Starting Minerals

[Seravy]

Continued from here : http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid652624

So AI testing seems to show AI starts on various ores result in a good boost to the AI, but not in gamebreaking proportions, we probably don't need to worry about that.

On the other hand, the human player can benefit massively from good starting ores, so question is, do we want any sort of balancing mechanism that prevents too good starts, or not. Particularly, I believe multiple gold/crystal starts, and especially adamantium starts are what might be enough reason to worry about, other ores probably are safe.

[Catwalk]

How easy is it to do this?

[Seravy]

Assuming we find a large block of free space (I don't remember how much we have in magic.exe but might have it), we need to make a loop that checks all tiles around the city, and replaces the ore. Like, 100 lines of new code I guess? Been doing thousands before so I guess I can manage in 1-2 hours. We do need the space though and I don't remember how much we have left over in that segment. Might have lots, might not. If we don't have the space then it's very hard or impossible.
Either way it has to be the last step, replacing or removing excess ores around the capitals after the map is ready. (if replacing, the new ore will ignore terrain type entirely.)

[Arnuz]

I'd propose to have 1 assured minor ore but no major ores. And no tundras or swamps unless there is uh, the plant thingie. This represents the fact that your colonists are not morons and have chosen a decent place to build your capital.

[Seravy]

At where this procedure will go, I can't change the terrain itself, only the ores on it. The best I can do is to add Wild Game on tiles if the total max pop of the city is excessively bad.

[Arnuz]

Sounds good to me. Wild game might actually be even better in the first 2-3 years considering that it frees one or two farmers immediately.

[Myseri]

Personally I'm fine the way it is. All you would be doing is taking out the "fun" result (holy cow a spot with all these minerals!) while leaving in the "not fun" results (this spot stinks so bad I'm immediately restarting). The only true balance here is if you could give every wizard the exact same terrain spread, which I assume can't be done. Yes, knowing that you can keep restarting until you get an above average mineral start will encourage a certain kind of player to do exactly that, which will then skew things for the human player - but we don't play this game against other humans, we play against AI wizards who have many other advantages.

[Nelphine]

Slightly related, I'd propose a minimum productioj bonus on a capitsl city site similar to the minimum population.

I'd suggest 30 unless that causes problems on tiny, in which case 25.

[Arnuz]

Personally I'm fine the way it is. All you would be doing is taking out the "fun" result (holy cow a spot with all these minerals!) while leaving in the "not fun" results (this spot stinks so bad I'm immediately restarting). The only true balance here is if you could give every wizard the exact same terrain spread, which I assume can't be done. Yes, knowing that you can keep restarting until you get an above average mineral start will encourage a certain kind of player to do exactly that, which will then skew things for the human player - but we don't play this game against other humans, we play against AI wizards who have many other advantages.

Maybe I'm getting it wrong but my idea is not to prevent good rolls, but to give a decent minimum situation. A seaside resort with no production at all is fun but hardly a capital spot with the ocean terrain giving nothing at all and coastline providing so little food.

Seravy, have you already considered nerfing a bit adamantium and mythril? Reducing the defence bonus by one for example, given how big defence is when stacked. I'd also contend that oryhalcon provides too big a damage advantage considering how widespread ranged magic has become.

[Seravy]

Yes I already rejected the idea to nerf mithril and adamantium. That's not fun.

There is no procedure to calculate production in magic.exe so that is not doable. Also, I'm not willing to increase requirements for capital placement, too high requirements can and will cause the game to fail to generate the map. In fact even the current "at least X food" works so that it first tries for a medium number but if it fails too many times it lowers the amount, then if it still fails, it also lowers the distance between the capitals until there is a success. 30% bonus production is literally nonexistent on Tiny landmass btw, mountains are very rare there and land tiles aren't abundant. And you need 5 such spots so every wizard can get one....