Better RoM: BuildingUpgradeChains & Balance

Killtech · May 20, 2010

the mod currently contains upgrade trees for production, science, education, trade and religions buildings.

actual version:
Building Upgrade Chains - 28.07.2010

Wonders - 28.07.2010 - (module not complete)

Hydros Extensions - 29.07.2010

latest changes (BuildingUpgradeChains): (28.07.2010)
changed prerequisites of Oxford & Newton Universities and Platos Acadamy. (no dependency on building counts).
University => Oxford Univ/Newton Collage
Academy => Platos Academy
school of scribes gives +1 additional static commerce yield to beat elder council more easily.
industrial production buildings allow to select less engineers (e.g. factory allows only 3 now)
wonder buildings has been exported to an own module.
changed free specialist values for city councils, metropolitan admin, capital admin (do not depend on town improvement anymore).
added wonder for zoroastrian and confucian religion (execpt for movie files. you will need to have the original modules installed for the modules movies to available... which will mostly be the case)
some text changes for french language.

changes from 20.07.2010:

universities require only 2 libraries now but give only +35% science. (similar changes for academy)
city councils and better give 2 free specialist and +1 per each town improvement in vicinity
capital administration (unlocks eco 3rd radius) as a national wonder available with easier prerequisites then metropolitan administration.
metropolitan administration does not require city councils any more but population requirement increased to 22.
maintenance for village hall/town hall/city council/metropolitan administration increased
temples cost 10% maintenance, cathedrals 15%
education chain changes: monasteries upgrade not to public schools and no more to universities. gymnsium was removed and the merchant school was renamed to apprentice schools.
stonehange/moon observatory are world/national wonders. grant additional sicence, more expensive
the pyramids/pyramid wonders: WW grants free river regulation in every city and +1 global health. both wonders require a river and give +1 food per river tile in their city of construction.
oracle of appollon/oracle wonders: grant additional espionage (historically true because priest supported an espionage network for their prophecies to be believable)
small new food chain: Bakery => Cannery and the Foodscrapers upgrade into each other.
monasteries give +2 commerce and +2 science instead of the earlier +3 commerce
tannery: require a animal resource in vicinity. does lo longer require salt. +2 yuck and much higher production bonus.

latest changes (HAND conversion): (29.07.2010)
converted over some of Hydromacers HAND mod: his science buildings. they are now available in a separate package. as i adapted them to be compatible with the BUC the extension now explicity requires them i think.

some general description:
the building upgrades have multiple function. first is to prevent the all-at-once obsolation of buildings through discovery of new technologies. the mod gives upgrade possibilities for buildings long before they obsolete. the obsolation techs are also moved to later ages to make the replacement process of buildings smooth and natural.
most buildings have no prerequisite on a lower-tech building but they will build (usually) 15% faster with the building previous in the upgrade chain.

additionally the mod contains balancing changes to buildings that aim to have a much more constant game speed over the ages: the rate at which a civ discovers new techs should be more or less constant over the ages. thus production and science modifiers are tuned down - especially the latter. thus you will have more time to construct the buildings of one age before you progress to the next.

a specific concept is the addition of a downside to important buildings to not make them too overpowered and beneficial-only. e.g. like unhealthiness or maintenance for a factory. this means that there are situations in which it is not optimal to build them (e.g. a factory in a very distant city (high base maintenance) with low production (minimal gain from production modifier) is not the optimal choice)

more details:
usually only the stats of the buildings last in a chain are described in detail. all prior buildings usually give similar benefits but at a smaller scale.
(i'm out of icons for the descriptions... so must use text now)

the science/education upgrade tree:

Spoiler :

more details on the production upgrade chains:

Spoiler :

trade route buildings:

Spoiler :

city trade buildings:

Spoiler :

religion buildings:

Spoiler :

other buildings:

Spoiler :

wonders:

Spoiler :

conversions of HAND (originally by Hydromacerx) and extensions for the BUC:

