New Concept: Building Materials

A few years ago, I posted my concepts for a wide-scale revision of building requirements, which subsequently got partially adopted in the core of C2C and which DH is taking some from in some recent SVN revisions.

I would like to propose a new system in a similar spirit to the original, and one that may more easily simulate part of what i wanted to accomplish with these edits.

A new category, perhaps a civic one, perhaps a mutually-exclusive "building", would come up after the discovery of Shelter Building. This would be Building Materials, and would have a series of unlockable materials for use, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. For example;

Grass (Requires Shelter Building): Would make most buildings (some having special tags, such as flammable buildings, restricting them to always require a specific material or only certain choices of materials, others not being "real" buildings but abstract representations and thus not subject to material costs) require Grass, and reduce costs by 20%, but doubling flammability and flammability contributions from buildings.

Wood (Requires Carpentry): Would make most buildings require Wood, and reduce the cost of these buildings by 10%, while increasing flammability and flammability contributions from all buildings by 50%.

Bricks (Requires Pottery): Would make most buildings require Common Clay. A midpoint option, granting no particular bonuses or penalties.

Stone (Requires Stone Building): Would make most buildings require Stone. Reduces flammability and flammability contribution by 90%, but increases costs by 20%.

This is just a rough outline; I can see some balance issues in my initial proposal and as such this is more intended to jumpstart discussion than serve as an "as-is" proposal. I imagine the coding would be pretty complex, but you have to keep in mind that I'm aiming for an alternate-historical take on things where one can, say, build wooden temples or stone cabins.

I agree that such a system would need a civic like mechanism to allow the player choice.

You may need to consider the effect this may have on a consumables concept we have been talking about on and off. The idea is that the plots and buildings in your empire produce consumables that are then used to build units and buildings.

Aside: You previous modifications are part of the core of C2C but they aren't coded in the core area. They are still in the work area. Moving them into the core code area helps with future work, maintenance and possibly reduces load time slightly.

Every now and then we tidy up things by moving non-optional modules into the core area and optional modules out of the work area of the individuals into the optional module areas for players to select/deselect as they want.

What about players, who would always want to build from grass? Accepting double flammability could be worth that 20% cost decrease.

And then, some would make from grass a lot of thing: Apollo program Launch pad - from grass? Library? Sky scrappers?

Maybe buildings would need to be characterized by material strength required, so grass would be adequate for shaman hut, but sky scrapper would need something stronger.

One idea I have considered is having Grass be unusable past the Prehistoric era or have a new "building stability" mechanic (Hydro suggested one based on the City Building Series) that would be massively hobbled by that as an option.

Praetyre said:

... or have a new "building stability" mechanic (Hydro suggested one based on the City Building Series) ...

Click to expand...

I was playing Caesar series games, but long ago and I do not remember this.
Is it, that these buildings occasionaly fall apart, or on a scheduled basis?

Yes, you had a structural stability mechanic, and had to place inspectors (under various names) to ensure your buildings were stable.

Placing inspectors could be increased maintenance.
Also, there could be "inspectors" building. But in prehistoric, such office would be somewhat strange.
One thing that I think of, is how much micromanagement would be added. The less, the better. Rebuilding occasionally after fire is ok, but if that would be too often, would not be interesting for a player.

mart777 said:

What about players, who would always want to build from grass? And then, some would make from grass a lot of thing: Apollo program Launch pad - from grass?

Click to expand...

Apollo program from grass!? It would burn up within a few metres of leaving the launch pad, if it even got that far.

Hmm, maintenance does sound like a better way to implement it... especially given how you can potentially overpower it by upping/downing your properties.

Praetyre said:

One idea I have considered is having Grass be unusable past the Prehistoric era or have a new "building stability" mechanic (Hydro suggested one based on the City Building Series) that would be massively hobbled by that as an option.

Click to expand...

Grass was used as roof material for a long, long time after Prehistory so would both Wood and Grass, and even Stone and Grass, at times be needed materials?
Would also make it wrong to remove it from materials after Prehistory.

Wood is still today used a lot so should probably never go out of fashion. Today certain architects are even looking at wood as a better material than stone/concrete as it is lighter and cheaper, for tall buildings of 4-5-6 stories high (where stone would collapse and reinforced concrete would be needed otherwise).

Cheers

Grass as thatch, yes still used in a lot of places.

Is bamboo a wood or a grass or both?

Very interesting idea to make it a civic...

Thatch roofs are only one component of a building, though, and there's no reason you couldn't use the same materials you used to make the walls to make the ceiling. Though maybe it could give some kind of bonus, especially during the Medieval Era (assuming that's not too Eurocentric)

As for bamboo, I would count it as a seperate category, somewhere between Grass and Wood.