Better RoM: BuildingUpgradeChains & Balance

[Killtech]

minor update. added some military unit production buildings i forgot about (armourer, filling factory, siege workshop and cannon forge). made some education buildings tweaks. check OP for details.

EDIT: for the next version i'll something of this concept:
one addition i plan is a special building class to represent the civilizations step of settling down in permanent escapements which soon developed into first towns. the reorganization of society in such town allowed people to specialize and become first craftsman as they could count on others for food acquisition. so my idea is the following line:
Village Hall => Town Hall => City Council => City Administration/Authority.
all the buildings only grant free specialists (so not peasants that work the tiles). if Afforess introduces this possibility they will have a city size prerequisite. i also plan to add another more advanced line of such buildings (which will need a certain amount of city administrations before they can be build - like cathedrals need temples) that unlock the 3rd economy radius for cities (3rd ring of workable tiles) and represent the growth of a city into a metropolis.

 

[Hydromancerx]

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.

Well in Civ4 I imagine that each game is like an alternate timeline where civilizations end up much diffrent from the real world. For instance a world where China never had Rice or Silk but had say Potatoes and Tobacco as their major resources. That would create a much different culture. Likewise you could have say Desert Vikings or Jungle Mongols. Location and resources ulimatly can create much diffrent cultures and tech choices within the game than what was done in real life. I mean even on say an Earth map things can progress much differently than in real life. For instance in one game Sumeria was totally wiped out in the middle east but somehow managed to get a colony in Australia! Or in another game the Inca came and took over Africa once they discovered Astronomy.

EDIT: for the next version i'll something of this concept:
one addition i plan is a special building class to represent the civilizations step of settling down in permanent escapements which soon developed into first towns. the reorganization of society in such town allowed people to specialize and become first craftsman as they could count on others for food acquisition. so my idea is the following line:
Village Hall => Town Hall => City Council => City Administration/Authority.
all the buildings only grant free specialists (so not peasants that work the tiles). if Afforess introduces this possibility they will have a city size prerequisite. i also plan to add another more advanced line of such buildings (which will need a certain amount of city administrations before they can be build - like cathedrals need temples) that unlock the 3rd economy radius for cities (3rd ring of workable tiles) and represent the growth of a city into a metropolis.

Hmm I was just going to make a "City Hall" for my Ordnance mod.

 

[Killtech]

hmm... it seems that you are going just into an other direction then i want to go. i don't see how we could make our concepts compatible without big concessions on both sides. so i guess that's it. our mods must be separated then.

pity, hoped we could make us work together.

so i'll take now the changes i had originally planed. can i use some of the buildings from your mods? just thinking on the railroad station right now.



as for the sea trade buildings in my next verstion it will be:
River Regulation (instead of River Authority) => Levee
Fishers Huts => Fishing Harbor (req. coast) => Trading Port (req. coast) => Commercial Cargo Port (req. coast) => Jumplane Cargo Port
Riverside Piers=> Fishing Harbor
Riverside Piers=> Inland Port (req. River Regulation or Levee) => Domestic Cargo Port (req. coast) => Jumplane Cargo Port
Boatyard => Docks => Marina => Jumplane Cargo Port

also to keep health from resources at bay there will be a Fish Market building that can only be build with some sea resource in vicinity that grants a health bonus instead of the harbor.

land line:
Paved Roads => Train Yard => Meglev Train Yard => Jumplane Cargo Port
Wheelwright => Train Yard (req. grassland or plains or desert or hills or peaks or swamp in vicinity - i.e. land)

and air:
Airport/Airfield => International Airport => Jumplane Cargo Port

 

[Hydromancerx]

hmm... it seems that you are going just into an other direction then i want to go. i don't see how we could make our concepts compatible without big concessions on both sides. so i guess that's it. our mods must be separated then.

pity, hoped we could make us work together.

Yeah I feel the same way. They are just going in 2 separate directions where yours eliminates buildings through mass upgrades, whiles mine adds on to buildings through building dependency webs/chains and pseudo-resources.

In short I have no problem with you taking this in your own direction as long as it says as a separate mod from AND, in the same way HAND is a separate mod from AND.

so i'll take now the changes i had originally planed. can i use some of the buildings from your mods? just thinking on the railroad station right now.

