunch of up-front money, but would rather cost X amount of resources every 10-30 seconds.

[NoTowerPushing]

I like that idea mythos. kind of makes you want to avoid mercenaries.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I like that idea mythos. kind of makes you want to avoid mercenaries.

I think it would make you want to use them quickly. Cannon fodder (as they were used in real life).

[Lion.Kanzen]

Here are two reason for use mercenaries, first kind are cheap infantry and "Savage" like Galatians and two the non cavalry nations like Rome and Greek states (Non Macedon) and the other are elite very expensive and rare with elephants, cataphract, horse archers, Germanic cavalry.

[sanderd17]

Mythos_Ruler, what would happen when you run out of resources to maintain your mecenaries army? They just start to lose health instead? Or they betray you and change owners (become gaia or easily capturable)?

[Lion.Kanzen]

Like goths and Roman Empire, "if they don't pay us, is fair we must go to Rome and sack them".

[FeXoR]

Fexor, why would you want the populationcap in the formula, wouldn't a fixed number (something like 400-ish) be better?

I don't like fixed caps. They are extremely unrealistic. Reducing efficiency would be a much more realistic way to deal with it.

With the formula you propose, you'll be able to gather faster when the population cap is bigger given your population is at the max. That seems odd. I think population cap shouldn't matter, just the number of units you currently have.

How is that?

...well, OK, it slightly increases but only by 3% comparing 50 and 1000 while it's decreased by ~65% in total.

The idea is to get rid of the much more odd (IMO) population cap.

(1 - 1/50) ^ 50 = 0,36416968008711706521737398145318

(1 - 1/100) ^ 100 = 0,36603234127322950493061602657252

(1 - 1/200) ^ 200 = 0,36695782172616738683789723976933

(1 - 1/500) ^ 500 = 0,36751125485715890552210364359175

(1 - 1/1000) ^ 1000 = 0,36769542477096404462680613922046

...and you are right that "populationCap" is not the correct term here (because there will be no such ting any more).

It suits the same purpose though: Disable the players to building to many units so the game stays playable.

It could be a technology or a hero thing (something like "administrator") to enlarge that number, so you gather quicker.

Yes. It could even be a civilization bonus e.g. for civs with weaker units but larger population.

I don't understand? This is what I'm saying?

I did not say anything about a unit or population limit. Or do you mean the population limit needs to be removed (a big no-no, some people need population limit for performance reasons)

It would effectively limit the population because gather efficiency (and with it the time you need to gather the resources for/build units) would become harder the higher the population of that player is. In addition it would "shift" players with different skills closer to one another which is a good thing on it's own.

EDIT: Sanderd makes it a bit clearer for me but I still don't understand.

I'm sorry x) To lazy ATM to explain further.

Other things to be thought about:

- Defensive structures would need to count to the population as well. Otherwise towers would become more efficient with the game time (and it should be the other way around). Indeed I think all buildings should count to the population (especially in this concept).

- The function might reduce efficiency to slow especially at high populations. I'll think of something...

Edited June 28, 2013 by FeXoR

[greenknight32]

My original idea for mercenaries was that they would not cost a bunch of up-front money, but would rather cost X amount of resources every 10-30 seconds.

It finally came to me what game I played that used a system like that - it was Lords of Magic. Of course, movement was turn-based in that game - only the combat interface was real-time - so upkeep was assessed by the turn.

Normal troops also had a small upkeep in that game, after you paid quite a bit to train them; mercenaries just took a little gold to hire, but it was more than the regular upkeep and you had to keep paying it every turn. You couldn't afford them for long. The only good use for them was emergency defense for your cities - send them out to wear down an approaching attack force and die.

In that game, you didn't have to wait for units to be trained (but it took time to train the buildings to produce better troops - weird concept). Maybe that could be the advantage of mercenaries in 0ad - instant troops for emergency defense.

In LoM, when you couldn't pay the upkeep troops just deserted. A lot simpler to implement than the other ideas that have been floated, I'd think.

[Unarmed]

It would effectively limit the population because gather efficiency (and with it the time you need to gather the resources for/build units) would become harder the higher the population of that player is. In addition it would "shift" players with different skills closer to one another which is a good thing on it's own.

I think you misunderstood me (or I am misunderstanding you), maybe because I said Warcraft 3 system. I was not proposing a unit limit.I was proposing the same thing as you but different. As your military population goes up, you gather less. Not because citizen are becoming lazy, but because you have a big army which needs to be maintained. In real life, citizen would not cost 50 food, but 50 food in a week so to speak; they would have to be maintained too, everything else too. But I ignore that.

I understand your idea now. But take into consideration not all people can have 300 units on screen. I have a good computer for 0 A.D. but some have a okay computer, if you force them to play with 300 units you might lose them.

My original idea for mercenaries was that they would not cost a bunch of up-front money, but would rather cost X amount of resources every 10-30 seconds.

I first had the same idea for upkeep in the beginning. But than I saw the Warcraft 3 system of units gathering less when population increases, it is exactly the same as how Company of Heroes upkeep works (here I got the idea of upkeep from), but since you don't have actual units gathering in Company of Heroes I did not think of that.

I thought that it would be confusing and too radical if you lose resources so I prefered the Warcraft 3 idea.

However in the case of mercenaries, this becomes very interesting. You could include historic stuff with this:

-mercenaries pillaging (I have heard of this quite often)

-the cannon fodder you said

I would think to make mercenaries go gaia, and start raiding farms by destroying them or like the bear idea in the animal raiding thread.

Though I'm not sure if these kind of things appeal to most players, I actually think a lot won't.

The upkeep, higher military population, less gathering, seems like something little people would have a issue with. And it isn't something radically different.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Unarmed

[Mythos_Ruler]

I think one way to make units gather slower as the game progresses is to allow the player to upgrade their troops from basic to advanced to elite. As they get better at fighting, they get worse at gathering, so you have to spend more on gathering upgrades. You also know that, hey, if I upgrade my troops to elite my economy is going to take a hit, so I have to plan this right.