Secondary resource structures - for Good

*edited topic description* /Naz


In the obsolete to-do thread, i saw an interesting suggestion:

"- New/more economy structures for Good factions (to counter Evil's Lumber Mills):
* "Smelting Works" for Dwarves, using Miners with pick axe anims going to mountains/rock, collecting minerals and returning to the structure to give resources!
* "Harvest Hut" for Elves, using Elven civilians (women maybe) going into woods gathering herbs and whatnot!
* "Hunters Lodge" for Men, using new hunter model based on rangers. Hunter goes looking for eatable animal such as rabbit, deer etc."

I think this would be good, because while the current evil factions can utilize the trees available on the map, the good guys can't!

I think the Hunters Lodge should be for Gondor, Rohan with a slight reskin for each
Evil Men could have a Water Hole, where slaves gather water from nearby rivers/lake with the builder bucket, and toss it in the water hole.

I love the idea for the Smelting Works, and something similar should be used for the Goblins (unfortunately, the name Treasure Trove is taken), because the tunnel anim already has some goblins throwing jewels and other shiny rocks up. After a rock/mountain part is "sucked dry" of resources, it should appear cracked.

The Harvest Hut could be renamed to the Healing House, and women go to bushes and come back with herbs like athelas.
Lumber Mills would only be for Mordor and Isengard.

These units will not be able to fight, and the buildings will be devoted solely to resource gathering. snagas could be moved to slaughter houses and furnaces for mordor and isengard, respectively (snagas would have worked in those buildings anyway, so it's still realistic)

Just like trees can't be harvested any more after they have been fully "lumberized", the cracked rocks symbolize there are no more resources left in them. bushes for herbs would go away also, as well as animals getting killed, but i can't think of something to show that water can no longer be used for resources. maybe it becomes murkier and polluted?

Overall, the map's animals, bushes, trees, water, and rocks/mountains would all be used for resources.

Edited by khamulrulz, 27 October 2009 - 12:46 PM.

Yeah, those are awesome ideas

Thanks for extracting them from that gigantic topic. We might do this for Beta 4.8 if Sûl still around by then, and eager for some serious coding (way out of my range)

Too lazy to read the whole post, but I'd like to say something. Dwarves and Men can of course have lumber mills. Dwarves especially. In The Silmarillion, it says how the Dwarves will fell trees and "ruin" the plants and stuff. I don't remember the exact quote. That's why the Ents were made. Men, too, use wood. I think it's silly how thye have these wooden farms but don't have lumber mills.

All these different things could be fairly hard to balance, because different maps have different amounts of water, trees, etc. I'd say keep it to Harvest Hut for elves, and lumber mills for everyone else. But I'd make the elven harvesting harvest from trees, but not cut them down. That would be way easier to balance, since it's based all on trees it would be more fair. You'd just have to make sure the elves aren't overpowered since they can't run out of trees.

The ents were made to guard the elves from Melkor (Morgoth) until they were awake. Elves were the first beings besides maia and valar. the dwarves, then men. Aule was lonely and tired of waiting for the elves, so he created the dwarves. Then Manwe found out about them. He asked Aule to destroy them. Aule was crying when about to destroy them and the dwarves were crouching in fear. Manwe then allowed the dwarves to live, but they must awaken after the elves.

Men and dwarves would fit the harvesting of wood, but I feel the hunting/mining fits the men/dwarves better.

Edited by yams in a can, 28 October 2009 - 02:12 AM.

i was looking to increase the uniqueness of factions, and these are ideas nazgul originally started, but weren't noticed by many.

Hmm those resources stuff remind me of Empire Earth and Age of Empire.

Good Idea. If it possible to do it will totally tweak gameplay style somehow.

Edited by Dant, 28 October 2009 - 12:27 PM.

Hey sorry!
jeg have Age of empire 3.
the villige can go for pick berry for gondor?

I mean units go and pick berry and seed on area like from Age of Empire.
Should learn Men of West?

Apologise i sent two post!

"Smelting Works" for Dwarves, using Miners with pick axe anims going to mountains/rock, collecting minerals and returning to the structure to give resources!

Sounds interesting, I'm exited how it will be ingame.

Yeah, Soulfox, I liked the resources in AoE and AoM. The buildable farms that a worker can work on and take resources back from is a pretty nice system. It might be possible for BFME.

While it seems realistic especially with Isengard its not really well balanced. BFME is not about resources like the way most RTS games like the AoE series. BFME uses buildings that generate their own resources whereas AoE you have to go out and collect. The maps and everything in AoE is made to have a pretty good flow of resources. It isn't that way in BFME the trees are few and far in between and even the lumber mill drop off site doesn't work well. If you ever look at snagas dropping off wood you notice that each one has to wait for the one that came before to drop off their wood. For a game where economy is important you can't have something like that nor can you have limited resources. I mean it looks nice but to do this you would have to completely change the resource system.

