Improvement Balancing

Vokarya said:

We probably don't need a separate unit. The problem I have with ST is that there really is no alternative to it. Once you get the right combination of techs, you flood the oceans with ST's and get the same bonus from every non-bonus water tile. This might actually be better implemented as a building, not an improvement (just get the flat bonus from every water tile).

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Being a building would clean up the map a bit, instead of having a dozen 'improvements' dotting every coastal city.

I did some initial work to balance Plantations. Since I use Farms as my benchmark for basic improvements, I am using the Farm + grain resource as my benchmark for bonus improvements, and balancing improvement yields against this.

I am valuing health and happiness resources that are tapped by improvements at +0.5 yield, as per the health/unhealth from improvements themselves; this is in addition to the yield bonus from the improvement on the tile (but leaving out the bonus just from the resource being on the tile). If you have maximum health and happiness, you don't need this particular resource, and it's hard to use multiple copies of a resource except through Guilds/Corporations or trading. I'm not completely sure how to count strategic resources, but I think +1 yield might be fairer depending on how useful the resource is.

With the Dome Farm in the building mix, this is the yield curve for Farms on food resources. It's a straight +1.5, +1 for the food yield bonus, +0.5 for the +1 health from that particular resource.

Plantations only get a couple of bonuses before Vertical Farming. I am setting up Plantations to upgrade to Dome Farms, so any updates beyond that won't matter. The two current bonuses are +1C from Agricultural Engineering and +2C from Gene Manipulation.

• Hemp is +1.5; +2 commerce, +1 happiness
• Rubber is about +2; +3 commerce, +about 0.5 for strategic value (Rubber can be made into Vulcanized Rubber, which is necessary for a few vehicles; however, Vulcanized Rubber can also be made from Chemicals)
• Coffee, Cotton, Tea are +2; +3 commerce, +1 from happiness or health
• Tobacco is +2; +4 commerce, with +1 happiness and -1 health cancelling each other out
• Sugar is +2; +1 food, +1 commerce, +1 health
• Dye is +2.5; +4 commerce, +1 happiness
• Incense is +2.5; +5 commerce
• Spices is +2.5; +1 food, +2 commerce, +1 health
• Banana is +2.5; +2 food, +1 health

This averages out to about +2. Plantation is already slightly behind relative to boosted Farms. It doesn't get much better as the eras go on.

We need to boost Plantations just a bit. First of all, to make them equal to boosted Farms, we add +1 commerce to the resources that aren't already at +2.5 yield. This applies to Coffee, Cotton, Sugar, Tea, and Tobacco.

Also, I would like to do something different with Rubber. To differentiate it a bit from the rest of the Plantation resources, I would like to make Rubber give a production bonus of +1 hammer and actually reduce its commerce by 1. It still averages out to a net +2.5: +1 from production, +1 from commerce, +0.5 for strategic value.

Now we need some additional bonuses. Start with the following:

• Add +1 food from Crop Rotation. This keeps it on pace. I considered a commerce bonus here but it made balancing the Dome Farm too difficult.
• Increase the bonus at Agricultural Engineering to +2 commerce.
• Add +1 food from Biomaterials. This is the inverse of the Farm situation, which gains commerce at this tech.

Now we have a much better table.

Plantations are slightly better than Farms by the end of the Modern Era. In the Transhuman Era, Plantations also upgrade to Dome Farms. I'll talk about that in another post. This one is pretty long.

I am quite mixed on this topic.

While I am greatly FOR a new upgrade improvement, I believe that Dome-farm is not the best choice. Simply the name that bothers me and all that it represents. Seeing it outside of a city, where there is a lot of free space for farming is just absurd and highly uneconomical.

I would prefer calling the new improvement Bioindustry and include Pasturage for upgrading too.

