One of the most recurring topics I see here is about the uber power of cottage spam, and the relative worthlessness of lumbermills, windmills and workshops. The only real thing done so far in the module to "slow" cottage spam is to make chopping take a bit more work to get. Could this all be fixed by just by reversing their order in the tech tree?

Specific suggestions would be:

1. Rename Education to Apprentiship. Instead of giving cottages it gives workshops.

2. Give cottages with Guilds.

3. Rename Tracking to Forestry. Have it give logging camps (reanmed lumbermills).

4. Give windmills and watermills at Construction.

5. Have Alchemy improve workshops.

6. Have Hidden Paths improve logging camps (and let elves make logging camps in forests/AFs).

7. Have engineering improve windmills and watermills.

8. Have arcane lore improve villages/towns.

Doing this would mean that lumber camps and workshops would both be valid early game improvements. Windmills and watermills would be early/mid game improvements. Finally, cottages would be late game improvements, and would come at a price... they would be initially weaker then the lumber camps, mills and workshops they were replacing. Likewise, at the same time you can get cottages you also get improvements to these more basic resources.

This would lead to much more diverse land development strategies. It would also mean that a civ that wanted to rush its financial development would be making sacrifices in their military/magic/religious development. More choices and tradeoffs are good things.

Pel.

Holy crap this is genious!
Simple and elegant. Plus one might see a use for early farms!
I say Yea!
-Qes

its interesting, all your ideas sound alright, though putting cottages in guilds seems a bit too far, and i dont see a reason why itd be attached to guilds.

something a bit sooner that makes more sense, not sure... maybe trade or currency, or something

its interesting, all your ideas sound alright, though putting cottages in guilds seems a bit too far, and i dont see a reason why itd be attached to guilds.

something a bit sooner that makes more sense, not sure... maybe trade or currency, or something

Guilds (at least in RL) were the beginnings of powerful non-centralized government and money. In this, they were a direct reason for the growth of villages and hamlets, eventually prospering into the renessaince towns that created the new age.

It's not hard to invision something of similar nature in FfH. Plus, it would extend the life of the game, and alter changes. A big complaint right now is no "end game" pizazz. If cottages (and therefore towns) were late game, power growth would be continuous from guilds on - something that i see as simply adding a good amount of flavor AND strategy.

In the early stages of the game (which most people enjoy already) things would be more rough an tumble. I like the idea. As "information and people" as power sources really are a later concept (outside of slavery).
I very very dig.
-Qes

taxation could work for cottages too, but guilds is just a bit too far, and it doesnt really make too much sense. taxation, trade, and currency all seem like valid reasons that small towns could generate income (if you tax them, taxation makes sense, or if they act like trade outposts,trade and currency make sense for those two)

taxation could work for cottages too, but guilds is just a bit too far, and it doesnt really make too much sense. taxation, trade, and currency all seem like valid reasons that small towns could generate income (if you tax them, taxation makes sense, or if they act like trade outposts,trade and currency make sense for those two)

Yeah, i guess. I just like it because it would give guilds a solid reason for me to try to get it. Right now...i dont really like the civic, so i dont oft go for it. Now, i do eventually research it, but its never really a priority.

I'd just like cottages to be the "Last" of the possible improvements. So, whatever that garners, is cool. Since they are oft considered the "best" improvement - Outside of hills and resources, they should be also the "last" improvement.
-Qes

guilds were not the reason towns generate income, i dont know where you're getting that lol, in the real current world guilds dont make towns generate income towards the state, taxes do, trade and commerce does, guilds has nothing to do with it

and note that in vanilla civ guilds is a high level tech and you get cottages way before.. you probably need towns before anyone would even think of guilds

guilds were not the reason towns generate income, i dont know where you're getting that lol, in the real current world guilds dont make towns generate income towards the state, taxes do, trade and commerce does, guilds has nothing to do with it

and note that in vanilla civ guilds is a high level tech and you get cottages way before.. you probably need towns before anyone would even think of guilds

In vanilla civ, the game is balanced differently, and represents slightly different things.

Considering the gereally rapid growth of towns (since they're always prefered to other improvements, they're ALWAYS worked, and therefore always growing) guilds in this case, represent (or could) the strengthing of domestic economics.

Taxes generate state revenue, yes, but guilds were responcible (at their time) for increasing the power distribution OUT into the towns and away from power centres. Effectively guilds were the decentralization of economics and power (in a fashion). Now, they werent responcible for this on their own, but they were in essence, very influential in this dynamic.

