Faustmouse
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
- Messages
- 3,524
... but a huge leap for me!
Since I really want to have some space stuff in this mod, and preferably before multimaps so it is already tested when they are introduced, I now go and try to make it a project which I plan and develope by myself - as good as I can.
I want this side project to be as helpful for the mod as possible. Therefore, I'll skip the stuff like space travel and things with advanced missions that I don't really know anything about and that will alter greatly with the introduction of multimaps, but instead focus on the things that actually happen ON the moon. So this all about will be about Lunar Colonization. This is quite nice for me because the main thing here will be buildings and resources which I am most confident with. Of course, I will need help from others with units, graphics, missions and such - but I try to make this happen.
Oh, and don't expect this to be out (or even playable) anytime soon - I'm quite busy the next time.
I am also not very experienced with project planning - this is the first one for me. So any suggestions when I do something completly backwards or something similar are very welcome.
That said, let me tell you how my plan actually looks like:
To achieve this, I want to have a slow way with improvements until you can actually found your first city. Therefore, I'd like to have a new Improvement: The Lunar Base (Line). It will be outlined in detail in the Improvement section further down, but here is what it does:
Lunar Base:
So for a city you need to build at least 1 Moon Base Ship, 2 Supply Ships and 1 Colonization Ship. Is it actually possible that the first two improvements of this chain don't produce culture but the last one does?
Your first city
Congratulations, you just found your first lunar city. What now? The city already has some basic infrastructure from the Habitation Complex. Here comes the problem: What do we need first: Electrical Power to extract materials from the Moon, or these materials to produce solar panels to produce power? I'm a little bit on the fence. But I tend to say that basis has enough electrical power to develope basic manufacturing facilities and to grow, but later we need more solar panels. A full outline of buildings will be in the building section further down.
Your first "city" will be very very poor. There are no Traderoutes to earth, you have no improvements around it and there are virtually no buildings in this city. Bringing material for buildings from earth is costly. But hey, we have plenty of Moon Rocks here! Also, everything you need to make Concrete can be found on the Moon as well. So we use mainly Moon Materials to construct buildings. We still need supply from earth to grow and build things, but not in such huge quantities if we'd transported everything from there. Later, we can extract some materials from the Moon Rocks and/or produce them directly on the Moon. (A full list of resources can be seen in the resource section further down.)
Your city will also grow very slow, which is quite realistic if you keep in mind that a pop 1 city has only 50 people and your turns are only a few months now. An Immigration Ship (or just a Shuttle with Immigrants) can bring food to our new found city. Once it hit a certain population, the grow will be faster.
More or less the only thing your city can do in the beginning is: Generate , cost and can build very basic buildings which takes a long time - no grow, no culture, no espionage, no units. Building "Culture" should be somehow prohibited, as well as Espionage and Wealth. Only Science should be producable if the city is idle.
When you fulfill the basic needs of the city, it can develope more and more - if you have the right techs. Later, you can produce units, have space tourtists, have traderoutes to earth, improve the land around your city and even construct space ships here for a fraction of the costs at earth. You can build powerful labs with high output (and cost ) and extract precious resources like Helium3. You will have other cities as well and can connect them via routes to have your own lunar imperium!
That was the general idea of my project. The improvement line with graphics, the ships with graphics and the mission to upgrade the improvements need to be developed. Also, we need a new tag that makes cities on lunar terrain only buildable when you have the correct improvement - like they need to have freshwater/coast in the desert.
Also, I haven't figured out how to prevent lunar cities from building earth buildings. I can thing of either have an autobuilding (Lunar Base) that replaces all earth buildings or that can't be build in the same city as any earth building. Both ways are crappy
Nevertheless, since this is just a non-AI demo version, I can just ignore all earth buildings and test my lunar building trees anyways. I just have to be carefull about free buildings from wonders, since I think you can't delete them.
I will actually start with buildings first. If Sparth/0100010 could help me with improvments and graphics for them and Yudishtira with the ships, that would be awesome Feedback is also very appreciated.
Since I really want to have some space stuff in this mod, and preferably before multimaps so it is already tested when they are introduced, I now go and try to make it a project which I plan and develope by myself - as good as I can.
I want this side project to be as helpful for the mod as possible. Therefore, I'll skip the stuff like space travel and things with advanced missions that I don't really know anything about and that will alter greatly with the introduction of multimaps, but instead focus on the things that actually happen ON the moon. So this all about will be about Lunar Colonization. This is quite nice for me because the main thing here will be buildings and resources which I am most confident with. Of course, I will need help from others with units, graphics, missions and such - but I try to make this happen.
Oh, and don't expect this to be out (or even playable) anytime soon - I'm quite busy the next time.
I am also not very experienced with project planning - this is the first one for me. So any suggestions when I do something completly backwards or something similar are very welcome.
