Secondary costs (metal/crystal/...) not scalling with game speed setting

from Elemental Forums

After postponing it for a while, I decided to try out FE instead of simply lurking on the forum. After a few games, I figured out that for my play-style, setting the game speed to Epic makes it more interesting (no more getting to the end of the tech tree too early).

Going through the XML files, Epic speed seems to only do 3 things:

- Multiply the research costs by 3

- Multiply the building/training costs by 2

- Multiply the number of turns before the end-game by 3

(I would also swear that it reduces the amount of experience you get, but I didn't saw that in the XML files.)

 

My problem is with the building/training costs (training is somewhat too slow, but that's a normal speed problem): it only affects how long it takes the building to be built or the unit to be trained. It doesn't affect anything else. So a ring of ember costs 2 crystals at all game speed and a horse-ridding soldier always cost 1 horse. That's a big problem, as your resource income is still the same, but they get consumed at half of the normal rate. So it makes material costs quite irrelevant past the very early point, throwing that part of the balance out of the window.

Note that this problem is also present for store-bought items, whose prices are the same while rushing (the main other gold-drain) is twice as expensive due the increase training costs.

 

First of all is that the expected behavior of playing at Epic speed? Even if it so, it should definitely be changed, either by halving resource generation at Epic speed, or by doubling costs (my preference).

10,227 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I would think that it makes more sense to halve resource generation.  It would be hard to justify one cavalryman requiring two horses.  Not that there haven't been armies in history where that was the case for many horse archers, it would make no sense to require it.

That said, I have never played on anything but normal, and I can't really comment on the balance of other speeds.  Why do you play on epic, anyway? Is the game over too fast otherwise?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I play on Epic also due to the problem that research comes so fast otherwise that you can not keep up with the building and put out troops at the same time. I know I could just forget about building available buildings until I train a unit or two, but there is the feeling that it would equal my doom because 1 of the enemies *is* building up his towns and in the end will be able to supply troops faster. And, like the OP it didn't really feel right so I copied the defs file to my mod folder and modified it as so:

        <TechPacingMultiplier_Epic>2.0</TechPacingMultiplier_Epic>
        <TechPacingMultiplier_Normal>1.0</TechPacingMultiplier_Normal>
        <TechPacingMultiplier_Fast>0.5</TechPacingMultiplier_Fast>

 

      <ProductionPacingMultiplier_Epic>0.8</ProductionPacingMultiplier_Epic>
      <ProductionPacingMultiplier_Normal>0.5</ProductionPacingMultiplier_Normal>
      <ProductionPacingMultiplier_Fast>0.25</ProductionPacingMultiplier_Fast>

This allows time to produce troops for defense of towns until new tech is researched. To me, this feels better as it certainly takes less time to build a training facility and conscript several troops than it does to research a new technology (in real life). And if you play on fast, the pace is crazy. May need to tweak to your own liking...

 

It does not address the horses, metal, crystal problem, but consider that you can set the number of spawns of resources via menu, so try on low.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I guess I do not feel the need to have all buildings in every city.  I like having the research to build both libraries in my conclaves and armorers in my fortreses, and do not care so much about building merchants in fortresses, town halls in conclaves or colleges in towns.

That said, in my last play-through, my main conclave started idling on turn 124, because there was nothing I wanted to build there, and that was after I built a garden and granary I knew I would not need before victory.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Tuidjy, the main reason I prefer epic speed is to slow down the research speed. At normal speed, I often find myself researching military techs by bundles of 2 or 3 at a time, then designing new troops. Slowing it down means each tech is meaningful. But that's pretty much a matter of taste. Oh, and I also like the fact that towns are slow to build up, so I can't use kosiam settings without doubling all building costs (although that should be fairly easy to do with some script).

The reason I said that I would favor the solution which would double all costs (which unique problem is the silliness of having cavalry costing half a horse and fast speed and two horses at epic speed), is that can be done fully in the code. The other solution of halving resource generation would lead to some of the city bonus texts to be incorrect (those which give +1 metal or +1 crystal). And I don't think that making that text depends on the speed would be that easy. But that's still pretty minor anyway.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Ephafn, I'm just the same way.  I only play on Epic because I like a slower game.  Your observations are spot on, I hadn't noticed the issue but you're right - the ONLY rate limiter for production of units on Epic speed is production time, material supplies are always in such excess that they don't matter.  Ditto on the cost of rushing - it's really negligible.  Not the way it should be.

I really like the idea of limited strategic materials, but the balance seems pretty hard to get right.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it would be an idea for mines to be very productive initially but then produce less over time.  The way things stand at the moment you can mine the resources you have indefinitely, there's no incentive to mine further from home.  Even if they were limited, the sources of iron or crystal are obvious on the map.  It's relatively easy to sweep into an enemy's territory, take his land, take control of those resources, and then the only thing that he can do is try to take back the city or outpost or destroy the mines so you can't use them (but you can just build them again).

I think what would be nice is if most of the minable resources were underground and took time to discover, and that discovery take place over a period of many seasons if you have line of sight to the square they're found on.  So, you may find resources close to a city a dozen seasons after you found it and build ZOC improvements to extend its sight.  If you conquer a city then you may not know about any mines until the same sort of time has passed.

Caravans should not count for the purpose of discovering ore deposits.  But maybe you could spend Influence to get such information.