No, they didnt "make" towns or invent decentralization, but they were most definately a catalyst. Making guilds be the access point for Cottages, merely is an acknowledgement of this. Taxation ALSO makes sense, for its various reasons. BOth are legitimate.
-Qes

balance shmalance, cottages are available in the time equivalent of farms compared to vanilla, and they're not that great. personally i dont build them in ffh because unlike vanilla, theres much more threat of enemies coming and pillaging in ffh

guilds were not the reason towns generate income, i dont know where you're getting that lol, in the real current world guilds dont make towns generate income towards the state, taxes do, trade and commerce does, guilds has nothing to do with it

and note that in vanilla civ guilds is a high level tech and you get cottages way before.. you probably need towns before anyone would even think of guilds
You can justify just about anything in a fantasy game such as this. Why does Education allow cottages? Why does Arcane Lore give Villages/Towns more production?

Anyway, I've always thought cottages came too early in this game. Either delaying their appearance (as suggested above) or, if possible, making Hamlets, Villages, and Towns dependant upon certain techs would be an improvement in my books.

- Niilo

guilds is too far is my balance point, currency and trade are moderate and would work, taxation makes the most sense tho, and could use some filling out

You can justify just about anything in a fantasy game such as this. Why does Education allow cottages? Why does Arcane Lore give Villages/Towns more production?

Anyway, I've always thought cottages came too early in this game. Either delaying their appearance (as suggested above) or, if possible, making Hamlets, Villages, and Towns dependant upon certain techs would be an improvement in my books.

- Niilo

Perhaps this "Middle path" is the best idea.

Cottages cannot upgrade until Tech X.
Villages to hamlet Tech Y
Hamlets to Towns Tech Z
-Qes

im not convinced cottages are overpowered, they are a time investment, and one which is easily crashed.

i do feel they that they are ideal for financial civs next to rivers, and that perhaps there is a better tech for them (taxation makes the most sense for realism and for giving that tech more substance).

i do like the other ideas, and personally i think Crafting tech could use workshops, and the -mills improvements come too late to really be useful

I suggested guilds just to move cottages into the end-game tech area and to require a painful tech prioritization. Having them come a bit earlier would be fine with me... my main thrust was trying to set it up so that there was a reason to use mills/lumber/workshops.

Pel.

The chief concern I would have with moving cottages further back into the tech tree is that some civs are really dependent on them. Those with the barbarian trait are really hard pressed enough to get science going. If you stick cottages so far back, then how will these civs ever get to research them if they end up in a poor commerce start?

However, I do like the idea of limiting the growth of cottages => hamlets => villages => towns with some sort of tech restriction. I think this may help to even out civs that can research education right away versus civs that can not. As it is right now, getting early cottages is maybe a bit too powerful.

Hmm... If cottages were moved back, there really should be some alternative early-game commerce improvement. As is, starting with several gold-heavy wine/gem/gold/silk/incense/reagents resources and developing them can let you equal - and even surpass, early on - a cottage economy. If cottages were taken out, people with gold-resource-poor starting spots would just find themselves even further behind.

(On the other hand, moving cottages up the tree would give specialist-powered reasearch an indirect boost. That's a good thing.)

AFAIK the AI pre-plans it's improvements, so allowing cottages later in the game might cripple them, by leading to much unimproved/"useless" land

I like this idea.

This would make Civs that started near luxury resources immensely powerful. Go ahead and mod FfH for yourself to see how it changes the game. I'm convinced that, though it might sound cool, it would ruin the progression of techs. Where would you get your beakers? Elder councils, and what else? River tiles? Do you really want to spend 90 turns researching something on quick speed?

Combine this with the fact that the AI couldn't handle it, and this idea really doesn't make any sense. If you want slower tech progression, just petition to increase tech costs across the board.

Well, lets look at the problem rather than the solution. From what I can see what the OP is saying that cottages are too good, there is seldom a reason to build anything else on a square that can have a cottage on it. We are all focusing on the solution, perhaps we should address wether we think the problem is real, and then come up with a solution.
In short, do you think that cottages are just plain better than the other options for any given piece of terrain.

For plains, grassland, or floodplains I very rarely build anything other than cottages. So are they overpowered or do workshops and mills just stink?

Put me down as another one who really likes this idea. Although I side with Sureshot in that cottages should be a tad earlier than Guilds such as Currency or Taxation.

i say if its going to be farther, it shouldnt be as far as guilds for sure, but realistically, i dont view cottages as overpowered. only for financial leaders are they even ideal.

