Brainstorming Thread - One-Trick-Pony Techs

[Arakhor]

I like the second and the first would definitely be realistic. Shall we have both?

 

[Noyyau]

We are currently down to 9 techs that need assistance. One of them is Agriculture, which possesses 1.5 tricks at the moment. The Farm improvement counts as a major trick, and the reveal of the Cotton resource counts as a minor. I count the big strategic resources as major tricks for their reveal tech and other natural resources as minor tricks; the reveal techs for manufactured resources and the enabling tech for all resources don't count at all, as I see those as functions of the buildings/improvements/units that either produce or require the resources.

I've been trying to think of ideas for what we could do for Agriculture, and I have two ideas, with a couple variations on the second. We could do either or both.

1. Require Agriculture for the reveal of the Grain resources (Corn, Rice, Wheat). This would count as an additional 1.5 tricks (3 resources, 0.5 for each).

2. The Quern. This is a primitive mill for grinding grain. I would make this into a simple building that requires Agriculture and Stone Tools technologies and Corn OR Rice OR Wheat resources (this does not need to be a vicinity bonus, as unground grain travels fairly well) and provides +1 food. There are then two ways this could upgrade; one is to the Bakery (both deal with Grain resources), and the other is to a Mill building available at Agricultural Tools and providing +2 food.

Let me know what you think would work best.

I'd say go for the Quern and make it upgrade to the Bakery.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

We are currently down to 9 techs that need assistance. One of them is Agriculture, which possesses 1.5 tricks at the moment. The Farm improvement counts as a major trick, and the reveal of the Cotton resource counts as a minor. I count the big strategic resources as major tricks for their reveal tech and other natural resources as minor tricks; the reveal techs for manufactured resources and the enabling tech for all resources don't count at all, as I see those as functions of the buildings/improvements/units that either produce or require the resources.

I've been trying to think of ideas for what we could do for Agriculture, and I have two ideas, with a couple variations on the second. We could do either or both.

1. Require Agriculture for the reveal of the Grain resources (Corn, Rice, Wheat). This would count as an additional 1.5 tricks (3 resources, 0.5 for each).

2. The Quern. This is a primitive mill for grinding grain. I would make this into a simple building that requires Agriculture and Stone Tools technologies and Corn OR Rice OR Wheat resources (this does not need to be a vicinity bonus, as unground grain travels fairly well) and provides +1 food. There are then two ways this could upgrade; one is to the Bakery (both deal with Grain resources), and the other is to a Mill building available at Agricultural Tools and providing +2 food.

Let me know what you think would work best.

I would go with option 2, and maybe upgrade to Mill sounds better.

 

[<Nexus>]

Option 2 is unquestionably good. I'm a bit dubious about option 1, but would like to give it a try. If it's no good, it can be undone. So I vote for both

 

[Vokarya]

I've put together the Quern and Mill and posted them to the Buildings thread. I'll do the other when I get ready for an upload.

 

[Vokarya]

Moving on to Archery. This is a very limited tech in terms of what can be done with it. I can't really see another unit besides the regular Archer, plus we really don't need any more units in general, and I don't want to do anything with XP for Archery units. Warfare tech is where military training becomes known, so I don't think buildings that grant XP should come before that. I can live with Stable as it's a holdover from BTS and moving it forward would knock Chariotry below the viability threshold, but I don't want to do any more.

I think the only really viable thing we can do is "hardwire" the free Archer unit. There are actually four FOUNDED events that are supposedly keyed to the first player to discover a particular Ancient Era tech: Archery (Archer), Trade (Trader), Sailing (Galley), and Naturopathy (Healer's Hut). The Naturopathy event has iWeight 200 so it doesn't always trigger (very good chance but not guaranteed) for the first player, while the others are iWeight -1 so they automatically trigger. But even Events with iWeight -1 don't go off if the No Events option is turned on. I know there are some players who do refuse to play with Events. I also think that these techs are actually pretty well-chosen as they reward players for not immediately trying to beeline a religion or beeline the AI's favorite path to Writing (via Priesthood; you can still get Writing via Trade, but the AI doesn't go that way).

The alternative to using an Event is using the <FirstFreeUnitClass> tag in the tech definition (same tag as the Great People). I would like to use this for both the Archer and the Trader. I did some testing about what happens if you use FirstFreeUnit for a naval unit and the FirstFreeUnit always spawns at your capital, even if the capital is landlocked and you have other coastal cities. So it doesn't look ridiculous to have a ship in a landlocked city, I'm going to have to skip it for the Galley.

