Proportional weapons production

[Lewin]

Quite a long time ago people asked us if we could make weapons production work with percentages, so you can set your workshop to produce 20% lances, 50% axes and 30% bows. However Krom has come up with a better solution:
The user interface hasn't changed, but the way the carpenter/blacksmith chooses which order to make has. He now tries to finish all of the orders at the same time, meaning each one is made in proportion to how many you ordered.

For example if I order 30 axe, 20 lances and 10 bows, he will produce them like this: "axe axe axe, lance, lance, bow" and repeats that pattern. After that he the orders are 27, 18, 9 (notice the proportions of each weapon haven't changed, there are twice as many lances as bows and three times as many axes as bows). Then he does "axe axe axe, lance, lance, bow", and we have 24, 16, 8. Eventually we get down to 3, 2, 1 before the last step where he finishes all his orders.

This means you can control exactly how much of each weapon is made. If you want exactly the same amount of each weapon you can set them all to the same number (say 100) and he'll produce them in order like he does now: "axe, lance, bow".

What do you think?
Thanks to Krom for coming up with the idea and implementation
Cheers,
Lewin.

Edit: Here's an animation to show my example above:

[H.A.H.]

I always assumed it worked like this, so this change seems more than logical!

Can you however clarify why most industry buildings, like the mill, the backery, iron smelter, etc. all work "non-stop", while weapon producing buildings require exact amounts of end-products? Is there a penalty on over-producing weapons? If you (temporarily) want to stop weapon production, you can use the close door option of it's building anyways.

Or: industry buildings have global settings with the shares-interface, while it is impossible to do this on the building-level (saying, for instance, this build requires more iron/coal than any other). In contrast, weapon producing buildings can have this building-level fidelity.

[Krom]

I guess that is made to allow player to manually set the amount of weaponry he needs for his bow+pike army, or axe+bows. The numbers work just like the ratios now )

[Lewin]

Well all other buildings on produce 1 thing, so there's no choice involved. It's not like I can ask my mill to produce flour or sausages. If there's no choice they might as well work at full speed. You can turn them on/off by clicking the "block delivery" button in the top left. Weapons you need to choose what types you want so it's essential that the player decides (different strategies use different types of weapons).

Also, iron is non-renewable, and if you have a limited amount you might require very specific weapon compositions (e.g. 24 crossbows, 12 pikes, 36 armour). If they just produced non-stop you could waste all of your iron making stuff that you can't use because you need armour or weapons.

[Krom]

@Lewin: Very good point about the iron. I remember few maps that had certain resources blocked and player had only some amount of raw materials in Store, so he had to plan how much warfare of which type to make to fit the army best.

[Thomas]

Quite a long time ago people asked us if we could make weapons production work with percentages, so you can set your workshop to produce 20% lances, 50% axes and 30% bows. However Krom has come up with a better solution:
The user interface hasn't changed, but the way the carpenter/blacksmith chooses which order to make has. He now tries to finish all of the orders at the same time, meaning each one is made in proportion to how many you ordered.

For example if I order 30 axe, 20 lances and 10 bows, he will produce them like this: "axe axe axe, lance, lance, bow" and repeats that pattern. After that he the orders are 27, 18, 9 (notice the proportions of each weapon haven't changed, there are twice as many lances as bows and three times as many axes as bows). Then he does "axe axe axe, lance, lance, bow", and we have 24, 16, 8. Eventually we get down to 3, 2, 1 before the last step where he finishes all his orders.

This means you can control exactly how much of each weapon is made. If you want exactly the same amount of each weapon you can set them all to the same number (say 100) and he'll produce them in order like he does now: "axe, lance, bow".

What do you think?

Well I think this could be quite confusing because you mixed absolute with relative production numbers... For instance I always make about 200 axes, 50 bows and 30 lances. I do this because I usually don't need more than 50 bows/30 lances per game but I need lots more of axes. That means after a certain time all lances are finished and I can train my 30 lance carriers. If the carpenter would try to finish all orders at the same time, it means that I would wait much longer until he finished the 30 lances - namely until he finished also the 200 axes - which is not what I would expect.
If you want to implement percentage production I would suggest to change between 'Absolute' and 'Percentage' e.g. via a checkbox.

[Krom]

@Thomas: The idea behind your plan seems to be to make 50 axes 50 bows and 30 pikes and then switch to only axes. That can be achieved in 2 ways.
1. Order 200 of each and once you reach you desired goal of pikes set them to 0, same for bows.
2. Make at least 2 workshops and set one to axes only and second to bows/pikes.

When placing an order it is not immediately obvious that it would be made in sequential order (we should assume the least complicated algo, and that is proportional, when task is half done it expects to have all parts of it half-done). The fact that you have found sequential algo speciality and used that to your advantage is good, but still common sense made us to make that change.

[dicsoupcan]

Hmmz i thought it kind of worked like that. It seemed to me that the maker always produced more weapons of the largest order, i guess it was just my imagination. I say it is an good idea, it makes weaponmakers more flexible in my opinion.

[Thomas]

@Thomas: The idea behind your plan seems to be to make 50 axes 50 bows and 30 pikes and then switch to only axes.

Yes that's correct.

1. Order 200 of each and once you reach you desired goal of pikes set them to 0, same for bows.

That has the negative side effect that I have to check from time to time if the required amount of pikes/bows is reached - which is what I absolutely want to avoid, simply because it's taking time and you've to remember to check it.