In short, do you think that cottages are just plain better than the other options for any given piece of terrain.

Yes, given no special resources on a hex, in FfH if you can build a cottage on that hex, then you need to do so. Anything else is usually a waste of either time(getting req. improvement) or waste of improvement as cottages will end up better.

can't build them on every tile tho, and they take time (+1 commerce isnt better than +1 food), and i must say, i rather enjoy pillaging cottages heh

Here's why cottages are so good in FfH:

Vitalize. With this spell, just about anyone can make it so that all of the tiles in a city's fat cross give two food (except when they give 5). Now, each of these self-sustaining tiles can have a cottage put on them. In vanilla Civ, you had to put farms near city's that didn't have perfect starts in order to get a city up to size 20 to work all of the tiles it can.

What's so incredibly different about FfH that means it needs to delay cottages so much to be well balanced? They're already far, far weaker than those in vanilla Civ.

Vanilla Civ towns
Base: 4 :commerce:
Printing Press: +1 :commerce:
Free Speech: +2 :commerce:
Universal Suffrage: +1 :hammers:

Fall from Heaven town
Base: 4 :commerce:
Arcane Lore: +1 :hammers:

I still don't see why you think the cottages should be pushed back even farther. What major gameplay issue would this correct?

Here's why cottages are so good in FfH:

Vitalize. With this spell, just about anyone can make it so that all of the tiles in a city's fat cross give two food (except when they give 5). Now, each of these self-sustaining tiles can have a cottage put on them. In vanilla Civ, you had to put farms near city's that didn't have perfect starts in order to get a city up to size 20 to work all of the tiles it can.

What's so incredibly different about FfH that means it needs to delay cottages so much to be well balanced? They're already far, far weaker than those in vanilla Civ.

Vanilla Civ towns
Base: 4 :commerce:
Printing Press: +1 :commerce:
Free Speech: +2 :commerce:
Universal Suffrage: +1 :hammers:

Fall from Heaven town
Base: 4 :commerce:
Arcane Lore: +1 :hammers:

I still don't see why you think the cottages should be pushed back even farther. What major gameplay issue would this correct?

Technically, to perfect all gameplay issues, we'd all be playing "go", as it has the most minimal amount of features, differentiations, and there are never any balance issues that cannot be fixed by Ko.

But were not playing Go. We're playing Civ, which means Feature-happiness.
When Cottages become the mainstay of every civ, when nearly every single tile is going to have them (with the exception of perhaps hills and resources) and every civ is doing this, it gets boring. There isnt much in the way of variety.

It isnt a "gameplay-balance" issue its a gameplay "variety" issue.
If we want the most solid gameplay, we eliminate all possible features, and turn it into very simplistic (but very difficult) strategy, like Go. I love go, and when i want pure strategy, i play go. But when i want features, i play civ. Having improvments is cool, but when its only genuinely feasiable to play in one style, then the "variety is lost" and things begin to look homogenous.

I want mixes and tapestries of landscape. Towns and farms and workshops and water/wind mills, and towers, and ponies and loveshaks and bling-shops and pawn shops and car dealerships...etc.

I kid of course, but I DO perfer variety. As it is right now, you build cottages with the idea that one day they will become towns. There really isnt another way to keep up.
-Qes

It isnt a "gameplay-balance" issue its a gameplay "variety" issue.
Maybe we can have a couple types of cottage lines?
Like the current commerce line, and then expanding workshops, so that they start as current, then lose the -1 food, then gain another hammer, then gain a coin, then finally something else.

if all (or at least he ones unused, wind/lumber/water mill, workshops) improvments improved over time, it would be a lot better...

My biggest problem with the current placement of cottages on the tech tree is that civs that start with ancient chants can research education for cottages right away, which gives them a huge leg up on getting those cottages going early. This becomes especially unbalanced when there are goodie huts available and a civ pops education (or even worse, popping writing after researching education). For civs that can't research education right off the bat, they first have to get 125 beakers worth of ancient chants and then another 200 beakers for education. This is even worse for the Clan of Embers and Charadon who start with no free techs AND have -10% to research. In vanilla civ, although there are civs that can also research pottery off that bat, because the tech costs are lower around the board, the differences between civs that can and can't get pottery right away isn't as big a deal.

