Auto-Build, Luxury Resources, and Quality of Life

[JosEPh_II]

He couldn't be more wrong tbh, there IS no strategy involved in shift-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click. More anything? More EVERYTHING!!

What Are you Talking about???

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

He couldn't be more wrong tbh, there IS no strategy involved in shift-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click. More anything? More EVERYTHING!!

I'm trying to change it so that the strategy is shifted more from "how many new shops do I build?" to "Where do I place this next city to get maximal benefits from my civilians?". Then the things you personally are building are often more important and have positives and negatives to weigh, leading to more strategic choices in building.

 

[Sgtslick]

I am with you and tend to build everything I can afford in my cities.

There is no other tendency Is612. Everybody who plays the mod does this because you can.

 

[ls612]

There is no other tendency Is612. Everybody who plays the mod does this because you can.

No you can't really. There are too many new buildings coming from techs (at least on Snail) to ever catch up on your build list. But that is not the strategy I really want.

 

[Sgtslick]

No you can't really. There are too many new buildings coming from techs (at least on Snail) to ever catch up on your build list. But that is not the strategy I really want.

Well you can build 80% then. That im certain about because I have done it over and over again.

He couldn't be more wrong tbh, there IS no strategy involved in shift-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click. More anything? More EVERYTHING!!

What Are you Talking about???

This:

It's not about strategies at all because you eliminate some of the strategies by adding in and employing these type restrictions.

 

[Sgtslick]

I'm trying to change it so that the strategy is shifted more from "how many new shops do I build?" to "Where do I place this next city to get maximal benefits from my civilians?". Then the things you personally are building are often more important and have positives and negatives to weigh, leading to more strategic choices in building.

The thing is at the moment its all about whether or not the positive out weighs the negative - its not a matter of priority/stategy. Once you've made the decision as to if a building is worth building or not, your 'strategy' then evolves into - a slightly bigger or smaller shift-click list!

You see how hollow of a 'strategy' this really is?

 

[ls612]

The thing is at the moment its all about whether or not the positive out weighs the negative - its not a matter of priority/stategy. Once you've made the decision as to if a building is worth building or not, your 'strategy' then evolves into - a slightly bigger or smaller shift-click list!

You see how hollow of a 'strategy' this really is?

No, making the priorities list is the strategy. After you make that list it is just simpler to queue the list (or make a Build List) than to do it one building at a time.

 

[Sgtslick]

No, making the priorities list is the strategy. After you make that list it is just simpler to queue the list (or make a Build List) than to do it one building at a time.

Your missing the point - making a queue list that you can/will essentially follow every game is NOT a strategy. Not mentioning the fact that this 'keenly devised' list is comprised of 80%+ of the buildings..

 

[ls612]

Your missing the point - making a queue list that you can/will essentially follow every game is NOT a strategy.

It isn't the same for each city. If you build the exact same stuff in the exact same order for each city that is not good strategy. If your city is short on something you need to focus on that, if you are low on culture, science, or espionage you need to do something about that, etc.

 

[Sgtslick]

It isn't the same for each city. If you build the exact same stuff in the exact same order for each city that is not good strategy. If your city is short on something you need to focus on that, if you are low on culture, science, or espionage you need to do something about that, etc.

I'll tell you how you 'focus' on it. By building everything! lol

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

He couldn't be more wrong tbh, there IS no strategy involved in shift-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click. More anything? More EVERYTHING!!

You are not entirely right here, but not entirely wrong either. While just doing that doesn't favor any particular strategy for specialization, it could be argued that building everything IS it's own strategy. As I've mentioned, while I do like have some of my cities be specialized, other cities just build everything and thus are 'general purpose' cities. While they can't ever do anything specific extraordinarily well, they can do everything to a lesser degree. There is nothing wrong with this approach, even though you seem to be implying that there is. If you don't favor this particular play-style, that's fine, just don't try to say that it is invalid.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

I'll tell you how you 'focus' on it. By building everything! lol

I hope you are just being silly here as you are directly contradicting yourself. Building everything is the direct opposite of focusing.

 

[Sgtslick]

You are not entirely right here, but not entirely wrong either. While just doing that doesn't favor any particular strategy for specialization, it could be argued that building everything IS it's own strategy. As I've mentioned, while I do like have some of my cities be specialized, other cities just build everything and thus are 'general purpose' cities. While they can't ever do anything specific extraordinarily well, they can do everything to a lesser degree. There is nothing wrong with this approach, even though you seem to be implying that there is. If you don't favor this particular play-style, that's fine, just don't try to say that it is invalid.

Im saying its extremely valid, to the point where nothing else IS valid. Shift-click your way to victory! Its a really well thought out strategy that takes years to master!

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

I'm saying its extremely valid, to the point where nothing else IS valid. Shift-click your way to victory! Its a really well thought out strategy that takes years to master!

