Better RoM: BuildingUpgradeChains & Balance

[generalstaff]

great to see you back on the forums

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.

Thank you.

Well, since my plans work with your mod, I can proceed. I will inform you later about how much I will adapt to your stats since I have to go through your mod in detail; I will be sure to give you advanced noticed.

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.

The reason for just Textile Mill is the feeling of simplifying the number of buildings, and simply having technologies make the building better (I am really glad that Afforess added that code). Thankfully, Zappara added the "Chemicals" resources, which allows me to represent synthetic dyes, something that needed a historical representation in game.

however one thing you should note:
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).

A small static bonus is one of the tweaks I was planning, so that is going to do. The only reason I do not want to make them vicinity is the risk of slowed science progression versus the year. Originally, percent bonus was my only option, and made sense due to the need for it during Snail games, but much has changed since then.

On a final note, do you know if the resource limit has been fixed? I would like to know now rather than trail/error or waiting for Afforess.

 

[os79]

On a final note, do you know if the resource limit has been fixed? I would like to know now rather than trail/error or waiting for Afforess.

No, Afforess finally found that it is in .exe and sadly out of modder's reach.

 

[generalstaff]

No, Afforess finally found that it is in .exe and sadly out of modder's reach.

Thanks.

It looks like I will have to scrap the Pottery Resource in favor of the Textile Resource, since I can do much more with Textiles than Pottery. It is very disappointing that it is not fixable, there were many potential additions that could have been...

 

[Killtech]

A small static bonus is one of the tweaks I was planning, so that is going to do. The only reason I do not want to make them vicinity is the risk of slowed science progression versus the year. Originally, percent bonus was my only option, and made sense due to the need for it during Snail games, but much has changed since then.

there is a general problem of resource dependent boni on buildings and default (not vicinity) resource prerequisites for them. because a powerful player lead empires can be expected to accumulate nearly all resources and thus you have to calculate with the sum of all resource boni for one building which is extremely high in some cases: +20% for the tailor which is excessive causing a lot of imbalance and headache for me as this building can be build in every city).

due to balancing it is important that either you make your buildings just require access some resources and only direct boni that are resource independent (e.g. +1 bonus instead of +1 with cow) or you give the buildings a much higher bonus that may get additional boni form resources but require a resource in vicinity to be buildabel. an example for the latter is the changes i made to the jewellery.

 

[dudeSDCA]

Playing with your modded upgrade chain for education (the one you posted here Friday). I like the education chain more than the previous version! Thanks :-D

One minor note -- because the Academy is an upgrade from School of Scribes, but requires a certain # of libraries, it looks confusing the way it's drawn in the 'pedia.

 

[commaehnder]

Some more questions. Is it correct, that after building an university and can no longer build missionaries?

Concerning the religious upgrade path: Should I be able to upgrade each temple? Because after upgrading them, they no longer count towards the number of temples needed for the upgrade.

I am now in the industrial age with my test game and I like the concept of upgraddable buildings a lot, keep up the good work.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Thanks.

It looks like I will have to scrap the Pottery Resource in favor of the Textile Resource, since I can do much more with Textiles than Pottery. It is very disappointing that it is not fixable, there were many potential additions that could have been...

You need to see my HAND v1.2 I ave added Clay, Papyrus, Seals, Lumber and more without adding a single new resource to the map. Its all done through city vicinity terrain types and resource buildings rather than resources on the map. This is why the tech web is important. You can get way more types of "fake" resources this way. They are not tradable but that's ok.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dudeSDCA View Post
This is untrue. Here's the code from Jewish monastery:

Gives you +3 commerce and +2 culture. NO SCIENCE. Again, you're forcing people down a path -- you give them extra commerce so they have to spend more money (slider %) on science...

..i know the building stats. however i understand the 3 as roughly >4... but i guess i can change the bonus to 2 and 2. that's a slight nerf but it shouldn't matter much.

... but there is another issue with that change with to the education chain: now there is a huge gap before the public schools which give a huge commerce bonus. currently there are no prior aged buildings with a similar bonus (originally the gymnasium and merchant schools were there for this purpose).

Quote:

Originally Posted by dudeSDCA View Post
Disagree -- if it's over earlier, start at a higher difficulty... I usually go out of my way to found multiple religions and I personally believe the penalty for religion civics for having multiple religions in the early game is too weak. The civic penalty needs to be increased to make up for the bonuses of the religion. That's why I really like revolutions -- it gives a penalty, effectively, for multiple religions

that was not an opinion but a fact of my playing experience. and there is no difficulty beyond deity - nor would it be much fun to play with even higher handicaps. if you disagree just on the "religion is required to run research at 100%"... i admit it is possible without it. and as for revolutions mod: until now it was just an experience source for my conquest troops so far. if revolutions aren't severely made more dangerous this mod just makes my game easier so far.

