Any way to force pips to move to another house?

[dontnormally]

I had a Cataclysm event that damaged 53 buildings

After repairing everything, two Huts were now empty with their inhabitants now living in different housing

The problem is that I was relying on those adjacent Pips to boost the efficiency of a Cloakcraft Workshop, which now produces 12 less Heat per turn

[dontnormally]

I can't delete any housing elsewhere as they are all used to enable buildings that require nearby housing

[dontnormally]

update: this solved itself, I got 30 Bleeding and a ton of my folks died so I have plenty of opportunity to repopulate in the right place

[Manxome]

Nope.

The fact that some buildings scale based on the number of pips housed nearby is a brand new change. I asked in the latest patch notes thread if the game had added any way to manage pips' living locations to go along with this, and the developer said they deliberately chose not to create a way to move pips in this patch, but might add one later depending on player feedback.

I'm pretty upset about this combination of decisions, so please complain a lot.

[kory]

Originally posted by Manxome:

the developer said they deliberately chose not to create a way to move pips in this patch, but might add one later depending on player feedback.

I'm pretty upset about this combination of decisions, so please complain a lot.

Thats a bit dishonest. In that thread they say that they have not added a way to move pips, sure, but until this patch one would never need one, and so this is a new idea to be considered.

That said, if you can move pips freely it would cause a similar problem that this patch was trying to solve, people spamming empty houses to bonuses and then just freely moving pips to whatever building they are using this turn.

[Manxome]

Originally posted by kory:

Thats a bit dishonest. In that thread they say that they have not added a way to move pips, sure, but until this patch one would never need one, and so this is a new idea to be considered.

This is not some revelatory new idea that the dev just heard about for the first time this week. These ideas were being argued on the forums like a year ago. This is not the first time Catman has heard this objection (and they didn't say it was).

In fact, if you just read Catman's comment that I linked, it seems reasonably clear that they thought about this in advance? They're not like "oh, interesting idea, I'll think about it for the future". They reason they gave for why it's not already in the game is that they want to test the current system, and they said they already have plans for what to change depending on what feedback they get.

Even if this hadn't been discussed publicly, I think it's pretty far-fetched to suggest that Catman wouldn't have considered that players might want more control over pip locations after pip locations suddenly become much more important. You're suggesting a pretty severe degree of short-sightedness. Whatever I think about this particular decision, Catman is a better developer than that.

Originally posted by kory:

That said, if you can move pips freely it would cause a similar problem that this patch was trying to solve, people spamming empty houses to bonuses and then just freely moving pips to whatever building they are using this turn.

I'm not sure what finally tipped Catman's decision, but from what I recall, the people who were publicly advocating for this were arguing on thematic grounds (they felt it didn't make in-world sense to get bonuses for empty dwellings) not based on strategic considerations. So I doubt they'd object (except out of concern that the extra work might make Catman call the whole thing off).

But supposing this is a concern, I'd think you could add some minor cost or delay to moving pips that would make it impractical to shift them around constantly.

(Though I do seem to recall a discussion where someone argued to me that moving pips needn't be burdensome because the game could just allocate them automatically, and I pointed out that if the player didn't need to make decisions about which bonuses to get and which to lose, that implies you can reliably max out everything all the time, in which case there was no gameplay difference from the old system.)

[dontnormally]

If anything, cataclysm destroying buildings then rebuilding them in a certain order seems to be a weird way to move pips around and i'd prefer if they just go back to their original home if it is rebuilt

[Catman]

The reason for the change is:
- The famous "checkerboard pattern" was often used and suggested to maximize adjacencies, which made the village look too unnatural. I did similar changes in other areas of the game through the years to push the mechanics to support a more natural village, which is not always easy on a grid!
- Strategically speaking, dropping the checkerboard pattern seemed to be a go-to strategy for many players, so I wanted to change the dynamics to push for other strategies
- Large dwellings and town upgrades were underpowered in respect to base dwellings, as all bonuses just counted *a dwelling* (apart from Bourgeoise dwells). This changes adds another strategic layer to upgrading your homes

So, two birds with a stone, if you will! With this change, the checkerboard pattern issue is reduced, and larger houses become stronger. I like the idea.