Spoiler :

make sure to check out civipedia "Building Upgrades" page after you installed this module. most changes can be viewed directly from there.

coming up next / current ideas:
further changes i consider can be found in this post

later i plan to actualize all the game texts on the buildings at least for the english language (there are some pedia entries missing) and find some nicer graphics for several buildings. however the alternative civics modification comes first.
also i'll try to incorporate parts of the HAND mods as extensions. however this might take a while.

feel free to comment on my ideas. constructive critique is also welcome.

some of the reasoning on the concept:

Spoiler :

Credits:
Afforess for the AND mod and his SDK changes for some building tags
Hydromacerx and GeneralStaff for some of their Buildings i re-used in my Mod.
among others os97, dudeSDCA, szemek and climat for testing and constructive feedback
zarappa and all those who had their part in the RoM mod which is the basis of my modification.

if anyone else thinks i've forgot to credit him here, pm me.

Iceciro · May 20, 2010

Ewww, trading science for production - no. I already paid the cost in hammers for the buildings themselves, and science buildings seem to take forever already.

I'm not sure why the trend in AND modding lately seems to be subtraction, but it annoys me. :mad:

And if I specialize the benefit should be that I've spent a lot of time and effort maximizing the city to do its job and it therefore does it better than an unspecialized city. I should not be *forced* to specialize at any point - what if I have a limited number of cities, or play on smaller maps, or a OCC?

Killtech · May 20, 2010

i'm not sure of what you are speaking. i usually need just about 3 turns to finish an university at deity difficulty on snail speed - and units are finished within one turn from renaissance age on. so nothing takes forever to finish in my games. if you think that production takes forever you maybe should try another game speed?

nor can i understand your point about spending time to specialize a city... i mean right now cities just build every (relevant) building thus they specialize in everything. for example in my current testing game i have come so far that my cities overproduce everything and although i still have building options it just doesn't make sense to build anything more.

and as for the specialization: it's never something forced. you can build a building if it fits your needs or don't. the point is that it should not make sense to just build everything and there should be possibilities to specialize which doesn't exist right now.

but i can only speak from the experience of my games. so can i have your save games to see how you come to this conclusions?

EDIT:

Iceciro said:
I'm not sure why the trend in AND modding lately seems to be subtraction, but it annoys me.

like everything else i guess this will be just an option. especially until it's not tested enough. and it's not a subtraction as you think. it is much more a fix to keep the game speed constant over the ages. the fewer research you get the slower you discover new tech so you have more time to build the buildings/units you want to. it's like an increase of production but without increasing the game speed. the changes suggested here will only tweak the ratio between production and research (i.e. how much you produce before you discover a new tech) while keeping the game speed fixed. and if that's too slow, well, there's what the game speed setting is for.

EDIT2:
also note that although a -40% :hammers:

seems harsh it stands against a maximum of +115% :hammers:

for military production and +150% :hammers:

from civilian construction which means that you still will have a huge positive production modifier unless you'd place an university into a city without any production facilities.

EDIT3:
just a space to store some interesting links with art content i can use for this mod:

Spoiler :

Afforess · May 20, 2010

Iceciro said:
I'm not sure why the trend in AND modding lately seems to be subtraction, but it annoys me.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't...

Hydromancerx · May 20, 2010

Why is it upgrading to an accelerator? The accelerator is a bit specific. Same goes for the observatory. You should not mix and match diffrent scientific buildings. For isntance if I was doing astronomy bsed buildings I would do ...

Stargazer's Hut -> Astrologer's Shop -> Observatory -> Radio Telescope (maybe)

And if I was doing say chemistry upgrading I would do something like ....

Healer's Hut -> Herbalists -> Apothecary -> Alchemist -> Chemistry Lab

And for teaching I would do something like ...

Elders Council -> School of Scribes -> Church School OR Trade School -> University -> Public School -> e-School

However I was thinking maybe it would be better to have a research path based upon recoding information such as ...

