CotN Alexandria - things that MUST be done by the Devs !!!!

[aztec11us]

Hello

<<< this is mostly a letter to the developers of COTN >>>

i m a long time fan of Egypt, and having played Pharaoh and Pharaoh Cleopatra alot, i also tried COTN and fell inlove with it

after getting the upgrade (which went smooth actually), problems started in game !

i m talking about the Artifical Intelligence governing barge landings !
as well as other things

its downright outrageous how bugged some things are

i made them before opening any trade routes, clearing forest and roads, but NOTHING !

for all us, those who love Egypt and your game ....
please do the following to the game:

1) streamling the A.I. governing barges and water routes ... take notes from Pharaoh game !
solve the friggin annoying bugs allready !!!
let 1 barge landing be enough for 10 trade routes, even if somewhat crowded !
then, if user has 2 - 3 barge landings, water routes should work like clockwork !!!
take queue from Pharaoh Cleopatra !

2) one of the big problems is LACK OF CONTROL the user has over the process of gathering resources !
basicly, its all up to the people, but sometimes they wont collect the needed stuff
make the A.I. know better what to collect

3) allow user to place farms, similar in Pharaoh, and designate workers for them and from here, send resources to bakers and granaries as usual
since bread is so vital
this is to streamline the process of gathering food !
IDEA: regarding farmers, give option to right-click and select: harvest for bread, for material X, Y etc, plant X farm

4) make Overseers, priests, scribes ( educated people) alot more capable !
in Pharaoh, educated people were very efficient at their tasks !
Overseers - even when one such educated is overseeing, the pace of construction is little different then without one !
with one, the user should see a good improvement over the speed of any task beeing watched by an overseer, at least at a particular task he assings that overseer for)

I m sorry if i offended you all, by comparing COTN with Pharaoh, but that game, despite its obvious flaws (worst one beeing its rigidity), has a very streamlined A.I.
In particular, trade routes (land and water), food distribution and task management are extremely effective

While i do understand COTN simulates reality and in reality things dont always go as planned....however, far too many things in COTN, far too often, even Alexandria, go wrong ( or not at all...)

Please do learn from Pharaoh and give user the ability to focus on something (add more right lick menus)

thats it ....sorry it took such a long message

[Tinkerbell]

Howdy, aztec11us!

1) Nothing wrong with trade routes in COTN. Nothing at all.

2) Resource gatherers in COTN collect stuff just fine, thank you very much.

3) COTN farmers rock just as they are.

4) This is not Pharaoh. Our people have many different things to do each day. They are not mindless single-minded robots like in Pharaoh. They behave like real people with their own wants & needs.

Be one with the game, my friend. It you expect COTN to play like Pharaoh, you will have problems. :)

[Keith]

It takes a while to get used to the way things in CotN/Alexandria work when coming from the old game of Pharaoh/Cleopatra.

I liked Pharaoh, but now I would say I prefer the CotN way of doing things. I guess I would say that CotN is just more "organic" in the way things are carried out.

[aztec11us]

thaks both...

but after playing the original for about 4 months the hard core way, those bugs were clear as daylight

and what was truly mind-boggling .... SAME way of doing things (houses, educated etc) HAD different RADICAL results on SAME scenario, allmost as many times as i played it !!!

this aint right ! no matter how you put it ! ... people dont do same thing 100 % radically different, if they repeat it 10 times over!

KEITH..you are right, but an organic way of doing things is consistent ! CoTn wasnt ! * the original..and to a lesse degree, Alexandria

ofcourse, after posting these posts, i found out others have similar issues with trade routes and a few other things....

more tests i ll conduct today

but they really could use more to the point explanations (as opposed to half a page of collateral topics) and even images with placing buildings !!!

in a game of such complexity ( which is good ofc), simplicity in learning is vital !

take a queue from Starcraft or Pharaoh ( alot of complexity ,,masked'' by extremlly well thought simplicity in both learning and playing)

read my other alexandria post to see how a topic and building placement should be like ...

topic - 2 phrases at most on any page for the needed topic, all related issues hidden behind a ,,more'' or ,,related topics'' button

building placement - nearly as easy as in Pharaoh ( barge landings expecially)
( open a topic if you think i speak stupid ..in over 95 % cases, you ll see i m right)

there is no immage in tutorials showing complex operations via simple schemes.

i think, during learning it, i spend more time reading those 2 page long topics on even the simplest of subjects, rather than playing

wonderful game, but trust me when i tell you...
there are LOTS more people who would like it, but simply dont have the time to sift through the equivalent of 2 full text pages for the simplest of topics

my best friend loved its looks and complexity, but he was also surprised ( in a bad way) how hard to set up some things are !

the player should be concerned with making sure things go smooth, not struggling to place buildings or compensating for faulty A.I. ( thats the dev's job)

care to guess how many were turned off by this fact ?!
( which is sad, as this game deserved alot more fame than Pharaoh !)

and if you think i m still full of it, read the reviews ( gamespot and others)

[sakasiru]

Um, have you played the tutorials? They teach you everything you need to know.