This is similar to the problem that I have with writing giving a free tech because the only requirement to research writing is education. In vanilla civ, liberalism is well balanced because there are a number of high costing techs in order to get to liberalism and the benefits of liberalism (free speech, free religion) aren't so huge. Plus, you usually have to sacrifice getting the free merchant at economics in order to make the run at liberalism (unless you're playing on lower difficulty levels and crushing the AI in research). Writing in FFH2 allows libraries which give a 25% increase in beakers, which is already a huge bonus in addition to the free tech. My recommendation would be to have writing have an additional prerequisite such as philosophy. This would make early popping of writing from huts much more difficult and give most civs a decent chance at getting to writing first rather than only the civs that start with ancient chants.

Instead of constraining the building of cottages, technology could contrain their growth.

What if certain techs added +1 to the max size of cottages? So in order to grow a cottage up to a Town, you'd need four techs (one of which might be pretty high up on the tree.)

You guys are all too conservative. :p
If it were up to me, I'd scrap cottages altogether, or at least combine them with farms.
Think about it: towns represent urbanization. Besides towns the other major terraformation strategy is farming for supporting specialists. But specialitization is also a sign of urbanization and large population centers. And large population centers exist in fertile regions (ie with lots of farms). So towns and farms aren't opposite terraformation as Civ4 would have you think. They're the same thing. So why not something like:

Farm: +1 food
Village: +1 food, +1 commerce (grows from a farm in twenty turns)
Town: +1 food, +2 commerce (grows from a village in fourty turns)
Metropolis: +1 food, +3 commerce (grows from a town in 160 turns, gives a HUGE bonus for pillaging :cool: )
+1 extra food with Sanitation

So farm -> metropolis would represent gradual population growth in FfH, as people repopulate the world after the ice age.

To replace the cottage as an improvement you can build in tiles without fresh water access, I'd make the pasture buidable in all tiles. They could start with +1 hammer, +1 commerce. and with techs (such as Horseback Riding ;)) produce up to +2 hammers, +2 commerce. Unlike farms they shouldn't grow to anything else though to represent the mobile life of animals herds, and the fact they can return quickly to a pillaged area (what's there to pillage after all?).
Unlike farms <-> towns, farms <-> pastures would actually represent a different lifestyle, one between sedentarism and nomadism.

By letting the farm -> town line end at a lower commerce level (only +2 - I assume metropoles would be rare) specialists would become more important as a means to gain gold and science. This will have the added advantage of a greater distinction between eg gold (merchant) and science (sage) civs depending on civics etc. Currently, due to the absence of a spending cap on science/gold à la Civ2, everyone sets their science spending as high as possible. :(

Idea: perhaps workers should be able to build towns directly at a cost of 70 turns after researching some tech. It would represent conscious colonization instead of natural growth, and would give workers something more to do besides idling half their time...

Non-XML ideas that would go well with this:
Add spending caps for your commerce à la Civ2, changeable by civics. Eg standard it's maximum 60%. City States would give -10%, other civics could increase it.
Decrease the increase of GPP. 150->100->50 per GP instead of 150->300->...

personally id like to see the resource improvements being buildable when theres no resource there, and working like mines, but instead finding the type of resource they can work.

so pastures built could have a chance of finding horses or sheep whatnot
quarries could find stone or marble

and the windmills and such need a boost in general, lets make bigger not just gimp cottages, theyre already gimped compared to vanilla

I like the idea of pushing back cottages. I think taxation would be a good place. Requireing X tech to advance a cottage seems like a good idea but it also seems very complicated. There are alternate sources to pick up beakers rather then requireing cottages. Trade routes can be a very important to increase tech and history supports early civs which good trading locations. The Greeks didn't become the center of culture because of villages, they were mostly a few city states. Greece go where they were by access to the Mediteranian sea and located in the center of Western Civilzation, able to trade with Africa and Europe.

Pushing back cottages only delays the problem however, since when civs pick up taxation (or whatever tech) they would then spam cottages. I would recommend making it so that they caused -1 food. This would negate the vitalize spells difference from Vanilla and would require that a city's fat cross not be filled with them in order to get to 20 citizens. To balance Cottages they could actually see an increase in commerece (possibly with some new tech). This also makes sense since cottages grow to be towns by having the cottages population grow. Settlers and workers already take food to be built so I don't see this idea going against flavour.

Unser <3's Pelka. :love:

When I've talked about rearainging the tech tree, and claim FfH's pacing is too fast, this is the exact sort of thing. It seemed like I was in a severe minority when it came to comments like that, so it is heartening to see you get a good response to your proposals.

For my money I'll salute any idea run up the flagpole at this stage. But I'd rather hear a lot of brainstorming before anything too drastic is done. Pushing Cottages all the way back to Guilds would also drastically increase the time it would take to reach guilds. There are bound to be all sorts of unintended consequences, so a lot of brainstorming would be great.