This is where the problem lies, Deity players have forgotten how to play the game at Normal (Noble and adjacent levels) anymore. They "assume" because they play on Deity that theirs IS the better way to play. Nothing could be further from the truth. Deity player always minimize their paths to Victory (almost always Conquest and never Cultural or Religious) and by doing so take the "Flavor" out of the game for those that don't. That is what I'm trying to make you aware of killtech.

I like the idea of your building chains and that it Can add much more flavor/fun/options to the mod. But it just seems to me that is not your intent.

As to your discussions over various parts like banking, they were limited and brief because you only had several ppl participating. Putting the mod out for trial is when you will get more pros and cons over it's content.

Look, I'm not here to make you mad or to disrespect your efforts, but I am here to let you know that not all of your ideas are fun to play with even if they Are more efficient (in your eyes).

You have seriously undermined the reason to get the tech/religion Buddhism (monasteries) in the game now. Even if you equate commerce = research, you've diminished a tech path/choice and therefore why not just remove Monasteries from the game (with the line of reasoning you've used they are now redundant). Soon we can eliminate more tech choices and be back to the original 84 techs that vanilla BtS has.

dudeSDCA said it right. You Are limiting options whether you mean to or not. Think about it.

Your critic,
JosEPh

 

[Killtech]

Some more questions. Is it correct, that after building an university and can no longer build missionaries?

it is so in the current version but it will change for the next one. i've already changed it in a preview for the future version you can find here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9344282&postcount=93

Concerning the religious upgrade path: Should I be able to upgrade each temple? Because after upgrading them, they no longer count towards the number of temples needed for the upgrade.

yes you can. the values have been adapted accordingly so you still will be able to build cathedrals of your religion in half of your cities

 

[Killtech]

This is where the problem lies, Deity players have forgotten how to play the game at Normal (Noble and adjacent levels) anymore. They "assume" because they play on Deity that theirs IS the better way to play. Nothing could be further from the truth. Deity player always minimize their paths to Victory (almost always Conquest and never Cultural or Religious) and by doing so take the "Flavor" out of the game for those that don't. That is what I'm trying to make you aware of killtech.

i see your point. it certainly changes your perspective on the game. but you make a mistake if you think that deity restricts you to a specific game strategy. in fact most strategies still work on deity. and it's not really true that i go for conquest victory, in my games i can achieve every victory type easily as i lead the game in every category which is just the result of upgrading my cities with every building asap and far before my AI counterparts.

there problem i think is that we both see the game of a very specific perspective of our strategy. yours seem to be extremely expansive for my terms. and indeed that is a strategy very difficult to execute in a deity game but most importantly it's suicide with revolutions mod on. and this revolution mod seems to be the point why our views on the game so strongly differ and much less the difficulty.

I like the idea of your building chains and that it Can add much more flavor/fun/options to the mod. But it just seems to me that is not your intent.

As to your discussions over various parts like banking, they were limited and brief because you only had several ppl participating. Putting the mod out for trial is when you will get more pros and cons over it's content.

this was to be expected and it is a good thing. discussion is always good.

Look, I'm not here to make you mad or to disrespect your efforts, but I am here to let you know that not all of your ideas are fun to play with even if they Are more efficient (in your eyes).

You have seriously undermined the reason to get the tech/religion Buddhism (monasteries) in the game now. Even if you equate commerce = research, you've diminished a tech path/choice and therefore why not just remove Monasteries from the game (with the line of reasoning you've used they are now redundant). Soon we can eliminate more tech choices and be back to the original 84 techs that vanilla BtS has.

dudeSDCA said it right. You Are limiting options whether you mean to or not. Think about it.

Your critic,
JosEPh

i'm not so sure that i did diminish choices. however i changed quite a bit. thus the choices have became different ones. the monasteries have changed as most other buildings. though the big science bonus they originally gave is gone the same it true for EVERY other science building in that age. i'm not sure why you see them as redundant - because i think they are one of the most powerful buildings in their age especially because they can be stacked in once city. however one needs to reevaluate their importance anew.

 

[climat]

Temple/Cathedral cause unhappiness? Its actual effect shows that.

 

[Killtech]

Temple/Cathedral cause unhappiness? Its actual effect shows that.

what? strange, i didn't add that. in fact the temple still has its original stats. i only added the upgrade information, nothing more.

