Vokarya's Workshop: Buildings

Since my first round of additions (the new tech tree and the associated content for the new techs) are up on the SVN, I'd like to create a few threads for more proposals, but segment them off into subtypes. This is the first thread, for new buildings. I'm not a big fan of having every possible building that people have ever built be in the game; that way lies a lot of clutter. There are two conditions that I'd like any new building to fill at least one of, and preferably both, before addition. These conditions are:

1. The building enhances a technology that currently doesn't have enough content. I would prefer not only having techs with no content at all, but also not to have techs that are only "one-trick-pony" techs. We currently have 4 techs with no content (Telegraph, Microprocessor, Hydroponics, and Neural Networks) and another 45 techs that have only one immediate bonus or a handful of small bonuses to existing items.
2. The building forms a line with existing buildings, such as the Palisade - Walls - High Walls line. This reduces the overall complexity of the addition when playing with the Hide Replaced Buildings option. Either the new building will be replaced by the old, so that once you reach the old building the new is no longer an option, or the old building is replaced by the new, and the same applies. For example, once you have Masonry, you shouldn't be able to build Palisades as Walls are more effective. This makes more sense to me than (most) buildings going obsolete; you don't usually lose a building from technology, but the building gets abandoned once something better gets built.

I'm also willing to take requests, but keep in mind those two conditions. Buildings aren't that hard to add once you have an idea, because you can get by with just text and a button. You don't have to have building art, especially if it won't be seen in-game.

Here's an example of what I am talking about. The Hydroponic Farm is a building that I created to give some content to the Hydroponics tech. It provides +3 (enough to fully support 1 citizen) and +1 . However, I think it fills a very similar niche to the Farmscraper, so I actually made the Hydroponic Farm be replaced by the Farmscraper. Thus, it fills both of my prerequisites for a new building.

I was able to find a building graphic to use, but you won't see it unless you turn all building graphics on.

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Let me know what you think of this.

Here's a quick idea I just had about Microprocessor - and Factory in general. The factory is a prerequisite to construct a bunch of stuff, but the Factory itself stays pretty much the same, and it could be a beginning of a upgrade line, going something like this:
Factory - Computerized Factory (Microprocessor) [additional +5% production, but it ceases functioning completely without Power] - Robotic Factory (Robotics) [additional +2 Production, but at cost of +1 Unhappines, as people lose their jobs]. It would fill both your prerequisites, but it can imagine there being some balance issues. Then again, normal Factory could be cut down a little, Computerized Factory could be what the Factory is now, and Robotic Factory can be balanced with Unhappines. Also, it can have one less spot for Engineer, and one spot for Scientist there, or just nothing there, as the position is filled with robots.

Also, I love the Hydroponic Farm idea. I'm a big fan of soil-less farming.

what about Estates and Villas to lose their civic requirement (also, their options requirement, the "Civic Buildings" requirement) and becoming an upgrade line? Like, Estate -> Villa -> Resort Complex (or w/e it's name is when you get it from Tourism tech)? Also maybe finally fixing these buildings; they're supposed to give , right? Or if it's still gonna take food, then from -3 make it -2 or even -1 , I don't have much incentive to build them right now.

Also, there's a lot of buildings carrying the "Factory" part, maybe we should really order them into a line.

Agreed on eventually organizing Factories - but I think the better place to start is with the Manufacturing Plant, which we already have, and that Robotics would be better as a generic production bonus. I don't yet know what Microprocessor needs.

With Villa and Estate, the issue is that these buildings are using up land that would otherwise be farmland (either just open space or luxury crops) and that is why there is a food penalty. Personally, I like these as the civic-specific buildings. We could bring either the food penalty or the cost down if they aren't being built.

Here's a quick-and-dirty building. The Telegraph Office is the precursor building to the Telephone Network. When I switched around Telegraph and Electricity, having the power requirement on the Telephone Network made Electricity a "hidden prerequisite" for the Network. I really hate hidden prerequisites, so I moved the Telephone Network up to Electricity. This is to give Telegraph something to make up for that loss.

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The stats are set up so that you don't lose anything by upgrading from the Office to the Network, like this:

Actually, what about different factories that can give different stats, i.e like in C2C except first without going so excessive (in other words, only one factory per stat), and second without giving any bonus resources?

The way I view it is:

Prototype Factory (Or it could be renamed into Prototype Lab, available with Rapid Prototyping), gives , maybe something like 5% boost, maybe for
Ceramics (Not Sculpture, like in C2C, because that sounded sort of... artificial. And nonsensical.) Factory, would give and some , maybe for Great Artist
Commercial/Consumer/Trading Goods Factory, pure 50% , maybe for Great Merchant

All of them would require power, obviously. Also, perhaps, would it be possible to import from C2C the power efficiency of each power plant (in other words, an Oil Power Plant has a +3 roduction: bonus, higher than the +1 the Coal Plant had)?

