I think part of this is that the community is trying to be more conservative with CEP than with GEM. The focus is on fixing problems that are truly broken, and there doesn't seem to be a strong consensus that the barracks needs any help.
building notes, weaker ones
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I think part of this is that the community is trying to be more conservative with CEP than with GEM. The focus is on fixing problems that are truly broken, and there doesn't seem to be a strong consensus that the barracks needs any help.
I think the idea is fine (I don't think there's anything wrong inherently with it). It works great as a unique effect, the same way a unique unit with a free promotion is potentially interesting. I'm not as sure about translating it in a broader way but I'm not adamantly opposed either.
Couple points in the sales pitch.
Ranged units are more important for barracks construction. They gain XP slower, especially as garrisons. Defensive play tends to require much more ranged units and they are still useful on attacks to have in the mix to counter-attack or to weaken enemy cities.
I suspect an issue is that people commenting so far don't strike me as all that fond of early rushes in civ5 as an advantage versus economic buildup before striking or counterstriking (it's a thread about buildings putatively also, which is going to encourage economic types to dither over things rather than conquerors). Play style maybe. Eg. I tended to parry enemy rushes in SC and then build up and smash people with hammer blows and mobile strikes. I can see the value of trying to rush, but it has costs if it doesn't work. Civ5 it's mostly for attacking CS's as a result. Hit and run stuff works better (pillaging, capturing workers, destroying second cities in strategic locations, etc) against the majors and has fewer long term diplomatic effects.
If you're not rushing, then getting a bit of free XP to headstart for fighting barbarians or enemies that attack you seems a little more useful than having more units that you might lose or not win as fast with when needed in a quality over quantity argument and it gets a reasonably cheap building out of the way for later tiers in the cities that need them. A free promotion might be useful in that light as well, but it would depend on the promotion, and it wouldn't really take anything away from the argument that having an already promoted unit out there is going to be better in 1-1 fights of the sort like barbarians and defensive garrisons (eg, it's better to go ahead build the barracks, and possibly get the Hero Epic up soon too before you have a larger amount of cities). Having two non-promoted units out there is going to be better in most offensive wars than one promoted one.
Couple points in the sales pitch.
Ranged units are more important for barracks construction. They gain XP slower, especially as garrisons. Defensive play tends to require much more ranged units and they are still useful on attacks to have in the mix to counter-attack or to weaken enemy cities.
I suspect an issue is that people commenting so far don't strike me as all that fond of early rushes in civ5 as an advantage versus economic buildup before striking or counterstriking (it's a thread about buildings putatively also, which is going to encourage economic types to dither over things rather than conquerors). Play style maybe. Eg. I tended to parry enemy rushes in SC and then build up and smash people with hammer blows and mobile strikes. I can see the value of trying to rush, but it has costs if it doesn't work. Civ5 it's mostly for attacking CS's as a result. Hit and run stuff works better (pillaging, capturing workers, destroying second cities in strategic locations, etc) against the majors and has fewer long term diplomatic effects.
If you're not rushing, then getting a bit of free XP to headstart for fighting barbarians or enemies that attack you seems a little more useful than having more units that you might lose or not win as fast with when needed in a quality over quantity argument and it gets a reasonably cheap building out of the way for later tiers in the cities that need them. A free promotion might be useful in that light as well, but it would depend on the promotion, and it wouldn't really take anything away from the argument that having an already promoted unit out there is going to be better in 1-1 fights of the sort like barbarians and defensive garrisons (eg, it's better to go ahead build the barracks, and possibly get the Hero Epic up soon too before you have a larger amount of cities). Having two non-promoted units out there is going to be better in most offensive wars than one promoted one.
Agreed that it is a specialist building. That is why I suggested to change the prerequisites for constructing Heroic Epic in my previous post (highly promoted unit required instead of barracks everywhere). And unique promotions only add little flavour to the barracks line to offset the high investment we have to put in early in the game (hammers & maintenance cost).
I understand that many people would say go for simpler approach & simply reduce the opportunity cost for constructing it (less hammers/maintenance removed) but that would be a boring design & then we might end up spamming it everywhere.
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I'd also agree with Stalker that conservative modding is involved in some of the commenters in this thread too. I'm happy to tinker, mess with the details, and debate the merits of strategies or proposals. But I like to see that something is bad or imbalanced first if there's a change being made for everyone. If I'm not happy with the precise details in the public version of the mod, I can usually adjust them to my taste anyway. This is easier if there are not major changes to undo first like unit roles or building functions. And that lends itself toward a bit less "change for change sake".
