A New Dawn Beta Builds

Merry Christmas to all!

3 Year long almost permanent lurker here.

Could I just make the simple request of the first page being updated so that the instructions on the bottom of the post reflect the correct URL of the depository?

Otherwise, great job on the revival guys! I am so glad to see things moving in the right direction!

You know, the beta 2 build has a lot of missing art and media assets(movies, sounds, etc).
I had to butcher 1.75 to get those as well.
Why not include it in?

Also Happy New Year!

martix said:

You know, the beta 2 build has a lot of missing art and media assets(movies, sounds, etc).
I had to butcher 1.75 to get those as well.
Why not include it in?

Also Happy New Year!

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AND2 beta 2 is obsolete. You can get the latest SVN version to have an up-to-date version. I'm planning to release a new beta version once I've solved a couple of bugs which are causing CTD.

I'm sure it is.
Only the distinction between nightlies and betas(even alphas for that matter) are there for a reason. Mostly to do with stability as I'm sure you know.

So on that note, do you claim that the latest nightly build is more stable than the beta? (not looking for features here as I'm in the middle of a huge game)

There are no "nightly" builds just the SVN any more. Latest version is 602. Fairly stable with the exception of using Barb World and Barb Civ.

This thread is actually for the old betas as 45*38'N stated.

The active thread is the AND2.0 SVN Build thread. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=471725

JosEPh

Hi

Is this the correct place for suggesting "balancing" things? I think a few of the additions gets us away from better balance, rather than towards it (but can't use older versions due to none since 1.75 having been stable enough). This time it is the village hall --> building line.
I think these are done wrongly. The point is, in the capital of a large empire, the maintenance in the capital will be above 100 gold on deity, due to number of cities having that as a max. OK... I did want to hurt myself playing on gigantic map on deity, but still... The Capital Admin (and all the other buildings like that) have a HUGE negative impact on you civ. At least 100 gold more in maintenance. That is absolutely not worth it. However a large capital in a large capital should have an admin center, really. Maybe you should make this in the same idea as the aquaduct and sewer system in CIV2, that getting past a certain size is difficult without it; either using heavy angry citizens without it, just giving some happiness or the best, that it reduces a maintenance that is heavy the larger a city grows. (maybe need to introduce size maintencance them too, maybe take some off number of cities maintenance, and replace it with a city size maintenance that is negatable using the admin buildings.) These buildings could also cost a flat amount of gold and reduce a percentage, so that the player needs to balance over-admin with under-admin to optimize costs.

gudal said:

The point is, in the capital of a large empire, the maintenance in the capital will be above 100 gold on deity, due to number of cities having that as a max. OK... I did want to hurt myself playing on gigantic map on deity, but still... The Capital Admin (and all the other buildings like that) have a HUGE negative impact on you civ. At least 100 gold more in maintenance. That is absolutely not worth it. .

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I have also wondered about the way this works. As well as this effect, the effect of these once you have corporations really ballons, so that is really is never worth building the Capital Admin, or the other later ones if you have larger cities option on. I am not sure of a solution, and it could be that this is how it is designed.

My suggestion would be to limit population growth to between 25-30 WITHOUT a Metropolitan administration building or the Capital Administration say at 35.

Costs are a fact of bigger empires, and without a cost penalty, the larger civs would just steam roll across the map.

I think Civ 2 had a population limit without certain buildings, Sewer, administration buildings etc

gudal said:

Hi

Is this the correct place for suggesting "balancing" things? I think a few of the additions gets us away from better balance, rather than towards it (but can't use older versions due to none since 1.75 having been stable enough). This time it is the village hall --> building line.
I think these are done wrongly. The point is, in the capital of a large empire, the maintenance in the capital will be above 100 gold on deity, due to number of cities having that as a max. OK... I did want to hurt myself playing on gigantic map on deity, but still... The Capital Admin (and all the other buildings like that) have a HUGE negative impact on you civ. At least 100 gold more in maintenance. That is absolutely not worth it. However a large capital in a large capital should have an admin center, really. Maybe you should make this in the same idea as the aquaduct and sewer system in CIV2, that getting past a certain size is difficult without it; either using heavy angry citizens without it, just giving some happiness or the best, that it reduces a maintenance that is heavy the larger a city grows. (maybe need to introduce size maintencance them too, maybe take some off number of cities maintenance, and replace it with a city size maintenance that is negatable using the admin buildings.) These buildings could also cost a flat amount of gold and reduce a percentage, so that the player needs to balance over-admin with under-admin to optimize costs.