You can justify just about anything in a fantasy game such as this. Why does Education allow cottages? Why does Arcane Lore give Villages/Towns more production?

Anyway, I've always thought cottages came too early in this game. Either delaying their appearance (as suggested above) or, if possible, making Hamlets, Villages, and Towns dependant upon certain techs would be an improvement in my books.

- Niilo

I've been bouncing Niilo's idea around inside the head recently and I sort of like it. I am not fanatical about any specific proposal yea or nea at this point, but I do sort of like this idea.

Here's some other general concepts thrown out for ponderization.

Moving Leaves or OctoLords to the Argiculture Branch: This would increase the comminttment / risk level for the rush-to-early-religion gambit.

Swap God King and Organized Religion: This simple change has been proposed several times. It would definitely slow down early expansion.

Another Root-Level Tech (or Two): Perhaps the mage/conjurer development lines should be split into an entire branch from the priest development lines? Perhaps spreading out the Agriculture/Crafting/Exploration techs into four branches instead of three might make it easier to distribute things around? I dunno, but I suspect the added flexibility might prove handy.

More when the brain is more awake and teh ISP connection less :aargh:

I agree that something has to be done around the whole cottage thing.
But i don't think that the boni cottages give are too much.

The Problem imho are Flood Plains, if i see them around at my starting position i get to cottages asap and start building them on the Flood Plains.
My city still grows very fast and i get a lot of commerce.
when i've reached the happycap i kinda have to work some hills, meaning i get lots of hammers and commerce.

well the problem is that its just plain stupid to build farms on the Flood Plains, at least in the early game, since you reach the happy cap very fast you have no use for all the food anyway, even Flood Plains with cottages are a lot of Food.

summing up, the early Combo of Flood Plains and Cottages is extremly powerful. The unhealth generated was never an issue in my games, if you get some rice and a cow even less.

Maybe make Flood Plains not workable until sanitation.

I don't like the idea of moving cottages too far in the tech tree very much, as cottages on Gras and plains are just fine and it would slow the early game down a lot tech wise.

and another thing, regarding Flood Plains, i don't think you should be able to upgrade them via "vitalize the land" or Genesis.
Maybe Genesis because its a Ritual, but VtL is just to easy to get.

Imagine a Kurioates Town with more than 20 FP and you just finished Genesis.
I had that in one of my games.
I think we all agree that having 25 ressources around your city is way too powerful, those turned FP had better yields than most ressources, so how is that any different?

i like the OP's idea a lot, although maybe, as someone said, not quite as far back as Guilds.

Why couldn't lumbermills and such give a small bit of commerce? Its not like mills aren't run for profit.. Not sure how I would balance it out but hey

I'll throw a couple ideas into the brain storm.
-Quadruple the time needed to grow cottages. Add to republic and guild civics a double speed on hamlet & village growth.
This would not prevent early cottages from being useful, but make specialists and aristocracy much more useful, as well as those civics, allowing cottage line growth to return to current levels eventually.

-Flood plains have a small random chance of, well, flooding every so many turns. This would knock cottage improvements down one level. It shouldn't happen so much that they don't have time to grow back, but would limit the power of floodplains + cottages. When one FP floods, an adjacent on might have a small chance to flooding as well.

Then you create a chain reaction and the whole river floods ! W00T !!!

Hm... it would make sense for flood plains to flood, wouldn't it? I think that might be a nice way to balance flood plains, though on the higher difficulty levels, their unhealthiness can be a balancing factor in itself.

I think that specialists need more love in general. Food/farm/aristocracy/and specialist..er..speciailzation should be a cool tactic.

I want 3-4 specialits per size 8 city, that'd rock.
-Qes

specialists would be better if the time to make them didnt increase so much each time

specialists would be better if the time to make them didnt increase so much each time

Well in theory, a specialist is a replacement for working a tile that'd A) not grant food anyway and B) wouldnt have income generated as high as a specialist.

Makes sense, But i love specialists, and i wish they were in more :).
-Qes

EDIT: Made me sad to see the free specialists go in caste system.

Maybe they'll come back somewhere else? Yes Yes Maybe? NO....Back to work....

After reading all of the posts in this thread, let me give 2 points that would improve the game imo. In the second point, I have tries to merge many ideas that have been brought in on this thread.
I really hope this will be implemented one day in some form!