Vokarya said:

We probably don't need a separate unit. The problem I have with ST is that there really is no alternative to it. Once you get the right combination of techs, you flood the oceans with ST's and get the same bonus from every non-bonus water tile. This might actually be better implemented as a building, not an improvement (just get the flat bonus from every water tile).

Click to expand...

True, but a building cannot be pillaged by the enemy, while an improvement needs to be looked after.
Can't we make it to require 1 tile distance between to ST? So you could build only 1ST per 9 tiles.

Sogroon said:

I am quite mixed on this topic.

While I am greatly FOR a new upgrade improvement, I believe that Dome-farm is not the best choice. Simply the name that bothers me and all that it represents. Seeing it outside of a city, where there is a lot of free space for farming is just absurd and highly uneconomical.

I would prefer calling the new improvement Bioindustry and include Pasturage for upgrading too.

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I am not doing that, because it makes no sense to me. I want something that has some background, even if it's science-fiction, and understandable as to what it is supposed to mean. Bioindustry sounds far too vague.

Vokarya said:

I am not doing that, because it makes no sense to me. I want something that has some background, even if it's science-fiction, and understandable as to what it is supposed to mean. Bioindustry sounds far too vague.

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Oh well, I accept...


Any way. What do you say about Pasturage?

Sogroon said:

True, but a building cannot be pillaged by the enemy, while an improvement needs to be looked after.
Can't we make it to require 1 tile distance between to ST? So you could build only 1ST per 9 tiles.

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It's not coded. There is <bNoAdjacent>, but that can only be used with Features (it's currently used on Oasis).

Sogroon said:

Oh well, I accept...


Any way. What do you say about Pasturage?

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I'm not sure what to do with Pastures. I think at some point during the Transhuman Era, meat resources would come from cloning tanks rather than farms, but I'm not sure if it is worth including, and I'm not that keen on using Dome Farm for animal resources, but I might come around to it. Watermill is in a similar situation to Pastures as it sits around for the entire endgame; it has been suggested that Watermill upgrade to Industry, but I don't want Watermill upgrading to Industry because that means a -2 food swing. I don't want upgrades to be seen as punishments.

I do want Camps to upgrade to Forest Preserves and Orchards to upgrade to Treefarms. I haven't looked at Camps yet. I've got the numbers for Orchards/boosted Treefarms worked out.

I looked at Submerged Town Platform a little more. While I am totally in favor of getting rid of the unit and making Submerged Towns an ability of the Constructor Ship, I did notice two things.

1. You can't put resource requirements on an Improvement or a Build. Routes can have resource requirements, but they use a separate XML file. I tried editing both the Improvement file and the Build file and the requirement didn't show up. I wouldn't have a problem with resourceless Submerged Towns.

2. I think we have the Submerged Town showing up too early. It can be built once you have Aquaculture and Nanotubes. Both of them are available in the Modern Era. I think that is too early and it should be pushed off until the Transhuman Era, and either Biomimetics or Superstrong Alloys would probably be a good fit. Biomimetics especially doesn't have enough stuff attached.

I have very little experience with the Transhuman era, but those two sound reasonable.

Vokarya said:

I looked at Submerged Town Platform a little more. While I am totally in favor of getting rid of the unit and making Submerged Towns an ability of the Constructor Ship, I did notice two things.

1. You can't put resource requirements on an Improvement or a Build. Routes can have resource requirements, but they use a separate XML file. I tried editing both the Improvement file and the Build file and the requirement didn't show up. I wouldn't have a problem with resourceless Submerged Towns.

2. I think we have the Submerged Town showing up too early. It can be built once you have Aquaculture and Nanotubes. Both of them are available in the Modern Era. I think that is too early and it should be pushed off until the Transhuman Era, and either Biomimetics or Superstrong Alloys would probably be a good fit. Biomimetics especially doesn't have enough stuff attached.

