Imagine a mod where all the barracks and stables upgrades are exactly as and where they are. Except, the Blacksmith, which has lots of spare slots currently, also offers consolidated upgrades. Thus a player could upgrade in the barracks or stables as they do now. Or a player could use the consolidated slots in the Blacksmith. The consolidated slots would combine attack and defence. They would also combine 6 upgrades of each (usually) into just 3. Thus 12 upgrades come down to just 3 in the blacksmith. You would get two attack upgrades and two defence upgrades in one click from one button in the Blacksmith and you would pay the correct total price. The two modes of upgrade would have to complement each other and not interfere with each other. This would take some good design and good programming. (1) If you run a consolidated upgrade in the blacksmith then it and the relevant barracks upgrades should progress to the next correct ones available. (2) If you run a barracks upgrade, then you are committed to doing the full lot of that set of upgrades in the barracks (up to the next set) so that one blacksmith slot would go greyed out until the barracks set is complete. What is a "set" in this situation? A "set" is two attack and two defense upgrades. For example, if you do one pike upgrade in the barracks then you are committed to finishing that set in the barracks (namely 3 more). The icon for that set in the blacksmith would be greyed out. If you finish that set of upgrades in the barracks then the blacksmith icon for the next set, the next two attack and defence upgrades, will become available in the blacksmith. This system would let people run upgrades separately in the Barracks or as sets (of 2 attack and 2 defence upgrades) in the Blacksmith. It would even permit people to switch between the two modes, albeit with some limitations. If players do not want to change the way they run upgrades they don't have to. They just keep using the barracks and stables for upgrades. If a player does want to use consolidated upgrades then he uses them in the blacksmith; the resource costs and also the time costs would be added together in this case. Just wondering what people think of this idea and if it would be difficult to do. Any opinions?
The effort vs payoff for this sounds ridiculously skewed. No idea why i would want to implement something like this. I would rather try and make it so that a military building can run multiple upgrades at the same time WHILE it is also creating units.
Long games in OCMOD3 entail a lot of upgrades. The game now has 12 upgrades (six attack and six defense) for almost every unit plus all the economic upgrades and military upgrades in academy and blacksmith. That is a LOT of upgrades. My suggestion, while hard work for the modder, would make life easier for the player if it worked correctly. In peacetime games, for example, 3 clicks instead of 12 clicks get you the upgrades for a unit. But you could still do it the standard way if you wanted to. Of course, I am just kicking around this idea at the moment.
thats a good idea. As balance increase the update time much longer. right now it is go to enemy, retreat, perform upgrade, attack, enemy does the same. If the upgrades would take 1+ min like in most games the player wouldnt retreat constantly and attack more often. But if the upgrades would take 1+ min and you cant train units at the same time russia would be totally OP.
At the OC website, in a members only area, there is a long discussion about Russia. We will see what develops. There is so much that can be done in modding a flawed game, but is a burden on the backs of a very few people with the skill and foresight to carry it through.
