Free Buildings

[Dancing Hoskuld]

As mentioned in other threads there are problems with buildings that provide free buildings. Two examples:-

1) Flavian Ampitheater gives a free colusseum to all cities but the colesseum has a penalty of -3
2) The National Library Service gives free libraries but instead of getting economies of scale you get more costs.

The other way that a city gets free buildings is when it is settled. C2C inherited the Colonist and Pioneer from RoM/AND both provide some buildings for free when the city is built.

I think we should review all the settler units and decide which buildings a new town should have.

For example a Tribe should come with the buildings berry bushes, herbs, mushrooms, basket weaver and the best 1-2 huts available to that civ. Plus if on the coast tide pools.

A colonist gives a barracks, granary, forge and market. Plus if on the coast harbour, lighthouse and fisherman's hut.

A Pioneer gives garrison, granary, forge, market, courthouse, stable, grocer, doctor and bank. Plus if on the coast port, lighthouse and fisherman's hut.

 

[Stormwind]

Are there currently any plans on lategame (say Modern era and beyond) settler units ?

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Dancing Hoskuld

The problem is many of those depend upon resources and or buildings. Such as ..

- Fisherman's Hut requires Raw Fish or Shellfish resources which are produced by city vicinity buildings like Tuna Nets or Lobster Traps.

- Market requires either a Trading Post or Barter Post.

- Lighthouse requires Stone or Brick resources.

- Stables require Horse Trainer or Camel Trainer or Elephant Trainer, etc. You know this long upgrade chain well.

The other thing I don't like is buildings such as The National Library that give free buildings should in turn have the same requirements and the building they give for free such as the The National Library should require Tablets, Scrolls, Paper or Books. We need to go through the free building giving buildings and see if the building they give is by passing the building requirements.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The problem is that that is what the colonist and pioneer are giving. We have not gone back and made sure they work fine.

We need to decide what buildings a new town should start with given the era and what fall backs there should be.

Oh and stop messing with my wonders. The National Library is mine, all mine!

 

[Hydromancerx]

What about this instead of giving them free buildings you can normally build you give them a bonus colony building? One that would encourage growth and production. Such as "Colonial Outpost" or something like that.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If we can do it properly then it could be used for revolutions and barbarians settling down.

BtW the barbs are growing again with AIAndy's health changes.

 

[robomani]

Can free building wonder give bonus on existing building, like The National Library giving + science and/or - upkeep for the libraries in your civ.

 

[Iceciro]

In general, if you have a robust enough civilization, the bonuses the wonders that just give free buildings of a generic type feel quite lean anyways. Stonehenge is an exception, and to a degree so is the Piazza San Marco, but the NLS came at a time when I had already been running libraries in most places anyways, and the only places that didnt have one were places that I didnt feel the science output matched the upkeep cost.

It might not be an awful idea to look at the entire idea from the drawing board and consider what you're trying to achieve with such wonders. In the later game, the civ that builds the wonders is probably the one with the tech advantage; which was probably achived with libraries anyways. Now, something that gave 1 gold for every library I had in my empire (offsetting some of the cost)? I would go for that in a heartbeat.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The original idea for buildings, and the one I subscribe to, is that these (national) wonders are infrastructure departments that give you the advantages of scale and provide the building in places where they might not normally be built. Either due to the specialisation of the city or it lacks certain resources.

The best implementation I have seen for this sort of thing was in Civ III - Paths of Glory where the cost of the Department was expensive if you had a small empire but cheap if a large one. With the break even point somewhere between 10 and 15 cities.

In many mods you would have a Ministry/Vazier in charge of Granaries, another of barracks, and another for libraries. In fact the cost of the libraries varied depending on what material the works were stored on clay, papyrus or paper.

I was thinking at one stage of having a special library that normal libraries upgraded to which cost less and were only provided by the Ministry.


The idea behind the settler units getting free buildings was that they would take stuff with them and have expectations for a set of services. Again they would get them even if the place they settled did not have immediate access to the needed resources because they would have brought them with them.

