Dwarven Mines

[Valkrionn]

Dwaven Mine - Replaces cottage AND mine

• Connects mineral resources
• same yields as mine
• Upgrades over time
• Second Stage : +1 commerce
• Third Stage : +1 production, +1 commerce, +1 food
• possible fourth stage, not sure

Not enough food to support a pop point in and of itself, but if built on a grassland tile it will allow some small growth.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Dwaven Mine - Replaces cottage AND mine

• Connects mineral resources
• same yields as mine
• Upgrades over time
• Second Stage : +1 commerce
• Third Stage : +1 production, +1 commerce, +1 food
• possible fourth stage, not sure

Not enough food to support a pop point in and of itself, but if built on a grassland tile it will allow some small growth.

Should probably give enough food to support working it...at least if you want them to be extensively used. Is there an easy way to decouple food production from the underlying terrain? If you are sustaining yourself with underground mushroom farms it doesn't really matter what is going on topside.

Also...did we ever figure out how to make peaks workable? Is it a DLL thing?

 

[Valkrionn]

Should probably give enough food to support working it...at least if you want them to be extensively used. Is there an easy way to decouple food production from the underlying terrain? If you are sustaining yourself with underground mushroom farms it doesn't really matter what is going on topside.

Also...did we ever figure out how to make peaks workable? Is it a DLL thing?

Well, it will have 3 food on grassland and 2 on plains, so it can support itself. Maybe give it a chance to find mushrooms, in addition to the metals mines can normally find? Already planning on making that a resource rather than improvement.

I believe Xienwolf enabled the ability to work peaks, but I have no idea how to enable it for just the khazad... would have to ask him.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Well, it will have 3 food on grassland and 2 on plains, so it can support itself. Maybe give it a chance to find mushrooms, in addition to the metals mines can normally find? Already planning on making that a resource rather than improvement.

I believe Xienwolf enabled the ability to work peaks, but I have no idea how to enable it for just the khazad... would have to ask him.

Perfect.


And yeah...if that is working somehow, I'd LOVE to know how to enable it. I know from experience that just adding yields won't do it.

 

[Shatner]

I'm a big fan of the dwarves and my knee-jerk reaction is to give them many mine-related improvements. That said, Khazad is quite competitive, mechanically speaking, so if we are going to give the dwarves nifty mines of awesomeness, we should probably balance that by weakening something else.

Dwaven Mine - Replaces cottage AND mine

• Connects mineral resources
• same yields as mine
• Upgrades over time
• Second Stage : +1 commerce
• Third Stage : +1 production, +1 commerce, +1 food
• possible fourth stage, not sure

I like this. The Khazad are all about Hammers, Money and Defense while having few, potent cities. So, what if the dwarves got one less food from farms and one less commerce from plantations (we could claim that they're new to the surface and as such, not terribly good at above-ground agriculture) but allowed them to build mines like what Valkrionn has proposed anywhere (not just on hills and metal resources). That seems more balanced.

Another idea is to make the Khazad like the Lanun of the land: make a "dwarven settlement" improvement which acts like a combination of a mine, cottage AND fort but can not be built within two tiles of another dwarven settlement.

Stage One (Dwarven Mine): +2 hammers (like mine), +1 commerce (like cottage), +20% defense
Stage Two (Dwarven Settlement): +2 hammers, +2 commerce, +30% defense, +1 food
Stage Three (Dwarven Hall): +3 hammers, +3 commerce, +40% defense, +1 food
Stage Four (Dwarf Fortress): +3 hammers, +4 commerce, +50% defense, +2 food
*All stages connect mineral resources.
*Offers smaller defensive bonuses to adjacent tiles like castles and the like
*+1 hammer from blasting powder, Arete
*+1 gold from taxation and whatever else boosts town yields
*+1 food with Sanitation
*City Defender and Guerrilla promotions should work at these improvements as though the unit were in a city/on a hill

I like this second option better because a Khazad city surrounded by the spammable mine variant would, over time, become an even bigger powerhouse than it is now. Also, the lands around a Khazad city would be filled with nothing except dwarven mines; it is, in my opinion, a flawed design when one improvement supplants all others. The second option, however, would have three or four highly valuable improvements which the dwarves might actually be willing (and able) to guard during an invasion. Just be sure to make the mature rate slow and you'll have your slow growing, highly defensible, hammer and gold yielding improvement for the dwarves. Huzzah!

