All those buildings...

[cephalo]

I definately see a need for more in-game help with all the choices available. The main priority in this mod is obviously troops, and any time you aren't building troops you're taking a risk. As I climb the tech tree, I get more and more and more choices for buildings, and mousing over them, the benefits to building them seem very lackluster. +1 health here, one extra specialist there, do I need that more than another archer or macman? In my ignorance, I'm thinking "No way!"

The real problem is that all those choices popping up every time something is built gives me this feeling that I must be building the wrong stuff and it's rather taxing. It would be nice if the tooltips had some info on how this building will help me long term. Where am I going with this building? I know I don't have to build every building, but the decision on whether to build one, for me, depends almost always on the immediate, short term benefit, and that is because I don't know what the master plan is for that building.

One I usually pass up is the smokehouse. Yeah I might have a deer or a cow, is that worth waiting x number of turns for +1 health? The 20% food storage isn't worth anything, because all my cities max out before I could ever worry about the rate of their growth. I wonder if I'm making a mistake by poo-pooing the smokehouse? For the last 200 times I've been asked what to build, I've had the same broken record thought, "Should I build a smokehouse? Naaah." I feel like the smokehouse is utterly dominating my whole life these days. It's exhausting! Am I a bad, shortsighted person for not grasping the value of a smokehouse? Heeeeelp!

 

[woodelf]

It depends on a city by city basis. The smokehouse is a perfect example since I rarely build it myself, but there are times when my capital or another large city could use the so I don't have to switch a civic just to keep that one city healthy. Plus the food storage is nice for your worker/settler cities.

 

[DeaExMachina]

As I typically play Lanun or Calabim with OO the Smokehouse is essential to me in keeping my cities growing while I kill off the pop. Like all buildings the value of them depends on how your playing. Of course I myself am a builder, I only really build military when I'm about to go to war or when I'm in war preferring to prepare all my cities to out produce and out fund the enemy and only really stock up on military for my borders.

 

[Caradoc]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'master plan', but I can't think of a building that I've never seen the need for. And I don't think there is any subtle long term advantage that would influence what to build. Good city management means foreseeing and addressing their needs. If you see you will need happiness, you build the happy buildings. If you want Axemen, you build a Training Yard.

What I'd like to see are buildings that enable you to build others. For instance to build a Coliseum you would first need a Carnival. Create some interesting and powerful top level buildings tied into the tech tree.

 

[cephalo]

I get the feeling that maybe the tech is a bit too fast in coming. Maybe as a new player I'm feeling like I'm getting dogpiled with options that my production line just can't keep up with.

I'm not saying that anything needs to be changed, it's just that coming from Civ, it's nice when something is explained in excrutiating detail. The civilopedia definately needs to have all information in deciding when to build such and such a building. Build this if you plan to...

Good to know that the smokehouse is just what it says it is. I no longer have to worry about missing out on that beef jerky victory later on.

 

[formless blob]

What I'd like to see are buildings that enable you to build others. For instance to build a Coliseum you would first need a Carnival. Create some interesting and powerful top level buildings tied into the tech tree.

Like the castle requiring walls. It doesn't work very well, because it does not work with the build queue. You can't queue a castle after a wall which is annoying.

It should generally be hard to achieve a state, where all you can build in a city is units, because then there is no hard choice of building units vs. building up your city. It was this way in Civ3, and it sucked big time because you could have both perfect cities and a vast army without any problems. Being a perfectionist builder type myself, I felt cheated by this, and the game became a wargame of ZZzzziness.

 

[Sureshot]

the smokehouse can be ignored earlier, but for a big empire it's great later on. if you have the 3 pasture health resources, thats +3 health and an extra 20% food after growth. for AV religion, health is equivalent to +1 food because sickness is always a problem.

as far as building vs. units, it really depends on the game type. and i find a single uber unit that you've invested enough time and effort in to get early and leveled can be more effective than tens of basic units. the same is actually true of cities, with an effective great person strategy you can dominate with one city better than 10.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally, I think that in addition to (or instead of) having more buildings that require other buildings, there should be more synergy between different buildings, and some more tough choices about what to build. some buildings should be unable to coexist in the same city. Building one should replace the other, like different types of power plants in vanilla.


Also, I think that no building should just provide the ability to build units. There should always be some other benefit, be it free xp, a promotion, culture, gold, production, happiness, specialist, city defenses, or special synergy with certain civics, resources, or terrain improvements. This is especially needed for buildings that are completely useless to some civs (e.g., the Grove for those civs that can't build beastmasters and would have to change religion to become neutral in order to build druids. The grove should at least allow a bard specialist, imo). Some of these could be pretty minor (or even negative), but it would make the game more interesting and also would probably keep the AI from building mostly warriors in the late game.

 

[Sureshot]

Personally, I think that in addition to (or instead of) having more buildings that require other buildings, there should be more synergy between different buildings, and some more tough choices about what to build. some buildings should be unable to coexist in the same city. Building one should replace the other, like different types of power plants in vanilla.


Also, I think that no building should just provide the ability to build units. There should always be some other benefit, be it free xp, a promotion, culture, gold, production, happiness, specialist, city defenses, or special synergy with certain civics, resources, or terrain improvements. This is especially needed for buildings that are completely useless to some civs (e.g., the Grove for those civs that can't build beastmasters and would have to change religion to become neutral in order to build druids. The grove should at least allow a bard specialist, imo). Some of these could be pretty minor (or even negative), but it would make the game more interesting and also would probably keep the AI from building mostly warriors in the late game.

ya thatd be nice, would solve this problem of AIs only building siege workshops

plus it just plain feels more worthwhile to build buildings that have a nice bonus. with buildings as they are now, you only ever want 1 grove in some city, and then just send units that need to upgrade there, or only build that type of unit there.

