Branch "Yields" - Base Setup: Yields, Professions, Buildings, Experts, ... [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

As I said, I have now taken another step in the implementation of this branch.
(Yields, Experts, Buildings, Professions, Traits, ... and now Founding Fathers.)

Thus the complete integration of base content is done.
Now creation of flavour content, balancing optimization and then feature building starts.
After that is done, I will turn to UI optimization, text improvements and testing.

Now I may turn to one of these tasks:
(Which should be the complete list of open todos - the rest is done.)

1) Adding Improvements, Events, Quests and Achievements (about 2 months)

• Adding further new Improvements (e.g. Orchiard or Digging Site) [SOLVED OTHERWISE]
• Adding Events to consider the new Yields / Experts / Buildings
• Adding Europe / Africa / Port Royal Quests to consider the new Yields [IN WORK, @Raubwuerger]
• Adding Achievements to consider the new Yields / Experts / Buildings

2) Systematically Checking and Improving Balancing (about 1 month)

• Native Teach Professions / Experts from Villages (for new Experts) [DONE]
• Balancing of new Yields for Terrains, Terrain Features, ... (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Domestic Demand for new Yields (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Buy Demand of Natives for the new Yields (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically)
• Cross Production Bonusses of Experts (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Slave Production Bonusses (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Building and Ship Construction (considering the new Construction Yields) [DONE]

3) New Economy System (about 2 month)

• "Actual Supply System" in Europe / Africa / Port Royal
• "Actual Triangle Trade" (there is a thread of its own for it, but it is to be integrated)
• New Europe Market Events that trigger demand in Europe / Africa / Port Royal
• New Domestic Market Events that trigger high domestic demand in specific Cities [DONE]

4) Working on Screens / Billboard / Yield Order in Rows (about 1 month)

• 3 rows in City Screen (adjustment to much larger number of Yields) [DONE]
• Domestic Advisor Screens (adjustment to much larger number of Yields)
• Solving a small issue in Billboard Icons related to GameFonts (due to high number of Yields) [DONE]
• Changing Order of Yields in XML and DLL to logically structure the Order of Yields in the 3 rows [DONE]

5) Writing all the Pedia texts (about 1 month)

• English Texts (I hope @Kendon will take care of it)
• German Texts (I will probably have to do it myself)

6) Testing and Bugfixing (hard to estimate)

• Phase 1: autoplay for AI tests and developer tests
• Phase 2: alpha testing for bug hunting
• Phase 3: beta testing as "play testing"
• Reminder: Most likely all Quest with hardcoded Yield ID are broken ! (Switch to "YieldTypes".)

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Well, it will keep me busy for a while ...

And since I am currently alone on this, it will take a couple of months.
(It is more effort actually than it looks like if a single person does it all alone.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Checking my Yield Balancing SpreadSheet I found out that I missed to create a Founding Father for Milk & Cheese.
Who should we give the honour to become the "Glorious Never Forgettable Milk & Cheese Founding Father" ?

Does somebody have a good idea?
("Got Milk?" )

 

[Cacaso]

Checking my Yield Balancing SpreadSheet I found out that I missed to create a Founding Father for Milk & Cheese.
Who should we give the honour to become the "Glorious Never Forgettable Milk & Cheese Founding Father" ?

Does somebody have a good idea?
("Got Milk?" )

As it is culturally known/accepted that President Thomas Jefferson introduced "Mac and cheese" into American cuisine.

And this recipe is made of Macaroni already cooked and dried, which is taken to a pan with half milk and half water, for a new cooking process where a lot of cheese is also added.

I think it would be an interesting "easter egg" to add this reference to our game's FF. I think Glorious Never Forgettable Milk & Cheese Founding Father should be Thomas Jefferson.

President Jefferson imported macaroni and Parmesan cheese when he took a trip to france, one of his cooks added these local ingredients to the menu and so this recipe would have been brought to america.

A History of Loving Cheese in the USA | Murray's Cheese Blog

Today, January 20th, is National Cheese Lover’s Day! We’re celebrating by looking back at the cheese lovers who came before us and paved the whey for our obsession today. The thing is, humankind has been loving cheese pretty much since we learned how to make it. There are a couple of stories...

blog.murrayscheese.com

 

[raystuttgart]

I think it would be an interesting "easter egg" to add this reference to our game's FF. I think Glorious Never Forgettable Milk & Cheese Founding Father should be Thomas Jefferson.

I am not really a fan of "easter eggs", since it kind of destroys immersion for me.
"Macaroni & Cheese" as a dish also does not really have much to do with actually introducing / fostering Milk & Cheese production in the Colonies.

