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Outsmarting game - needs balance adjustment

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SirRight

SirRight

Second Lieutenant
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Aug 14, 2010
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Spoiler:

Love the game but I have found a play-style that is obviously not what the devs intended.

When first starting out, I automatically buy the 4 dwarflings because they will level up quickly.
- Don't bother spending $ on a training dummy, just let the the dwarflings level up and when you think they are high enough, then just fire the military one you start with and replace him with a level 15+ dwarfling
- Once all dwarflings are at a high level, replace the crafter because he will probably only be level 3 when the dwarflings are level 15 or more
- Don't need to do this to the researcher or probably the gardener, definitely not your digger(s) because they are constantly working and will probably be level 10 or more at this time
- for this to work you have to be very careful where you dig because if you run into an enemy, you only have the original fighter to deal with it, until the dwarflings are high enough
- I don't bother going past 10 dwarves since they are all high level anyway
- This may not work on the later levels, don't know because I am playing each level for 8+ hours each to get every last resource ... and I like to take my time.

Balance fix:
- Limit the dwarflings to a predetermined max level; I don't know, let's say level 3
- Put a time limit on the game so that if someone is taking all his time to beef up his troops and not really exploring, then the monsters will start to dig and look for you. Better yet, have random encounters.
- Have crafters gain experience by going around and fixing everything you have built; maybe things deteriorate over time or just have them tinker with things to gain some experience
- Have military get together to do jumping jacks, push-ups, etc. to gain some experience. If you really want them to build up then of course buy training dummys (that last longer, or only work to give x levels for each dwarf - Hey, maybe once they are level 5 they have to use the second type of dummy, level 10 and up the third type of dummy, etc. The dummies don't disappear but could cost more)

Suggestions:
- At higher levels, I would like to see the digger dwarf have a chance to detect minerals. As he is going through the tunnels to go to a job, he might stop for a second and have a big yellow question mark or exclamation mark over his head and point in a North, South, East, or West direction. Depending on his level, he could sense so many squares away and maybe one or two levels up or down. They say Dwarves can smell the minerals and elements like gold and platinum, etc.
- Can the digger dwarf also be able to automatically build ladders (if wood is available). The user could replace them with stone or better ladders if wanted.
- Some kind of pop-up to let you know new items can be built
- Some kind of "go there quickly" button to place your view where something really important is happening, such as a goblin is attacking
- Have it so the teleport (say by holding the Shift key down and clicking on the military button) can gather all of one kind of dwarf (i.e. military, or diggers) in one click and then you can go and drop them off normally. Guess if one of them is eating, it is interrupted, and if one is sleeping then he remains sleeping on the floor at the new location dropped off
- Be able to use the teleport to collect a dwarf who is sleeping on a chair or bed, so that you can sell the chair or bed and replace it
- At higher levels, maybe the crafter can "upgrade" an item for less cost than selling the old item and building the new item. It would still take the same amount of time to upgrade?

I am sure there are a lot more ideas from other people who have played more levels than I have. Again great game but I am hoping to constructively make it even better. What do you think?
 
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Love the idea about the Crafters going around “fixing” things. That would add a great deal to the game where items would slowly decay and you would have to keep them upgraded. Very nice indeed.

Also a fantastic idea about the Digger getting the Detect Resources nearby. Not sure on how it would affect the balance on the game with that one, but that would be awesome to have that.

You can already go to the “action” quickly by clicking on the icons on the top of the UI. For instance the Military icon if they are in a fight or the Digger icon if he is stuck in a hole starving.

The part about the leveling of the Dwarflings is by design though. the thought being that you can have Dwarflings running around leveling up and if (or when) you lose a level 15 Digger because he digs in to a den of high level monsters and is killed – you can replace him right away with a 15 level Dwafling.
So I do what you do (sort of) but I actually kill off the starting Military right away and replace them with Dwarflings since they level faster and easier.
 
