[mainline] Permit village gold to be set to 0

[Gidoza]

I have two reasons for this.

A. No particularly reason not to - village support can be set to 0; why force income on villages?

B. The structure of a standard game is somewhat counter-intuitive and doesn't make for interesting play in my opinion, because it favors the player already leading.

Obviously, the goal is to defeat the enemy Leader, which can happen suddenly in all kinds of different ways, but all other things being equal - the player that already has a lead in troops can capture more Villages, leading to more income, leading to more troops = more income = overwhelm enemy = game is over. The game favors the player in the lead.

My solution to this is fairly straight-forward.

1. High natural income - while I'm all for strategic conquering of territory for an advantage, I'm also for giving the runner-up some kind of way to catch up again. High natural income is something that can never be taken away and acts as *something* for the player lagging behind to use to resist.

2. Village support @ 1, gold 0 - With a high natural income but ZERO village income, a player would effectively be capped at the number of units he/she could build, barring villages captured that offered support to units. However, the maximum income would still be the same as the runner-up player who had no units: thus, conquering territory would have value (permitting the leader to continue building), but would not allow the leader to run away with the game utterly just because he/she was leading. Obviously, numerical superiority is still going to win, but it is going to be less decisive.


No, I'm not expecting everyone to buy into this or play it this way, but for my own self and my friends it would be nice if Villages could be set to have 0 income.


Thanks,
-Gidoza

[Ravana]

You can set village gold to any value in scenario wml. If you mean multiplayer then it could be implemented as [modification] and [modify_side].

I am not saying that this will never be available in GUI directly, but even if accepted, you cant use it anytime soon.

[Gidoza]

You can set village gold to any value in scenario wml. If you mean multiplayer then it could be implemented as [modification] and [modify_side].

I am not saying that this will never be available in GUI directly, but even if accepted, you cant use it anytime soon.

Yes I mean multiplayer - what do you mean by [modification] and [modify_side]?

[Ravana]

modification event modify_side These should be all tags you need for this.

[watbesh]

Since Ravana already pointed out you can make a modification easily, I suspect you might be already at that, but if it helps... One of my mods ("Handicap Mod", included in "Wat's Mods") do this if I understand your point correctly, and it allows for further settings (village gold/support, fog and shroud per side), including zero village gold, zero village support, and up to 20gp base income (possibly I'll have to try some increased base income cap and/or negative village gold if possible). You can try it if you wish.

I mean, I want to have my mods play-tested and played more.

[Gidoza]

Since Ravana already pointed out you can make a modification easily, I suspect you might be already at that, but if it helps... One of my mods ("Handicap Mod", included in "Wat's Mods") do this if I understand your point correctly, and it allows for further settings (village gold/support, fog and shroud per side), including zero village gold, zero village support, and up to 20gp base income (possibly I'll have to try some increased base income cap and/or negative village gold if possible). You can try it if you wish.

I mean, I want to have my mods play-tested and played more.

I found your thread, but I can't find anywhere to download the Handicap Mod? Would appreciate a link. :O


With regard to making a modification - I see a whole list of commands from the previous post, but I have no idea how to use them...not finding that helpful at all.


Also in case anyone missed it, this thread isn't merely about allowing the option - but I'm suggesting it as a legitimate suggestion because of the intrinsic balance involved with it in a multiplayer game.

[watbesh]

I found your thread, but I can't find anywhere to download the Handicap Mod? Would appreciate a link. :O

I'm not giving a link. Instead, "Wat's Mods" and many greater add-ons are found this way. Make sure you're playing on the version 1.12.x.

Whatever language you use, the locations you click should be the same

Click those circled buttons. Then input whatever you want in the search box. A part of its title, author(s), and description work (this time, "Wat's Mods" or "watbesh". You'll find a Fencer). Also, try some add-on campaigns and eras if you're interested in those.

Also in case anyone missed it, this thread isn't merely about allowing the option - but I'm suggesting it as a legitimate suggestion because of the intrinsic balance involved with it in a multiplayer game.

I think "zero village gold" should be a possible option in MP games (probably more reasonable than "zero start gold"[*]), but I'm against making it into the default setting. As far as I, a non-game-balance person, can understand, the "high base income, zero village gold" would encourage early banking (recruit less at the beginning for less upkeep) instead of early scouting (recruit some units to take and keep villages), resulting in much slower early-game. I won't say it's bad, but it's another sort of strategy which this game doesn't always need.

[*] edit: I found it doesn't actually support "zero start gold". ouch.

[Gidoza]

I understand why you say that this system would encourage early banking, but this would not be the case. Villages would still support units, and thus cancel out the cost of anything one builds - it would still be far more advantageous to take territory and expand with one-to-one village-to-units than building nothing at all. Yes, banking would be a strategy, but sitting and waiting would be suicide. It gives the player far more options.

[beetlenaut]

I'm suggesting it as a legitimate suggestion because of the intrinsic balance involved with it in a multiplayer game.

Your idea is probably not going to happen unless you do it yourself (unless watbesh's add-on does what you want). It's the kind of idea that only gets added to the game if you can show that a lot of people like it. It's not that hard though. The file that stores a multiplayer map can also store commands like the ones Ravana mentioned. Learning how to use the commands would take a few days, but hundreds of other people have done it. You could change the gold system, but it would also let you add traps, items, dialog, custom units and anything else you wanted. If you are interested, follow the "Create" link at the top of this page to get started.