C2C - Building Review Thread

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So I have a concept shaping up of a new Game Object Class called 'Ideas'. Ideas would be something units can 'know' or possess. They would have various categories and would be 'learned' from all sorts of sources, including yes, combat. Different types of units would be able to learn and spread differing categories of Ideas. Tales, for example, might be something a combatant unit might come to possess thanks to having been in a battle but it can't actively spread that tale - that's where a storyteller unit comes in - he can learn the tale from the combatant then go back and spread the tale around in cities.

The main problem I have with this is that it ignores a big part of the game - how on earth does the information about what your explorers have found get back to your nation.

We already have an option/global we can use for this sort of option. Currently you can have your subdued animals returned to the nearest city or require the unit that captured them escort them to safely.

On the story teller line I have been thinking about their automation and while it could be done in Python it would require a lot of time consuming callbacks to the dll. based on your comments and my ideas the following is a broad outline of how I think they should work

On Creation - get a promotion that represents each"heritage" style building they can teach.

This means the dance buildings that the nation can build ie have the tech for plus the story buildings in the city they are created.​

When in a city - check if they can build anything if not, check if they can learn anything otherwise find another city to go to

If they can build something - build it and see if they survive (I see the death of this unit as really the unit retiring in the city); if they survive they get an exp and rest for a turn or two maybe

If there is nothing left to build then try and learn something if there is something available. The number of turns to learn something would be based on exp taking less time the more exp.​

Find another city to go to - are there any cities to teach what the unit knows or any cities that it can learn something at.

This only leaves the problem of upgrading and their use in warfare and slave revolts. It may be useful to have them able to visit vassal and colony cities as well to get other stories to bring back.​

I expect there to be a set Great Artist missions which would consolidate and spread these heritage buildings to all cities.

edit @Faustmouse I have bee trying to figure out that national wonder problem but have had no luck so far. There is definitely nothing wrong with the Building Infos XML which just leaves the Building Class and Units to check.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'll be leaving you with a great deal of manipulability as to how things actually process. I'm merely looking at creating a structure that can generically handle that plus a lot of other angles.

When you ask 'how on earth does the information get back to the city' are you insinuating that it shouldn't be auto-transported back or that it should? You then talked about options and perhaps that might be the way to go between determining the two.

I'm not really all that much in favor of the units 'death/retirement' when they are so developable. Particularly since the more developed they are the less likely it generally would be for them to 'retire' whereas you'd think it'd go the opposite way if we're talking retirement. I can see what you're going for in making it be a risk to the unit like combat is a risk to combatant units but I think they risk themselves with every journey anyhow - particularly since they'd be a great target for criminal units to take out.

Ack... this is only sorta about buildings at this point.

AI could be worked out in the dll fairly easily I think. Gotta also consider they'd want to be accompanied. In combat applications I think these units would be awesome to play in to the planned morale system.

The main difference here is that this shouldn't require promotions for them to expand their 'Idea' list. The promos would expand how easily they learn them and how easily (and with what strength since Ideas would be tracked in a city by a % of the population that knows and/or adheres to them) they spread and promote them.

Autobuildings would be derived in the city from Idea influences much like they are from properties. Some would be a kind of boolean (the city - any portion of it - is aware of this story for example) and would thus be autobuilt at 1% or more presence of the idea in the city. (This also gives us a decay ability that could enable citizens to - over generations - forget particular ideas like stories.) Other autobuildings would emerge depending on the % of influence of that Idea in the city. Examples: local governmental policy buildings may emerge or disappear depending on the current public opinion which could be expressed as an idea. Cultural Holiday buildings may emerge or disappear depending on the strength of a given Culture in the city (a culture being expressed here as an idea among the culture category of which there may only be a total of 100% and all cultures take their own slices of that pie.)

Anyhow... it's a little complex but I'll start a new thread on it as I get closer to a more concrete concept here - something that can be more discussed for all the broad capabilities it will bring with it.

 

[Hydromancerx]

With minerals it is a bit harder because today most are hidden underground but they were available on the surface. You only have to look at mining in Australia to see that. Iron, bauxite and copper all sitting on the surface in rich enough form to require almost no pre processing.

You can still see the terrain areas where minerals would spawn in. Also features like Volcanoes you can predict that sulphur and/or obsidian will spawn at it if it ever goes dormant.

