Production queue limit problems
 

The queue is too short!

I've hit this before with low-resource units like Shamblers but this time I hit it on good stuff.

I'm playing Helheim. I have Riches from Beneath and Fata Morgana up. I have good scales.

Oops--I tried to recruit a Hangadrott, Helhirding's to my holy limit and Mounted Hirdmen to use up my production capacity. I ran out of ability to queue units before I quite used up my available resources.

Please make the queue longer!!!

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

What is the limit? I've never had probs with it.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

1 commander and 100 ordinary units per province per turn

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Wow, 1300 resources/turn? Presumably this isn't the 3.08 patch or it would be even higher (I don't know how much lightweight scale was increased). Maybe I should give Fata Morgana and Riches from Beneath a second look.

On the other hand, it is somewhat realistic that you can't train unlimited amounts of soldiers even if you have enough blacksmiths to forge all their armor. Maybe each soldier has to get a personally signed plaque from <the new god> before he'll fight, and your pretender can only schedule so much time for each province. Kind of similar to how the commander academy can only produce one new commander per turn because, uh, the commander cadets want their fifteen days of fame (since they know they're going to get killed soon) and purposefully stagger their graduation dates so each one gets his name in headlines all month.

I'm just sayin', instead of a bug in implementation you can think of it as an extra constraint on unit production, albeit one which is rarely a limiting factor.

-Max

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Defending an implementational shortcoming with roleplaying logic is funny. Even though the limitation here is justified, as you'll have to set the bar somewhere after all.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

It is the 3.08 patch.

Note that this is *NOT* my highest resource province, either--I've got one I recently captured that's even higher. Mountainous terrain, it only has 4230 people but it's getting 1313 resources/turn--and that's with a perennial 5 unrest due to a brigand lair.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

...

How hard would it be to implement a repeat build feature? A "make unit until out of recources" type thing, with a warning of how many this turn, and a listing of the cost?

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

"repeat build" is handled -to a degree- by shift-clicking (it queues five soldiers instead of one).

The maximum unit limit per province per turn was 50 in Dominions 1 and 2, and was changed to 100 in Dominions 3 to encourage larger non-summoned armies (along with the 50% gold increase). It is not an arbitrary bug, and is there for strategic reasons (albeit slight and mostly limited to the realm of annoyance).

Instead of viewing this as putting a limit on your globals, try castling farmlands (which must have at least half those resources), and recruiting there. If you build a castle in every province, you could end up with many 100's of units per turn (though good luck finding that kind of leadership).

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

That doesn't keep you from having to go back and make new orders frequently. Every turn in case of holy units or commanders.

Why???

I didn't build either castle.

The first one is my capital. I don't have the game open right now but it's definitely on a square with normal movement. The second one I captured.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Limiting the number recruitable each turn has an effect on gameplay.... but I think that limiting the queue size mainly adds to micromanagement - it's very rare for me to expect 100 units to be built in one turn. In particular, the lack of a queue for commanders leads to a fair amount of micro

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

A 100 unit cap isn't strategic, it's an arbitrary limit set by designers that just happens to have an unrealistic, and probably unintended, limiting effect on a powerful high level global. It really should be raised. If someone has the production to use it, they shouldn't be restricted by an arbitrarily too low production cap number.

1,000 would be sufficient.

Jazzepi

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Some powerful high level globals are also more useful for some nations than others. Second Sun is not very useful for Niefelheim. Aren't there some more resource-expensive troops you could recruit instead of whatever you are building?

The 100 unit limit may have been just as intentional as the 1 commander limit. The recruiting queue is documented as being 100 units in the manual, after all.

And is realism is really an issue? It's already unrealistic that recruits do not come from the population.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Anything more expensive isn't going to move at speed 3. I'm *NOT* buying junk, I just have two provinces with over 1300 resources.

I have hit the limit a few other times as a land nation trying to get into the water. Shamblers aren't armored--very low resources. While you're building an army it doesn't matter--the 1 commander limit is more important than the resource limit. If you build an army and then bring it back out of the water for reinforcements, though...

