Building Re-Costing Project

[Thunderbrd]

I've just completed the first portion of step 1 of a massive Building Re-Costing Project.

The goal of this project is to get our building costs to follow some rational rulesets to being established.

To do so, I'm taking the following steps, and I'm asking for help and feedback with steps beyond this first one.

Step 1
To generate the base costs of the buildings, I've established this chart, found also in the Modder's Documentation thread:

Base Production Costs by Tech X Grid
(of the latest prereq tech to unlock the building or unit)
4/13/2017(est. during v38 design cycle)​

Column|Base Production Cost|+|Increments|Era Gateway
0|5|5|5 for 10|Prehistoric
1|10|5||
2|15|5||
3|20|5||
4|25|5||
5|30|5||
6|35|5||
7|40|5||
8|45|5||
9|50|5||
10|56|6|6 for 9|
11|62|6||
12|68|6||
13|74|6||
14|80|6||
15|86|6||
16|92|6||
17|98|6||
18|104|6||
19|111|7|7 for 8|Ancient
20|118|7||
21|125|7||
22|132|7||
23|139|7||
24|146|7||
25|153|7||
26|160|7||
27|168|8|8 for 7|
28|176|8||
29|184|8||
30|192|8||Classical
31|200|8||
32|208|8||
33|216|8||
34|225|9|9 for 6|
35|234|9||
36|243|9||
37|252|9||
38|261|9||
39|270|9||
40|280|10|10 for 5|
41|290|10||Medieval
42|300|10||
43|310|10||
44|320|10||
45|332|12|12 for 5|
46|344|12||
47|356|12||
48|368|12||
49|380|12||
50|395|15|15 for 5|Renaissance
51|410|15||
52|425|15||
53|440|15||
54|455|15||
55|475|20|20 for 5|
56|495|20||
57|515|20||
58|535|20||
59|555|20||
60|580|25|25 for 5|
61|605|25||Industrial
62|630|25||
63|655|25||
64|680|25||
65|710|30|30 for 5|
66|740|30||
67|770|30||
68|800|30||
69|830|30||
70|870|40|40 for 5|
71|910|40||Modern
72|950|40||
73|990|40||
74|1030|40||
75|1080|50|50 for 5|
76|1130|50||
77|1180|50||
78|1230|50||
79|1280|50||
80|1345|65|65 for 5|
81|1410|65||
82|1475|65||
83|1540|65||
84|1605|65||
85|1685|80|80 for 5|Information
86|1765|80||
87|1845|80||
88|1925|80||
89|2005|80||
90|2105|100|100 for 5|
91|2205|100||
92|2305|100||
93|2405|100||
94|2505|100||
95|2625|120|120 for 5|
96|2745|120||
97|2865|120||
98|2985|120||
99|3105|120||Nanotech
100|3245|140|140 for 5|
101|3385|140||
102|3525|140||
103|3665|140||
104|3805|140||
105|3975|170|170 for 5|
106|4145|170||
107|4315|170||
108|4485|170||
109|4655|170||
110|4855|200|200 for 5|Transhuman
111|5055|200||
112|5255|200||
113|5455|200||
114|5655|200||
115|5905|250|250 for 5|
116|6155|250||
117|6405|250||
118|6655|250||
119|6905|250||
120|7205|300|300 for 5|
121|7505|300||
122|7805|300||
123|8105|300||Galactic
124|8405|300||
125|8755|350|350 for 5|
126|9105|350||
127|9455|350||
128|9805|350||
129|10155|350||
130|10555|400|400 for 5|
131|10955|400||
132|11355|400||
133|11755|400||
134|12155|400||
135|12655|500|500 for 5|
136|13155|500||
137|13655|500||Cosmic
138|14155|500||
139|14655|500||
140|15255|600|600 for 5|
141|15855|600||
142|16455|600||
143|17055|600||
144|17655|600||
145|18355|700|700 for 5|
146|19055|700||
147|19755|700||
148|20455|700||Transcendent
149|21155|700||
150|21955|800|800 for 5|
151|22755|800||
152|23555|800||
153|24355|800||
154|25155|800||
155|26055|900|900 for 5|
156|26955|900||
157|27855|900||
158|28755|900||
159|29655|900||
160|30655|1000|1000|Future

National Wonders are x4
Group Wonders are x6
World Wonders are x8
Team Projects are x12

As of this point, I've used this chart to establish, in the xml for all core NORMAL, non-wonder buildings, the cost of each building. There are still numerous modules and, of course, Wonders of all types.