Such "easter eggs" also would only work maybe for US citizens but for everybody else in the world "Mac & Cheese" is not really related to Thomas Jefferson.
Also Thomas Jefferson is extremely late in the queue of FFs and since it is actually a quite powerful new production line, I want to create a separate new FF.

Summary:
No, Thomas Jefferson is no option for "Milk&Cheese".

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, I think I found a suitable historical FF for "Milk & Cheese".

John Maurice, Prince of Nassau-Siegen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There is no direct reference to Milk or Cheese in his vita, but he is said to have ruled the Dutch posessions in Brazil quite successfully.
I currently have no other more suitable FF and him being "Dutch" (with Netherlands being quite famous for cheese) is good enough for now.

Direct quote from wikipedia:
"By his statesmanlike policy, he brought the colony into a most flourishing condition."

Also I feel we still do not have many Dutch FFs currently except Piet Heyn and Michiel de Ruyter maybe.
(The majority of FFs ist still either English, Spanish, Portuguese or French - with a few Russian since past releases.)

Well, he should serve good enough.
(And historically he is a quite interesting figure.)

Edit:
Here is how he looks ingame.

 

[raystuttgart]

Double checked my spread sheets for "Yields" again to be sure:

Now all Yields should finally have their FF in the game.
(So no Yield should feel neglected anymore. )

 

[Cacaso]

the yeld coal, already has a FF? or was it added to some FF that already existed?

 

[raystuttgart]

the yeld coal, already has a FF? or was it added to some FF that already existed?

It was added to an existing FF which I had considered a bit too weak: Maissonneuve
(Because he already had a lose reference to Gunpowder - see Screenshot.)

I was trying not to add too many new FFs because it is already difficult to get all of them anyways.
(And by giving some of them new Bonusses I tried to make some quite boring FFS a bit more interesting.)

Coal alone also was not worth creating a completely new FF because it did not introduce a complete production chain.
(My main criteria for giving something a completely new FF was: "Is it a full new production chain ?")

But as I said, there were simply too many small changes like that to post them all in the Screenshots of this post.
(Also for e.g. now Silver, Gold, Gems, ... and other single Yields also have been giving a Bonus Modifier at a FF, see example.)

-----

In other words:
One side effect was that I redid a lot of the detail balancing and also made a lot of rather dull FFs a bit more interesting.
(I tried to balance so that a player would think for every single FF: "I want to have it. I will regret if I skip it.")

 

[raystuttgart]

I renamed this thread to:
Branch "Yields" - Base Setup: Yields, Professions, Buildings, Experts, ...

I also consider this to be having been the "1st and most difficult phase", which has been taken successfully though, thus:
[IMPLEMENTED]

The rest is simply lots of tedious work which just has to be done step by step.
And it is probably best to discuss / tackle each of the following phases by itself.

Thus I will create new threads for following phases as necessary.
(If everything would be discussed in here, it would get a mess.)

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, I have checked and finished the Terrain Balancing for Yields.

Balancing of new Yields for Terrains, Terrain Features, ... (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]

In general there are not 3 Tiers of Land Terrains:

Category A) Fertile:
(Ideal starting spots for growth)

• Grasland
• Plains
• Savannah

Category B) Average:
(Still offering good cash Yields.)

• Prairie
• Shrubland
• Wetland
• Marsh
• Taiga

Category C) Difficult:
(You will only settle here for good reasons.)

• Tundra
• Desert
• Stone Steppes
• Permanfrost

Also, we now of course also have different Water Terrains:

Category D: Inland Waters
(May become strategically interesting later in game - good food sources.)

• Lakes
• Large Rivers
• Ice Lakes

Category E: Ocean Waters:
(Interesting for your hub settlements - but no food without harbours.)

• Coast
• Shallow Coast
• Ocean

 

[raystuttgart]

Here is the continuation of Screenshots of above, because a post can have only 10 screenshots.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, the Terrain Features are now also balanced for the new Yields ...
Here are just a few Highlights.

 

[raystuttgart]

Continuation of Post above, because only 10 pictures can be attached per post.

 

[Joij21]

Hmm, maybe you should add an apple resource and rename the fruit resource to tropical fruits. Then you can have an apple, cider, applejack chain.

Is hooch supposed to be whiskey/rye/moonshine/bourbon all in one? I recommend the corn bonus to produce corn mash as an alternate yield than food, and a distiller who then refines the mash into the whiskey resource.

Brandy was also another popular hard liquor at the time. This is made by taking wine and distilling it further through a still that concentrates the alcohol content. Thus getting you drunk faster (which means it sells for more than just wine). This is a similar process to the cider, applejack production line whereby the cider is the equivalent of an apple wine (which sells for less since it takes longer to get drunk) and applejack is essentially apple brandy (which sells for more since people want to get stone cold drunk in as few drinks as possible).