That said, let me tell you how my plan actually looks like:
Getting to the Moon
At first, we need to go TO the Moon. This is the part I try to make as simple as possible when I develope it. In the beginning, the answer to "how do we get to the moon?" is simply: Worldbuilder. Later, when I feel the need to do it, I think the Airlift / Paradrop/Rebase mission is suitable. Since there will be no AI in my developing phase and it will really be just a demo, it is ok when your spaceships can jump everywhere. If we want to have this playable, we can clone the paradrop/airlift/rebase mission, add some (a lot) costs and make it only target lunar terrain. Colonize the Moon
Ok, now we made it to the Moon. What next? My goal is it to prevent the first civ that can go to the moon to take full control of it, but to give civs that invest a lot in lunar infrastructure to get a bonus to colonize the Moon. Therefore I'd like to simulate slow growing colonies that are strongly depending on supply from earth and take a while to actually pay off.To achieve this, I want to have a slow way with improvements until you can actually found your first city. Therefore, I'd like to have a new Improvement: The Lunar Base (Line). It will be outlined in detail in the Improvement section further down, but here is what it does:
Lunar Base:
- A Constructor Ship (epensive!) can build it and is consumed in the progress.
- Similar to a Fort, this gives culture.
- It upgrades very slow, 100 turns or more are required.
- A "Supply Ship" can upgrade it instandly and is consumed in the progress. Therefore, this is basically the only way to upgrade it.
- Upgrade Path: Lunar Base -> Lunar Outpost -> Lunar Habitation Complex
- Later, you can build Supply Trucks in your cities on the Moon, which will speed up / make it cheaper to have more cities.
- Maybe we need some Nomadic Start mechanics here, because otherwise it won't have any benefits. Or can we use the Natural Wonders code as base and make these improvements generate +X every turn?
- Cities can ONLY be found on a Lunar Habitation Complex. They need a Colonization Ship.
- All three types of Ships are somewhat expensive to build and especially to launch. They need to be balanced in a way that you can't just spam the improvements.
So for a city you need to build at least 1 Moon Base Ship, 2 Supply Ships and 1 Colonization Ship. Is it actually possible that the first two improvements of this chain don't produce culture but the last one does?
Your first city
Congratulations, you just found your first lunar city. What now? The city already has some basic infrastructure from the Habitation Complex. Here comes the problem: What do we need first: Electrical Power to extract materials from the Moon, or these materials to produce solar panels to produce power? I'm a little bit on the fence. But I tend to say that basis has enough electrical power to develope basic manufacturing facilities and to grow, but later we need more solar panels. A full outline of buildings will be in the building section further down.
Your first "city" will be very very poor. There are no Traderoutes to earth, you have no improvements around it and there are virtually no buildings in this city. Bringing material for buildings from earth is costly. But hey, we have plenty of Moon Rocks here! Also, everything you need to make Concrete can be found on the Moon as well. So we use mainly Moon Materials to construct buildings. We still need supply from earth to grow and build things, but not in such huge quantities if we'd transported everything from there. Later, we can extract some materials from the Moon Rocks and/or produce them directly on the Moon. (A full list of resources can be seen in the resource section further down.)
Your city will also grow very slow, which is quite realistic if you keep in mind that a pop 1 city has only 50 people and your turns are only a few months now. An Immigration Ship (or just a Shuttle with Immigrants) can bring food to our new found city. Once it hit a certain population, the grow will be faster.
More or less the only thing your city can do in the beginning is: Generate , cost and can build very basic buildings which takes a long time - no grow, no culture, no espionage, no units. Building "Culture" should be somehow prohibited, as well as Espionage and Wealth. Only Science should be producable if the city is idle.
When you fulfill the basic needs of the city, it can develope more and more - if you have the right techs. Later, you can produce units, have space tourtists, have traderoutes to earth, improve the land around your city and even construct space ships here for a fraction of the costs at earth. You can build powerful labs with high output (and cost ) and extract precious resources like Helium3. You will have other cities as well and can connect them via routes to have your own lunar imperium!
That was the general idea of my project. The improvement line with graphics, the ships with graphics and the mission to upgrade the improvements need to be developed. Also, we need a new tag that makes cities on lunar terrain only buildable when you have the correct improvement - like they need to have freshwater/coast in the desert.
Also, I haven't figured out how to prevent lunar cities from building earth buildings. I can thing of either have an autobuilding (Lunar Base) that replaces all earth buildings or that can't be build in the same city as any earth building. Both ways are crappy
Nevertheless, since this is just a non-AI demo version, I can just ignore all earth buildings and test my lunar building trees anyways. I just have to be carefull about free buildings from wonders, since I think you can't delete them.
I will actually start with buildings first. If Sparth/0100010 could help me with improvments and graphics for them and Yudishtira with the ships, that would be awesome Feedback is also very appreciated.