Recruit workers with cities.

[jmbc_15]

A recruit option to hire workers from especific cultures through their respective cities, instead of waiting for the workers you want to appear in the recruitment window.

[Valravn Games]

This is about 85% implemented. I've bumped it up the priority list, as this is a very commonly requested feature.

It was actually 99% done, except I felt the balance was completely off - removing one pop for a worker felt extremely overpowered economically (which is the main cost component of my WIP work), and I wanted to spend more time on getting the balance right. But considering that there are spells which can create workers and that many players feel cities are underpowered, perhaps my balance worries are misplaced. It would give an incentive for creating cities, and at worst I can put in a cap on "city-recruited workers" based on the number of pops in all cities.

[simpkin_11]

Could you keep track of what city they came from? lets say I need a few workers to help build a fortress, so I get some from a local town.. then the fortress is done.. I could just tell them to go back home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkOxJF1wiWY

[jmbc_15]

Originally posted by Valravn Games:

This is about 85% implemented. I've bumped it up the priority list, as this is a very commonly requested feature.

It was actually 99% done, except I felt the balance was completely off - removing one pop for a worker felt extremely overpowered economically (which is the main cost component of my WIP work), and I wanted to spend more time on getting the balance right. But considering that there are spells which can create workers and that many players feel cities are underpowered, perhaps my balance worries are misplaced. It would give an incentive for creating cities, and at worst I can put in a cap on "city-recruited workers" based on the number of pops in all cities.

Thanks for answering, are you thinking of removing the upkeep cost for workers recruited by cities like the summoned ones?

If no, I think economy balance shouldn't be a problem since the only advantage is to choose the type of workers you want.

[AdamantError]

Perhaps rather than consuming a pop to make a worker, pops in a city could 'support' a certain number of workers of their culture? For example, three wood elf pops (perhaps of appropriate types) can support one 'field worker'. You are thereby limited by your population, but still get a bonus from actively working to grow it.

The disadvantage being that, if I remember correctly, workers can be settled, so there would be some potential problems there. Perhaps settling a worker from City A into B then removes the population from the source? Or perhaps 'settling' simply changes the culture of a local pop, allowing some shaping of the city without increasing your free support cap?

[jmbc_15]

Another idea I have is:

Consume 1 pop for 1 worker (the workers should have a salary "upkeep cost" since they are workers no slaves xD).

Instead of a cap based on pop, add a cap acording to the settlement size, for example: a settlement could add 10 workers cap, a town 15 and a city 20.

A city can get a growth bonus from workers assigned to resource sites that are located in hexes around the city, this could incentive the player to build cities near strategic sites like mines and other resource sites (I add this because I feel cities have a very slow growth).

[Valravn Games]

Having a number of 'supported' workers per city that do not deplete pops is a possibility. However, as workers can be settled into cities, these would then have to be given a trait that blocks this to prevent the creation of new pops through worker recruitment -> settlement -> recruitment cycles.

I also like the idea of cities benefitting from nearby resource sites, and I have had plans for this for quite some time, but put them on delay until I've finished the new city UI (another shelved task), since the current one is already very cumbersome, and it should be easy to manage and inspect any such 'linked' sites.

[jmbc_15]

Originally posted by Valravn Games:

Having a number of 'supported' workers per city that do not deplete pops is a possibility. However, as workers can be settled into cities, these would then have to be given a trait that blocks this to prevent the creation of new pops through worker recruitment -> settlement -> recruitment cycles.

You could keep the deplete one pop for one "supported" worker option, and the limit cap based on city size option at the same time. This could avoid the exploit, since you are basically storing pop in form of workers when you recruit them, and when you settle back them you just convert them into pop again. Also you could add some kind of penalty when the player overhire workers to the point of reducing the city size, like higher recruit and upkeep cost, and unrest due to the demand of workers.

So this could leave the player with two options:

wait until the city pop grows or build more cities to "farm human resourses".

This sounds good in my mind, but honestly I don't know how could it work, I hope this help you with the balance somehow.