Along the way, I have also established categories for each building. Each building currently only has one category right now but as I've gone, I can clearly see some buildings should qualify for more than one category. These categories are a first loose attempt at organizing these buildings. I'm still unsure as to whether or not they should be embedded in the xml for these buildings and played on for larger effects in the code. For now, it just helps to sort them by these categories, and possibly more for steps to come. See below.

I have 2 documents that are in place/coming together that can help with further steps and as I've gone here, I've been fleshing out both.

The first is the The C2C Buildings spreadsheet. This one arranges all buildings into a sortable, filterable standard spreadsheet. It has the benefit of connecting the <Type> tag with the <Description> tag (what you see in game) for the modder who gets frustrated with those two tags sometimes having a disconnect.

The second is an Excel spreadsheet I've been working on at home here, a Building Evaluation Document, which I've attached. This document has the benefit of displaying all buildings, by their primary category, and within a column devoted to their tech x grid, so that you can trace, by category, building progressions.

One upcoming step here is to audit the building categories but I'm not sure yet if on this document, I'm going to allow for a building to be listed in more than one category or if I'm going to get much more specific with categories. Still debating on this. The first document allows for buildings to have 2nd and 3rd and so on categories but I'm even finding that some buildings may need to progress from one category to the next as they upgrade and one of the purposes of categorizing was to track, specifically, upgrading building chains.

It's possible, too, that I might find that there are differing categories of categories themselves. For example, I might need to recast these building categories on another page of the document, for Cost adjustment categories, which these main 'profession' categories don't really cover very well. A building may be categorized by its size, complexity, and difficulty in construction, in other words, rather than by the groupings it has been handed into here. Differing categorizations for differing purposes.

Anyhow, the point is, these are coming together and they are extremely useful for gaining numerous insights and overviews. Again, this first categorical grouping is an initial effort to taxonomize the buildings we have and it's still a little flawed, showing some interesting splits and divisions, some of which evolved as the list was evaluated further during the process. So not only can it still use some auditing, I've gotta figure out how to clear up some fuzzy spots in the logic.

None of that is too game specific in effect, but when evaluating the progression of some tag values on buildings, these documents will become priceless tools for guaging balanced assignments of those values.


Step 2
Completion of Step 1 now delves beyond the core generic buildings document. However, concurrently Step 2 may begin.

That's what this thread is really about. I need a community discussion here. I need to identify factors that could and should modify these base costs. The costs are now going up on the SVN and from this point, I need feedback from players. If you find a particular building costs too much or too little for your sensibilities, I need to know why. What building is it? What makes it feel like it costs too much or too little - what are the reasons that building seems high or low in cost?

I'm looking to identify these factors in wide parameters. In other words, I need to be able to identify, ok, that's a Passive Defense building (a wall basically) so it should cost 50% more because such buildings require tougher, heavier materials that take more effort to move around. Or is it so easily applied to ALL Passive Defense buildings? A fence is also a passive defense building, and the materials, while sometimes to be handled with care, are not nearly so heavy as a stone wall. So what's really the factor that a building can be categorized by that will lead to such a cost adjustment?

These are the discussions we need to start having, and you can start with any building that seems out of logic on it's cost.

Please also read the comments of others and offer your opinions on those as well. If you disagree or agree or have a differing take, I need to know! This thread should get lots of discussion.

