Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Greetings,

Forgive me if i'm forgetting the obvious, but I was wondering about something...

If Resource is not fully spent on units in a turn, are they wasted? If so, that doesn't seem right. Resource is already handicapped enough in that it's nowhere near as liquid a form of capital as gold.

In most economic models, "hard" capital like Resource is usually stockpiled, re-invested into the local economy or converted into a more liquid form of capital via trade. Like Alchemy, it isn't an efficient exchange, but it's better than being wasted.

Am I missing something here? Maybe it's a game balance issue.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Some of resource is raw materials, but some of it is human capacity. For example, your ironsmith can only make so much armor in a month, etc... That can't be stored up (well, I suppose one could say that you could stockpile empty armor suits, but... you'd have to pay for them ahead of time with gold...)

Resources prevent you from instantly raising huge armies from nonfortified provinces.. which sort of makes sense?

I think that is the role-playing answer, and that your guess that it is a game balance issue is also very true.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

I like resources the way they are now, basically, though I think there should be more nations that use the MA ulmish resource bonus in forts, just to a lesser extent.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Well, practically every game that allows you to convert production (resources) into gold also allows you to increase your production and invest into your production.

As Dominions 3 really doesn't have any city infrastructure, you never invest money into resources- so why should the reverse be true?

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Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

I do wish there were a way in the game to use up resource remains. For example, if you have 20 resources in a non-castle province, but want to build a 43-resource leader, you're SOL without a castle. Would be nice if you could build it in three turns (20 + 20 + 3). Or have a stack of units, where there are 15 resources free. The last unit costs 26 resources, so next turn it uses up 11 to complete building the unit...

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

You can build a commander in a province with less resources, just like you described. Only the display of "resources left" is bugged in that case, the commander will be built when the resources have accumulated.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

I think resource can best be seen as labour too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Sure, but even labour can be rerouted into less efficient but still useful means.

For example, if the forklift operators in a warehouse don't have any product to move, then they can be redirected into doing inventory and cleaning, which helps them take care of future influx of work.

A smith with no orders for arms and armour can still beat swords into plowshares, which would contribute to the local economy. Or he could prepare more blanks and semifinished pieces in anticipation for future orders. Or go home and fix the roof for the wife (Reduce Unrest http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

In all cases, labor is redirected to less productive but still useful means. And we still haven't gotten into the issue of trade...

I think it's an interesting idea to debate, particularly since I think Resource is gimped enough by being non-portable (can't use Resource outside of the Province) vs. Gold.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Heh. Learned yet another new thing here. I just saw that regular units didn't 'carry over' their resources, and assumed that applied to leaders as well. Good to know, thanks!

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

@ IndyPendant
Read up "Recruitment: restrictions" in your manual. (p. 59 in the first edition, maybe 61 in the 2nd)
I hope you have one ...

@ Autochthon
Ressources are meant to reflect the econ capacity of a province in very general terms - tools, workforce, raw materials, but also time used to make things and grow up things (like recruits and mounts). Obviously, you cannot run your economy on more than 100% capacity.

The impossiblity to turn e.g. surplus ressources into gold was a deliberate design decision: There is no and will never be an extended econ simulation in Dom3 - the game is about fighting, not building. (That's why there are no additional buildings for towns, etc). Placement of castles, labs and temples is part of the strategical (fighting) decisions, not some poor attempt of econ simulation.
Furthermore, ressource are meant to be the cap for local (provincial) production: You can't levy any numbers of troops from a province in a given time (month!), no matter how much gold you have.

For the same reason, there's no trade - gold revenue from trade (tax) is "inherent" in population.

And you're wrong about ressources not being usable outside of a province: Build a castle next to it and use 50% of it's ressources in the neigbouring province. (What actually simulates some local trade going on, btw. ...)

It's IMNSHO a design error that most (mid-late game) units only cost negligible to no ressources (mages,summons), as this basically renders the whole ressources thing moot, for some nations even right from the start. What you can tell from the fact that "Sloth" is a good scale choice for most nations, what it shouldn't be.
E.g. mages should cost a fortune not only in gold but also in ressources - not because they need that much plate armors, but because of the infrastructure and the consumables you have to spend to "raise" only a single one of them (mage schools, universities, libraries, the whole paper industry, all those tailors making fancy -and costly- robes instead of workwear for your working classes ...) Don't think this is going to change unless someone does a Mega-Mod ..

