Government and public order

[Rex Somnorum]

According to "Gameplay Provinces and Authority", public order will be determined entirely by troop numbers, governor abilities and the 'authority building.' The vast array of buildings intended to improve public order in EBI now serves only to increase the likelihood a character acquires certain traits. The EB team justifies this decision, claiming:

Temples, game fields, and other such buildings that represent individual structures will no longer add public order bonuses (building a game field doesn't mollify political rivals in outlying regions).

The argument is demonstrably specious, however. Firstly, building a temple should not be literally interpreted as constructing one actual temple. Instead, it represents government support for the religious classes - much like MICs aren't just barracks or stables. As a historical example, the Ptolemies poured funding into the powerful priesthood of Egypt to buy their loyalty - and it worked to a degree. Sometimes 'political rivals' are influential priests. Secondly, the cost-benefit factor leans towards not constructing 'trait' buildings. Unless a governor can be stationed in every city with enough to spare for the field, building a game field doesn't make any sense. The most probable consequence be a concentration of 'trait' buildings in a few key training settlements, which would crank out capable generals and governors like factories. That's not even close to realistic. In the real world, game fields do increase public order. Naturally, elements like taxes, food supply and security have a more significant effect; but once basic needs are met, entertainment is necessary to distract the people.

In EBI, entertainment buildings obviated the ridiculous need to exterminate cities in late game to keep order. Under the proposed authority system, the only way to increase public order past a certain point would be to decentralize the government, drop taxes to low and garrison a huge stack of troops. The problem is (unless the system scales to population which is unlikely), the early game public order would be too high or the late game public order would be too low. The strength of the old system was that it allowed public order to increase for an exponentially increasing cost. It was balanced.

A possible solution would be to raise the price of 'trait buildings' and give them a minor bonus to public order. The old "Garrison" buildings should evidently return, since they represent an early police force distinct from field troops. It's also important to note that Authority buildings remove a big chunk of complexity form the game. They basically lump the opposition together into one big group while in reality, the opposition is generally divided into different factions. Entertainment buildings would fill this void. Some buildings would keep the common people happy while others would appease the elite: the Sabean "Ritual Hunts" comes to mind here.

Ultimately, I doubt that my objections will change anything. Especially if most of the balancing work is already done. If that's the case, I'll simply edit the building files myself and release it as a sub-mod for like-minded players.

[kdrakak]

That is food for thought, yes. But aren't perhaps getting ahead of yourself? It seems to me that maybe you are assuming too much. Still the points you raised seem worth considering.

[V.T. Marvin]

Sadly the "Gameplay Provinces and Authority" preview was written long ago and was assuming a system which eventually proved impractical for various reasons, both gameplay (the OP correctly identified several such disbalances) and technical. After Foot went missing the work in this area lingered a while and was eventually replaced by more "traditional" approach. Still, the government buildings (that replaced both central and outlying authority buildings of the original concept) will play a major role, but temples and entertainment WILL help keeping the public order within reasonable limits at a cost of significant investment and - more importantly - upkeep...

[Rex Somnorum]

Sadly the "Gameplay Provinces and Authority" preview was written long ago and was assuming a system which eventually proved impractical for various reasons, both gameplay (the OP correctly identified several such disbalances) and technical. After Foot went missing the work in this area lingered a while and was eventually replaced by more "traditional" approach. Still, the government buildings (that replaced both central and outlying authority buildings of the original concept) will play a major role, but temples and entertainment WILL help keeping the public order within reasonable limits at a cost of significant investment and - more importantly - upkeep...

That's good news. I recall, though, that upkeep wasn't implemented in EBI for balancing reasons. What changed for EBII?

And have you considered food supply? Perhaps a script that penalizes public order in cities with a "poor harvest."

[V.T. Marvin]

That's good news. I recall, though, that upkeep wasn't implemented in EBI for balancing reasons. What changed for EBII?

First we find out that as factions grow larger the snowballing effect is way too high and they become overly rich. Building upkeep helps to mitigate this problem.

Second, the "upkeep" is not static value (say 200 mnai, etc.) but rather a reduction of boni provided by other buildings (e.g. trade_base_income_bonus bonus -1)

And have you considered food supply? Perhaps a script that penalizes public order in cities with a "poor harvest."

