I don't think that's a good thing, in this case. One of the great advantages to having a stockpile, IMO, is the ability to create more complex treaties involving the direct transfer of stockpileable resources. This does not imply having complex diplomatic rules, which is generally bad, but rather allowing the player the freedom to do complex things with a set of relatively simple rules, which is generally good.eleazar wrote: Without stockpiles trade treaties suddenly become simple and obvious. For example: "I will give you my excess food for your excess minerals." Trade treaties are generally the only way to avoid waste (aside from perfectly calibrating your economic machine). If we want to make it fancier, we could add an exchange ratio, i.e. 1 food for every 2 minerals. There's no accidental breaking of this kind of treaty, and the terms of simple.
This is probably a good idea regardless of whether or not stockpiles are removed.eleazar wrote:To address this problem, I think if we get rid of stockpiles, the need for more fine-grained focus settings increases.
In the early game a pure focus on minerals or production doesn't make sense. Perhaps those are things you can research to learn. But an "Industrial" focus -- equal emphasis on minerals AND production -- would be of use sooner.
While "letting the computer do it" is by no means a be-all-end-all solution to these types of problems, I think it's appropriate in this case; what happens to the stockpiles, while time consuming for a human being to to in a board game, is not at all complex or difficult to understand, so it's not like the MoO3 colony managers, controlling things because the rules are too complex for mere humans to understand.jlv61560 wrote:Honestly, getting rid of the stockpiles just makes sense. The problem with stockpiles is that unless they are restricted to the planet that produces them (only) you are faced with the need for distributing them. The problem with that is that there is no simple, intuitive way to handle that and the result is that players are forced into intensive micromanagement of a "merchant shipping chain" of some kind.
IIRC, this was one of the big reasons for having stockpiled resources in the first place, and I still agree with it.MikkoM wrote: And could eliminating the stockpile lead to focus setting micromanagement, since any food and minerals that aren`t used in the empire would go to waste?
I generally dislike the "harshness" that implies. IMO, such worlds are sufficiently important as it is, and don't need to be turned into their own effective victory conditions.eleazar wrote:Sure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It simply make high producing resource worlds more strategically important to defend, or capture.MikkoM wrote:Would eliminating the stockpile make the economy system even more inflexible, since if for example important mining or farming systems are lost and the empire`s food or mineral production drops below the empire`s need for these resources, the whole economy will suffer significantly until the player/AI made focus changes can help the situation as there are no buffers to soften the blow?
That's the way it used to be isn't it? But it was ditched for simplicity's sake. I don't think there's any need for that, and I think the simplicity of stockpiles is superior.Krikkitone wrote:For #4
Excess food could increase Health... possibly improving growth.
Having minerals though, adds more variety between playing as a highly industrial empire, or a different kind of empire. Expansion for such empires will be a different experience, as their main focus will be split equally between two resources. In contrast, an empire focused on diplomacy, research or espionage, would primarily be focused on finding planets that are as close as possible to one specific ideal.eleazar wrote:Or more boldly, we simply get rid of "minerals" as a distinct resource.
Changing the gameplay experience in such a way is one of the things that keeps the game from getting stale. This is why there are now different rules for the production of minerals as opposed to other resources - more variety, forcing the player to consider different strategies for expansion and production when he chooses a different playing style.
Having minerals is also a more interesting way to keep super-industry zerg-swarm strategies from becoming ultimate than simply gimping the production of industry or increasing build costs. It also allows strategic options for industrial players to also focus on diplomacy, getting their minerals from other empires and focusing on production themselves. This in turn opens up strategies for the players who supply these minerals, to try to create dependence on themselves, then using that to their advantage.
Why do we have stockpiles in the first place? Removing them would get rid of all of those things, whatever they may be.Geoff the Medio wrote:Are there any obvious / major problems that having no stockpiles at all would cause?
First of all, micromanagement of resources. It shouldn't be necessary, but eliminating stockpiles will make players feel the need to fully optimize resource production; and I'd much rather not use the MoO2 cop-out of turning excess resources into money at a fixed rate. That's just lame.
Secondly, trading stockpiled resources. I've already made reference to the potential strategy that arises from being able to trade resources directly with another empire. True, much of this is possible simply by "trading x per turn", but this doesn't allow the trading empire a buffer to keep trading if something happens to their resource production, or even if one of their high-producing worlds was blockaded. I'm afraid that this would make such a strategy too difficult to use. One of the things I disliked about MoO2 was that many, many strategies were so vulnerable to your opponent's whims that they were hardly viable. I'd like to increase the number of viable strategies in FO as much as possible.
What compelling reason is there for getting rid of stockpiles aside from "simplifying the UI and eliminating numerous details and complications with tracking the gamestate?"