Building/Cost Ratios And Some Commentary

[Bandobras Took]

Bandobras Took:

In that case, I agree with Kirkkitone. A University in a large city is worth more than a library in a small one.

Including the two specialist slots?

 

[Ahriman]

Including the two specialist slots?

Yes. And even then, those scientist specialist slots are only problematic because complete tech lightbulbing on Great Scientists is too strong.
Fix the great scientist.

The science income alone from specialists is good but not outstanding.

 

[Bandobras Took]

If Great Scientists are toned down, then that might help, but Libraries are still the best specialist slots/hammer/maintenance building in the game.

 

[Paeanblack]

Adding a few more cross-links in the tech tree would also help, since the power of the GS comes from being able to pop an expensive tech deep into the tree. If you couldn't research in such a ludicrously imbalanced manner, like getting Dynamite before Pottery, then the GS would be more balanced

The links I'd add are:

Dynamite requires Scientific Theory
Rifling requires Chemistry
Chemistry requires Printing Press
Steel requires Engineering
Education requires Civil Service

 

[pi-r8]

Including the two specialist slots?

It's hard to give a universal value for specialist slots, because they depend heavily on whether or not they'll produce a specailist. Scientists which produce a great scientist are worth a massive amount, regardless of research bonuses. Scientists which won't produce a great scientist (because of insufficient gpp) are worth much less.

Early on you get more great scientists by just spamming many cities with libraries and 2 scientists each, because they'll all eventually produce a great scientist. Eventually it gets late in the game that they won't, so then you do have to start adding universities and maybe a few public schools. That's a late game optimization thing though- for the most part, as long as you build at least 5 libraries and run 2 scientists in each, you'll have plenty of great scientists to do whatever you want.

I think maybe the library should be reduced to just 1 scientist slot, so that it would be more in line with the market and workshop. Then maybe there'd be some reason to run specialists besides scientists.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Updated; the Bank gives two specialist slots according to my computer screen.

 

[DaveGold]

I entirely agree with the original premise that buildings scale badly through the eras. Frequently a building is poor in its era and you would only build it then because you need it in a future era or as pre-requisite for something else. The designers have tried to balance the benefits of end game buildings in end game cities by putting very high build costs and maintenance on everything. This is totally flawed as all the early game buildings are still available, don't have high build costs or maintenance, and are completely out of balance in the end game. The building designs are so simplified that they entirely fail to scale through the ages.

Many buildings are balanced for marginal value in specialist cities and therefore give no value in most cities. This shows the designers are afraid to put power into the hands of the players and then let them use it. Expensive buildings should be valuable in a good city and powerful in a specialized/dedicated city. This fear of player capability is also shown with the end game buildings. Through end game technology the players should be given very strong buildings which can help win a game. The end game technologies should supersede the old technologies but instead the old buildings are a requirement for the newer buildings and the newer buildings are worse.

 

[Roxlimn]

DaveGold:

Your assumption that the designers somehow have an adversarial relationship with potential players is... ...puzzling. Why would any right-minded designer think like that?

I don't get the impression that building a, say, library is bad when you get Writing, or Workshop when you get Metal Casting.

Your design philosophy is that every building should be beneficial to build everywhere. The Civ V design philosophy appears not to be similar. That doesn't mean that they aimed to design according to your philosophy and simply were too dumb to do the math.

 

[DaveGold]

Your assumption that the designers somehow have an adversarial relationship with potential players is... ...puzzling.

Your design philosophy is that every building should be beneficial to build everywhere.

Please state your own ideas instead of mis-stating mine.

I don't get the impression that building a, say, library is bad when you get Writing, or Workshop when you get Metal Casting.

A workshop isn't particularly great when you get metal casting. The bonus production takes a long time to repay the initial investment in hammers. All that time you're paying maintenance and you've lost the opportunity to build something else. As soon as you do anything other than construct buildings the workshop just provides a great engineer slot for 2 gold per turn. By the time you move into the industrial era with high city production the workshop becomes much better value as it can repay its initial investment very quickly, illustrating just how badly buildings scale between eras.

City in Mediaeval era, 10 production per turn, workshop costs 2 gold each turn for about 2 production.
City in Modern era, 40 production per turn, workshop costs 2 gold each turn for about 8 production.

 

[Bandobras Took]

That's an interesting point. I still feel a good key to stifling city spam is to avoid front-loaded building trees, though, even if it means that initial buildings don't scale well from era to era.