Click to expand...

The game is intentionally hard on Diety mode. That is the nature of difficulty levels. I don't really see a problem with the maintenance costs. Pick better civics, civics have by far, the largest effect on city maintenance.

I thought the point which gudal was making was that some of the "village hall --> building line" buildings aren't worth building. This is my experience also: I almost never build the last, biggest, versions.

IPEX-731BA5DD06 said:

Costs are a fact of bigger empires, and without a cost penalty, the larger civs would just steam roll across the map.

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But the cost penalty in question (namely the extra maintenance associated with the Admin' buildings) is optional, as one simply chooses not to build those buildings with negative value.

I like Ipex's suggestion of size limits (like Aqueducts in Civ1 which limited cities to size eight, nicely preventing huge cities in the ancient era). Not necessarily applied using the building line in question, though. But I think we already dismissed this idea once, arguing that unhealthiness made fixed limits unnecessary?

Recently the science (and other) modifiers for almost all buildings were changed to flat bonuses (e.g. Artist Colony (?) now +5 culture rather than +50% culture). Could we perhaps make all building extra-maintenance modifiers absolute values also? I.e. the Sewer System costs 3 gold per turn, say, rather than +X% mainentance? That would be easier to decide, in my view, when it's worth building it.

Cheers, A.

Maintenance is superior to flat gold per turn costs because Maintenance increases with city size, and Maintenance increases with empire size. This helps keep larger empires in check.

I urge players here to try the One-City-Challenge. The changes in the maintenance and empire growth makes it an achievable, if difficult, challenge.

Afforess said:

Maintenance is superior to flat gold per turn costs because Maintenance increases with city size, and Maintenance increases with empire size. This helps keep larger empires in check.

I urge players here to try the One-City-Challenge. The changes in the maintenance and empire growth makes it an achievable, if difficult, challenge.

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The only reason I haven't tried a OCC in AND in ages is because of the many National Wonders it offers, some of which seem somewhat mandatory if you want to have any chance in the game (Aluminum Factory?) and as there's a limit on National Wonders.... Well, that's sort of the point of the OCC is deciding what to use and what to let go, but there's just so many to have to decide from, across seemingly every era

IIRC the N.Wonder cap was 3 ~ 5 in BTS wasn't it? Was that raised any in AND?

Pretty sure the wonder caps are auto-disabled with OOC. If not, that is a bug.

Afforess said:

Maintenance is superior to flat gold per turn costs because Maintenance increases with city size, and Maintenance increases with empire size. This helps keep larger empires in check.

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I'm not convinced.

City maintenance doesn't derive solely from buildings, does it? E.g. distance-from-capital-maintenance. Therefore there can still be a component which is population-dependent (1 gold per population point?) even if buildings themselvers add flat amounts of maintenance.

Maintenance based on number of cities doesn't have to have anything to do with building maintenance either. I'm not sure whether this has to be included as a city maintenance cost at all, or whether it can be dealt with in the economic advisor like military maintenance. The latter would make much more sense to me: why would maintenance go up in every existing city just because I founded a new little settlement off in the wilderness somewhere? More logically there'd be central administrative costs, which should be reported in the economic advisor along with army costs and civic costs. You could make the central admin' costs which relate to the number of cities a cubic function of the number or cities, or whatever you want, to restrict large empires, if that was felt to be necessary.

