In the many economy discussions we've been having, Workers (population) are a common topic...



What's Wrong With Workers?



Too Flexible - Workers can produce anything at anytime. While this is flexible to us players, it reduces the importance of planning in developing your city. If you can switch to Science at will, it doesn't matter that you developed your city to be a Dust producer.









Too Generous - The base flat output of 4 (2 for Influence) means that ~3 workers focused on a single FIDSI will likely be bigger than any other source in your city. Tech/Empire Plan/Governor bonuses raise this higher. This reduces the value of city placement as terrain-based FIDSI is too small of a source. This also devalues situational FIDSI techs like Dust Dredger later in the game. Why invest in a situational terrain-based tech when workers are more valuable?



Too Easy - Getting population in a city to the point where they become the primary source of FIDSI in a city takes a few turns (faster if you can quickly build Seed Storage or apply Food Stockpiles). The upkeep on population is also very easy to maintain.



Tedious Management - "Optimal" play requires players to regularly shift workers' FIDSI focus to optimize output. While placing the workers is interesting, shifting them around every turn is not fun.



Suggestions



Here's some ideas collected from other discussions. Not intended to be "implement all of these"...



I've attempted to credit suggester wherever possible...



Worker Caps - (Previously suggested here) This concept involves putting limits on the number of workers you can put into a certain category. The limit can be determined by City Improvements and/or # of Districts and modified by Governors, Empire Plan, etc.











Worker Requirement for Improvements - (As suggested by DevilDogFF) Some/all buildings would require one or more workers to function. This limits the worker pool.



Workers as Harvesters - In this scheme workers no longer generate any FIDSI themselves but act as a limiter on the amount of FIDSI the other sources can generate











This is probably the most drastic change as workers are no longer a source.



Efficiency Modifier - If too many workers are assigned to a certain FIDSI, the output per worker drops. This solution is pretty math heavy and may have already been considered.



Reduce Output - Halve the base worker output and adjust some of the worker bonuses given by Governers/Empire Plan/Techs so that Workers are not as generous. This is likely the easiest change for AMPLITUDE to make but it only solves the "Too Generous" problem.



Specialists - Assign "specialties" to individual workers so they focus on certain FIDSI. Specialists can be reassigned to other FIDSI, but would produce less.

Yes! Many of the problems with the economy stem from the easy availability (and flexibility) of fids from workers.



One thing I would add that was only touched upon - current food requirement per worker growth makes getting your first few workers laughably easy, but makes later workers (10+) require absurd amounts of food and effort.



As for how to fix it...most of the suggestions are pretty good. I would rather see any cap on buildings be a softcap due to increased upkeep rather than a hardcap by assigning workers. On the other hand, perhaps workers could 'boost' the output of a building (so at least some benefit is derived if no worker), or a worker could be assigned to an anomaly to provide a city-wide bonus to trade/influence / fids per pop / etc. Combine this with a moderately reduced output in fids/pop from base workers, and the choice would be more flexible but less powerful general workforce, or have workers be more powerful (but specialized) in buildings/anomalies.

The flexibility and tedium are probably the worst issues here. As you pointed out, it takes absolutely no effort to turn a gold mine into a research center. Yet finding the right balance between growth and industry is a tedious effort of shifting a few workers around. Terrain, on the other hand, hardly seems to matter.



Limiting the output of tiles by workers assigned to a FIDSI may be one solution. On the other hand, the output of tiles might limit the amount of workers that can (efficiently) work one yield. Both may be difficult to teach to the AI, though (which seems to be the main reason the Population Efficiency Limit has been removed).



I'm almost tempted to say we need to attach an approval penalty to each point of population just to make large populations less attractive for FIDSI generation. That would only be a bandaid to the problem, though.

I really like the idea of "Workers Required for Improvements" cuz it might help solve the problem of the "Build everything mentality" discussed previously cuz you are less motivated to build everything quickly in low population cities unless you grow them properly first.



But I'm a little worried about the idea of Worker Caps, cuz it will actually become a huge handicap for some Factions especially Broken Lords. Right now most of my workers in BL are assigned to either Industry or Dust (for example 6+3 or more/variation). I would occasionally swap them around into Science but it's not as useful en masse as Industry or Dust.



So, my personal vote is:

YES for "Workers for improvement function"

Meh for "Worker caps"



Finally, the "Workers as Harvesters" idea sounds reasonable in theory, but I think it needs to be tested directly first.. somehow



EDIT: btw, "Worker required for Improvements" will make the Food resource even MORE important than before, and it is already extremely vital right now. So if your starting province has low Food potential (or Dust for BL), that's gonna be a considerable handicap...

KrimsonVagus wrote:
Finally, the "Workers as Harvesters" idea sounds reasonable in theory, but I think it needs to be tested directly first.. somehow

Ask, and you shall receive.

WorkerModifications.zip





After poking around in the XMLs all day, I've slapped together some experimental files, so I an others can experiment with this. To install, just replace the relevant files in [EndlessLegendFolder]/Public/Simulation (After backing up the original, of course)

WARNING: These files are in no way endorsed or verified by Amplitude studios. Use them at your own risk, and responsibly. Back up your game files, just in case. As you have been warned, please do not hold me or Amplitude studios responsible for any damage to your save games, game, or anything else.



