(6-39a) Caravansary/Burial Tomb Change - Buff To Villages and Trade Routes, Nerf To Merchants and Base Yields

[Diomedes_]

Counter proposal to: Pdan's proposal

Current Caravansary
Caravansary
200
unlocked at Currency
1
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +50% Range and +3 Gold
+1 from Merchants.
+1 and for every 3 desert, or tundra tile worked by city.
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/
Flax +1/

Proposal:
1. change "+1 and for every 3 desert, or tundra tile worked by city" to "villages and towns in this city gain +1/+1 and +2/+2 , respectively"
2. remove bonus to Merchants
3. remove flat +1
4. increase "Land Trade Routes gain 3 Gold" to "gain 5 Gold"
5. change the relevant values on the Egyptian Burial Tomb to match

New Caravansary
Caravansary
200
unlocked at Currency
When a Land Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civ is completed, receive a Tourism boost with the Civ based on your recent Culture output.
Land Trade Routes gain +50% Range and +5 Gold
Villages and Towns in this city gain +1/+1 and +2/+2 , respectively
Truffles +2
Cotton +1/
Furs +1/
Flax +1/

Rationale:
The Caravansary is already one of the weakest and most situational buildings at that time of the game. My proposal is to make it slightly stronger overall with a stronger and much more straight forward tile yield buff, but maintain its very situational character by removing the flat gold and Merchant gold but increasing trade route gold. I agree with others that the Caravansary should not be a Desert/Tundra solver, so instead I'm proposing to shift the bonus yields onto villages and towns, in keeping with the trade theme of the building.


Database Changes

 

[stii]

The issue is a for a big flood plain city getting +1 gold on every title will be huge, this is a pretty big change to a fairly common thing.

 

[rkkn]

I definitely agree that invisible tile yields are awful, but I think this is too much. Unimproved empty hills giving 4 yields and unimproved empty flood plains giving 5 yields is kind of excessive.
edit: misread

 

[Diomedes_]

The issue is a for a big flood plain city getting +1 gold on every title will be huge, this is a pretty big change to a fairly common thing.

I definitely agree that invisible tile yields are awful, but I think this is too much. Unimproved empty hills giving 4 yields and unimproved empty flood plains giving 5 yields is kind of excessive.

Sure, getting an extra 4, 6, maybe even 8 food in a city from a late classical era building is a lot, but having more than two cities, let alone just one, where that would happen is quite uncommon and situational. Even then, you're only getting one type of yield, so what you gain in food or gold you lose a bit of in the other. The point of this building should be to be very situational, which it has always been, but to actually be strong in those situations.

Here's a comparison chart:

Tiles	Old formula (assuming just desert or just tundra)	pdan's proposal	My proposal (full desert)	My proposal (full Tundra)
1	+0 / +0	+0 / + 0 (+0 / + 0 )	+ 1 (+1 )	+ 1 (+1 )
2	+0 / +0	+1 / + 1 (+1 / + 1 )	+ 2 (+2 )	+ 2 (+2 )
3	+1 / +1	+1 / + 1 (+0 / +0 )	+ 3 (+2 / -1 )	+ 3 (+2 / -1 )
4	+1 / +1	+2 / +2 (+1 / +1 )	+ 4 (+3 / -1 )	+ 4 (+3 / -1 )
5	+1 / +1	+2 / +2 (+1 / +1 )	+ 5 (+4 / -1 )	+ 5 (+4 / -1 )
6	+2 / +2	+3 / +3 (+1 / +1 )	+ 6 (+4 / -2 )	+ 6 (+4 / -2 )
7	+2 / +2	+3 / +3 (+1 / +1 )	+ 7 (+5 / -2 )	+ 7 (+5 / -2 )
8	+2 / +2	+4 / +4 (+2 / +2 )	+ 8 (+6 / -2 )	+ 8 (+6 / -2 )
9	+3 / +3	+4 / +4 (+1 / +1 )	+ 9 (+6 / - 3 )	+ 9 (+6 / -3 )

 

[pineappledan]

If you give flat yields directly to terrain you will make flat desert with no resources workable. I know people find the half yields undesirable, but I don’t think making barren, open desert workable is desirable either.

People have been sleeping on the caravansary, tbh. It’s a perfectly adequate building for its unlock.
The TR range and bonus gold helps a ton with CV and gold in a trade city, but it also boosts passive pressure from that city even if you aren’t running TRs out of it. If increased to 0.5 The terrain bonus will be more than adequate.

 

[ma_kuh]

Historically caravansary were basically just trader inns. If anything were to pick up a 1:1 yield as a result of building a caravansary, it might as well be villages, or maybe the resources themselves.

But I feel like continuing to make caravansary desert/tundra "solvers" is sort of a flavor miss. They weren't somehow turning desert environments into food locations. A more radical idea would be to rename villages to "caravansary/caravanserai" and then move villages forward. But I doubt there's an appetite for that level of change, at least at this moment.

 

[pineappledan]

In vanilla the village was called “trading post” so that’s pretty much a reversion to vanilla

 

[rkkn]

If you give flat yields directly to terrain you will make flat desert with no resources workable. I know people find the half yields undesirable, but I don’t think making barren, open desert workable is desirable either.

