Preview Branch: Village Prosperity MEGATHREAD

[runic python]

This is a central location for feedback on the new Village Prosperity changes on Preview Branch beta.

Please be civil.

My observations:

• Some resource requirements too high

Just to trade with the top half of the map, you are required to produce 100s of flax, wood, and other resources EVERY FEW DAYS. This is a huge resource drain even for high T3 villages with 50+ settlers.

• Prosperity decays too fast after trade delivery

I have noticed it only takes 1-2 days from the last FULL delivery for prosperity decay to begin kicking in full-force (-200 or worse), with fully satisfied clothing and gear deliveries.

• Caravan system is extremely slow, and pathing leads to a lot of unnecessary encounters that may disrupt the caravans.

Paired with the quick rate of decay, this makes just maintaining your current prosperity difficult.

My suggestions:

• For weapons/clothing/gear deliveries, only require them ONCE, or have the delivery +prosperity at least last an in-game week before decaying.

A lot of the demands are already materials used to create these items. Imo the amount of base materials demanded should be reduced and the amount of final products demanded increased. This helps alleviate the sheer volume of transportation needed to regularly satisfy a village. I am currently struggling to stay +0 with 2 carts dedicated to one village 24/7, and set to 100% sale at lowest price of all goods demanded.

• Create larger, faster delivery vehicles

Carts are great as a T1 transport. Allow T2 and T3 materials to create wagons. 2 Driver for a 250 and 500 capacity cart, respectively. Have them travel along roads only at a pace slightly slower than running. This can help alleviate the villager count needed to maintain trade routes, which especially helps out those of us with less beefy CPUs.

• Enable trading from the start of the game, and once you liberate the village, allow for setting up trade routes DIRECTLY BETWEEN VILLAGES

This gives an endgame goal and an incentive to KEEP all villages liberated, as opposed to the common strategy of liberating, hiring the apprentices you need, and letting the infinitely respawning brigands (something that needs to be addressed as well) retake, so you can avoid the hassle. With how much villages produce currently, a well planned internal trade network would definitely alleviate a lot of the material and manpower requirements the current system has.

• Flexible fulfillment system

Instead of "berries. mushroom. raw meat." Make demands broader: "50 units of cooked foodstuff" or "25 units of uncooked foodstuff" and make it so players can export high-grade foods not for more gold, but for higher increase in prosperity. "10 upper body pieces of medium armor" and reward us for providing T2 or T3 medium armor!

Just a few ideas to start with. I will definitely have more.

[cunning cloak]

This is very good and detailed feedback, and some of suggestions are already planned, but few things to keep in mind

1. Player is not expected to provide all resources to villages, especially on higher prosperity tiers. There are some issues with facilities that we are resolving, mostly on UX side, but it is expected for villages to produce things they need instead of player doing all the work himself.
2. Neutral caravans in the world are not just for immersion - they are in fact transporting resources between villages (and player-built markets), and every prosperity level in village spawns more caravans, so there should be more trade happening without direct (or any) player's control

These systems are not properly balanced yet and not properly explained, but that's overall the direction we are aiming for

[prisma sentinel]

I agree with pretty much everything that @runic python said. It's just kinda frustrating really. Y'all know I love this game. Have about 1,000 hours in it. But if it was this kind of economy when I first started playing I would not have played the game. I feel kinda like it has moved from an adventure/rpg/settlement builder to an economy/trade game. I'm spending way too much time trying to figure this out and it's not fun at all. There no clarification for how anything works or what things mean. It takes a really long time to test if something is making a difference and then it seems like it's not. Or if it is, it's hard to tell. sigh Sorry for the venting. I just love this game and this makes me sad cause I'm not enjoying playing it this way.
I'm sure y'all will implement some good solutions.

[cunning cloak]

Complicated trading optimization/setting up economy was not supposed to be a mandatory part of the game. If it feels like you can't play the game properly without learning these mechanics - then that's another problem that we should address.

[prisma sentinel]

Honestly, I have to take a break atm. It feels like I'm at work and it's making my eyes crossed. It's not only difficult to figure out but I don't even want to cause it's not fun to me. I don't mind complex systems. I've enjoyed the game up until now. But I am not a fan of this. I know I'm just venting now and not offering useful input. My brain is just tired from it all atm. Sorry.