He's right about the crafters. They always stay low level unless you replace them with highlevel dwarflings. Maybe give them a workbench like the scholar has to practice their crafting skills when there are no build orders?
 
In a certain other game involving dwarves and fortresses, smoothing and engraving surfaces is a common piece of busywork to give dwarves. I was initially surprised that floor and wall decorations place instantly; requiring a craftsman to construct them would give them a source of experience.

Pros:
- crafting xp
- give craftsman something to do during the phases of the game where you're not building the small-ish set of things you need them for
- can differentiate façades with the same happiness and different cost by having the more expensive one (e.g. masterwork walls) take longer and give more xp

Cons:
- slows down remodeling projects
- requires some micromanagement, e.g. building ladders and bridges as scaffolding on multi-story walls or normally-inaccessible floors
 
Like the person above me I think that crafting would be a good thing. I would much prefer to having to use some of my population towards having more crafters to place things like floor tiles and the different wall types. Heck if it were up to me, it would also take a crafter (or a new type, hauler) to move items from one location to another.

While I understand that it would slow down the customizing of our underground kingdoms, to me, it would just feel more like I accomplished something rather than how I feel now when I just magically make floor and wall tiles appear. I would think that this alone would give the crafter dwarves enough XP to level up for those that use them.

However that brings me to the other point I wanted to make... The whole idea of happiness in aGoD needs some help. The penalty is not nearly severe enough for when I don't keep my dwarves happy. I was also just watching somebody do a livestream tonight and he was commenting on the happiness bar and said something to the effect of "I guess my dwarves are unhappy, that red/green bar has been like this for the past 45 minutes, but it doesn't seem to matter any". It seems to me that it needs an adjustment to make us, the player, see both sides of it, really slow working/moving/gathering when unhappy, as well as substantially faster working/moving/gathering when it's at it's max. As it is now, I really can't discern any change, not even the difference of how long it takes to get a new dwarfling into my kingdom, when the happiness bar is at it's maximum, or at only 1/4 green 3/5 red.

I guess like Pandadan says above, it would require some micromanagement when it comes to things like multi-story walls, I guess though it's just that the player will need to learn how to play differently, for examps, like when multi-story they'll find it's faster and easier to decorate the walls while they are on that story before they dig out another layer or two than it will be to try to decorate the walls after they've already dug down 3 layers. Just some of my thoughts on the subject.
 
I agree with City Builder, if dwarves are actually moving/working faster or slower UNIFORMLY then the player can't see it, their needs to be visual signs that work or movement is being done at an abnormal rate. The best way to do this is to have the three speeds, slow-grumpy speed, normal speed and fast-happy speed. Most of the population is normal and random bursts of fast or slowness occur in individual dwarves depending on overall happiness (this can be as simple as a timer and a random selection). Slowness is shown visually with some angry/grumpy symbols over the dwarfs head (thunder clouds, red squiggles etc etc), and happiness with its own symbols (music notes? HI-HO HI-HO IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO!)

I like the crafters doing the decorative floor work, also they should probably be doing maintenance on traps too, got to keep them oiled, wound-up etc. Possibly even resetting them once they are sprung. As people have said when enemies are finite and not spawning traps are marginal, if enemies spawn then traps should correspondingly require maintenance in both time and materials.
 
Maybe introducing a working speed penalty/reward and link it to happiness would do they trick? Unhappy dwarves do not work fast.
 
another awesome idea there City Builder with Crafters making the floor and walls. The only issue would be having to move objects out of the way to place some of them. But i would be very willing to put up with that and have it a part of the give and take in this. I just mention it because some might not like that too much.
;)
 
Happiness meter: If it gets too low, maybe brawls break out between the Dwarves and eventually some decide to quit your clan and move on (hopefully the lowest levels first).

Crafters: why can't they build and tear apart scaffolding to reach higher areas and be able to move items away from walls (as long as they put things back)? This is in conjunction with all the great ideas mentioned previously.
 
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