 

[DaveGold]

One comment made many people upon release was that the tech tree was incredibly dull to navigate. There are a number of reasons for this but one factor is the lack of interesting buildings. You would never research a technology just to get a garden, or a public school, or a theatre, or a stadium, or a forge, or a military academy, or a medical lab, and so on. You might build them eventually but you never need to research them as soon as they become available. They're just not valuable enough in their era.

 

[Roxlimn]

Please state your own ideas instead of mis-stating mine.

You could try clarifying what you said. I mean, you did say that the designers were "afraid of putting power in the hands of the players." What the heck does that mean?

A workshop isn't particularly great when you get metal casting. The bonus production takes a long time to repay the initial investment in hammers. All that time you're paying maintenance and you've lost the opportunity to build something else. As soon as you do anything other than construct buildings the workshop just provides a great engineer slot for 2 gold per turn. By the time you move into the industrial era with high city production the workshop becomes much better value as it can repay its initial investment very quickly, illustrating just how badly buildings scale between eras.

City in Mediaeval era, 10 production per turn, workshop costs 2 gold each turn for about 2 production.
City in Modern era, 40 production per turn, workshop costs 2 gold each turn for about 8 production.

I don't know exactly what you're getting at here. Your assumption is that the Workshops needs to repay the initial investment in hammers. You can't build a University when you get Metal Casting, so you don't lose the opportunity to create a University.

The thing that needs consideration is whether or not you have anything you want to build in this 10 production city at the moment. If you're beelining Steel, then you have... ...maybe Library, and that's it. So you can make Wealth or you can make a Workshop.

Making Wealth only gets you 25% of hammers, and then it gets filtered through a gold premium when you buy buildings later on. Rather than do that, you can build a Workshop, then get a 1:1 conversion on even bad 10 hammer sites, allowing you to build buildings faster, in addition to providing an Engineer slot.

As you move through the eras, the building just gets better, so it pays to maintain it and have it contribute continuously.

You don't get the benefit when you make units, but those are usually restricted to a few military cities. You don't get the benefit making Wonders, but you don't usually use a lot of time making those unless you're concentrating Wonders in a few cities, in which case it's obvious where you shouldn't and shouldn't be building Workshops.

In short, what I'm saying is that your assessment of building values and functions aims off the mark, and misses the actual benefits that those buildings provide.

 

[DaveGold]

I mean, you did say that the designers were "afraid of putting power in the hands of the players." What the heck does that mean?

Compare the broadcast tower to a stadium. A broadcast tower puts power into the hands of the player by allowing the development of massive culture for the end game, but only when used correctly in the right circumstances. It's up to the player to maximise the effect. The same power is available to opponents. Compare that to a stadium which is the worst happiness building in the game. It's far more likely that a player can maximise play by never building it at all and just using classical era technology.

 

[Roxlimn]

DaveGold:

Alright. Let's talk about the stadium. I happen to agree with you that this is a very situational and specialized buildings, but how is this necessarily the developers "being afraid of putting power in the hands of the players?" Exactly what are they afraid of, here? That the players will use the in-game stadium to, er, divest the developers of Diet Coke? Empty their bank accounts? Pose physical harm to them?

What could the developers be possibly "afraid of" from players that will prevent them from "putting power in their hands," in the guise of powerful Civ buildings?

Secondly, why would it be necessary for a late-game happiness building to be desirable to build everywhere? Doesn't that just make the game part of the game shallower? I mean, if we want to build it everywhere, it just goes on the build queue of every city once the tech is researched. Where's the decision-making in that? It's more of a sim-aspect of the game at that point, which has nothing to do with how well designed the game element actually is.

Too, you still have to back up your assertion that the Workshop isn't worth building when you have nothing else relevant to build, and a bunch of buildings you want to build further down the line. I mean, what do you build? Units? Wealth? Research?

I would even venture to suggest that, going by purchase ratios, it's more efficient to buy a Workshop at 10 hammers (assuming that base hammers go up as eras progress), then pay maintenance for 1:1 gold-hammer exchange (and better!), than it is to rush-buy two successive buildings in the city in question (for instance, Colosseum+Bank).

Of course, such a city will ideally never produce units, but I gather than this was what "city specialization" is all about.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Buildings wouldn't necessarily be tacked on to the end of build queues even if they're great, but it would be nice to not have to wince every time I build a building somewhere. Civ 5 would be a lot more appealing to me if, instead of punishing you for everything you try to do, they made it a choice between viable bonuses.

Right now, every building I build usually means a tile that must be a Trade Post instead of something else. Every Scout I build will be costing me approximately the budget of an entire education system for a major city by the time the modern era rolls around.

