So once my carpenter was level 1, I could make a whole load of tools that unlocked loads of new classes-great. But when I went to promote everyone, there was only 1 worker left. I had farmer, carpenter, trapper, footman, mason, weaver… And this was only after I’d made enough beds for my village. What happens when I need to expand my farm, or my borders get bigger so I need more footmen?
Must I demote a vital member of my village to keep my borders safe…?
Or must I watch as my hearthlings are attacked by goblins, as I wait for a new arrival?
We either need to make classes trickier to get, or a higher population growth, because having all but 1 worker promoted within 10 minutes of starting is a problem.
i think that’s sort of the point of the game though… the challenge to survive… the player is forced to balance their immediate requirements, and plan for future scenarios…
"do i turn this footman into a weaver, and risk a pending attack?"
"can i survive for now with the goods from a farmer, or do i also need a trapper to suppliment our food stores?"
you dont have to have one of every class, just because that upgrade path is available…
Balance will come! There’s not much point in spending the time balancing this early because it will constantly change and just be a time sink for development.
After pretty much everything is in the game I would expect to see a full balancing involving leveling, class availability, materials access, work speed, game speed, enemies, gear, environment, etc.
Right now we have more of a simulation than a game.
I want to second this, at first I also tried to just upgrade as many classes as possible, but now I have a carpenter, and have to decide between the other classes depending on a number of factors. For example:
Do I want to stop the goblins ASAP (this will be more important later I believe)
What food source do I want?
Do I want a weaver, cause if I do I need a farmer for the resources.
Do I want to work on food, buildings, resources or skills?
Just my two cents, I noticed in A7 that travelers join your town much more often, I think this may be Team Radiant trying to balance out the higher amount of classes.
4 hours into this session and I have one of every class and about 4 workers. It doesn’t take too long to balance itself out. I survive on just the carpenter and farmer for a long while before I upgrade anything else.
We thought about gating the tools but in the end we decided that it should be up to you what kind of game you want to play. If some of the tools were gated so you couldn’t get to them until later, how would you gate them?
Since the mason and carpenter can both help build and fight I’m not too concerned about this, but this is exactly why I’m too worried if we start implementing too many specialized classes that can’t build or fight at all. Things like painters or accountants or whatever serves a very limited and passive role. It’s just going to run up the needed population count if you want to have everything you can. Noticed that with the shepherd. Has a big stick but absolutely won’t whack a goblin with it. And as of now causes footmen to commit suicide thus weakening your defenses on two fronts haha.
I agree they should be allocated smartly. Nothing wrong with that and so far no issues IMO. I’m just saying I don’t feel there’s a need for too many classes that don’t do much, especially if they’ll take away development time from other aspects that add more to the game. A higher number of specialized classes just stretches out the need for said resource in ways that I don’t think add to the game terribly much with interesting New mechanics.
The most sensible (and in my humble opinion only) way is to add wooden high energy laser cannons into the game. That way, you can keep the goblins at bay while still maintaining a solid cloth production.
Is there some reason villagers can only have one responsibility? In other DF games, you can give villagers multiple jobs, but the real resource is time. If you make your only carpenter also your only doctor, you’re going to end up with villagers that are injured, while the doctor is off making doors.
I wonder if they’ll include that in the system they’ve got… Right now you can have them keep experience they had as other crafters, maybe they could help out with stuff related to classes they used to be?