I agree with them and I really don’t like Tribal Marketplace too!
The things I said above were just temporary solutions until a definitive one is implemented.
Here’s a less radical, more workable idea, inspired by traditional AOE resource dropoffs:
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Instead of you placing the fur camp on mines (current DE) or other things, turn it around to be more like Torp or Granary:
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The fur camp is a freely placeable building with a (probably fairly large) effect radius. Their areas-of-effect can’t overlap.
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Within the radius, the player’s fur-related activities - processing hunt & livestock,
claiming treasure,killing animal guardians - will add to the camp’s Coin stockpile. -
This way, the player isn’t guaranteed a free income, and still needs to spend vill seconds to gather Coin from the camp. It is also more defensible, less at the mercy of map generation, and rewards the player’s placement and herding skills.
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For balancing, this mechanic has a lot of variable “knobs” that can be tweaked, such as price & build time, fur conversion rates from hunts & livestock, bounty rates from guardians, bonuses it gains from age-up, tech & cards, and whether it starts empty or with Coin inside (as with other things, can be modified by tech & cards).
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It naturally synergizes with Lakota bison shipments, but may need additional mechanics to synergize with Haudenosaunee.
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The player starts with a fur travois, which builds a fur camp containing a starter Coin stockpile.
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OPTIONALLY it may still have the ability to drain Coin from mines or do “remote mining”, though that function should only come into play after the early game (e.g. after researching a tech; the mining radius can be smaller than the fur radius).
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That actually sounds pretty reasonable. The main issue is that you’d get ■■■■■■ over pretty hard every time one got destroyed. And also it would be a fine balance between trying to hunt enough nearby to fill it up while also harvesting from it.
Literally anything would be better than what they’ve got now though.
If the fur camp can be destroyed, the stockpile inside should be saved - leaving behind a remnant that can be rebuilt. Pretty simple, no doubt about it.
Or it’s indestructible like all mines are.
OPTIONALLY if the indestructible camp needs more limits, perhaps it’s cheap or free like Granary, but needs TC/Tipi/Longhouse nearby to do some or all of its jobs (as if they “power” its fur magnet and/or fur processing). In the latter case, it may switch ownership based on who powers it, similar to StarCraft’s Terran add-ons.
Other un-AOE3-like bad solutions, for reference only:
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My first concept was more inspired by traditional dropoffs: villagers must work with Tipis/Longhouses somehow, perhaps carrying the fur into them.
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Make raw fur “global” & not inside the building, effectively another resource whose only purpose is to be converted into gold.
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Make other buildings reinforce the camp, e.g. the camp can only be damaged without them nearby.
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I don’t really like the idea of indestructible things being left behind. They had to give torps a build limit because people were making berry bush walls.
Things like cherry orchards and mango groves are also lazy designs so that should be avoided if possible.
It would also be nice to not have to worry about another confusing building. That’s why I’m suggesting having teepees and longhouse function similarly to granaries but giving bonus coin instead of just more food (or wood in the case of longhouses).
It would create an over reliance on other resources and free reign of mines for other civs if that was the only way to get coin so that’s why I suggested dens as well. They could be a new coin source on the map (like how food has both hunts and berries). Everyone could access them and their gathering would be upgraded by hunting techs instead of mining techs. Maybe the base gather rate could be lower than mines for non-natives so they’re not incentivized to just take them first to deny them to natives.
I’d thought about it and didn’t write down a solution because it seems obvious enough. The fur camp:
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can only be built without overlapping AOEs, and its AOE is quite large;
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may be always passable (if it’s “invincible & always on”), or passable when it’s incapacitated (if it is destructible & leaves the stockpile behind, or indestructible but needs “power”).
That still has issues since it doesn’t allow you to correct misplacing it. That’s also an issue with a lot of other stuff though so not really a deal breaker.
More concerning would be that it allows you to permanently block off an area from being built on.
All these apply to AoE4’s landmarks too, and they are a lot bigger.
For now I’m more worried about how the idea impacts player behavior.
The easiest one is going back to mining, a game doest need to be 100,00% accurate. Lakota have cheaper units coin-wise for this reason, they are a food focused civ
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While you’re not wrong, you end up with a weird disbalance between civs - Japan can’t eat meat, India can’t eat livestock, but the Natives suddenly don’t care about their religious beliefs?
To be fair, the Japanese have Shinto shrines built by Buddhist monks so Lakota wouldn’t be the only ones getting shafted.
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. Ig The Asian Dynasties included religious vegan villies because religion had a greater influence on Asian civ design than on Euro and American civs . Anyways the gold mining issue should have been looked into by the Warchiefs devs way back in 2006 into but they didn’t care .
Everything its not needed to be ingame, this is not a simulator. Natives had dances on the firepit that other people in this forum said that was accurate, natives did them.
Catholics dont eat meat for 40 days, have we to add a timer without hunting?? No right??
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The Catholic thing is a bad example, that affects the people 40 days a year and not even all of them. The no mining thing is one of the main religious beliefs of the Lakota and what little mining is practiced is done with extreme reverence, and is still practiced today - the mining of pipestone is the only acceptable form of mining, and that’s done in specific ceremonies for the sole purpose of creating peace pipes. There’s sub-bands of the Seven Fires that question farming because of how it affects the beliefs with disturbing the earth.
