- Civ4 is a game in which you have "major cities" surrounded by small towns and cottages, etc. I think it's fair (and could be a good way to balance the game) by restricting "access" to the 3rd ring to both a technology level as well as culture. I think this could be good for gameplay and is realistic -- they simply didn't have large cities until certain "modern" technologies came along (e.g., refrigeration, medicine, etc.)
oups.. forget to attach the
motropolitan administration to the right age tech. yes, i thought of making towns surrounding the city a prerequisite (at least one) too.
- However, I don't like the idea of limiting the number of cities that can access the 3rd tier to only 1 in 3 cities (by way of the city council requirement). If we're worried it's "too easy" to open that level up, let's increase the culture levels required (for instance). Or we can make the Metropolitan administration a lot more expensive so the player has to really invest to get access to the 3rd tier.
i know of the problem of small maps/small empires. but i have an other approach to the problem. i wanted to add some national wonders that fill these gaps. for universities wanted to make a kind of
elite/national university building and wonder-universities (e.g. newtowns collage, einsteins lab). and since they do not share the same limitations you could have 3 cities and in one of them a national uni, in the other a wonder uni and in the last a normal uni.
however the limitation of universities (1 per 3 cities) originates in attempt to include another mod part to the game (hydromacers science buildings which required the universtiy and gave good research boni). as these buildings haven't been added the limitation is somewhat without purpose.
So my recommendation would be to make it so every city can build the metropolitan administration, and not make it 3 city councils required.
however the
metropolitan administration limit is different. the reason here are the very high yields the additional 3rd radius tiles give. together with all the powerful modifiers from buildings they cause a too high (and permanent) economy boom. this is my experience from several games: upgraded my cities with all possible culture buildings to unlock 3rd economy radius in each city as soon as possible - wonders helped to reach max culture in first city at end of medieval age. the excess of everything (growth and as a result production & commerce) killed the game totally.
despite of that not every city in the world grows to a mega city like tokyo. in fact most stay on a moderate size. but as i said there will be some world and national wonders that allow you to have some additional mega cities - especially helping small empires. also i plan a special building only available with the right civic: polic council that is only available with "city state" organization civic (see my other thread) that is has no city council building restriction.
Additionally, when you have time :grin: , test your changes on a fast game, set on a small map size. I think you'll see quickly that a few of your fixes, while working very well on a large map and snail speed, don't work as well in other situations. Imagine on a small map that I have to have 3 libraries to build a University. Well if I only have 4 cities, I can only build 1 University? And only 1 of my cities can work the 3rd ring? Doesn't seem right... I'd rather more cities can build things (e.g., Universities) that have less of a bonus (e.g., 30% instead of 50%)
as i said i'm aware of the small empire situation. the fixing will need some time though.
And I think now that the science bonus from Monasteries has been removed striving to get Buddhism (monasteries) is now a waste of time. Removing science bonus from temple/monastery/cathedral etc may fit your reasoning but I find it diminishes getting a religion or 2. Now, IMHO, it's too watered down and I just have to skip bothering about getting my favorite Religion. They don't really matter anymore. And a CIV goal/victory condition is now a wash.
the science bonus from monasteries has not been removed! it was changed form a percent to a static one because 15% per monastery become severely overpowered when you stacked had multiple religions and monasteries in each city. static boni are much less unbalanced if stacked. and of course commerce is mostly = science.
Culture has been taking hits from RoM and AND for some time now. With the current turn of events, now religion is being minimized. Not everyone wants to play as an atheist/secular. Boring.
i rarely reach atheist or secular - the game is over earlier. religions are most important economy factor in my economy a shrine saves my finances on deity difficulty. no chance to run 100% science without a religion! having more than one founded is overpowered because you don't need to care much about anything then.
I play on Noble level, Giant maps (mostly archipelago and the like), with 8-10 AI, and Epic speed. And so far I can not run my research for very long at the 90% you and Afforess say you do. Ancient era yes, but as I progress thru the Eras my research % steadily drops or else I run out of money.
i mostly start on emperor or higher difficulty and with increasing difficulty option. the point is that on this difficulty you get a significant research malus so its deadly to drop on science rate as you fall back in tech inevitably and have no chance. that is why i must be most cautious on my finances. i never expand or conquer cities if i cannot afford new cities - i.e. my science rate drops below 90%. if you over expand you (like you had to in prior civs) your economy starts to break apart. that is why vassals are so important: they keep all the cities that are economic unattractive (no new resource, not enough food/production tiles) and thus i don't want to conquer. if you keep your empire minimized to the important cities you win the game inevitably with a constant science rate of 100% (usually it only drops for me in the classical era when i need to early expand before AI takes the good city spots. there i have usually 2 well developed cities and further 2-4 small cities).
Before I start on the work, and too make both our lives easier, let me state some changes I plan to add to Early Buildings:
great to see you back on the forums
Fish Traps => Fishery (Upcoming new building)
Town Watch => Police Station
Adding Coffeehouse
A few bonuses/penalties based on Civics
A few minor changes to existing buildings
...and later down the road, Textile Mill and Textile resource, likely as a stand alone (assuming the resource limitation bug has been fix/going to be fixed, I still am a bit hazy about that issue)
great. however an important note first: the early buildings i've modified i needed to use the bForceOverride tag which means all changes you make to these buildings now (in their original folder) will be cancelled by my overwrite. if you adapt the buildings to my stats i could drop the overwrite tag as i won't need it anymore.
i like that you want to make a nice continuation for the textile industry. i had plans of my own for them: weaver -> tailor -> spinning mill -> textile factory and similar tannery -> industrial tannery -> textile factory. for the tailor i was thinking about a spinning wheel tech (it was developed around the medieval). the spinning mill was though as a (pre)industrial manufactory available with a mercantilism or later. the
textile industry/factory as a modern building should come into play when one has some tech for synthetic textiles (and thus bring the prior different industries of tanners and spinners into one building. the tanning industry has greatly changed with the development of chemistry and that was where i wanted to settle the
industrial tannery. however one thing you should note:
some other i wanted to change are the weaver/tailor and give this textile industry some modern ending. what bothers me here particularly are the big bonuses from resources (up to +20% commerce which is huge).
please consider giving these buildings a static (resource independent) gold bonus + a minimal and static(!) additional bonus per each resource. alternatively - e.g. for the tannery - one could make the resource bonus much higher but require the right resource in city vicinity (makes sense as in the early ages one could not transport raw resources over large distanced just for processing - one traded rather with finished products).
May I suggest that Fire Pit upgrade to Monument because Monument come at Ritualism and that is within 100 turns of Marathon speed which I play at. Monument plus Fire Pit before I get to Monotheism is overpowered
.
I was planning on returning Fire Pit to 10% culture to negate the penalty caused by Barter. I have to agree that Afforess' change has caused me to avoid Monotheism since it also obsoletes Idol Shrines.
as the fire pit is a building of your i let it in your hand to decide its fate then since you returned back to modding.
bonus and the 
bonus for it and decreasing the banks for balance. No worries though -- you've been very flexible in addressing all our suggestions (and complaints) 
from 3rd eco ring... note that the max total production modifier is +175% so it means max +100% production in total for metropolises). this could be explained with the fact that such mega cities are rather home to commercial sector then for heavy industry. and it would certainty give you the choice if you want to specialize a city in commerce and go for a 3rd ring or better keep the city a 2 radius production site. such balancing concept could actually work.
... but i guess i can change the bonus to 2