When I say this is a deflection I'd like to clarify that it doesn't address the basic point being made but rather focuses directly in on this one example. It's good that we have a workaround to Masonry. Just what techs CAN'T we get without these ones though? If we envisioned that world without let's say all these beasts of burden (which America WAS apparently) then made it impossible to get these techs without having some kind of access to at least observe these creatures, how far could we actually go in the tech tree and what would we never know? Far too many techs fall into this withheld group I believe.

I think most of the problems we had in the past with the Domestication techs has been resolved. What they lead to now makes more sense, for example ...

Equine Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Chariots - This was a primary Horse based sport so this makes sense.
- Horse Breeding - Also a no brainier on the horse based techs.
- Plough - On could argue that an Oxen plough would do just fine but I think having to research one more tech (Equine Domestication) to get this is reasonable.

Elephant Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Armored Calvary - This is WAY in the Medieval era. By this time you should know how to counter exotic mounts like Elephants. Note if you have no Calvary then your probably not going to research this either.

Camel Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Cavalry Tactics - This is a Renaissance tech. If you have not encountered Camels or Llamas in your game by now then that's just sad. Note if you have no Calvary then your probably not going to research this either.

Again my point is that you can go for a long time without researching those teach but after awhile you have to get them.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I'm not really all that much in favor of the units 'death/retirement' when they are so developable. Particularly since the more developed they are the less likely it generally would be for them to 'retire' whereas you'd think it'd go the opposite way if we're talking retirement.

How many people who set out to become musicians actually get beyond their first gig?

I do know of someone who died because of dance but not of someone telling a story.

If there is no risk then get rid of the middleman and make the dances and stories auto build instead.

Ack... this is only sorta about buildings at this point.

AI could be worked out in the dll fairly easily I think. Gotta also consider they'd want to be accompanied. In combat applications I think these units would be awesome to play in to the planned morale system.

I am not talking about the AI I am talking about the user option to automate them. I would not automate the ones involved in my war effort as I want to handle them myself.

The main difference here is that this shouldn't require promotions for them to expand their 'Idea' list. The promos would expand how easily they learn them and how easily (and with what strength since Ideas would be tracked in a city by a % of the population that knows and/or adheres to them) they spread and promote them.

I misunderstood what you were saying about how a unit would know something.

Again my point is that you can go for a long time without researching those teach but after awhile you have to get them.

But do do you have to. That is one of the major problems I have with C2C. The idea that you have to study every tech to get to the end of the tech tree. I am not talking dead end techs here but alternate paths through the tree.

 

[Yudishtira]

I think most of the problems we had in the past with the Domestication techs has been resolved. What they lead to now makes more sense, for example ...

Equine Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Chariots - This was a primary Horse based sport so this makes sense.
- Horse Breeding - Also a no brainier on the horse based techs.
- Plough - On could argue that an Oxen plough would do just fine but I think having to research one more tech (Equine Domestication) to get this is reasonable.

Elephant Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Armored Calvary - This is WAY in the Medieval era. By this time you should know how to counter exotic mounts like Elephants. Note if you have no Calvary then your probably not going to research this either.

Camel Domestication
- Megafauna Domestication - This is obvious for the Alt-Timeline stuff.
- Animal Riding - Also makes sense. Note this is an OR requirement with the others.
- Cavalry Tactics - This is a Renaissance tech. If you have not encountered Camels or Llamas in your game by now then that's just sad. Note if you have no Calvary then your probably not going to research this either.

Again my point is that you can go for a long time without researching those teach but after awhile you have to get them.

It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense that, if you want to ride bears, you have to learn about the domestication of three other animals first - animals that you may not know of the existence of.

Armored Calvary - This is WAY in the Medieval era. By this time you should know how to counter exotic mounts like Elephants. Note if you have no Cavalry then your probably not going to research this either.

Cavalry Tactics - This is a Renaissance tech. If you have not encountered Camels or Llamas in your game by now then that's just sad. Note if you have no Cavalry then your probably not going to research this either.

Are you saying these are dead-end techs? I didn't think there were any of those. In fact, isn't that what this whole debate is about - the defence of the doctrine against dead-end techs?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Dead ends are not the issue under discussion. It is the ability to get to the end of the tree without having to take all the paths to get there.

There are historic precedents for nations skipping copper and bronze and going straight to iron. You can't do that in C2C. The Horse/elephant/camel argument is just another example of this.