Storyteller's Hut -> School of Scribes -> Library -> University -> Data Banks (or some other name).

Killtech · May 20, 2010

i wanted to make a modern telescope but you said that this will be already in the ATOM mod so i better leave that out. so i think i add the modern telescope + radio telescope again.
thus there will be two static research patchs, one for astronomy and one for other research.

as for the accelerator it's merely picking a specialization for your research institute. the research institute doesn't have a research specialization but if it specializes in particle physics it upgrades to a CERN-like accelerator complex. okay, maybe i should rename the accelerator accordingly into 'Accelerator Research Complex' so it's not misunderstood with the sole accelerator ring which can't be operated without a large research facility. yep, i'll do that.
also i wanted to have other specializations for a research institute but there are currently no buildings in pure RoM or and i could use for that. i though about the nuclear laboratory from Civ Führers mod but i didn't want to add another dependency of an optional component. so i leave it out for the first version.

for a chemistry building all the buildings lack except for the alchemist. the healers hut is already in another chain for medicine. i do not intend to move it. thus i do not have much of an option. i think it is best let it be replaced by any modern research facility that covers general research (univerisity or research institute) by players choice to prevent all-at-once obsolation at scientific method. i'll let it obsolate at chemistry tech instead (after all it was an alchemist in 1708 AD who discovered the recipe for porcelain in europe).

and i will simply make the elder council upgrade to both. since school of scribes is much earlier this will go that way anyway.

as for the teaching... a university will certainly not upgrade into a public school. the one first covers higher education and research for students who finished the latter. the purpose of these both is just too different to throw them into one chain.

no, historically most accurate is school of scribes -> monastery -> unversity, so option 2. but the problem that you can build multiple monasteries must be dealt in some way, so that's why i added the greek gymnasium (in arabia they'd be called madrassa; can't find a general name for this kind of early education facility). i think it's ok that way. what is your problem with monasteries in this chain?

Hydromancerx · May 20, 2010

How about rather than having so many upgrade chains you just make more buildings requires x number of lesser buildings to be built. Thus creating fewer more powerful buildings. Such as your idea of X number of libraries allows for 1 university.

The other possibility is to reduce the amount of science a monastery gives. Thus making it more of a religious building than a science building. Because even though they did help educate it was the "dark ages" and science should not be a strong factor yet.

Killtech · May 20, 2010

Hydromancerx said:
How about rather than having so many upgrade chains you just make more buildings requires x number of lesser buildings to be built. Thus creating fewer more powerful buildings. Such as your idea of X number of libraries allows for 1 university.

that doesn't any bit with the obsolation problem. it is very nasty to have a large number of buildings obsolete at once...

Hydromancerx said:
The other possibility is to reduce the amount of science a monastery gives. Thus making it more of a religious building than a science building. Because even though they did help educate it was the "dark ages" and science should not be a strong factor yet.

that is an old view on the medieval. historians revised that quite some time ago and value the middle ages as a important epoch for the european culture and society. the development of universities and the thinking of the later ages would not be possible without the debates that took place in the monasteries.

EDIT: here a quotation on this from wiki article on dark ages: "Originally, the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the light of Rome, and the Renaissance or rebirth from the 14th century onwards. This definition is still found in popular usage, but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages since the 19th century has led to the label being restricted in application. Today it is frequently applied only to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages. However, most modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages."

Killtech · May 21, 2010

updated the first post with my actual concept. now it's not a chain anymore but a large tree.

hmm... i was also thinking of to make the academy require 3 gymnasia instead. so you'll have the option to go either for monasteries and religious influenced education or a classic/arabic alternative education concept. you might try to go for both but it'll cost quite some turns to build them all and in the end they all become replaced by universities. thought of giving gymnasia production reduction for monasteries to indicate that these education concepts compete with each other.. don't know if it's neccessary.

i'll probably add the e-School. however i'm looking for a better name.

