Where does all the excess Resource go?

Autochthon · #1 October 10th, 2007, 01:03 PM

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

Jazzepi · #2 October 10th, 2007, 02:55 PM

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

Evilhomer · #3 October 10th, 2007, 03:01 PM

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

Agema · #4 October 11th, 2007, 10:37 AM

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.

Edratman · #5 October 11th, 2007, 11:04 AM

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.

Dedas · #6 October 11th, 2007, 11:10 AM

In the land of Dominions the blacksmiths only use fresh iron ore. I thought everyone knew that.

Autochthon · #7 October 12th, 2007, 01:51 AM

Quote:

Dedas said:
In the land of Dominions the blacksmiths only use fresh iron ore. I thought everyone knew that.

Yes, and on the last evening of the month, the Resource Fairy flies through air to collect unwanted materials.

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...