1. Total economic redesign
I think that the basic flaw in Civ is that goods have no units. Once you have access to a resource, the amounts that can be extracted appear to be infinite. In the real world this is obviously different.
Implementing this would mean a total redesign of the civ economic system. I have once considered this, but it would be way too time consuming for me to work out the idea. If goods were tradable, there would/could be much more scarcity. This would increase international trade in order to obtain goods not available in your lands.
For FfH, this would mean that much more land would need to be worked in order to maintain a population of give size. This would be a natural limit to growth, both in popultion and in wealth. You could not build only cottages and towns, because you would need the land for producing goods.

In this notion lies the proposal for FfH:

2. Feasible changes to the great FfH 2 mod
I agree with the following observations:
* though better than in vanilla, Cottages (i.e. cottages, hamlets, villages, towns) are still too powerful. Spending 90% of you income for science is making the later game leratively uninteresting.
* enormous amounts of Cottages yields no scenic graphics.

Proposal:
cottages can only be built
- next to rivers (on every second square, if you wish)
- in the 4 squares immediately adjacent to the city
- next to a tile with a special resource; only 1 allowed per resource square
- on junctions of trade routes, and along trade routes within your city's squares (you would need something to mark trade routes if you want to implement this, and it might be an option to demand maintenance of 1 gold per 3 squares of trade route; trade routes are good and broad roads connecting cities, and workers need time to build these)

production table
size food gold
1 cottage as is 1 (as is: unworked land yield)
2 hamlet -1 2
3 village -2 3
4 town 0 4 (all space is occupied by buildings, no food!)
food production is at least 0

The above means that you will need other tiles to produce enough food to maintain a Cottage, thus preventing you from spamming the land with them.

It sounds like there is alot of support for doing something about cottages. However, I my original point wasn't so much about fixing cottages, as making lumbermills, windmills, waterwheels and workshops more attractive. If the intellegent decision is to always make a cottage, and these all appear later i the tech tree then cottages... then there is a big problem. We need to either:

1. Weaken the cottage line so that they aren't uniformly better then these other improvements.

2. Make the other improvements better so they represent valid alternatives (at least to some racial/religions combinations).

3. Move cottages after them in the tech tree so that these represent interim improvements that are eventually replaced by cottages.

Pel

It sounds like there is alot of support for doing something about cottages. However, I my original point wasn't so much about fixing cottages, as making lumbermills, windmills, waterwheels and workshops more attractive. If the intellegent decision is to always make a cottage, and these all appear later i the tech tree then cottages... then there is a big problem. We need to either:

1. Weaken the cottage line so that they aren't uniformly better then these other improvements.

2. Make the other improvements better so they represent valid alternatives (at least to some racial/religions combinations).

3. Move cottages after them in the tech tree so that these represent interim improvements that are eventually replaced by cottages.

Pel


I like the tech tree adjustment the most. Also means that the world feels less "populated" until later. All those towns imply population, and it would make sense the world is covered in peoples much later than earlier.
-Qes

2. Make the other improvements better so they represent valid alternatives (at least to some racial/religions combinations).
I have a couple of ideas for this
1) Have certain buildings increase the yeild of those imporovments. Like a Grain Mill could add +1 food to windmills or Forges could add +2 commerce to Workshops.
2) Dwarves get special mines, Elves get to build in forests. Orcs don't seem to get much special. Letting them work jungles has been recommended so there is some love out there for the orcs. It seems that being a more aggresive race they might make better workshops perhaps +2 shields.

In vanilla I never really used Workshops, but I did see the potential with them with the +1:food: State Property, and the fact that they got +1:hammers: from some tech. I dont know if they get +:hammers:from some tech in FfH, but they should.

And they should also get +1:food: with a civic. Maybe Guilds?

Windmills should get +1:commerce: from some tech, and then maybe +1:commerce: from another tech later. And it should come quite early. I did use them in vanilla when I needed extra food.

Watermills are already restricted by the fact that they can only be built by rivers, and only one one side of the river (you cant build on the opposite side if you have one on the other). They should come slighly later then farms, and give +1:food: +1:commerce: +1:hammers: initially (might be too good with +:commerce: and +:hammers: from the start, but since they cant be built everywhere anyhow). And with a tech they should get +1:commerce:, and maybe another tech give +1:hammers:.

Lumbermills are the only of these 4 I already build. Since you seem to get less hammers from removing forests in this mod anyways (might be just me). And I usually like having the health from the forests around. But maybe they need a +1:hammers: from a tech?

