40 replies to this topic

[isledebananas]

While it makes sense to have lumber mills for all races its just not feasible from a resource collecting standpoint. For it to be a resource that sustains the production of the military there should be a lot of wood and frankly most maps don't have near enough for something like that. I agree with Khamulrulz it should be exclusively for Isengard. A cheap quick resource gathering which helps them get their war machine on the move. This is true to the movies as Saruman built quite a large army in a very short period of time. Isengard should have such an advantage as it is true to lore and movies and their style.

Gondor, Mordor, Erebor, and maybe even Rhun and Harad use mostly stone, metal, mud, or animal hides for their buildings as you can plainly see. Only Rohan and Elves seem to have structures that mostly require wood. Perhaps that could be a late game resource for Rohan as its hard for me to see Elves as described by Tolkien to be actually running lumber camps.

A bit of the problem could be alleviated if the tree resources available never get depleted. Workers stand around chopping at the wood but it never stops yielding resources. The longer the battle goes on those resource structures will run dry. Maybe I mentioned this before, but much like my idea for farms, a lumber camp would have to be placed in an area where a certain amount of trees are within a given radius of the lumber camp. You produce workers who go out and look like they are chopping; perhaps a max of five and they produce resources per turn at the lumber mill. This way I feel it is a compromise between more economically orientated RTS games like the AoE series and what BFME series is. While it won't be completely real it will look quite realistic. It should also make raiding a viable option in games since resource collecting will no be dependent on workers who are easier to take out than buildings.

For Gondor or Erebor they should have the stoneworker as a secondary resource structure and rename it the quarry or something. It will basically be harvesting rocks for the buildings their factions builds. Perhaps even give some sort of price reduction or production speed bonus on buildings the more you have.

[Gfire]

I think having it just for Isengard would make it worse, because then they'd have a huge advantage or disadvantage on some maps. I think for all factions, you should be able to use it or not to your liking, and depending on the map.

All stone buildings have wood in the structure. Perhaps the Dwarves could carve theirs out of solid rock but men would use wood.

I don't think the lumber camps can be the main recourse structure for any faction, but if you look at Isengard, they starting chopping trees first thing, then made the furnaces and forges. It might be the first way to get resources as them, if you want, but furnaces will be needed to keep up.

I think the BFME1 system of certain recourse structures providing discounts made sense. It was almost like a simpler version of multiple resources. The more lumber camps you get, the cheaper structures are, and upgrades are discounted with furnaces. I think this will make lumber camps important for Isengard in the earlier game, before upgrades are desired. (Whether other factions use mills or not.)

Other than that, maps aren't made for any recourse collection other than trees, and neither is the engine. You could probably code it, but all the maps would have to be redone for it to work properly.

Personally, I think, if possible, and if it wasn't straying from the gameplay desired (such as that in the original BFME), it would be cool to make all structures worker oriented, but not all based on terrain collection like trees (more like the farms in AoE, but with multiple workers.) Maybe a maximum number of workers for the structures, and each worker generates resources based on the available terrain. Then you could allow raiding without making structures so weak, straying form the mod's realism.

[SoulFox]

It all human Gondor, Rohan, Harad and Rhun need a new structure called Arable. http://aom.heavengam...esign/farm1.jpg
Will have many things in maps gold mine, silver mine, stone, wood, berries, animal and gem.
But impossible get into Bfme2 SEE mods from AoE?

I expect next year called The Lord of the Rings War in the North from Warner Bros. and Snowblind!

[Archon]

But impossible get into Bfme2 SEE mods from AoE?

It is most likely impossible, and definitely illegal...

[isledebananas]

But GFire that makes sense with Isengard for them to get a big economic boost early. It sits with them as how they were in the movies and lore they were able to build a huge army very quickly and then go on the offensive. All other factions will have to wait. I don't think it will mess with the balance too much since they should still have a size-able enough army to repel any attacks the Isengard faction can dish out early on.

I do agree with you though that perhaps some other factions should get lumber camp later in the game. For Isengard industry is first. Also I think they should get slaughterhouses as well since they need to feed the troops.

[Gfire]

If they get slaughter houses, you'd definitely have to add the discount system from BFME1 for it to have a purpose in-game. If that happens, Moria could also get slaughter houses as a second structure to tunnels. (Tunnels could have no discount to balance the ability to travel between them.) You could also add the Blacksmiths back into Gondor as a resource structure, allowing upgrades at level two, like in BFME1, and discounting upgrades.