 

[dudeSDCA]

it is so in the current version but it will change for the next one. i've already changed it in a preview for the future version you can find here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9344282&postcount=93


yes you can. the values have been adapted accordingly so you still will be able to build cathedrals of your religion in half of your cities

I had a strange error with the updated upgrade chain. I was able to build some temples in some cities, but not every city (even though it had that religion present). Then, at some point, I researched something (around Medicine or the like -- I didn't catch which one it was), and then I was suddenly able to build the temple in all my cities.

So I think some other building is still thinking it's an upgrade for temple when it shouldn't be?

EDIT: I got it now. If you have enough temples that you can build the upgrade (e.g., Temple of Mut), the hide upgradeable buildings in ROM options hides the temples. I think this is where the hide upgradeable buildings is probably not working as intended...

 

[Killtech]

that is strange. do you know if the problem was restricted to one specific religion alone? i didn't change anything on the religion buildings from the last version. nor did i add any new prerequisites for the temple in this mod.

was there anything specific about the cities where you could build the temples?

 

[climat]

I got it. Temple replaces Sacred Site which provides +1 happiness and Cathedral replaces Temple which provides +2 happiness.
When replaced, actual effect shows loss of effect of former building. So it is same as it was intended.(Isn't it?)

BTW, I think Sacred Site doesn't have to require State Religion.
IMO, this building represents temple-like buildings for pagan/primitive religions which existed before the creation of more-organized religions.

 

[dudeSDCA]

that is strange. do you know if the problem was restricted to one specific religion alone? i didn't change anything on the religion buildings from the last version. nor did i add any new prerequisites for the temple in this mod.

was there anything specific about the cities where you could build the temples?

It's an issue with "hide obsolete buildings" in ROM menu. If you can build the Upgraded version of the temple, it hides all other temple options.

I think this is going to be the case for any upgrade chain that requires X number to build (e.g., Universities, academies, etc.). Not sure how to address, but it's annoying that its working this way.

 

[szemek77]

Seems that Killtech's mod causes unrest

Personally, I think it is too early to present definite opinions. Part of the unhappiness about the changes comes from our habit to keep the things how they are. I have to admit that after I saw the changes I perceive them as , but I don't want to dismiss them right away.

The main problem as for now is (in my opinion) that the game became to easy as it comes to . I mentioned the problem of city council/patrician civic combo in other thread. I was also surprised to see Jewellery giving so much , as well as some other improvements.

The only advise I can give (I know - it is questionable) is to come back to 1.73 with latest patch, which was really great when it comes to stability and playability.

Anyway, I would like to express my special appreciation to Killtech for his effort. He probably already knows that he tries to "hitch his wagon to a star". Other words - balancing the game as it comes to , , , and is really, really hard and endless task. Good luck

 

[Killtech]

Seems that Killtech's mod causes unrest

Personally, I think it is too early to present definite opinions. Part of the unhappiness about the changes comes from our habit to keep the things how they are. I have to admit that after I saw the changes I perceive them as , but I don't want to dismiss them right away.

yes, i've changed quite a lot so far.

The main problem as for now is (in my opinion) that the game became to easy as it comes to . I mentioned the problem of city council/patrician civic combo in other thread. I was also surprised to see Jewellery giving so much , as well as some other improvements.

i've converted most of the originally boni into . this is an effective nerf as it means a hard reduction in research. the gain in gold is now a bit higher then earlier (if you run 100% research rate; otherwise you will even get less gold). but this comes with the increased maintenance changes i've done to many buildings which cost a lot more (so you should have at least less gold income then earlier... but as it was excessive previously it is just enough to keep 100% research now. it's hard to bring it down from such a high level).

yes, the patrician civic is an issue. but as you might have noticed i've made another thread about some civic changes i plan that would fix the problem. with the addition of the organization civics i could get the gold income finally to the values i like it to have. the other civics will be just reworked to solve balance issues with my buildings at the one hand and the infinite ideological discussions about 'communism' and 'fascism' - so i hope at least.

as for the jewelery note that is now requires a resource it can use (gold/gems...) in vicinity other then before. thus the bonus increase comes with the fact that you can't build it everywhere now.

The only advise I can give (I know - it is questionable) is to come back to 1.73 with latest patch, which was really great when it comes to stability and playability.

Anyway, I would like to express my special appreciation to Killtech for his effort. He probably already knows that he tries to "hitch his wagon to a star". Other words - balancing the game as it comes to , , , and is really, really hard and endless task. Good luck

thank you

 

[dudeSDCA]

Modern Steelworks "requires access to power" and "provides power" -- not sure how to read this? If it produces power, it shouldn't require access to power to be built, right?

 

[Killtech]

Modern Steelworks "requires access to power" and "provides power" -- not sure how to read this? If it produces power, it shouldn't require access to power to be built, right?

argh.. i thought i patched this old bug already. somehow it survived.
no the modern steelworks should not provide power - just require it.