2nd Rev 3: Buildings

[generalstaff]

OK, I am just starting a thread to see how to flesh out which buildings to add and what their abilities are, as well as starting status. Here is a ruff estimate of how I see it, I know I am omitting ideology buildings, power buildings, future buildings, and am neglecting many wonders (due to a current time constaint). I am currently leaving out UBs for the moment since they will require a complete building plan before adding.
City Improvements
Standard Buildings Done
Unique Buildings: Need Ideas

National Wonders
Palace: Same as Civ.
Secret Military Base: Abilities: Espionage bonus, Unit EXP. Status: Early Tech Tree
Supreme Court: Abilities: Free Courthouse in all cities, Req: Palace: Status: Available from beginning, already placed for nations
Iron Works: Abilities: Same as Civ. Status: Available from beginning

Great Wonders
Mount Rushmore: Abilities: Mount Rushmore. Status: Available from beginning, Placed.
SETI: Abilities: Free Observatory in all cities. Status: Middle Tech Tree
Foreign Support Buildings: Abilities: Unique. Status: Mixed Tech Tree
Hollywood: Abilities: Hollywood. Status: Available from beginning, Placed.
Graceland: Abilities: Rock and Roll. Status: Available from beginning, Placed.
Broadway: Abilities: Broadway. Status: Available from beginning, Placed.
Freedom Tower: Abilities: ?. Status: Middle Tech Tree.
CN Tower: Abilities: ?. Status: Placed.
Gateway Arch: Abilities: ?. Status: Placed.
Support Wonders Done
Please tell me what to add/remove/change so that I can start this XML.

 

[ScavengerType]

I think that instead of primary/secondary schools. It should be School system and University.

I should probibly say more about buildings when I take a closer look at these, but I wanted to make 2 suggestions.

1: We should do a building equivalent to theater "Movie Theater" or whatever, and change the bonus from dyes to movies.

2: In the main discussion thread I mentioned to garret that we could bring defense back by editing a value for the units which distinguishes weather or not they ignore defense. So a defense logistics type building would be cool basically equivalent to a wall except for build cost. An advanced version equivalent to castle could work as well.

Go nuts on any of the names I mentioned I am not attached to them at all.

Also, a military airbase should add to air defense if possible. I can't remember if that is possible though.

 

[ScavengerType]

Are we going to have any naval harbors?

 

[ScavengerType]

What about a logistical command center wonder. Made similar to the Chichen Itza or the Stonehenge, with regard to the wall building I mentioned earlier, rather than the monuments.

Either way is good for me. I was probibly fairly vague with regard to a real description of it, please use your creative licence. I just would like to have a defensive wonder like that to tie a quest revamp from the events list into.

Also I would like the castles based building and this wonder to be unlocked by a technology, not sure which. Just so long as it is not an initial technology.

I am sorry if I sort of pigeon holed you into doing the buildings xml, I just really needed someone working on the buildings so I could get some of the events related things sorted out. Also I thought that with your submissions of buildings graphics you would enjoy it. If it makes you more inclined, I was hesitant to work on the events xml, but find it to be quite interesting now.

 

[generalstaff]

No problem into getting me to do buildings, I like doing building modules for Rise of Mankind (I am sure you checked out my work in my sig). I like the ideas, but my first challenge is the busy work of "modernizing" all the buildings.

The most difficult thing about planning buildings is not having a definite tech tree since I think garret said he wanted to make a new one, which I think means expanded it two or three times its current size and have less "future" techs.

As for coastal improvements, there should be a Harbor (same as civ vanilla) and a Military Shipyard (Drydock required to train strong naval units). I do not know how garret wants naval warfare to be in the mod.

 

[ScavengerType]

I presumed he wanted to have it similar to previous versions of SR, I remember that it seemed good when I played SR2.0.

Anywho, He said we should strike the harbor related event which I may agree on, for some of the problems it could cause on implementing it in a balanced way.

However now that I think of it for harbors you may have something here. I think we should have shipping ports and naval bases. One interesting thing on the line of shipping ports though is supertankers. Now, sometimes shipping ports support these massive ships naturally, like the Prince Rupert port which utilizes an over 100ft natural drop below the sea floor to support these massive ships and then others where the seafloor must be manually dredged at massive environmental and economical cost. I wouldn't normally mention this, because it sounds unnecessarily complicated and even possibly difficult to code as well, but for the fact that it basically has astronomical implications on the financial and trade capacity of a port.

Also, shipping ports will need to have a commerce bonus to represent international trade as well as inter north-american trade bonuses which will be signified by normal trade menus. I dono how you plan on having it but I think a trade route yield bonus + some gold for trade outside of NA sounds like the way to go. We can also do a civic linked bonus or something like that as well.

