Bottleneck Techs

[Thunderbrd]

First of all they did not move far so I did not think the balance was all that off.

Doesn't matter. We should enforce these updates with the slightest of adjustments so that the mod gets MORE in line with its own guidelines as we go rather than further out of synch. Even if it moves later. The steps don't take long to take and you'll appreciate having done it each time rather than having to take time to go through and audit the whole structure repeatedly later. At the moment, because the full structure of the mod hasn't been fully audited, it's not AS important, but some areas HAVE been audited already and it takes months to do even these fractional audits! So to spare us from having to re-comb over everything again later, making sure we are strict with ourselves about making these adjustments will save us months of time later.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok i fixed the tech costs for the 3 techs I moved. Where is the cost chart for units and buildings. I still need to fix ...

Veterinary Medicine
Units: Veterinarian
Buildings: Ancient Veterinarian

Canaanism
Units: None
Buildings: None

Cryptography
Units: None
Buildings: None

 

[Thunderbrd]

Ok i fixed the tech costs for the 3 techs I moved. Where is the cost chart for units and buildings. I still need to fix ...

From now on, when we adjust the x grid of the unlocking tech for a unit or building, the unit or building cost should be updated.

The base cost by x grid is found on this chart: (first # is the x grid # and the second # is the associated cost)

Modder's Documentation

Each unit line has its own % modification to the base cost. Not all unit lines have had this modifier defined yet unfortunately. The unit reviews I've done so far have. So Law Enforcement, Healers, Criminals, Strike Teams, Canines, Felines, even Naval if you check that unit review chart, all have these modifiers defined. The rest of the units can be assumed to have a -50% base cost modifier as that's what I assume most military units would have, making them usually much cheaper per train than building constructions.

Building lines haven't been so fully reviewed as to be given flat % modifiers by the building line itself but we should soon evaluate all buildings in the game to align with this chart and modified by a % modifier for the line or category the building falls into. Walls, for example, would take more build cost than your standard 'shop' buliding or 'manufacturing' building, which might also take more than the 'shop'.

As stated, not all unit lines have been evaluated yet either, but healers have, and there is a healer unit accessed at Veterinary Medicine, which is why I bring this up now.

For those unit upgrade chains that have been evaluated and assigned a % modifier to the base, the expanding unit review link in my signature line has a page that covers cost assignments for units by x-grid of the tech that unlocks them. (the iCost 'page' tab)

According to that chart (here), units that primarily heal animals such as the UNIT_VET that is unlocked at TECH_VETERIANARY_MEDICINE (as of last adjustment was at x31) get a -25% modifier to the base cost.

Thus, when adjusting the tech to grid x 30, the new cost would be base of 205 according to the base cost chart -25%. 25% of 205 is roughly 51. 205-51= 154. Might as well adjust the unit's cost to be 155 (round to the nearest 5 or 10 usually). A bit cheaper than the 175 that it's currently at by being at x31 instead, huh?

TBH, one of the biggest current flaws in the mod is that buildings and units have not universally been updated to this cost method yet. Its been wreaking havoc on poor Joseph as there are some spots where there are dramatically 'off' cost assessments between the old and new base curve charts. And it was mentioned elsewhere that it seems silly to be focused on adjusting these when they're pretty much all across the board anyhow. But primarily my concern at THIS moment is keeping those things I've already audited updated.

 

[pepper2000]

Glad you posted that. I tried to follow the method in the SVN update I just did.

If we have all the rules on building and unit costs codified, it shouldn't be too hard to write a script that automatically sets costs appropriately, outside of the C2C code. For my space colonization work, I already read in the technology XML and formulaically set building costs, since doing that by hand would be a big pain. Then we could just run the script every once in a while rather than enforce rules with every update.

 

[Hydromancerx]

So is the Building Cost equal to the Tech Cost? Such as a tech at X30 = 205 and a Building at that tech would cost 205 hammers?

Cause in my old notes a building at X30 would cost 80 hammers. But who knows if that is accurate now.

 

[Thunderbrd]

So is the Building Cost equal to the Tech Cost? Such as a tech at X30 = 205 and a Building at that tech would cost 205 hammers?

Cause in my old notes a building at X30 would cost 80 hammers. But who knows if that is accurate now.

The base cost by x grid is found on this chart: (first # is the x grid # and the second # is the associated cost)

Modder's Documentation <This is a Link!>

You would then consider the building type and apply a % modifier to this cost to derive a final total based on the building type. If you establish that a wall is +50% of the base cost, however, it would be good to start keeping a list somewhere of what cost modifiers should exist for a particular building or unit line.

But according to the current chart, a building at x30 would cost 205 hammers as a base to start with.

The old chart you are referring to had a few noteworthy flaws and did not have a smooth progression curve under deeper analysis. It was good at the time and an improvement over what we were doing then but it needed a thorough update.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[tmv]

How necessary IS lead, really?

I know this is just an example but a world without lead would be a world without uranium (uranium ultimately decays into lead, and the different isotopes of uranium have different half-life).

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well Lead was used in pipes in antiquity but of course you can make pipes out of other materials. It was used in paints, bullet tips, batteries, gasoline, alloys, semiconductors, ceramics, etc. Its hard to say how history would be without it. Its not like so major like iron or copper, but it is something that is a lot of stuff that has been used in history.

 

[Faustmouse]

I too think there could be dead-end techs if you don't have camels etc. But if we take the what-if-thingy too far, you have to question the whole tech tree.

What if there was no wood, only herbs and bushes?
What if gravitation was twice as high and we'd probably never invented satellites?
What if there was no burnable material (I.E. a planet covered with mostly shallow oceans and a few swampy island, but everything is wet)

 

[tmv]

Some of these what-ifs would mean no intelligent life, or at least no humans (a big brain has a very high cost in energy, and humans as we know them would probably not develop on a - mostly - water world).

