About employed citizens

[Vokarya]

Exactly. There are only a few buildings that use this mechanic, and I think it should be used sparingly and saved for the most important infrastructure buildings. Not that we are making too big a deal of infrastructure; I can accept Power Plants and Computer Networks, but we don't really need to include things like Paved Roads or traffic lights. (We used to have Paved Roads; I pretty much replaced it with the Caravanserai.) What might otherwise be considered infrastructure

For me, Power Plants work, Foundry does not. Estate gives you a free Noble, so I think in addition to its other bonuses the negative effect is offset enough. Workhouse is clever, but probably needs to be ramped up to be worth it. It's only +15% production.

City Gatehouse is an oddball. It's just a defensive building that employs a citizen. We already have the Palisade-Walls-High Walls line and the Castle-Star Fort-Bunker line. Another defensive building on top of that seems unnecessary. Castle Gatehouse has a use because it uses the "no entry" mechanic. City Gatehouse could be easily combined with either Castle Gatehouse or Watchtower.

The one place where I WANT to use this mechanic but haven't is the resource-producers like Brewery. These Wonders benefit your entire civilization without a real opportunity cost to the city that builds them. They are National Wonders only to put a cap on the total amount of the resource floating around (otherwise 10 cities could produce 30 copies of a resource), but use the "no limit" mechanic so they don't take up National Wonder slots, which is especially important for small civs or One-City Challenge. Because they benefit your entire civilization, I think they should have more of a cost attached; thus the 1 citizen employed.

 

[Wesley balestrini]

That's a separate question. But trying to argue anything based on population values isn't going to convince me. The listed population is a color value that has no real game impact. The real question is this: Is the building in question valuable enough to be worth sacrificing a population point for?

For power plants, I actually think yes. Power plants are far more valuable in AND than they are in regular BTS. Powering a city is a necessity for many Modern and Transhuman buildings, so I think it's okay if you have that sacrifice to take advantage of later buildings. Maybe for other buildings, no. Foundry is an example of "no, it isn't." Just make it a small upgrade over Forge and it's fine.

I used the numbers just for fun.

One of the things I appreciate about Civ and including in the mod is the balance between gameplay and "simulation".

Of course for many, the focus of the game is not simulation. But it still exists in the game.

If the goal is to penalize the player for achieving a very good building / resource, such as power; I think it is possible to do this without sacrificing much of the "simulation".

Let's say a nuclear power plant could give you the effects:

Positives:

• It does not depend on the land around the city, like rivers;
• Does not cause pollution (unhealthy);
• * Increases production by access to energy;
• * Allows other crucial buildings (by power generation);

*Standard effect of the plants.

Negatives:

• Small chance of nuclear explosion (effects in the city area similar to a nuclear bomb);
• More X unhappiness;
• More Y unfortunate when civic option A, B or C is activated;
• More unhappiness when technology G, H or J is discovered;
• Less Z% of wealth generated in the city;
• It can be sabotaged by rival spies;

The impact on the unhappiness that could happen (mainly by some civismos or tecnologies) would already bring a certain "price" for the player to have electricity. In addition he would have to be willing to pay a certain wealth, which would increase the more the city grows (larger cities, demand greater energy production and infrastructure).

The logic I describe expands to other mills and even other buildings that employ population. Another example would be hydroelectric plants that could, among other things, trigger flood events in the city region. All for the player to feel that to enter this new era of prosperity, will have to pay with a large price.

And again, for fun I say; No one will be able to question why a significant portion of the population is working in an industry / power plant. For in fact they are on strike against this buildings (since the happiness / stability in the city is not very good).

 

[Vokarya]

That is not going to fly with me. You're trying to "chase realism" and that doesn't go over with me at all. Arguing realism with me only works to a point; I'm willing to consider realism when a choice has to be made and the alternatives are equally complex, but I'm not going down any path that involves adding a bunch of effects in the name of "accuracy".

The "complexity budget" of this mod is not unlimited. I'm not going to spend it where I don't have to. There's always going to be something that bothers somebody.

 

[Wesley balestrini]

The "complexity budget" of this mod is not unlimited. I'm not going to spend it where I don't have to. There's always going to be something that bothers somebody.

I understand your point.

Thanks for the help again.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I find the idea of my power plants randomly exploding or flooding for no good reason and raping my game to be very off putting. The vanilla behavior where a nuke plant can melt down if your city is in revolt is bad enough. We don't need to add a random chance of it happening on top of that.

 

[Vokarya]

I find the idea of my power plants randomly exploding or flooding for no good reason and raping my game to be very off putting. The vanilla behavior where a nuke plant can melt down if your city is in revolt is bad enough. We don't need to add a random chance of it happening on top of that.

