Mod Test III: Double the Trouble

I have done a small amount of testing... and managed to find out all the info you will need about this, but if it is to be interesting, I want to know how YOU will want to play this game...

Anyway, the description of the game is simple, just a standard game, except:

In GlobalDefines.txt, change:
<CITY_MAX_NUM_BUILDINGS>1</CITY_MAX_NUM_BUILDINGS>

to

<CITY_MAX_NUM_BUILDINGS>2</CITY_MAX_NUM_BUILDINGS>

Now, this does 1 simple thing... you can build 2 buildings of the same type in one city...

Initially, you may think "Oh wow -.- Thats... not particularly awe-inspiring". We will come to that later.

Anyway, what game settings will we use? As the AI DOES build 2 buildings, and doesn't automatically build two of the same type in a row, we will play at our normal difficulty setting (for me, that is noble). As the game will likely be a build-fest, I will aim for space race, but you can do what you like. I will enable all victory conditions.

Civs? Leaders? I want Monty of the Aztecs, but I think that might be a bit ... much (see below).

Anyway, people who AREN'T awe-inspired by the share brokenness of this XML change... think about this.

2 Granaries give instant growth to any city with surplus food
2 Barracks, and 2 Stables give +10 EXP to any unit produced by the city, BEFORE Vassalage, and Theocracy, and wonders are counted
2 Lighthouses make all coast and ocean tiles produce as much as a FLOODPLAIN. Fresh water sources produce 4 food!!
2 Courthouses make no city upkeep costs
2 Sacrificial Alters make no city upkeep costs, and NO (or maybe minimal ie. 1 turn) unhappiness from whipping

Any other buildings (and especially UBs) which are insanely powerful with this mod? And also, what settings should we play? Earth2 looks like a VERY nice map script (it comes with 3.17, and it resembles earth, and plays like Terra, but it ISN'T earth, and doesn't come with 1000000 resources in Europe), but its rather dry...

Oh, and there still can only be 2 National Wonders per city, and only 1 National wonder per civ (and 1 World Wonder, per civ)

Here is an example of this game... its not optimal (I was mucking around), and got poor religions, poor neighbors (the Chinese are likely to have +100% culture from two pavilions. The Vikings are likely to have +2 movement on all ships >.<), poor events, and got stuck in Scandinavia of all places... but at least my own religion is pretty good, and wide-spread.

this sounds a bit broken, but definitelly fun.

wouldn't rifle drafting with 2 granaries and 2 sacrificial altars be the best victory? You get no and you can regrow your cities instantly.

Also I wonder how 2 rathäuser would work; you get 1-0.75-0.75= -50% maintance. Does this mean you can make money from the maintance cost?

Unfortunately, rifle drafting won't work.

Jaguar WHIPPING, in contrast, does.

I have played another, longer game (this time I got Arabia, out of the random civ generator). The double granary thing is VERY wierd... it has overflow, so sometimes, my capital, although still starving, had enough overflow to grow to size 18 (even when it was starving at size 16 ) This makes me think about holding off growth until I have 2 granaries, and then letting them rip... I should bounce to nearly pop 20 by the time it stops growing

Of course, it is a very aggressive game, it seems... 3.17 has made it so that I had 2 wars at the same time, despite me sharing the religion with almost everyone. Incedentally, I was the only person they declared war on... and I wasn't THAT weak...

And, unfortunatly, I don't know how the ratheus would work. I THINK they will just cap it at 0 gold, so you get the same as 2 courthouses... otherwise that could potentially be very interesting

(Queue running environmentalism with a global empire, with 3 corps in each city)

[Edit]Im off to bed... when I wake up (in 10 hours) I will look at any posts that have been posted, think about it, choose a civ and leader, choose a map style (I may do Earth2, just so that I can describe land areas ), and be off kicking...

The more I think about it, however, the more the Aztecs just seem too... overpowered I might play Prince, or, alternatively (as it is likely that I will get crushed in the early game BEFORE my army of jaguars come a-comin') I might choose another civ... if I can think of a nice, interesting one, which will allow a unique style of game-play.

Finally, some food to thought. What would 2 walls do? The spoiler says all:



2 Nuke bunkers?



And what of playing as the Native americans?