I know the tek tree is a weak spot for now, I was planning on taking a gander at the civics menu to see if I could make the descriptions more abstract, so that they wouldn't be so ideologically linked (something I would be good at). I'm not sure if/when garret is going to get through his modcast stuff (he is 2 episodes behind in his editing) and what he will do when he does have some free time, but I swear I recall him saying he was going to jump on the tek tree when that happens. Don't be afraid to just flag something with a text flag (<!--label-->) so that it is marked to come back to. I've been doing that with my events XML so that I can come back to whatever I am unsure about. Don't be afraid to leave it half completed and come back to it after something like the tek tree is more resolved and always leave yourself some notes if there is something you will want to remember later.

I didn't look at your sig links when I suggested that (that I recall), but it looks like I had you pegged here man. Do you happen to know any python or C++? I rarely play RoM cause it deathlaggs my computer, also I've been stuck in RFC a while. By far RFC is my favorite historical mod, though it fundamentally lacks some changes needed to reflect accurate history opting for a more out of the box civ layout instead.

 

[generalstaff]

However now that I think of it for harbors you may have something here. I think we should have shipping ports and naval bases. One interesting thing on the line of shipping ports though is supertankers. Now, sometimes shipping ports support these massive ships naturally, like the Prince Rupert port which utilizes an over 100ft natural drop below the sea floor to support these massive ships and then others where the seafloor must be manually dredged at massive environmental and economical cost. I wouldn't normally mention this, because it sounds unnecessarily complicated and even possibly difficult to code as well, but for the fact that it basically has astronomical implications on the financial and trade capacity of a port.

Also, shipping ports will need to have a commerce bonus to represent international trade as well as inter north-american trade bonuses which will be signified by normal trade menus. I dono how you plan on having it but I think a trade route yield bonus + some gold for trade outside of NA sounds like the way to go. We can also do a civic linked bonus or something like that as well.

Having ports and blockades would be important, as well as naval warfare. Initial control of the seas should be an advantage for the "nations." I am also thinking that a "port" requirement for building some types of Support wonders (not all supporting nations are willing/able to air drop their support).

I didn't look at your sig links when I suggested that (that I recall), but it looks like I had you pegged here man. Do you happen to know any python or C++? I rarely play RoM cause it deathlaggs my computer, also I've been stuck in RFC a while. By far RFC is my favorite historical mod, though it fundamentally lacks some changes needed to reflect accurate history opting for a more out of the box civ layout instead.

I mainly know XML. I did do some very basic python, which was pretty much just copy+paste with minor editing.

 

[ScavengerType]

So garret has been mentioning that he wanted to have some sort of green energy quest where the person builds x amount of solar power plants. I can do that easy, but I need a building for it.

I think in Arizona(where he lives) the green energy of choice is in fact solar, but in other places like the north and other cloudy regions this would be less wise. Instead I propose we make one building representing the diversity of different possible environmental power solutions, called "Green Energy Grid" and it would confer bonuses of health/power with a and/or bonus that seems appropriate. I can't remember the bonuses for other power plants so... so long as it is balanced.

edit: just a thought, would it be possible to have the building give bonuses to wind/watermills?

Perhaps a wonder could be built along these lines which would do that globally for a civ rather than on a per-city basis (which I am real unsure if is possible). I am not sure, the only place I've seen this done to my recollection is in the civics menu and I do not know where it references for the bonuses.

 

[generalstaff]

So garret has been mentioning that he wanted to have some sort of green energy quest where the person builds x amount of solar power plants. I can do that easy, but I need a building for it.

I think in Arizona(where he lives) the green energy of choice is in fact solar, but in other places like the north and other cloudy regions this would be less wise. Instead I propose we make one building representing the diversity of different possible environmental power solutions, called "Green Energy Grid" and it would confer bonuses of health/power with a and/or bonus that seems appropriate. I can't remember the bonuses for other power plants so... so long as it is balanced.

edit: just a thought, would it be possible to have the building give bonuses to wind/watermills?

Perhaps a wonder could be built along these lines which would do that globally for a civ rather than on a per-city basis (which I am real unsure if is possible). I am not sure, the only place I've seen this done to my recollection is in the civics menu and I do not know where it references for the bonuses.