 

[strategyonly]

Now this is an excellent discussion, and a MUCH needed one, thx for bringing this to the much needed attention it deserves. Also alot of stuff to consider like Hydro said, but i like he idea of post # 9 also by DH.

 

[Yid]

Okay, so there could be a problem with free buildings which are to small for a citiy (eg. Library in a city smaller than 6 Pop). You want to apply them through 2 ways: wonders & settler units.

How about a different approach: maybe the wonders/settlers give a "small" version of a building, which can be upgraded to the normal version. We had the example of the National Library/Library, so I will try to clarify my idea using it:

The National Library (and possibly a "Pioneer" settler) could provide a "small library" to cities.
"small libraries" cannot be build in cities where a "library" exists.
The small library has half the bonusses and possibly less drawbacks.
"Library" gets a +50% build bonus if a "small library" exists, and will replace the small library.

Another thought on Post #5
The "colonial outpost" which was mentioned by HydromancerX could give quite the same bonusses, like "+50% for Library, Trading Post, Stables and Lighthouse". Maybe that's easier to create, too.

How about that?

 

[Yid]

In fact the cost of the libraries varied depending on what material the works were stored on clay, papyrus or paper.

Resources could be made more meaningful here. For example a library could have bonusses and or changed cost:

- Base values "-5.0 ", "+1 "
- "+1.0 with paper"
- "+1.0 with books"
- "+1.0 with books"

... resulting in "-3.0 " and "+2 " if you have Paper and Books

 

[Iceciro]

I like the idea of that as the new trade resources are something I largely dont pay any attention to.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Resources could be made more meaningful here. For example a library could have bonusses and or changed cost:

- Base values "-5.0 ", "+1 "
- "+1.0 with paper"
- "+1.0 with books"
- "+1.0 with books"

... resulting in "-3.0 " and "+2 " if you have Paper and Books

I like this idea. Many of the resources already have a bonus on them but this gives us some specific library bonuses. i wonder why we don't have bamboo scrolls or velum books.

 

[Iceciro]

Also, written tradition could perhaps provide a slight upkeep bonus to libraries, on the basis that your civ is already investing into that sort of thing as a whole.

 

[Yid]

I don't have Civ IV at hand yet, but: but: don't tablets expire? If they do, we can apply the following bonusses for Libraries as well:

"-1 with Tablets"
"+1 with Tablets".

It would express that tablets are expensive to handle but carry a lot of useful information.

Papyrus/Scrolls/Paper might be similar in handling, so maybe a bonus like this might work:

"+1 with Papyrus, Scrolls or Paper"
"+1 with Tablets, Papyrus, Scrolls, Paper or Books"

If you want so express that Paper and Books are even cheaper than Papyrus you might add
"+1 with Paper or Books"

If you want to express that Books are even better stuff you may add:
"+1 with Books"

The trick would be to increase the basic cost to, say -5 .

 

[Iceciro]

The trick would be to increase the basic cost to, say -5 .

I was with you until this. The idea is to offset to some degree the cost of the library, not make it effectively the same. Though, really, the idea was to do something about the free building everywhere wonders like the National library system and then the discussion kinda devolved.

 

[Yid]

Okay, let's return to the start of the discussion: The -3 and -3 bonus of free buildings kill of small cities. Maybe it is possible to take away effects if cities are just to small?

Speaking of the real world: what happens if you build a huge sports stadium in the middle of nowhere? Well, nobody will go there.

To reflect this, maybe the effects of the collosseum should be reduced, say: no effect for city population < 3, half its current effects for cities between 3 and 6, and full effect for cities >= 6. Maybe even more fine grade. I don't know if this is possible to mod...

 

[Iceciro]

It might be... I know we can add stuff per pop, but I'm not sure if we can add it based on X or more pop.

 

[Praetyre]

I am very strongly in favor of proportional/percentage boosts for all but the most primitive of buildings. Not only is it far more balanced and realistic, it would also address some of Joseph's complaints regarding reliance upon specialized cities, as size would become more of a factor in building choice. Would go even better with enhanced settler units, of course.