Xiphos

[chrisjenkinson]

I've just added a new link to the top-right when you've logged in - the city advisor. Your advisor keeps a meticulous record of every major change that happens to your city - citizens arriving at your city, citizens leaving, buildings completed, trades made, and goods going to and from your city.

This addition makes it much more clear what is going on while you're away from Xiphos. Here's a screenshot:

[Edit: removed screenshots as they're quite old now. Check the latest post for up-to-date screenshots.]

[Chris]

Resources and tools are inconsistent.
Bronze is a tool that is only required and not spend. But pottery is a resource that is spent when getting water. Illogical.
Bronze is listed as "using" while it is only "required". Generally, it seems you throw these "require" and "used" without much thought (the descriptions on the status and on the worker allocation simply does not match).
Why bronze is listed in red while I require only 1 and have 50?
As said before, I strongly belive that displaying tools and resources in separate parts of the page is crucial (even you, as a designer, have a trouble determining which is which).

The sliders in worker allocation is bad and misleading (clicking Go button), the previous one was much more better.

I have no clue what things my citizens need.

I have an option to "Press olives" but no option to get "olives" This is a serious flaw of the interface.

Suggestion. I think it is crucial to make some icons next to workers allocation. It is very hard to get at a glance what which slider do.

[chrisjenkinson]

Resources and tools are inconsistent.
Bronze is a tool that is only required and not spend. But pottery is a resource that is spent when getting water. Illogical.
Bronze is listed as "using" while it is only "required". Generally, it seems you throw these "require" and "used" without much thought (the descriptions on the status and on the worker allocation simply does not match).
Why bronze is listed in red while I require only 1 and have 50?
As said before, I strongly belive that displaying tools and resources in separate parts of the page is crucial (even you, as a designer, have a trouble determining which is which).

You are totally right. This is something which has been on my "to do" list for a while, but was lower priority than getting trading working and adding a game log. Doing some clean-up work on the city page, particularly around city tasks, is now my next thing to work on. Thanks for prompting me to do so!

The sliders in worker allocation is bad and misleading (clicking Go button), the previous one was much more better.

I don't think the previous one was better, but this is not perfect. I am going to change it to be a slider from 0 to your city's population, but stop you from sliding it further than the no. of available workers you have. This will mean the sliders won't "jump" around like they do currently, which a few people have found confusing.

I have no clue what things my citizens need.

This will be part of the UI improvement.

I have an option to "Press olives" but no option to get "olives" Smiley This is a serious flaw of the interface.

You might not have an option to grow your own olives, but other players may do and you will be able to trade for them.

Suggestion. I think it is crucial to make some icons next to workers allocation. It is very hard to get at a glance what which slider do.

I'm not sure I completely understand. Do you mean, for example, an icon of a farmer (or of wheat) next to the "farm wheat" task?

Thanks for your comments they are very helpful!

Chris

[Chris]

I have an option to "Press olives" but no option to get "olives" Smiley This is a serious flaw of the interface.

You might not have an option to grow your own olives, but other players may do and you will be able to trade for them.

This is a strange design choice... Well, nevermind.

Suggestion. I think it is crucial to make some icons next to workers allocation. It is very hard to get at a glance what which slider do.

I'm not sure I completely understand. Do you mean, for example, an icon of a farmer (or of wheat) next to the "farm wheat" task?

a) http://worldoflords.com/misc/games/industrialrevolution.php?test_all_at_once=1&test_no_images=1
b) http://worldoflords.com/misc/games/industrialrevolution.php?test_all_at_once=1&test_no_images=0
Which is more clear?

I find it really ironic that it is me advocating the use of gfx



BTW, I like your game, because you make similar mistakes I do. When I look at it I clearly see why some thing are lame and I fix these in my games

[chrisjenkinson]

This is a strange design choice... Well, nevermind.

Really? It is something you can do in (for example) Zeus: Master of Olympus (it's cheaper than buying the end products) and in Anno 1404 (process raw materials on a different island to the one they were produced on).