[steel cloak]

id say its SUPER unclear that if a village has needs that it meets itself that its still shown as a need.

Like, yes, technically the village needs 10 flax per day to survive, but from the perspective of the player (or even just a third party trader in world logic wise), knowing they need 10 but also produce 10 is a sort of "yes... and?" moment.

If you came to me and asked if i need anything and told you "i need 10 flax. I do have 10 flax" you would probably walk away confused.

_ _
Speaking about equipment needed by villages - i know tools and equipment degrade but clothing and armor do not. Is there an intent to have armor and clothing degrade overtime? Or is there some reason player armors are magically infinite in durability yet villages are not?

[steel cloak]

I think it might be because its VERY unclear, with lots of information being provided that has no... logical intertia and doesnt look like it means anything and is hard to tell what it does, etc etc.

They should borrow a UI from a economic themed game at the very least to give us a starting point as right now the UI is honestly one of the worst lol.

[prisma sentinel]

True. And yet, if the game has to be played by using economic spreadsheets to keep track of everything then I'm just not interested in playing. I can do that kind of stuff in real life. It's not why I play Bellwright. Maybe they need to provide an NPC that's a economist and I can assign it to them. lol

[steel cloak]

Right? There is a lot that should be fairly automatic here that isn't.

I like city building both npcs and ours, but it feels like the automation features are intentionally obscure for no benefit.

[runic python]

I do think that in its current state it is completely optional content you don’t have to interact with to progress/be satisfied.

The current caravan system enables you to have outposts for everything you need (that system could also use a little front-end love but that’s another topic)

I am interested in the spreadsheet simulator, hence the feedback. But it does need a little refinement/restructuring.

Overall the foundations of the economic system are great! It’s the superficial/front-facing stuff that needs the most work. And maybe a slight reduction in material consumption ;P

[cunning cloak]

well, need to think about it

but also if you guys can think of specific piece of info or tool that is important, but currently missing - feel free to bring it up

[steel cloak]

Id say specifically way more clarity into what other villages need from us or from other villages rather than just their total needs otherwise it doesn't make sense. Also more clarity in how villages building new buildings do things and what they do. A lot of the displays don't make sense.

Also selling things to the village that they explicitly don't need feels weird too.

[cunning cloak]

can you give an example? that shouldn't be possible

[steel cloak]

I'll find one. It might also have to do with "needs" not reflecting actual village needs. The display is hot garbage - sorry lol

[runic python]

Since you brought up that the world itself will self-supply to a certain extent:

Maybe have a “Regional Production” and “Regional Demands” using the sum total of all villages, to track what you need to produce/what you should invest in certain villages

Also to dumb things down further, perhaps make it even more obvious which villages are meant to be producing what.

The land capability and village mastery are not very straightforward terms.

For example, when you click Horndean, have it say “MINING VILLAGE”

[runic python]

Another idea.

T3 building: “Trading Outpost”

As the upgraded version of the market, have it fill the same functions, however:

Enables building of wagons, as well as sale of wagons to NPC caravans.

Increases the number of NPC trade caravans based on the gold/construction supplies invested.

[nova nova]

I really love the trading and economics sections, for me it could go even deeper. But, I've also always been a fan of micromanagement. I understand, though, that there are some people for whom that's too much management.

Perhaps more AI automation could be implemented? for those who aren't so comfortable with micromanagement, which could then be adjusted via the game settings. This way, those who like micromanagement can dig depper and might even be able to achieve more economically profit, and these wo don't like it, can better concentrate on other things.

Introductory tutorials would also be very helpful, as a lot of trial and error is required. And more Hoover tips would be great, please.

[trim pelican]

The more I get into the trading facet of the game, the more I enjoy it and appreciate the intention and premise. I am very glad to see that it is being still developed and refined as it does need some finetuning to reach it's real potential.

Will we ever be able to drive a cart to deliver goods ourselves?

I would love to see implemented a slider in options that lets us choose between Hard, Normal and Easy modes in reference to demand levels for consumption and thresholds to reach positive prosperity.