Vokarya's Workshop: Buildings

Vokarya said:

A couple of thoughts I have had in response to some posts on the early buildings:

Storyteller Circle: The reason it goes obsolete so quickly is that I wanted it to mirror the Elder Council without trampling on the EC's territory (this is why Storyteller Circle has no Science bonus). I saw the "Discontinued" mechanic in Realism Invictus, but I think it's too clunky to be good. I would prefer to keep it where it is, and maybe cut the costs even further.

Ceremonial Altar: I agree that this and other early buildings should be cheaper. What if we cut the cost in half but made it so that any Temple replaces the Ceremonial Altar? One thing about adding buildings is that health/happy bonuses can stack up and make unhealth/unhappiness trivial without a lot more work to swing the pendulum the other way. I'd like to tie the Altar into some other mechanic (I'm really fond of getting buildings to link together).

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It's ok with me, especially the cerimonial altar / temple link.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12970913 said:

It's ok with me, especially the cerimonial altar / temple link.

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Makes sense to me ^^
A ceremonial altar could be in a sense considered a precursor to a full temple or shrine, so having a temple replace a simple altar I think would be a good idea.

As I've said before, I'm really interested in getting buildings to fit together. Mostly, this is to reduce the total number of buildings available at any given point in the game without actually getting rid of any buildings. (It doesn't always work if you don't play with Hide Replaced Buildings.) Also, I want to dial down health and happiness a bit because I think by adding a lot of buildings, you can get overstocked on health and happiness. So this is what I have come up with regarding the sports buildings. Although I don't have anything new with Arena, this covers Colosseum, a new Stadium, and Zero G Sports Arena.

Colosseum only gets a minor change. It won't go obsolete until Mass Media. This is to give you a window to upgrade your Colosseums before they go obsolete.
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Stadium is a new building, and is the second in the line. It provides more culture (+4 over Colosseum's +2) and more happiness (one per 0.25 citizens, over 0.15 for Colosseum). Stadium is available with Radio and never goes obsolete.
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Zero G Sports Arena gets upgraded. Its culture bonus is increased to +8, its culture % gets reduced to 20 (it was 25, and I'm keeping it in line with the Colosseum/Stadium). The big advantage is that it grants +1 per 0.33 citizens (1/3rd of the city's population).
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Finally, National Sports League gets some changes to tie it better in to the new buildings. It requires Stadiums to build but provides +1 from Stadiums and Zero G Sports Arenas. It also gets a new building artwork (the Hockey Night in Canada building).
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Something that was discussed earlier, and that I finally coded, is making Ceremonial Altar into a proto-Temple. I think what would work best is cut the cost of the Altar in half (base cost 40) but any Temple replaces the Altar, so the Altar works for civilizations that haven't founded or received a religion yet. The result looks like this:
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Along the lines of what I plan to do with the Sports buildings, I also thought about the Theatre and how the Virtual Reality Theater should naturally replace it. Then I also came to the conclusion that the Movie Theatre should be tied in as well. This is what I came up with.

Movie Theatre gets the following changes:

• Increase to +8
• Lower culture slider threshold to 1 per 10%
• Add 1 Artist slot
• Delete Hit Movies requirement. Keep the +1 from Hit Movies, so the Movie Theatre works better when you have Hit Movies, but isn't utterly dependent on them

This gives a Movie Theatre that provides +3 over the Theatre, +1 free Celebrity, and switches 1 from Dye to Hit Movies.
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Virtual Reality Theatre gets some changes too:

• Increase to +10
• Add 3 Artist slots
• Add 1 free Celebrity

This provides +2 , +1 Artist slot, +2 , and +1 from Hit Singles over the Movie Theatre.
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Something else that I think needs some attention are the various current Courthouse buildings in the game. Right now, we have 4 different buildings:

• Courthouse: Available with Code of Laws, -25% maintenance, +2 , +1 Spy slot
• Local Courthouse: Available with Labor Union, -10% maintenance, +1 , +1 Spy slot
• District Courthouse: National Wonder, available with Jurisprudence, requires 3 Courthouses to build, -25% maintenance, +2 , +1 Spy slot
• Supreme Court: National Wonder, available with Jurisprudence, requires 5 Courthouses and District Courthouse to build, -20% maintenance, +4 , 1 Spy slot, -25% anarchy length

There are several things about this setup that I don't like. First, the Local Courthouse is just a watered-down version of the Courthouse, which I don't think is a good thing. Second, the tech prerequisite for the Local Courthouse makes no sense, as Supreme Court comes an entire era earlier, making it highly unlikely anyone would need to build the LC when SC provides them for free. Third, I don't like requiring stacking National Wonders like District Courthouse and SC currently are, as it's possible to lock yourself out of SC if you build DC in a city that already has 3 other National Wonders.

