Tradeships, Trucks

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    • Tradeships, Trucks

      Ok, hear me out, this is, as best as I can tell a completely original idea. What if we fundamentally reworked how we exchanged goods in COW?

      The way my system would work is that we would get a new units, the truck. The truck would have the ability to carry goods or money. It can be produced by industrial complex 1. It would be relatively fast, with low atk and def. It would be one of the first units you unlock in the game, and could be upgraded for better speed, increased carrying capacity, and higher atk and def. It would cross the sea in the same manner as any other ground unit. It would be able to pass through any nation with a diplomatic status of peace and is blind, so it can't be used to gather intel.

      The way trading would work, is that the amount of goods you could trade, would be limited by the number of available trucks you have built. A truck that contains goods is not counted as available. Once a trade is agreed upon available trucks are sent from the two parties' capitols, the goods would be exchanged when a truck reached the other nation's capitol. Trucks can be attacked, and their goods can be seized. Trade deals can be broken at any time. Piracy is a viable way to make money. Controlling the fastest sea and land routes is a major political advantage. You know who you are trading with. The main draw back to this system is that goods would take days to change hands. But in a game where the average match can last several months, it's not a major draw back.

      MOSTLY what this system does is sacrifice some of the war-making value this game has, and concentrate more on the political aspects. I really think that the developers ignore a lot of the political possibilities this multiplayer RTS game has.

      PLEASE MAKE TRUCKS HAPPEN! :thumbsup:
    • Sir McSquiggles wrote:

      Person 1: "Please! I need food!"
      Person 2: "Dont worry lil buddy I got you!"
      Person 1: "Thanks!"

      *Eight days later the convoy arrives, only to find a smoldering ruin of what was once a country*

      Dun dun dunnnnnn
      "Yo man, I need metal"
      "Oh man, I see you're 4000 miles away, let me just instantly send you 10,000 steel."
      "If the tanks succeed, then victory follows."- H.Guderian

      "Hit first ! Hit hard ! Keep on hitting ! ! (The 3 H's)" Admiral Jackie Fisher

      "The 3 Requisites for Success – Ruthless, Relentless, Remorseless(The 3 R's)" Admiral Fisher

      Crates: a Term used to define any unwanted and unneeded feature in CoW

      Game Username: LordStark01
    • So...

      What is the actual time conversion for real time to game time? Anyone bothered to work that out?

      Is a day of real time a month of game time? Three months? It takes 32+ hours to build an aircraft carrier. Every hour a week of time in game?

      This might help us think about how fast that "instant" exchange of goods is.
    • Distance from Brest to Poitiers (from Google Maps) 485 km
      Speed of Inf (L3) in plains 25 km / hr

      This should take 19.4 hours.

      Actual measurement of travel time in game for Inf on above path is 6.3 hours.

      This is implying a 3x time factor for travel.

      Except a 3x time factor implies 6 days to build a L1 Factory, or 8 days to build a Battleship.

      There would seem to be some other factors at work here...
    • F. Marion wrote:

      Distance from Brest to Poitiers (from Google Maps) 485 km
      Speed of Inf (L3) in plains 25 km / hr

      This should take 19.4 hours.

      Actual measurement of travel time in game for Inf on above path is 6.3 hours.

      This is implying a 3x time factor for travel.

      Except a 3x time factor implies 6 days to build a L1 Factory, or 8 days to build a Battleship.

      There would seem to be some other factors at work here...
      Smart man! If the game were based off of real calculations, I can imagine realistically battles might drag on for days instead of hours. 8o X/ :/
    • This gets even more fun if we look at the tech tree developments (what year something is historically developed) compared to number of days in the game.

      Just looking at the Infantry tree...
      Day 1 - 1932 Infantry
      Day 4 - 1934 Infantry -> 3 days = 2 years
      Day 12 - 1938 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 20 - 1942 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 28 - 1946 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 36 - 1950 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years

      So if we ignore the Day 1 information we get 1 day Real Time (RT) is 6 months Game Time (GT). That runs a ratio of 180 : 1 GT/RT

      That 2 day RT factory build is 1 year GT. Almost makes sense.
      The build time for that battle ship 2d16h RT converts to 1y8m GT. Seems a bit fast.

      The USS New Jersey was ordered in 1 July 1939. She was commissioned and ready to fight on 23 May 1943. Almost 4 years later.