Sure your people behave differently, that's the fun in it. They will need food and wares, sometimes healthcare, sometimes they want to pray, make party, whatever. If you provide them with the possibilities to satisfy their needs, they will take care of that and then go back to work. This is the basic idea.

Now to your points:

1.) I really don't understand your barque problem. If you have 2-3 landings, you shouldn't have problems to receive wares from 4-6 sites. If they don't come in, you maybe have trouble paying the upkeep.

2.) What exactly are the ressources you have trouble gathering? Shopkeepers and brickmakers/ papyrusmakers gather what they need as long as it is on the map. Only quarries and mines need laborers and overseers assigned to gather the ressources.

3.) this point is completely weird. Harvested food gets transported into the bakeries automatically. There can't go anything wrong as long as you have enough food an bakeries. Farmers are for planting and harvesting food. You don't need to assign them, they simply do. The other ressources are gathered by those who need them. I think you feel the need to take influence in this, but really, you don't need to. Your people aren't dumb. They know what they need, and they will take care for it themselves. If you feel they could be faster, help them by placing them near their ressources and place all they need (shrines, healthcare, shops) around them. You won't have to micromanage the production ans distribution of (say) baskets to your households in this game. Just place enough basket shops and care about the things you (as the paharoh) are really intereasted in, like building pyramids. ;)


4.) Your laborers do absolutely nothing when no overseer is assigned to a task, so there is a difference. ;) If they don't work fast enough, try to watch them. What do they do while not working? Do they have to walk miles for a little prayer in a shrine, and do they have to walk across half the map to get their food from a bakery and then again across the other half to buy wares? What does their people report say? Are they happy, or are they missing something? Take care so that they can satisfy their dayly needs fast, and then they will have time for the rest of the day to do whatever you assigned them to.


Please think yourself as the pharaoh who can order people to do something, but also think your CotNizens as beings who think for themselves and try to get the things they need to live in the first place. If you care for them, they care for your tasks, and everything will run smoothly. There's nothing wrong with the AI, only than it doesn't behave like in other city building games like in Paharoh.

Please consider to (re)play the tutorials, most of your problems seem to come from not understanding the game mechanics.

[aztec11us]

1) i played legitimally to open trade routes and the 3 barges were made LOGN BEFORE opening routes ( right at start, as i read somewhere else, there was a bug)

still didnt work, 2 hours later !!!

also, initially, the upkeep was legitimmaly earned and paid, but to no avail !
hence the cheating, to give some fuel...still no effect....

2) sadly, i wish to answer to the point, but this game seems to lack a simple, yet powerfull full industrial overview as in Pharaoh
( if you recall, in Pharaoh you knew instantly, who, where, what and how much was mining. Also, once could extremely easily ORDER to stockpile resources in case of necesity. here, COTN loses alot...these small tools would have been invaluable assets)

as an idea, they could have been give to the Overseers ( i.e. right click...oversee industry and commerce, stockpile or export surpluses etc)

there are no such features in COTN and this makes it hard (if not impossible at times) to accurately say who, where, what gathers

this can (and for those who arent super-gods at playing this game, it really does) lead to a severe problem ... lack of resources in a vital area, that the user only knows about it, often too late

3) ok, lets admit here you are right :)

4) here i wish to fully agree with you, yet i cant
in another scenario, RA, all the needed shops, luxury shops, religios shrines etc WERE just 2 - 3 streets away from laborers and servants and plenty were near farmers to satisfy them also

cant exen express the frustration of seeing things not moving for over 1.45 HRS, despite all the necessities beeing right near the people!

later, i saw a forum poster complain about the exact same thing .... utilies all near, yet people still having a low randament with overseer

its interesting to notice...i had 1 priest only for a long tiem at start, yet that 1 priest easily trained 2 educated people and took care of 3 -4 shrines and even a temple !!! all in under 40 min !

in same time, 2 overseers could not even fully finish building buildings NEAR them !!! ( had some stuff, i.e. entertainer etc), despite them BOTH beeing set to oversee construtioncs ( alternating with nearest site)

i dont need to be a MIT genius to see that a priest is much better written from the A.I. point of vue then either overseer or barge !
( given similar conditions and areas to cover!)

and my priest was solo for a long time!
the overseer had labor force! :(


HINT TO THE DEVS
Make a new patch, make cheating impossible ( remove ALL Cheats, if they screw up the A.I. no point in having them), BUT greatly streamline ALL the A.I. !

