Vokarya's Workshop: Buildings

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Civ Buildings line (village hall etc) is a must for me. Yes it does increase maintenance, but the HAMMERS!!! and the 'Free' specialist far offset the losses.

As I play with expanded cities OFF, I need the Metropolitan administration to utilize the 3rd ring.

Free specialists, incremental hammers, and using the 3rd ring, are all penalties I'm willing to pay.

I have corporations on auto found, and spread. So one player, (ME) can't hog all the great corps.

Maintenance costs can be offset by building income generating buildings, those that REDUCE maintenance and vacuum up all that excess gold per turn from the AI's.

For every cost building in maintenance, there is a building that will reduce the cost.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Duplicate building icons

National Redoubt and the Gun Turret build

 

[Vokarya]

Duplicate building icons

National Redoubt and the Gun Turret build

They're not exactly the same, but they are pretty close (the Redoubt is a corner of the actual building model). I did both of those by taking the building model and pasting it onto a background. I'll see what I can do about making a different button for the Redoubt.

 

[46852]

There's an xml error with Paved Roads, it gives the same effect as Via Appia (max +25C) which I'm sure isn't intended. I recall the original value being around +5C at max? In my opinion the value should be partly from domestic and foreign trade.

 

[Vokarya]

There's an xml error with Paved Roads, it gives the same effect as Via Appia (max +25C) which I'm sure isn't intended. I recall the original value being around +5C at max? In my opinion the value should be partly from domestic and foreign trade.

45* multiplied the max commerce from foreign trade for buildings by 5. It's supposed to be 1 commerce for every 3 connected foreign cities, so you would need to be connected to 75 foreign cities to get that max +25. If you're seeing more than that, post a save game.

 

[46852]

45* multiplied the max commerce from foreign trade for buildings by 5. It's supposed to be 1 commerce for every 3 connected foreign cities, so you would need to be connected to 75 foreign cities to get that max +25. If you're seeing more than that, post a save game.

I'm connected to 84 foreign cities, and that makes Paved Roads just plain silly. I posted details in bug report thread, it's too easy to get foreign connections. Ok, the map that I play on allowed two large continents to connect by land bridge, but I haven't explored a single inch of the other continent and I was connected to 70+ cities in the ancient era on Huge/Epic/Monarch game.

It was mentioned at some point that commerce per connection should scale with map size. But it doesn't apparently?

If you think 25C for roads is ok, then just compare any other commerce/gold/science building in that era and spot the difference. The difference is huge, and highlights the "backwater tundra village trade hub" problem I warned about in the connectedness discussion a year ago: any city can get +25C from Paved Roads no matter the location or size. In it's current form, connectedness encourages city spam too much.

 

[<Nexus>]

I'm connected to 84 foreign cities, and that makes Paved Roads just plain silly. I posted details in bug report thread, it's too easy to get foreign connections. Ok, the map that I play on allowed two large continents to connect by land bridge, but I haven't explored a single inch of the other continent and I was connected to 70+ cities in the ancient era on Huge/Epic/Monarch game.

It was mentioned at some point that commerce per connection should scale with map size. But it doesn't apparently?

If you think 25C for roads is ok, then just compare any other commerce/gold/science building in that era and spot the difference. The difference is huge, and highlights the "backwater tundra village trade hub" problem I warned about in the connectedness discussion a year ago: any city can get +25C from Paved Roads no matter the location or size. In it's current form, connectedness encourages city spam too much.

Maybe a mixed mechanism would solve it:
+1/ X connection (max5)
+1%/ X connection (unlimited?)
Or that's too complicated?

EDIT: Just read this other post.

 

[46852]

Maybe a mixed mechanism would solve it:
+1/ X connection (max5)
+1%/ X connection (unlimited?)
Or that's too complicated?

EDIT: Just read this other post.

Yeah, sorry for spreading out my rants on several threads, I just can't control myself

I think the commerce values for connectedness on buildings are not that balanced out yet, check them out with 70-80+ cities in classical-medieval era (which I had in my Huge/Monarch game), and some of the values are quite off the mark. Problem is they're not that easy to control to act in a realistic manner, as number of connected cities seems to be the only thing that counts, and that gets out of hand easily if you're being friendly with all AIs in big map games.

 

[Vokarya]

Here's a minor thing that I don't quite understand. Skyscraper currently grants extra food, production, and commerce. I don't really like the food bonus - it just doesn't seem right for a building that isn't explicitly food-producing to do so in-game. I think building-derived food production needs to be kept under control (until the Transhuman Era; I'll make an exception once that threshold is crossed) so that tile management and improvement benefits don't lose importance. Would there be a problem if we replaced that +3 food with +1 free Specialist? I think that would have a very similar effect, but wouldn't run into populations being too high.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I don't know why that was done, probably it's somehow connected to the idea that higher population density allowed by skyscrapers should be possible only when more food becomes available. It's currently a pretty high bonus and I use it a lot but I guess I can do without it. Let's see what other players have to say.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

The production and commerce bonuses, I like. Its a real application of bring people together to cooperate and synergies.

