No gold on river improvements

[gdwitt]

What happened to the 1 gold on improvements adjacent to a river?
I got all the way to Economics and I still am not getting that on
lumber camps, quarries, mines.
Without this, there is really no advantage, and probably disadvantages, to settling along a river.
I saw that the AI was still settling internal cities along rivers, but they ignored them along the coast. Several cities were 1 tile away from a river tile.

 

[mystikx21]

That's vanilla BNW effect on riverside gold, not a mod effect. They removed it to put in international trade routes.

There should be early bonus riverside yields on most things, but other than villages, it won't be gold.

Riverside cities still get a bonus value on trade routes, and the capability to build water mills and hydro plants for more production. I think they're fine as is in that respect.

The downside is that I'm not sure the riverside yield bonuses are sufficient. We don't get them on pastures, plantations, camps, and quarries, since there's no extra gold for these now they're not any better near rivers for much of the game. Mines/mills, farms, and villages are.

 

[gdwitt]

Thank you for the reply
How can I add them back in by modding the terrain file?

Standard size standard speed CEG3.5.1 CAT Infoaddict IGE
Not only was the AI way ahead of me in science, they were pulling in 100 gold a turn by around t150. Some had over 2000 gold which I though Thal had fixed.

The AI basically built mines and villages all over the place.
They seem to have a large speed advantage with the workers.

 

[mystikx21]

The gold might be related to barbarians? Not sure.

You could add a riverside tech effect to the various improvements (all of them, some of them?) on agriculture or some other early techs. I don't think it's a high priority versus balancing the other riverside tiles to bump the weaker improvements on luxuries or bonus tiles. Keep in mind there's already a gold bonus on trade routes from riversides, not as high as coastal, but still there. It might be better to simply raise that bonus to achieve a similar effect.

The AI gets a pretty hefty worker speed advantage (50%), mostly because it tends to do a poor job reconnecting pillaging or protecting its workers. It's possible this could be toned down with testing. They also seem to be getting a hefty tech bonus too, depending on what difficulty you are on.

 

[gdwitt]

Thank you for the explanation of the effects of rivers
I didn't realize there was a river bonus.
I was playing on King.
I usually win on Emperor in Vanilla.

 

[gdwitt]

Look here in GET_DATA
<Improvement_TechFreshWaterYieldChanges>
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_TRADING_POST</ImprovementType>
<TechType>TECH_OPTICS</TechType>
<YieldType>YIELD_GOLD</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_MINE</ImprovementType>
<TechType>TECH_IRON_WORKING</TechType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_LUMBERMILL</ImprovementType>
<TechType>TECH_METAL_CASTING</TechType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>
<!--
-->

 

[mystikx21]

Right, you could in theory copy those over and use them as riverside yields for all improvements, to provide gold say, on a very early game tech like agriculture or the tech that provides an improvement (mining for mines, masonry for quarry, etc) and that would provide the older riverside bonuses from GK/GEM.

I think this was done via sql or in lua back in GEM to work on improved tiles and wasn't tied to a tech. It's been a while since it came up since we've been hesitant to make significant economic changes in the mod from BNW's (which generally works better than GK did). I can look at the backed up versions I have and see if it might be easy to copy over. I don't think it would be a buggy feature, it just hasn't been included or desired more broadly.

 

[stackpointer]

SQL code:

INSERT INTO Improvement_RiverSideYields (ImprovementType, YieldType, Yield)
SELECT Type, 'YIELD_GOLD', 1 from Improvements
WHERE NOT Type IN (
	'IMPROVEMENT_CITY_RUINS',
	'IMPROVEMENT_BARBARIAN_CAMP',
	'IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT',
	'IMPROVEMENT_FISHING_BOATS',
	'IMPROVEMENT_OFFSHORE_PLATFORM'
);

 

[mystikx21]

Yup. That's the stuff. Might have to update it to include antiquity sites?

 

[gdwitt]

I got it to work by adding them to "freshwater" improvements in the xml file "improvements" in gameplay/terrain

 

[Thalassicus]

BNW replaced river/coast gold with trade route gold, so rivers and coasts don't give extra gold anymore. The remaining advantages of rivers are +25% trade income, freshwater improvement bonuses, Watermills, and defensive bonuses.

 

[gdwitt]

That's very helpful Thal.
How can I verify that the trade bonuses are working?
Is it in the city screen or the caravan screen.
Also, does a coastal town on a river receive more trade gold than a coastal town not on a river?
I see the AI often picking coast tiles 1 tile away from the river junction.

This is important because before the railroad, nearly all economic activity occurred on coasts and rivers.
The history of America expansion was focused primarily on rivers except for occasional forts.
Rivers were the main means of transport of everything except people/animals going back 1000s of years.
Texas history shows that most of the little towns were started along rivers or creeks before the railroad showed up.
Many of the older streets around Austin are named after creeks.
The Alamo's name in spanish means by the cottonwoods along the creek.

If anything, their importance should merit both bonuses.

 

[Ahriman]

This is important because before the railroad, nearly all economic activity occurred on coasts and rivers.

This is why improvements will get a bonus yield from being adjacent to freshwater. I think that is sufficient to model it without also getting an extra gold yield from every tile.

 

[Zaldron]

BNW replaced river/coast gold with trade route gold, so rivers and coasts don't give extra gold anymore. The remaining advantages of rivers are +25% trade income, freshwater improvement bonuses, Watermills, and defensive bonuses.

This change itself makes starting near a warmonger like Monty or Nappy even *more* devastating because you lose a ton of gold income in addition to having to build up a significant defensive army. I'm not sure what to do about it though...

 

[LastChime]

You have to guard your caravans which is a pretty cool feature imho. They may need a slight tweak in early gold value to city state trading to make it worth the bother for the above case though. It's also made me consider more carefully where I place my early cities which is a kinda cool side effect, not only basing it off of the tile yields, but trade range and to whom as well.

 

[Dunkah]

I am still playing Vanilla, (I have not made it through all of the leaders at least once successfully yet), and I find early gold is almost always running in the red. It's a catch 22 you need gold to pay for maintenance on units to protect the Trade Routes but you need the trade routes to get the gold to pay for the units.

Usually I end up selling my single copies of resources and taking the happiness hit for 45 to 90 turns until I can get both up and running.

Does CEP provide any extra early gold or reduced maintenance costs on early units?

I often have to not build buildings due to costs. That was never a problem in earlier versions.

 

[EricB]

CEP adds a little base gold per city. You get 3 palaces, each of which gives 2 gold. I think there's also 1 gold on the city itself, which might or might not be in the core game.

Gold comes primarily from luxury resources. Getting workers to develop them is important along with strategic resources. More resources give tile bonuses plus more trade route income.

Another strong gold source is the caravansary, which gives 1 gold per luxury resource along with bonuses to your caravans.

In CEP, it's beneficial to get a few cities out there as soon as possible since palaces are really strong (and free) providing 2 gold, 2 science, 2 culture, and 2 production. It's a bit gamey, but perhaps necessary since it makes early expansion more viable.