Decay of infrastructure from lack of population

[Galvez]

#Annoying.. Tons of investments (ok, not that much), but a lot of gold has been wasted becuase our infrastructure breaks down. Everything we built seems to dissappear. Recruitment centres, armour/weapon smith, house of healing and what not. I don't understand it, while our production might be low, we have enough gold to pay for the maintenance for these buildings. Does anyone know why this happens?

[Peri]

#Annoying.. Tons of investments (ok, not that much), but a lot of gold has been wasted becuase our infrastructure breaks down. Everything we built seems to dissappear. Recruitment centres, armour/weapon smith, house of healing and what not. I don't understand it, while our production might be low, we have enough gold to pay for the maintenance for these buildings. Does anyone know why this happens?

I think the code works as to inflict damage on every building if production is not at least a certain absolute amount. I really don't like this: the threshold should be set as a function of the maximum production achievable given the population.

Low production with high population means degraded infrastructures and badly taken care of structures, and this can rightfully lead to building damage. But low production just because there is little population, to me, means that vast areas of the region are left wild due to lack of manpower, but the few inhabited zones are well taken care of. I believe there should be no damage in the latter case.

Usually one can avoid losing a very nice RC by keeping it at lvl 2. When it reaches 100% damage it should just lose a level and not lose the entire building, but still it's a painful waste of money.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Low population.

[Bael]

#Annoying.. Tons of investments (ok, not that much), but a lot of gold has been wasted becuase our infrastructure breaks down. Everything we built seems to dissappear. Recruitment centres, armour/weapon smith, house of healing and what not. I don't understand it, while our production might be low, we have enough gold to pay for the maintenance for these buildings. Does anyone know why this happens?

Ah yes, I was wondering if you/your character knew about this. Brackern was in Ordenstaat once or twice, and got reports from there another few times. They had a range 4, 85/55 archer center. Sweet! Unfortunately it also fell apart. Took me a while to figure out how that happened. Now I saw your barracks disappear in Rettleville, just confirmed my theory.

Which was pretty much what has already been said

And yes, I find it somewhat silly that one cannot repair the center if given (enough) gold. Unless it is a matter of there not being enough labour to effect the repairs (or something).

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Exactly. Haven't you paid attention to the times when you can't do civil work or organize repairs, stating that infrastructure is the best it can be for this population? Or when the daily region reports state lowered manpower drains production? As always, it doesn't matter how rich you are. Gold is just a pretty element if you don't have the labor to do something practical in exchange for the gold.

[Bael]

Exactly. Haven't you paid attention to the times when you can't do civil work or organize repairs, stating that infrastructure is the best it can be for this population? Or when the daily region reports state lowered manpower drains production? As always, it doesn't matter how rich you are. Gold is just a pretty element if you don't have the labor to do something practical in exchange for the gold.

Sure, but how many people would it take to repair and maintain a few buildings? If the resources and labour can be found for it to be built, it can be maintained. Same argument for necessary expertise.

Rather make it impossible to build the stuff below a certain percentage production or a certain population, and then if one or both drop below that, then make them take damage.

[Vellos]

As was noted, if you bump it up to level 2, you should be fine, you just have to keep it at level 2. As soon as it downgrades, upgrade it again.

[Galvez]

I know that medieval buildings aren't as architectural advanced as modern buildings, but it makes no sense that the buildings would fall apart due to low population. And the maintenance cost most likely include payments as well, as otherwise the costs are ridiculously high for just the upkeep of a building each week. And is it population or production related? Because of the 1500 commoners in Rettleville, you aren't going to tell me that non of them is a blacksmith. And with the same production, but given a bigger city, e.g. Giask, you would have around 11.500 commoners at the same productivity level.

I can understand that the infrastructure would not run at full capacity due to lowered population, but that the buildings would 'disappear' is just unrealistic. And I hope one of the devs can take a look at it.

[Galvez]

As was noted, if you bump it up to level 2, you should be fine, you just have to keep it at level 2. As soon as it downgrades, upgrade it again.

We do not have the gold for such continues investments, and I am certain that Hireshmont shouldn't want to finance that for us as well.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I don't know what it would be "realistically", but I'm going to say that it works out in terms of a strategy game. An invading army could do some damage while they're in the region, but the deaths they cause, and the fear and other lasting impacts will leave a place in ruins. Likewise, your peasants of Rettleville have been living in fear of monsters for a long time, and have seen their former human noble rulers fail them. Realistic or not, this does make sense, in a twisted way on Dwilight. Don't go for a new place unless you have a buddy to protect you while you build up population to maintain your investments. Don't like it? Well, there are over a dozen realms on Dwilight. Downsizing the number of human realms isn't a big deal.

[Galvez]

Don't go for a new place unless you have a buddy to protect you while you build up population to maintain your investments.

Our walls and own troops are very sufficient in keeping the monsters out of Rettleville, and we have Terran and D'Hara add our side to protect us.
But that the buildings disappear just doesn't sound logical, nor realistic. I know you can't do anything about it, but I do not appreciate the attitude; "Don't like it, then just abandon Barca."

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Tch, that is not what I said.

I said: Don't go for it in the first place if you can't be protected. And there's a good reason I said that.

Why do you need outside help? Because you didn't build your own RCs because you know they will disappear before they can hit the necessary population to remain stable! It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

To summarize: If you can't get help before you make the realm, don't make the realm in the first place unless you're really that intent on it. Once you do set up the realm though, and it has very low population that will remain so for a while, and you have outside support to protect you (note the "and", which implies conjunction, meaning both conditions must be true), then you should refrain from building anything if you're really that worried about decay. That's why you have your buddies protecting you while you get to the point where you can safely keep your own facilities. It doesn't mean you have to wait until you hit the necessary number. You can even time it if you are that diligent such that your RCs and whatnot get to be about 90% damaged by the time you hit the "stable/repair point".

That was what I suggested, by far not to abandon it. Rather, it was to think a little about how to lessen the damage if you cared about it.

[vonGenf]

Still, I think it would make sense if a region with 5'000 commoners could fitted out like a rural region with max 5'000 peasants. It doesn't matter if there is room for 95'000 commoners in the city.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Yeah, if you have enough people to fit some town in Montana you still can't run New York City, not even in part, nor as some strange analogue of that Montana town. There's this thing called infrastructure that is not very good with being forced to operate differently. A city planner, or civil engineer, could give a heck lot better talk than me, but the end point is that, generally speaking, there is a certain cut-off point for the type of sectors you have. Er, in other words, no, having 5000 people who can work fields in some rural region does not mean you can run your city like that. For one thing, there's a lot more to run in a city to make it satisfy the minimum...level. Yeah, my technical language in this is lacking, meh. Maybe Medieval towns could downsize, who knows. But the "does it make sense" part can run both ways.

And if nothing else, it's a game mechanic that basically says, "Dude, use your brain before you take actions."

[vonGenf]

But that's exactly what I mean. 5'000 pop rurals can withstand recruitment centers; why can't "cities" do so unless they're full?

It would make sense that a city can only hold level 1 RCs when it's small, and can hold bigger and bigger RC's when they get bigger. It doesn't make sense that the lvl 1 RC falls apart only because there is room left in the city.

And I know not everything has to make sense; I'm just pointing out that it would.