Here's why cottages are so good in FfH:

Vitalize. With this spell, just about anyone can make it so that all of the tiles in a city's fat cross give two food (except when they give 5). Now, each of these self-sustaining tiles can have a cottage put on them. In vanilla Civ, you had to put farms near city's that didn't have perfect starts in order to get a city up to size 20 to work all of the tiles it can.

What's so incredibly different about FfH that means it needs to delay cottages so much to be well balanced? They're already far, far weaker than those in vanilla Civ.

Vanilla Civ towns
Base: 4 :commerce:
Printing Press: +1 :commerce:
Free Speech: +2 :commerce:
Universal Suffrage: +1 :hammers:

Fall from Heaven town
Base: 4 :commerce:
Arcane Lore: +1 :hammers:

I still don't see why you think the cottages should be pushed back even farther. What major gameplay issue would this correct?

I like this post Chand but I think you took it only goes halfway point. If you don't mind I'd like to bring it on home.

You are right. The difference between Civ and FfH is the preponderance of cottages. Vitalize, and Spring, mean Cottages might be built on 75% of all the tiles in your FfH empire. In Civ you generally cannot afford to build cottages all over the place. Deserts certainly do not turn into suburbia in Civ.

Yes, one Civ cottage will eventually outproduce 1 FfH cottage, but that is not the an important comparison WRT FfH. The important comparison is the FfH Cottage compared to the FfH Everything Else. The FfH Cottage at +4:commerce: +1:hammers: is more productive than the FfH Lumbermill, Windmil, Mine, and Farm. It's not as good as a Civ cottage, but it's still the best deal in town. Then terraforming allows the most productive improvement to be placed virtually everywhere, eventually.

Delaying the introduction of cottages, or slowing the growth rate of cottages, addresses this my reducing the value of each cottage. The overall value of an improvement is best measured as its total production over time. I'm not sure it would do enough, but it does tend to make the other improvements a bt more competative compared to cottages. But probably not enough to offset the terraforming aspect. That is the driving force behind cottage concern.

However this point cannot be brought home completely without mention of the Ljosaflar. With terraforming and forest builds, Ljo can raise cottages on 90% or more of their tiles. If terraforming is cut back, Ljosalfar's economic advantage grows even wider because their forest build ability remains. So long as one civilization can ultra-spam the single most productive terratin improvement, all civilizations will need the ability to spam that improvement.

It sounds like there is alot of support for doing something about cottages. However, I my original point wasn't so much about fixing cottages, as making lumbermills, windmills, waterwheels and workshops more attractive. If the intellegent decision is to always make a cottage, and these all appear later i the tech tree then cottages... then there is a big problem. We need to either:

1. Weaken the cottage line so that they aren't uniformly better then these other improvements.

2. Make the other improvements better so they represent valid alternatives (at least to some racial/religions combinations).

3. Move cottages after them in the tech tree so that these represent interim improvements that are eventually replaced by cottages.

Pel

In the spirit of (4) All Of The Above, a germ of an idea hits me.

1. Weaken the Cottage line by 3. slowing their growth by tying them to tech tree development, specifically with 2. certain race/religion tweaks in mind. How can that be accomplished? Civics.

e.g.

Cottages can be built under Education like now. But they a cannot grow to Hamlets until Arisotcracy is in place to supply the local country Lord. Or let's say Republic allows growth all the way to Village ... unless you're also running Sacrifice the Weak in which case you're back down to Hamlets. Not only are their fewer people to go around, for some reason, you want to keep them close to the "processing center" for the exact same some reason. I could probably think up an effect for Guardian of Nature, if given some quiet time and a generous alottment of fine single-malt scotch. :mischief:

The exact effects abve just for demonstration. A little thought can flesh out the idea. In FfH our suburbia wouled ebb and swell according to changes in social conditions, technology, cutural values, what have you. There's a chance civics tweaking is a route to balance, and can be fairly targetable.

Will hidden nationality units be allowed to pillage? This might make cottages a very nice target since you won't have to declare war to get their bountiful pillage bonus. If so then cottages might be restricted away from your border cities or require constant vilgilance. It hasn't been a problem for me in war for three main reasons

1) Wars don't last the entire game (usually)

2) Focus is already on getting a military to defend your lands

3) Ususually over in THEIR borders taking down THEIR cottages

Ah, you know, allowing hidden nationality units to pillage would be really nice. You'd probably have to either get rid of the gold you get from pillaging with hidden nationality units, or at least reduce it, but it would make improvements like cottages much more difficult to sustain. I'm hoping that hidden nationality units will become a more important part of the game.