I'd ask that we start looking at the buildings from the beginning of the game and move forward from there. I'll be looking to create cost adjustment categories and adjustment rules from these discussions. If we can try to frame the discussion points in a manner that assists as much as possible with that goal, that would be awesome!

Part of this also plays into Joseph's large scale balancing. If a whole era is too expensive or too cheap, I believe he has some tools to work with to adjust that. If ALL buildings seem too expensive or too cheap, he can definitely modify things by gamespeeds, globally. That's a HUGE part of what the feedback for this step is for suggesting.


Step 3
Then I'll be looking at stat evaluations, building upgrade chains, zoning, and more. This is going to open up the ease of implementing quite a bit to come here. I have a project plan in mind for fully evaluating supply chains, clarifying those buildings that represent the gathering of raw materials, the conversion of those materials to goods(processing/manufacturing), and THEN the application of those to economy in commercial shops and so on. Earlier buildings might combine roles but later buildings would become more distinct. Separating buildings into zone categories. Requiring zoning be constructed to open up access to constructing buildings that require specific zone slots, thus creating limits to how much a city can provide the nation in manufactured resources and creating some strategic value in your zoning decisions and enhancing city specialization.

Equipment plans hinge on some of this supply line evaluation so with these steps, we're rapidly advancing towards the Equipment side of the combat mod. I'm also likely to start really looking much closer still at volumetric resources and the trade changes that Spirictum is working on will be a huge factor in making the whole system even more spot on.

I've got a number of new property plans that will also fall into place with this kind of building evaluation. This is not the thread to discuss these but Energy, Radiation, Entertainment are the three that mostly come to mind.

Point is, step 3 is the pearl in this oyster of mass categorization efforts. The ease of implementation of huge project concepts is being built here.



But as it stands, we're still on Step I and II here.

So I need your feedback in this thread. To keep this succinct, please provide feedback in the following manner:
1) Provide the building you're finding too cheap or too expensive
2) Give your impression as to why. What factors do you think should be what makes this buildng more or less costly.
3) By how much? Try to talk in terms of %s if possible. Thus, I feel building x should be about 20% less costly because it is such a small building to construct and it's made with light materials... etc...
4) Should this apply, categorically, to other buildings that have similar factors and what other buildings, or at least a sampling of them, should be included in such a cost affecting category?


Sidenote: Please do not directly modify the online document unless you have been requested to take part in the project in some manner or have requested to and been approved to do so. And the Excell document is for reference. If you'd like to provide feedback on that document and the categorizations there and whether a building seems in the right category or not, go ahead, but if you make edits to that document locally and try to send it to me, it'd be too much to try to sort through so better to post suggested adjustments here.

Ok, let the doors open for feedback. Thanks in advance!

 

[pepper2000]

This looks very good. I haven't tried them yet, but just scanning the chart of building costs, they look much more in line with the right values. I'll wait for a bit to see what other feedback comes out, then change over the Earth buildings in my mod to reflect the new numbers. Non-Earth buildings will remain on their own formulas.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well... playtesting initially finds that we need to dramatically reduce, most likely, the global construction cost factor. WAAAY too high at the beginning of the game at least. Perhaps just the prehistoric needs a reduction but the early game is ALL about frantically trying your damnedest to increase production so that ANYTHING can get built. I might need to adjust the progression chart at the game beginning or something but it really feels at first like it's probably the gamespeed factors that should be adjusted. I had to spend like 40 rounds on snail to build an elder council and I gained like 5 - 7 techs in that span of time. Even the first building, the Alpha Male, takes longer to construct than the first tech takes to achieve. Had NO time to build wanderers and barely squeezed in to build a couple of gatherers, a spiked clubman and a tracker.

So I'm thinking a 50% reduction in the global construction costs would probably be a good start. This is exactly the kind of game we'd want for the upscaled building and unit costs though. (I'm not complaining about unit costs here... just the building costs are excessive and need some overall recalibration DOWNward.)

I'll have some more time to test, but Joe, can you do a quick test run and see if you agree?