 

[xienwolf]

Then you haven't tried recently


Problem is that on a Civ level you can modify yields for improvements and terrain and features, but not for Peaks, Hills, Flatland or Water. So right now you are allowed to work peaks, but I forced them all down to having no actual yields (after having accidentally let a patch release without the YieldInfos file to force that, thus leaking the surprise before it was finished )

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Then you haven't tried recently


Problem is that on a Civ level you can modify yields for improvements and terrain and features, but not for Peaks, Hills, Flatland or Water. So right now you are allowed to work peaks, but I forced them all down to having no actual yields (after having accidentally let a patch release without the YieldInfos file to force that, thus leaking the surprise before it was finished )

Sneaky git.


So...just increasing their yield in terrain infos would work, but you can't make it civ-specific? Is that right?

 

[xienwolf]

Correct, but that only modifies the yields of the base terrain (tile under the peak still counts as Ice/Tundra/Desert/Plains/Grass/Whatever)

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Correct, but that only modifies the yields of the base terrain (tile under the peak still counts as Ice/Tundra/Desert/Plains/Grass/Whatever)

Hmmm. Don't have the files to look at it front of me (at work). Are peaks a feature, not a terrain?

I guess the simplest form of my question is: which xml file do I play with to increase peak yields?

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm a big fan of the dwarves and my knee-jerk reaction is to give them many mine-related improvements. That said, Khazad is quite competitive, mechanically speaking, so if we are going to give the dwarves nifty mines of awesomeness, we should probably balance that by weakening something else.


I like this. The Khazad are all about Hammers, Money and Defense while having few, potent cities. So, what if the dwarves got one less food from farms and one less commerce from plantations (we could claim that they're new to the surface and as such, not terribly good at above-ground agriculture) but allowed them to build mines like what Valkrionn has proposed anywhere (not just on hills and metal resources). That seems more balanced.

I actually meant for them to be allowed anywhere, should've mentioned that.

Another idea is to make the Khazad like the Lanun of the land: make a "dwarven settlement" improvement which acts like a combination of a mine, cottage AND fort but can not be built within two tiles of another dwarven settlement.

Stage One (Dwarven Mine): +2 hammers (like mine), +1 commerce (like cottage), +20% defense
Stage Two (Dwarven Settlement): +2 hammers, +2 commerce, +30% defense, +1 food
Stage Three (Dwarven Hall): +3 hammers, +3 commerce, +40% defense, +1 food
Stage Four (Dwarf Fortress): +3 hammers, +4 commerce, +50% defense, +2 food
*All stages connect mineral resources.
*Offers smaller defensive bonuses to adjacent tiles like castles and the like
*+1 hammer from blasting powder, Arete
*+1 gold from taxation and whatever else boosts town yields
*+1 food with Sanitation
*City Defender and Guerrilla promotions should work at these improvements as though the unit were in a city/on a hill

I like this second option better because a Khazad city surrounded by the spammable mine variant would, over time, become an even bigger powerhouse than it is now. Also, the lands around a Khazad city would be filled with nothing except dwarven mines; it is, in my opinion, a flawed design when one improvement supplants all others. The second option, however, would have three or four highly valuable improvements which the dwarves might actually be willing (and able) to guard during an invasion. Just be sure to make the mature rate slow and you'll have your slow growing, highly defensible, hammer and gold yielding improvement for the dwarves. Huzzah!

I love this idea. Use the City Center graphics from this pack... http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12105 I think I'm going to have to do this.

Then you haven't tried recently


Problem is that on a Civ level you can modify yields for improvements and terrain and features, but not for Peaks, Hills, Flatland or Water. So right now you are allowed to work peaks, but I forced them all down to having no actual yields (after having accidentally let a patch release without the YieldInfos file to force that, thus leaking the surprise before it was finished )

So basically you can give them yields, but not just for the one civ?

 

[Tholal]

I don't like the idea of allowing mines anywhere. They should still be limited to hills and metal resources. Flat land is still for farms, workshops and other improvements. This might result in some flat land being undeveloped in Khazad lands, but that seems fine to me. The basic idea that I had in mind was that mines are the center of dwarven life and that should be reflected by giving them increased commerce.

Shatner's idea is interesting, though I still think it should be limited to hills / metal resources (and mountains if/when that feature is implemented).

Having mines produce food as well is also interesting, but seems a bit overpowered. You would definitely need to introduce a penalty on regular farms for the Khazad but I do like the flavor of having mines be the focal point for all dwarven activity.

 

[Vermicious Knid]

Shatner's idea is great. Please do allow it to be built on flat land...there are more than enough civs already that are dependent on a favorable terrain start.

 

[Valkrionn]

How about : Buildable anywhere, but requires a minimum of on tile between mines, OR a harvestable resource on the tile. So basically, if you discover iron after building your mines, you are able to build a new mine on the iron even though the tile it's on does not meet the spacing requirements. In addition to that, the Khazad lose the ability to build normal forts, mines, or towns.