Both whiskey and applejack we're important products in late colonial America. Much so to the point we even had a so called "Whiskey Rebellion" not long after the country gained independence.

If you have peat, and coal you might as well make a charcoal resource as well. It could be made from burning the new hardwood resource you made as hardwood produces some of the hottest burning charcoals.

Pitch would be a nice resource that could be extracted from tar pits. It was used to help seal cracks in ships and make them more watertight during construction. This could be a resource that accelerates ship production.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ok, I completely redid and now also finished the complete Yield Balancing of Units - including Domestic Demand / Cross Expert Production / Slave Modifiers ...
Also I added a bit of more information to Colopedia Page of Yields, so I could check my balancing more easily.

This took me the complete evening yesterday and also most of this morning, but it is finally done and it looks pretty good now.
(It was actually more challenging than I thought to come up with a systematic but still varied and immersive balancing of about 100 Yields.)

If I keep up my progress, I might be able to finish complete balancing until the end of this weekend.
(Which still does not mean that the branch will be done, but balancing is / was one of the biggest todos in terms of effort.)

Current Status of Balancing:

• Native Teach Professions / Experts from Villages (for new Experts) [DONE]
• Balancing of new Yields for Terrains, Terrain Features, ... (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Domestic Demand for new Yields (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Buy Demand of Natives for the new Yields (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Cross Production Bonusses of Experts (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Slave Production Bonusses (roughly implemented, but needs to be checked systematically) [DONE]
• Balancing of Building and Ship Construction (considering the new Construction Yields)

 

[JohnAdamski]

This is incredible, I wish I knew anything useful to help you guys. Feel like a petty criminal among elder statesmen in this thread, but just wanted to say thanks so much for keeping this mod fresh.

Edit: Actually just thought of something useful: Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, maybe trade with Port Royal should be eliminated after 1692.

 

[Joij21]

This is incredible, I wish I knew anything useful to help you guys. Feel like a petty criminal among elder statesmen in this thread, but just wanted to say thanks so much for keeping this mod fresh.

Edit: Actually just thought of something useful: Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, maybe trade with Port Royal should be eliminated after 1692.

I'm pretty sure it was rebuilt. After all it's still a city (and I believe the capital?) in Jamaica.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

This is incredible, I wish I knew anything useful to help you guys. Feel like a petty criminal among elder statesmen in this thread, but just wanted to say thanks so much for keeping this mod fresh.

Edit: Actually just thought of something useful: Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, maybe trade with Port Royal should be eliminated after 1692.

It was not completely destroyed. They just lost the area that was built on sand

 

[raystuttgart]

I have converted the "Cocoa Plantation" into a more versatile "Fruit Plantation".
(Which basically gives "Cocoa Pods" and "Fruits", depending on where it is built.)

So this is going to be the Improvement the Player will build on Fruit Bonus Ressources.
(It preserves the Trees or other Features that the Fruit Bonus Ressource may need in some cases.)

 

[raystuttgart]

This is now complete as well.
(Basically the complete balancing is now done - in terms of ready for internal testing.)

Balancing of Building and Ship Construction (considering the new Construction Yields) [DONE]

In the attachments there are 2 examples.

Generally the following happened:

1) Constructing Buildings Upgrades has become a bit more challenging *
2) Constructing Ships (except Coastal Ships) has become a bit more challenging **
3) Buying Ships has become a more expensive (especially the strong War Ships) ***

Comments on AI:

Spoiler :

* Impacts AI less than Human Player, because AI does not upgrade as often as Human Player might.
** Impacts AI less often because AI does not construct as many Ships as Human (and Coastal Ships have not been changed)
*** Also AI friendly in Comparison because AI does not buy many strong War Ships

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Generally it has been implemented in a way that is "kind of AI friendly" and more a challenge for Human Player.
(e.g. AI often usually builds only 1st level of Buildings which have not gotten increased requirements and also AI can hurry without additional costs.)

Thus this change should generally help a bit to close the GAP between AI and Human.
(Not because there is a new cheat anywhere, but just because the mechanics that were adjusted are more used by Human Players than AI.)

------

In other words, the mod is more difficult now for both AI and Human.
But I tried to balance it in a way that impacts AI less than it impacts Human.

• "Wide strategy" has become more difficult because Ships are a tiny harder to construct or buy.
• "Tall strategy" has become a bit more difficult because Building Upgrades are a bit harder to build.

This kind of creates a conflict of wanting to play "wide strategy" with many small cities but having a hard time getting enough Ships to support it.
(Which is basically what AI already does - so it does not really hurt AI much that "Tall Strategy with abundance of Ships" has become harder.)