      More interestingly, the tech tree has the Iowa class BB become available on Day 38 or about 1951 according to the Infantry tech tree above.

      What about combat? It gets calculated every hour RT (15 mins RT for patrolling aircraft). That hourly schedule RT is effectively 7.5 days GT. Is this sensible? Well, the Battle of France ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France ) took 6 weeks. That would be 6 hours of RT. It seems like this game mechanic does allow for France to fall in a fashion that matches what happened historically. (This would be a minimal criteria for pretending this is a war game in the strictest sense of the word).

      Of course, I am also seeing a Submarine squadron take 2.5 days RT to move from N.America to Eastern Med. That would be more than a year for a vessel that theoretically is travelling at 36 km/hr.

      Time seems to be a very flexible thing in this game. The duration of any event, the time in the game when something becomes available, and the time-distance equations for travel all seem to use different ratios.

      Back to our OP and those trucks and cargo ships... if they had real speeds, distances and times, they would make the trip from Halifax to Liverpool (the HX convoy route) in about a week of time or one hour of RT.

      While I like the larger concept of representing trade routes along with the corollary of attacking or defending those routes, there is a lot of work to be done to make that a reasonable addition to the game and it is not clear that it would have a large impact on improving play.

      Key in all of this is we are playing a game. It is a "war game" only in the loosest of terms. The simple investigation of time lines, unit availability and travel distances shows this game is not anywhere near physics based.
    • F. Marion wrote:

      This gets even more fun if we look at the tech tree developments (what year something is historically developed) compared to number of days in the game.

      Just looking at the Infantry tree...
      Day 1 - 1932 Infantry
      Day 4 - 1934 Infantry -> 3 days = 2 years
      Day 12 - 1938 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 20 - 1942 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 28 - 1946 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years
      Day 36 - 1950 Infantry -> 8 days = 4 years

      So if we ignore the Day 1 information we get 1 day Real Time (RT) is 6 months Game Time (GT). That runs a ratio of 180 : 1 GT/RT

      That 2 day RT factory build is 1 year GT. Almost makes sense.
      The build time for that battle ship 2d16h RT converts to 1y8m GT. Seems a bit fast.

      The USS New Jersey was ordered in 1 July 1939. She was commissioned and ready to fight on 23 May 1943. Almost 4 years later.

      More interestingly, the tech tree has the Iowa class BB become available on Day 38 or about 1951 according to the Infantry tech tree above.

      What about combat? It gets calculated every hour RT (15 mins RT for patrolling aircraft). That hourly schedule RT is effectively 7.5 days GT. Is this sensible? Well, the Battle of France ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France ) took 6 weeks. That would be 6 hours of RT. It seems like this game mechanic does allow for France to fall in a fashion that matches what happened historically. (This would be a minimal criteria for pretending this is a war game in the strictest sense of the word).

      Of course, I am also seeing a Submarine squadron take 2.5 days RT to move from N.America to Eastern Med. That would be more than a year for a vessel that theoretically is travelling at 36 km/hr.

      Time seems to be a very flexible thing in this game. The duration of any event, the time in the game when something becomes available, and the time-distance equations for travel all seem to use different ratios.

      Back to our OP and those trucks and cargo ships... if they had real speeds, distances and times, they would make the trip from Halifax to Liverpool (the HX convoy route) in about a week of time or one hour of RT.

      While I like the larger concept of representing trade routes along with the corollary of attacking or defending those routes, there is a lot of work to be done to make that a reasonable addition to the game and it is not clear that it would have a large impact on improving play.

      Key in all of this is we are playing a game. It is a "war game" only in the loosest of terms. The simple investigation of time lines, unit availability and travel distances shows this game is not anywhere near physics based.
      Give this man High-command, and also, this gives me an idea for a 'realistic' game type using what he's said...but you know, not taking years to do
      "If the tanks succeed, then victory follows."- H.Guderian

      "Hit first ! Hit hard ! Keep on hitting ! ! (The 3 H's)" Admiral Jackie Fisher

      "The 3 Requisites for Success – Ruthless, Relentless, Remorseless(The 3 R's)" Admiral Fisher

      Crates: a Term used to define any unwanted and unneeded feature in CoW

      Game Username: LordStark01