Health system reform proposal

Health system redesign

Problems with the current system:
Health is rarely binds after the early game. This makes health buildings and resources uninteresting. This happens largely because the significant number of health bonus resources are massively augmented by key buildings that also have valuable other purposes.
These bonuses also don't necessarily make logical sense; they are remnants of the vanilla granary and grocer, and the greenhouse building.
The "fresh water" health bonus from vanilla (bonus for being adjacent to river, lake or oasis) still applies.

Design goals:
Make large cities require infrastructure investments in order to grow to large size without having health penalties.
Make the existing buildings less of a no brainer build, and have more of competing strategic options (invest in more water first, or more health?).
Make "infirmary" building relatively more important.
Make Wet Planet Conservatory and other health bonuses (golden path) more valuable.

Proposal:
1. Remove the health bonuses with resources from the water cache, moisture seals, and qanat buildings. [Reduces health bonuses by 4,3,4, total of 11 in late-game if all 7 resources are present]
The core effects are all still very powerful.
2. Remove +1 health from nitrates resource.
3. Add a "clinic" building which gives +2 health, at Arrakis habitation tech. 40? hammers.
4. Add a "nursery" or "greenhouse" building at Way of Liet tech (currently useless to non-Paradise users), which gives +1 health from nitrates, spice honey, dates and cereal. 80? hammers.
[Alternative idea: make it give +1 health, +1 health from nitrates, spice honey, dates and cereal, -1 water.]
5. Add a "dew extractor" building at refining techniques that gives +1 health from sword grass, barrel cactus, spiked paintbrush, creosote bush. 120 hammers?
[Alternative: make it give +1 health, +1 health from sword grass, barrel cactus, spiked paintbrush, creosote bush, -1 water.]
6. Rename "infirmary" to MedLab or something similar.
7. Not required, but another possibility; make salt pan terrain give +0.25 unhealth in nearby cities.
8. Remove the fresh water/"moisture" bonus health. It doesn't make sense for cities to get a health bonus from being adjacent to a well (but not if the well is 2 tiles way).

Ahriman said:

Health is rarely binds after the early game.

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Be careful. Keep in mind the higher levels of difficulty. FYI - Dune Wars is the only mod I play that is not screwed up with regards to difficulty level. IMO, noble level should play roughly the same as noble on vanilla civ (a good design goal I might add).

Ahriman said:

Make large cities require infrastructure investments in order to grow to large size without having health penalties.

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I agree.

Ahriman said:

Make the existing buildings less of a no brainer build, and have more of competing strategic options (invest in more water first, or more health?).

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Again, I do not see any problem with your reasoning.

Ahriman said:

Make "infirmary" building relatively more important.

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Ok.

Ahriman said:

Make Wet Planet Conservatory and other health bonuses (golden path) more valuable.

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Great idea, I look forward to your implementation of this.

Ahriman said:

1. Remove the health bonuses with resources from the water cache, moisture seals, and qanat buildings. [Reduces health bonuses by 4,3,4, total of 11 in late-game if all 7 resources are present]
The core effects are all still very powerful.

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Put this in a patch, and then we would need to playtest. It seems ok but it would be better to make sure that there are no unintended consequences (especially since rarely do you have all 7 resources present).

Ahriman said:

2. Remove +1 health from nitrates building.

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Ambivalent about this change.

Ahriman said:

3. Add a "clinic" building which gives +2 health, at Arrakis habitation tech. 40? hammers.
4. Add a "nursery" or "greenhouse" building at Way of Liet tech (currently useless to non-Paradise users), which gives +1 health from nitrates, spice honey, dates and cereal. 80? hammers.
[Alternative idea: make it give +1 health, +1 health from nitrates, spice honey, dates and cereal, -1 water.]
5. Add a "dew extractor" building at refining techniques that gives +1 health from sword grass, barrel cactus, spiked paintbrush, creosote bush. 120 hammers?
[Alternative: make it give +1 health, +1 health from sword grass, barrel cactus, spiked paintbrush, creosote bush, -1 water.]
6. Rename "infirmary" to MedLab or something similar.
7. Not required, but another possibility; make salt pan terrain give +0.25 unhealth in nearby cities.
8. Remove the fresh water/"moisture" bonus health. It doesn't make sense for cities to get a health bonus from being adjacent to a well (but not if the well is 2 tiles way).

