Penalties for unpaid upkeep in turn-based 4X game

I am currently working on a small turn-based 4X-like which lets the player build cities across a map and add all kinds of expansions to them (limited by the size of the city, e.g. small towns can hold fewer expansions than a large castle).

Right now cities and expansions are meant to have upkeep costs paid at the start of each round before producing resources or granting effects. However, I am not sure how to handle situations in which a player cannot pay all upkeep costs of one or more types of resources.

Should all cities/expansions affected by the shortage only generate 50% (or less) of their income? Or could there be another kind of penalty (moral/happiness)?

I am also undecided on whether I should collect income and then try paying upkeep or the other way around, but since both are neatly set up as separate methods I can easily switch them around so it's probably more a matter of playtesting.

 

I think it mostly depends on how severe you really want that punishment to be. If going broke is highly avoidable, the penalty could be very high. (Complete shutdown of a building, as though the power were shut off for not paying the bill. Expansions get dismantled one per turn to pay off debt.) If money management in your game is a bit more fluid, then the penalty would be lighter, such as your % reduction in output. (That reduction could also get more severe every round the bills go unpaid.)

I think either approach fits into a game of this type. You just need to decide how big of a deal this kind of situation should be to the player. If you do completely shut down their production, will there still be a way to get back out of debt again and recover?

Also, ask yourself what value this mechanic adds to the game. Hopefully it adds some interesting tension and decision making, as players want to avoid this penalty. But hopefully it's not just some frustrating thing that players are always worrying about, taking the fun out of the rest of the game.

 

Yep there is various routes to go with.
I suggest to look into civilisation series and how units upkeep is handled.
It is more prominent in Civ V.

When low on income, first progressing on tech can be affected.
Then dismissing units, either all for simplicity, or selectively, until bring balance to 0.
Reducing efficency of buildings, which require upkeep.
You divide negative balance by total upkeep cost.
So if income is 80, and upkeep is 100, that is 80% efficiency. Apply efficiency to all buildings.
Or as mentioned, shut down buildings selectively, until balance is 0 or greater.

Regarding collecting income, it is better to collect first, then calculate and apply cost. You wil get balance and relevant effect on buildings. You can do that either before, or after player turn.

Also, in some games like i.e. Anno, you are allowed for certain amount of a debth.

 

Few ideas:

* Go into negative values for the resource, and charge interest until returning to 0 or greater
* "Steal" the resource from the population, which causes unrest with increasing chance of rebellion
* Automatically sell other resources to purchase the missing resource
* Automatically transfer the needed resource from the nearest city
* Existing buildings/upgrades go into disrepair, with increasing chance they will be outright destroyed the longer the resource deficit lasts

 

This actually got me thinking, and I feel you are right about such a mechanic not being fun to play against.

So, maybe instead of penalizing players for not being able to supply demand where necessary - which might throw them down an endless spiral of frustration - having access to more resources should simply unlock which new locations, expansions and units can be built.

There would still be more than enough decisions for players to make, e.g. where to place resource generating locations (as their area of supply and number of supported receipients would be limited) or which expansions to build in their locations (as the number of slots is limited). Each of these limitations could also be raised through a tech tree which allows for even more decisions. Yay!

I might keep the upkeep penalty for military units as it somehow keeps rich players from simply steamrolling their competition, so an underpaid military would only fight with a X% efficiency. This way there would still be some part of your economy to constantly keep an eye on but it would not bring it to a complete halt.