The original devs didn’t include it because it’s a religious belief that isn’t well-known, and likely not one basic research would have shown them. Native cultures tend to be very secretive and protective of cultural norms and standards, and don’t tend to publish them where others can just read them on a whim.
Firepit was removed because that’s not something that should be shared outside the culture itself. We’re not even supposed to talk about some of those dances amongst ourselves, why in the world would portraying in a video game be acceptable?
I only vaguely remember this. Is there any record like forum posts or footage? (I wonder if they could have given blue berries tiny collision boxes so they are passable like trees.)
Adding dens, a lower-value natural resource category, as suggested in your first post, requires reconfiguring the whole game. Even in a less radical form, like replacing all the mines on the Lakota/Haud player’s side of the map with dens containing the same amount of Coin, it still imposes a limit exclusively on them.
Relatedly, vill seconds (VS) and gather rates are the bedrock of the whole game, by which everything should be measured. If dens are low-value and widespread as you suggested, the L/H player will waste VS walking between them. The supplementary method of gathering Coin from hunts also sounds like it could be impossible to balance, as it can either drastically reduces VS costs, or be irrelevant.
My “fur piggybank” idea was aimed to have a realistic chance of not overturning the apple cart (by not radically changing VS and player behavior), and should be criticized by this criterion.
(It also tries to be flavorful and dovetail with the new gameplay difference between animal vs human guardians.)
The rickshaws were a crutch, but they helped BHG set up their nonstandard economies, and can serve us here, by letting the player start gathering Coin with little delay, bringing the starting economy closer to original TWC (to address @Moonshadow7475’s criticism of Tribal Marketplace). Transferring fur also makes more flavor sense than instant-growing orchards or salt mines.
The idea attempts to have parameters open to balance tweaking.
For example, to minimize the gameplay impact, we may make the experience of fur camps as close to basic mines as possible while still requiring skills to use:
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Each camp has a max. fur value comparable to standard mines (somewhere between 2000~5000 Coin, or variable depending on map);
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The camp can be more like a piggybank - become gatherable (to owner & allies) only after you’ve filled it up, and cannot be refilled;
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The conversion rate is high enough that the player can expect to fill a camp by hunting & guardian-killing with normal competence, but is forced by its build radius limit to travel comparable distances as “miner civs” would for mines (the radius may have to also vary by map).
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The starting travois may build a half-full camp that can be painlessly filled, to serve as tutorial for the mechanic.
[Side note: the game’s existing build limits may benefit from being variable by map too, especially after we get the humongous Large Siwa Oasis.]
As you suggested, it can be supplemented by a sacred mark on the L/H players’ starting mines. The sacred marks may be eventually upgraded to give Coin trickles and/or other benefits.
EDIT:
ANOTHER idea, to solve the “invincible fur camp” problem:
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A fur camp spawns a fur-treating ground (“fur field”) in its front (you can rotate the camp to define their relative positions), and fills it from the camp owner’s hunting & guardian-killing in the field’s effect radius.
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Unlike the player-owned fur camp, the fur field is neutral. It’s passable, has no value cap, and can be gathered from by everyone. Once placed, it cannot be removed; even when exhausted, it can be filled again.
[The whole “piggybank” mechanic may be unnecessary. If a player is skilled at long-distance herding, let them be rewarded by keep adding Coin to the fur field.]
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The build limit radius is emitted from the fur field, not the camp. A fur field only allows one camp per player in its radius, built close to it. In other words, the firstcomer gets to decide where the field is, while other L/H players can contribute if they want.
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Under a Treaty, a player shouldn’t be able to make fur camps on the opponent’s side of the map to deny their choice of fur field placements, just as Ethiopians shouldn’t be able to build Mountain Monasteries on the opponent’s side (an issue in the current version).
End result: the player essentially is given the ability to put new mines onto the map, choosing their exact placements rather than at mercy of map generation, but is forced to spread them out, and filling them up still takes time and competency.
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.
I don’t think it would take a whole reconfiguration. The game works just fine with hunts and berries occuring simultaneously and mines/dens would be no different. Something like 30% fewer mines on the map with the difference made up in dens wouldn’t really change any balance. Dens would be accessable to all factions but could be slower to gather than mines for non-natives so that other players wouldn’t prioritize them just to deny the natives. Hunting upgrades could upgrade collection rates at dens instead of mines, and L/H could even have a few extra.
They aren’t the only consideration. Total quantities of resources and the amount of risk involved in extraction are also big considerations.
This is a very easy fix. Natives could have a bonus to collection rates on dens to offset them being more spread out (or multiple dens could spawn together to make it comparable to the distribution of mines).
It wouldn’t be much different from any other upgrade. Instead of +10% gathering of food from hunts, it would be +10% gathering of coin from hunts. You could then shift more villagers off dens and into hunts. It would only need to offset the fact that L/H couldn’t access the whole coin pool on the map. Shipping in dens from the home city or maybe buying them from the market could further alleviate things. A way to recruit Metis courtiers that could still mine could also be an option to give access to the rest of the map’s coin pool.