DD/Economy/Supplying citizens with resources

From Unknown Horizons

Proposal

Summary

Settlers are getting their resources at the Marketplace (i.e., their collector gets them). When a settler collector arrives at the settler, the happiness increases right then.

It will take some time, until the res disappear. The collector can also get res, where some are already in the settlers inventory, in order to build a repository of this res. The resource will disappear gradually.

The more inhabitants a settler building has, the more res they consume. The realistic approach here is to say that 2 inhabitants consume twice the amount of 1 inhabitant. Since it has been decided that a building will contain up to about 20 inhabitants, this would lead to really big numbers, and the player would have trouble supplying them all.

Therefore we to use a different approach. Example: 1 settler eats 1 food in 60 secs. The consumation time changes with the number of settlers according to this formula: <math>time * (1 + (inhabitants/10))</math>. This is unrealistic, but providers a better game experience.

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It would make sense to distinguish between resources the inhabitants demand and such they desire. The latter are not necessary for development, but providing them will give you more tax income. A demand for resources needs to be fulfilled in order to reach the next increment.

We can additionally put those concepts together sometimes and let inhabitants desire at least one (or more) resource of a whole block. This was introduced in Anno 1602 afaik and has a huge potential, allowing us to add more diversity to the game while not forcing the player to keep up an overcomplex economy depending on many fertilities. --~eoc. 23:34, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Implementation related note

Each res, that is consumed, is implemented as a production line, that consumes 1 amount of this res, and produces happiness (the amount of happiness is related to the value of the res).

Graphical and audio content

None.

Open questions

Open question: A settler needs res A at level X. Will he need A too at level (X+n)? Does the amount stay the same (proportional to the number of settlers)? totycro

Suggestion: First question, yes. Settlers will need res at several levels, but not at all levels. E.g. settlers at level "sailors", "pioneers" and "settlers" need res:cloth (because they are assumed to tailor garments on their own) and settlers at level "citizens" and "merchants" do not need res:cloth, but res:garments (provided by a producer:tailor because they are not assumed to tailor garments on their own). Second question, I am uncertain. The most easiest solution would be to say each consumer:resident consumes the same amount of needed res at the same time. But on the other hand it would make more sense if each consumer:resident consumes different amounts of res depending on settlers' level dependent on how many inhabitants are hosted as well as different amounts of res depending on res type. Means, a lot of factors would be needed to take into account to calculate amount/time of consumption. E.g. at "sailors" level a consumer:resident can host 1 to 4 inhabitants consuming one quantity of a certain res in a certain time multiplied with a factor from 1 to X (while X is the multiplier for 4 inhabitants). At "pioneers" a consumer:resident can then host from 5 up to - say - 10 inhabitants. Means, the multipliers for consumption will change again to higher values. Moreover a consumer:resident should consume e.g. one quantity of food at a shorter time than one quantity of spices, just because it feels more right to consume one pound of food faster than one pound of spices. Further discussions should be made concerning the details. dauerflucher

Suggestion: 2nd question: i'd say, that the number of goods consumed is always proportional to the number of inhabitants. Everyone needs a certain amount of food, cloths, spices; and two people need double of that amount. We have to consider this when defining the number of settlers living in a building at each level, since if the number of people e.g. doubles, you need twice as much producers. totycro

See also

DD/Economy/Settler_happiness