The policies and leaders I'm more than happy to see major changes because I think we have a track record of making those changes meaningful and extensive debates over them. Buildings and economic changes it's usually less clear to me that we have good consensus moves. Some were very good, or flavor changes only, and others were not so good. The barracks seems okay, for when you need or might want it. Other buildings mentioned didn't. They may merit a little easy change here and there.
This wouldn't be a major change so it would not bother me. I just don't see a need yet. Perhaps I should try a couple of rush games and see if the economy is too weak.
The policies and leaders I'm more than happy to see major changes because I think we have a track record of making those changes meaningful and extensive debates over them. Buildings and economic changes it's usually less clear to me that we have good consensus moves. Some were very good, or flavor changes only, and others were not so good. The barracks seems okay, for when you need or might want it. Other buildings mentioned didn't. They may merit a little easy change here and there.
This wouldn't be a major change so it would not bother me. I just don't see a need yet. Perhaps I should try a couple of rush games and see if the economy is too weak.
mitsho
Deity
And again, I'd rather have the extra xp to get me faster to where I can chose a promotion than be given one I don't necessarily want on ALL my units. Cover will be useless f.e. on the archers sitting in a city. Free xp also helps ships, cover... not so much. One could argue to make it only for melee unit to boost them once more, I'd be more okay with that, but again, rather more xp...
For the policy effect obviously. That was where my statement was headed. And I agree about the rest.
Going onto the other posts, the problem analysis:
a) Barracks cost too much (time, production, upkeep) for what they offer.
b) They are often better for a peaceful player who'll build his units later on / generally for the late game cumulative effect with armouries et al.
c) The Heroic Epic comes to late unless you rush it? (meh...)
A effect helping the peaceful player would be to provide experience-per-turn which is realistic (units stationed in the city are training), but it's not necessarily good for gameplay.
Decreasing the production cost seems straightforward and worth a try and is probably already enough. It also helps getting the Heroic Epic... Lowering the upkeep cost on the other hand does seem rather bland.
For a bigger change, what about making the
effect more active. Decreasing the number of free upkeep units you get, but barracks give 1 unit free of upkeep cost (="the troops stationed in the city"). That makes them okay in the early eras, but much better later on. Might not scale well, but it's certainly more active than a directly applied "no upkeep cost". It's also a long-term effect in comparison.This is the way I would go rather than just adding more "oomph" in the form of free promotions. But yes, it's not something I would change right now, just lowering the production cost and maybe putting them one tech tier earlier is enough
Seek
Deity
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Huh, my experience in this forum recently has not evinced me of this - in fact, quite the opposite, I feel like a curmudgeon much of the time because most of my posts suggest letting things be and starting fresh from BNW instead of GEM!
In any case I'm glad to hear this and can definitely appreciate the sentiment.Agreed with this assessment; I tried to design the promotions to be predominantly useful in offense in order to make early rushes more viable both for the human player and war-focused AIs. It seems backward to me that the Barracks is stronger defensively than offensively. As it is now, I think early rushing is difficult economically mainly because it's often so slow - aiding them via more specialized offensive promotions was high priority in the concept behind my idea.
In hindsight I shouldn't have suggested the "better fortifying" promo, since that is equally (if not more) useful defensively. I threw it in last minute without enough thought. I was considering putting Siege on the Barracks, but it seemed crass and would affect ranged/siege units, which I wanted to avoid - thus the suggestion for Discipline. The design is specifically aimed at buffing melee units on the Barracks, waiting until the Armory and later to give promos to ranged and siege units. Otoh, I suppose we could create a new "siege" promo that would only affect melee units if need be.
Right, which is basically what I said earlier, and what I'm aiming to change here. (In addition to making the building line more fun.)
Try the Zulu in one of them: I'm curious to see if you get the same feeling I did.
I'm still not sure what you mean by this. It sounds like you are misunderstanding Babri and I, but I think we've been quite clear that the idea doesn't involve getting rid of the free XP on these buildings. Are you suggesting that the Barracks should return to 15 XP?
Cover will be useless f.e. on the archers sitting in a city. Free xp also helps ships, cover... not so much. One could argue to make it only for melee unit to boost them once more, I'd be more okay with that, but again, rather more xp...
For the policy effect obviously. That was where my statement was headed. And I agree about the rest.
Yes, as I said above, the free promos are aimed at improving offense. Defense is easy enough without extra bonuses. I'd be fine if these promos only helped melee (ie, "soldier" and "vanguard") units.