@pepper2000 Thanks for the initial eval. The main thing is the ratio between them based on tech progress is now established. But there's a lot more to consider thanjust tech and we should start considering what those additional factors should be. As for dialing these in globally, do you agree with my assessment above on a quick game start test?

 

[Hydromancerx]

There should be some exceptions to the rules such as all crop farm buildings being the same cost no matter what era they are in (because they typically give the same bonus). Or factories being the same cost. Those are the kind of things I tried to apply when making buildings.

EDIT: You also might want to base the building cost by Era rather than by tech tree column, since columns change when reworking tech trees.

 

[Faustmouse]

I'll do a gamestart test tomorrow or the day after at least, but without even trying, why don't you just keep the PH era as it was? Because to me, it seems very well balanced and I don't see a reason why these values shouldn't be copy / pasted over...

There should be some exceptions to the rules such as all crop farm buildings being the same cost no matter what era they are in (because they typically give the same bonus). Or factories being the same cost. Those are the kind of things I tried to apply when making buildings.

IMO they shouldn't, as cost is not "equal cost = equal complexity", but turns to build something is. Therefore, if a factory comes in at industrialism, taking 3 turns, and then the Antigrav Generator Factory costing the same amount of it only takes 1 turn (or less). Otherwise there would be no reason why a darn Basketball Field is 100 times more costly than the Pyramides

 

[raxo2222]

There are nice two world wonders, that have some fun tags in them. These tags could be used for creating test building.
One gives you free European culture, and other gives you a lot of plants. I think it was seed vault, when I built it, I was able to produce all orchads, that had these plants as vicinity requirements.

There is around 20 terrains and slightly less features of each type (earth ones)

So you could make magic unit, that can terraform to any Earthly terrain and be capable of placing any feature.
Or just place every terrain and feature in range of city.

Similiarly you could have magic building, that would give you every unique culture and map resource.

Both of them could be placed in magic tech, that you could activate in world builder for testing.

Vokayra module Great Wonder - Svalbard Global Seed Vault has tags like these:
<ExtraFreeBonuses>
<ExtraFreeBonus>
<FreeBonus>BONUS_APPLE</FreeBonus>
<iNumFreeBonuses>1</iNumFreeBonuses>
</ExtraFreeBonus>
....

In this case you get effectively apple resource in city vicinity - there is 109 resources, so you would use 109 times ExtraFreeBonus tags.

In same file - VokaryaWonders_CIV4BuildingInfos.xml there is nice Ellis Island wonder, that gives you European culture.
If you wanted all cultures, then you would need to use 7 wariants of this tag:
<FreeBuilding>BUILDINGCLASS_GOOD_EUROPEAN</FreeBuilding>

City size requirement is easy - just set your city to certian size.

If state religion, civic, certian amount of buildings, something can't be built if something else is here, or being group wonder requirement is here, well then it gets messy.
Or such buildings aren't prerequirements for anything else?

These extremely cheaty tips are useful, if you want to build every building possible in whole
mod at once.

By the way Palace gives you 10 commerce that is 10 beakers unadjusted, 100% research speed.
Maybe that could be adjusted to 5 commerce or lower?
This way starting research rate would be lower.

Edit:
Gigantic/Eternity/Marathon: There is tiny bit faster research than production.


3 food, 2 production, one commerce + 10 commerce from palace.
Palace commerce could be cutdown.
This way research would be slower on beginning.
Also I enchanted palace with Vokarya magic - notice, that it gives apple and European culture.
First world wonder takes 120 turns on beginning - 6x more than normal building.



<ExtraFreeBonuses>
<ExtraFreeBonus>
<FreeBonus>BONUS_APPLE</FreeBonus>
<iNumFreeBonuses>1</iNumFreeBonuses>
</ExtraFreeBonus>
</ExtraFreeBonuses>
<FreeBuilding>BUILDINGCLASS_GOOD_EUROPEAN</FreeBuilding>
This is magic, that I added to palace.