The meltdown chance for nuclear plants is still there. It's 1/2000 chance per turn. 1/1000 for Utility Fog, 1/4000 for Warhead Factory.

Dam Burst is just a random event. It's powerful but not that hard to recover from.

This is why I set up the clean power chain run to run Nuclear Plant (meltdown chance) -> Hydro Plant (no meltdown, dam burst) -> Solar Plant (no meltdown, no dam burst) -> Power Receiver (no meltdown, no dam burst, no citizens consumed) -> Matter Decompiler (no meltdown, no dam burst, no citizens consumed, AND adds no unhealth from buildings).

The Fusion Power Plant is supposed to shut down all other power plants, so once you go through the ITER/Fusion Plant construction, you don't have to worry about meltdowns. The continent with the FPP has all of its other power plants shut down, and any city without direct access can get a Power Receiver which negates all the earlier power plant problems including the 1 citizen consumed.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Vokarya, what about Options D, E & F. These are very important options for the player

On those negatives, I had the volcano event, and it seemed to me, it ran too short. I was disappointed when it actually ended.

Why, because ALL of the AI civ's were losing up to 30 points per turn, and I was only one of 3 or 4 who could actually grow organically. Not to mention through WAR!!!!!!!!!!1

I actually this event, but then again, I play a Hammer/Food economy game. Yes I do lose a couple of population points in cities, its part of the game challenge.

Just like playing High to low.

 

[Fozman]

It's 1/2000 chance per turn.

Per turn, per plant, right? So if I have 25 Nuke plants in action...

(25 choose 1)*(0.0005)*(0.9995)^24
​

...it's a 1.24% chance per turn of any one of them melting down.

Which, cumulatively, means there is a 99% chance of it happening within 400 turns...

 

[Vokarya]

Dark Age isn't on the same scale as most events. It is completely an Afforess creation and something that I probably wouldn't do by myself.

 

[Vokarya]

Per turn, per plant, right? So if I have 25 Nuke plants in action...

(25 choose 1)*(0.0005)*(0.9995)^24
​

...it's a 1.24% chance per turn of any one of them melting down.

Which, cumulatively, means there is a 99% chance of it happening within 400 turns...

Less, actually. I peeked at the DLL code -- I can read it a little, but I can't write it -- and it also scales by game speed. There is a value iVictoryDelayPercent that is used, among other things, to scale the meltdown odds. It varies from 100 on Blitz to 800 on Eternity. So divide the chance of an explosion by iVictoryDelayPercent/100.

This is why you only build Nuclear Plants when and where you really need them. Replacing them with other clean power plants removes that chance.

 

[Fozman]

So divide the chance of an explosion by iVictoryDelayPercent/100.

So for the default speed, Marathon, I'm assuming that value is 400? So everything gets altered by a factor of 4. 0.31% each turn and 99% chance within 1600 turns. Not nearly as bad, but still 71% within 400 turns.

 

[Vokarya]

So for the default speed, Marathon, I'm assuming that value is 400? So everything gets altered by a factor of 4. 0.31% each turn and 99% chance within 1600 turns. Not nearly as bad, but still 71% within 400 turns.

That's correct.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I looked at your save game, and I can confirm what you said. In Timbuktu, Villa and Estate are still operating and consuming an employed citizen even though the civics are not active. The bonuses from these buildings are still working.

If I do a recalc with Ctrl-Shift-T, then the Villa and Estate citizens are put back to work and the red fist appears on the city screen that marks a non-working building. (However, you also lose about 300 gold/turn income. This is a separate known bug.) Also, if I change civics, then the Villa and Estate stop working as well.

My guess as to what happened is that something occurred when you changed civics that prevented the routine that checks for deactivating buildings from working. So your buildings continue to operate. What exactly happened is not within my capabilities. This is something that 45* would need to look at.

On my to do list.

 

[aggri1]

One building which I think really could use the citizen employment mechanic is the Factory. Early factories needed huge workforces, and in Civ the Factory is a very useful building, its benefits are considerable in my view. It would therefore seem to be a prime candidate to use this mechanic.

A more flexible way would be for the factory to add no inherent production percentage itself, but to increase the hammer output of a "Citizen" specialist by, say, 2. That way you can employ as many people in the factory as you want, by making them Citizen 'specialists', to increase the city's production. Subsequent Factory replacement buildings could then increase this bonus, potentially, so you get higher productivity per worker (something our politicians and economists seem to be going on about all the time).

Since the AI knows how to assign specialists, I'd expect that such a mechanism would be feasible for it.