Hydromancerx · May 21, 2010

Wait hows the tree work? Do they replace the previous building or require it?

Killtech · May 21, 2010

the => means that the building is replaced by the other. if the building requires the previous is specified whenever this applies. note that requiring and replacing a building means that you can decide only once. after the replacement is done the required building is replaced and no more buildable thus no other building that requires it.

if you ask yourself why the elder council is replaced by so many different buildings the answer is rather aesthetic: there is a primary upgrade patch to the school of scribes... however the elder council does not obsolete until scientific method so it can be replaced by other more advanced facilities in case you didn't build the school (thus you can be quite sure all elder councils are replaced at the time they'd obsolete). and it has the nice side effect that it brings all the science buildings together on the building upgrade view in civipedia so i don't have to search and scroll around to check changes.

it's a different story for the school of scribes: here you really have to decide which education path you take. it's somewhat like choosing an education civic but on the local level for the one city alone.

Hydromancerx · May 21, 2010

Ok so if I understand you right. Like this? ...

Spoiler :

Killtech · May 21, 2010

exactly. nice visualization.

Killtech · May 27, 2010

okay, i made a first implementation of the concept for education/science buildings. it also contains an actualized version of the production buildings.

you can find all informations & download links in my opening post.

Hydromancerx · May 28, 2010

Ok I took a look at the code and no offense to you Killtech but I hope this stays as an optional mod for AND rather than incorporated into Better RoM.

However I do like some of your ideas. Just not the way you implemented them.

Killtech · May 28, 2010

that's my first working version of the concept for science buildings. it's not final. so what's bothering you? the building stats or is it still the point that monasteries are included into one of the upgrade paths? depending on feedback there will be changes. as for what i short checked with the help of world-builder the building boni are not as excessive anymore. so it seems the game should progress better now then it did in original version.

the production trade-off for universities might be changed. i wanted to turn it into reduction of military unit production + some maintenance but then again AI will of course not notice that and recruit new armies in university cities anyway. i'm still thinking on that. the point is that the libraries limit universities enough so there isn't such a need for a strong handicap anymore.

i thought to make monasteries never expire but require certain civics instead. i mean there are monasteries up to out times.

i've packed the alchemist into the general research buildings as alchemy is was more or less general reseach (alchemist experimented with medicines, chemistry and physics). so they were as general as the word research institute in their field of specialization. the laboratory i've added is to understand as something like Lavoisiers private laboratory where he discovered the mass conservation in chemical reactions. i'll change the name if i find a more adequate one. however at the end of the research line you pick a specialization.

Hydromancerx · May 28, 2010

Well there are a lot of problems, but one at the moment is involving this vs my Craft Mod.

I have the Treadmill Crane have an upgrade path of ...

Treadmill Crane -> Steam Crane -> Modern Crane -> High-Tech Crane

Also the Modern and High Tech Crane require require the Construction Firm to build them.

Other possible problems are to plan for the River upgrades. In my Transportation Mod i have ..

River Port -> Steamboat Port

Note that the Harbor upgrade path is separated out so the River Port cannot upgrade into a Harbor anymore.

I am also not really happy with your "Moon Observatory". It just seems too much like the Stargazers Hut in AtoM.

Then lastly a lot of your eduction upgrades are going to totally mess up my Crafts mod once I get into the whole Tablets, Scrolls, Paper and Book stuff.

For instance having a School of Scribes will be much rarer with the Crafts mod. You will only be able to build one if you have a Tabletmaker's Hut, Scrollmaker's Hut or Papermaker's Workshop. The Tabletmaker ut depends upon Stone or Clay. Stone may be hard to find and clay can only be obtained if you have a Mash nearby. Likewise the Scrollmaker's Hut is only available if you have access to Papyrus, which needs a Marsh + Desert tiles which make it even more rare. Meanwhile the Papermaker's Workshop needs a Lumber Camp which is easy to obtain since it only needs plains or grassland terrain. However the catch is its only available when you have discovered paper tech. As you can see it would be very rare that the person gets the school of scribes and even then they are probably not getting even a library until paper is invented.