Nonetheless, I knew that moving could be an issue, *and that is why I wrote I have a prototype for the Move action*, and actually worked a bit more on it yesterday in-between fixes. My reasoning for not adding it yet was that I wanted to gauge player reaction, as I did not want to add another UI element that would appear from the get go if *not needed*.

While I was considering that when things are all in player control it would not be needed, and during playtesting it did seem to always be the case, since you choose where Pips are born, and I found the idea of having players destroy other homes to move Pips later on not that bad, having cataclysm Domain destroy many of your buildings and thus mess up with adjacencies does seem to be a good reason to have it! So I'm going to finish it and test it a bit. The issue I have with it is that it would be needed only for very rare cases, so having a big button used rarely on all dwellings I am not too keen of, but I'll play with it a bit and see.

I don't think having the Move action would push players to spam empty houses, as there is a lot less incentive to do so now in any case. I am not against having empty houses in general (I did consider several times whether to add the "bonuses work only if houses have Pips in them" constraint everywhere, but it does add a constraint layer so I'd like to keep it only for late game buildings!)

[DsnowMan]

Moving a pip should cost something. At least an action, maybe a plank - for moving boxes :)

[Catman]

Originally posted by DsnowMan:

Moving a pip should cost something. At least an action, maybe a plank - for moving boxes :)

I do like that, having even a small cost makes it more of a strategic choice! Maybe paper ;D

[dontnormally]

good idea! some later resource and at least one time unit, maybe 2

[kommadieb]

Not paper! — I'm still traumatized from the constant paper shortage in my first run :D

Just kidding.

Maybe 2 pips, like a moving helper. (I have no idea about balancing; just throwing out some thematic ideas.) (And then it could *produce* a random basic resource, for all the "stuff" you get rid of while moving :D)

[Manxome]

Please make sure that the cost of moving all pips out of a dwelling is reliably less than the cost of demolishing and rebuilding that dwelling (for all types of dwellings). Some of the above suggestions, if I understood them, do not meet this criterion.

I do not expect these changes to get rid of checkerboards. Checkerboards still seem like the way to maximize the number of pips near a building and also the number of buildings near a pip.

Though I DO expect these changes to push more people towards using larger populations, since any player who doesn't have enough pips to maximize the bonus on all of their buildings is effectively being rewarded with extra passive income for every additional pip they recruit.

[dontnormally]

Originally posted by Manxome:

Please make sure that the cost of moving all pips out of a dwelling is reliably less than the cost of demolishing and rebuilding that dwelling (for all types of dwellings). Some of the above suggestions, if I understood them, do not meet this criterion.

I do not expect these changes to get rid of checkerboards. Checkerboards still seem like the way to maximize the number of pips near a building and also the number of buildings near a pip.

Though I DO expect these changes to push more people towards using larger populations, since any player who doesn't have enough pips to maximize the bonus on all of their buildings is effectively being rewarded with extra passive income for every additional pip they recruit.

there is an additional cost that any buildings that require a nearby dwelling stop working while it is being rebuilt, though that is a good point

[Manxome]

Originally posted by dontnormally:

there is an additional cost that any buildings that require a nearby dwelling stop working while it is being rebuilt, though that is a good point

There is sometimes that additional cost, yes.

I would prefer for moving pips to reliably be cheaper than demolishing and rebuilding. If I have to check, in a non-extraordinary situation, whether demolishing would be cheaper, then that means demolishing is still a significant part of my pip management strategy.

[Catman]

I agree with that, and I am doing some iterations, trying with/without costs, with/without instant actions. I have not decided whether it should be more of a "cleanup" action, i.e. something that is free just to help with management like demoting, or whether it's ok to have a cost (even 1 turn for that building to be occupied is a cost!)