Rebalance Clarifications

[Anaris]

There has been a certain amount of confusion regarding the rebalance numbers that are now showing up. The dev team would like to officially dispel some of it.

First of all, the primary purpose behind the rebalance has been to give the gold and food values for all the regions a basis in logic and the inherent statistics and other aspects of the regions—things like region type, population density, and such. Before now, every single region had its values assigned manually and arbitrarily—numbers were just made up on the spot. Not only does this make sure that every region on a continent follows the same rules and gets to both the same benefits and the same disadvantages, it makes it vastly easier for the dev team to readjust values overall when and if we detect a systematic problem. We simply need to adjust the algorithms behind the rebalance, and rerun the part of it that actually sets the updated values to the regions. As an example of this, it has allowed us to significantly increase the food produced on Dwilight (which was too low) and decrease it on Beluaterra (which, with the loss of several cities, was much too high) without much trouble.

Second of all, the dev team has been concerned that the rebalances in the past have moved the game much more toward homogeneity. There was becoming too little difference between being Lord of a city and being Lord of any other region—particularly with the separation of Dukeships from Lordships of cities. This may make people feel more equal, but it's not good design for a game of medieval nobles and knights. Inequality is an inherent part of the system, and should not be played down to the extent that it was. We believe, for one thing, that the general homogeneity has led, in part, to the apathy of rural region lords in selling their food. They make plenty of money already, and mostly don't have knights to fun: why shouldn't they just sit on their piles of food forever?

Third, it is important to note that all these changes are being made based on nominal population—the maximum population of a region, not its current population. So any attempts to compare the changes in two particular regions based on their state right now is pointless unless they are both at maximum population.

We understand that these are, in some cases, some pretty drastic changes. We also understand that, in some cases, they are leading to some undesirable situations—such as regions that, even if they sold their entire food production for 50 gold/100 bushels, would never make enough to even support a Lord with any serious income. We are working to find good solutions to these situations that do not involve breaking the system. In some cases, regions of this nature will simply have their populations adjusted so that they can support a real economy. In others, we may have to find other solutions. However, rest assured, we do not intend to leave any region useless.

Furthermore, there are other changes already either in discussion, in development, or otherwise in the pipeline that should help to fix or ameliorate a number of issues related to this. For instance, there is a general consensus among the dev team that we need to lift the food price cap—at least to 100 gold per 100 bushels, and possibly higher, or removed entirely.

[vonGenf]

For instance, there is a general consensus among the dev team that we need to lift the food price cap—at least to 100 gold per 100 bushels, and possibly higher, or removed entirely.

Thank you! \°/

[Vellos]

So, um... if the goal is less homogeneity...

How come cities largely have gold production nerfed and food production buffed, and reverse for rurals? Isn't that the opposite of what you wanted?

Obviously I'm just looking at a handful of regions so maybe my perception is wrong. But as best I can tell, it seems like rurals will be providing a relatively smaller share of total food output, and a larger share of gold output.

[Anaris]

So, um... if the goal is less homogeneity...

How come cities largely have gold production nerfed and food production buffed, and reverse for rurals? Isn't that the opposite of what you wanted?

Obviously I'm just looking at a handful of regions so maybe my perception is wrong. But as best I can tell, it seems like rurals will be providing a relatively smaller share of total food output, and a larger share of gold output.

Um...actually, that's not, overall, what's happening.

Yes, cities will, in general, produce slightly more food, but they will also, in general, produce somewhat more gold. It's just that "in general" doesn't mean "universally."

[Dante Silverfire]

So, um... if the goal is less homogeneity...

How come cities largely have gold production nerfed and food production buffed, and reverse for rurals? Isn't that the opposite of what you wanted?

Obviously I'm just looking at a handful of regions so maybe my perception is wrong. But as best I can tell, it seems like rurals will be providing a relatively smaller share of total food output, and a larger share of gold output.