Well, with the current buildings, there is a solar plant; I intend to keep all the power options he added (I do think that adding yield bonuses and penalties with/without power is a great idea; a powered city is vastly superior to a city without power). I also think that the "green quest" should also count Hydro plants as well as Solar plants if possible (I am unfamiliar with the event system code). I do think the Great Dam (Three Gorges) needs to be renamed (either Hoover Dam or TVA) in the text XML and be a starting wonder for the US. With the current code, I can have a building add free specialist with an improvement (free specialist per watermill/windmill), but other than that, new code would have to be added. I think such a building would best be a wonder (national or world) or be built by specialist. Increasing yields for tile improvements would require either a civic or tech for the current code. This gets me thinking, instead of a Solar Power Plant, have a "Solar Array" tile improvement for flat Desert tiles only.

On the topic of tile improvements, I am starting to think that Workshops should be removed for something like vincentz Industry (A module which adds production boosting tile improvements which grow like cottages). It would not be hard to add (copy+paste and editing, giving credit to vincentz of course). I think it would represent "economic growth" well and since all the resources proposed are visible when the game starts, there is no "town+oil reveal" penalty. Of course, I just started with the building XML today.

 

[ScavengerType]

hmmm interesting... the power options are not on the list there, I was unaware that they were a component. Actually I really don't understand how the wind/watermills are supposed to be in dynamic with modern power-plants. This is something that has always irked me about civ4 improvements. What in the hell are wind/watermills doing? They are basicly primitive power production schemes, which are only used to operate things like a lumber-mill or a grain flowering/milling apparatus. They occupy small spaces and are never really produced on their own, but for another function.

Optimally for reality, the plants should provide power for X# of pop and can be built both in the city (nuke/coal plants) and in the countryside (hydro/wind/solar). For realism it would be preferable if we were able to build wind farms on actual farms and hydro should make a lake in a tile. I like your idea of a solar array, I was kinda thinking the same thing.

However, in the reality of the game the hydro graphics and the solar array tile improvements are the only possible ones of those two without a programmer. I am not sure if garret wants to delve too far into the tile improvement thing anyway, but it seems that all terrains features and improvements are easily editable in XML. Meaning that we could add other variations of terrain improvements.

I may be able to get the events system to count multiple green power sources, but it will require python modding in which an equation would have to be made adding up all the different green power buildings and comparing them to the requisite number of buildings. I suspect that tile improvements would actually not be much harder, but there is no historical precedent that I've seen for a python script that counts tile improvements. I think it would make a good basis for other missions though. I may make a note at this point though, that my understanding of python is crude (somewhat on the order of what you said your experience was with it) and it would either need to be more learned with it in order for me to make these changes or I would need to collaborate with someone who does know python.

edit: just looking through the buildings xml for some event relate reference and I'm noticing that there is a dirtypower flag. I think this could actually be easier than I had previously though and also there is a yieldchanges function.

 

[ScavengerType]

can I count on that machine shop being there for my events?
What would the building class label be? BUILDINGCLASS_FORGE?

 

[generalstaff]

can I count on that machine shop being there for my events?
What would the building class label be? BUILDINGCLASS_FORGE?

I was planning on the label being BUILDINGCLASS_MACHINE_SHOP. However, I will just keep it "FORGE" since that is what you are planning. I'll just release the XML for buildings (no wonders, no ideology buildings, no pedia though) when I finish it; it should take about a week or two. Of course, it would be a "first draft of the first draft" sort of thing since power still has to be worked out (keeping power buildings the same). Also, I will hold off of the Art XML for this.

EDIT: Still working on it, progress is going well. I will not be able to have techs for buildings for obvious reason. Also, I think I will hold off on the construction sounds since I have many soundbites to go through.

 

[generalstaff]

Finished City Improvements. I delayed the release to add the Support Wonders.
My next step is adding the art and sound for them, which will take a little while, but hopefully not too long.

 

[generalstaff]

I finished with adding sound (I will upload when I am done with art as well). An idea for buildings that interacts with Great People; have each GP have the ability to build a building.
-Engineer: Ironworks (production halved from BtS; no Ironworks National Wonder)
-Scientist: Academy (no change from BtS)
-General: Military Academy (no change from BtS)
-Artist: Gallery (+2 Science, +50% Culture; no Hermitage National Wonder)
-Spy: Intelligence Agency (renamed Scotland Yard (I renamed other espionage buildings); no change from BtS)
-Merchant: Stock Exchange (+50% Gold; no Wall Street National Wonder)
-Thinker (Prophet): (Only builds Shrines)

EDIT: I am planning on making some wonder "movies" for support wonders which are still images (photos which represent the different nations; I have found some good images to use).

 

[GarretSidzaka]

ok found it. thanks keep me updated with any revisions you have made

im hoping i can get a coder sooner or later. imma look at these now