For a bigger change, what about making the
This is the way I would go rather than just adding more "oomph" in the form of free promotions. But yes, it's not something I would change right now, just lowering the production cost and maybe putting them one tech tier earlier is enough
I've definitely considered this (reduced maint cost for units) and agree that it's a good idea, it just seemed like less fun than free promos. And there are indeed huge potential balance issues, and it would probably promote building a Barracks in every city.
mitsho
Deity
Think of it like this, you propose increasing the free experience to 30 basically, with the difference in the distribution:
"Old" version
+15 experience on new units
+15 experience on new units
Your Proposal
+15 experience on new units
Fixed Promotion on new units
I say I rather have the choice of a promotion than being told which one I get. Of course the advantage of your system is that you can control much better the strength buff you give new units, but in the end, it's nothing different than making those units stronger. And then there's the question of what kind of boost. Balance is quite okay now, we don't need to tinker with it. It also doesn't change the fact that these buildings are only useful when completing a unit.
That said, the no better units rule has an exception with soldier units which could use a buff imho. This way, you connect the system with a conquest oriented playstyle. That is good. But again, the main problem there is probably that one builds warriors to upgrade them to swords and the barracks is a bit "off" the tech line there (important for rushes).
I'm going to make a new thread to debate this one, i think its worth its own formal discussion.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I agree buildings need balance. I'm troubled when I look at the building list, and see nothing I want to build. This happens often in the unmodded game.
I basically follow the pattern of culture buildings in BNW. Monuments are broadly useful in most cities, while later culture structures are useful for the narrow strategy of tourism victory. This is my "broad and narrow" principle. Doing this with other building lines turns a few early buildings into structures we build more often (caravansary's luxury gold), and some later buildings into more rare structures (seaport). I try to find ways to do this with minimal impact, like moving 1 gold from luxury resource tiles to the Caravansary. It improves the building without adding new gold income to the game.
If we have enough national happiness for 10 cities, zoos increase the limit to 15 cities, and stadiums to 30 cities. This is because national happiness works differently from city happiness. I don't think we need to buff those buildings. They basically remove the limit on expansion after the Industrial era. This helps late game colonization of offshore locations. However... I could see us moving this effect to the Exploration tree later, when we get to policy updates.
Welcome to my world! Melee subs? Subs anyone? Come and get your melee subs!
You mentioned you like the idea of less barracks maintenance, so how about we replace its production bonus with a maintenance reduction? The barracks will simply have the initial production cost, which should be enough to question when to build it.
@Hawawaa
You have an interesting idea to merge the caravansary's land trade route bonus with the stable. It's better to have 1 strong building than 2 weak buildings. I was trying to think of something to merge with the caravansary. My first version of this mod for BNW merged it with markets, but I felt that made markets too good. I gave up and moved the luxury bonus to caravansaries instead. I think your idea might be better.
I basically follow the pattern of culture buildings in BNW. Monuments are broadly useful in most cities, while later culture structures are useful for the narrow strategy of tourism victory. This is my "broad and narrow" principle. Doing this with other building lines turns a few early buildings into structures we build more often (caravansary's luxury gold), and some later buildings into more rare structures (seaport). I try to find ways to do this with minimal impact, like moving 1 gold from luxury resource tiles to the Caravansary. It improves the building without adding new gold income to the game.
If we have enough national happiness for 10 cities, zoos increase the limit to 15 cities, and stadiums to 30 cities. This is because national happiness works differently from city happiness. I don't think we need to buff those buildings. They basically remove the limit on expansion after the Industrial era. This helps late game colonization of offshore locations. However... I could see us moving this effect to the Exploration tree later, when we get to policy updates.
Welcome to my world! Melee subs? Subs anyone? Come and get your melee subs!
You mentioned you like the idea of less barracks maintenance, so how about we replace its production bonus with a maintenance reduction? The barracks will simply have the initial production cost, which should be enough to question when to build it.
@Hawawaa
You have an interesting idea to merge the caravansary's land trade route bonus with the stable. It's better to have 1 strong building than 2 weak buildings. I was trying to think of something to merge with the caravansary. My first version of this mod for BNW merged it with markets, but I felt that made markets too good. I gave up and moved the luxury bonus to caravansaries instead. I think your idea might be better.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
(double post)
Why are we talking about strengthening the barracks? That's absurd. It's already a very strong building that I build in every single city no matter what type of city it is. The armory is very strong. +2 production for only +1 gold cost, and that production can be multiplied by other modifiers.
The barracks should be strictly a military building ONLY. If you're not building units in that city, then it should be a worthless building. I'd suggest +1 maintenance, +10 experience, and +10% production for building units for a barracks.