It's still better than Civ 3 in that cities other than your capitol don't have to deal with corruption, but even the early buildings essentially punish you for building them, resulting in the best strategy being lots of cities with light infrastructure, a problem only compounded by:

1) The piss-poor return on most advanced buildings and special buildings; and
2) As DaveGold points out, the generally terrible scaling of buildings by era.

The main problem is, if I know that a Worshop isn't going to give me that great a result early, I'm not going to unlock Workshops early. I might do it as a sideline to some other thing like Rifling, but the assumption that you'll have nothing to build but workshops is based on the assumption that you'll bother unlocking the tech in the first place. This is around the same time you'll have access to Currency, to Engineering for Lumber Mills, and even Theology on your way to unlocking Education.

 

[Roxlimn]

Buildings wouldn't necessarily be tacked on to the end of build queues even if they're great, but it would be nice to not have to wince every time I build a building somewhere. Civ 5 would be a lot more appealing to me if, instead of punishing you for everything you try to do, they made it a choice between viable bonuses.

It's still better than Civ 3 in that cities other than your capitol don't have to deal with corruption, but even the early buildings essentially punish you for building them, resulting in the best strategy being lots of cities with light infrastructure, a problem only compounded by:

1) The piss-poor return on most advanced buildings and special buildings; and
2) As DaveGold points out, the generally terrible scaling of buildings by era.

The Stadium doesn't actually give bad returns. It is still a net positive if you happen to require the happiness it gives, since 4 tiles or 4 Specialists still give you more than the upkeep on the Stadium.

It just so happens that, unless you're concerned with gaining Policies imminently, building a Colosseum in a new city can give you better happiness for hammers and maintenance. The fact that the Colosseum is better doesn't mean that the Stadium is "piss-poor." It's just poor comparatively.

Of course, I don't know which other buildings to discuss, since you generalized.

Right now, every building I build usually means a tile that must be a Trade Post instead of something else. Every Scout I build will be costing me approximately the budget of an entire education system for a major city by the time the modern era rolls around.

To be fair, you'd be advised to have built the Trade Post regardless, or if you're building Farms - the increased pop point would generate more Trade to offset the cost of the building.

Military units are expensive to maintain, but that goes to balancing the check books. The reason more people don't just build units is because the AI just sucks royally at combat. If it presented an actual credible threat, building military units would be a more palatable option.

The main problem is, if I know that a Worshop isn't going to give me that great a result early, I'm not going to unlock Workshops early. I might do it as a sideline to some other thing like Rifling, but the assumption that you'll have nothing to build but workshops is based on the assumption that you'll bother unlocking the tech in the first place. This is around the same time you'll have access to Currency, to Engineering for Lumber Mills, and even Theology on your way to unlocking Education.

The thing is, you're buying into DaveGold's assumption that Workshops aren't worth it, and then deciding not to get the tech, which gimps your hammers, which just kills everything after.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You get Workshops prior to getting the techs for the expensive hammer buildings, so that you can get them in reasonable time frames. That argues for having them early, rather than building most buildings up, and then having them late.

For instance, you could have Currency, en route to Education, build everything, and then have Workshops. Alright, if you prioritized tech that way, then you won't have Workshops until quite late, at which point they ought to be good, anyway.

OR, you can tech Metal Casting first, build the Workshop while teching Currency, then build the Market, then the University.

Without the Workshop, you're looking at a -20% hammer output when building all the era-specific and after buildings. That's a fairly significant penalty.

DaveGold could make his point better with something like a Stadium, but I'm not sure his point was really all that valid to begin with. He's just not interpreting his own math correctly.

 

[Bandobras Took]

But once again, I have to pay maintenance for the Workshop, as well as those advanced buildings, which means I'm lowering production by turning it into trade posts -- might I not have more production if I just worked a Lumbermill instead of having to work a Trade Post to pay for the Workshop?

As long as the design philosophy is "all buildings take away from your treasury," rather than "building this building means you get this benefit sooner than this one," then you look for ways to win the game using minimal buildings, because you don't feel rewarded in the game for having to spam trade posts in order to make sure that the people at your temples can be religious.

And by piss-poor, I simply mean that almost without exception, the returns on investments grow worse the deeper in a building tree you go. Both in terms of production spent and maintenance you will be spending. The Library is not the only front end offender, and is probably tied with the Colosseum for most egregious, but a Stock Exchange is simply ridiculous -- for that much investment, I could probably build a Settler, plop them down, and get a Library, Market, Colosseum, and Bank in there -- while the city's growing to a comparable population of the other one, to boot.