There is enough space for all terrains and land features in 5x5 area.

 

[Noriad2]

Just because a building uses big stones is no reason why it should be more expensive. Finding a bunch of morons to push stuff around is easy. Finding people who are qualified to do complex work that takes years of experience, is a bit harder.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Initial reaction is this, your scaling accelerates too fast in the beginning of the Preh Era and that is your problem with your brief test. Adjusting game speed settings for building costs down will make anything past tribalism take off like a rocket.

The 1st 10 columns should only hit 10 by the 10th column. Your initial 0 column should have been no higher than a 1 or 2, and the 5th column no higher than a 5 imho. And even the 10 for X column 10 may be too high also.

Adjusting If possible by era may work, maybe.

I'm not sure how you set your values, and what "formula" you used. Something like: X = Y+(N+1) or X = Y+(N-1) with the limit range of 1 to 44, then the formula changes. But I don't think you factored in the GS scales themselves by number of turns for each GS, ie. x = amount of turns for build (times) 1 for Normal so normal would be 1x, 2x for Epic, 3.35x for Marathon, 5x for Snail, 6.5x for Eon, and 8.2x for Eternity.

You are right though, testing is definitely needed. And perhaps initial reactions will prove to be incorrect. Just sayin'.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There should be some exceptions to the rules such as all crop farm buildings being the same cost no matter what era they are in (because they typically give the same bonus). Or factories being the same cost. Those are the kind of things I tried to apply when making buildings.

I have a number of thoughts on this.
1) Most of these categorical buildings I found to have a tremendous number of introduced in a limited number of x grid collumns.

2) When they are within a collumn or two, perhaps we could average the two and apply it to all of them within that cluster.

3) I get a perception problem with those in a similar category that are too far separate in tech access, both on how much they cost and how little they bring to the table in benefits later in the tech tree.

4) This tells me that we should have layers of upgrades of these categorized buildings. Thus, Agriculture Level I may be what you can build with any crops that open up at xgrid 2-6 (with some selectivity for a tighter sub-group category cluster, such as, perhaps, 'Gatherers') with a single average cost, but also comparable benefits (+1 food) but Agriculture Level II (Farms) buildings could then get a single average cost a bit higher, but also have comparable benefits (+2 food) and many gatherer types would upgrade to farm types. And it goes on like that. Mines span a huge amount of techs and perhaps there should be numerous layers that have same costs, but also same, and increasing, benefits. +1 Production, if we can keep the % values in some degree of check, increasing with technological upgrades steps, would make sense. Building a Coal mine and getting roughly the same benefit as an original Iron Mine, even if at the same kind of paltry cost at this stage of the game, doesn't make an impact in the player's ability to see a meaningful contribution to production in the city at this stage. But if the original Iron Mine was upgrading to an Iron Mine level III at this point, then it would make sense - not like the Iron Mine shouldn't be better due to newer Mine improvements and manpower anyhow.

5) Some of this has been very difficult to group properly and with the initial categorizing, I think I can now audit these into a proper sub-grouping that can account for this kind of improved approach.

EDIT

: You also might want to base the building cost by Era rather than by tech tree column, since columns change when reworking tech trees.

Doesn't work by era. Maybe to some extent by sub-eras, as in a couple of techs separate, but by a whole era there is just too much gain of production expectation throughout every era for this to work.

why don't you just keep the PH era as it was? Because to me, it seems very well balanced and I don't see a reason why these values shouldn't be copy / pasted over...

I didn't feel it was. There were many buildings that stood out like sore thumbs with too high or too low a cost. And we need to get the assignment down to a method and a science and away from arbitrary. Arbitrary is going to just end up with the kind of chaos this mod dramatically suffers from.

There are nice two world wonders, that could be used to make tests:

World Wonders haven't been costed so they would be less than useful at testing right now. Some core buildings are actually just as expensive as concurrent wonders at the moment. Wonders are going to prove to be way too cheap for this setup until we get them recosted and the whole system dialed in properly.