2 Granaries give instant growth to any city with surplus food

Click to expand...

This is not true. Every pop grow will need 2 more food than the previous one and 2 granaries will simply save the same ammount of food that it had in the food bar before the growth. This means if you have only a 1 food surplus the city will take 2 turns to grow ( yes I already tested it )

So basically you play as mehemed and try to spam as many cities as possible as fast as possible with cheap granaries(build two) and cheap courthouses(build two), free cities that grow infinite, what is not to like? Sounds like the game will be waay too easy...

Oyzar, the cities will not go infinite pop with 2 granaries.

Of course they won't.. But you can grow 1 pop per turn...

This appears interesting...

Alas, having insanely large cities is actually detrimental to the city itself... as it is hard to keep the population within its happiness cap. That is one thing I will be focusing on.

Anyway, I will be playing as the Ottomans (my maths was wrong about the Native Americans... I assumed the stable would give experiance. Longbows would ONLY start with 12 EXP, which is only 3 promotions...). I haven't played with them... and I have forgotten what their UB is... (But I know they have an INSANE UU... yay for the musket with 11.25 vs all non-gunpowder units!!)

I WOULD prefer protective, but that is likely to be pointless, as if my cities are invinsible, then the AI will just pillage them. Of course, protective IS insane... and any AI with protective will be my best buddy... 2 cheap walls + powerful archers = Pure unbeatable defence!! Lets hope I don't start next to the protective AIs!!

Playing a standard Earth2 map (7 civs), as Memhed of the Ottomans. Rocky / Normal sea level, Noble difficulty. Two buildings per city...

And remember, the AI seems to love building 2 granaries too, so they will ALSO have huge cities!

Have you considered using the great lighthouse? trade routes love big cities

Expansive/Industrious Bismarck with two cheap Forges and no real Health detriment . . . hmmm . . .

And do double Rathauses actually produce some extra gold for you?

Montezuma could abuse whipping SO BAD. Don't even worry about inefficiency - just whip at turn start, growth will still outpace it .

Super barracks/stable nonsense would be rigged too. This kind of setup wouldn't have much balance, and I don't think the AI could handle the changes at all.

I dunno...

I will start again... seriously, who would have thought that a start where I start off with 2 golds in the BFC, as well as 2 other easily accessible sources of gold, would end up with me behind EVERYONE in tech?? I blame three things I REALLY need to focus on (as the AI focus' on it better!!)

#1: The whip is not only a happyness control thing (I had 3 sources of normal happyness, and religion, allowing me to get up to size 10 without unhappyness. And I normally only whip when I hit the happyness cap, thus, I didn't whip at all)

#2: Granaries are Overpowered (with a capital O). Whip them. I played the game, and found out, in my 5 cities, I had built 1 granary, with 1 under construction.

#3: Building is BAD. For some wierd reason, the AI still builds military units (and not only that, in greater numbers too!!). I was at 0.3 strength, and couldn't keep up...

So... lets start again... in several hours time (I have work for the next 8 hours >.<)

Great Lighthouse: Love it. Even though it is a terra map, I will still need it ASAP... thanks for that

And the AI DOES use the double barracks trick... even more so than I did (I had 6 EXP swords wandering down my southern borders -.-) Its surprisingly balanced, and dare I say, slightly harder than a regular game (either that, or its 3.17 rearing its ugly head... the AI is SO MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE!! That, and religions seem to fail to spread effectively... 1 religion ALWAYS in my previous 3 games, spreads so that one religion is spread everywhere, and a few other religions are not (Confusism, however, seems to have a VERY high natural spread rate...)

Finally, I will NOT use Earth2, as that doesn't have very balanced start locations (lots of desert, lots of tundra. Not much 'in between'). I will just do a standard (Rocky / Normal water) continents game...

And I will NOT play as Monty... simply because his courthouses are just simply too insane... it would be a walk in the park after CoL...

[Edit]I miss financial... 3 food, 3 commerce coast tiles sound SO COOL... I wonder if there is an Org/Fin civ... I will check that out later... but I will probably stick with the Ottomans (I am addicted to Financial, it replaced Creative )[/Edit]

Shaka with double Ikhandas . . . there's a terrifying thought.

