C2C - Building Review Thread

We've long had the Existing Buildings thread but its gotten so long and the majority of that discussion is now obsolete. Therefore, its become prohibitive to newer readers who want pertinent information on current building discussions.

Thus, this thread is a reboot. To get it kicked off, a review of the most recent item in the Existing Buildings thread:

Johnny Canuck said:

I've noticed that from the Industrial era onwards, if you have the three available 'Food Storage' buildings in your city (Modern Granary, Modern Warehouse, and the Refrigerator Factory), you will store 100% of food after growth (the food growth values for the three buildings are 50%, 30%, and 20% respectively). Is this WAD? Especially considering that you'd get a value over 100% if you build the Strategic Grain Reserve or the Palace of Potala in a city.

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Thunderbrd said:

So what happens at that point? Do you get a pop every round until you balance out on your food source or do you get it all in one round? Or something else?

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Johnny Canuck said:

I don't know - I just noticed when I was looking through the Granary-like buildings, and noticed the oddity.

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Koshling said:

The amount needed for each pop level increases so it wont equate to growth every round, but it still sounds over-powered, and at OVER 100% especially so (that MIGHT lead to growth every turn)

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Johnny Canuck said:

I was thinking that Modern Granary, Modern Warehouse, and the Refrigerator Factory should in total give 70% food storage - high, but not excessively so - and then Strategic Grain Reserve & the Palace of Potala each give +10% storage each (instead of the +20% currently), so that the absolute maximum (if you have all five) is 90%.

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Sounds reasonable to me. But what may be more valuable is applying some of the diminishing returns as one approaches 100% as ls612 applied towards Withdrawal. Otherwise we'll constantly be having to worry about this kind of thing when designing building content in the later stages of the game. For NOW that's a good solution you offered though since it takes some time to achieve anything in code as there's already 10000 projects on 'the list' to get to. I'm happy to add that to the list though, and its a fairly basic one so it may be sooner to be addressed than I think.

Thunderbrd said:

I'm happy to add that to the list though, and its a fairly basic one so it may be sooner to be addressed than I think.

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Be careful of assumptions like this. If a mechanic gets changed then you at least need to consider changing how the AI evaluates that mechanic. If something has diminishing returns then the AI valuation function should reflect that in general. In this case it *may* not matter much in practice (it's still valuable enough that any distortion through the AI not realizing the value is diminishing won't have a practical impact), but in general any change to a mechanic about which a decision can b made must also consider whether an AI change is needed.

Good to keep in mind. I'm still going to need to get a full review on how to go about tweaking or setting up building tag ai.

To give a specific proposal, I'd suggest the following new food storage values:

Modern Granary - 40%
Modern Warehouse - 15%
Refrigerator Factory - 15%
Strategic Grain Reserve - 10%
Palace of Potala - 10%
Granary - 25% (a 5% reduction compared to present to 'level out' the comparative food storage increases from Ancient to Industrial)

One other small suggestion is regarding the Icehouse. Currently, it is replaced by the Modern Warehouse, but I was thinking it should be replaced by the Refrigerator Factory instead (both having similar functions).

Can you please allow the Colosseum as an alternate to the Arena as prereq for Statue of Champion. I have Construction before I have Combat Sports (not an uncommon occurrence I imagine), so I guess the Arena, having already been replaced, will never be buildable for me.

Johnny Canuck said:

To give a specific proposal, I'd suggest the following new food storage values:

Modern Granary - 40%
Modern Warehouse - 15%
Refrigerator Factory - 15%
Strategic Grain Reserve - 10%
Palace of Potala - 10%
Granary - 25% (a 5% reduction compared to present to 'level out' the comparative food storage increases from Ancient to Industrial)

One other small suggestion is regarding the Icehouse. Currently, it is replaced by the Modern Warehouse, but I was thinking it should be replaced by the Refrigerator Factory instead (both having similar functions).

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I've been using the above values, plus reducing Icehouse & Warehouse to 5%, in a game through the Classical era, and it seems balanced - cities are still growing quite quickly (several are 20+).

A few building observations from my most recent game:

Hunting Instruction: Why does this building obsolete at Military Training? Indeed, why does it obsolete at all? Surely people have been learning how to hunt throughout all of human history.

Rain Dance: This building strikes me as significantly too powerful. +5% quickly translates into +5 or more in my larger cities by the early-Classical era (i.e. it doesn't take long until my cities are producing 100 or more a turn), making it the single best building available. That's to say nothing of whether a Rain Dance actually works. I'd suggest reducing the benefit to +1% , but give it +1 - people are happier because they think you're doing something to help the harvest.

Famen Temple: For where this wonder appears in the tech tree, it is way too cheap, at 200 . Even though it appears with an early-Classical tech, it is cheaper than some Prehistoric wonders (i.e. Stonehenge at 240 ). I think it's cost should be at least tripled, to bring it more in line with other early-Classical wonders.

Jewelry Store: Why does the Jewelry Store require that a Gemcutter have already been built in the city? You should be able to have jewelry without gems, such as gold/silver rings, etc. I'd suggest that the Gemcutter produce a new resource (i.e. Finished Gems), that then becomes one of the 'or' resources that need to be present (such as Gold Wares, etc.).

Ekal Masharti: At 50 , isn't this wonder a bit cheap? I know it requires a specific culture (Assyrian), but other culture-specific wonders don't seem to be too much cheaper than regular wonders (i.e. the Baray).

