Knights and Merchants.net Forum

A discussion that came out of KaM Chat today:

What do you think the default distribution ratios should be? The KaM ones don't make much sense in some cases, why should the armour smithy receive less iron than the weapons smithy, but the weapons smithy receives more coal?


There are a few options:
- Set them all to 5 (setting them all to another number like 3 doesn't make much sense because that means all houses would only take 3 items max unless the ratio was changed)
- Decide on some new combination of values like the original that makes more sense
- Leave them as is for nostalgic sake

Please write your opinion/ideas here.
Cheers,
Lewin.

-let every player have his own default (permanent) settings. I'm not sure about the details though - whether there would be a "save default" button (plenty of place for that one in this menu), or would use the settings from the last game, or if the starting setting would be changed in Settings.

I like sados idea, but if you want a default you could set everything on 5.

- Leave them as is for nostalgic sake
those old settings work just fine, they might not be optimal but I don't think a beginner would really care.

- Players will have to decide for themselves how they want those settings, a new combination of values isn't really going to change that.
- Putting them all at 5 makes might give new players the impression that those settings are never touched by the developers and that they just where 5 by default. I for one wouldn't assume in that case that the starting settings are good. That would result in me being annoyed cause I don't want to change settings, I as a beginner would not have enough experience with to set them properly yet.

Having personal settings sounds like a good solution. Can't wait for what you guys have further in store for us, the new update is looking promising.
(Btw Lewin this LAN we played quite some KaM games, no lagg whatsoever, so the problem I reported a few weeks ago does seem to be fixed in an previous patch.)

My 2 choices are:
-Set default distribution at "Options/Gameplay" from Menu (where you change resolutions, etc).
-Set everything at 5 (I have seen many players do this while playing).

I'd say set everything at 5. That would be perfect because sometimes I forget to do it myself.
What about corn and timber though? What about 4/2 instead of 3/5 for timber (It's really annoying when they bring 5 timber to the armory workshop while I only want to make leather harnesses) and 4/5/3 instead of 5/3/2 for corn? 4/5/3 is really open for discussion and probably everyone has a different opinion. It's just something I came up with, I actually never used it myself.

As i said in chat i am using 2 and 3 mostly. 4 rare. I dislike the idea of "5"

I want to support Sado's idea also.

If your goal is to make it as it was in the original you should let players use all sliders from the start. Atleast thats what I remember it was like. Normally I set all to 5 too. Only for weapon workshop its 0 unless I want to make wooden shields which I rarely do. It is annoying to see your few timber is brought to the weapon workshop if you forget to disable it. And that happens frequently in my case.

I would leave them mostly as is, just changed few values, like corn to stables and swines.

I second that.

You can use sliders from the start, and will be able to further. The question is about default values )

But they are disabled until the house becomes buildable, I think that's what people meant about allowing you to set them from the start, so you can set up all the sliders once how you like them before you have the houses at all.

Hmmm I have a proposal:
add new icon ( builder)
why? for what?
with options, 3,5,7, unlimit, disabled
what gives?
The maximum number of builders who build house. In this way, when you have 20 builders "sharing" the example 3 units to built a house.

That would be the best IMO. I sometimes forget about them and it makes slower ware production.

I'd like to quote for truth: These are main 2 problems I have with sliders. And TDL's quoted problem is a direct consequence of To's quote (I always remember about changing the amounts... at the start of the game. Later I just forget it...), so the solution would be obvious. Making sliders customizable even before the house can be built would be enough for me in the next version, and if you'd also implement my idea about saving player's preference, that would be a very nice bonus.

As for default settings, I'd suggest following changes:
-corn: 4 for mill, 5 for swinefarm, 3 for horse
-coal and iron - what is the rationale of giving 4c+5i to the Weapon Smithy, and 5c+4i to Armor Smithy? I'd see here 5+5 for both (or maybe Weapon Smithy should get 1 less coal/iron?)
-timber: 2 for armor workshop, 4 for weapon workshop - because most people tend to have either no axemen/scouts, or they're not their only leather units.