 

[Inkling]

Like the castle requiring walls. It doesn't work very well, because it does not work with the build queue. You can't queue a castle after a wall which is annoying.

if buildings could have a bonus to build other buildings, like how docks give you a 50 percent bonus to ship production, then you could give walls like a 20 percent bonus to the construction of castles, and allow both to be built. you'd then need a way to link the two so that if a castle is built both walls and the castle are removed as buildable options.
but then you could go straight for a castle and know ultimately the price would be about the same as if you had built the wall first. it'd be just like a worker building over a road with a railroad or building a railroad from scratch.

 

[Calavente]

those are great ideas !!
maybe not always "nice" boni...

building allowing units that already have interesting bonus
armorer (+10% unit prod), asylum(science), bowyer (+2xp archery), carnival (happy), hippodrome (happy), hunting lodge (happy+health), machinist shop (20% hammers==> 25%?), sculptor studioculture, temples(happy, health, ), weaponsmith (+10% unit prod, mithril weapons)...

(1xp to ranged or to mounted or to melee is really not enough IMO, you will never have to choose if you'd rather build a archery range in-case-of or a fighter in your melee city...) + needs incentives to go toward the mounted line... disciple buildings, recon buildings have interests of their own, other than building units, magic, melee and golem needs few incentives to try those ways, archery, mounted and siege are poorely compelling ways... neither for buildings nor for techs....)
propostions for building that allow unit prod and have no bonus or only +1xp to the newly allowed units

"archery range gives... +1 for deer and furs" as your people are learning more about hunting and how to not distroy the pelts with bad aim.

"training yard gives drill I" to unit built (all kind) : training in company gives you ability to drill with other people.... a bit strange for training yard (1st melee building), but IMO, the word "drill" can only go into a "training yard"

"stable gives +5% for cow and horses/ deer for elves/ pig for dwarves" : as you can groom your horses in towns, you can devellop efficient messengers and merchant are able to bring there wagons into town ... they are more thrilled to make commerce in your cities.

"large animal stables gives +1 for ivory and whale" : as you know how
to breed them in you cities, you can have large supplies of food....

"mage guild gives +x% science or +1 ... or +1 sage" normally a mage guild is more potent than eldery council in terme of focus/study of science
... but as most is reserved to the ears of mages... effect can be less than eldery council + allows mage to be build

"grove allows +1 artist" : should be a priest but I think it would fit more.

"bear totem gives +0.5fire str /-0.5defense str to all living units build in city" : be careful where you train berserkirs, courting the rage is contagious.

"siege workshop gives +10% to city defense " : when besieged, you will be able to mount some makeshift siege weapons.."

"castle gives +10% city defense" better walls or +10% stocked... thus you can go to a total of 50% keeped at growth + castle stock frood in prevision of attacks.. so you really have it.

"thieves guilds gives -10%, +10% for gold, gems (maybe reagants, ivory)" thieve guild increases thievery, (less gold as in standard), but when luxuries are inthe kingdom, organised thieves brings valuable to the thieve guild city and as the guild master does not want issues with the authorities, thievery is less damaging to the powerfuls that are the key to commerce.

other building that are IMO understrenghed

"forge" ... you don't want to spend 100 and -1 to get only +10% + engineer slot. You only build it in production high cities, + some few strategic cities for weapon promotions. costs seems too high : my solution : either 50 or no reduction or production bonus = +15-20%

my 0.2.
thanks for the patience for reading

 

[onedreamer]

I get the feeling that maybe the tech is a bit too fast in coming. Maybe as a new player I'm feeling like I'm getting dogpiled with options that my production line just can't keep up with.

I'm not saying that anything needs to be changed, it's just that coming from Civ, it's nice when something is explained in excrutiating detail. The civilopedia definately needs to have all information in deciding when to build such and such a building. Build this if you plan to...

Good to know that the smokehouse is just what it says it is. I no longer have to worry about missing out on that beef jerky victory later on.

You are right: tech rate is too fast (although being very slow) compared to build times of city buildings in the BtS version of FFH2. What I did that fixed this was switching from normal to quick speed. With this set up the tech rate is still slow enough but I can manage to build inside cities without being stuck in long queues.

 

[onedreamer]

those are great ideas !!
maybe not always "nice" boni...
other building that are IMO understrenghed

"forge" ... you don't want to spend 100 and -1 to get only +10% + engineer slot. You only build it in production high cities, + some few strategic cities for weapon promotions. costs seems too high : my solution : either 50 or no reduction or production bonus = +15-20%

ahem, actually in version 0.25, since the forge is not needed anymore for metal promotions (*that* was its biggest bonus) its bonus to production has been switched back to 25%, quite worth it IMO.

 

[Calavente]

lol .. I don't have 2.25...

IIRC
I read that weapon promo were out of forges then IIRC switched back (or argued for) then .... ?so I didn't knew what was the status now...

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Actually, It was switched back, but the dwarven UB of it was not. It provided +10% hammers, +another 10% for iron, gold, and mithril. Without all three resources, this puts the dwarves at a disadvantage.

 

[zxcvbnm]

So should the dwarven forge be given +25%,and +10% for each metal?
Then it would be balanced with forge without being overpowered