In other words if multiple settlements “share” the same resource, is the plan for them both to collect their full share?
This would make sense to me from a gameplay perspective…
Either:
Shared tiles don’t produce resources (encourage spreading out your own settlements and incentivize attacking somebody crowding you (plus gives you a way to block resource gathering by building new settlements near your enemy))
Shared tiles produce resources, but split so that the total amount of resources they produce per turn is the max of abilities for it to be gathered, and then that amount could be split proportionally and rounded. That’s complicated, so here are some examples:
Hamlet (1) vs. Hamlet (1): The tile can produce max(1, 1) = 1 resources with 2 resources requested, split is (1 * (1/2)) / (1 * (1/2)) = 0.5 / 0.5 and either nobody gets anything or both get 1.
Hamlet (1) vs. Village (2): The tile can produce max(1, 2) = 2 resources with 3 resources requested, split is (1 * (1/3)) / (2 * (2/3)) = 0.333 / 1.333 so the hamlet gets nothing (rounds down to 0) and the Village gets 1 (rounds down to 1).
I think something like that would make a lot of sense (though maybe be hard to explain to new players) and encourage a lot of interesting behavior from players.
I have considering in the past simply making a rule that you can’t build next to another settlement. I think would be the “board game” way of handling it, but we decided not to implement until we had played some more.
There are some natural incentives to not want to build your settlement next to each other, the bouncer means they can both be attacked simultaneously, and you also lose the adjacent food hex.
I also think the map just looks very crowded.
We have a hex tile that is not really used in any of the current map, a desert tile. Perhaps more use of it will spread the map out some more.
So that means probably the most efficient thing you can do when you start the game is build settlements on the closest available tile, right? Edit: You give up food, but isn’t that the cheapest resource on the market?
Travel is slow and buccaneers expensive. Why spend a lot to upgrade my settlement when I can just make ships and build settlements in adjacent tiles faster and cheaper? Screw upgrading a settlement to multiply the resources it gathers, I can just make base-level adjacent settlements out of base-level ships, and it sounds like it would probably be better
(Note: not trying to give you crap (I really like the game so far), and I haven’t tried this strategy, but I will give it a go against the AI now)
I think that you should not be able to build next to an existing town.
Another alternative to sharing resources would be for the larger town to claim them
Personally, I think the current system is balancing. If you build too many towns crowded together, they become practically worthless, at the same time, it allows you to make the most out of valuable resources.
One option that could be given is making an “offensive” settlement. It would mean that instead of producing its own resources, it would reduce the amount collected by others in neighboring tiles.
The blocking capacity of a town would be equal to Its level, thus giving someone the chance to greatly reduce the income of others in a particular tile. (could be a bucaneer instead)
I disagree. Usually I’m making a cost-benefit analysis when I build next to my settlement by saying, “Okay, I give up 1 food tile, but I gain 3 more resource tiles” and one of those new tiles is usually going to be more food or another special resource. Even if I am trading one Food for 2 Wood, I’ll make that trade any day because Wood is more important.
Essentially, this means my strategy is to build on every Food tile I see. After all, there’s plenty of fish in the sea!
I’ve never considered the land tiles as valuable for food. I source my food from the sea only. By mid-game, I’m selling food every turn for gold. I have never been in a situation past like Turn 6 or 7 where I’ve said “boy, I wish I had more food!” So, in the construct of where to build your settlements, losing a food tile is never a factor for me.
The only factors I take in are “can I mine metal?” and “what is the Bouncer effect on my settlement”. If I can’t mine metal, I better be able to farm 2 or 3 wood and a rare resource, otherwise it’s not worth my time. If I can mine metal, then I’ll just bump up the health and armor of the settlement to compensate.
In general, I have no issues with settlements sharing resource gathering at 100% capacity each. Resource gathering can be difficult at times, and I think it’s almost at a great balance with the gathering rates and costs to build / buy. The worlds are small enough that if you reduce the rate of gathering by any means, you’ll significantly cut people’s ability to gather. One of the only major imbalances I’ve seen in the game thusfar is that before mid-game, there’s ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ and those have-nots are pretty much irrelevant. If you reduce their ability to gather, there’s really no reason for them to play at all by the time mid-game has arrived - they won’t be able to keep up with the 2 people at the top of the pile.
Im currently doing the whole “build settlements EVERYWHERE” strategy.
I noticed that it does give you a lot of resources, but you initially get gimped quite a bit. Since it usually takes a few turns before you build a new ship, then move it several hexes, then make it into a new settlement. While upgrading an existing settlement gives you an immediate increase in resources (which you can then use to improve or build settlements, and get even more resources)
On the other hand, it’s much cheaper to upgrade a bunch of low level settlements then a few higher level ones. So I think it does even out a bit.
