Where does all the excess Resource go?

[Autochthon]

Interesting analysis - I did notice the fact that there were many more uber-units that were almost exclusively Gold-dependent.

So my assumption was that Gold expense was to simulate what people call "human capital", capital that come from resources that do not directly contribute to their construction. Hence, mages, mercs and hydras don't require much Resource because the time and expertise used in their raising are not directly applied to their construction.

I understand that Resource does travel to a limited extent through the use of Forts, but it is nowhere near as universally applicable as Gold, which sits in a single pool. Hell, even Gems, which sit in a single pool, require a Lab to produce effects in a certain Province.

While the Resource cost of specialist units -could- be adjusted upward to compensate for this, I believe this would reduce the distinction between gear-based units and skill-based units. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything better ATM

[Sensori]

Autochthon said:

Hence, mages, mercs and hydras don't require much Resource because the time and expertise used in their raising are not directly applied to their construction.

Yes, this is how I always thought it worked story-wise, and it makes sense ingame-wise, too. A turn takes a MONTH. This game's supposed to take place in a fantasy world with pretty much medieval (and below) technology. People aren't magically grown in cloning vats - they take years to grow up, train to become great (or even bad) commanders, mages, priests and whatnot, just like you don't just pop out of your mom's loins and turn into an engineer in a month in real life. Or why would the old guys be old when you recruit them? Why would ages differ at all?

Because you're recruiting people who were already "around" last turn, the last n+1 turns, they just weren't working for your military directly (as such you can assume your mages/priests already had their robes - while military commanders weren't training their phat military skillz in full armor, or at least armor they owned). You pay them good money to get them join your army and quit their day jobs at your temples, laboratories, academies and so forth. Dominions just isn't an economic simulation, but a war-strategy game, so it doesn't count everything related to the economy. Kind of like how you wouldn't expect Command & Conquer's troop values to count in the feelings of the people towards your cause, the current currency rates in the game world or anything like that. ;p

[Autochthon]

I do understand that Dom3 is a war-oriented strategy game, and that we don't want to get bogged down into minutiae (e.g. Europa Universalis 3 - Good Gods!), but I can't shake the feeling that the current logistic system that drives the war effort is a bit skewed toward Gold.

If the limitations of Resource are WAD, then I think Gold collection, transport and expenditure needs a bottleneck somewhere to add more balance. As I mentioned before, even Gems require Labs to allow spell casting in a particular Province.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good ideas yet. I'll be sure to pipe up if I come up with something that balances Gold but is also simple and intuitive. While i'm at it, I might as well be nominated to run the Fed

[Jazzepi]

Balancing gold? I don't really see the point. Gold is nearly worthless towards the middle -> end of the game when all your regular troops get ground into an unfortunate mush.

Jazzepi

[Evilhomer]

Gold is always good, more gold = more mages. Though gems play an increasing role of course.

[Agema]

If resources are anything, it has to be raw materials. You can hardly argue that they can represent labour and time when a grassland (population 15k) has significantly less resource than a mountainous land (population 1.5k).

I wouldn't mind a pretty simple 1 gold per 10 (20? 30?) unused resources in terms of, say, the resources are actually being turned into trade products and general enrichment when they aren't building troops. It could make the Productivity scale interesting - remove the income bonus or penalty, and your bonus can turn into money anyway.

However, both paragraphs assume that things have to make 'sense' in a real world situation. Resources are an abstracted concept designed to fit the game's strategy, and when you muck with things integral to the strategy, that's an awful lot of rebalancing to do.

[Edratman]

Conceptually I can agree with Agema that trading off unused resources for gold at some ratio makes sense. Resources could be viewed as iron ore that has been mined, but not smelted and forged into usable items, rather it was sold to some other end user.

The game does equate resources and gold in a significent manner in the pretender set-up screen where you have the choice of increasing/decreasing one and decreasing/increasing the other.

With that said, I'm happy enough the way things are and unused resources does not cry out to me as an issue that requires modification.

[Dedas]

In the land of Dominions the blacksmiths only use fresh iron ore. I thought everyone knew that.

[Autochthon]

Dedas said:
In the land of Dominions the blacksmiths only use fresh iron ore. I thought everyone knew that.

Yes, and on the last evening of the month, the Resource Fairy flies through air to collect unwanted materials.

Still, even non-path Gems can be used for Alchemy, but you can't say the same for Resources - they just vanish into thin air...poof!

And the Resource Fairy doesn't even leave money behind as a reward? Cheap...