Free starting settlers

[Domon]

i like the idea fwiw, and i hope it will give space for the swordsmen/archers/cavalry units to shine.

[Domon]

Why would they stay idle? (unless you get an island start...then you need a ship first)

can we add a ship to the package for coastal cities?

[Seravy]

And I actually like that making settlers is a difficult choice. If they set you back or create a dilemma, I consider that working as intended.

There is a huge difference between difficult choices and lose-lose choices.

As is, the choice is very obvious.
1. Playing a military early strategy? Do units, you have no need for a single settler in this game. This case remains mostly unaffected and never had to make any choices.
2. All other wizards lawful/peaceful? Do only settlers until there is no more free land. This case works fairly well except for being boring, but it's still the best outcome, except it's rare.
3. Playing an early summon heavy strategy? Do only settlers for a while, just be careful you don't do more than what your creatures can hold. You don't get to have any other unit than your common summons for a while, and don't get to research or raise skill. Unfun.
4. Anything else which is the majority of games? Do units, conquer hamlets from other wizards (they will attack you anyway) - but you don't get to play your selected race. Which is again unfun.

I don't really see a hard or even real choice here - in all cases there is exactly one good solution, and in two of the cases, it's an unfun solution.

I want to be able to play my own race as a possible choice without having to go summon heavy. Currently that choice does not exist, unless I get lucky on treasure/enemy personalities or my first enemy is playing my race.

No ships, a ship wrights guild and trireme is cheap. Build one. Considering the travel speed and scouting capacity of the ship, it's well worth that 3-5 turns of delay.

[zitro1987]

I'm a 'build settlers early' kind of player, this change will help me play a more balanced approach.

Notes:
*Early gold will be needed to buy 2 sawmills, making rush-military tactics a bit more difficult
*This may be a problem for 'tiny' landsize. I don't care as I always play 'fair' landsize anyways.
*This may enhance dwarf myrran as one would look for best minerals for your settler ... should things like gold mines activate only when you have 1 pop, not hamlet?
*This may enhance beastmen, draconians, and dwarves - the myrran races that benefit most from adamantium.

Question - Should we decrease starting town's population from 4 to a lower number?

[Seravy]

Land size : I've already included that - 1 settler for tiny and small, 2 otherwise.
Dwarf : gold only activates if you have 1 pop - outposts don't produce anything - but even then it might be a problem. Dwarves are on the "unfixable" position already, so at this point I'm not going to worry about them. We'll rethink the race after every other race works.

I rather not decrease the starting population - aside from other reasons, you will need those 4 people to feed the settlers and pay their gold upkeep.

[Domon]

Question - Should we decrease starting town's population from 4 to a lower number?

that's interesting: what happens if we go all in and make it 1? first thing that comes to mind is: the sawmill advantage becomes even more significant than now. but this could add 10-20 turns where tier 1 units are more relevant, to.

fast growth/hamlet race advantage would be more impactful, both because of the 2 settlers and because of the increased pop differential from 1 to maximum reachable pop. could use compressing a little.

[Kaiku]

As is, the choice is very obvious.
1. Playing a military early strategy? Do units, you have no need for a single settler in this game. This case remains mostly unaffected and never had to make any choices.
2. All other wizards lawful/peaceful? Do only settlers until there is no more free land. This case works fairly well except for being boring, but it's still the best outcome, except it's rare.
3. Playing an early summon heavy strategy? Do only settlers for a while, just be careful you don't do more than what your creatures can hold. You don't get to have any other unit than your common summons for a while, and don't get to research or raise skill. Unfun.
4. Anything else which is the majority of games? Do units, conquer hamlets from other wizards (they will attack you anyway) - but you don't get to play your selected race. Which is again unfun.

Maybe I make them way early (as soon as I found locations, but preferably after farmers market), but I really don't need units defending the outposts right away. At that point I've maybe scouted one wizard, if that, and certainly can't tell what kind of game it's going to be. By the time war is at risk I'm at (or close to) top tier so it's not worth delaying that by training the inferior units. Their role is just too limited, as by that time they're already at the point of filling the role of spearmen. So for me, this change only skips an interesting part of the build order (settler timing).

[zitro1987]

Another note: early nature (or early multi-realm with nature) may be slightly stronger due to earth lore scanning on turn 2-3 your immediate surroundings for settlers (though this can be done with your starting units)

[Seravy]

One more thing. To implement this, I replaced the starting spearmen with the starting settler.
So currently there is only one starting swordsmen and no spearmen.
I could change the swordsmen loop to give 2 swordsmen instead of one, do we want that?

Somewhat related, do we want the tax rate to start at the amount people can have without rebels if keeping their starting swordsmen in the city, or the amount they can have if they send all units out to explore?

[zitro1987]

A somewhat higher tax rate for beginning players (1 higher than starting option). It's not uncommon for a new player to not realize tax can be changed ('info' is not the most intuitive option).