So here’s what the main menu looks like if you save before naming your town, in case anyone was wondering:
…the town titles probably need to change.
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I think item exclusivity for different paths of gameplay is a good thing, HOWEVER the other exclusive things the player doesn’t get access to by making a choice, they should be able to appear as expensive tradeable items or similar.
Also again I think smaller incremental effects/buffs but more player choice is a better design than fewer and larger choices. Will give the player more feeling of agency and the ability to better customise their experience.
3 Likes
Why has the right-mouse button click to buy or sell from merchant been removed in 24.2?
I use it a lot but seems to be removed for Merchants but it’s still possible to do for crafting items
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When I read this it kinda reminded me of the roman flags and the eagle standards.
- First upgrade would allow you to choose one small choice of buffs and add the image to the banner
- Second upgrade would involve another selection of buffs as well as adding a figure head to the banner based off the image of the corresponding flag.
5 Likes
what is this a mistake where does it come from?
release-798 (x64)[M]
CHECK failed: C:\rb\ihome\root\SH-OB0-BUILD\stonehearth\source\lib\lua\ai\compound_action.cpp:357 Thinking flag unset while restarting thinking.
stack traceback:
radiant/modules/commons.lua:53: in function ‘report_traceback’
radiant/modules/commons.lua:64: in function <radiant/modules/commons.lua:58>
[C]: in function ‘clear_think_output’
…th/ai/actions/find_best_reachable_entity_by_type.lua:140: in function ‘_set_result’
…th/ai/actions/find_best_reachable_entity_by_type.lua:76: in function ‘found_cb’
stonehearth/components/item_finder/item_search.lua:169: in function ‘_call_found_cb’
stonehearth/components/item_finder/item_search.lua:187: in function ‘_call_found_cbs’
stonehearth/components/item_finder/item_search.lua:156: in function ‘_on_leased_solution_ready’
stonehearth/components/item_finder/item_search.lua:117: in function ‘instance’
radiant/modules/events.lua:291: in function <radiant/modules/events.lua:285>
[C]: in function ‘xpcall’
radiant/modules/commons.lua:73: in function ‘xpcall’
radiant/modules/events.lua:285: in function ‘trigger’
radiant/modules/events.lua:374: in function ‘_fire_async_triggers’
radiant/modules/events.lua:449: in function ‘_update’
radiant/server.lua:67: in function <radiant/server.lua:64>
Can we get an estimate on an optimisation pass on the game? I really want to play lots of Stonehearth but having idle-rot set in at 14 hearthlings makes me very sad 
1 Like
I’ve done more pondering on the bonuses. Choosing your path is meant to set a course for your town to be more economically productive, militarily proud or just a better place to live in. Instead of bonuses that just change the way you build your town, bonuses that other town types might still want, you could make bonuses that make a certain playestyle easier, but also more necessary. The net effect is that no town gains an advantage in how easy the game is, but the choice nudged the game’s mechanics a little to a different aspect. Here is an example of what I mean:
When you get really big, the monsters come at you in armies that require you to have chosen the military path.
If you did, then you might have wanted to build a castle and see the enemies try to attack it. You’ll be well equipped for the job, especially given the bonuses you chose, which help you with it.
But what if you didn’t, and you chose to pursue an economic town. In that case you need to use what you are good at (economic value) to get rid of the mosters. You could buy them off, or you could pay military towns to send patrols around the woods just outside of the map, to keep the number of enemies slipping through down. A “hearth of cheer” town might need to entice a patrol to guard them using good living conditions. Then a guarding shift becomes like a vacation, it’s good to go on once in a while, but it’s not home.
Doing it this way gives you extra abilities to be better at a certain aspect, but also requires you to use that advantage to overcome your shortcomings, so the net advantage is zero. The only thing you have done, then, is nudge the game’s mechanics to a certain playstyle that belongs to the town you want to create.
Edit: Maybe this is obvious, but a positve side effect of this, is that you allow the multiple playstyles that you find throughout the player base to come more to the foreground, so there is some for everybody.
4 Likes
I’m not the war player. I prefer to build and enjoy. Without the enemies i will miss something. That’s why I use the easy mod and have him again reinforced by the Facktor 2.
Well, the war wwas just an example. You could look at it from the side of a high-living-standards town (still don’t know how to name this type of town.).
You might need hearthlings to be happy, which is easier if you choose the bonuses for this type of town. If you didn’t, you might need something else to keep your society together, in the case of an economic town, happyness through material wealth, or in the case of a militaristic town, military glory.
Interesting idea, and I can see it tackling the issue at the root of the problem rather than trying to “tack on” a solution; but there’s a big caveat: if players don’t know what to look out for (e.g. someone who has never built a town so large that it attracts armies of powerful monsters), they won’t know what they need to be building up in order to tackle the coming challenges.