2. Make at least 2 workshops and set one to axes only and second to bows/pikes.

This would work, but then you need the building space + the resources for the second workshop + stone for streets + time, which in the end will slow me down with weapon production.

When placing an order it is not immediately obvious that it would be made in sequential order (we should assume the least complicated algo, and that is proportional, when task is half done it expects to have all parts of it half-done). The fact that you have found sequential algo speciality and used that to your advantage is good, but still common sense made us to make that change.

I have to disagree in this point. It has ever been sequential and any percentage usage would be a change to a good running system, where I could see no advantage. As already said, I would appreciate an option to switch between both systems.

Edit: Additionaly, what about armour workshop? Does it also work with percentages or would it stay as it is and then be different to that of the weapon workshops, which would also be confusing?

[pawel95]

Now its exactly the same system like it works in The Settler IV i think and I like the idea.

However this change isnt that small, so the players should know about that

Example:

I want to have just after PT like 8 Pikes(only these 8 vs some enemy´s knights).
When I had set it in the actual (old system) they are 24 produced weapons and i have exactly 8 Pikes. (500 swords, 8 pikes, 500 xbows)

However in the actual change this could cause some problems:

I want still to make only these small number of pikes like before. However it will take now well longer:

The blacksmither will make now: 62 swords, 8 Pikes, 63 xbows. So i will have like 7 times sword, 1 time pike and 8 time xbows, right? When this is correctly calculated by me it will take a long time up to you will have all your 8 pikes, that you wanted just after PT.


I think this is just the big + Point for the Percentage % Solution. It would be "maybe better" to set 46,6% for swords and same for xbows and rest for pikes. However the smithi will produce randomly with these percentages.



I´m not sure if i have written it down understandable,because it´s hard to explain.
But you get my point? Wont it take a long time than for only some less amount of weapons?

Hmmz i thought it kind of worked like that. It seemed to me that the maker always produced more weapons of the largest order, i guess it was just my imagination. I say it is an good idea, it makes weaponmakers more flexible in my opinion.

Idd it was only an imagination The weaponmaker just made the weapons like from a list. Axe,lance bowmen and this list he has repeated for example 200 times.

pawel95

[Lewin]

We don't want to have an option to switch between percentages and exact numbers because that's just cluttering the UI with more and more options for very specific situations, we'd rather keep it simple and not confuse/put off players by making the interfaces look like you're flying an aeroplane.

I agree with what Krom wrote, however I can understand Pawel's argument, if you want a small number of pikes and as many swords/crossbows as you want. Under the new system you'll need to order a few less swords/crossbows to ensure the pikes are ready on time, then order lots of them when the pikes are done. That's a little bit more effort for the player, but I think in general this new system is much more flexible and powerful than the old sequential system. In fact in that case I'm probably happy to have a slow stream of pikes being made because if the game goes for longer I'll probably want more than just those 8 pikes. So I could set it to something like 100 swords/crossbows and 20 pikes. It's also much more intuitive that the guy will make more of what you ordered more of (confirmed by the fact that a few people thought it already worked that way).

@Pawel: How did Settlers IV deal with the problem you raised?

Edit: Additionaly, what about armour workshop? Does it also work with percentages or would it stay as it is and then be different to that of the weapon workshops, which would also be confusing?

All houses where you place orders for stuff work the same way, there's no reason for armour to be any different to weapons. In fact the amour smithy is where I would find this feature the most useful, often never want the same number of shields as armour, I always want much more armour. Now it's possible to do that easily.

[Bo_]

The idea looks nice, but I think it only complicates things.
When you go mass production you don't really have the time to calculate for each building how much exactly is needed,
while now you just need a proportional amount of buildings where you can just mass RMB.
Anyway reading about the settlers 4, best system for me. Proportional amounts, but you can also order your weapon maker/smithy to make a certain amount of something before making proportional amounts.

[Siegfried]

I like it.

Whoever needs micro organziation has to do the necessary clicks.

[pawel95]

@Pawel: How did Settlers IV deal with the problem you raised?

Yeah so Settlers IV is a mixxed version of percentage and full amount of numbers. The player can decide which method he wants and so the "Fast pikes" problem would be solved easily :

I havent installed The Settlers IV after formating my computer, so i would need to reinstall it,when you wanna see nice pictures. However I will try explain by text

You have a percentage menu for like everything in the game. Nearly like in KaM. For corn/iron/coal/food.
Up to this percentage system your weaponsmithy has an own system as well. At standard the weapons are setted up to (50%;50%,0%,0%/ they are 4 sorts of weapon,but the first 2 are the normal cheap one)

Now the player can change this setting. Than (i think/hope) exactly the same system will pop out like you meantioned.
However thise means= "Not fast Pike"-problem.
The developers of TS4 were intelligent. They just putted a tiny icon on the top right corner of this interface of the smithy like this:

When you click on it, the percentages interface turned to grey and automaticly the weaponmaker is doing the "old kam system"


So when the player has set 99% bows and 1% swords, but disabled this "% function" and set also "10 bows 10 swords" the weponmaker will make: "sword-bow-sword-bow-sword-bow...." (like normal KaM style )


For me this system is like one of the best, to havent problems with making some types of weapons fast.
Only a button and you swith between the 2 options.



Sth unclear? Ask

pawel95

[Krom]

@Pawel, would be nice to see a couple of screenshots. You know, it's hard to trust on word to someone who pops facts from air ("1 sec in TSK = 1,12 sec in Remake")

Yes, having 2 modes, one with % and one with exact counts sounds like a solution, but we would like to try RC with proportional production and see factual feedback too )