No to mention with the Education Civics I plan to make you will need to have all the science you can get since all the civics will ave negative science values.

Killtech · May 28, 2010

hey, i didn't make any river buildings so far. so you can't have any problems with them. we just debated that in the other thread.

as for the cranes... well give me your files and i'll include them. except that i don't like the 'stream crane'... that's a good idea for a UB for the british civ, but for general? never hear of such bizzare constructs anywhere else. nor are these even mentioned in the general wiki article on cranes. the modern crane maybe better named 'hydraulic crane'? don't like to call all newer buildings just 'modern'.

well... as for the moon observatory... it's more like stonehenge when you check the prerequisites... or even somewhat harder. it's intended to boost science at the very start of the game where the progress is really... slow. but i can leave that building out.

as for the education... hmm i don't think its a good direction to limit access to important buildings by resources. this could kill the AI completely. nor do i like having such strong resource dependencies. makes resources even more unbalanced then they even are now. and the other thing that bothers me: don't you need people who can write first before you have the need to use tablets or papyrus? ... if you invent writing you should be able to build a school of scribes regardless.

as for education civic... i think it's better to implement that on local level: the schools you build define the education model you chose for a city/province. the schools types need to be to mutually exclusive of course. something like that was what i intended with my the gymnasium and the monasteries: you need to decide what you want, a religious education model or a classical greek model. of course i could add some spartan like public military schools for a broader variety... and abbeys as an alternative to universities for high education only available with certain religious civics... but this mod isn't that much about adding things then balancing and grouping buildings.

Hydromancerx · May 29, 2010

Actually i was thinking of doing the opposite. Rather than you incorporating my stuff, I would incorporate parts of your stuff into HAND. Specifically the parts where I gave you icons. Such as the Toolmaker, Stonemason Workshops, etc. These would work perfectly within my innerconnected web of building dependencies. Especially when I already have plans for a Brickmasons Workshop to be built into the whole clay resource chain.

I have a sundial object to, however its more of a production/commerce building rather than a science one. Its basically what the Timekeeper's Shop was originally intended to be. Its sort of in the same realm as your Moon Observatory or Stonehenge.

Its rather weird since basically all of the Early Buildings were my suggestions to GeneralStaff, but at the time I did not know how to mod at all. Now that he is inactive and its within AND (and controlled by Afforess) I am sort of indirectly controlling my own ideas through HAND and the whole "override" functions Afforess was nice enough to put in to the SDK.

Well of course you would need writing first. That's when the tablet maker would be available. The tablets and the scrolls are the mediums in which the scribes would write on them. Heck I could even take out the middle man and have the school of scribes require stone, papyrus or wood (or even animal skins maybe). Putting in some middle buildings helps keep the whole real resource vs fake resource problems. I can't have something require Stone resource OR Papyrus building for instance. It has to be Resource -> Resource Building -> Crafts Building -> Advanced Buildings (such as the School of Scribes). In short what good are scribes if they have noting to write on?

The education Civics was based upon Afforess's Department Civics where each part of the society was covered with a department. The only difference between his and mine would be that the civics give negative science rather than positive. How much would depend upon the civic. Add -25% to each one listed in the link and that's what it would be.

Killtech · May 29, 2010

Hydromancerx said:
Actually i was thinking of doing the opposite. Rather than you incorporating my stuff, I would incorporate parts of your stuff into HAND. Specifically the parts where I gave you icons. Such as the Toolmaker, Stonemason Workshops, etc. These would work perfectly within my innerconnected web of building dependencies. Especially when I already have plans for a Brickmasons Workshop to be built into the whole clay resource chain.

could work that way too. however i wanted to make one complete pack containing the whole RoM buildings reworked and balanced. i do not want to split it up into many packages. so that's why i would like to not add too many new buildings to this. the buildings i add are mostly to have a continuous chain through time.