Here's what I think we should do:

• Local Courthouse gets deleted completely.
• District Courthouse loses its National Wonder status, which would allow building 1 DC for every 3 Courthouses. Reduce the maintenance to -25% (so it would be -50% with Courthouse).
• Supreme Court should require 3 District Courthouses to build. It could provide a free Courthouse to every city, or if that is too powerful, a blanket -10% maintenance and +5% across the board. I'd also like to move it off of Jurisprudence, but if we do that, that makes Jurisprudence a one-trick tech. I also think it should have a civic requirement of Republic or Democracy or Federal.

Let me know what you think.

Vokarya said:

Something else that I think needs some attention are the various current Courthouse buildings in the game. Right now, we have 4 different buildings:

• Courthouse: Available with Code of Laws, -25% maintenance, +2 , +1 Spy slot
• Local Courthouse: Available with Labor Union, -10% maintenance, +1 , +1 Spy slot
• District Courthouse: National Wonder, available with Jurisprudence, requires 3 Courthouses to build, -25% maintenance, +2 , +1 Spy slot
• Supreme Court: National Wonder, available with Jurisprudence, requires 5 Courthouses and District Courthouse to build, -20% maintenance, +4 , 1 Spy slot, -25% anarchy length

There are several things about this setup that I don't like. First, the Local Courthouse is just a watered-down version of the Courthouse, which I don't think is a good thing. Second, the tech prerequisite for the Local Courthouse makes no sense, as Supreme Court comes an entire era earlier, making it highly unlikely anyone would need to build the LC when SC provides them for free. Third, I don't like requiring stacking National Wonders like District Courthouse and SC currently are, as it's possible to lock yourself out of SC if you build DC in a city that already has 3 other National Wonders.

Here's what I think we should do:

• Local Courthouse gets deleted completely.
• District Courthouse loses its National Wonder status, which would allow building 1 DC for every 3 Courthouses. Reduce the maintenance to -25% (so it would be -50% with Courthouse).
• Supreme Court should require 3 District Courthouses to build. It could provide a free Courthouse to every city, or if that is too powerful, a blanket -10% maintenance and +5% across the board. I'd also like to move it off of Jurisprudence, but if we do that, that makes Jurisprudence a one-trick tech. I also think it should have a civic requirement of Republic or Democracy or Federal.

Let me know what you think.

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I agree with your changes: does Courthouse remain the same? If so then it's ok for SC to give free courthouses because it's coming much later in the game, IMO.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12983264 said:

I agree with your changes: does Courthouse remain the same? If so then it's ok for SC to give free courthouses because it's coming much later in the game, IMO.

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Courthouse itself is not changing. I always feel reluctant to have a National Wonder grant free buildings because it means that no one has to worry about building the original building once the NW becomes available, but there are at least 2 full eras between the two, and a city built by a Pioneer starts with a Courthouse as well, so it isn't as bad as some other possibilities.

One thing that I have never liked about AND is the absolute requirement on having Copper to build a Telephone Network to build a Computer Network and everything else that hangs off of the Computer Network. If the XML was more flexible, I would suggest removing the Copper requirement for the Telephone Network at Fiber Optics, but that is not currently an option and I don't want to mess around with anything more complicated than that. Instead, I would like to make the Communications Tower be a replacement for not only the Broadcast Tower but the Telephone Network as well, letting one building be both trade and entertainment.