 

[far_wanderer]

Problem is that on a Civ level you can modify yields for improvements and terrain and features, but not for Peaks, Hills, Flatland or Water. So right now you are allowed to work peaks, but I forced them all down to having no actual yields (after having accidentally let a patch release without the YieldInfos file to force that, thus leaking the surprise before it was finished )

A thought just occured to me - does that mean that water is treated just like the other three height options, and just has a different list of allowed terrains? Meaning that it would be theoretically possible to make grassland, plains, etc. remain that way even if they were underwater?

Hmmm. Don't have the files to look at it front of me (at work). Are peaks a feature, not a terrain?

As I understand it, each terrain tile has a base terrain (grassland, tundra, broken lands, etc.), a height (peak, hill, flatland, water), and optional features (forest, jungle, oasis, etc.), improvements (town, mine, plantation, etc.), and resources (mana, horses, wine, etc.), plus whatever the category that includes roads and railroads is. My understanding is that a terrain can only have one of each of those fields at a time.
What appears to be the file to edit is in a rather odd place - YieldInfos in the Terrain folder. Each of the three types of yield has an entry for hill and peak changes.

 

[Valkrionn]

Got the improvements in, thought I'd post a screenshot. Keep in mind, the yields shown are on a hill... A mine would have the same yield as the first improvement, minus the one commerce. The way it's set up, you have to choose... Production on a hill, or food on a flatland? You have a limited number of these, so you have to choose wisely.

Edit: Build has a cost of 2200 (vs 1600 for cottage/mine, and 3200 for fort), and recieves a 600 point discount at mining, education, and construction... So it starts off slower than mines or cottages, but ends up same speed if you research all the techs.

 

[xienwolf]

Hmmm. Don't have the files to look at it front of me (at work). Are peaks a feature, not a terrain?

I guess the simplest form of my question is: which xml file do I play with to increase peak yields?

CIV4YieldInfos.xml IIRC. Peaks aren't a terrain or a feature, they are a landscape type.

So basically you can give them yields, but not just for the one civ?

Yes. Right now at least.

A thought just occured to me - does that mean that water is treated just like the other three height options, and just has a different list of allowed terrains? Meaning that it would be theoretically possible to make grassland, plains, etc. remain that way even if they were underwater?

As I understand it, each terrain tile has a base terrain (grassland, tundra, broken lands, etc.), a height (peak, hill, flatland, water), and optional features (forest, jungle, oasis, etc.), improvements (town, mine, plantation, etc.), and resources (mana, horses, wine, etc.), plus whatever the category that includes roads and railroads is. My understanding is that a terrain can only have one of each of those fields at a time.
What appears to be the file to edit is in a rather odd place - YieldInfos in the Terrain folder. Each of the three types of yield has an entry for hill and peak changes.

I don't think so. Play in worldbuilder and you'll see that making an area into Ocean will cause the tiles that WERE hills to look different than the others, so some height information is retained. But the only way to stop being ocean is to assign it as being Grass/Plains/Tundra/whatever (so you can't check if it "remembers" what terrain it used to be). Pretty sure that Ocean and Coast are even listed in TerrainInfos, which would mean that they ARE a terrain, so cannot co-exist with any terrains.

 

[Tholal]

Shatner's idea is great. Please do allow it to be built on flat land...there are more than enough civs already that are dependent on a favorable terrain start.

That's what the Flavor Start option is for. And the Khazad do get a World Spell that creates hills in their territory (in addition to giving them gold for every mine they have)

 

[Tholal]

Got the improvements in, thought I'd post a screenshot.

Nice! I like the look.

 

[far_wanderer]

I don't think so. Play in worldbuilder and you'll see that making an area into Ocean will cause the tiles that WERE hills to look different than the others, so some height information is retained.

I'm fairly certain that's just shadows not updating properly, as it looks normal after you reload.

But the only way to stop being ocean is to assign it as being Grass/Plains/Tundra/whatever (so you can't check if it "remembers" what terrain it used to be).

You can directly change a water tile to a hill - it becomes grassland by default.

Pretty sure that Ocean and Coast are even listed in TerrainInfos, which would mean that they ARE a terrain, so cannot co-exist with any terrains.

I'm fairly certain you're right about ocean and coast being terrain types. My question was if being underwater was the only thing that made them different, so it would be possible to edit a list of terrain types somewhere and make grassland and company legal terrains for the underwater height. Basically, is there anything hardcoded that prevents underwater terrains from being the same as flatland/hill/peak tiles, or can the lists be made to overlap?

 

[Valkrionn]

Sadly they don't change the look of resources, but I'm fine with that. They just look like a dwarven fortress. Edited the post with a buildcost description.