BTW, I like your game, because you make similar mistakes I do. When I look at it I clearly see why some thing are lame and I fix these in my games

Well, that's not it's primary purpose but you're welcome I guess! As long as you say which things are lame so I can fix them too!

Chris

[chrisjenkinson]

Some big changes this lovely Easter weekend!

Tutorial

First of all is the addition of a tutorial explaining the various bits and pieces on the city page, and basic game concepts.

http://www.xiphosgame.com/cities/tutorial

I'd be very grateful for your feedback on the tutorial - did it explain things clearly? Were you still confused in any way? Did you particularly like parts of the tutorial?

City page UI improvements

The next feature is improving the city page to make it more useful:

Tasks have been divided into three tiers. The first tier contains the basic tasks needed to get a city started out; the second contains ones which larger cities will use; the final contains construction tasks.

I've added tooltips to explain some game mechanics including city health - move your mouse over the (?) for an explanation.

For each resource, information on the resource including whether it is used by your citizens to make the city healthy, and the amount used and produced is displayed.

The final UI improvement is changing the sliders to display the total amount of resource produced or consumed per task, rather than just for 1 person. This should help when assigning your citizens to tasks.

Screenshots

[Marek]

So, which are the healthy resources again?

Water, wood, and food types?

[chrisjenkinson]

Correct - so far the food types available are wheat, figs and barley. Each of the three islands in the game produce one of each of these food types.

[chrisjenkinson]

Been over a month since the last update, so here's the new stuff!

1. I've added achievements - the traditional "getting started" achievement, trading for the first time, growing your city in size (currently it can grow to 200), and some others. More details: http://www.xiphosgame.com/post/40/achievements

2. I've added two seasons - summer and winter. This affects your food production - food grows more slowly in winter and more quickly in summer, so you now need to prepare for winter to make sure you've got the food stocks to last you through (or trade for it from those better-prepared!). Seasons last for three "real life" days. More details: http://www.xiphosgame.com/post/60/seasons-in-xiphos-now-added

3. I've added cooperative tasks - players on the same island can now band together to jointly construct buildings. Initially this is a copper or tin mine (used for producing bronze). Players can send some of their own resources to the mine's construction site, and after the resources are all there any player on the island can assign workers towards construction - the more players who assign workers, the faster it gets done. More details: http://www.xiphosgame.com/post/62/need-more-bronze-so-get-more-bronze

People who have already created an account and a city will find it still standing (and perhaps thriving, even if you haven't logged in for a while!). If you haven't created an account, it's very easy - no email verification required.

You can log in or register at http://www.xiphosgame.com/

I'm very grateful for any feedback - either here, on the Xiphos forums/chat channel, or on IRC.

Chris

[chrisjenkinson]

My latest update is not adding new features, but about fixing the long-standing bugs with the trading system. I believe I've now done this! I've written a rather detailed post about exactly how the trading system in Xiphos works.

Here's a quote:

If this were a modern-day ads-board in a newsagent, Aegium would put up a note saying "Have 4000 wood; need 1000 stone". Brauron would see the note, be delighted that they could get a better deal than what they were planning, and get in touch. If Brauron's merchants happened to be first in the newsagent, putting up a note saying "Have 1000 stone; need 3000 wood", Aegium would be delighted they could get all the stone they need, but only give 3000 wood - saving themselves 1000 wood.

So an advertisement board arrangement means that the person first to announce their trade gets the worse deal. In a trading game, that's definitely not desirable - people will stop putting up their own deals, hoping always to be coming into the newsagent and spotting someone else's.

The approach in Xiphos is different. Rather than one side of the deal putting all their cards on the table and allowing the other side to exploit that, both sides equally compromise, deciding on a price which is fair to both.

Delighted to hear some of your views on the trading system now I've spelt out the detail!