Well as long as you allow me to use you buildings then you can use my buildings. I was just going to use the AOE icons, but if your using all all my building info then I guess I can use all of yours. (note I will give credit if you give credit).

Heck this should actually save us both time in building creation if both of us are making buildings the other can use for their own mods.

No hard feelings I hope. Good luck to you and this mod.

 

[Killtech]

Well as long as you allow me to use you buildings then you can use my buildings. I was just going to use the AOE icons, but if your using all all my building info then I guess I can use all of yours. (note I will give credit if you give credit).

Heck this should actually save us both time in building creation if both of us are making buildings the other can use for their own mods.

sure, you can have mine. however if you are using my any of building classes make sure to rename them. because if someone - for whatever reason - tries to use both mods he'll get unexpected errors. building classes can't be overwritten safety. that's what i tried and ended with python errors and a blank Building Upgrades page in pedia.

No hard feelings I hope. Good luck to you and this mod.

good luck to you too.

 

[Killtech]

okay, actualized. finished and uploaded the trade buildings (ports, airports, train yards)

 

[os79]

#1 KillTech, please for goodness' sake, update with a new post every time you update the first post. That would be a big help .

#2 Afforess, your decision but.... I propsoe that you add this either as part of Better RoM or as a new option pack to 1.74. This looks very promising .

#3 Now if only someone was to do Better RoM: Units Upgrades! Flamethrowers? Early Tank, Tank, Heavy Tank squuezed in few turns? And so on I can rant but we will get to it one way or another. If no one decides to do this, I will add a new thread "Better RoM: Units". No like StrategyGuy did that was offensive at best when he looked for units that no one ever use. I will be doing more of upgrade improvements and trimming maybe handful of units, that's it. But that is if no one else takes up on this labor .

EDIT: Oops, sorry, KillTech, did not read the last post, sorry!

 

[Iceciro]

#3 Now if only someone was to do Better RoM: Units Upgrades! Flamethrowers? Early Tank, Tank, Heavy Tank squuezed in few turns? And so on I can rant but we will get to it one way or another. If no one decides to do this, I will add a new thread "Better RoM: Units". No like StrategyGuy did that was offensive at best when he looked for units that no one ever use. I will be doing more of upgrade improvements and trimming maybe handful of units, that's it. But that is if no one else takes up on this labor .

EDIT: Oops, sorry, KillTech, did not read the last post, sorry!

On the subject of units - Mechanized Infantry need to either stay as regular gunpowder units or be allowed to take the same upgrade paths - I keep having to train paratroopers because Mech. Inf don't get city defense promos.

 

[Killtech]

#2 Afforess, your decision but.... I propsoe that you add this either as part of Better RoM or as a new option pack to 1.74. This looks very promising .

for now it's not completely done and there and it has not been tested sufficiently to put into better RoM. also hydros mod has some compatibility issues with my changes - he follows another concept. so i think it's best to make it optional and not Better RoM for now.


ok, i've uploaded a new version. it includes some gold buildings:

Market => Grocer => Supermarket => Hypermarket
Bazaar => Shopping District => Hypermarket
Moneylender => Bank => Investment Bank (former Skyskraper) => Financial Nexus or World Bank or Central Bank
Gambling Hall => Casino

Village Hall=> Town Hall => City Council

Hypermarket: +25% War Weariness +3 +12 & +25% +40% Trade Route Yield +17 from resources and further (Un)healthiness & Happiness form resources
Financial Nexus: +65% +15% Trade Route Yield +2 (+4 for investment bank)
Casino: +5 +10% -15% +1
City Council: +4 free Specialists +20% Maintenance

Jewelery: (requires resource in vicinity) +6 +15% Trade Route Yield +2
Furier: (requires resource in vicinity) +4 +5% Trade Route Yield +1

 

[os79]

I'm in first third of Classical Era, but I have to say this:
I'm really impressed with your building changes . I finally feel like it is a history simulator . Keep up the , man!

 

[Afforess]

I'm very impressed. I really like your changes, and gets rid of a lot of the overproduction issues cleanly.

