DotW: XP shipments?

[pecelot]

Discussion of the Week #3:

If you could, would you implement shipments giving additional XP into the game?

Something I first came across in Civilisation II, where you could construct wonders that would give you free technologies or research one yourself to get the next one sooner. The way it works is simple: you sacrifice your production or research time to get more benefits later on — something like upgrades in AoE3: you spend resources on them, but after some time they do pay off. Treating experience points as a resource, would you ever consider sending shipments that would provide you with additional XP? It could work similarly to regular crates: 300 XP in the Discovery Age, 700 in the Colonial Age and so on.

Discuss!

[lemmings121]

Direct xp shipment doest make sense, you would just trade xp for xp, the only thing to do is compare the amount of xp spent and recieved, click when the trade is good.

So we have a xp trickle... That is a actually in game. 3wp, 300w first card for a tp, that japanese card..

[tedere12]

Idk about xp shipments, but xp crates are good @Googol

[NekoBerk]

This is exactly how the consulate works, you'll generate more exp if you sacrifice your production and otherwhise.

[pecelot]

Considering the total number of XP needed for shipments, I agree that it should be more per age than regular resources crates counterparts. The main idea would be to send a shipment that would perhaps immediately give you another 2 in return in, let's say, Colonial Age. That way you'd have more cards available sooner, though naturally the longer the game went, you would be in a worse spot since you would need more and more XP for another shipments. In my opinion this would add some depth to the strategy part, as you could use such tricks accordingly to your game-plan — ideally in all-in-oriented builds.

[deleted_user0]

Thats also kinda in the game. U can ship 1000c and get church xp or market xp for nat civs. But its generally shit like that, though the techs are good.

I dont think its very useful. What you describe is basically a more elaborate version of the spain bonus, as it just kinda makes ur shipments cost less xp in a way. So im against this idea

[JakeyBoyTH]

This would be too op for german and spain (maybe french/dutch) civs, who in certain mu / playstyle you can just ff and click shipments and win

pretty much straight into fortress and get 7+8 skirm + uhlan (maybe 6 skirm from age depending on map and rank) then u pretty much have insta army

shipment more xp would be negligible at that point in game.

[pecelot]

Thats also kinda in the game. U can ship 1000c and get church xp or market xp for nat civs. But its generally shit like that, though the techs are good.

I dont think its very useful. What you describe is basically a more elaborate version of the spain bonus, as it just kinda makes ur shipments cost less xp in a way. So im against this idea

It's not the same since the coin you spend on Mercantilism doesn't slow up your further shipments (you don't need more XP to get them).
My point was to add such cards to the game to give additional options, it wouldn't be always worth shipping them! Perhaps in cases Jakey mentioned

[deleted_user0]

Huh? You do need more xp. And if you use 1 shipment (1000c) to pay to get more shipments, its basically the same as shipping the crates directly, except that youd probably be cheaper off with crates (assuming its 1000xp per shipment or sonething

And if its just additional, like u ship 8 skir and get some crates with it, its like the spain bonus, but worse and more complicated.

[Kaiserklein]

Direct xp shipment doest make sense, you would just trade xp for xp, the only thing to do is compare the amount of xp spent and recieved, click when the trade is good.

Well there still is a difference, it's the timing. Is it worth using a 700 xp shipment to ship a 1000 xp bonus, since it means your next shipment will come 40 sec later ? Are the 300 extra xp worth delaying your next card by 40 sec ?
Plus, the amount of xp needed for a shipment is always increasing. So using a shipment that cost 700 xp to ship 700 xp actually means that you lost some xp, because your next shipment will cost, say, 850 xp, so you're short of 150 xp (and it's also true for all the following shipments).
So basically you can't do maths so easily, and that's why this idea of xp shipments would still be interesting, because shipping xp would mean that you change the timings of your build order, in either a good or a bad way, depending on what timing you need to hit.

This is exactly how the consulate works, you'll generate more exp if you sacrifice your production and otherwhise.

exp = export =/= XP = experience

[pecelot]

Well, then of course, I assumed you don't have to send 1000 coin to research Mercantilism. The thing with the XP shipment is that it would be free, as you wouldn't have to spend coin, for instance, would give you immediate benefit, but later on would hurt you. I'd take that, perhaps even as Spain

But with Spain FF, for example, you could sacrifice those 40 seconds, as you could send such a shipment in age 2 and have it „done" once you age up.

