Laberer, Outpost, Social Structures and the Balancing of those

[Keyalha]

First off if this is not in the appropriate place please move it to wherever its appropriate, or close/delete it if necessary.

I did a few games now where i finished the pre historic era and as a few already mentioned around here the balancing is significantly better in the latest build.

One quirk though is with the laberer unit, the tipis that one can build with them from the social structures tech as well as the output.

I think the techs themselfs are good where they are and imho they should stay where they are.

The problem lies with the fact that fromt he laberer tech to the first tech that actually can use it is too big of a gap especially with the large techtree we have.

So my suggestion to remidy that would be to add a tech called organized work or something like that.

The basic idea is that laberers (and only those) get a tech that let them build a claim.
The claim itsself has no yield but halfs the time that a tipi or outpost takes to build.

As for the build time my suggestion would be to take the tipu+outpost build time divided by 2.

edit: The reason for this idea is to give the unit something useful to do while the player is teching up. I dont know if it is technically possible. If it is that would be the way to handle it. edit end:

Any feedback on that idea is highly welcome.

I might not respond as fast as usual since i am currently at work but I try to peek in whenever I have the chance.

 

[Gilgamesch]

Oh well its true that there are not many things to do for the Laborer in the early game.

But if you take the Nomadic Branch, you can build the Outpost and this is intended,

Also i will think about your suggestion and maybe do some changes.

Thanks for the suggestion;=)

 

[Keyalha]

Ah I was not aware of the fact that the outpost is part of the nomadic branch.

If you want to keep the outpost exclsuive might it be possible to gift the tech with the nomadic branch.

I think the problem (if there is any at all) might be that people invest in the tech and the unit just to realize its dead weight for a very long time.

With the proposed change it would give give some value to the unit and not take the value of the branch away, since the person that goes nomadic still has the outpost way ahead.

 

[Gilgamesch]

Hmm one of the first pick able policy in the nomadic branches gifts already the technology for the outpost.

This is the only way to grant improvements via policies.

Maybe i will change the techrequst for the dummy tech (that allowes outpost) to the future tech, this will make the outpost unique for the nomadic branch.

 

[lasch]

Also, i think tipis need to have a limitation of when to build. In my last play, i was in digital and they were still buildable. Not only that, they were still very usefull compared to other improvements.
Maybe they could upgrade like cities?

 

[Keyalha]

Also, i think tipis need to have a limitation of when to build. In my last play, i was in digital and they were still buildable. Not only that, they were still very usefull compared to other improvements.
Maybe they could upgrade like cities?

I would love to see that.
Maybe growing over time like the thingies that you could build in civ4.
Dont remember the name of those anymore.
And to balance it with later techs or newer labor units one could already start off with the newer ones to "catch up"

 

[Gilgamesch]

Not to mention about all the codings, time and workarrounds needed to do this.

There is a thread on the main page for trading post growth into cities, but no one has finished this project yet.

 

[lasch]

Not to mention about all the codings, time and workarrounds needed to do this.

I understand. How about limiting the buildability of the tipi to the laber unit for now? Somewhen in the future,you could create a new improvement, like one new per epoch, with better stats. But instead of auto upgrading, it would have to be done manually by the player, basically building a new improvement over the old one.

 

[Gilgamesch]

Its already limited, only Labores and Workers can build it.
The technology yield changes for improvements are adjusted and you can not build a tipi direct near another, also only on grass and plain tiles.