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I don't see a problem with the rest of your suggestions. I especially like #'s 5-7 (not necessarily #4 and #5 alternatives though unless the -1 water penalty is eliminated from both {but it really depends on the whole health system}). However, I am not impartial by any strech of the means (since I like to win).

Be careful.

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Absolutely, this will need significant testing.

IMO, noble level should play roughly the same as noble on vanilla civ (a good design goal I might add).

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Well... yes, but.
The mod is different from vanilla, and the economics work different. We have to take into account how water works, and how its concentrated in only a few tiles/improvements.
Tile yields are higher than in vanilla, but food is rarer.
In vanilla, happiness is much more of a binding constraint relative to food. Here, food/water is more of a binding constraint.
Health needs to be used in such a way that it emphsizes water as the binding constraint, rather than detracting from it.

I guess my point is; we have to find our own balance through testing, and that vanilla isn't necessarily a great guide here given the large differences.

eg: rapid expansion is more favored in this mod, but optimal city placement is much more dispersed. THis means on average, more different resource types.

Great idea, I look forward to your implementation of this.

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I see this happening implicitly, by making health more rare, rather than explicitly.

Put this in a patch, and then we would need to playtest

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This is the intention.

(especially since rarely do you have all 7 resources present)

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I find it is quite common to have ~6 of the resources by late-midgame, particularly with a little trade. Which is why health becomes uninteresting, you have easy access to ~+12-15 health without any health-specific buildings.

Ambivalent about this change.

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This is a typo, should read "from nitrates resource".

The nitrates resource is massively overpowered. It is the most important resource in the game. It gives health bonus AND is Required for two of the important combat lines (missile and siege). And with it, you get two good tier2 units with a single tech.

If you don't get nitrates in the early game, you are at a large disadvantage.

[My next design change I'm going to work on is a way of separating the rocket and siege lines and their nitrate dependence a little.]

[After that, I'm probably going to tone down aircraft (lower strength). The AI doesn't do a good enough job of using interceptor cover, and so its too easy for the human to exploit air power to massive advantage.]

(not necessarily #4 and #5 alternatives though unless the -1 water penalty is eliminated

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I like the idea of the human player strategically choosing between health or water.
But I worry that the AI would always construct these buildings whether it needed them or not, and so would end up suffering water penalties unnecessarily. So might be better not to do them.

(since I like to win)

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What do you think the conflict is here?

Ahriman said:

The nitrates resource is massively overpowered. It is the most important resource in the game. It gives health bonus AND is Required for two of the important combat lines (missile and siege). And with it, you get two good tier2 units with a single tech.

If you don't get nitrates in the early game, you are at a large disadvantage.

[My next design change I'm going to work on is a way of separating the rocket and siege lines and their nitrate dependence a little.]

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I know this has been discussed before and I agree with your assessment. Possibility of a new resource?

Ahriman said:

[After that, I'm probably going to tone down aircraft (lower strength). The AI doesn't do a good enough job of using interceptor cover, and so its too easy for the human to exploit air power to massive advantage.]

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Sigh...I suppose so (i.e. game balance would be better) BUT I definitely love exploiting this to my advantage.

Ahriman said:

What do you think the conflict is here?

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My desire to exploit the rules for an easier victory (see reply to 2nd quote) vs. good game design (which is your goal). Really all I was saying was that I am biased from a player's point of view (and sometimes at odds with good design philosophy).

Ahriman said:

[After that, I'm probably going to tone down aircraft (lower strength). The AI doesn't do a good enough job of using interceptor cover, and so its too easy for the human to exploit air power to massive advantage.]

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A better solution might be to merge in this nice little modcomp.

The modcomp looks great in terms of improving the interception rate of stacks of missile troopers.
[Though we might also simultaneously tweak missile trooper interception chance downwards).

Its amazing to me that this was not the way interception actually got implemented.

But it still might not fix the problem entirely; the main problem is that the AI hardly ever *builds* interceptor aircraft. Or if they do, they don't relocate them to where they're needed.

So bombers can still go nuts doing massive damage on any tile that doesn't have AA missile troopers.

Lowering strength, as I understand it, will slightly reduce the amount of damage a single bombing run does, and slightly increase the chance that aircraft when intercepted by ground units get shot down, rather than just damaged.

[Any thoughts on the health changes?]