[saksham]

This is exactly how the consulate works, you'll generate more exp if you sacrifice your production and otherwhise.

exp = export =/= XP = experience

I think he meant relatively like the system would be the same but it would be xp instead of export

[Kaiserklein]

Uh ok, but then it wouldn't be the same system anyway, since when you sacrifice production for export you basically trade food/wood/gold for export. Whereas when you ship xp, you don't trade a resource for another, but rather trade some xp (because a shipment = an amount of xp) for more xp, though you have the drawbacks that I mentioned in my post above.

[saksham]

Uh ok, but then it wouldn't be the same system anyway, since when you sacrifice production for export you basically trade food/wood/gold for export. Whereas when you ship xp, you don't trade a resource for another, but rather trade some xp (because a shipment = an amount of xp) for more xp, though you have the drawbacks that I mentioned in my post above.

I guess you could have sent resource crates but instead you are sendind xp so you kinda traded xp for food/wood/gold

[Kaiserklein]

No because you will anyway use the xp that you just sent, to get those resources crates (or w/e else) as your next shipment. It's not like you lose resources for that, you just delay them, + you increment your amount of shipments sent, which means that every future shipment will require a bit more xp.

[saksham]

No because you will anyway use the xp that you just sent, to get those resources crates (or w/e else) as your next shipment. It's not like you lose resources for that, you just delay them, + you increment your amount of shipments, which means that every future shipment will require a bit more xp.

Ok you win

[deleted_user0]

Well, then of course, I assumed you don't have to send 1000 coin to research Mercantilism. The thing with the XP shipment is that it would be free, as you wouldn't have to spend coin, for instance, would give you immediate benefit, but later on would hurt you. I'd take that, perhaps even as Spain

But with Spain FF, for example, you could sacrifice those 40 seconds, as you could send such a shipment in age 2 and have it „done" once you age up.

You dont spend coin, but its not free, because you shipped a shipment which couldve been res also. Im afraid your logic is a bit off in this case imo.

And in general its not really worth to ship a shipment to get more shipments later. Thats why 300w for tps is only worth it if you upgrade the route or deny tps to opponents that way, or why shipping 3 wp is only good if you want to dance 10, and not to just put on xp.

[pecelot]

I'm well aware it's not entirely free, the prize I mentioned in the OP. What I'm afraid you didn't get initially is that after sending such a card you would immediately receive another 2 shipments, which would mean that overall you get a bonus one, but lose in the long run. Of course, another factor is time required to send the card, but still I'd find it worthwhile in certain circumstances.

[noissance]

what if, the more shipments you send the larger your xp trickle gets

[pecelot]

It would potentially decrease the effect of the XP „nerf" implemented in the game originally, I don't see too much point in it, though.

[deleted_user0]

I'm well aware it's not entirely free, the prize I mentioned in the OP. What I'm afraid you didn't get initially is that after sending such a card you would immediately receive another 2 shipments, which would mean that overall you get a bonus one, but lose in the long run. Of course, another factor is time required to send the card, but still I'd find it worthwhile in certain circumstances.

I do get it, but what you dont get is that it just sux lol. Its really equivalent to sending 1800 res card as iro, use that res to get 2 shipments through market BB, and then send those 2 shipments. By the time the 2 card arrives, you are 2 min further, which probably is about the time you need to get another shipment if you just immediately use the first shipment to make (res/factories) units or kill units (unit shipment).

Not to mention that what you describe is probably most relevant in age3 and in that age most civs already have limited deck space, so putting an xp shipment there will just be super useless

You will be better off shipping 1000w and dropping a bunch of tps

[pecelot]

I didn't try to imply anything initially, that was a topic for discussion!

The thing is, not every civilisation has such an XP improvement. In a scenario of FF'ing with Spain you could send that after 700 wood to still be able to get additional shipments. In my opinion the reward is big enough for other civs, too, to sacrifice some time for cards to come.

[greatscythe11]

Can a wood shipment like 700w (early on so that the xp cost is not too much) be considered for such an xp investment?Against Japan it can be used for sieging shrines with bowpike(cav protection needed) generating xp. Against passive civs like China or Port it can be used to get like 4 TPs on maps like New England ( or 3 TP stagecoach) so that the next few shipments come sooner.Just an idea that came to me.

[pecelot]

True, the British use Colonial-Age wood shipments in similar way, building manors that give them XP, apart from their additional villagers. That's why it's usually preferred to 5 villagers, since after the former you get your next shipments sooner due to the aforementioned experience-points boost. That said, I wouldn't say it's the same, since the resources are still used not only for the XP — manors give you more settlers, TPs can be upgraded et cetera. The initial idea was focused on giving only one, but niche bonus in the form of fastened cards progression.