A New Dawn Beta Builds

[Afforess]

Afforess, Sourceforge says that Beta9 is missing or not available. NM. it's a bad link on the download page.

I managed to download it via list on the download page, its first on list newest file beta9.

Thanks, I fixed the link.

Observations form Beta 8:

Too many early buildings w/ maintenance costs like 5-10%, these nickel and dime to death your economy that early. Village hall's cost I would keep though. It's pointless to set a building as requiring Poor culture, poor is the 1st ring level. You cannot build anything in a city that has less than poor culture, it would be a one tile recently captured city that's still in revolt, and thus can't build anything there anyway. I assume you meant to restrict it to the next culture level up.

I believe the point of the maintenance is to hurt larger cities that incur more maintenance, while not really effecting the smaller, growing cities.

I though Cottages/Town chain improvements were supposed to be restricted to Fresh water access tile & non-marsh and non-snow, that doesn't appear to be the case. without this restriction, there is little incentive to build other improvements other than a cottage except on resource tiles. Even if its less desirable early, in the long run, the specialist bonus would make it more beneficial in the end. That said with the food bonus still being granted it isn't less desirable early on.

I'm getting rid of the free specialist with town bonus. That should ensure all improvements get a fair chance.

Farms also should be restricted to fresh water, a farm resource tile, or adjacent to an existing farm AFTER gaining farms spread irrigation ability.

I like things the way they are. You can build farms anywhere, but it doesn't give you any extra food unless it's irrigated, or you have new techs.

Wow, Afforess. Is there anything left in the installer?

I wish I could get rid of everything. Unfortuantly, Civics can't be made into a game option, nor can Sports, due to it's modification of existing buildings. Guilds and Corporations may be moved into a gameoption though.

 

[JanusTalaiini]

!!!

You added the Erebus mapscript!

Did.... did you ever know that you're my hero?

 

[Arakhor]

I wish I could get rid of everything. Unfortunately, Civics can't be made into a game option, nor can Sports, due to its modification of existing buildings. Guilds and Corporations may be moved into a game-option though.

Do it, do it!

 

[Afforess]

!!!

You added the Erebus mapscript!

Did.... did you ever know that you're my hero?

Yes. It's pretty cool, yes?

 

[winthrowe]

I'm getting rid of the free specialist with town bonus. That should ensure all improvements get a fair chance.

are you planning to alter the then (cut in half, maybe)? Maybe I'm just a bad player, but with and no free specialist, why should I build them over the other choices? (genuine, not rhetorical question)

 

[Afforess]

are you planning to alter the then (cut in half, maybe)? Maybe I'm just a bad player, but with and no free specialist, why should I build them over the other choices? (genuine, not rhetorical question)

Town's were never intended to give free specialists. Towns give production and commerce, without removing all the food on the tile (like Trading Posts do). There are still plenty of reasons to build cottages; but you won't be able to use them everywhere. There is no one-size fit's all improvement anymore, that's the point.

 

[winthrowe]

Maybe I've just skipped too many versions to see the balance evolve, but I kinda miss having a cottage city evolve into towns, and not take a massive nosedive into unhealth, forcing me to bulldoze under a bunch to get enough food and health. This seems especially bad when the third ring unlocks, because of overlap with other cities. it seemed a sensible tradeoff when I could get a bunch of free specialists, but now it just feels like a nerf. Maybe I just need to suck it up. (or make my own private modmodmod)

 

[Afforess]

Maybe I've just skipped too many versions to see the balance evolve, but I kinda miss having a cottage city evolve into towns, and not take a massive nosedive into unhealth, forcing me to bulldoze under a bunch to get enough food and health. This seems especially bad when the third ring unlocks, because of overlap with other cities. it seemed a sensible tradeoff when I could get a bunch of free specialists, but now it just feels like a nerf. Maybe I just need to suck it up. (or make my own private modmodmod)

Hmm. I suppose we could make a compromise. Perhaps the unhealthiness and unhappiness should only apply if the city is working the tile, so that only 1 tile can give unhealthiness to one city, and tiles you aren't using don't hurt you.

 

[ichbinsehselber]

First time playing AND...
Very interesting MODMOD. I like the small starter buildings.

Playing ROM 2.9.2 with AND 1.74 beta9
I got some "problems" too:
- Why do cottages not grow? 1. they do not display "will become a hamlet..." even if worked and the just stay cottages
- The display of some modifiers seems incorrect and strange. School of scribes displays a negative modifier to research and money. But it should bring +10% commerce and just some maintenance cost.
- Revolution modifiers are not displayed in numbers in the civic screen anymore. This is (in my opinion) better in normal ROM 2.9.2

 

[winthrowe]

Hmm. I suppose we could make a compromise. Perhaps the unhealthiness and unhappiness should only apply if the city is working the tile, so that only 1 tile can give unhealthiness to one city, and tiles you aren't using don't hurt you.