If Lumbermills discount prices of structures, you could save money by buildings mills first. But there needs to be some way of avoiding that strategy for other factions with mills, but make it a good for Isengard.

Edited by Gfire, 28 November 2009 - 04:29 AM.

[isledebananas]

I made a theory in the other thread about resources and building strength made by Hel Ghast. I stated that for some specific resource creating things would be requirements for building certain units. For Isengard the Lumber could be the first to jump start the economy followed by slaughterhouses. Then the furnaces come in later allowing the armored Uruks. A certain amount of the furnaces would have to be there to start production of those units. I think that would make sense considering a certain amount of furnaces would be needed to have a constant flow of armor for so many units.

This would as that thread criticized make a big deal out of buildings especially the resource buildings. Right now you can make any unit as long as you have the building that produces it up to the proper level except elites. However, this system would make it far more necessary to have the correct buildings and even the amount of those buildings. In some cases certain buildings would give discounts to the price of upgrades, units, and buildings. Maybe with things like lumber mills and stoneworkers they could even modify the speed at which buildings are built or repaired. Now in addition a specific kind would be required to even build certain kinds of units.

For example with cavalry I thought perhaps a certain amount of farms would be necessary to produce them in addition to the stables. It makes sense to raise horses in addition to regular units you need lots of food. If for some reason you drop below the amount of farms required you will no longer be allowed to build more until you have the proper amount of farms.

I have no idea how Gondor should be done. Most of their units require both food and armor. This means both blacksmiths and farms would be necessary. Perhaps they could be especially unique in that they need a certain amount of both types of structures to be able to fully utilize their population cap. Maybe it can be a 2 to 1 ratio for every two farms and one blacksmith they get an additional 100 CP. However if even one of those 3 gets taken out they lose the CP. However to counter this problem Gondor will have markets which increase the yield per turn.

[Gfire]

The problem is, not all maps have lots of trees, so you should be able to choose whether or not you even want to use lumber mills. This was less of an issue in BFME, where the tree count was high near the economy points. I don't know what the trees are like in all the maps, though, so it might work.

However, I think if it was done that way, it should be lumber required for a furnace, slaughter house required for warg pit.

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to make it so you require a certain number though. And if some die, they will still be available. The BFME engine just won't do that, at least afaik. It would take some majoy engine bending to make it work.

It would be dumb to build a stable and not have enough farms. Some maps just have more space for farms and stuff like that, so I don't think that would work properly.

I think just the discount system would probably work best. It's already debugged by EA (Unless BFME2 has some trouble with it,) so we know it works very well.

It's not really possible to do that stuff with the farms and blacksmiths, either.

These are some nice ideas, but I don't think they'd really work in BFME.

[khamulrulz]

i still think that one resource building is enough for each faction - except isengard, who obviously had such a huge emphasis on their economy, which is why i would give only them lumber mills.

to replace these secondary resource structures for each faction, i would instead have buildings that offer unique bonuses or functions for each faction. for example, gondor would keep the marketplace, which offers unique economic upgrades, and the stoneworker would be moved to dwarves (using current mithril mine model), which offers unique structure upgrades. for more info, see the "unique faction buildings" thread. basically i think that instead of every faction having a secondary resource building, they should have unique buildings that fit their own unique theme. (contrary to the view i expressed at the start of this thread)

[Mercyy]

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to make it so you require a certain number though. And if some die, they will still be available. The BFME engine just won't do that, at least afaik

It should be able with scripting (I've done something similar a long time ago), but I think that you can't code that. ^^

[Gfire]

That would be pretty complex. Yeah, map scripts can do that, but it probably would have some issues. Combining map scripting and code sounds tricky, if the code is gonna be used on all sorts of maps. You'd have to load the scripts into all maps, and the game wouldn't work with some other maps players might want to play on (like ones they made themselves or found online, or whatever.)

I think there's already too little focus on economy in the game. I think a secondary resource structure for some factions would be good.

In BFME1 it worked to have only one resource structure for Rohan, all the way up to three for Isengard and mordor. I think this would work, with one for elves and three for Isengard, Moria, Gondor and maybe Mordor. Dwarves and other Men factions could have two (lumbermill and standard.) And additional unique structures, like the marketplace and stoneworker, could still be used. It can still be balanced, I think.

[isledebananas]

Strange can't you set up variables or something in the programming? Then you could set farms to a variable and then require it to be greater than whatever number to allow production of units. Well if it requires specific scripting for each and every map that will be tedious so no go.