Just because a building uses big stones is no reason why it should be more expensive. Finding a bunch of morons to push stuff around is easy.

That's still a huge part of the production value a city has though, the manpower and 'general' building supplies. So while I get your overall point in a comparison factor, I don't think the shifting of mass, as in the size and volume of the materials, is insignificant at all. Production is very closely a measure of available labor manpower.

Finding people who are qualified to do complex work that takes years of experience, is a bit harder.

Another matter to keep in mind. The extent and complexity of the building. Thus, on this scale, a Wall would be quite simple, whereas a Castle would be quite complex. We very well should rate this 'Architectural Planning' Factor and apply it to help with deriving the end cost as well.

Initial reaction is this, your scaling accelerates too fast in the beginning of the Preh Era and that is your problem with your brief test. Adjusting game speed settings for building costs down will make anything past tribalism take off like a rocket.

You're probably right to a degree. I don't mind if the first part seems a little tough to break through to easier build times though.

The 1st 10 columns should only hit 10 by the 10th column. Your initial 0 column should have been no higher than a 1 or 2, and the 5th column no higher than a 5 imho. And even the 10 for X column 10 may be too high also.

You get far too many +:Hammer: benefits too quickly for that, though I admit that the beginning ramps too steeply.

The problem is that any change to this progression will cost a repeat of months of work because it would adjust every cost to come thereafter. As you see from the progression of the chart, every amount is based on a measured increase of the amount before it. If you change where it begins, you change every value on the list. I pray that:

Adjusting If possible by era may work, maybe.

This can succeed because if it doesn't, thats a few months wasted. If it MUST be re-adjusted, then I am on the road to a programmed solution that sets the cost in the DLL by numerous new tags and XML established building categories. Might be better that way anyhow. But I'm not doing all this again as I've just done it. Took tooooooooooooooooooooooo long.

I'm not sure how you set your values, and what "formula" you used. Something like: X = Y+(N+1) or X = Y+(N-1) with the limit range of 1 to 44, then the formula changes. But I don't think you factored in the GS scales themselves by number of turns for each GS, ie. x = amount of turns for build (times) 1 for Normal so normal would be 1x, 2x for Epic, 3.35x for Marathon, 5x for Snail, 6.5x for Eon, and 8.2x for Eternity.

It's clearly expressed in the chart above. We started with 5, and at that stage we're adding 5 per collumn up until we hit collumn 10 at which point we shift to adding 6 per collumn for the next 9 collumns, then 7 per collumn for the next 8 collumns and so on. The chart explains the progression itself. And it works well, but the beginning is a little rough.

We MIGHT benefit from adding a little production to the Palace to help balance the very beginning a bit. Raxo was talking about adjusting the commece to slow down the tech but that's just slowing down every speed a little and that's not the goal.

I didn't HATE the way it played out... it was actually kinda interesting to see that you can't just beeline to get the Elder Council as it takes a lot of investment into production to put it into reach of being built without impeding other things that actually may improve your production and research faster for now, like hunting units and cheaper 11 round builds like Knowledge Inheritance. I think if the whole thing was reduced by 50% it would probably be a little bit of the upsides of how this improves gameplay and a lot less of how it impacts it negatively. As for how quickly things get built afterwards, it's still going to be edging upwards rather quickly throughout the prehistoric.

As you say, we need a lot more testing. Initially I'm inclined to agree somewhat but I'm really hoping we can avoid having to change the chart itself as the chart, being the first step and the foundation, was tremendously difficult to come up with in the first place so that it plotted a nice smooth arc through what had previously been fairly well tested production point standards seen in up to now. I THINK we can still make this work.

You are right though, testing is definitely needed. And perhaps initial reactions will prove to be incorrect. Just sayin'.

Your honesty in this case is a good thing. But let's please first TRY to find a solution that doesn't involve recasting all these base costs if possible. If we have to go that route, it's going to be a little painful and will be better to take a much rockier road to an easier future.