 

[<Nexus>]

How about a free promotion that grants bonus against animals for every unit?
I also think that this tech could have more benefits after hunting mechanism is introduced. Maybe we could just postpone this issue for a later time.

 

[Vokarya]

I keep forgetting that Archery is mid-Ancient Era and not early Ancient the way it is in regular BTS. What if Archery gives +1 Strength to Scout units? Scouts are the only Recon unit until Alphabet, so they could use a bonus to stay useful longer, and Scouts can't attack, so the bonus won't make any difference there.

 

[Randomness]

That might make scouts actually useful for scouting! I think a boost for scouts at Archery is a great idea!

 

[dbkblk]

I keep forgetting that Archery is mid-Ancient Era and not early Ancient the way it is in regular BTS. What if Archery gives +1 Strength to Scout units? Scouts are the only Recon unit until Alphabet, so they could use a bonus to stay useful longer, and Scouts can't attack, so the bonus won't make any difference there.

I agree 100%. Very good idea !

 

[<Nexus>]

I keep forgetting that Archery is mid-Ancient Era and not early Ancient the way it is in regular BTS. What if Archery gives +1 Strength to Scout units? Scouts are the only Recon unit until Alphabet, so they could use a bonus to stay useful longer, and Scouts can't attack, so the bonus won't make any difference there.

I thought about that too, but didn't know if you would count it as a full trick or not. If you think it is enough to strengthen Archery, than I am 101% okay with it

 

[Noyyau]

+1 for the Scout bonus

 

[Vokarya]

I thought about that too, but didn't know if you would count it as a full trick or not. If you think it is enough to strengthen Archery, than I am 101% okay with it

It's a minor, but it's just enough to push Archery to the 2-trick threshold. Archer unit (major trick) plus Cover promotion (minor trick) plus Scout strength bonus (minor trick) equals 2 tricks.

 

[Beta]

Coudn't archery also contribute to hunting in some way, maybe +1 food for camps (minor/negligible)?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Coudn't archery also contribute to hunting in some way, maybe +1 food for camps (minor/negligible)?

Not a bad idea!

 

[Vokarya]

I actually don't think it's a good idea for two reasons. First, I want to keep those bonuses to improvements from over-proliferating. Second, it's too close to the initial establishment of the improvement. Of the early improvements, the only bonus from techs in the Ancient Era that I can find is the +1F that Jungle Camp gets from Naturopathy, and that's only because Afforess removed the default +1F that Jungle Camps originally had. I probably would have instead consolidated the Jungle Camp itself at Naturopathy, but I can see keeping the JC at Stone Tools if only to have something immediately available to do with Jungles other than burn them. The next such bonuses are +1P from Mine at Iron Working (which I can understand) and +1C from Orchard/Silk Farm at Currency (not sure if this is necessary) and both of those are in the next era from the tech that gives you the improvement. It's not a bad idea, but I don't think it is worth doing.

 

[Vokarya]

Chemistry is one of the techs I've been fighting with to give it just one more trick. I don't really want to do any more improvement bonuses (Chemistry already gives +1 hammer to Workshops) or promotions (the only ones I could justify are the Alchemist promotions, and those are Spy-specific). I'm thinking about a double trick shuffle:

• Nationalism gives Cannon to Physics. I looked through a bunch of mods and this was one thing that some of them had in common. Nationalism is quite healthy for tricks even without the Cannon.
• Physics gives Great Scientist to Chemistry. This leaves Physics with two tricks and Chemistry with 2.5.

Do you think this will work?

 

[<Nexus>]

Seems good.

 

[dbkblk]

That could indeed be better balanced.
Vokarya, do you have a release estimation date for your update ? I also work on a large update (international language support) which involves many files, including text files, and i don't want to interfere in your work.

 

[Vokarya]

There are still six techs that need attention:

• Storytelling
• Hydroponics
• Mesh Networks
• Micromechanics
• Plastic Electronics
• DNA Computing

I know what I want to do with Storytelling, but it's going to be complex enough (the whole Hunting module) that it's going to need an update all to itself. I would like to fix the other 5 techs before I do an update.

I am looking at Gardens by the Bay as a World Wonder for Hydroponics. I just don't have a good effect idea yet. I am also going to work on a Virtual civic for Mesh Networks.

I have no idea yet to do with the last 3 techs, so I'm looking for ideas. Unfortunately, new units are not an option at this point (Transhuman is already overloaded on units, but noncombatant units might be possible) and shuffling units isn't that good an idea either. Half the techs in the Transhuman Era have a trick count of 2.5 or less, so removing a trick from those isn't going to work. So I'm kind of stymied here.