In terms of 'complexity budget', Vokarya, I think it'd be simpler to get rid of this mechanic entirely and just use the standard maluses like maintenance costs and unhealth and so forth. Your argument that we shouldn't chase realism if it increases complexity, when applied to these citizen-consuming buildings, is therefore unconvincing, as the alternative is, in my view, simpler. I.e. using citizens is more complex than just 'x% extra maintenance'.

Cheerio,
A.

 

[Fozman]

A more flexible way would be for the factory to add no inherent production percentage itself, but to increase the hammer output of a "Citizen" specialist by, say, 2. That way you can employ as many people in the factory as you want, by making them Citizen 'specialists', to increase the city's production.

This is actually a very interesting idea. I think it would be much more of an opportunity cost this way instead of just 1 citizen to boost by XX% (the Factory can easily get +20 without power). It would certainly slow the rate of growth of production and keep things tighter during the Industrial race. Think about it, you're missing out on a lot more tile yields and points because everyone is working in the city's industrial zone. Instead of working on farms or in small towns, the populace is drawn into the big city. A good representation of that era, wouldn't you say?

 

[Vokarya]

I think you've adequately described the Workhouse. And "rural folks moving to the city for work" is already covered by Specialist slots.

I understand tying up a population point is a big sacrifice, so I want to save it for where it's really necessary and there isn't another good mechanic.

So these buildings deserve a -1 population point:

• Power Plants. These are so important to the Modern Era that I think the cost is justified.
• Craft Wonders. These provide a civilization-wide bonus at almost no opportunity cost. I think a cost like this is appropriate.
• Estate. It ties up a population point but gives a free Noble. All we have to do is dial up the additional bonuses.

On the other hand:

• Foundry doesn't deserve to be -1 citizen. It's a link in the production chain, nothing more.
• Workhouse I'm uncertain about. It wasn't always -1 citizen. As long as it's a productive hammer source I think it is okay.
• City Gatehouse needs to be outright merged with Castle Gatehouse and not cost a citizen.
• Villa is pretty shaky. This one wouldn't bother me if I removed the population penalty.

 

[Fozman]

And "rural folks moving to the city for work" is already covered by Specialist slots.

That's what I mean, though... the general Citizen type specialist that normally gives 1. The post I replied to suggested an increase in that specialist's output instead of a flat % boost citywide. So, I think we agree and are talking about the same thing, just wanted to clarify.

Further, I was suggesting it as a way to provide an increase in difficulty -- a way to soften the production spike that happens during that era. Having to tie up multiple population points for a production boost would be more of an opportunity cost than a single citizen for a % boost building. In fact, would it not be similar to how the Slave specialist works? I wonder, too, if this would be an interesting angle from which to overhaul the Proletariat civic.

So these buildings deserve a -1 population point:

• Power Plants. These are so important to the Modern Era that I think the cost is justified.
• Craft Wonders. These provide a civilization-wide bonus at almost no opportunity cost. I think a cost like this is appropriate.
• Estate. It ties up a population point but gives a free Noble. All we have to do is dial up the additional bonuses.

On the other hand:

• Foundry doesn't deserve to be -1 citizen. It's a link in the production chain, nothing more.
• Workhouse I'm uncertain about. It wasn't always -1 citizen. As long as it's a productive hammer source I think it is okay.
• City Gatehouse needs to be outright merged with Castle Gatehouse and not cost a citizen.
• Villa is pretty shaky. This one wouldn't bother me if I removed the population penalty.

Agree with this. Strongly agree with the Foundry. I almost always skip that one because of that cost. I can rarely justify it... and I'm a production junkie.

 

[Vokarya]

I think a production spike is actually appropriate. This is the "Industrial Revolution", after all. The carrot for industrializing is that the stuff that was formerly hard to build is now easy. The stick side is that the new stuff that also becomes available is so expensive that you need to build Factories or you have to spend forever to get any of it.

I would like to, at some point, do a calibration exercise on all the buildings we currently have, but that's for the future.

 

[Wesley balestrini]

A more flexible way would be for the factory to add no inherent production percentage itself, but to increase the hammer output of a "Citizen" specialist by, say, 2. That way you can employ as many people in the factory as you want, by making them Citizen 'specialists', to increase the city's production. Subsequent Factory replacement buildings could then increase this bonus, potentially, so you get higher productivity per worker (something our politicians and economists seem to be going on about all the time).

Since the AI knows how to assign specialists, I'd expect that such a mechanism would be feasible for it.

A.

I thought the idea was very good. So the benefits of having a factory will be as high as you are willing not to work on the grounds.