Knights and Merchants.net Forum

@HAH: risk management for carpenters? Sorry, I don't think this is a good approach to the problem and after reading this whole text I can't say what it is about (

Sequential are clearly good for cases when you change your strategy over game course (and you planned it in advance) - place one order that is a combination of 2 (make 30 of everything, then make axes only). And I still fail to see i as a generally versatile for players.
ADD quote by Lewin: "always produce axes, then sometimes produce 50% bows when I click for some"

Proportional is clearly better for cases when you have know what you need in terms of types, but you don't care about count, be it 50 or 150 men.

Essentially it's similar to my previous proposal - add priority button to override the production order without changing the amount itself - I think..

I like the idea by HAH/Nissarin about priority orders. It is kind of best from both worlds: we leave proportionals and add a button next to each order line to allow to put a flag there, saying that it is a priority order and unless it's 0 (or flag is removed) it should be picked all the time.

But it is nescessairy from an economical point of view to disable the "decrease amount"-button whenever the priority flag is set. Because you can offer the priority for a price, namely that you will be sure that you won't decrease the order.

And, as you already pointed out Krom, sequential (priority) picking is 2 orders in 1. So clearly, one has planned it in advance. The price to pay if you are wrong is some more button clicks (unprioritize, change amount, prioritize).

(Note to self: economics is probably not a convincing argument for a game-related dispute)

@HAH, One comment. There's nothing wrong with allowing to decrease or change prioritized order amount, because we will do all the boring stuff internally (unprioritize, change amount, prioritize). Player will have simple UI to set amounts and pick priority items (could me more than one)

I just had an idea, if all orders are set high-priority they are made in sequential order!!

Quick mockup:

Same if you select any 2 items, they will be made A,B,A,B,A,B etc.

I think it needs to be a seperate button so the player knows he can click it. Otherwise the player won't naturally assume he can now click in that area where he couldn't click before. I think a button with an "!" in it would probably be best.

Perhaps we can see this as an excuse to implement a CheckBox control?

I suppose it's best at the left of the increase/decrease buttons, namely to avoid confusion with the icons of items and the 'up'-icon.

It should be, but it's not to everyone. That's the only explanation I have for the many "this must be changed" or "we need this ingame" that we see here.

You see, (for me) it's obvious that Lewin now tries to be gentle. I learnt to know him as a very kind guy. But as Krom already said: even if we all agreed that nuclear bombs would be perfect for the game -- they still would not implement it. That's what I mean by that.

@Lewin: I know what you mean, and that's why I still think those discussions are worthy and sometimes need someone who takes the opposite point just for the sake of further development of the actual idea. But in the end it's your game and therefore your decisions. I am thankful that Krom stated that very clearly.

So after my busy school week here is the system of The Settlers IV(wanted to make a video,but it isnt well compatible with this render):

For me its the ideal weapon system. The players can so automaticly decide if choosing the KaM original one or the other one. So:


1.) Kam Sytle- Sequential production. (sword,bow,amory,sword,bow,armory....):

So you can set like at the picture and the smithieman will make (sword-bow-armory|sword-bow|sword,sword,sword,sword...)
Like in TSK/TPR

2.)Percentage Sytle- Its an algorythm that decide of the number of percentag which weapon will be produced next:

A nice one, like the proposed one of the starting post(i think)

Now the most important and special one:

3.) Mixed system. It works like that:

You set your percentage of 50/50 bows/swords,because you wanna have any army with 25 bowmen and 25 swordfighters.
Now(like Me and other mentioned in this post) you need that fast as possilbe +10 armory. So you just let the percentage, "don´t touch them " but click on the 1.) system "10 armory".
This will happen:

The smithy will do the ten armories "arm,arm,arm,arm,arm,arm,arm,arm,arm..) After he has finished his job, he havent any "jobs to make from 1.)" so he will automaticly go back to the percentage. So he will make 50% bows and 50% swords.


Also here a nice picture with an other example:

So at like this picture, the weaponmaker would do now 8 swords and 2 bows sequentialy, so(sword-bow-sword-bow-sw-sw-sw-sw..) and after he finished all jobs(because you just need these 10 soldiers as fast as possible).
He will do only armories (100% armory)


I hope it is understandable, for me this system fits perfectly into kam(when having a nice interface(like you see in the picture: with pop out box)).
It would solve the problem of "i wanna fast 6 pikes for the enemy´s knights" and you can switch easily betweeen the systems.



Pawel95

I guess system like this would work for us too - so e.g. "Current order" on top (absolute amounts, sequential production) and "Continuous production" below - (proportional, standard 0-5 scale). There is enough of space for second group of sliders in current UI, this way both system can coexists together and everyone would be happy.

The Settlers interface looks pretty complicated. I prefer the idea of a "priority" button for each item as we discussed above.
We have a checkbox control (and have for years now), it's called TKMCheckBox. It's used in a few places in the options screen.
The up icon was just a placeholder I think.
Remember that it needs to fit on the minimum resolution too, not just the one you use. There's not much space left (http://i.imgur.com/9qtlIJd.jpg)

Yeah.. I keep forgetting about that. Anyway, is the logo below minimap really necessary ? I doesn't really do anything but it's taking precious space, perhaps it would be possible to hide it when using "minimal" resolution (or get rid of it completely) ?

*edit"
Speaking of which, it isn't visible in your screen shot.. ? Do I miss something ?

@Lewin, what's the minimum resolution again? And why that one?

Why that one? Because some (older) Laptops are only supporting this resolution.
Which one? I dont know for sure but I think 800x600 or 1024×576.

I can't imagine anyone is using those resolutions anymore. If any, I should go for a minimum of 1024x768.