Armory: +2 gold maintenance, +20 experience, +10% production for building units.
Military Academy: +3 gold maintenance, +30 experience, +10% production for building units
As it is right now, I build a barracks everywhere. It's not the first building built, but it is a cheap building at a very low cost that ends up boosting production nicely. It should be more specialized.
The barracks should be strictly a military building ONLY. If you're not building units in that city, then it should be a worthless building. I'd suggest +1 maintenance, +10 experience, and +10% production for building units for a barracks.
Armory: +2 gold maintenance, +20 experience, +10% production for building units.
Military Academy: +3 gold maintenance, +30 experience, +10% production for building units
As it is right now, I build a barracks everywhere. It's not the first building built, but it is a cheap building at a very low cost that ends up boosting production nicely. It should be more specialized.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
The barracks is a broad building, while later training buildings will be narrow. I plan to remove the production from armory/academy while keeping their maintenance costs. I mix broad and narrow parts of the game because partially doing something is a more complex decision than an all-or-nothing approach.
That would be fine to make the barracks broad and the armory and military academy narrow. As it right now though I build that armory everywhere too. +2 production for only 1 maintenance is a great deal. If it was +3 maintenance then I wouldn't build it except in military cities. Same for the military academy. They aren't high priority buildings in a non-military city, but with such a low maintenance cost and a solid benefits (that gets multiplied), it's built before some buildings.
For example, say it's the modern era and I have this size 8 or 9 city. It's not a military city. My choices are an armory, a bank, a harbor, a university, or a forge. The city is really too small for a university yet. I may lean towards building that armory so that production is increased to build other buildings faster once the city is larger. The city already has a workshop and I've already got the liberty policy increasing production for buildings. -1 gold is a small price to pay for probably around +3 production. Maybe that's a bad decision and poor play, but I do that all the time. If it was -3 gold for that armory, there's no way that I'd build it. I'd probably go for the bank, harbor, or university in that circumstance instead in a non-military city.
But maybe I just emphasize production too much in my gameplay. I'm usually always #1 in production among civilizations on the demographics screen.
For example, say it's the modern era and I have this size 8 or 9 city. It's not a military city. My choices are an armory, a bank, a harbor, a university, or a forge. The city is really too small for a university yet. I may lean towards building that armory so that production is increased to build other buildings faster once the city is larger. The city already has a workshop and I've already got the liberty policy increasing production for buildings. -1 gold is a small price to pay for probably around +3 production. Maybe that's a bad decision and poor play, but I do that all the time. If it was -3 gold for that armory, there's no way that I'd build it. I'd probably go for the bank, harbor, or university in that circumstance instead in a non-military city.
But maybe I just emphasize production too much in my gameplay. I'm usually always #1 in production among civilizations on the demographics screen.
mitsho
Deity
Is Production really equal to gold? And for all civs alike? The idea is certainly not that one goes out spamming production buildings. After all, there's gold too. And time should run out before you can build everything... Ideally, it'd be a building helping the AI conquerors who more often than not are not as succesful as their peaceful counterpart.
But you are right, reducing maintenance may make the barrack line too much of a "good everywhere" building. This is probably not as bad for the barracks (as it is for the monument, library, etc. ...), but certainly not ideal for the later "more narrow" buildings. If we can reduce unit maintenance instead of building maintenance via the barracks, this would probably be worth it more for a conqueror vis-a-vis a production spammer.
And the production bonus certainly isn't hardcoded, it's just one that kinda fit at that time...
One 'problem' I see with the barracks is that it only helps later built units so that you should "rush" it. What if instead every unit could get the experience bonus (once) when they are on a tile with a barracks/armoury/etc.? Is that doable btw.? A promotion that vanishes once you are in such a city? The AI shuffles its units around needlessly so it's not necessarily only a human bonus?
But you are right, reducing maintenance may make the barrack line too much of a "good everywhere" building. This is probably not as bad for the barracks (as it is for the monument, library, etc. ...), but certainly not ideal for the later "more narrow" buildings. If we can reduce unit maintenance instead of building maintenance via the barracks, this would probably be worth it more for a conqueror vis-a-vis a production spammer.
And the production bonus certainly isn't hardcoded, it's just one that kinda fit at that time...
One 'problem' I see with the barracks is that it only helps later built units so that you should "rush" it. What if instead every unit could get the experience bonus (once) when they are on a tile with a barracks/armoury/etc.? Is that doable btw.? A promotion that vanishes once you are in such a city? The AI shuffles its units around needlessly so it's not necessarily only a human bonus?
What of the other building suggestions?