Simply moving cottages to a later tech or making them significantly weaker in the early game won't work.
At the moment cottages are the only improvements that add commerce early on without depending on a specific ressource, if you take that away it would make starting positions with luxuary ressources way to powerful. Imagine you had two gold ressources in/near your capitols fat cross, without early cottages the other players wouldn't be able to keep up with your research (probably 2x theirs). You would get the tech needed for cottages way before them and the gap would grow even bigger. If you don't allow cottages to grow until a certain tech is researched the same will happen to a lesser extent.

If you think cottages are to strong buff the other improvements (watermills for example...) or make towns weaker in the late game.

You'd probably have to either get rid of the gold you get from pillaging with hidden nationality units...

Utterly concur. After all, those filthy mercs are only in it for the promise of pay and whatever loot they can get their hands on.

Simply moving cottages to a later tech or making them significantly weaker in the early game won't work.
At the moment cottages are the only improvements that add commerce early on without depending on a specific ressource, if you take that away it would make starting positions with luxuary ressources way to powerful. Imagine you had two gold ressources in/near your capitols fat cross, without early cottages the other players wouldn't be able to keep up with your research (probably 2x theirs). You would get the tech needed for cottages way before them and the gap would grow even bigger. If you don't allow cottages to grow until a certain tech is researched the same will happen to a lesser extent.

If you think cottages are to strong buff the other improvements (watermills for example...) or make towns weaker in the late game.

With respect, I disagree. When you are at one or two cities, even +1 commerce is significant. Restricting early cottage growth to say Hamlets would actually have a rather small impact on the opening game.

As for an imbalance caused by luxury resorces near the start, I don't see this scenario occuring very frequently. First of all, many of these resources need both Calendar and Bronze Working or Sanitation to develop as they are often under forest or jungle. Secondly, every startup will have some of these resources. Once civ might be lucky enough to have a few extra, but it's not going to be a doubling or trebling of everyone else.

Lastly, how is this scenario any different from the status quo? Rigth now the startup lucky enough to have a lot of flood plains or a lot of fishable resources has an advantage over others. Lots of early food means lots of early settlers. There will always be poor startup locations, good ones, and great ones. What's the difference if 'great' means flood plains or if 'great' means gold deposits?

As for making all the other improvements even more productive, perhaps that'll provide some good results. However I see no reason to declare weaking cottages off-limits. I don't think FfH suffers some from too little production, I think it suffers some from too much production. Adding even more production via lumbermills and the rest strikes me as adding gasoline to a fire that is already uncomfortably hot. But I could be wrong about that, so it's best to keep an open mind. :)

Ah, you know, allowing hidden nationality units to pillage would be really nice. You'd probably have to either get rid of the gold you get from pillaging with hidden nationality units, or at least reduce it, but it would make improvements like cottages much more difficult to sustain. I'm hoping that hidden nationality units will become a more important part of the game.

This is bound to be fun, but I doubt these units will cause much more than nusiance-level economic damage between evenly-matched opponents. It will be hard to cause enough long-term economic damage to recoup the construction cost of units with brief lifetimes. I have to think defenders will have a large advantage over raiders. (Hidden recon units will be the defensive unit of choice to spot 'em kill 'em and/or call in the cavalry. :))

I doubt hidden nationality units will have much of an impact on the importance to Cottage spam. The successful early cottage spammer is probably the same well-funded guy or gal out hiring them mercenaries to raid the poorer, less-cottaged-up, neighbors. In that sense it is possible the HNUs will exacerbate the situation.

But fun, I do expect they will be fun. :)

Ok I'll throw in some numbers: capitol base commerce is 9 now lets add an elder council and maybe two worked river tiles to one player, that would equal 13 research for many turns without early cottages. New cities aren't going to contribute research fast.
An other player with two gold tiles could gain 9+2x6=21 (gold was +6 right?) research easily. Add an elder council here aswell and you nearly have double the research. You only need to research 1-2 techs or luck with goody huts to build mines and I have never seen a gold ressource with a forest on it right from the start. Wine isn't bad either, you can improve it even earlier than gold and I have had starts with three wines + flood plains.
The status quo is different because you can build cottages to catch up (as you said: every commerce counts in the early game). Of cource the other player can build cottages as well, but having 20 research vs 30 is way better than 13 vs 23.

There are great, good, ok and bad starts and there is always luck involved in where you end up. But delaying cottages or making them weaker early on makes great commerce starts even greater. I don't think that this would be good, why should the impact of luck at the start of the game be increased?
Granted, those starts are rather rare but they do happen.