These are the changes that I would be making:

• Communications Tower gets +2 Trade Routes, Network Node gets +3 Trade Routes
• Broadcast Tower, Communications Tower, Network Node all get Power requirement -- while I'm not in favor of trying to represent every infrastructure requirement, I think these buildings would not work at all without power
• Communications Tower or Network Node can serve as alternative prerequisite buildings for Computer Network
• Communications Tower and Network Node can replace Telegraph Office and Telephone Network

Can anyone see any problems with this?

I gonna re-post here my last post regarding the Stadium and its upgrades for you consideration

The Stadium building upgrade is a very good idea to me, also I feel it as required because team sports are so important on modern era.

I've always perceived the Arena as a place for recreation sport or training field. Unlike the Colosseum, that its purpose is entertainment through competitions on the field for the masses, no the ones who are doing it.
So I will say that a Sport Center or Gym is an acceptable upgrade for Arena. Or even a Lawn Sport center, with + +

Also pick Zero G sports arena as Sport center upgrade, and Virtual reality stadium or something like that for stadium.

Regarding Meeting hall I'm not sure, maybe a Community center or something similar? with + +

There might be some potential there, but I'm definitely leaving Zero G Sports Arena as the last building in the Colosseum chain. As far as the Transhuman Era goes, I don't see anyone other than professional athletes playing in that kind of stadium.

Vokarya said:

One thing that I have never liked about AND is the absolute requirement on having Copper to build a Telephone Network to build a Computer Network and everything else that hangs off of the Computer Network. If the XML was more flexible, I would suggest removing the Copper requirement for the Telephone Network at Fiber Optics, but that is not currently an option and I don't want to mess around with anything more complicated than that. Instead, I would like to make the Communications Tower be a replacement for not only the Broadcast Tower but the Telephone Network as well, letting one building be both trade and entertainment.

These are the changes that I would be making:

• Communications Tower gets +2 Trade Routes, Network Node gets +3 Trade Routes
• Broadcast Tower, Communications Tower, Network Node all get Power requirement -- while I'm not in favor of trying to represent every infrastructure requirement, I think these buildings would not work at all without power
• Communications Tower or Network Node can serve as alternative prerequisite buildings for Computer Network
• Communications Tower and Network Node can replace Telegraph Office and Telephone Network

Can anyone see any problems with this?

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Green light from me, it looks very good.

Here's two health-related building chains that I would like to implement, to keep the building clutter down.

Aqueduct should upgrade to Water Treatment Plant. Water Treatment Plant gets to inherit Aqueduct's 0.15 per person. I don't think Aqueduct should be sticking around all the way into the Modern Era, although you will still see it in a new city until you build Sewer System.

Doctor's Office should upgrade to Hospital. I'm actually surprised this one isn't in the mod already; I think only the most important medical building in a city should count towards its health. I would increase Hospital's heal rate to 25% (over Doctor's 20%) and then give Hospital +2 at Modern Health Care to round it out.

A totally minor tweak to the XML: I'd like to remove the Terrain requirement from the Salon (French UB). I can understand needing a Peak or Hill for the true Observatory (which the Salon replaces) but not the Salon. I don't think it needs the restriction, and I don't mind throwing UB's a little bit of extra benefit.

Sounds great to me, keep up the good work!

I like the idea of the Aqueduct upgrading, and the Doctors Office being replaced by a hospital

I was going through Civ4BuildingInfos to make a comprehensive building list and I discovered a Civic Building for the Federal Civic. It's called Town Hall, so it's getting overwritten by the Town Hall that is part of the Village Hall line. According to the code, it provides +1 and -20% maintenance. I could probably reactivate it with a little XML work. Do you think this is necessary, or is Federal good enough without it?

Vokarya said:

I was going through Civ4BuildingInfos to make a comprehensive building list and I discovered a Civic Building for the Federal Civic. It's called Town Hall, so it's getting overwritten by the Town Hall that is part of the Village Hall line. According to the code, it provides +1 and -20% maintenance. I could probably reactivate it with a little XML work. Do you think this is necessary, or is Federal good enough without it?

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Just make it -10% maintenance and it will be ok, you can reactivate it.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12990896 said:

Just make it -10% maintenance and it will be ok, you can reactivate it.

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Should it be re-named though? And if so, what to?

Rezca said:

Should it be re-named though? And if so, what to?

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Provincial Hall. That's what I am leaning towards right now.