Windmill cost dropped to 150 (was 250). (270 in mod instead of 450).
Watermill upkeep dropped to 1, food to 1, production increased to 2
Mints effect gems (don't currently in mod) Cost reduced to 75 (was 100, 140 instead of 180 in mod).
Temple faith increased to 3. (probably paired with some increases to faith cost deltas?)
Drop aluminum requirement on hydro plants (watermill instead?)
Forge +1 production, +20% land units.
I could see the national happiness bonus on zoo/stadium being okay (especially on zoos). I'd be a little concerned about the cost (upfront) for stadiums. But that can be adjusted down easily.
I think barracks is fine as is, though I'd agree with Eric that the production on armories/academies is worth reducing in favor of some other effect, like a unit production bonus, and I'd rather do that than reduce their upkeep along with any barracks upkeep change. I'm really not excited about the barracks being more of a "broad" building though. I think it's already designed like that because production can be quite valuable early on and barracks can be created cheaply with the honor tree, and that this is something we should be trying to move away from. Free upkeep does not really do that either however, if it offers no bonus besides the XP and Hero Epic construction.
Melee subs is a function change, which causes other issues. The free promotion idea on a barracks line building isn't like that. It's just not exciting to me either. I already would build the barracks for a "free" promotion. It seems like the question there is more whether early offensive wars are worthwhile or not and not whether the barracks is. If they aren't, then a barracks is fine. If they are good, then the barracks is weak.
Windmill cost dropped to 150 (was 250). (270 in mod instead of 450).
Watermill upkeep dropped to 1, food to 1, production increased to 2
Mints effect gems (don't currently in mod) Cost reduced to 75 (was 100, 140 instead of 180 in mod).
Temple faith increased to 3. (probably paired with some increases to faith cost deltas?)
Drop aluminum requirement on hydro plants (watermill instead?)
Forge +1 production, +20% land units.
I could see the national happiness bonus on zoo/stadium being okay (especially on zoos). I'd be a little concerned about the cost (upfront) for stadiums. But that can be adjusted down easily.
I think barracks is fine as is, though I'd agree with Eric that the production on armories/academies is worth reducing in favor of some other effect, like a unit production bonus, and I'd rather do that than reduce their upkeep along with any barracks upkeep change. I'm really not excited about the barracks being more of a "broad" building though. I think it's already designed like that because production can be quite valuable early on and barracks can be created cheaply with the honor tree, and that this is something we should be trying to move away from. Free upkeep does not really do that either however, if it offers no bonus besides the XP and Hero Epic construction.
Melee subs is a function change, which causes other issues. The free promotion idea on a barracks line building isn't like that. It's just not exciting to me either. I already would build the barracks for a "free" promotion. It seems like the question there is more whether early offensive wars are worthwhile or not and not whether the barracks is. If they aren't, then a barracks is fine. If they are good, then the barracks is weak.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
@EricB, mitsho
I removed the
from armory & academy while keeping their maintenance cost. This should limit the tier 2-3 versions to military training cities. The tier 1 barracks are more broadly useful with no maintenance cost, when we're willing to pay the startup cost to build it. This follows the pattern of monument (broad) and museum (narrow). I'm going to try this new pattern more often with buildings. I think it will be easier to balance than my old approach of "make everything a little useful everywhere."
@mystikx21
I modified those buildings for v3.2.2, and others mentioned in this thread like observatories.
I removed the
from armory & academy while keeping their maintenance cost. This should limit the tier 2-3 versions to military training cities. The tier 1 barracks are more broadly useful with no maintenance cost, when we're willing to pay the startup cost to build it. This follows the pattern of monument (broad) and museum (narrow). I'm going to try this new pattern more often with buildings. I think it will be easier to balance than my old approach of "make everything a little useful everywhere."@mystikx21
I modified those buildings for v3.2.2, and others mentioned in this thread like observatories.
Anastase Alex
Warlord
Also, I would like to give Coloseums, Zoo and Stadium a +1 tourism each personally.
Seek
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2010
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I don't think we need tourism on happiness buildings - one can justify putting it on any building... It's unnecessary imo.
Empathy level increased +1 with you!
Sure, that's something to go towards making me consider building them early. Enough for now.
I do like EricB's unit construction proposal too.
Empathy level increased +1 with you!Sure, that's something to go towards making me consider building them early. Enough for now.
I do like EricB's unit construction proposal too.
We could use the unit construction bonus on the later buildings. They'd already be niche buildings anyway, it would just make them better at it. I'd propose the armory be limited to land units, and the military academy be for any military unit.
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