The food bonus replaced with a specialist, seems a better fit.

I think the food bonus was meant for a specialist, but most would just add it to the food bin.

more commerce seems fair, as you generally have higher income individuals and family groups, that may support that "1 specialist"

 

[Rezca]

One Free Specialist seems like a good choice. Either that or a Free Citizen "Specialist", if not a general anything-you-want slot like the Village Hall line.

 

[Noyyau]

+1 Free Specialist makes more sense than generic +3 .

 

[Vokarya]

One Free Specialist seems like a good choice. Either that or a Free Citizen "Specialist", if not a general anything-you-want slot like the Village Hall line.

One free Citizen isn't worth much, unless you have a lot of effects that boost all specialists. That's why I suggested 1 free general specialist.

 

[Vokarya]

Here is something I have been considering for a while. Vertical Farming is a great conceptual tech but I think its implementation is very clunky. The only bonus it offers to improvements is +1 commerce from Farms and Plantations. Also, having to resort to numbered buildings is problematic. No other building does this. Civilization is not a game where you can keep stacking buildings indefinitely. In single-city simulation games, you can do this, but I don't think it is appropriate for Civ.

So I am considering gutting the current tech and replacing it with two solid tricks: a Vertical Farm improvement and a single Farmscaper building.

Vertical Farm Improvement
The Vertical Farm improvement would be an upgrade for not only the Farm, but the Orchard, Plantation, and Winery as well. There are several future farm graphics out there that we can use; I'm not terribly concerned about which one.

Starting stats would be +10 food, +6 commerce, plus bonuses from resources (I would like this to be able to tap resources as well). I know this seems like a lot. I think that vertical farming would be much more efficient than traditional farming and +10 food is only double that of a current Farm with all techs (maxed-out Farm is +5 food/+2 commerce), although food doesn't translate linearly to population. The Transhuman Era is also where I think the general trends really start to break and numbers get to skyrocket in a "last hurrah" before the end.

I know this is also going to throw my numbers on balancing improvements out the window. I will take another look at those as part of implementing this.

Farmscraper Building
I think we would be best off with one Farmscraper building instead of the current 3. The current three Farmscrapers would be reduced to one building with +15 food and also upgrade Irrigation Canals. In the age of super high-tech farming, I think irrigation would be much less valuable to the vertical farms and would be part of the building of the Farmscraper.

 

[<Nexus>]

Hurray for the single Farmscaper!

And NO for the Vertical Farm Improvement

Reason:
Vertical farming is a concept for huge metropolises that has little green areas. It's main purpose is not the production but to make the city greener, more habitable and reduce pollution.
In the open fields vertical farming makes no sense at all. It would be very expansive to build huge "towers", fill them with soil (and replace it periodically), manage watering and so on. It would cost much more than it gains, while there are huge open fields to farm.

If you want vertical farming I can rather imagine it as an upgrade or bonus to to Town improvement. A town can be big enough for VF to make sense.

 

[Vokarya]

How about Dome Farm instead? I think that's the artwork that is going to be used. I could see future farms using some of the techniques of vertical farming without going to the heights of the Farmscraper.

 

[Rezca]

How about Dome Farm instead? I think that's the artwork that is going to be used. I could see future farms using some of the techniques of vertical farming without going to the heights of the Farmscraper.

Biospheres perhaps? Borrowing from Master of Orion there like with the Advanced Warmachines -> Battleoids concept

 

[anothername]

Not sure if thats how it supposed to be: One (early) wonder I build added a village hall to all my cities. While I do expected it to not add new VHs after the wonder becomes obsolete I'm not sure its intended to scrap all existing village halls with it when it does.

 

[<Nexus>]

How about Dome Farm instead? I think that's the artwork that is going to be used. I could see future farms using some of the techniques of vertical farming without going to the heights of the Farmscraper.

Well, Dome Farm is either a farmscraper or just a huuuge greenhouse.
I know you want Improvement upgrade, but I can imagine Dome Farm only as special farm for poor soil terrain (tundra, dessert). Could that work?

And anyway: Do we really want that much more food in the trans-human era?

Biospheres perhaps? Borrowing from Master of Orion there like with the Advanced Warmachines -> Battleoids concept

Biospheres is IMO rather fits as a building (Archology shielding as it is) or as Cottage-Town line final improvement.