Is there a better term than "Draft"?

[mr_stibbons]

While I love the idea of separate production queue and resource for units, I don't think draft is a great term. There's three big problems with it

1: Draft has multiple non-military meanings, like a rough sketch a cold breeze, the depth of a boat's hull, or a beer keg. This is likely to confuse some new players about what exactly they're collecting.

2: Draft as a noun in a military context is a singular thing. You perform a draft, which provides you draftees, once. It's not a fungible resource that you would gain in the hundreds.

3, much less seriously, a draft is a fairly specific way of raising an army- a compulsary service of free untrained citizens ran by a centralized government. Barbarian tribes or feudal knights aren't drafted, they are called on or rallied. Neither are mercenaries or professional soldiers, those people are hired or recruited.

For an alternative I'd suggest Muster which also means a group of soldiers, but doesn't have a bunch of alternative non-military meanings is less tied to a specific style of arm and is not such a singular term. If that's too obscure, Recruits or Manpower have similar meanings but are a bit more modernized.

 

[Ethorin]

For an alternative I'd suggest Muster which also means a group of soldiers, but doesn't have a bunch of alternative non-military meanings is less tied to a specific style of arm and is not such a singular term.

...Ummm... you are actually wrong about everything here though. "Muster your willpower!", "A Muster", "Mustering Ground", "Musters" makes about as much sense as "Drafts" in context.

Really, Draft works just fine. It's arguably a bit arbitrary but so is any other term you might want to apply.

 

[Mechalibur]

I think argument 1 is a bit silly. Lots of words have multiple meanings, but it's pretty clear in context which one it's referring to. I don't think anyone is going to be confused at the wording thinking they'll get a draft of beer.

Overall I prefer "Recruit" but draft doesn't bother me that much.

 

[barahir_mjh]

Maybe “Training”? That’s the name of the military resource in Old World used for units, generals, upgrades, and forced march. It’s a minor thing but yes “draft” is anachronistic for a medieval-ish setting.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Recruitment points.

Just rolls of the tongue!

 

[Nerdfish]

"Recruitment" or "Muster" are better terms, agreed.

 

[crusader9]

Overall I prefer "Recruit" but draft doesn't bother me that much.

I agree. I would prefer recruit as well.

 

[springel]

I think draft is a good word to stand parallel to build.

It means more than just conscription at a basic level. But mind you, there is nothing voluntary about forming your military units: you select the type and then draft them into your service, and that can include powerful specialists. They will still be at novice rank, or just above with some training facilities.

Look at some of the coherent meanings of to draft:

1. (transitive) To conscript a person, force a person to serve in some capacity, especially in the military.
   He was drafted during the Vietnam War.
2. To select someone (or something) for a particular role or purpose.
   There was a campaign to draft Smith to run for President.
   They drafted me to be the chairperson of the new committee.
3. To select and separate an animal or animals from a group.The calves were drafted from the cows.
4. (transitive, sports) To select a rookie player onto a professional sports team.
   After his last year of college football, he was drafted by the Miami Dolphins.

So you build buildings and you draft your people into your army units.

 

[Iguanaonastick]

From experience: changing a term this late in the production process is a nightmare.

You just know there's going to be some manual page, some tutorial entry, some game trailer that still uses the old term. Maybe even some reference in the UI you missed when searching. Maybe they've already paid for translations to be made using the old term and now they need to be redone.

And then there will be even more confusion.

So in general I suspect that changing the word is not going to happen even if there is a much better option.

 

[Tanel]

Training or Recruitment would be better but I think Draft is also fine. Manpower is more suitable for a pooling resource not military production but this game doesn't have such resource.

 

[Entherian]

Considering that most units you create in the game will seemingly consist of multiple members of the same Form as the city that produces them, I think "Draft" functions fine as a term for "this is how much progress we can make at creating one Unit of this troop type in a given turn." If this was Planetfall II, sure, I could see a case for renaming that something else, like Munitions or Logistics, but I doubt we'll see that many tanks, mecha, and laser-equipped T-Rexes this go around.

 

[TulajMnie]

Let's settle on one thing tho - it's a hot take so be warned, ready? It doesn't matter, like at all. It could be bananas and it would still work just fine
When they spoke about it at stream I thought "yeah sure make sense, moving on" so I instinctively knew what they ment in the contex that you clearly find not at all important in that matter which is impossible since you need contex to understand the word.

 

[AdmiralAckbar]

I don't really think confusing it with other uses of draft is a problem, but #3 seems like a fair point. I also don't think it's really used outside the US iirc?

 

[Climhazzard]

Human resources? Cannon fodder? lol. I think Draft is fine. In Starcraft it's supply, but everyone still understands. I think the context will be enough to explain it. Plus there might be a simple tutorial or some such.

Really, it doesn't even need a name. Just a symbol of some kind should be enough. Something race specific might be a nice touch.

 

[The5lacker]

Human resources? Cannon fodder? lol. I think Draft is fine. In Starcraft it's supply, but everyone still understands. I think the context will be enough to explain it. Plus there might be a simple tutorial or some such.

Really, it doesn't even need a name. Just a symbol of some kind should be enough. Something race specific might be a nice touch.

I mean "Supply" is more "Total number of forces you can field at a time" and less "Ability to produce more forces." And yes, things need names. If you think this is an unimportant conversation, feel free to not contribute to it.