One little bug I caught was in your ComGoldCIV4BuildingClassInfos.xml you referenced BUILDINCLASS_FINANCIAL_NEXUS when it should BUILDINGCLASS_E_BANK.

How much more do you think you will need to balance? No rush, just curious.

Also, to help out players, whenever a building has a negative Military Prodution Modifier and an exactly opposite Production Modifier, the text just says "X% Faster Building Production". It's purely textual, but should eliminate some confusion as to why we do that.

Edit:

One other thing, is the lack of +1 Food on Water Tiles on the Fishing Port intentional? If so, why?

Edit2:

Any new XML tags that would be helpful for you? I just want to make sure you have all available resources.

Edit3:

IMHO, should the collider and supercolliders require power? I think I had added that in Better RoM, but your Overwrites wiped those.

Edit4:

Do the AI have issues valuing any of your new buildings? If so, which ones?

 

[Killtech]

One little bug I caught was in your ComGoldCIV4BuildingClassInfos.xml you referenced BUILDINCLASS_FINANCIAL_NEXUS when it should BUILDINGCLASS_E_BANK

ups yeah an older name. it was an new building for a while till i realized that the investment bank is a good replacement for the skyscraper. (thus e-bank was replaced by the future nexus). fixed that, thx.

---
as for how long i need... well for the core part, there are quite a lot of buildings in the modern that give many boni. so what's on my list are all corporation buildings with their bonus modifier from resources. their bonuses are weird high when you cumulate multiple of them. others buildings on my list are the sport buildings. here i think of something simple like

arena -> jousting place -> minor league stadium -> major league stadium
with some mutually exclusive modern alternatives like speedway, water raceway, battle-bot arena. (done... see sports)

some other i wanted to change are the weaver/tailor and give this textile industry some modern ending. what bothers me here particularly are the big bonuses from resources (up to +20% commerce which is huge). GeneralStaff took over this part

plan to make ski resort/vacation resort mutually exclusive and change some stats too. (done... see sports)

other buildings that i consider changing are (or just put in a chain):

Spoiler :

artesian well - strange building anyway. maybe i make a city water supply chain with the aqueduct or something
artist guild
body exchange clinic
convention center
design studio - with sculptor
farmscraper - strange building. at least i put it into a chain I -> II -> III
hotel - don't like commerce modifiers. only very improtant and powerful buildings should be allowed to change it.
incubation center
industrial park - should fit better into the industry buildings.
info net(!) - too high research bonus. and what's that building anyway? (included in my civics modification)
local courthouse - with courthouse
manor - stats are problematic
meeting hall - some espionage chain
mind control center (shares the same fate as the info net)
orbital factory
(winter lodge) - not sure if this is default RoM... (done... see sports)

and of course if the major part is done i need tweaking. see through the ages if gold income is high enough to compensate maintenance or if it still is too high.

--------
EDIT: some i forgot:
barracks, garrison: increased xp for the cost of slowed down military production. alternatively i though of changing the stats altogether - after all military personal isn't trained at barracks - just stationed there. i neede to add other military training facilities for this case at which west point stands at the end of the chain.

food chain: bakery -> cannery? -> food replicators? it's a bit weird to build a bakery in the future age. it doesn't have the importance it has once in the medieval.

also i wonder if cathedrals shouldn't simply replace temples. of course cathedrals would inherit temple stats.

as i just realized there is a BonusCommerceChanges tag. thus probably i will change many of the raw commerce boni from resources to static gold gains.

 

[Killtech]

One other thing, is the lack of +1 Food on Water Tiles on the Fishing Port intentional? If so, why?

... no, good you noticed. made the changes for the carthago fishing port replacement but forgot to make the change with the default port

Any new XML tags that would be helpful for you? I just want to make sure you have all available resources.