Despite the silliness inherent in that comment (note that I don't dislike silliness in general, I just feel that there are times when it's more appropriate than others), you have a good point. IF it really is a better path to victory then specializing, then we probably need to give people bigger incentives to specialize. Like what I suggested, perhaps with even higher bonuses.

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

@SgtSlick
I agree with you mostly. I'm tires of shift clicking a list of 1 turn buildings. It's idiotic. Also I agree that units should be more hammers, specifically the atlatl. If I have pretty high production by when I get them I can build several in one turn.

@Joseph
What are you talking about man? Stop being so difficult. Having the option to specialize cities is exactly that, an option. It's an option in vanilla... If you don't want to do that it's just as effective to build multiple jack of all trades city. Your thoughts are just clouding up this already difficult topic. Come on now.

@ls612
I can agree with the desire to make things easier for new players. It's a serious problem in my opinion.

@Thunderbrd
Your idea sounds okay. I don't love it, but maybe the scale of which it would be implemented differs from my opinion to yours. It's probably mostly my bias of not liking too many buildings to be auto built. Why even have them in the game in the first place? You know what I mean man?

@whisperr
What's the problem with workers???

 

[Koshling]

It almost sounds like a civic choice as to whether classes of buildings get built without your intervention vs whether you retain complete control (Civic 'Planning Ordinances'?).

However, I definitely feel like Sgtslick makes a solid point in the observation that you never have to choose between routes to go down, only between which you go down first (because ultimately you'll be able to do all the production stuff, then all the science stuff, then ... so you're only real choice is about timing).

Rather than making things more expensive (and therefore slower) you could also address this with building requirement trees. For example:

Any city can build the basic buildings of a category (say military buildings - so barracks and similar). However the next tier up (officer's schools perhaps) would require a key building in the previous tier. Furthermore building the base building of a tree (or of a tier perhaps) would either prevent the building of the base building of another tier OR have a malus of some sort for it (more expensive to build, or generates more unhappiness, or ...)

That way you could set up distinct branches in a tree of real choices. It doesn't have to be a binary thing - the malus could be marginal, and also tier-based (so a tier one building on one branch doesn't have much effect on other branches, a tier 2 building has more, and so on)

Done that way, with the categorization in new tags (BuildingCategory, BuildingTier), the entire edifice could easily be a game option (turning the option off effectively just hides all the categories and the category-triggered dependencies/maluses)

 

[makotech222]

I especially prefer the building tree tiers idea. I suggested it a while ago, but was shot down because buildings were recently redone. It would help clean up the lists quite a bit and help with turn time, since there will be much fewer options per turn.

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

I agree with Koshling here and I believe I have stated it previously. It makes way more sense, and is more of a compromise, to keep a majority of the buildings but more of them would be chains of building types. We could take inspiration from the total war series ideally as most of their buildings are upgradable chains...

Sentry Post-Watchtower-keep etc
Palisade- earth walls-stone walls etc
Mine complexes that improve
Farmland that improves
Inns, taverns etc
Churches-cathedral- etc
Ports
Trading posts
Weapon shops
Etc

It would make me feel a lot better to not see a lot of the buildings in the queue until I would begin working in that line. Thus if a player focuses on culture buildings, as in building a lot of the base culture ones, then more buildings would pop up in the queue. Why do I even get the option of making percussion or wind instrument maker when we civilization does even have a place to celebrate (dance hut or a fairground etc).

 

[Koshling]

Strictly speaking I'm not suggesting chains per se, but rather a bushier structure, and also an interaction between categories so that they are not mutually exclusive, but trying to go deep in many sub-trees winds up being very expensive.

Take shops as an example. These could appear in several tiers (things like Malls would presumably be later tier, marketplaces relatively early). Whether (at a given tier) there are a large number of individual shop types, or just a few is an independent design decision. Similarly whether (some) buildings in later tiers actually replace those in earlier tiers is again an independent decision.

Mostly I'm just suggesting categorization with category-level interactions to make one choice dis-favor another, and higher level examples in any given category require the lower level ones first.

 

[AIAndy]

Strictly speaking I'm not suggesting chains per se, but rather a bushier structure, and also an interaction between categories so that they are not mutually exclusive, but trying to go deep in many sub-trees winds up being very expensive.

Take shops as an example. These could appear in several tiers (things like Malls would presumably be later tier, marketplaces relatively early). Whether (at a given tier) there are a large number of individual shop types, or just a few is an independent design decision. Similarly whether (some) buildings in later tiers actually replace those in earlier tiers is again an independent decision.

Mostly I'm just suggesting categorization with category-level interactions to make one choice dis-favor another, and higher level examples in any given category require the lower level ones first.

I like that in general and it might also be combined with the private autobuilding based on a property pool as those tier gateway buildings are another way to guide private autobuilding.