A minor hypothesis (City production)

[Chaos Kitty]

So, I was reading a thread in the reactions forum, and a question suddenly occurred to me: Does the level of a City affect its production speed? Would a Level 1 City pop units, like Warlords, Casters and that, at a slower rate than a Level 5 City?

Thoughts?

[DevilDan]

I always assumed that a city's "size" affects its production speed or capabilities, as is true with the majority of games, I suspect. I put "size" in quotation marks because we only know about "level," of course.

[OneHugeTuck]

I see it more as a matter of income and funds, as opposed to size. If you have the funds, pop the orders in the que.

If the size of a city gave the speed of production, big citys would outproduce everything else, and there would be no little sides/cities. Or at least, there would be very few sides. No new upstarts could ever hope to get to a point where they could compete. Biggest castles win.

A starting side with only a level 1 city, with no warlord, could still pop a warlord, one would hope.

[moose o death]

from an erfworld point of view the previous update highlights many of the buildings are simply there to "be the city" they had no purpose other than to look like part of the city. so the physical size of the city is probably directly linked to it's level anyway. if you had too many units you would simply disband some lower power units in favour of the more expensive/experienced ones.

as for pop speed, a large city on earth will have more capacity for production of various types of products. so it stands to reason bigger city means x% decrease in construction time per level.

eg a level 1 outpost might take 30 turns to pop a dwagon as it's all they have room for, one dwagon stable and a few dorms. the level 5 GK might have a couple dozen stables meaning they could pop, 12dwagons every 15 turns. or 1 dwagon every 3 turns, or something like that. we don't know enough about the mechanics to give a real estimate. maybe sizemore will explain this very question next update. the previous GK was never built around dwagon construction. stanley found that during saline's reign. we already know of twolls being assigned as blacksmiths so certain unit types may be needed to succesfully pop other units as well.

[Mathamancer]

If the size of a city gave the speed of production, big citys would outproduce everything else, and there would be no little sides/cities. Or at least, there would be very few sides. No new upstarts could ever hope to get to a point where they could compete. Biggest castles win.

I would counter that the price difference in going from a small city to a large city may also be prohibitive.

What if 10 "small" cities could match the production of one "large", but cost 1/20th as much to build? It would be a net gain in productivity, but at the price of defensibility.

Since there also appears to be a capacity in the game to "slip through" enemy hexes undetected, the capital would typically be built with the best defenses (just in case there's a direct attack on the way), but the outer cities would also be well fortified against direct assaults.

As for new upstarts, in general they just have to make sure that they cost more to conquer than they reward when conquered; they could also ally with a stronger side in exchange for whatever services they can provide. There may also be a "peace mode" in Erfworld for new sides that prevents them from being attacked or attacking for a certain number of turns, so that they can actually establish themselves (this is common in a number of strategy games where an option exists for new players to start new sides after the game has begun)

[Anton Gaist]

For production, I would guess that a higher level city can produce more unit types, or more "advanced" unit types, if you will, than lower level city. I'm guessing there's a minimum city level requirement to order the production of the more specialized units, like dwagons.

As for production speed, I don't know. I don't think speed is necessarily involved.

[DevilDan]

Small cities could exist in Erf, but the natural order of things is for there to be alliances and kingdoms comprising multiple cities. New cities are set up once a city's population is large enough to warrant a split, to expand one's control over a strategically important area, or to exploit the resources of a location. More cities also means you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, and it may mean that you can create a greater variety of units. (And, as military strategists will always point out, only variety can beat variety.)

Cities probably hit a natural limit based on their resources; their next move is to align with others through alliances or vassalage.

It's my guess that in the game-like Erf, city size determines the speed of production as it does in so many games. Of course, there may be a different "size" attribute that determines production speed, such as resources of nearby hexes, "development" level of the town, or some fixed "production" stat of the city hex.

[random_guy]

Apparently, it takes more time to build bigger units. This can refer to the size of a unit, but it might also refer to the power of a unit, since the same klog said that warlords take a long time to build.

Since advanced units require more time, I think it's possible advanced cities can reduce the amount of time required to pop units.