...well...

i wonder if you could implement some tags for the building infos in 1.74:

• a tag world wonders or generally for buildings with a global limit to move all production progress to another building class if the global limit is hit. e.g. the progress on stonehenge is converted into my moon observatory in case someone else finishes it first.
• a prerequisite for a building - but at global level. i.e. a building needs a world wonder finished to be available and it does not matter who build the world wonder.
• prerequisite on city size.
• prerequisite on cultural level
• tag to allow a building to open up level 3 borders (independently on the culture level, though such buildings might have cultural level dependency)

the city size prerequisite is somewhat important to me and luckily it should be the most easy one to implement. however if it's no big deal to implement them all i'll gladly utilize them all. i could make national versions form most world wonders then since i'm reworking RoM buildings now anyway.

this would help. but it's nothing urgent. the problem is that i have some rl work to do that steals my civ time.

IMHO, should the collider and supercolliders require power? I think I had added that in Better RoM, but your Overwrites wiped those.

yes sorry. i guess there will be some problem of that type... bad thing about overrides and that i normally use the original RoM files to modifiy. i add the power prerequisite to many modern buildings again. however, what happens if the a city loses access to power somehow? do buildings that require power deactivate e.g. like slave market with wrong civics?

Do the AI have issues valuing any of your new buildings? If so, which ones?

not tested sufficiently. just checked the buildings for the stats. however AI seems not to do something critically wrong. when i'm done with the major changes i will start a team AI play to exactly observe how AI handle all the buildings.

 

[Afforess]

i wonder if you could implement some tags for the building infos in 1.74:

• a tag world wonders or generally for buildings with a global limit to move all production progress to another building class if the global limit is hit. e.g. the progress on stonehenge is converted into my moon observatory in case someone else finishes it first.
• a prerequisite for a building - but at global level. i.e. a building needs a world wonder finished to be available and it does not matter who build the world wonder.
• prerequisite on city size.
• prerequisite on cultural level
• tag to allow a building to open up level 3 borders (independently on the culture level, though such buildings might have cultural level dependency)

the city size prerequisite is somewhat important to me and luckily it should be the most easy one to implement. however if it's no big deal to implement them all i'll gladly utilize them all. i could make national versions form most world wonders then since i'm reworking RoM buildings now anyway.

this would help. but it's nothing urgent. the problem is that i have some rl work to do that steals my civ time.

Okay, I can add all of those.

what happens if the a city loses access to power somehow?

Nothing ATM. Do you want to have me switch them off?

 

[Killtech]

Okay, I can add all of those.

that is cool

Nothing ATM. Do you want to have me switch them off?

i think it makes sense. would render (espionage) attacks on power plants very dangerous... hehe. but it's your decision.

i used the power prerequisite for several modern buildings like the investment bank. reason is that there is no PowerCommerceChanges. electricity can change yield only.

a little design note. wouldn't it be better if you replace the required access to power entry in the buildings quick info to the power symbol to make it differ more form tech and building prerequisites? (e.g. like modifiers from power)

EDIT: updated my first post with the small bug fixes. i hope i didin't forget anything.

 

[Afforess]

i think it makes sense. would render (espionage) attacks on power plants very dangerous... hehe. but it's your decision.

Okay.

a little design note. wouldn't it be better if you replace the required access to power entry in the buildings quick info to the power symbol to make it differ more form tech and building prerequisites? (e.g. like modifiers from power)

Sure. I've been meaning to do that myself...

 

[NBAfan]

Good job, but will it work if I don't use the Early Buildings?

Also I thought the Market and Grocer were supposed to be separate buildings? One for happyness and the other for health.

 

[Afforess]

Good job, but will it work if I don't use the Early Buildings?

I will include the necessary buildings in the final version so it's standalone.

 

[Arakhor]

This is starting to look really good

 

[Killtech]

Good job, but will it work if I don't use the Early Buildings?

Also I thought the Market and Grocer were supposed to be separate buildings? One for happyness and the other for health.

well, there is the bazaar, market and grocer which i find to be somewhat redundant. thus i decided to make one line for food/local goods trade (market->grocer->supermarket give health) and one for non-food/import goods trade (bazaar->shopping district maybe should give some base happiness... think i might tweak that).

as for the happiness/health i need to play-test a bit more to tweak them to the right values. right now i'm just trying to remove the resource dependency form these boni and bind them directly to buildings (so the grocer gives a default +2 health). boni from resources can either add health or reduce it for +1 happiness. so having many resources won't just allow you to grow your cities twice as big as your smaller AI neighbour.