That seems like it would be an acceptable solution. It's not that I hate the concept, but it's kinda broken when you put large cities and realistic culture together

 

[JanusTalaiini]

-Very- minor point, but when you create an orchard on a non-forested tile and it creates a forest, it defaults to the conifer forest graphic. The deciduous forest graphic would make more sense, I'd think, unless they're eating pinecones. ;D

Again, an extremely minor issue, and I'm not sure how much work it would take to correct, but if it's just a matter of changing a tag somewhere it might be worth it.

 

[0100010]

Town's were never intended to give free specialists. Towns give production and commerce, without removing all the food on the tile (like Trading Posts do). There are still plenty of reasons to build cottages; but you won't be able to use them everywhere. There is no one-size fit's all improvement anymore, that's the point.

Well when I drew up the improvement balancing a while back I did intend to let towns give free specialists. (Of course you can ignore what you will from it) But, the reason for adding them was because that was the whole point of building an improvement which would become a town. If I have three tiles, and Either I could build three towns in them, or build an 1 farm, 1 industry type thing, and 1 market thing. If the farm makes up for the food loss of the other two there, and the net production and commerce gain from the industry improvement and the trade improvement is greater than the cumulative gain of the 3 towns, then I would never build any towns. If its the opposite I'd never build any specialty improvements. Min-maxing your optimal yeild you'll end up making this choice for almost all your improvements, and end up with almost all of one or all of the other. I thought that was something that was explicitly trying to be avoided with the improvement changes.

Towns are the clear winner:
3 tiles max productions values (assuming best route is built, and not considering civic choices, all on grassland)
Farm + Trade Center + Industrial complex: 10 food, 8 production, 10 commerce, -4.5 Health
Town + Town + Town: 15 food, 12 production, 15 commerce, -3 Health

Even if you mix and match grasslands vs plains, Towns still come out ahead.

--------------------
As a side note, in Beta 8, I can't Burn down a forest as a build action to do that and only that, I am forced to only be able to do it in conjunction with putting an improvement it on it at the same time. This takes longer. I might be wanting to burn it down in advance prior to realistic culture spread.

 

[dudeSDCA]

Well when I drew up the improvement balancing a while back I did intend to let towns give free specialists. (Of course you can ignore what you will from it) But, the reason for adding them was because that was the whole point of building an improvement which would become a town. If I have three tiles, and Either I could build three towns in them, or build an 1 farm, 1 industry type thing, and 1 market thing. If the farm makes up for the food loss of the other two there, and the net production and commerce gain from the industry improvement and the trade improvement is greater than the cumulative gain of the 3 towns, then I would never build any towns. If its the opposite I'd never build any specialty improvements. Min-maxing your optimal yeild you'll end up making this choice for almost all your improvements, and end up with almost all of one or all of the other. I thought that was something that was explicitly trying to be avoided with the improvement changes.

Balance is key -- I keep most of my workers on auto, so if there's no balance, they'll just build whatever they calculate to be optimal yield


Question:
I thought ROM2.92 had some "issues" with Revolutions because of some CTD/errors from the Rev Mod Zap uses? Afforess, did you fix these so that Revolutions is playable (un-bugged), or are we all still waiting on that fix from the REV team?

 

[winthrowe]

Balance is key -- I keep most of my workers on auto, so if there's no balance, they'll just build whatever they calculate to be optimal yield


Question:
I thought ROM2.92 had some "issues" with Revolutions because of some CTD/errors from the Rev Mod Zap uses? Afforess, did you fix these so that Revolutions is playable (un-bugged), or are we all still waiting on that fix from the REV team?

I've been playing the beta series with rev on, and I've noticed no issues. I don't know what the 'issues' were, but I've been taken over by ai election, seen cities break away, etc.

 

[Killtech]

i've changes the city council and better buildings (BuildingUpgradeChains mod) to give one free specialist per town in vicinity. however the building comes with a hefty maintenance.

... as for balance: well, i use anyway modified improvements with bit different stats. just noticed that this isn't the best thing if one tries to do some balancing in AND... also my civics modification change improvement yields too (society civics) which makes boost different types of improvement economies.

Hmm. I suppose we could make a compromise. Perhaps the unhealthiness and unhappiness should only apply if the city is working the tile, so that only 1 tile can give unhealthiness to one city, and tiles you aren't using don't hurt you.

i remember me suggesting this idea when we debated unhappiness from mines and unhealthiness from industry. so i find your solution a very good approach .

Towns are the clear winner:
3 tiles max productions values (assuming best route is built, and not considering civic choices, all on grassland)
Farm + Trade Center + Industrial complex: 10 food, 8 production, 10 commerce, -4.5 Health
Town + Town + Town: 15 food, 12 production, 15 commerce, -3 Health

hmm. so even if you would want to max food and production only towns would still have a slight lead . why do they produce so much food anyway? a maximal yield of 3 is sufficient i think.