An overview of the changes in the different files:

• DepartmentOfIndustry+Constructibles[CityImprovement] - PopCost: Most City Improvements will cost 1 population point to construct, like Settlers. This is done to simulate assigning a worker to them, as I can not create a new column for building maintenance.
• SimulationDescriptors[CityImprovement] - Food Upkeep: File to be used with SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 1Food Upkeep or SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 2Food Upkeep.
• SimulationDescriptors[CityImprovement] - Lowered Workers: All Workers only produce a base yield of 1 (except Food workers, which have base yield of 3 so they produce 1 excess food). Most "Per Population" Improvements improve these yields by 1. (Faction specific buildings and Empire Plan unaffected.)
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 1Food Upkeep: All buildings require 1 Food per turn in upkeep, to simulate assigning workers to them.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 2Food Upkeep: All buildings require 2 Food per turn in upkeep, to simulate assigning workers to them.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - TileToWorkerYield: Per Population yields increase by 10% of total tile yields.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - WorkerLimitTile: FIDS Per Population yields do not add to city yields, but limit the maximum yield of tiles to (10+Population Yield). Influence is not affected by this, as the game otherwise tries to handle too many variables at once.
  
  

I have not yet created a "Efficiency per worker" version, as that will require extensive changes in multiple files, and it's far too late for me to work on that without making mistakes.

I'll try to answer any questions and requests as quickly as possible, but I may well disappear for a few days in the next two weeks. Apologies in advance for any delays.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Ask, and you shall receive.

WorkerModifications.zip

Thanks! But... tbh I'm a little scared of applying this mod or causing irreversible damage. I'm not very smart with game files so.. could you guys test it pls?

You seem to be more experienced

KrimsonVagus wrote:
Thanks! But... tbh I'm a little scared of applying this mod or causing irreversible damage. I'm not very smart with game files so.. could you guys test it pls?

You seem to be more experienced

There's really no reason to be concerned, despite the warning. If you notice anything that seems strange, catastrophic, or if you want to return to the base game (ie, unmodded), just right-click the title in your Steam library, select "Properties" and go to the "Local Files" tab and press the Verify Local Content button. This will download/fix any files that are messed up or altered. So feel free to use Cat-O-Nine-Tails' "mod" without fear!

Seek is correct. Since these are just the xml files that the game reads the values from, they should be incapable of actually breaking your game. If you back up your game "Simulation" folder to copy the old files back in, or simply re-download through Steam, any errors should be fixed.

However, save-games may be incompatible between the "modded" and unmodded versions, and opening a save from one with the other may make changes that leave both versions unable to deal with it. So don't try this out with your favorite save games, just to be certain.



I haven'T had any errors with the "mods" myself so far, but I only had time to tested each for maybe 10 minutes, so I can't judge long-term stability.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Ask, and you shall receive.

WorkerModifications.zip





After poking around in the XMLs all day, I've slapped together some experimental files, so I an others can experiment with this. To install, just replace the relevant files in [EndlessLegendFolder]/Public/Simulation (After backing up the original, of course)

WARNING: These files are in no way endorsed or verified by Amplitude studios. Use them at your own risk, and responsibly. Back up your game files, just in case. As you have been warned, please do not hold me or Amplitude studios responsible for any damage to your save games, game, or anything else.



An overview of the changes in the different files:

• DepartmentOfIndustry+Constructibles[CityImprovement] - PopCost: Most City Improvements will cost 1 population point to construct, like Settlers. This is done to simulate assigning a worker to them, as I can not create a new column for building maintenance.
• SimulationDescriptors[CityImprovement] - Food Upkeep: File to be used with SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 1Food Upkeep or SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 2Food Upkeep.
• SimulationDescriptors[CityImprovement] - Lowered Workers: All Workers only produce a base yield of 1 (except Food workers, which have base yield of 3 so they produce 1 excess food). Most "Per Population" Improvements improve these yields by 1. (Faction specific buildings and Empire Plan unaffected.)
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 1Food Upkeep: All buildings require 1 Food per turn in upkeep, to simulate assigning workers to them.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - 2Food Upkeep: All buildings require 2 Food per turn in upkeep, to simulate assigning workers to them.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - TileToWorkerYield: Per Population yields increase by 10% of total tile yields.
• SimulationDescriptors[Class] - WorkerLimitTile: FIDS Per Population yields do not add to city yields, but limit the maximum yield of tiles to (10+Population Yield). Influence is not affected by this, as the game otherwise tries to handle too many variables at once.
  
  

I have not yet created a "Efficiency per worker" version, as that will require extensive changes in multiple files, and it's far too late for me to work on that without making mistakes.

I'll try to answer any questions and requests as quickly as possible, but I may well disappear for a few days in the next two weeks. Apologies in advance for any delays.

Wow, you're a pro modder Does the game actually get better with these XML files?

Unfortunately, I can not judge if they improve the game yet, as I haven't yet had a chance to try a full game with any of them. They may not be compatible with the current build (0.6.1) anymore, either, as the files in questions may have changed since 0.5.19. I'll have to go over them and check that some time next week. Until then, be doubly careful trying any of them, and always keep a backup of the files you replace.