C

[saljutin]

in open market you will set prices high and later lower them
thats how on long term market will "fix" prices...if you need money(goods) fast you will sell under price market sells, if you dont need it so fast you will set price a bit higher then market price and hope that someone will buy that offer..

but that could lead to some market "scam" like...you are RICH user and you buy low price offers and set price a bit higher and you get even more rich
in some game I was big "goods A" producer and I contacted 3 or 4 big "goods A" producers and we fix-set our prices and then bought every offer which was lower then our and set it to same price as our...in 1 month I stopped playing because I had too many factories to control

so there should always be some limitations even if players told u not to limit market bartering could be good way but you can still exploit market with "daytrading". so maybe you can limit value you can send/receive just like in Travian where amount your merchants can carry is limited by Marketplace level (or something)

[chrisjenkinson]

You're right, it could lead to abuse by rich players. But rich players flooding the market is not unique to Xiphos. My plans for counteracting that is having resources be more or less valuable to the player depending on how large a city is. i.e. when a city is large, it will not be able to produce enough food for itself and must import it, therefore limiting its power to set prices in that area.

Cartels only work when all members agree to abide by price fixing. Potential cartel members will probably be on different islands - my plan is that the rivalry between island members will be enough to overcome the benefits of cartel fixing. It's a good point to be aware of however.

Finally on market limitations - I haven't implemented the code for this but players will only be able to trade the goods they can carry in the boats they have built. This should act as a partial brake on disproportionately large trades.

[Chris]

Cartels only work when all members agree to abide by price fixing. Potential cartel members will probably be on different islands - my plan is that the rivalry between island members will be enough to overcome the benefits of cartel fixing. It's a good point to be aware of however.

Believe me, if you get two players like saljutin and me in the game then you will end with a cartel, no matter the obstacles (I would play the game for the sole purpose of cartel, oligopoly and price manipulation) Or impose antitrust rules

when a city is large, it will not be able to produce enough food for itself and must import it

It is very vulnerable to your promotion efficiency. If at any point the new players flow stops/falls the whole game economy will crash (because only newbe can be food exporters). Also this model might force majority/most/some players to stay low city size.

Finally on market limitations - I haven't implemented the code for this but players will only be able to trade the goods they can carry in the boats they have built. This should act as a partial brake on disproportionately large trades.

Will you cap the amount of boats? Because if you put these in a normal production pipeline it won't change anything (you build 1 boat per 10 production facilities (or whatever the number should be) and you can send everything, just as if there were no boats). You could make that boats require "sailors" that are hired at progressive price (cheap if few, expensive when a lot) OR when you reach X boats pirates start killing your boats (but pirates are uncool for a trading game so I don't recommend it).

Make it so "coins" take up only 10% of boat's space compared to their nominal worth. It will encourage monetary exchanges

[chrisjenkinson]

I could require boats to require 1 person to be set aside when trading. That would impose a significant limit.

In response to your other two points, I think that would be an interesting situation to happen! It's a bit far away at the moment however.

[Chris]

I could require boats to require 1 person to be set aside when trading. That would impose a significant limit.

No, it would just make trading more expensive. It wouldn't stop/affect large trades at all, it would stop/affect all trades.
You want to make trading easy & profitable for low volumes and hard & unprofitable for high volumes. Correct?

[chrisjenkinson]

Err, yes, quite right. Serves me right for rushing out replies in 2 minutes.

[Chris]

I think you went too far in the food + minerals direction, while the diversification should be in the craft sphere. Make it that people "consume" food and goods. This way you will have clothing, baskets, shoes, etc. All consumed just like food. The diversification of consumed goods determine max number of people (just like now).

To make craft appealing to trade, introduce specialization. A mechanic that would promote concentration on production of 1 or 2 craft goods max. For example, make some booster building (school maybe?). Each level of clothing school increases productivity of all cloth makers by +5%. Therefore, you want to specialize in one craft and trade the rest. Also, since it is selectable by the player, not predefined, you introduced supply and demand that is truly human driven (Too many shoe makers? Switch to baskets.)

This way you can also get for free the effect of comparative advantage (I'm too lazy to write it, you can read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage ).

As for boats I would auto give free boats equal to 50% of your craft production. OR, you could connect it with schools, each, in addition to the booster, gives some boats.
Players can optionally hire additional boats, but then they have to pay a fee equal to 10% of transported goods.
Both trade partners have to use their boats, but transfering "coins" do not require boats (so, if you are buying food for coins only the seller will need boats). This will promote monetary exchange.