Johnny Canuck said:

Rain Dance: This building strikes me as significantly too powerful. +5% quickly translates into +5 or more in my larger cities by the early-Classical era (i.e. it doesn't take long until my cities are producing 100 or more a turn), making it the single best building available. That's to say nothing of whether a Rain Dance actually works. I'd suggest reducing the benefit to +1% , but give it +1 - people are happier because they think you're doing something to help the harvest.

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Agreed. And pushed to the SVN.

Thanks for all your great evaluations Johnny! Those are rather helpful I think

Buildings aren't my dept but I can sure recognize and appreciate the help! These kinds of observations can be widely made in C2C... there's a lot of analysis we need in all realms of the mod to help us get things into yet more rational approaches yet.

I think we should separate granary line from storage pit line.

In every sim civ game granary line is food storage (food requires diffrent conditions to storage than others things) and warehouse line to storage other stuff.

Example we can add new building

food storage (imagine like hole in ground covered by ex hide because in ground is colder)
+ 5% storage after growth
upgrades to granary

Storage pit
remove +5% storage bonus

And remove +% storage bonus from storage pit/warehouse line

wE that idea implemented we have stright specialization for two buildings upgaradepath (now we have some kind of mess)

Thunderbrd said:

Thanks for all your great evaluations Johnny! Those are rather helpful I think

Buildings aren't my dept but I can sure recognize and appreciate the help! These kinds of observations can be widely made in C2C... there's a lot of analysis we need in all realms of the mod to help us get things into yet more rational approaches yet.

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No problem, it's my pleasure.

i can remember also the conversation about having certain things Auto build and i noticed the Fortune Teller building That's a Citizen (or more) devoting their life to their skill so such kind of buildings come from the citizens why not Auto build it?

A couple more building thoughts:

Riding School: That the Riding School gives the Speed Promotion (+1 Speed) is a bit strong for when the Riding School can be built. In particular, it gives the Speed promotion to the Elephant Rider, which is a huge benefit, giving it 2 movement points instead of 1. Negating the one major downside of Elephant Riders (slow speed) makes Elephant Riders a bit too useful, IMHO. Perhaps the Speed Promotion could be given by the Knight's Stable instead?

Canaanite Monastery: Is the Canaanite Monastery supposed to work different from the other monasteries? It doesn't spread the Canaanite religion, doesn't give +1 with Church, and doesn't lose -5% with Scientific Method and -3% with Biology.

Also, any thoughts on the other buildings I posted (other than the Rain Dance)?

Johnny Canuck said:

Canaanite Monastery: Is the Canaanite Monastery supposed to work different from the other monasteries? It doesn't spread the Canaanite religion, doesn't give +1 with Church, and doesn't lose -5% with Scientific Method and -3% with Biology.

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Yes I had forgotten those when I added in the Canaanite religion. The bit is in one of the optional mods so you will need to move it from My_Mods (Unloaded) to My_Mods after I update the SVN.

IMO, the tavern/pub/etc... line of buildings is not worth the effort of building. The negatives (crime, health, spy) outweigh the meager benefits.

Taxman66 said:

IMO, the tavern/pub/etc... line of buildings is not worth the effort of building. The negatives (crime, health, spy) outweigh the meager benefits.

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What would make them worth building?

Well... they already generate the revenue and happiness you'd expect I think. So perhaps eventually I can implement a unit morale bonus from them when I start getting into that project more?

Plus... if we're going to have a mechanic that represents the will of people to live in a particular place that either drives immigration unit movements or perhaps just an immigration mechanism that shifts percentages of population from one place to another based on a sort of 'desirability' property, a tavern would be a huge negative to not have and a huge positive to have it. There's a reason they were some of the first places built in new towns.

The revenue and happiness they currently generate is not worth the negative effects. It would need to be significantly higher for me to even consider building one. Offhand I'd suggest % increases for each type of alcohol that becomes available (cider, wine, beer, distilled) just like other buildings.

On the other hand maybe they should be auto-built once alcohol becomes available.

usually i have 1 type of Booze for the Entire Empire build on 1 spot due to their Negative effects and just because i never Ever need the positive effects beside the Alcohol Recourse (yea i'm a hoarder problem )
my play style works without fail to give me +1000 income at the second Era (sometimes mid or End second era) giving me a healthy empire that can go on a all out Genocidal Massacre party under the norm of History never recorded their existence so they do not exist (if i am in a bad mood and the AI pissed me off for one to many time and lately it's getting less and less mercy so that is kinda a good thing from the AI [meaning the AI is Good])

but i am ranting once again but basically i rarely have a situation i require negative buildings except for the ones that Give Hammers or resources

In response to the food storage issues which this thread started with, just an idea but how about making the amount of food lost decrease geometrically?

So, in the example given above, the individual buildings allow you to lose only 50%, 70% and 80% of food, so combining them would give 0.5*0.7*0.8=0.28=28% of food lost, or 72% kept. That accounts for the diminishing returns thing, and means that each building is applying its effect to the food that's still being lost: which makes sense, I think, as my understanding isn't that 'we could only preserve 50% of the food as the rest couldn't fit in the granary' (which has the obvious response 'why can't I make 2 granaries?'), but that only 50% of it is suitable for keeping there. There's little reason to suspect that all of that 30% that can be stored in a warehouse is from the food which can't be stored in a granary, so it makes sense to only store 30% of the food that still need storing.