@Raxo: I'm trying to pick out some gems of feedback from what you're saying but I feel like you're having a hard time staying focused on the topic here and I'm only going to respond to what's on point.

 

[Thunderbrd]

But I don't think you factored in the GS scales themselves by number of turns for each GS, ie. x = amount of turns for build (times) 1 for Normal so normal would be 1x, 2x for Epic, 3.35x for Marathon, 5x for Snail, 6.5x for Eon, and 8.2x for Eternity.

Do we have a way to easily go with 3/5ths of what we currently have across the whole board, or must we calculate that out so we change 100 on this tag to 60 for normal and 500 to 300 for Snail (and then calculate by x3 /5 for all the rest of the tag values as we had them previously). This seems to test out quite nicely, at least at first. Still prodding a bit. As you've pointed out, the true test is if it 'takes off like a rocket' after a point here.

EDIT: So far I'm liking Snail speed at 300. A lot. It COULD go down to half (250). Some further testing between the 2 will be good. I'm saving some sample games at various points to help in testing this. See what you think on games further in if you have some samples of your own, which I assume you do.

 

[Faustmouse]

Don't forget that you also have the tool of adding + buildings or a bonus-by-tech to a building. If your chart is way off, maybe a new kind of "factory" is needed.

And I think that if the start is too slow, it would be reasonable to reduce the cost of Gatherer-type buildings by quite a bit; after all they aren't real buildings but rather a dude that says "hey I'm going to collect some stuff!"

 

[raxo2222]

I
World Wonders haven't been costed so they would be less than useful at testing right now. Some core buildings are actually just as expensive as concurrent wonders at the moment. Wonders are going to prove to be way too cheap for this setup until we get them recosted and the whole system dialed in properly.

huh? How it has anything to my post?
you skipped my whole post about using certian tags from these wonders to make test building, that unlocks all unique cultures and gives every resource for testing purpose.
Also if you place on spot, that has all terrains and features, you will be able to see all buildings.

This way you would be able to build or at least see all buildings from start of game.
So my feedback wasn't about costs of buildings, but on how to see most of them in game, so you can see ingame costs.

 

[Faustmouse]

What raxo was trying to say is that if you build the Seed Vault, your city can build ALL the 2 resources in vicinity farm buildings. But that is not the kind of testing that's needed here, raxo.

 

[raxo2222]

What raxo was trying to say is that if you build the Seed Vault, your city can build ALL the 2 resources in vicinity farm buildings. But that is not the kind of testing that's needed here, raxo.

So you don't need to artifacially make most buildings buildable?

 

[Faustmouse]

No. It's not to see if these all cost the same, it is about if the cost of buildings fit the specific point in game where they become available. For example if one farm is ok, all of them will be.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Don't forget that you also have the tool of adding + buildings or a bonus-by-tech to a building. If your chart is way off, maybe a new kind of "factory" is needed.

And I think that if the start is too slow, it would be reasonable to reduce the cost of Gatherer-type buildings by quite a bit; after all they aren't real buildings but rather a dude that says "hey I'm going to collect some stuff!"

Agree.

Just by taking Alpha Male and Alpha Female and doubling their Yield bonus from +1 to +2 makes a difference on all GS. Little tweaks like these can go a long way and not wreck the later game stages by making wholesale global modifier changes.

The Cost charting and standardization was Very much needed. But Imhpo it's now a matter of making small tweaks to individual bldgs "outputs" that are needed. Not the wholesale changes thru GS/Era/Global modifiers. It's my take so far on this. Cause we Have to have games that are played thru many eras to get a handle on the effects to individual bldgs and "global" modifiers to the process of Building buildings.

T-brd wrote:

As you say, we need a lot more testing. Initially I'm inclined to agree somewhat but I'm really hoping we can avoid having to change the chart itself as the chart, being the first step and the foundation, was tremendously difficult to come up with in the first place so that it plotted a nice smooth arc through what had previously been fairly well tested production point standards seen in up to now. I THINK we can still make this work.