Tolni said:

Actually, what about different factories that can give different stats, i.e like in C2C except first without going so excessive (in other words, only one factory per stat), and second without giving any bonus resources?

The way I view it is:

Prototype Factory (Or it could be renamed into Prototype Lab, available with Rapid Prototyping), gives , maybe something like 5% boost, maybe for
Ceramics (Not Sculpture, like in C2C, because that sounded sort of... artificial. And nonsensical.) Factory, would give and some , maybe for Great Artist
Commercial/Consumer/Trading Goods Factory, pure 50% , maybe for Great Merchant

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I'm not a fan of this. It's a route I do not want to go down. (Among other things, I really, REALLY want to stay away from anything named "X Factory" -- it just feels too specialized for the level of depth that Civ is supposed to be at.)

Tolni said:

Also, perhaps, would it be possible to import from C2C the power efficiency of each power plant (in other words, an Oil Power Plant has a +3 roduction: bonus, higher than the +1 the Coal Plant had)?

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AND power plants just give power; there is no hammer bonus. If you want a bonus for power, you need to have buildings that take advantage of it.

I think I just found what would be a good fit for Microprocessor: the Solar Power Plant. We have Coal, Oil, Nuclear, Hydro, and Fusion. Coal and Oil are dirty, Nuclear is clean but can melt down, Hydro is clean but needs a River, and Fusion is a National Wonder. Solar would be clean, but wouldn't have all the other requirements of Hydro/Nuclear. although I would probably put a Desert/Plains in city vicinity requirement to handle the amount of open space needed. I haven't coded it up yet, but it looks plausible. What do you think?

Solar Power Plant seems good, but to make it plausible (in scientific terms, I mean) I guess there should be a geographical limitation, as in being close enough to equator. Also, if we wish to go that route, there could be another Solar Power Plant, somewhere later in the tech tree, under the name of High Efficiency Solar Power Plant (well, that seems clunky, but it gives the idea), which could be build anywhere. I'm not entirely sure how the terrain generation works, but I have seen desert just a few tiles away from tundra on Gigantic map in my last game, and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to put such a prerequisite on the Solar Power Plants...
Or maybe just Renewable Energy Power Plant building, which could cover sun-powered and wind-powered and even bio-gas-powered Power Plants, wherever they got built?

EDIT: Also, are you going to post the list of one trick ponies? I would love to help at least a little bit with the tech tree revision and I'm not sure if looking for them myself is a good option.

Vokarya, so far all your proposed changes look very good to me; and yes I would also put a Desert/Plains in city vicinity requirement for Solar Plant as well as a limitation on latitude as suggested by BlindKitty (Solar plant was an old project I had in mind, I've always missed it in Civ).

BlindKitty said:

Solar Power Plant seems good, but to make it plausible (in scientific terms, I mean) I guess there should be a geographical limitation, as in being close enough to equator. Also, if we wish to go that route, there could be another Solar Power Plant, somewhere later in the tech tree, under the name of High Efficiency Solar Power Plant (well, that seems clunky, but it gives the idea), which could be build anywhere. I'm not entirely sure how the terrain generation works, but I have seen desert just a few tiles away from tundra on Gigantic map in my last game, and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to put such a prerequisite on the Solar Power Plants...
Or maybe just Renewable Energy Power Plant building, which could cover sun-powered and wind-powered and even bio-gas-powered Power Plants, wherever they got built?

EDIT: Also, are you going to post the list of one trick ponies? I would love to help at least a little bit with the tech tree revision and I'm not sure if looking for them myself is a good option.

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Latitude limits are easy to do. That would make the secondary solar power plant later on in the tech tree have enough difference to be meaningful. The problem I noticed with a second level of solar power plant is that power is a binary either-you-have-it-or-you-don't prospect, so any city eligible for the first level wouldn't need the second. You would need something that doesn't infringe too much on either the original Solar Plant or the Fusion Plant.

Here are two more buildings that represent evolutions in post-gunpowder military architecture.

The Star Fort replaces the Castle at Metallurgy. The Star Fort has much better defenses than the Castle (+75% defense/-50% bombardment compared to +50% defense/-20% bombardment for the Castle) but lacks the other bonuses (Espionage, Culture, trade route, extra buildings) that the Castle has. This is because the Star Fort is a purely military structure.

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The Cannon Turret replaces the Ballista Turret at Gunpowder. This represents replacing the ballistas or other projectile throwers in castle turrets with gunpowder weapons. It increases the damage from the 15% of the Ballista Turret to 20%. The Cannon Turret is also the one add-on that the Star Fort can build. Both the Star Fort and the Cannon Turret go obsolete at Artillery, which is when forts of any type really lose their effectiveness.

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I like the sound of star fort.

As a side note, bombarding is so ridiculously easy in AND2, you basically will always knock it down to 0% defense in 1 turn. Wish it was way harder.