Hydromancerx said:
I have a sundial object to, however its more of a production/commerce building rather than a science one. Its basically what the Timekeeper's Shop was originally intended to be. Its sort of in the same realm as your Moon Observatory or Stonehenge.

no production but a small(!) commerce bonus could do it. would upgrade to the townclock that already bothered my with its original 10% :hammers:

bonus.

Hydromancerx said:
Its rather weird since basically all of the Early Buildings were my suggestions to GeneralStaff, but at the time I did not know how to mod at all. Now that he is inactive and its within AND (and controlled by Afforess) I am sort of indirectly controlling my own ideas through HAND and the whole "override" functions Afforess was nice enough to put in to the SDK.

Hydromancerx said:
Well of course you would need writing first. That's when the tablet maker would be available. The tablets and the scrolls are the mediums in which the scribes would write on them. Heck I could even take out the middle man and have the school of scribes require stone, papyrus or wood (or even animal skins maybe). Putting in some middle buildings helps keep the whole real resource vs fake resource problems. I can't have something require Stone resource OR Papyrus building for instance. It has to be Resource -> Resource Building -> Crafts Building -> Advanced Buildings (such as the School of Scribes). In short what good are scribes if they have noting to write on?

i see your point with the tags problem. and i understand your reasoning but then it'll make more sense for the library (which stores written knowledge) then the school of scribes (which only teaches wring... in china they precise calligraphy on sand). but then again... you can use nearly any plant or tissue to store inscriptions on it. e.g. wood or bark is good though not as handy as paper. but better then stone. so i think adding a small bonus form these resources is the better way then make them over-important as to restrict access to key buildings by resource prerequisites. personally i'd prefer neither no dependency of these buildings on any resources. but some kind of pre-paper tech that comes after writing. problem is that each region has is own individual technique for this depending on the available plants/resources.

Hydromancerx said:
The education Civics was based upon Afforess's Department Civics where each part of the society was covered with a department. The only difference between his and mine would be that the civics give negative science rather than positive. How much would depend upon the civic. Add -25% to each one listed in the link and that's what it would be.

well... honestly i don't like some of the civic categories. they mostly are historically inaccurate and seem a bit make up out of thin air just to fill the category. i mean... health care policy in the classic or medieval age? at best they build a canalization and that was it. but making a civic out of it? people in that time didn't make thoughts. i think making this via buildings makes much more sense. and if there are health care civics... then they only become available in the early modern age where they belong.

that may be the point where we differ. i strongly want to restrict to civics that are historically correct and are well organized in independent categories such that all can be combined an make sense. so we can talk about jurisdiction civics which were an issue through all ages but certainly not about health care.

btw. i wanted to rework the civics soon as even the main categories bother me (honestly, democracy and republic cannot be put into the same group). additionally there's a lack of certain concepts behind their stats thus they only help to unbalance the game further.

EDIT: okay... looked up the education civics:
Oral Tradition
Written Tradition - build a library. this implies a written tradition.
Apprenticeship - crafts guilds buildings. thought about a guild apprentice school building parallel to the monastiers.
Religious Training - monasteries. btw. will be funny if you combine this civic with atheism

monasteries should never obsolete but have civic prerequisites.
Military Tradition - did i mention a spartan school?
Propaganda - a modern spartan school?
Compulsory Education - public school building.
Corporate Education - private school building.
E-Education - didn't you talk about an eSchool?

EDIT: buildings are much more flexible then civics can ever be. they can be mutually exclusive with the right tag while civics always are. civics can't represent the medieval education which was either study in a monastery or an apprenticeship within one guild. buildings can do that. and they can give synergies to each others like boosting or slowing down construction of others. also they can have synergies with civics, e.g. religious education buildings granting additional happiness with appropriate religious civics... and of course: buildings do not require an anarchy period to change them.

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