I still think one of the best ways to counter the resource problem mentioned in the other thread is have more units and buildings have prerequisites. Maybe for Rohirrim or even stables it would require a lvl 2 farm or something. Perhaps the Rohan blacksmith could also be a resource structure but unlike the Gondor one it would generate far slower resource gain. In addition the unit upgrades would not be available till lvl 2 and also that could enable stables. I think that could be a general rule that maybe a lvl 2 furnace/blacksmith like structure would be needed to provide enough armor for those heavily armored troops(not heavy armor upgrade). For example it would be required to make the armored Uruks. The only problem would be with Gondor who don't have anything other than rangers and peasants that lack armor.

The other critique was the strength of the buildings were far too great. That resource structures would only get converted to withstand the problems of war slower. Thus buildings like lumber mills and stone workers could give a passive increase to the hp of buildings and maybe even provide special upgrades for buildings.

[Gfire]

No, there are no variables like that. No way to check how many of something there is, even in lua, afaik. I've already asked around about this king of stuff.

Yeah, there are some troubles with making mainstream units require late-game structures or structures at higher levels.

In BFME1, they used mills and stoneworker to give a discount in building buildings. But you could also give it leadership to strengthen structures while it exists. That seems a little weird, though. I don't know how that would act in-game. Like, once it's destroyed, do the buildings all lose health?

[isledebananas]

Similar to how they gave a percent discount per structure. They would give a percent increase in hp per structure. So yes similarly they should lose the bonus once you lose some past the threshold. Its like how in BFME 1 having 5 would give the max bonus and any extra wouldn't do anything bonus wise. However, that does seem weird though since realistically once it gets more hp it shouldn't lose it. Maybe instead they give a repair and construction speed bonus. I guess maybe the hp or armor bonuses should come as a purchasable upgrade from level 2 structures. Perhaps similar to unit upgrades they would have to be done a building at a time.

Lvl 2 resource structures aren't that late game. It should balance out well for most factions since they have some good units that aren't so well armored. For example with Isengard you could say that they would have no anti-cav since pikemen are armored and would require lvl 2 furnace. However, most cavalry units would also require a level 2 structure and perhaps something else to be produced so it evens out. The only problem is Gondor who really don't have any effective units that aren't armored. Even Elves don't have such well armored baseline soldiers which is strange. Does lore state anything about Gondor soldiers perhaps farther out from Minas Tirith that weren't so well equipped?

I think that would deal well with those problems brought up since that really makes your resource structures important. If you lvl 3 structures get taken out the resource crunch won't be the only problem you have.

[Gfire]

I think, to keep it simple, just adding HP when it levels up works would do.

From what I gather, in the books gondor used only chainmail. There was really no platemail at all in the books. The elves probably had leather scales or something. In the films things are different, though.

Maybe it would work for some units, but I'd keep it for later game units. I liked in BFME1 where you needed a level 2 blacksmith to get upgrades. That worked pretty well.

[Nertea]

There's a way to track variables that might work for this actually but it's really a poor idea in the first place.

[Gfire]

Can you have something like a global variable?

[Nertea]

Global I'm not sure of. Hacked persistant local, probably. It wouldn't be useful in this case, as it would only be able to store data for a single unit that couldn't be accessed by others. It's also likely very system intensive so shouldn't be used with anything built in large numbers. And it's not well tested. The cons outweigh the benefits; it has a few potential uses (being a counter is one), I was just pointing out that it's possible.

[Florisz]

Now wait a minute. Wouldn't, for the Dwarves, make a mine more sense then a lumber mill? No idea how it would work out, but...

[isledebananas]

Eh on the prerequisites your right about perhaps only needing one resource structure of lvl 2. Your right about how some maps are pretty cramped and wouldn't have much space for resource structures. I personally like bigger maps but to each their own. I take back the idea about lumber mills increasing hp cumulatively as that realistically wouldn't make sense. I think them having some kind of upgrade for buildings like a stone worker would make more sense. In another thread Nazgul said he liked the idea of more upgrades for units and buildings. I don't know if a cumulative speed bonus to repair and construction can be done, but it makes more sense as they can provide the building equipment faster for those things.

Strange no platemail that seems really weird. You would think especially elves would be more aesthetically minded and platemail suits that best.

Perhaps for Gondor just having a blacksmith should be the prerequisite for the armored units. If I recall it doesn't have any prerequisite buildings so it should be easy to put up. The problem with making the unit upgrades to lvl 2 blacksmith is that other factions don't really have a similar system. Their HA & FB upgrade buildings don't really produce resources and some don't even look like they should be doing that.