Productive Scale needs some Enhancements

[calmon]

I played a good amount of MP games and i used a large range of different scales. But one scale is an autoset to me: Sloth 3 - whatever i play. Even with resource haevy nations i go rather to an Awe Combat Pretender/Bless Strategy than to use the productive scale.

The main problem with productive: Its ok (and not more) in early game but quite useless in mid/lategame. With a good amount of fortresses and conquered neighbored provinces gold is the limited factor and not resources. In addition mages becomes important and they don't need much out of your forges.

Well there were already a boost/nerf but i think its not enough. The productive scale should be further improved and the sloth scale further worsen.

Maybe with something like in productive dominion your armour/weapon is well maintained and oiled so you got a bonus. In sloth everyone is too lazy and there is a malus for armor/weapon.
Equal to the magic/drain scale and the MR malus/bonus.

Or in productive provinces your army is supported more effective and needs less upkeep (more in sloth)

Or maybe just some code friendly increased income bonus.

[CUnknown]

I love your idea about armies needing decreased/increased support $ per turn if in a Productivity/Sloth dominion (maybe 10, 20, and 30%?) However, I don't think the code can handle this, especially if mages wouldn't be affected by it (and they shouldn't be).

Perhaps a simpler idea would be to just increase the amount of resources/cash it gives, like the last thing you said.

Another idea might be to increase/decrease castle construction time. If it was 1 turn per level (minimum 1 turn of course), that would be huge! A 3-production nation would be cranking out expensive castles instantly, whereas a 3-sloth nation would never be able to build castles anywhere near the front lines.. a 6-7 turn construction time would turn a risky move into basically something that is not worth even trying.

Or a 10% per level increase/decrease in all building (castle, temple, lab) costs? That would be a nice bonus as well.

[Sombre]

If production scale helped with buildings, that would make it more useful, that's for sure.

It could also help with construction spells the same way that growth scale increases the potency of some spells. So in production 3 you get more mechanical men or whathaveyou.

I don't think it should run over into forging, because that's too hard to balance, but improving construction summons would be neat.

[llamabeast]

Hmm, I often take production. Almost always in fact. Interesting.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Play Late Era Atlantis, and tell me gold is still the limiting factor. The most expensive commander outside of capitals is sacred, 130 gold. All your ice infantry cost 10-16 gold, but lots of resources. You do have Mournful, but those are often neglected in favor of troops that have morale.

That said, I really do like the idea of having scales affect production. But 8 turns? That'll be brutal.

[Zeldor]

It would be 9 for C'tis biggest fort Gold reduction or defense/admin increase for forts would be nice.

[SlipperyJim]

Production is more important early in the game than late in the game, I agree. But that doesn't mean it's underpowered. An early-game advantage can easily snowball into a late-game advantage by allowing you to expand faster than your opponents.

Anyway, the main point here is that mundane troops become less and less useful as the game progresses. But that's always been true since Dom:PPP ... it's just a part of the game.

[DrPraetorious]

As with Drain, I'd suggest a staggered scale:

Prod-3 - -2 turns to build forts, fort cost -30%
Prod-2 - -1 turn to build forts, fort cost -20%
Prod-1 - -1 turn to build forts, fort cost -10%
Sloth-1 - +1 turn to build forts, fort cost +10%
Sloth-2 - +1 turn to build forts, fort cost +20%
SLoth-3 - +2 turns to build forts, fort cost +30%

This would, at the very least, discourage people from taking Sloth-3 and get them to take Sloth-2 instead.

It would make Sloth-1 and Prod-2 very rare/undesirable choices, as with Drain, which bothers some people but not me.

[Twan]

SlipperyJim said:
Production is more important early in the game than late in the game, I agree. But that doesn't mean it's underpowered. An early-game advantage can easily snowball into a late-game advantage by allowing you to expand faster than your opponents.

Yes but with the 120 points for constr 3 you can take an awake SC pretender instead of a dormant god, and it snowballs as well.

Personnally I don't use sloth 3 all the time but even with ressource heavy nations rarely takes more than prod 1.

Another idea (simple as the code is there) : actually only growth/death affect population, when most other factors (except magic) are affected by 2 or more scales, even if one is more powerful (ex : supplies by temperature and g/d, income by all, etc...). Let's say production now gives +/- 0,1 population in addition to actual bonuses, it would make it a good pick to reduce the death effect or attain maximal growth, and would give an endgame interest to production (production... of childs ).

ps : the fort idea is better, but harder to implement I think

[Zeldor]

DrPraetorious:

I think that even only cost reduction would be nice. But then it should include temples and labs.