I remember in BFME 1 that the lumber mills were a good source of initial income. Having a certain amount would also decrease the cost of buildings so it was good to have them to jump start your economy. However soon after wards you could switch to slaughterhouse or furnace to keep a good resource flow. However late into the game you would have to switch those lumber mills into slaughterhouses cause the trees have all been chopped down.

The main problem is that each map would have to be transformed just to suit the unique resource needs of each faction. This isn't good sometimes because some maps are supposed to be lacking in certain things like trees, rocks, animals, or water. Now you can't keep the maps as is because that would give a huge advantage to one faction over the other enough so that they could end up pumping out those stronger units way ahead of their opponents. Then you might think of making the secondary resource all the same for each faction which is bad since they all should be unique. In the Suggestions for Resource Gathering Thread some good ideas came up for secondary resource systems or switching the current primaries to secondary that also made each faction quite unique.

One thing I did like about AoE series is the trade caravan thing. Maybe that might be possible for the Rhun and Harad since they were in the dessert some areas might have more of one resource than another so they might have to trade to survive. You could have a trading post building and some animal goes back and forth between these two and they generate resources.

I think the idea of having some sort of workers around a building is nice and would help game play. They don't need to be going back and forth actually dropping off a resource. By simply being there and working at that building they can increase the amount of resources that building generates or be the only way that building generates resources. By having workers around it gives more incentive to use hit and run raids. Many of the factions have good raiding units but they are pretty ineffective since the strong buildings aren't easy to take out. However, if they required some sort of worker units to actually work the building then raids can be used to effectively stall an economy.

in the "unique faction buildings" thread, i proposed that each faction gets a building with a unique function, and isengard has the lumber mill. this makes isengard more unique, because it is the only faction with a secondary resource collector.

Yeah, Soulfox, I liked the resources in AoE and AoM. The buildable farms that a worker can work on and take resources back from is a pretty nice system. It might be possible for BFME.

Agree! I aslo liked AoE the a farm with windmill and an units go and pick berry and seed in earth and back to farm get resources.
Can get new structures in Men of the West faction. The new structures "berry and seed".
hear good?

Wait do you think of the coming Age of Empires 4?

I also liked the AoE series farms. What if when you build a farm the original building only makes a certain amount of resources. But, you can build from the original farm some special peasants which can lay down up to 5 additional plots around the farm which much like the guy inside they would be harvesting from. The more farmers the more the resources the farm produces per turn. This would also solve that problem Hel-Ghast said in that other thread about getting huge resource surplus so quickly. When they level there is a slight bonus yield to each plot being worked.

Each structure that generates resources would then require some amount of workers to work at optimum efficiency. This would also leave them susceptible to raids. If your workers get taken out either the resource flow is really small for some structures and non-existent for others. This would kind of give the "collecting feel" of the AoE series without having to transform each map to balance each factions resource needs.

Yeah, I like those ideas. Having the ability to purchase workers for the terrain-based structures might work.

I don't know about AoE4. I never even played 3, I stick to 2 and Mythology.

Dwarves already have a secondary structure which produce resources, the Mithril Mine. Do they need yet another?

Men (Gondor, Rohan Harad and Rhûn) could have a fence with some animals inside (goats, sheeps, pigs, cows....).

Elves could have the Yavanhildi (maidens consecrated to Yavana who take care of the holy grain taken from Aman, used to make lembas). It would be the growing vegetables anim from the farms with an Elf girl around.

Anyway, I think they should be self-producting structures rather than structures with workers who has to collect something. Maps are not really preppared with enough wild animals to hunt or mountains to mine.

Just my two cents.

Maps are not really preppared with enough wild animals to hunt or mountains to mine.

That could be arranged...

Edited by Prince of the Dark Forest, 25 November 2009 - 05:05 PM.

Yeah, I like those ideas. Having the ability to purchase workers for the terrain-based structures might work.

I don't know about AoE4. I never even played 3, I stick to 2 and Mythology.

Look here
http://www.journaldu...10/aoe4and5.jpg

contrary to my previous posts about all factions having secondary resources, i think that only isengard should have one, the lumber mill. this fits the economic nature of their faction. in my "unique faction buildings" thread, i said that each faction should have a building with unique functions, like lumber mills for isengard, marketplace for gondor, etc. take a look at it.

Edited by khamulrulz, 26 November 2009 - 01:45 AM.

Personally, I think all factions except Elves should have a lumber mill. But maybe give Isengard's some advantage, so it used more, and earlier than for the other factions. Maybe even balanced to allow them to start with lumber mills instead of furnaces.

In AoE2 (which I was just playing,) the factions were pretty much the same (mostly the same units,) but each one has it's advantages and disadvantages, such as certain discounts and unavailable structures and units. Something like this would be good for BFME. Most factions would have lumber mills, but Isengard has the most focus on them, and Elves have none. It must be balanced, of course. Possibly just make Isengard's mills cheaper and furnaces more expensive, and maybe mallorn trees less expensive, if needed.

About AoE... Not sure why they wouldn't do a present day one for five.