Myrran retort

[zitro1987]

idea that may preserve endurance as is without being overpowered at times

What if instead of holy armor, we have a unit buff meant strictly for early units? Cost similar to holy armor.
"Target unit's melee is 6-7 or current, whichever is higher ... target unit also granted +1 armor"
or
"Target unit's melee boosted (5 or 6 - melee) and granted +1 armor. Unit gains additional melee by experience"

This is meant for early units to be more halberdier-like and fight low-tier summons.

Pros:
*Endurance more balanced and kept, meant for heroes as originally intended?
*Early life no longer a one-trick pony ... now with more potential of mass-buffing early units.
*Melee-based, no chance of being overpowered.

[Catwalk]

The original cost for rushing buildings was much preferrable to the current 1 hammer = 2 production model. Seravy has argued that the AI is much better at using this model, that's possible. For player decisions, this version is vastly inferior. I really liked what kryub did with closing the buy-spearmen loophole, that's what I'd prefer to see. Not for balance reasons, but for sake of creating more interesting options to choose between. No need to use log, just different brackets. So if that's your main objection to this Seravy (the spearmen abuse loophole), that can be closed effectively.

[Catwalk]

On a more relevant note, I really like Myrran being 1 pick because it opens up a lot more wizard setups. I do think it's overpowered at present, but that can be balanced properly. Right now I'm playing around with Life/Death Dark Elves using Omniscient + Cult Leader.

[Catwalk]

idea that may preserve endurance as is without being overpowered at times

What if instead of holy armor, we have a unit buff meant strictly for early units? Cost similar to holy armor.
"Target unit's melee is 6-7 or current, whichever is higher ... target unit also granted +1 armor"
or
"Target unit's melee boosted (5 or 6 - melee) and granted +1 armor. Unit gains additional melee by experience"

This is meant for early units to be more halberdier-like and fight low-tier summons.

Pros:
*Endurance more balanced and kept, meant for heroes as originally intended?
*Early life no longer a one-trick pony ... now with more potential of mass-buffing early units.
*Melee-based, no chance of being overpowered.

I strongly dislike complicated rules and exceptions. Endurance is fine as is, it just shouldn't be a common spell.

[Seravy]

I consider the ability to respond immediately to changing needs a very important thing, so the ability to change production freely without losses is very important. And being able to do that implies costs are not variable otherwise you can "cheat" the system by changing what you produce.
Sure, sometimes you can plan ahead but other times you can't, and need a new settler or unit in the middle of producing a 30 turn project like an Amplifying Tower. (Or simply you might need a new army because you lost one in an unexpected way)
Any sort of variable cost system would require the player to start over from 0 production when changing it or require disabling the ability to change.

Aside from this, as you say, the AI is clearly better at using this model because it wouldn't be able to tell if it's worth spending for a higher multiplier, or not. Heck, that's something even I as a human would have a hard time deciding unless the thing I'm producing is part of a very urgent military production line.

I admit the original system had its advantages, (mainly, not being able to reach endgame buildings too early even if the player found a lot of sources for gold) but the disadvantages were greater.

Not sure what kryub did to spearmen? Did he disable changing production or something?

[Catwalk]

No problem with letting people change without losses. The only thing that would be disallowed is changing immediately after rushing something to completion. So that concern can be eliminated as well.

I think it'd be realistic to teach the AI how to use scaled costs as well. And the AI has tons of gold anyway.

kyrub disabled changing production when something has been purchased, nothing to do with spearmen as such. It was the perfect fix, and it worked exactly as intended (AI considerations aside). It was far more interesting and challenging for the human player.

[Seravy]

kyrub disabled changing production when something has been purchased

Oh. I guess that works? Was that in insecticide? Do you have a patch? Or an address I can look at?

I do have some ideas how to do it myself, but there is a critical point. I need to be able to store "the player has bought something here this turn" somewhere...and I don't think I have free bytes in city data.

...meanwhile I'll look at the "buying cost" procedure and see if it's even possible to make it depend on the building type. (as that is the type of variable cost we actually need, not the original)

Edit : Good, BUY costs do get the town as the input parameter so they know which building is being bought. This part is doable.

[zitro1987]

Shouldn't the bigger question however be whether we have too much gold, at least early in the game? Rush-buying is mathematically inefficient in several ways, so I have no problem with the current 2X cost ratio. It's still kinda bad.

Do we maybe need another big source of gold-spending besides rushing, army maintenance, and the mercenaries/items? Something that can be a good option and lessen incentive to buy buy buy.

Should we take advantage of the lowest tax-tiers and make them do something very useful due to happier citizens? Do we really use the lowest tiers? The benefits is below 1.5 gold/turn are kind of horrible and even with armaggedon rarely a good deal.

I would really love the option to waste my gold in another hypothetical form of production. It partially borrows from Master of Orion2's tax system and morale
*1.5 gold and above= all citizens produce hammers at 100%
1.25 gold = all citizens produce hammers at 115%. Unrest 14% (not sure what math is balanced, it's just an example)
1.0 gold = all citizens produce hammers at 130%. Unrest 10% (not sure what math is balanced, it's just an example)

In other words, a subtle and widespread form of rushing production.

[Seravy]

Shouldn't the bigger question however be whether we have too much gold,

Under normal conditions we don't.
For the test I specifically converted all my mana into gold, and used all mana, gold and production acceleration available in the game at the same time, plus started on a gold ore.

[zitro1987]

Shouldn't the bigger question however be whether we have too much gold,

Under normal conditions we don't.
For the test I specifically converted all my mana into gold, and used all mana, gold and production acceleration available in the game at the same time, plus started on a gold ore.

Unless playing alchemist, mana to gold conversion to rush stuff makes me cringe. I'm surprised it can help a player.