My understanding of granaries is that the food bonus from the food stored does not fill the next populations granaries.

If you have a huge overflow of, say x food at size n, you will need little food to grow from n+1 to n+2, but your granary at size n+2 will only store the food accumulated while growing from n+1 to n+2, that is, (2*(10+n+1)-x-(10+n)). To have this explosive growth from 2 granaries, the granary would inherit the food from the previous size's granary.

This is hard to verbalize clearly.

I just tried this on Prince (and got my butt kicked, I might add -- loads of fun, but difficult), and doubled granaries seemed to make a city grow each turn if the city could grow. (Goes back to trying yet again to not get into a huge tech hole).

Bandobras Took said:

I just tried this on Prince (and got my butt kicked, I might add -- loads of fun, but difficult), and doubled granaries seemed to make a city grow each turn if the city could grow. (Goes back to trying yet again to not get into a huge tech hole).

Click to expand...

Fool of a Took!

Lol, its hard, unless you use the patented "whip until they drop" method Its SO effective...

Basically, the build order is: Granary -> Granary. THEN you build military units with your regular hammers, and as soon as whip unhappiness runs out, whip a building.

Buildings that give happiness don't need to wait until the whip unhappiness runs out, as the +1 happiness (or more) cancels out from the +1 unhappiness from the whip. But that means we cannot build any more buildings until ALL the whip unhappiness runs out (exceptions: The over powered courthouses, and in emergencies, two walls can also be whipped if appropriate)

Anyway, here is the first bit of turn... I am warring against the Inca, and got India in there (they will be one of my best buddies, hopefully... I know that they won't back stab me, and that will allow me to conquer the other continent!!)





4000 BC: Our glorious leader, our tech path, and our starting location. The leader is someone I would have missed (his UB was meh... I mean, +4 happy is good and all, but NOTHING like Montys no unhappyness from slavery, or the Incas +6 happyness... but his traits are pure gold in this game!). His UU is very good, its just that his UB is very expensive in terms of population required to whip it

The start location is also meh... its not a good ANYTHING city... It will be a mediocre commerce city in the future, with no lighthouses


3800 BC: I get this amazing tech for free... its something late on my tech path... so its nice to get that nice and early


3775 BC: Meet the neighbours I: Hauyna Capac of the Inca... not a bad person. His traits are pretty good, and his UB is amazing... so he will need to go ASAP...


3675 BC: Meet the neighbours II: Asoka of India. I can't remember the Indian UB for the life of me (I do know that they have the longest spanning UU of the entire game ), but thankfully, spiritual is a bad trait in this game. He has always been a good buddy of mine (albiet a poor war-mongerer, but thats not what I want, I want a techer, who I can conquer easily )


3050 BC: My first double granary... awww. Isn't it ridiculosly over powered!?. I thought so.


2900 BC: Pop a hut, and out pops two warriors. I promote to Combat I, and hope for the best, but unfortunatly, I don't win. I should have disbanded, and let Inca deal with them


2725 BC: I fear I will become onto the '******' continent... you know the one... the one where I send out my caravel, and meet a destroyer half-way there...


395 BC: I have previously declared war (about 1 turn ago), and moved south. I find this brilliant city, already with a pastured horse ready for me to take, and only 1 archer, so I do. It takes 2 archers, but I get the job done.


350 BC: Open borders with India, just so that I can get his religion.


35 BC: Get India in this war. They won't do much, but at least that will make us better buddies.

Things to do: Not much. My recent invasion of buddism into my cities has made 40 turn whip unhappyness, but expect size 11 cities VERY soon.

Calander is right up there on 'researches to get ASAP', for the many resources I will get (I think I will get 3). As far as wonders go... I forgot about the Great Lighthouse, and I think I will pass (sadly), as my trade routes aren't AMAZING yet. I will go for a conquest win (and, failing that, I will go for a space race win). No maintanence is gonna be fun!! Finally, my military is getting built up. As soon as I get 10 troops, I am marching to the capital.

The great difficulty I have found was precisely that -- no matter what continent I was on, it ended up being the "******" continent. I can't figure out the common element . . .

I managed a cultural win with Washington. Charismatic Monuments are pretty big in the opening game under these rules.