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Agree.
I was thinking about the variety thing you said.
How about making a few new improvements in the shape of the land improvements:

Submerged Town: Town on water tiles. Gives only
Submerged Colony: Village on water tiles. Gives only Upgrades to ST by time.
Aquafarm Farm on water tiles. Gives only . Upgrade of Fishing Boats and Whaling Boats. Some chance to find seafood resource (not sure it's a good idea).
Sea-bed Mine Mine on water tiles. Gives only . Makes use of resource and has chance to discover new ones (oil, methane, metals).
(We may need better names of course)

Sogroon said:

Agree.
I was thinking about the variety thing you said.
How about making a few new improvements in the shape of the land improvements:

Submerged Town: Town on water tiles. Gives only
Submerged Colony: Village on water tiles. Gives only Upgrades to ST by time.
Aquafarm Farm on water tiles. Gives only . Upgrade of Fishing Boats and Whaling Boats. Some chance to find seafood resource (not sure it's a good idea).
Sea-bed Mine Mine on water tiles. Gives only . Makes use of resource and has chance to discover new ones (oil, methane, metals).
(We may need better names of course)

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Having three different improvements - one for each commerce type - seems like a bit much to me, but I am in favor of additional late-game deep sea exploitation
Playing Subnautica has again sparked my interest in the subject of abyssal ocean features ^^

Rezca said:

Having three different improvements - one for each commerce type - seems like a bit much to me, but I am in favor of additional late-game deep sea exploitation
Playing Subnautica has again sparked my interest in the subject of abyssal ocean features ^^

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3 is more than 1 by 2. So you would only add 1?
What do you suggest?

I had a couple of ideas that might be available before the Transhuman Era.

• Fishing Boats on non-resource squares. These would provide +1 food and -1 commerce. You would have to choose which you wanted more.
• Offshore Windfarms, probably available at either Nanotechnology or Superconductors, on Coast only. This would allow a limited amount of production from coast tiles.

These are just thoughts.

Does anyone else think it is good or bad that we treat Brewery and Winery differently? Brewery is currently a National Wonder and Winery is an Improvement. I am wondering if it would be better to have the on-map resource be Grapes (with Orchard as their improvement) and have Winery be an additional National Wonder (producing either a new Wine resource or another Alcohol resource). What do you think?

Grapes on map with Orchard as their improvement could work, though a Winery NW should provide a Wine resource separate from the Alcohol (maybe to be renamed? Beer?) from the Brewery.
Logically it makes sense.

However, do we really need an extra level of complexity on this, from a gameplay perspective?
Will the AI know to build the Winery after having built the Orchard on the Grapes?

I mostly agree with Noyyau, I'm not sure we need this change. Although making it a NW, AI would definitely know how to use it, same as other NW.

why not make the National wonder of the Brewery, use an actual resource.

Beer = Wheat to produce. +1 +1

Whine ( ) wine = Grapes to produce +1 +1

45°38'N-13°47'E;14160484 said:

I mostly agree with Noyyau, I'm not sure we need this change. Although making it a NW, AI would definitely know how to use it, same as other NW.

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If you don't think it's necessary, I won't do it. It was just something I was thinking about.

IPEX-731BA5DD06 said:

why not make the National wonder of the Brewery, use an actual resource.

Beer = Wheat to produce. +1 +1

Whine ( ) wine = Grapes to produce +1 +1

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Is this feasible?

Wine bonus renamed to Grapes, related improvement is the generic Orchard.

Brewery NW buildable with Grapes OR Wheat OR (all the other resources currently enabling Brewery)

Brewery gives manufactured resources:
Wine with Grapes
Alcohol with Wheat/others

Can (code-wise) a NW (or generically a building) give different manufactured resources depending on available natural resources?

OR

Remove the manufactured Alcohol resource, and Brewery give +1 +1 in all cities with Grapes, and another +1 +1 with Wheat/etc
(as IPEX suggests)
In this case, Brewery should be buildable only 1 time per civilization, not 3 as currently is. Maybe give it +2 Merchant slots to compensate.