Or let me put it another way: how badly would it unbalance the game if there were no maintenance costs for buildings whatsoever and we limited rushbuying to units? If the only limitation on buildings were need and a production cost, would every building end up in every city, or would you still find specialization -- research cities with lots of farms, cash cities to pay for the military that your production cities are pumping, etc.?

 

[Roxlimn]

Or let me put it another way: how badly would it unbalance the game if there were no maintenance costs for buildings whatsoever and we limited rushbuying to units? If the only limitation on buildings were need and a production cost, would every building end up in every city, or would you still find specialization -- research cities with lots of farms, cash cities to pay for the military that your production cities are pumping, etc.?

It would unbalance the game unduly. That's one of the reasons ICS is so gold-powerful. The cities have significantly less buildings than they ought to have. If there were no maintenance costs for buildings, gold would have to be reconsidered from a fundamental perspective.

Aside from that, there is a considerable amount of strategy removed if we just cut out the ability to rush-buy buildings.

Finally, the consideration for Workshops already takes your concern into account. If you worked a Lumbermill instead of a Workshop, you're trading 1 hammer for 2 gold. It's more efficient to make this trade at the Workshop, where the trade is 1:1 - but only when the hammer output of the city is at 10, so it only makes sense from a more macro perspective.

At outputs higher than 10, the factor in favor of Workshop is even higher, but not at the expense of sacrificing the Lumbermill! Those are sources of base hammers that make the Workshop more efficient.

As a general rule, before the base hammers reach 10, it's more efficient to make the exchange at the tile level (meaning, make more hammer improvements), and in any case, making the exchange at the tile level improved the overall efficiency regardless.

The design philosophy in the current game is the same in all the games other than Civ 4 - that is, you must balance the acquisition of gold with what buildings you're producing. It is Civ 4 that is actually the outlier in this regard.

 

[DaveGold]

Too, you still have to back up your assertion that the Workshop isn't worth building when you have nothing else relevant to build, and a bunch of buildings you want to build further down the line. I mean, what do you build? Units? Wealth? Research?

I never said it 'wasn't worth building when there's nothing else to build'. That's entirely your suggestion and although I wouldn't particularly disagree with it I'm certainly not going to argue it. I stated that time taken to build a workshop means that it is a marginal building in its era and only becomes strong in later eras. The implication is that you should build settlers, workers, work boats, or military units that are strong in that era and frequently provide immediate value.

Remember that buildings are a means to an end. They don't win you the game. They indirectly help you get things that do win the game such as military units from advanced technology. If you spend all your time building buildings you could often cut that stage down instead and win a game more directly. We could argue this out further but we patently disagree and there isn't much point. We've both stated our case already.

OR, you can tech Metal Casting first, build the Workshop while teching Currency, then build the Market, then the University.

I'd look to build the market, then the university, use the spare hammers for a work boat or something else, and spend the extra money to upgrade a unit. If you've got another long building programme lined up for the city then the workshop will be better but we're then talking about a quite specialized infrastructure city for its era.

Alright. Let's talk about the stadium. I happen to agree with you that this is a very situational and specialized buildings, but how is this necessarily the developers "being afraid of putting power in the hands of the players?" Exactly what are they afraid of, here? That the players will use the in-game stadium to, er, divest the developers of Diet Coke? Empty their bank accounts? Pose physical harm to them?

They're afraid of exactly the opposite of what has happened. They are afraid that the buildings will be too strong and will always be used as the only viable strategy. They've instead made the buildings too weak and most are omitted from what many people perceive as the clear strongest strategy. When one strategy dominates in such a fashion the game is partially broken since players don't want to replay the game under the same strategy every game. This is why there are so many threads on these boards illustrating the success of proliferating cities with trading posts (but no workshops).

The worst part is that end game buildings should potentially be game winners. The games do need to end somehow.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Why would gold need to be reconsidered? If you remove the ability to rushbuy and the need to pay for buildings, then gold can still be spent among several areas: troops, tile buy, city-states, diplomacy, etc. Gold remains an effective means of getting things done.

The real question I was asking is whether we'd see building spam in all cities. In my opinion, we would not see building spam; Civ 5 already handles this problem elegantly through production costs.

Gold Maintenance on buildings is redundant because the hammer investment when hammers are so scarce (even in the best of production cities) is sufficient to make you seriously consider whether buildings are worth it.

Building rushbuy undercuts what is already an elegant solution because gold is so plentifully available compared to hammers.

You need troop rushbuy because of the nature of Civ 5's combat -- sometimes you need to hit the panic button. And paying your troops makes sense from the maintenance point of view.

But neither building rushbuy nor building maintenance seem necessary in Civ 5.