 

[JanusTalaiini]

Not sure if this is intended -

I noticed that universities now require 6 libraries each to build on a large map, and the Oxford University national wonder still requires 7 universities. That's a lot of cities. XD

 

[Afforess]

- Why do cottages not grow? 1. they do not display "will become a hamlet..." even if worked and the just stay cottages

Sorry, that should be much clearer (and I will make much clearer in the next release); but you need to research techs before some improvements can upgrade.

- The display of some modifiers seems incorrect and strange. School of scribes displays a negative modifier to research and money. But it should bring +10% commerce and just some maintenance cost.

The maintenance cost is where the negative gold; and the science should be positive, but from the commerce. After all "commerce" doesn't really exist, it gets broken up into the 4 sliders, gold, research, culture, and espionage, depending on what percentages your sliders are at.

- Why do cottages not grow? 1. they do not display "will become a hamlet..." even if worked and the just stay cottages

Sorry, that should be much clearer (and I will make much clearer in the next release); but you need to research techs before some improvements can upgrade.

- Revolution modifiers are not displayed in numbers in the civic screen anymore. This is (in my opinion) better in normal ROM 2.9.2

Actually they can be; they are hidden by default, but can be turned on in the settings page.

-Very- minor point, but when you create an orchard on a non-forested tile and it creates a forest, it defaults to the conifer forest graphic. The deciduous forest graphic would make more sense, I'd think, unless they're eating pinecones. ;D

Again, an extremely minor issue, and I'm not sure how much work it would take to correct, but if it's just a matter of changing a tag somewhere it might be worth it.

I'll check that out.

Well when I drew up the improvement balancing a while back I did intend to let towns give free specialists. (Of course you can ignore what you will from it) But, the reason for adding them was because that was the whole point of building an improvement which would become a town. If I have three tiles, and Either I could build three towns in them, or build an 1 farm, 1 industry type thing, and 1 market thing. If the farm makes up for the food loss of the other two there, and the net production and commerce gain from the industry improvement and the trade improvement is greater than the cumulative gain of the 3 towns, then I would never build any towns. If its the opposite I'd never build any specialty improvements. Min-maxing your optimal yeild you'll end up making this choice for almost all your improvements, and end up with almost all of one or all of the other. I thought that was something that was explicitly trying to be avoided with the improvement changes.

Towns are the clear winner:
3 tiles max productions values (assuming best route is built, and not considering civic choices, all on grassland)
Farm + Trade Center + Industrial complex: 10 food, 8 production, 10 commerce, -4.5 Health
Town + Town + Town: 15 food, 12 production, 15 commerce, -3 Health

Even if you mix and match grasslands vs plains, Towns still come out ahead.

I don't follow your math:

If I add it up...

1 Industrial Complex: -2 , +8 : hammers:, +2:commerce, 3
1 Trade Center: -1, +6commerce:, 1.5
1 Farm: + 7,

Total: 4, 8, 8, 4.5

3 Towns: 9, 12, 12, 3

I do agree that towns are still too powerful. But how would adding a specialist make them less powerful? My gut reaction is to remove the food penalties from the Industrial Complex and Trade Center, lower the production from Personal Robots on towns from 2 to 1.

--------------------
As a side note, in Beta 8, I can't Burn down a forest as a build action to do that and only that, I am forced to only be able to do it in conjunction with putting an improvement it on it at the same time. This takes longer. I might be wanting to burn it down in advance prior to realistic culture spread.

Really? You should still be able to; I haven't changed that from previous beta's, at least not intentionally.

Question:
I thought ROM2.92 had some "issues" with Revolutions because of some CTD/errors from the Rev Mod Zap uses? Afforess, did you fix these so that Revolutions is playable (un-bugged), or are we all still waiting on that fix from the REV team?

I fixed them.

i've changes the city council and better buildings (BuildingUpgradeChains mod) to give one free specialist per town in vicinity. however the building comes with a hefty maintenance.

How does that help balance towns?

Not sure if this is intended -

I noticed that universities now require 6 libraries each to build on a large map, and the Oxford University national wonder still requires 7 universities. That's a lot of cities. XD

It still requires only 2. Did you forget that the prerequisites scale for map size?

 

[NBAfan]

First time playing AND...
Very interesting MODMOD. I like the small starter buildings.

Playing ROM 2.9.2 with AND 1.74 beta9
I got some "problems" too:
- Why do cottages not grow? 1. they do not display "will become a hamlet..." even if worked and the just stay cottages
- Revolution modifiers are not displayed in numbers in the civic screen anymore. This is (in my opinion) better in normal ROM 2.9.2

You now need Code of Laws to get hamlets and Civil Service for Villages to grow.

Press Ctrl + Alt + O and select the AND settings tab. Check the "Show detailed Rev values" box.

 

[NBAfan]

Also, were Hydro's buildings added? I'm trying to figure out where all these new building came from.

 

[Afforess]

Also, were Hydro's buildings added? I'm trying to figure out where all these new building came from.

No; Building Upgrade Chains adds a lot of buildings.