For example, if a market town is planning to simply hire mercenaries and buy the best equipment for their guards, that’s no problem; but if a hearth of cheer town is planning to attract more/better* guards then they’re going to need barracks/living quarters, and quite possibly a supply of gear or the means to make some in case the guards don’t come with enough of their own. Or as a counter-example, if a hearth of cheer town is running low on food that’s not the end of the world (boosted production from happiness bonuses + add a new farmer every day or so = quick fix), but a military town will probably have to end up raiding something – whether to acquire food directly, or to acquire rare loot which can be traded for bulk food.
There is also of course the issue that some options are much easier to implement than others. The “itinerant/vacationing guards” one is a good example, it’s not super difficult to implement on its own but keeping it balanced becomes a nightmare very quickly. What happens if 3 guards show up from an event and you only have houses for 2? If they’re staying for a day, not a drama… if they’re staying for a week though, that could mean the end to your town’s happiness streak. Yeah you can quickly slap together a new residence, but you’ve got all the other issues to deal with in the background and it means you’re not preparing for the next upcoming challenge.
Advanced players will take those challenges in their stride, of course; but for this idea to work it needs to make clear that the chosen advantage needs to be used to offset its complementary disadvantage/trade-off.
With all that said though, I point these hurdles out not because I hate the idea but because I like it a lot! I’ve always been a fan of trade-off gameplay. Obviously this is a first idea on what would become a very large adjustment to the core game (and that’s before integrating it into the currently ongoing major changes that these new hearths/stories bring with them), but if fleshed out further I think it could bridge the gap between the current game and the rich-narrative experience that the devs are trying to create.
Once the “why are we building this town anyway?” question is answered a bit better by the early-game questlines, the “how will we make that happen?” question becomes more important; and that’s where ideas like this can really have an impact on the player’s experience. From there, the player only needs a gentle nudge in order to start figuring out the implications of the choices they’ve made (e.g. “I chose a wealth-focussed town, so I had better start finding ways to buy/trade/hire/etc. solutions to these challenges”), very soon they’re able to tackle anything the game throws at them using their preferred methods rather than being stuck to a “meta” or most popular strategy. So I reckon that, if coupled with some adaptable mid-early game “tutorial-quests”, this idea, has a lot of potential.
*because of the concerns involved with attracting temporary hearthlings, it might be easier for the Hearth of Cheer to simply attract hearthlings who come with benefits compared to regular immigrants. A while ago I suggested that “tier 3” towns might get immigrants already somewhat levelled up in a class, however I reckon that would equally well fit for a Hearth of Cheer town. Migrants would come there seeking a better place, so even established businesshearthlings might view the Hearth of Cheer town as a better place to live than their current homes.
1 Like
“A workless footman strolls into town.”
“Hi, my city of ___ order me to look for twons that might need protection. Who knew that having a fortress would have a freigthing effect on the denizens of this realm, but we need to stay trained. Maybe you could use some of your material wealth to hire us, so we stay trained, and you keep your stuff safe. Sounds like a deal?”
Deal!/ No thanks.
These kind of quests should alert the player of these possibilities.
As for military towns needing to raid, that might be an option, but you can also get paid to help out other towns. That is the flip side of the ‘Hiring guards’ mechanic.
This is why i suggested that the game keeps track of what type your town is (link is in one of my previous replies, called town reputation.), and then manipulates the chances of useful events/quests for that type of town. Once you have that kind of handle on what type the town is, and thus on what it needs, you can use that to send the right things to towns, like the skilled hearthlings you suggest. As long as you have a excuse reason to have said event to be likelier with that type of town, you can convincingly put this mechanism to work.
But what kind of concerns do you mean?
P.S. Sorry for all the editing, my mind is all over the place today for some reason.
Another bug i’ve never had one like that:
release-798 (x64)[M]
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘animate’ of undefined
TypeError: Cannot read property ‘animate’ of undefined
at n._build_workshop_ui (http://radiant/stonehearth/ui/game/show_workshop/show_team_workshop.js:487:10)
at invoke (http://radiant/stonehearth/ui/root/js/libs/ember-1.8.1.min.js:1:7142)
at n.flush (http://radiant/stonehearth/ui/root/js/libs/ember-1.8.1.min.js:1:7689)
at a.end (http://radiant/stonehearth/ui/root/js/libs/ember-1.8.1.min.js:1:2462)
at http://radiant/stonehearth/ui/root/js/libs/ember-1.8.1.min.js:1:1288
personally I dislike that the main benefit of these choices is how it buffs your town value. Which may help summons hearthlings, assuming you have plenty enough food as well. Thus it’s not too useful.
Perhaps it would be better the other way around? Say, the higher your towns worth the better buff you receive to the intended field. ex. farm towns produce more food, or cheer towns receive a boost to happiness.
1 Like
We hope to pivot to optimization after getting some good feedback on the builder and on multiplayer, so wait for those first. Otherwise, we’d be optimizing buggy code. 
8 Likes
Your fiscally responsible allocation of resources and time at the expense of me be able to play the thing right NOW is sickening. How dare you prioritise moving the project forwards in a sensible manner rather than cater to my exacting whims!
8 Likes