Another design error is the fact that ressources are actually only an indicator for the availability of raw materials, especially iron and lumber: they are heavily dependand on the terrain -you get only get them in woods and mountains, but not in highly populated grasslands- .. so there's no sign of "workforce simulation" to be seen. Anyhow, I think it should cost lots of fire and construction wood to "grow up" a mage ...

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Interesting analysis - I did notice the fact that there were many more uber-units that were almost exclusively Gold-dependent.

So my assumption was that Gold expense was to simulate what people call "human capital", capital that come from resources that do not directly contribute to their construction. Hence, mages, mercs and hydras don't require much Resource because the time and expertise used in their raising are not directly applied to their construction.

I understand that Resource does travel to a limited extent through the use of Forts, but it is nowhere near as universally applicable as Gold, which sits in a single pool. Hell, even Gems, which sit in a single pool, require a Lab to produce effects in a certain Province.

While the Resource cost of specialist units -could- be adjusted upward to compensate for this, I believe this would reduce the distinction between gear-based units and skill-based units. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything better ATM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Yes, this is how I always thought it worked story-wise, and it makes sense ingame-wise, too. A turn takes a MONTH. This game's supposed to take place in a fantasy world with pretty much medieval (and below) technology. People aren't magically grown in cloning vats - they take years to grow up, train to become great (or even bad) commanders, mages, priests and whatnot, just like you don't just pop out of your mom's loins and turn into an engineer in a month in real life. Or why would the old guys be old when you recruit them? Why would ages differ at all?

Because you're recruiting people who were already "around" last turn, the last n+1 turns, they just weren't working for your military directly (as such you can assume your mages/priests already had their robes - while military commanders weren't training their phat military skillz in full armor, or at least armor they owned). You pay them good money to get them join your army and quit their day jobs at your temples, laboratories, academies and so forth. Dominions just isn't an economic simulation, but a war-strategy game, so it doesn't count everything related to the economy. Kind of like how you wouldn't expect Command & Conquer's troop values to count in the feelings of the people towards your cause, the current currency rates in the game world or anything like that. ;p

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

I do understand that Dom3 is a war-oriented strategy game, and that we don't want to get bogged down into minutiae (e.g. Europa Universalis 3 - Good Gods!), but I can't shake the feeling that the current logistic system that drives the war effort is a bit skewed toward Gold.

If the limitations of Resource are WAD, then I think Gold collection, transport and expenditure needs a bottleneck somewhere to add more balance. As I mentioned before, even Gems require Labs to allow spell casting in a particular Province.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good ideas yet. I'll be sure to pipe up if I come up with something that balances Gold but is also simple and intuitive. While i'm at it, I might as well be nominated to run the Fed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Balancing gold? I don't really see the point. Gold is nearly worthless towards the middle -> end of the game when all your regular troops get ground into an unfortunate mush.

Jazzepi

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Gold is always good, more gold = more mages. Though gems play an increasing role of course.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

If resources are anything, it has to be raw materials. You can hardly argue that they can represent labour and time when a grassland (population 15k) has significantly less resource than a mountainous land (population 1.5k).

I wouldn't mind a pretty simple 1 gold per 10 (20? 30?) unused resources in terms of, say, the resources are actually being turned into trade products and general enrichment when they aren't building troops. It could make the Productivity scale interesting - remove the income bonus or penalty, and your bonus can turn into money anyway.

However, both paragraphs assume that things have to make 'sense' in a real world situation. Resources are an abstracted concept designed to fit the game's strategy, and when you muck with things integral to the strategy, that's an awful lot of rebalancing to do.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Conceptually I can agree with Agema that trading off unused resources for gold at some ratio makes sense. Resources could be viewed as iron ore that has been mined, but not smelted and forged into usable items, rather it was sold to some other end user.

The game does equate resources and gold in a significent manner in the pretender set-up screen where you have the choice of increasing/decreasing one and decreasing/increasing the other.

With that said, I'm happy enough the way things are and unused resources does not cry out to me as an issue that requires modification.

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

In the land of Dominions the blacksmiths only use fresh iron ore. I thought everyone knew that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Where does all the excess Resource go?
 

Yes, and on the last evening of the month, the Resource Fairy flies through air to collect unwanted materials. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Still, even non-path Gems can be used for Alchemy, but you can't say the same for Resources - they just vanish into thin air...poof!

And the Resource Fairy doesn't even leave money behind as a reward? Cheap... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif