18 replies to this topic

[Pendaelose]

Before solutions can be discussed the true nature of the problem must be discussed. Much of this focuses on mid-late game. I will discus early game afterwards.

A lot of this is basic, but you will see why it matters to focus on the basics... ZH uses 2 income sources. Resource points that give a finite amount of income at a fixed rate (5 Chinooks do not gather faster than 3) and "Money Makers" such as hackers and black markets. These are not limited by number, quickly pay for themselves, and never "cap out".

The longer the game, the more money makers you can have. Your potential income and (more importantly) income rate are both unlimited. The only restriction on a players economic strength is the management time to build these centers and having enough factories to benefit use all the money they make.

The only time during the entire game when income is restricted is in the very beginning, and only if you start with a resource pool too small to allow you to build money makers. Once you have built your first one or two however you have an income that will allow you to build more at an exponential rate.


Now, I'm going to shift topics to real world economics to talk about inflation and deflation. There is no "Gold-Standard" in currency, there hasn't been for a very long time. The only thing that defines the value of currency is supply and demand. The same is true in games. If tanks cost 600 and I double the income available you will have twice as many tanks. If tanks cost 2400 but I quadruple your income rate you will have the same number as when they cost 600.

The problem with Zero hour, and why increasing costs in ineffective is because the player has the means to quadruple his own income. You raise the prices, the income goes up... it's inflation. The only result was a decrease in the value of the currency itself. The income itself is entirely without a set value without the rate it's produced. ZH does not have a "fixed" income rate so the value of everything shifts and as your income soars those values drop sharply. this is why Costs for units at higher tech levels are exponentially higher than those at lower techs... because they wouldn't even be considered an investment if they were priced on a linear scale.


The next real world concept is "Relative Value". If tanks cost 600 and a Warfactory costs 2000, then a Warfactory is worth 3.33 tanks. If I reduce the cost of tanks to 300 and leave the factory at 2000 a factory is worth 6.66 tanks. Unlike currency, relative value is "fixed". Once a price is set, no matter how much money you make or have on hand you will always have this relative value. One of my goals in Remix was specifically to increase the value of your core buildings. Buildings should matter more than units. I've worked in factories... The factory that makes cars is worth more than 6, or even 600 cars. Basic Training camps are worth more than 100 or even 1000 soldiers. Even if the true scale can't be reflected, I wanted the values to shift in these directions. You can't do this by changing income, you have to change the relative value. I could reduce the cost of all units by a factor of 2, or increase the cost of all buildings by a factor of 2, either way buildings are now worth twice as much as they used to be.


There is only one time in ZH (Vanilla or Remix) when income is fixed... the early game before economies are fully established, because a fully established economy in ZH can grow itself indefinitely. Above I mentioned relative value remains constant, but when your relative value is constant AND your income is fixed you can start measure true value. You can adjust the cost of units with meaning only in the early game.

My goal of increasing the value of buildings (as well as upgrades, money makers, and other tech investments) to units is absolute... it is not something I will yield or back down on at all. SO in the early game I have 2 options... I can double the cost of buildings... what is the impact on the early game? Buildings and early base development become prohibitively expensive and it becomes impractical to try expanding beyond the first tech level. This is not what I want for the early game.

Alternatively I reduced the cost of units by 50%. In the early game you will see the same number of buildings, but twice as many units. I'm OK with this. I don't feel that players should have to wait until the T1 or T2 tech levels before they start investing in armies. T0 is just as good a time to have battles. Players who can build their tech up while fighting will survive to T1 and T2 etc. Vanilla ZH see's relatively few units in the early game. Online "guides" talk about early game rushes of 1 or 2 humvees with Infantry in them. that's a tiny force. I'm OK with doubling that. twice the units is hardly "spamming" when you only have a half dozen.

If all income was permanently "fixed" there would be another way to balance the game... Measure the cost of a developed base and the time required to build it, then give the player an income that would allow him to build that base plus the desired number of units for a fun game. Now, we can use relative cost AND income rate to balance the "spam" factor and rate of tech investment all at once.

Removing "money makers" entirely is only a partial fix. You now have a controlled income rate based solely on the map resources, this part works, but those map resources are exhaustible, and quickly run out of money. For example, a FULL resource point in ZH only has 45,000 to 60,000 resources in it. To build a base with one of each factory type, all 3 escalation upgrades, and your super weapon costs 40,000 credits. The money point in your base could pay for your base and nothing else. Theres not many pads per player, and if you run out of resources early it's a dull way to die. (this is why ZH has money makers in the first place)

Starcraft has a resource setup almost identical as that above except that they only control your income total, not your income RATE. This forces you to expand across the map aggressively to secure more resources or die. This works because Starcraft has LOTS of expansion points for every player on every map.

Dawn of War also has a similar but opposite system with your income rate being directly proportional to the amount of land you control but have no limit to total income. This works because it has the same effect as Starcraft, forcing players to expand for income, without the looming threat of "running dry".



My proposed solution is similar to Dawn of War (another game I modded heavily and love). I can remove all money makers but make the resource points on every map inexhaustible. The rate gathers bring in money can then be carefully tweeked to give exactly the right income rate for a fun base/unit ratio. You will always have enough money to build the basics, but if you want to build faster you will have to expand your base. Now, ground control becomes your economic controller, not how much time you spend building internet centers. Another added perk is that factions with "money maker" powers have a more meaningful impact on the game, and these powers can be adjusted to reflect the new limited income rates.


btw, the spamability of infantry I will drop in another post. It is a separate topic from economics.

[Jester22]

So is this going to go into effect in the next release? Inexhaustible supply nodes could be cool, but on a small map, you're still limited to about 2-3 gatherers per node, and there's usually only 1 node per base on those. Have you accounted for that? Would this b e for all supply areas or just the large ones?

[Pendaelose]

So is this going to go into effect in the next release? Inexhaustible supply nodes could be cool, but on a small map, you're still limited to about 2-3 gatherers per node, and there's usually only 1 node per base on those. Have you accounted for that? Would this b e for all supply areas or just the large ones?

I've not committed to doing so yet. It's just an option for now.

I have considered the impact on smaller maps... it would work fine. On smaller maps you have less territory to take and fewer choke points to hold. the enemy will be restricted to the same reduced income so you'll stay on even footings.

On many small maps there is a 3rd or 4th supply point in the middle between the two players, and making these important for a change is actually a great feature. Once the map outside your base matters people will get out and explore more, fight more, and work to control areas that are normally ignored. think of this, why bother trying to secure a new base in the middle of the map when a few thousand spent on money makers INSIDE your base will give you as much or even more money? It's cheaper too... if you want to take resources across the map you have to defend them and that costs a lot more than a few black markets.

[ApOcOlYpS]

My proposed solution is similar to Dawn of War (another game I modded heavily and love). I can remove all money makers but make the resource points on every map inexhaustible. The rate gathers bring in money can then be carefully tweeked to give exactly the right income rate for a fun base/unit ratio. You will always have enough money to build the basics, but if you want to build faster you will have to expand your base. Now, ground control becomes your economic controller, not how much time you spend building internet centers. Another added perk is that factions with "money maker" powers have a more meaningful impact on the game, and these powers can be adjusted to reflect the new limited income rates.

That actually sounds like a very good idea. I would be completely in support of that (DoW is a good game as well. I love my Eldar).

One thing is on all maps you must be sure to remove all of the small supply stacks (about $7000 worth I believe. Looks like a stack of 5 boxes) since if they receive unlimited supply your income could go up drastically by having multiple supply docks going to different box stashes.

Anyway, this would really make moving out of your base an important thing. There are a few things I'm worried about, however.

Mainly for Superweapon general, she has no easy way of assaulting an enemy position (she can, but not easily). I would suggest giving her (and other defense based generals) a way to, even limitedly, gain money from a third source (building supply drop zones or oil derricks). Air force possibly could use something of this nature (or better armored chinooks) since he cannot amass an army to take and hold a position (other than with helicopters).

[Pendaelose]

Mainly for Superweapon general, she has no easy way of assaulting an enemy position (she can, but not easily). I would suggest giving her (and other defense based generals) a way to, even limitedly, gain money from a third source (building supply drop zones or oil derricks). Air force possibly could use something of this nature (or better armored chinooks) since he cannot amass an army to take and hold a position (other than with helicopters).

That's actually untrue. People focus on the defensive aspects of SupW and the air power of AirF, but both have a capable ground force capable of taking ground. Once it's taken you can roll dozers in and entrench it with top notch defenses making it much harder to take back.

I always recommend using a lot more infantry with every attack and defense... every general has that and it makes a huge difference. In additional to those troops you can do this:

SupW has the "Mobile Defense" units. The Patriot tank and 30mm tank are both extremely formidable at medium range. You also have several flavors of artillery that scale up as you advance. 155's and later the rocket artillery can destroy enemy defenses quickly. If you have the option you can also use the Long Arm to splatter a defended position. If you're trying to take the position in the late game you can bomb with Auroras before moving in.

AirF can always bomb the position until it's undefended. Fast movers like fighters can do a good job too. Then you can secure the area with Heli's while you build your defenses. Alternatively you can trust in a stryker brigade to roll in and clear it. you have artillery, anti-tank, AA, and anti-infantry all in easy to deploy packages. toss in a couple SLIDs and you have a strong force.


these ground attacks aren't as durable as a Tank general army, but they don't need to be to take ground... and these units don't have to hold ground for long, that's what the defenses are for once you take the AO. If your enemy has a powerful late game force of Chimera's defending the point you can't use the light units as well... but if it's that late in the game you have your own late game answers. (ICBMs, or F44's both come to mind quickly)

[ApOcOlYpS]

Well, you will still have the potential for unlimited resources, it just wont be coming as quickly and will require you to advance out of your own starting territory to increase it.

But the decreased rate will make units a bit more important and make turtling far more difficult (and removes the war of attrition bit).

[Violence]

Hmm. THe first thing I can think of is using the 2ndary Supply buildings in different ways. Net Centers could now be used solely for Satellite Hack 1, 2, 3, making it reasonable to lower their HP and such which we had discussed months earlier. Just an example of the benefits your change will offer.

I haven't gone through what you will read below twice but take note that I have mixed methods not only of limiting income(one way to go) but also of creating Resource Sinks(best way in my opinion if it can be done).. Anyway just relax and read through.

BSecuring new supply pads each time might cost more than what they will make a player in a short amount of time and one single mistake will mean the end of the game for a potential player. Not to mention ambush type of SWs or abilities will become a primary means of stopping enemy expansion without any fear of retaliation or actual cost. Also providing neutral buildings to aid the situation around supply depots would not really solve anything. And I hate depending on map buildings to win the game, takes away a lot of the good old "I did it my self!!" feeling.

Have you considered tweaking income rates and usable resources at a given time to reflect actual units present and buildings present? Or perhaps limiting stashed money by putting in an Up-Keep rate? Or even simply putting restrictions such as Tier0 can only ever amass a total of 20.000 and such? Other ideas might be worth thinking about.. Perhaps each time a unit you control is killed it costs you money(I can see interesting abilities surfacing, like GLA factions causing more money to be lost with every kill instead of the classic money return per kill)... Same for buildings. Maybe even Veteran units can have increased Up-Keep rate. Call it "Maintenance Fees" ..

Another interesting Resource Sink(because that is what I'd be looking for instead of limiting anything right now) would be 2ndary Supply buildings decaying. Or time limits to ensure balanced income per second.

Any healthy mix of the above, including of course your ideas(by all means, expansion wars are fun!!) would greatly help. Is there also a way to set "zones" or "secure perimeters" of sorts where-in is the only place a player can harvest resources? Something like that. For instance there could be a new building for all armies, sort of a beacon.. When that is destroyed the player who had built it cannot take advantage of the supplies in that area. Just brain-storming here. The GLA have already a wonderfull resource sink- Salvage Box Drops!! Perhaps do something similar. Or even... add more abilities a player can purchase- Remember all the generals' powers you have replaced from ZH Vanilla? ...

Either way I am not negative towards this idea. But you need to be creative with it.. Involve the player. Make them like that they are being "limited" don't just impose new rules.

That's my 2 Cents' worth of an opinion on this.

PS> 2 more possible Resource Sinks : Purchasable power(as in electricity) and purchasable unit training for each unit.
BY allowing players to invest money in such things you also free up slots in the General's Powers menu for tech expansion options, a good thing always. Last but maybe not least, what about having to buy fuels? Or ammunition? Every 10 or 5 shots, any vehicle will draw a set number of resources. Only an example.

Maybe I'm crazy but someone has to be.. I mean .. Has to offer some alternatives.

[Pendaelose]

I've already replied via IM, but for everyone else... sadly most of the solutions that would have a real impact are impossible given the engine. There are a few options, but they don't fix it themselves. some of the ideas are good and will be discussed on the side, but they don't offer a viable alternative to controlling income rate.

[Jester22]

Is there a way to put money generating buildings on the "tournament mode" list, or make them limited build items?

[Creator]

A lot of this is basic, but you will see why it matters to focus on the basics... ZH uses 2 income sources. Resource points that give a finite amount of income at a fixed rate (5 Chinooks do not gather faster than 3) and "Money Makers" such as hackers and black markets. These are not limited by number, quickly pay for themselves, and never "cap out".

Actually, there are 4 sources of money. Two other ones are:
- Capturable "Money Makers". The feature is that you can not build many of them and can not build them on your base. Their position depend on map design.
- Neutral money crates. Yet again, their position depend on map design. And they can be picked up once.

The longer the game, the more money makers you can have. Your potential income and (more importantly) income rate are both unlimited. The only restriction on a players economic strength is the management time to build these centers and having enough factories to benefit use all the money they make.

Ammount of free place limits economy too. Small areas for bases will not allow to build a heap of money makers. But it depend on map design as well.

The problem with Zero hour, and why increasing costs in ineffective is because the player has the means to quadruple his own income. You raise the prices, the income goes up... it's inflation. The only result was a decrease in the value of the currency itself. The income itself is entirely without a set value without the rate it's produced. ZH does not have a "fixed" income rate so the value of everything shifts and as your income soars those values drop sharply. This is why Costs for units at higher tech levels are exponentially higher than those at lower techs... because they wouldn't even be considered an investment if they were priced on a linear scale.

Build time increase and reducion will work as well. And it works better than costs. Actually, there is only one resource in each game - it is TIME. Money is a secondary resource, which is nothing more than converted time. Money makers convert time into money. Factories convert time and money into units. Units provide battle power. The more battle power you have - the better. Player's task is to use time more efficiently in order to get more battle power.

Ideally, player must maintain 2 balances:
- Balance between money makers building and factories building. Factories must consume all money produced and must not be idle. Idle factory means that you don't have enough money makers. Too much money with fully loaded industry means that you need to build additional factories.
- Balance between economy building and unit building. Too much money for economy makes player vulnerable to enemy attacks and he looses in early game. Too much money for units means build speed reduction. If you don't build more factories and more money makers - you don't get faster build speed and loose in later game.

The next real world concept is "Relative Value". If tanks cost 600 and a Warfactory costs 2000, then a Warfactory is worth 3.33 tanks. If I reduce the cost of tanks to 300 and leave the factory at 2000 a factory is worth 6.66 tanks. Unlike currency, relative value is "fixed". Once a price is set, no matter how much money you make or have on hand you will always have this relative value. One of my goals in Remix was specifically to increase the value of your core buildings. Buildings should matter more than units. I've worked in factories... The factory that makes cars is worth more than 6, or even 600 cars. Basic Training camps are worth more than 100 or even 1000 soldiers. Even if the true scale can't be reflected, I wanted the values to shift in these directions. You can't do this by changing income, you have to change the relative value. I could reduce the cost of all units by a factor of 2, or increase the cost of all buildings by a factor of 2, either way buildings are now worth twice as much as they used to be.

What for? Real army is some millions of soldiers and some hundreds of thousands vehicles. Really big army in the game is about 200 units. And hence, we can conclude, that one tank in the game represents about 20 real tanks. One soldier in the game represents about 500 real soldiers. You need to calculate your "Relative Value" depending on such scaling effect. You also need to remember, that too cheap units will lead to spamming and further disconnects (especially in late game). Too expensive buildings will lead to rusher's paradise. It is enough to come and destroy one building - and enemy is doomed. He will not have money to rebuild and catch up enemy. Just imagine - rushed player spends $5000 to rebuild his war factory, while rusher spends the same $5000 to build 100 tanks ($50 per unit). Or another case - rushed player looses his supply center and does not have money to rebuild it.