 

[Hydromancerx]

I think from a gaming perspective its more of "what if X resource is not on the map?", since most of these techs in question are resource related.

Also techs like Sericulture have a lot of other stuff packed onto it such as other types of Bug Breeding. So it is not as focused on silk anymore, but then again still is since silk resource unlocks all the other bug types. Thus making silk resource more like a "bug resource".

So like Lead is more than just lead resource it unlocks all the other city vicinity buildings too (ex Lithium, Mercury, etc).

 

[Praetyre]

My headcanon for random maps is that a very, very advanced race (be they genuine extraterrestrials, some unknown civilization of Earth origin that isn't human, or humans from the far future of the universe) deliberately engineers particular worlds (maybe even entire galaxies, depending on how far the last eras and multi-maps go) to be suitable for human habitation, then plucks small groups of Paleolithic humans from across history and transports them to these engineered worlds, and leaves them to develop, maybe planting some resources along the way.

The other possibility would be anthropic principle+sufficiently large or sufficiently great in number universes, but humans evolving exactly as they are in our world seems less plausible than this alternative.

This is partly inspired by some theories I've heard regarding Civilization V, as unlike Civ IV's generic intro text (which we really need to change and/or move to show as soon as you research Sedentary Lifestyle) the intro text there makes reference to the player character as a great historical leader leading their people to glory once more.

 

[Toffer90]

I did not realize we weren't currently zeroed out on that variable but that's fine. Are they all currently the same though throughout the eras? That I'm curious about. The amount of necessary variation is the measure of how well the incremental increases in the base chart are appropriate.

The iTechCostModifier is currently set to different values for most of the eras.

The second one... I can see why you'd think to remove that one. Easier to just leave them all at 100%. There may be a discovered purpose for it later. Somebody put it in place for some reason. Maybe the 80% when reaching transhuman is to reflect that all techs get easier to research some because of the better data processing during that era or something.

As you say there is no real reason to remove it other than to avoid having three research modifiers for eras, which could greatly confuse future modders. Antidote: add in proper descriptive comments for each one.
It is a bit strange that after transhuman era, during galactic and future era, all techs return to their normal costs at 100%. It's only during the transhuman era that all techs are set to 80% cost, all other eras are at 100%...

^​

What does this operator mean in your expression?

Power!
Exponential.
Opposite of square root.
5^3=5*5*5
There should be no doubt now. ^^

 

[JosEPh_II]

<deleted>

 

[JosEPh_II]

<deleted>

 

[Thunderbrd]

Um... read everything again please. I'm not even arguing with you Joe. I have NO idea how you get the impression I'm blatantly ignoring what you've done but I do hope you understand I don't look over what you do or audit it because I blindly trust you've got it covered without my input. So I may be trying to help clarify things between us but that shouldn't be considered cause to be irritated that I allow whatever you do to be done without my inspection of it.

As I stated before T-brd thought it necessary to put the research modifier in the EraInfos xdml, not me. But because his ideas override everyone elses as Head Modder he put it in. I just used it afterwards. Again showing that not one of you really understands or have studied what I did do to achieve even a somewhat balanced tech research progression as the game goes thru Eras and for different Game Speeds used by players.

As you found it useful, I'm not sure what you're trying to say about that modifier or why you would insinuate that I did something irritating to you by providing its use.

And why would I study in depth what you've done? Does that not show trust to leave it entirely up to you? I wasn't offering judgement about HOW you went about anything at all here.

You stated that the base tech costs were assigned by era and they are not. Era is a factor but it's not the base. The base is by the individual tech and the base is derived by the chart I created for assigning the base cost to the tech based on the x-grid location it is in. That's not the same as it being derived by its era. I was clarifying but I might've felt the need to because I misread the intent in your statement. That's not trying to negate you... it's trying to make sure we're on the same page.

I felt that you were against Toffer's proposal because you didn't understand it. I don't see how it's even perceivable as an attempt to deconstruct your efforts.

I CAN easily see how a massive restructuring of the tree and the eras now could be perceived as a frustrating effort to 'deconstruct your work' but that's how the mod get's developed over time and some things like the large scale balance efforts are going to require consistent reworks. Nevertheless, that's not what Toffer and I were discussing with you.

Maybe we have a difference in the way we use the word 'deconstruct' as well... I take it to mean 'destroy' - is that what you are saying?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Deleted. (A quarrel over a misunderstanding that does not contribute to the topic of this thread.)

And I need to do the same.

EDIT: Done. Stupid rant gone now.

JosEPh

 

[Hydromancerx]

So I was looking at where to put Industrial Lifestyle bottleneck tech and I think I have a bit on an idea of how to do it.

The compacting of techs starts around X58 where i can move back Hot Air Balloon, Rifling and Sextant at the bottom and I think Constitution in the middle. I cannot move Paleontology but that's fine it should fit still.

I noticed Emancipation requires Representative Democracy. And its actually one column behind it. Perhaps it should just go over into the Industrialization Era. What do you think?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Re-posting here ...

Renaissance Lifestyle
Req Tech: Algebra AND Tournaments AND Compass AND Anatomy

Printing Press
Req Tech: Renaissance Lifestyle

Gunpowder
Req Tech: Coal Mining AND Renaissance Lifestyle

Humanism
Req Tech: Renaissance Lifestyle

Astrolabe
Req Tech: Optics AND Renaissance Lifestyle

Oil Painting
Req Tech: Renaissance Lifestyle

EDIT: Ok added it to the SVN now. Plus a few more techs i tweaked to reduce redundancies.