C2C revamped all their walls and stuff to make city defense more important recently, have you seen that thread Vokarya?

I'd love something similar, make it much harder to bombard and also have a minimum value required before being able to attack the city. Its like swordman can't attack against a castle, whats the use of swinging a sword at a stone wall? Defenses need to be lowered first, its realistic.

Sgtslick said:

I'd love something similar, make it much harder to bombard and also have a minimum value required before being able to attack the city. Its like swordman can't attack against a castle, whats the use of swinging a sword at a stone wall? Defenses need to be lowered first, its realistic.

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That's what the City Gatehouse does. I think that ability needs to be tied to buildings of some kind; otherwise, a cultured but unfortified city would also be immune to attack, which doesn't work for me.

Sgtslick said:

As a side note, bombarding is so ridiculously easy in AND2, you basically will always knock it down to 0% defense in 1 turn. Wish it was way harder.

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Never happened to me; anyone else reporting this problem?

Two ideas, one regarding the Solar Plant, and other one regarding Factories:

As for the Solar Plant, there could be a minor maintenance penalty for having the non-upgraded one (+5%, I think), as they aren't exactly cheap to build and maintain - and this penalty could go away with high-efficiency, later one. Making it somewhat productive to upgrade, while not a priority. Which is the way I would imagine it working in real life (while I'm by no means expert, I think I know a bit or two about photovoltaic technology ).
Also, we could rename Microprocessor technology to Transistor. It would make more sense for the Solar Plant being there, and also more sense in general, IMHO.

Second thought - about Factories - is that while there are Advanced Castles in game, we could possible go for something similar with Factories, especially later one. For example, making it Manufacturing Plant - Factory - Industrial Park and then go on with add-on buildings to the Industrial Park. Or maybe allow some add-on buildings with Factory, and the rest with Industrial Park only. This way we could incorporate ideas like reduced emission (Industrial Filters building that reduces Unhealthiness caused by Industrial Park) and so on. There are already quite a few building that require Factory, so why don't go all the way?

Afforess had in AND at one time Vincentz Industrial mod. Is it still in there? I don't remember seeing it at the moment.

JosEPh

BlindKitty said:

Two ideas, one regarding the Solar Plant, and other one regarding Factories:

As for the Solar Plant, there could be a minor maintenance penalty for having the non-upgraded one (+5%, I think), as they aren't exactly cheap to build and maintain - and this penalty could go away with high-efficiency, later one. Making it somewhat productive to upgrade, while not a priority. Which is the way I would imagine it working in real life (while I'm by no means expert, I think I know a bit or two about photovoltaic technology ).

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I'd prefer to keep things as simple as possible. Civ4 in general got away from building maintenance in favor of city maintenance, and I'd like to keep that element. If the basic Solar Plant is limited to only some of your cities, I think that's substantial enough, especially since any of those cities on a River will also have Hydro Plant as an option, which will be equally good.

BlindKitty said:

Also, we could rename Microprocessor technology to Transistor. It would make more sense for the Solar Plant being there, and also more sense in general, IMHO.

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Transistors are part of Electronics, not Microprocessor. I've placed the beginning of the Modern Age at just after World War II with Electronics and Modern Physics. Electronics is 1947 (the transistor is invented), Semiconductor is 1961 (first sales of integrated circuits), and Microprocessor is 1971 (Intel's first 4-bit microprocessor). I'd rather keep the Electronics name; it sounds more general, and with technologies, I really prefer to keep the names as broad and flexible as possible.

BlindKitty said:

Second thought - about Factories - is that while there are Advanced Castles in game, we could possible go for something similar with Factories, especially later one. For example, making it Manufacturing Plant - Factory - Industrial Park and then go on with add-on buildings to the Industrial Park. Or maybe allow some add-on buildings with Factory, and the rest with Industrial Park only. This way we could incorporate ideas like reduced emission (Industrial Filters building that reduces Unhealthiness caused by Industrial Park) and so on. There are already quite a few building that require Factory, so why don't go all the way?

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Again, I'm interested in keeping things as simple as possible for now. I'm really not a fan of Advanced Castles as those are some of the easiest buildings to skip - also, they don't feel very integrated with the rest of the mod. I play with them now only because they're already there. The only buildings that currently require Factory are the Industrial Park, the Manufacturing Plant, and the various Power Plants, of which you really only need one. Advanced Factories sounds like a complete stand-alone component.

JosEPh_II said:

Afforess had in AND at one time Vincentz Industrial mod. Is it still in there? I don't remember seeing it at the moment.

JosEPh

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I'm not sure. There isn't a module for it. Vincentz's Guilds and Corporations are in. I looked in my copy of Rise of Mankind (not AND) 2.92 and all I saw were Guilds, Corporations, and Jungle Camp, which are all in the main AND.