I can remove all money makers but make the resource points on every map inexhaustible. The rate gathers bring in money can then be carefully tweeked to give exactly the right income rate for a fun base/unit ratio. You will always have enough money to build the basics, but if you want to build faster you will have to expand your base. Now, ground control becomes your economic controller, not how much time you spend building internet centers. Another added perk is that factions with "money maker" powers have a more meaningful impact on the game, and these powers can be adjusted to reflect the new limited income rates.

It is very similar to the thing I did. I limited all money makers (no more than 6 Black Markets, no more than 16 Hackers, no more than 6 Drop Zones), made all supply docks almost inexhaustible (ammout of supplies was increased 10 times) and made neutral money makers respawnable. So, players will have reason to go outside fo their bases in order to capture something. There was many hot discussions about these chages. But I'm glad, that another mod goes in this direction too. It means that this direction is correct.

Edited by Creator, 11 August 2010 - 07:58 AM.

[Pendaelose]

You'r right on those, especially "time is a resource", but if you raise the time requirements to high you also frustrate the player. I knew you changed some of those things in Contra, but didn't realize you had also changed the supply docks. that is good to see theres a similar thinking. My only concern is I don't want it to feel so restrictive that players feel choked by it. It will be a balancing act to get it just right.

Restricting money makers would work just as well as removing them. I'll consider that option too.



on the building value topic...

I don't want to see a value shift towards total realism, but I don't like the feeling when bases are disposable.

What you said about the scale represented... its funny, I always felt that way about StarCraft but not really ZH. When I look at ZH I picture single tanks. Each battle representing a single ground engagement rather than a full scale war, but that's all half mute, it's just the way we envision it. A small expansion base to me is a FOB like the one I'm on here. We have a few motor pools and barracks for soldiers. Of course we don't train new units here, but in combat we can field a lot of them the front. Warhorse is more like an expansion base... we can field light armor and infantry, but nothing extravagant. Ballad is a "big" base with airfields and they can deliver fresh troops, jets, and tanks into combat in huge numbers. If you look at those scales ZH actually fits the realism pretty well, even the way they are defended by static towers, point defenses, and artillery matches the scale and numbers typically seen in ZH.

There may be a 100,000 troops in Iraq (give or take depending on the year, 300,000 in '03) but in a single "battle" you seldom see more than a hundred. Even the biggest battles of the whole campaign only saw a few thousand troops and a few hundred vehicles. There are just a lot of these battles going on at once in different areas. I would compare a ZH round to invading Sadr City or even defending a FOB from an overwhelm attempt rather than the whole Iraq invasion.

[Capt.Drake]

My idea would be to cut the hole resource gathering thing and maybe have funding, everybodies resources would be limited in the same way, and you rather think twiche before wasting assests, the income rate could be expanded by the games progress, or tech progress sth like that

[Pendaelose]

My idea would be to cut the hole resource gathering thing and maybe have funding, everybodies resources would be limited in the same way, and you rather think twiche before wasting assests, the income rate could be expanded by the games progress, or tech progress sth like that

linking income to ground control has an almost identical effect, but it encourages players to get out of their base and secure the map resources. This also leads to more battles in the early and mid game.

Making your income determined by only your tech level encourages players to bunker down hard and turtle for income. This is too much like the current system.

[Vince]

But what if you realy like the current economy system me and my mates always turtle against one or a few impossible enemies and in the late game we make an über pwn army of super units or we built lot's of super weapons. Won't this play style become nearly impossible with the new economic gameplay?

[Pendaelose]

But what if you realy like the current economy system me and my mates always turtle against one or a few impossible enemies and in the late game we make an über pwn army of super units or we built lot's of super weapons. Won't this play style become nearly impossible with the new economic gameplay?

This is true, and those players deserve a chance too. If I give a million credit start option you have the choice of playing as turtle as you like without forcing the more "competitive" PvP players to endorse the same. Gameplay wise it would "feel" exactly like playing under the current rules with 100K starting cash.

[Vince]

okey that's good, I like

[Sheremetev]

Won't simply limitting the number of cash makers (hackers to X, BMs to Y and US dropzones to Z units) solve the problem?

[ApOcOlYpS]

that's the plan, except for hackers. Since hackers have combat ability I think the plan is to make them only able to gain money while in an internet center, and then limit the internet center number.