We can make it work and no it does not need redone. We just have to look at All factors to see which is the best path to balance. As I stated above I'm leaning to individual "buildings" tweaks vs Global Mods. But only testing will give a clear picture of this process.

 

[Thunderbrd]

We can make it work and no it does not need redone. We just have to look at All factors to see which is the best path to balance. As I stated above I'm leaning to individual "buildings" tweaks vs Global Mods. But only testing will give a clear picture of this process.

While we do need to audit building progressions and really note spots on the tech tree where units are getting too cheap or too expensive, buildings are getting too cheap or too expensive, and/or techs are getting too cheap or too expensive (with some expectation of variation due to noteworthy bubbles of achievement), I've been pretty happy with playtesting results so far on the 3/5ths construction cost tests. See if you agree. It punishes beelining for power buildings in a neat way - making smaller gains perhaps more valuable than larger ones earlier because they may lead to getting the larger ones even faster. It asks for slightly elevated strategic thinking imo. So far as I've experienced anyhow. I'm not toooo far into the prehistoric with this testing so far. And I know this really will be put to the test as we enter ancient era.

 

[JosEPh_II]

So you have taken this tag for Snail GS <iConstructPercent>500</iConstructPercent> and reduced it to 300.

You will find that by Mid Ancient to Early Classical Era buildings will be produced in multiple sets. You will be queuing up 5 or more buildings and getting them all built in one turn. Is this what you really want? And it gets even faster as the Eras go by.

So did your costs Increase that much to compensate?

 

[Thunderbrd]

So you have taken this tag for Snail GS <iConstructPercent>500</iConstructPercent> and reduced it to 300.

Not on the SVN. Just locally to test. All values for that tag could then easily be adjusted OR if we do have a global tag for iConstructionCost, we could adjust that. I don't know if we have that - was hoping you'd know. I could always check the code. Or make one if we need it. I know that using 100 as a base was what you were trying to do there to make all the tags so similar but they were designed as different tags for a reason, so that adjusting the balancing for that factor did not have to mean adjusting balancing for other factors as well. I know not all the modders agree that's the way it should've been. If we had global sweeping modifiers for all these factors as well, we might not need all these tags in gamespeeds.

Building costs did trend to increase in the midgame quite a bit based on this chart, where there was a bulge where the chart was far too cheap. Mid ancient was about where that began and it wasn't until modern it started to fall in line with the older established curve, then get cheaper into the transhuman and beyond in comparison to the old standards. This was one of the big problems with the previous platform we were using, as I'm sure you noticed in playtesting. Yes, ALL general buildings through ALL eras were adapted to the new progression so we'll have to make sure in all eras that it's getting a good feel for build times. Yeah, the first rounds feel like you're clawing out but if you invest correctly you'll do pretty well and the AI seems to be adapting fine.

It'll take more testing but if it's been working pretty good for the units whatever things are set at, it should work pretty well for the buildings. Plus, I think we then have era modifiers we can work with right? If need be I can set up a tag for that too.

So yeah, I know I'll need to test this out to Classical and maybe even a bit beyond to ensure the progression chart is aggressive enough for mid-ages. I guess I was hoping you'd play a bit with the 3/5ths setting and let me know how you feel it progresses at the beginning of the game.

 

[JosEPh_II]

So yeah, I know I'll need to test this out to Classical and maybe even a bit beyond to ensure the progression chart is aggressive enough for mid-ages. I guess I was hoping you'd play a bit with the 3/5ths setting and let me know how you feel it progresses at the beginning of the game.

Just have not had the time to test since you posted the changes with your SVN commit. And just wanted to make sure I was understanding what and why you were testing with the 3/5ths.

EDIT: All <iConstructionPercent> for all Eras is currently set at 100. So if the coding lets us actually use this Tag from the EraInfos file then we can make adjustment as a global from this file as needed. And I would rather do this than adjust from the GSInfos file.