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Seems to me that this ties to the other thread that stats there is a unit ceiling for the entire game of 100k units. I jokingly said only Gandalf Parker plays games that big, but obviously not.

If you are pulling in this many units a turn, it is likely that your opponents are as well. Given the gold you must have, you must have a decent sized empire and so do they. Let us assume 500 units are being added to the game a turn, if not more. You are buying top quality troops, others may be buying chaff.

That unit ceiling is going to get hit in 200 turns, which is a pretty long game, even on a big map. If you remove the unit limit, the unit ceiling is going to get hit a lot earlier, leading to another problem.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Seems to me that the complaints about the 100 unit limit in the queue and not using up all resources under highly specific circumstances is little more than bellyaching. For the vast majority of cases, it is not an issue at all and rare enough to not warrant changes.

And as Saxon points out, it's a choice between the lesser of two evils. Increasing the unit ceiling is not an option due to performance issues even on high end systems.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Between Edi and Gandalf it's surprising that anyone bothers to raise any issue with Dominions 3. This is a legitimate complaint, but every time someone tries to bring up something that could be improved or has been giving them issues, sooner rather than later one of you two posts about how people should stop whining about Dom 3 and just worship it in all it's semi-perfect glory.

Jazzepi

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

I think there's an answer to the unit limit problem.

Make some more units. They would be basically squads. If you have a bunch of something in a province they would sometimes combine into the squad units. Squad units would cost the same in support, leadership & food as what they were made out of, but they would function as a single unit for the rest of the game.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

I don't imagine anyone has any problem with suggestions. But often suggestions are over-stated as problems, which confuses the issue and leads to people trying to put problems in perspective. Given that it's a very complex game with tons going on and many great ideas about what could make it even more fun, there is of course a constant large list of bugs and suggestions, and so it's helpful to put suggestions in proper perspective, and it can be confusing to everyone from new players to Illwinter if discussions are out of proportion. In this case, for example, while it's a perfectly good suggestion that ideally there would be no recruitment limit, and this thread nicely explains the circumstances where it can occur and be an issue for a specific game situation, it's also appropriate to reflect that this is a very rare situation (I don't remember ever running against it after years and years of play since Dominions 1). I also expect you could spend all your gold by recruiting in other provinces, and being limited to 100 Helhirdlings or whatever is the sort of problem many players would love to be their worst concern. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Now, calling it "just bellyaching" might have rubbed a nerve, but it seems to me there's far more out-of-proportion comments which are complaints (e.g. people deciding unit X is worthless when they haven't realized what it's good for, and others chiming in and saying it should be changed, etc.).

As far as recruitment goes, I'd much rather see the ability to recruit mundane (non-magic, non-holy) commanders at the same time as magicians and priests in the same province, so there wouldn't be a forced choice between recruiting mages versus interesting commanders.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Hey, ease up on the ad hominem attacks. Edi took a substantive position on why the issue is not a serious concern (100k units in a game is rare); apparently you disagree about the seriousness ("legitimate complaint") but instead of e.g. arguing that the limit is often hit in 1000-province games you're attacking Edi. That's not cool.

The computational resources probably does constrain the maximum number of units (probably the same reason why we're limited to 1500 provinces maximum), but if this were an important issue it could probably be set in preferences and/or with command-line flag. The question is whether this issue is important enough to merit special attention that way. Looking at all the other things on the short list should put this issue into perspective.

Incidentally, keeping on the good side of the short list maintainer (i.e., Edi) is probably a good idea for a number of reasons.

-Max

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Actually, there's no way that anyone else is building anything like as many.

I've got probably 40% of the map, an AI has another 40% and there are two little empires left that, we are each munching on one of the little ones. Obviously we will have a big fight when the two little ones are munched up.

