I got reminded that in DE, South Africa can ship a Diamond Mine - 100,000 Coin;
Swedes can ship a whole lotta of mines to fund their mercs;
the US can ship infinite Coal Mines - 2000 Coin, double gathering rate (according to Mexico previews, will be nerfed to a single shipment of 2 Coal Mines);
you can buy a Berber Salt Camel - 10,000 Coin for 200 Wood.
It’s clear the dev team has decided that the quantities of mines that take VS to gather is not much of a gamebreaker, has quite some wiggle room. So why do we even bother worrying about capping the fur or injecting more Coin into the game lol. Just let the L/H players “magnet” fur, ship whole carts of them.
UPDATE:
After thinking about a mobile “piggybank” that follows the hunters like AoM Ox Carts but still unable to solve the “what happens when the unit dies” problem, I feel I’ve burnt enough hours over the problem & should be done with it.
This plan aims to be deliberately unflashy: minimally disruptive & maximally practical, with room for tweaking & expansion, useable for future civs.
Here’s the final proposal:
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Goods (fur icon) is a new resource exclusive to L/H and similar future civs, gained mainly from related activities (hunting, killing animal guardians, other potential sources).
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When a player’s global Goods bank is filled up, a Goods travois spawns at the shipment waypoint, which can build a Stall. This is the same pattern as shipments, and also similar to AoE4’s Rus bounty.
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A Stall is a Coin source with the same Villager gathering rates as mines, and benefits from the old mining techs (for other civs’ use), but is not a mine (lacking either or both of the mine tags
AbstractMine,MinedResource).
[BTW, since the Wrecked Treasure Ship has been added to the standard game as deShipRuins, it should have worked similarly - not a mine, can be directly gathered from by L/H players, except using standard mining animations instead of fur-processing animations.]
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As the initial Coin source, a player starts either with a Goods travois, or with the Goods bank largely filled. In the latter case, filling and “packing up” the first Goods travois serves as a mini-tutorial.
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The exact fur (Goods) conversion rates, thresholds, Stall amounts, and synergy with other mechanics (e.g. age-up & techs may or may not open up more venues of Goods generation to keep up Goods gain) are subject to balance tweaking. Optionally, reaching thresholds may have more benefits (like AoE4 Rus).
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Lakota is the baseline of implementation, since they have bison shipments that synergize with the mechanic; Haudenosaunee needs different additional boosts.
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The mechanic’s intended effect is to add minimum hassle to the L/H player and no impact to current Villager seconds use. The player gets their Goods by normally playing the game, and each Stall lasts long enough that the player does not need to spend too much time taking care of travois.
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Also in symmetry with Indians & Japanese, L/H should still interact with mines. As suggested, they should be able to build a “sacred mark” (rock art) building on mines that blocks mining, confers certain benefits (such as trickles based on the mine’s remaining amount, so that the map’s mine distribution is still meaningful), and offers the Cooperation big button tech.
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When Treaty is in effect, players should be prevented from building sacred marks or Mountain Monasteries on the opponents’ side of the map.
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Example of potential future use of Goods: a Pacific Northwest civ may hold potlachs: sacrifice Goods travois for effects - since Goods are “unmined Coin” that needs investng additional VS to be useful, consuming them is a significantly lower cost than spending the 3 main resources.
UPDATE2:
Since the Goods Travois & Stall would be the player’s main Coin source, at least in early game, it must not be significantly more vulnerable than standard mining (which again, the current Tribal Marketplace suffers from), but can have different pros & cons.
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Like Cherry Orchard & Mango Grove, a Stall is owned by its creator. Unlike them, it can be destroyed or deleted.
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Whenever a Goods Travois or a Stall is destroyed, its (remaining) Coin value is fully refunded as Goods, allowing the player to spawn another travois at their shipment waypoint—almost immediately (with a small “shipment” delay), if it’s a travois or a pristine Stall that’s been destroyed.
As stated, this solves two problems: Stalls cannot be used as roadblocks, and their owners are less likely to be cut off from their main Coin sources.
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A later tech may enable other buildings/units to refund Goods, further helping owners to recover from loss.
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The current assumption is Goods Travois always automatically “ship” when the Goods bank is filled and the player has a shipment waypoint. On the UI, the Goods bank does not occupy the resources panel, is instead shown as a small floating button, and clicking on it disables travois spawn.