its still a GAME....user should NOT need 2 hrs +, to get something okish done and he should NOT have to dodge bugs !
( 2 hrs of regular play should be enough to get a okish city up with small pyramid)

i rather play ALWAYS without, but not have to worry about bugs, then with them and with bugs

[sakasiru]

its still a GAME....user should NOT need 2 hrs +, to get something okish done and he should NOT have to dodge bugs !
( 2 hrs of regular play should be enough to get a okish city up with small pyramid)

It's a city builder. They take time, because, after all, it's the whole game watching your city to grow. Why should it be over in half an hour?
You *can* build a city with a pyramid in that time in the right scenario, however, but it needs experience.


i rather play ALWAYS without, but not have to worry about bugs, then with them and with bugs

There are really few bugs in this game. Most of them, you didn't seem to have come across yet. ;) Your problems are not caused by bugs, but by being too hasty, cheating and unexperienced building. Sorry, but that's true. Look at the save Tinkerbell made from your city and watch how your people behave in that, it's the same game, but a layout that works. No bugs at all. No AI fault either.

[Tinkerbell]

The Bliss of COTN is that it is NOT a spreadsheetable game. Under different circumstances, it WILL change its behaviour.

This has to do with the fact that the game is impossible to lose. Where in Pharaoh, for example, you will get a loss; in COTN, you will trigger the Tipping Point™ & the game will change.

For a fuller understanding to onlookers of this thread, please see aztec11us' other thread that clearly shows that the complaints are due to a lack of understanding COTN ==> Children of Nile - Alexandria - BARGE and IMPORT help (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25187)

PS ~ With clever use of the COTN Editor, I can make you lose. Easily. ;)

[sakasiru]

1) i played legitimally to open trade routes and the 3 barges were made LOGN BEFORE opening routes ( right at start, as i read somewhere else, there was a bug)

still didnt work, 2 hours later !!!

also, initially, the upkeep was legitimmaly earned and paid, but to no avail !
hence the cheating, to give some fuel...still no effect....


Okay, I just now looked into your savegame, and what should I say?

1.) Your trade routes (both that are opened) are land trade routes! They don't even need landings, they come by donkey, and they are working. :rolleyes:
31439 31440

2.) You are getting every wares you traded for regularly, even without me changing anything in your city...



2) sadly, i wish to answer to the point, but this game seems to lack a simple, yet powerfull full industrial overview as in Pharaoh
( if you recall, in Pharaoh you knew instantly, who, where, what and how much was mining. Also, once could extremely easily ORDER to stockpile resources in case of necesity. here, COTN loses alot...these small tools would have been invaluable assets)

Yeah, well, as long as you don't cheat, your report says how much of every item that you can trade (and influence) you have, you can also stock them there for export so they aren't used up by your people. In your world map, you can see how much of everything you import and export.



as an idea, they could have been give to the Overseers ( i.e. right click...oversee industry and commerce, stockpile or export surpluses etc)

there are no such features in COTN and this makes it hard (if not impossible at times) to accurately say who, where, what gathers

You have them, you just don't seem to know them. ;) You also have the possibilities to stockpile items and to decide to open and close trade routes as you see fit. You don't need overseers to do that, you can do it yourself.

As to your problem with overseers: You have far mor educate buildings than educates, so it's no wonder noone does what you assigned the empty houses to do...


this can (and for those who arent super-gods at playing this game, it really does) lead to a severe problem ... lack of resources in a vital area, that the user only knows about it, often too late

If you build up a city one thing at a time, you will see what is still missing. But it seems you built your city by randomly placing buildings without ever asking yourself if there are enough of them, whether they are attended to, etc. You have NO Hathor and NO Hapi shrines, you have 3 apothecaries of which none is active, you have 11 priests houses but only 6 priests, 3/7 overseers only, way too few farmers, way too many servants, no entertainers, no courtyard, and a total of 7 common shops while your people are screaming for wares. Oh, and your buildings aren't turned properly. It's a wonder your city is still green as it is...

I'm not a super-god at playing this game, but I can tell you, if you check regularly what your people want, you would see where there is lack of something long before your city reaches this size.




4) here i wish to fully agree with you, yet i cant
in another scenario, RA, all the needed shops, luxury shops, religios shrines etc WERE just 2 - 3 streets away from laborers and servants and plenty were near farmers to satisfy them also

cant exen express the frustration of seeing things not moving for over 1.45 HRS, despite all the necessities beeing right near the people!