1. Your first problem is that this statement is based upon looking at current values. This change has NOTHING to do with what current values of gold and food are. This is due to those values being 100% arbitrary.

2. Secondly, I don't believe cities have "largely have gold production nerfed and food production buffed." In fact everything I have seen is that every city is affected differently. Some had both food and gold increased. Some lost in both food and gold, and some fit the bill that you indicated. Some had gold go up, with food going down. The idea is though that these changes have nothing to do with what was before.

3. A reason that food may be high in some cities is simply because they have a very large population value. If you have 60k peasants, you had better produce enough food to feed at least 5k people even if you are a city. If that means the very large city can produce enough food equal to a single small rural region, then that just makes sense to me, because it has over 10x the population.

[vonGenf]

How come cities largely have gold production nerfed and food production buffed, and reverse for rurals? Isn't that the opposite of what you wanted?

Obviously I'm just looking at a handful of regions so maybe my perception is wrong. But as best I can tell, it seems like rurals will be providing a relatively smaller share of total food output, and a larger share of gold output.

I had exactly the opposite perception at first. It depends a lot of where you look.

[Indirik]

The food produced by cities is generally irrelevant, with one or two notable exceptions. A 50% increase from "can feed itself for half a day" still only comes out to "can feed itself for 3/4ths of a day".

[Geronus]

This quote is from the Dwilight thread on the rebalance, but it seemed like a better idea to discuss my question here.

And every region that can support agriculture to that level can, in fact, feed itself.

...

Deserts and other badlands-type regions can, in general, also not feed themselves, because there just isn't enough good arable land there.

When you say 'Deserts and other badlands-type regions,' do you really mean regions with the badlands terrain type? Because there's a lot of those, and a fair number of them are poor, with some getting even poorer (though that does not appear to be universally true). I guess I would be concerned at the prospect of having to run a badlands region that is not only gold-poor but has to buy food on top of that to feed itself. Is this one of the problems you're considering how to address?

[Zakilevo]

Or maybe the Dev team is trying to make badland live up to its name? ;)

[Eldargard]

Regions that are near useless are not a problem in my opinion. If they are not worth maintaining, leave them rogue. It would not hurt, in my opinion, if there was a random rogue region here and there. The food price limit being upped or removed sounds great. I like the proposed change overall!

[Anaris]

Regions that are near useless are not a problem in my opinion.

There has been discussion on this, but in the end, the dev team has decided that we do not agree with this. We believe that while some regions will obviously be better than others, we do not believe there should be any regions that are truly worthless for a realm to hold.

[egamma]

Regions that are near useless are not a problem in my opinion. If they are not worth maintaining, leave them rogue. It would not hurt, in my opinion, if there was a random rogue region here and there. The food price limit being upped or removed sounds great. I like the proposed change overall!

Another option is to take a badlands region, set the taxes to 12% or some other low number, and then just abandon it--no lord, no knights. Let its gold--at 50% efficiency--go to the Duke of its duchy, and just ignore it otherwise.

[Geronus]

Another option is to take a badlands region, set the taxes to 12% or some other low number, and then just abandon it--no lord, no knights. Let its gold--at 50% efficiency--go to the Duke of its duchy, and just ignore it otherwise.

If they aren't food self-sufficient, this will be impossible.

Also I speculate that the Devs would take issue with this and, if it were happening on a wide scale, do something about it.

[jaune]

Overall, i dont like this, but like usually... i hate changes.

I would had have a bit diffrent approach on this fix, i would have try to make it so, that it has minimum impact on gold income. Find close by enough algorythm and then fix it close to current values by population.

This simply can change a lot powerbalance of certain areas on the game... and overall, it increases cap between rich south vs. sucky north.

-Jaune

[Eldargard]

There has been discussion on this, but in the end, the dev team has decided that we do not agree with this. We believe that while some regions will obviously be better than others, we do not believe there should be any regions that are truly worthless for a realm to hold.

That is fair. I think you guys are in the best position to make that call!