In any case, I'd prefer to have the effect of number-of-cities-maintenance reduced, in relation to population maintenance, as I believe that population-based maintenance is fairer, and would allow players to build more smaller cities or fewer larger ones without significant penalties either way.

Cheers, A.

Afforess said:

Pretty sure the wonder caps are auto-disabled with OOC. If not, that is a bug.

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I haven't tried an AND OCC in a looooong time, so I'd have to go and check. I do remember in BTS you could only build two national wonders in a city, but if you checked One City Challenge, you could build four or five if I recall. Given how many NW's AND has, some of which are vital to the late-game, I never really attempted a serious OCC (as in one that went past the Medieval) because I thought it'd be working in the same way.

I'll have a go later tonight and see how it all works out.

Iirc there's a civilopedia description about OCC.

Afforess said:

The game is intentionally hard on Diety mode. That is the nature of difficulty levels. I don't really see a problem with the maintenance costs. Pick better civics, civics have by far, the largest effect on city maintenance.

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I use the best civics and it is still a problem. Of course, these rules might not be suited for "power players", those who are only satisfied when they have above 100 cities on the giant map, as some of the formulas might get blown out of proportions. What I am trying to point out is that it seems off that one should even consider not building the capital or metropolitan admin cities. Maintenance and population control should be impossible without them, not with them. That is the entire point of the building. It is like saying that, "nah, this capital works best with anarchy [not the civic, but the consequence of not having city admin] going on all the time. It's like new york city suddenly deciding not to have a major, and that was a good thing.

The same goes for corporations, actually. Game is easier without them, so you avoid them (even your own). THat is stupid, cause it leaves out a cool part of the game. I think we should have alternative forms of these two things. I agree Deity should be difficult, but as far as we can go, lat that be on the AI, not handicaps. Handicaps is a sizzy way to create difficulty. Still it is needed in CIV IV, but not so much that it renders buildings without use. Then you just stop building them, problem solved, but it makes it less fun that you can build buildings that should actually have been making things better.

For admin buildings I was thinking something along the lines of: Above a certain size, city won't grow, wil experience more revolutionary tendences and will have increased maintenance. Build the building, which costs something like 50 gold to operate (not percentage though, flat fee, just put -50 in the commerce field in the xml). Not sure how to implement the other suggestions though, so didn't manage to do it in my own file.

Sorry the long rambling here, but it's late. Good mod on the whole - can't play CIV without it Gotten to renessaince on giant earth map now, some CTDs, but after I turned logging on to find out why, it hasn't happened.

IPEX-731BA5DD06 said:

My suggestion would be to limit population growth to between 25-30 WITHOUT a Metropolitan administration building or the Capital Administration say at 35.

Costs are a fact of bigger empires, and without a cost penalty, the larger civs would just steam roll across the map.

I think Civ 2 had a population limit without certain buildings, Sewer, administration buildings etc

Click to expand...

It was aquaduct at 8 and sewer at 12.

Afforess said:

Maintenance is superior to flat gold per turn costs because Maintenance increases with city size, and Maintenance increases with empire size. This helps keep larger empires in check.

I urge players here to try the One-City-Challenge. The changes in the maintenance and empire growth makes it an achievable, if difficult, challenge.

Click to expand...

Not gonna comment on the one-city-challange. I play it for the empiring, not for the winning.

It's maybe good for a gameplay view point, unless you want things to be a bit realistic. Lets face it, IRL:
- a city without government would be run badly, in civ it is run better
- The city government cost is only be dependent on the complexity of governing that city, not the size of the country, in civ it is dependent
- in real life, distance to capital could be an issue the father away you are, so as long as each city has its own distance to the capital and not its part of the total distance to capital cost, I'm fine with that one.

As a side note. I did not like the absolute values on other buildings, like laboratory and similar. Works very poorly with the increased research times (which I have come to like). I turned them back myself, so no biggy. Maybe OK on the cultural one. Personally, I always have cultural victory set to off, as one wins to early (if you use unlimited wonders, at least).