So far, equal. However I have up Gift of Nature's Bounty, Fata Morgana and Riches from the Deep. This gives me gobs of cash he doesn't have and gobs of production to use it with. It's impossible to actually compare our armies as his has been at the max line for a long time now.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

You go right ahead and point to a post where I have ignored things that are legitimate bugs. What I take exception to is when people dig up some really obscure thing that can only happen under highly specific circumstances and bring it up as if it were a serious bug with the game.

Take this one: It is highly specific, it is largely dependent on what nation you play AND a matter of preferences as to what units you want to recruit. Yet it was made to sound as if the 100-unit recruit limit was about to bring the game crashing down around our ears.

I have my issues with certain things in the game (quite a few things, actually), but I also consider priorities and what things can realistically be expected to be addressed. I have to, given my task with the bugs and other issues.

By all means, discuss this and suggest improvements and express what you wish changes, but keep in mind that these are matters of preference and they also have a demonstrated downside, with the existence of the unit ceiling (which seems to be closer to 150k than 100k). Whether that downside manifests is highly dependent, number of nations, the nations included, size of map and length of game, but remember that increase in the limit will also increase it for the AI, which could exacerbate the problem.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

That's a long way to get into the game without building any forts. I can only assume that not building forts is a self-imposed constraint to make it more challenging, or for crazy Gandalf-like roleplaying reasons.

-Max

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

What's so exotic about my case? Good scales + some good globals. That's it.

I went through the units. There is *ONE* usable unit that costs more resources than what I'm buying. The other has an indie unit that's more expensive but it doesn't like moving--and the province is now several places behind the front line.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

I've got other forts, I can do my recruiting elsewhere. It's not a showstopper but it is annoying. Buying troops at the best provinces cuts down on the micromanagement needed.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

Perhaps when you designed your pretender, if you knew you were planning on casting Riches, then you could have taken less Production and spent those points elsewhere.

Alternatively, if you already have high enough resources because of your scales, you might get more benefit out of casting a different global. Why not cast a Forge of the Ancients instead?

The 100 units limit to each recruiting queue is a documented feature of the game. So design a strategy that works with that.

Fair and Balanced non-Fanboy comment: The 100,000 (or 150,000) unit cap is not as easily dismissed. It seems to me it would be better just to let older systems fail if they run out of memory or get too slow when processing all the units. I think someone suggested a commandline option so that the limit can be specified by the user. That sounds good to me.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

VFB,

Hmm, interesting trade off. If you want a big game, you have to get a new computer. I am used to the “if you want my shiny graphics, you have to get a new computer.” Never expected the issue to come up with my lovely, but graphically challenged, Dominions…

Loren,

I think where your game is exceptional is that you are playing it out. It is my understanding that most people stop playing single player when it becomes apparent that they are going to crush the AI like a little bug. I hear you loud and clear about micro management, that is the main reason I stop playing most 4X games once I know I have won. It is too much work to get that victory screen…

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

I see. I misunderstood your "I didn't build either castle" comment to mean that you only had two castles, your capital and one that you captured. That *would* be an interesting way to play, especially on a no-indy map. Not crippling but maybe thematic.

-Max

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

I was saying that in regard to a suggestion that I pick lower resource provinces for castles.

I don't think it would make a lot of difference anyway, it's not just the province but everything around it. The highest resource one is in an area of mountains and forest. There are other castles around there that are 700+ resources.

Re: Production queue limit problems
 

The mega-high resources would I think still be an advantage even if you only want a certain unit type, except for capital-only units, since you could build more castles even where there are fewer resources, and be able to recruit more than you otherwise could.

Again, ideally I agree it'd probably be best not to have a limit. I just don't see it as a major problem that there is one (especially since I've never had a problem with it, and frankly it has seemed a bit silly when I can recruit so many when there is some unit I can afford to recruit 100 of in one province, while other provinces can only recruit a few of some other unit type), and of course there are many suggestions I'd be happier to see before that one. Another thought is that opponents of players who have a great capital-only unit may be in favor of a limit...