Why is this a problem? Also it already happens with Petra

 

[rkkn]

Even then, you're only getting one type of yield, so what you gain in food or gold you lose a bit of in the other.

ah. I misread the proposal
I think it's OK, then. same amount of power as the 1 per 2 proposal, except not hidden

the -1 gold and +2 gold to trade routes is also probably fine. It's a nerf to wide, which I think is stronger than tall atm.
....though on the other hand, caravansary isn't something you immediately build in all cities anyway, so I think it's probably mostly going to be minor gold inflation. If you only have a caravansary in your capital and have 4/4 trade routes all coming out of the capital, which seems like a likely scenario if none of your cities are tundra or desert, then it'll be +7 gold compared to current

 

[Diomedes_]

Historically caravansary were basically just trader inns. If anything were to pick up a 1:1 yield as a result of building a caravansary, it might as well be villages, or maybe the resources themselves.

But I feel like continuing to make caravansary desert/tundra "solvers" is sort of a flavor miss. They weren't somehow turning desert environments into food locations. A more radical idea would be to rename villages to "caravansary/caravanserai" and then move villages forward. But I doubt there's an appetite for that level of change, at least at this moment.

Honestly, a +X yield to Villages and Towns instead of the desert and tundra yields sounds really good, maybe better even.

 

[pineappledan]

Why is this a problem? Also it already happens with Petra

Yes but that’s only for 1 city on empire, not every city. You’re proposing to make all desert tiles for all players workable, not not just the ones in the immediate vicinity of a world wonder. I hope we all recognize the difference.

 

[Diomedes_]

Yes but that’s only for 1 city on empire, not every city. You’re proposing to make all desert tiles for all players workable, not not just the ones in the immediate vicinity of a world wonder. I hope we all recognize the difference.

Your 1 Food / 1 Gold per 2 tiles is the same as, if not stronger than, 1 Food per desert and 1 Gold per Tundra.

 

[pineappledan]

It is not, because of how the rounding works, and it does not make unworkable tiles workable.

 

[Rekk]

Also, desert and tundra rarely appear in the same city.

You're adding food to a food-rich environment (desert cities are always settled on flood plains), and gold to a food poor environment.

 

[rkkn]

Yes but that’s only for 1 city on empire, not every city. You’re proposing to make all desert tiles for all players workable, not not just the ones in the immediate vicinity of a world wonder. I hope we all recognize the difference.

the main part of my post was "why is this a problem?"
The only time it's ever going to make any difference is when your city is surrounded by enemies so that most of your tiles are unworkable leaving you needing to work either laborers or those 1 food tiles

 

[Diomedes_]

It is not, because of how the rounding works, and it does not make unworkable tiles workable.

the main part of my post was "why is this a problem?"
The only time it's ever going to make any difference is when your city is surrounded by enemies so that most of your tiles are unworkable leaving you needing to work either laborers or those 1 food tiles

Yeah I agree with @rkkn, making naked desert tiles "workable" is very much a non-issue.

The main reason I made this proposal was that were we to buff the Caravansary's tile yield increases, we might as well do it in the best way we can. Whether or not @pineappledan's original assessment (that the Caravansary was weak/had a problem and buffing its tile yield effects is a good way to solve this) is warranted is not really the subject of my counter-proposal. The question is whether or not +1 food/+1 gold per 2 tiles is a mechanically worse buff than +1 food per 1 desert and +1 gold per tundra, which I think is pretty much unequivocally true. Same goes for removing flat gold and gold for merchants, and replacing it with increased TR gold, instead of just removing the merchant gold and shifting it onto a tech. I think that is just a much more flavorful effect and enhances the building's strength while keeping its situationality.

 

[Diomedes_]

After thinking about it a bit, I updated the proposal to get rid of tile yields and shift the food/gold yields onto villages and towns which seems like a much more interesting bonus. I re-read the congress rules and I think I'm supposed to just update this proposal instead of making a second counter-proposal, but if I've done something wrong LMK and I'll fix it.

 

[Rekk]

Are Tundra and Desert starts that strong that you're removing a region-specific ability for a region-agnostic ability with no compensation?

 

[Diomedes_]

Are Tundra and Desert starts that strong that you're removing a region-specific ability for a region-agnostic ability with no compensation?

No, I'm proposing removing swapping a messy situational ability for a clean situational ability. The was the original goal of the 1/1 tile yield change, but I think a village/town buff is simply more interesting and flavorful. The building still maintains a moderate desert/tundra-solving flavor as most of your Villages and Towns will likely be on desert and tundra, but requires more conscious effort to maximize the building's potential and has less potential for abuse in all-tundra starts.

 

[Stalker0]

so now with the recent update to the proposal, the main change is this:

1) Caravansary goes from a situational buidling to a more "mainstay" building, as most cities have a couple of villages at least. That said, is it enough to make it a good "main stay building"?
2) We have lost the tundra/desert boost. Now frankly the bonus was so lackluster I never cared before (aka it wasn't doing its job before). But....do we need this job done? Are tundra/desert starts bad enough that we need to solve them through buildings?

I can say at least on communitas, I rarely mind desert/tundra starts nowadays, because there are often lots of resources. Deserts tend to have flood plains and oasis and a decent amount of stone. Tundra is often filled with deer and good hill mines, making for solid productive cities. So I don't know if we really need a "terrain fixer building" here.