Whether the harvest is poor or rich is a random factor, calculated separately per each province, hardcoded in the engine and impossible to track by other scripts as such. A workaround would be to stick our own random cycle over it, except this one would have to be world-wide, and would have modified both the income and the order derived from farming. However I am not a fan of such approach. It seems to me more as a somewhat arbitrary harassment of the player than as an addition to the gameplay experience.

[clone]

First we find out that as factions grow larger the snowballing effect is way too high and they become overly rich. Building upkeep helps to mitigate this problem.

Second, the "upkeep" is not static value (say 200 mnai, etc.) but rather a reduction of boni provided by other buildings (e.g. trade_base_income_bonus bonus -1)


Whether the harvest is poor or rich is a random factor, calculated separately per each province, hardcoded in the engine and impossible to track by other scripts as such. A workaround would be to stick our own random cycle over it, except this one would have to be world-wide, and would have modified both the income and the order derived from farming. However I am not a fan of such approach. It seems to me more as a somewhat arbitrary harassment of the player than as an addition to the gameplay experience.

in dlv mod farms only give food during summer and spring and sometimes it gives you more food and somethimes less. this system is used about trade also or mining. are you going to use a system for eb like this

[V.T. Marvin]

No.

[clone]

No.

if you dont mind why. is there a specific reason? because i find it pretty realistic

[Kull]

if you dont mind why. is there a specific reason? because i find it pretty realistic

Why not? It just wasn't one of the design decisions. Besides it's questionable as to how realistic the dlv system is. Much of the food planted in the spring is harvested in the fall. And that food is stored and used over the course of the coming winter and spring. And different foods are collected at different times. And in some regions you may have mild winters and multiple growing seasons. None of that is reflected in a "one size fits all" system of food being available only twice a year from all "farms" everywhere. Because it's an abstraction of reality, just like any other system we could develop and use. Is one better than another? Maybe. But is one "realistic" while the others are "not"? No, because NONE of them are realistic.

[clone]

Why not? It just wasn't one of the design decisions. Besides it's questionable as to how realistic the dlv system is. Much of the food planted in the spring is harvested in the fall. And that food is stored and used over the course of the coming winter and spring. And different foods are collected at different times. And in some regions you may have mild winters and multiple growing seasons. None of that is reflected in a "one size fits all" system of food being available only twice a year from all "farms" everywhere. Because it's an abstraction of reality, just like any other system we could develop and use. Is one better than another? Maybe. But is one "realistic" while the others are "not"? No, because NONE of them are realistic.

yeah you are right.

[Rex Somnorum]

Whether the harvest is poor or rich is a random factor, calculated separately per each province, hardcoded in the engine and impossible to track by other scripts as such. A workaround would be to stick our own random cycle over it, except this one would have to be world-wide, and would have modified both the income and the order derived from farming. However I am not a fan of such approach. It seems to me more as a somewhat arbitrary harassment of the player than as an addition to the gameplay experience.

To be fair, disasters (earthquakes, floods, famines) are pretty unpredictable.

In retrospect, any script with significant penalties would probably imbalance the AI. For instance, a script that compares farm level and population to determine food supply might lead to severe public order problems since the AI might not prioritize farms.

[V.T. Marvin]

To be fair, disasters (earthquakes, floods, famines) are pretty unpredictable.

Speaking of these - there was a prolonged discussion on these topics on our internal forum contained in the thread named "Being assholes to the players" - for a reason!

[Cybvep]

But is one "realistic" while the others are "not"? No, because NONE of them are realistic.

Still, one system can be more realistic than the other ones. That doesn't have to mean that it's perfectly realistic. In fact, I'm not sure that it's even possible in strategy games which need to represent many things in an abstract manner.

[Rex Somnorum]

Speaking of these - there was a prolonged discussion on these topics on our internal forum contained in the thread named "Being assholes to the players" - for a reason!

I think that an occasional random catastrophe is good for game balance. If might actually stop the player from steamrolling the map. People complain about the AI being so predictable yet complain just as hard when something happens they failed to foresee. Having complete control over the game is simply unrealistic. Real world politicians are frequently blindsided by problems.

[moonburn]

actully the cunniving bastards are never blindsighted they just prey for a new earthquake or tsunami or a mine colacpse so they can demagoge around and showing up as the peoples hero when half the times when it´s human responsability they had their hands greased up by those responsable ...