I wonder if the presence of certain artifacts, conditions, or characters can influence the creation of units. For example, rock golems and crap golems seem to require a dirtamancer to create them in a process separate from popping. Also, other factions instinctively perceive dwagons as having affiliations with Stanley, such as Jillian's assumption Stanley attacked Faq. This implies Stanley may be the one with dwagons, and the arkenhammer might provide the city with the ability to pop dwagons. Maybe it allows an overlord/king to pop dwagons from any city that he rules, not just his capital.

[DevilDan]

Also, other factions instinctively perceive dwagons as having affiliations with Stanley, such as Jillian's assumption Stanley attacked Faq. This implies Stanley may be the one with dwagons, and the arkenhammer might provide the city with the ability to pop dwagons. Maybe it allows an overlord/king to pop dwagons from any city that he rules, not just his capital.

I don't know if this was in any way instinctive. I think it was just well known then that Stanley was an aggressive warlord that used dwagons extensively. Ansom had some form of intelligence regarding Stanley taming dwagons, a feat that is presumably not easily done without it. Some have theorized that the 'hammer allows GK to pop dwagons, but we have no evidence of that or no idea of what the rules might be, such as whether his control of other cities would allow them to pop dwagons too.

[MarbitChow]

Personally, I got the impression that the level of a city is strictly a combat modifier: Level 5 cities require siege units to penetrate the walls, level 1 cities are "porous" and anyone can walk right in.

Each city has a production queue, but I don't believe we've seen any indications yet that a higher-level city can build units faster, or has access to more or different units.

[random_guy]

@DevilDan
Hopefully, the next book will clarify the issue. It seems like dwagons are Stanley's favored unit, so he'll pop them from other cities if he can do so.

I agree with the conclusion that level refers to the city's defenses.
But they were still a Level 5 city, with special defense bonuses adding up to something theoretical like a Level 8, which was supposed to make them the hardest defensive position in the world.

However, I think it also refers to the size based Vinnie's description of Transylvito.
The outer walls were almost ornamental, and would barely inconvenience an attacking infantry, a fact which technically made the city a Level 4. But the garrison zone was bigger and taller than some whole Level Fives, with their walls and all.
"Bigger than level five" should have no meaning if the levels did not refer to size.

[MarbitChow]

Since advanced units require more time, I think it's possible advanced cities can reduce the amount of time required to pop units.

Alternately, it may be that all units require the same amount of time to pop, but each level of a city makes additional units available. We just don't know.

[DevilDan]

Gobwin Knob had popped two Twolls on its first two turns since being rebuilt, and would be popping them until Stanley decided they had enough henchmen around.

One per turn, then. What's the opportunity cost of popping twolls when you could be popping dwagons? (If anything, that's one reason to take other cities...)

[moose o death]

Gobwin Knob had popped two Twolls on its first two turns since being rebuilt, and would be popping them until Stanley decided they had enough henchmen around.

One per turn, then. What's the opportunity cost of popping twolls when you could be popping dwagons? (If anything, that's one reason to take other cities...)

that's not necesarily accurate. it could be two per two turns. it's just says that in two turns they now have two. if five productions lines make five seperate things you still get one in the same amount of time 5 took. but with 5 production lines you still get five times as many so arguably it could be 5 times faster than one production line despite the same amount of time consumed.

it could also be two twolls popped on turn two and the dragon was from turn one. lots of iddy biddy semantics to argue over with that stuff.

[DevilDan]

I did consider a few of the alternate readings that you did, Moose.

One thing though: the dwagon was popped before GK was rebuilt. And, as the handy counter notes:

Turns since TBfGK: 3

[moose o death]

like i said lots of iddy biddy bits to argue over in that one sentence. all of which are really just dead ends. you end up right back at that sentence as your burden of proof which is where the controversy starts.

it's like rob deliberately wanted to fuel a pointless circular arguement. or annoy the people trying to make an arfworld game by being vague about important construction queue information. still fun eitherway.

[DevilDan]

I just try to read it as I would surmise most people would. It would be churlish to complain about a little ambiguity given how much enjoyment I've derived from Erf.