Can you upload this gamesave also? Along with some description what they should do and don't do?


later, i saw a forum poster complain about the exact same thing .... utilies all near, yet people still having a low randament with overseer

Have you read the answers to that post? Usually, we can get their cities to run, and it's almost always a user error that caused the mess.


its interesting to notice...i had 1 priest only for a long tiem at start, yet that 1 priest easily trained 2 educated people and took care of 3 -4 shrines and even a temple !!! all in under 40 min !

in same time, 2 overseers could not even fully finish building buildings NEAR them !!! ( had some stuff, i.e. entertainer etc), despite them BOTH beeing set to oversee construtioncs ( alternating with nearest site)

Priests are super-people in this game. You can't do anything wrong with them, they never complain, never go angry even if you let them starve. It's no wonder TM made not every CotNizen like this, elese there were no point in fulfilling the needs of them at all ;)


i dont need to be a MIT genius to see that a priest is much better written from the A.I. point of vue then either overseer or barge !

No, they are just made easier to handle because they are so vital to the city. Overseers are for later; when everything is running fine, you can start to make your city and monuments pretty ;)

[aztec11us]

trust me...that scenario also has water routes !

i lose them ofcourse, since after a while when one cannot receive goods via water, route closes

(that and the fact i no longer sent any upkeep, no point in doing so, as it would be a waste)

scenario is Daughter of Isis and i has water routes also

[aztec11us]

sadly, that old city of RA was deleted as i needed to do a clean install and re-install for alexandria update


what is of note however.... if really should NOT be so easy for a player to mess things up !

how about: remove ALL cheats BUT....install a auto-advisor ( kinda like in chess) to give an automated advice, if asked for ?!

i.e. suggestion: recommend more farmers close to water
suggestion: recommend let the city run a while like it is
suggestion: recommend make 2 priests for gods etc
suggestion: recommend more/ fewer servants etc

just general suggestions ofcourse...

after all, didnt Pharaohs had personal advisors ?! ( RETORIC: ofcourse they did...they certainly didnt ran things all by themselves)

[sakasiru]

trust me...that scenario also has water routes !

i lose them ofcourse, since after a while when one cannot receive goods via water, route closes

(that and the fact i no longer sent any upkeep, no point in doing so, as it would be a waste)

scenario is Daughter of Isis and i has water routes also

Yes, found them and tested them. They were never opened in your save yet, so I assumed that was an error. They didn't close through no upkeep, though. Sites with no upkeep refuse to send, and you can suspend them, but they never close once opened.

I openes the Abu route and the shipments got lost. I found a place at the end of the floodplain that worked as landing. The planks have to reach into deep water a bit more than on the landings you had. Try to always use spots with little or no floodplain in front of it.

No AI problems, though, just wrongly placed landings.

[sakasiru]

what is of note however.... if really should NOT be so easy for a player to mess things up !

how about: remove ALL cheats


LOL, you blame the game that cheats don't work properly? :p


BUT....install a auto-advisor ( kinda like in chess) to give an automated advice, if asked for ?!

i.e. suggestion: recommend more farmers close to water
suggestion: recommend let the city run a while like it is
suggestion: recommend make 2 priests for gods etc
suggestion: recommend more/ fewer servants etc



If you click on any house in the game, it has a coulpe of icons that tell you what it needs. If you place your mouse over these icons, they tell you where the problem might come from and tells you ways to make it better.

For all the things you mentioned above, you can also find answers by playing the tutorial and/or just playing slowly and checking around your people what they need next.

There won't be any advices as to how far buildings can be placed or how many of which you need, because it alsways depends on the map and it also has a wide variety. In a samll city, you can place anything between 4 and 12 sets of common shops, and they will work, What kind of advice should the game give you for that? It already tells you if there aren't enough, and if your shopkeepers are starving, there are too many. So, what else do you need?

[Tinkerbell]

sakasiru, aztec11us' problem in the save is from Abu by water. Check the message log. This is the World Map site I fixed in the other thread & even posted a save whe I fixed it.

Originally, he/she had several problems due to lack of food upkeep & sites closed. As did Abu.

The save is broken from illegal cheat codes/mods, but I fixed most of it. :D

[sakasiru]

sakasiru, aztec11us' problem in the save is from Abu by water. Check the message log. This is the World Map site I fixed in the other thread & even posted a save whe I fixed it.

Originally, he/she had several problems due to lack of food upkeep & sites closed. As did Abu.

The save is broken from illegal cheat codes/mods, but I fixed most of it. :D

I seem to have missed the fact that sites close when they don't get upkeep. I normally close them before I can't pay them-

I fixed most of the stuff too, and was testing if I could move some statues lately, but didn't get them to move. There is an import site in the south I wanted to try, but since it's all not the OP's fault but the fault of the bad game AI ;) , I don't think I want to play with that mess any longer...

[Tinkerbell]

Nothing wrong with the game AI. Nothing at all. This is the point.

The save is broken by cheating. Draw no conclusions from it.

...but I DID have fun with it...Labs always do...