 

[Thunderbrd]

How many people who set out to become musicians actually get beyond their first gig?

I do know of someone who died because of dance but not of someone telling a story.

If there is no risk then get rid of the middleman and make the dances and stories auto build instead.

It's not a matter of risk so much as a matter of management. As I said... there's risk they'll make the trip if there's rogues etc... out and about.

HOWEVER, that said, I must admit that your first point struck a chord and you've convinced me it might not be such a bad idea. The more successful they are the more likely they are to continue at their craft - the danger is they give up out of a loss of morale and/or resources to continue and hang up their hats in preference of a more stable employment. That does happen to many (perhaps the vast majority of) entertainers, missionaries, traders and business owners etc... I can dig it now that you've made it make sense for me. The more success they achieve the more success they are likely to continue to achieve and don't get bound up by the logistics and overhead of their day to day operations. Now makes total sense to me.

I am not talking about the AI I am talking about the user option to automate them. I would not automate the ones involved in my war effort as I want to handle them myself.

Obviously the two are intrinsically linked and are both necessary for the system to work. If I'm not mistaken, Automation often just turns over control of the unit to the same processing as the AI would utilize. (I should know this since I'm plying through a lot of AI trying to solve OOS errors at the moment but while I've seen some hints this is the case I've not completely verified it for myself yet.)

I misunderstood what you were saying about how a unit would know something.

To be more clear about that, it would be information stored on a unit much like promotions are. Promotions are a game object class and they come with button art and so on. Ideas would be a game object class as well but those known to the unit would probably just be displayed in a comma delineated list on another hotkey page on unit hoverover. How the unit works with that Idea would be a matter of tags on the Idea definition itself. Some unit types could learn ideas, by category, from other units or cities on the same tile that have that idea already, then teach/spread the idea elsewhere. Perhaps to other units, perhaps to cities.

Dead ends are not the issue under discussion. It is the ability to get to the end of the tree without having to take all the paths to get there.

There are historic precedents for nations skipping copper and bronze and going straight to iron. You can't do that in C2C. The Horse/elephant/camel argument is just another example of this.

Exactly. Since this is Caveman2Cosmos I think we should begin to consider how other life sustaining planets may have developed and how our civilizations may be able to develop on those other planets. We want to be open to being able to encompass this type of thinking is all I'm saying. On other planets you may not have ANY Tin. You might not have any Lead. Perhaps no Mushrooms. Chickens surely didn't develop on all worlds. And keeping ourselves open to extra-terrestrial living resources might be very cool too. Our tech tree should very well be adaptable to these kinds of varieties of environment without demanding the knowledge of a tech that may never have had any kind of rationale to develop!

I had a game without any horses anywhere on the globe once... just an example. Felt very odd to have to learn how to domesticate and ride what never existed.

 

[Yudishtira]

The buildings providing Poison, Bone and Masks should not go obsolete if they have no replacement. Maybe I should just remove the obsolete from all of them.

 

[Snofru1]

The buildings providing Poison, Bone and Masks should not go obsolete if they have no replacement. Maybe I should just remove the obsolete from all of them.

 

[Nevets_]

The buildings providing Poison, Bone and Masks should not go obsolete if they have no replacement. Maybe I should just remove the obsolete from all of them.

Agreed. Personally, I don't think any resource should got totally obsolete if it still has any use, whether it is practical, religious, or ornamental. So things like stone tools don't really have any use after you learn how to make metal ones since they were only used for practical purposes, but things like masks and feathers and whatnot are ornamental, and there is always going to be a demand for luxury items made out of authentic or traditional materials. I think what we should do is when the resource falls out of general use or is replaced by a more practical alternative (such as when furs get obsoleted at the Plastics tech), instead of becoming obsolete we change yield bonuses for the improvements and buildings that use/produce that resource, reducing hammers/commerce/science and increasing culture/happiness.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Agree but it may be best to make buildings that replace them instead of not obsoleting them. Building 'huts' in the modern era doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

[Nevets_]

I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to consolidate some factories, based on their inputs. So instead of a clothes factory, a sail factory, and a rope factory you have a cloth factory that requires hemp/silk/linen/cotton or whatever fibers, and produces cloth and all the things you can make from that cloth. It's not really realistic, but neither is the fact that a rope hut takes 50 and a rope factory takes 10,000 and they produce the same amount of rope. Until we get some kind of benefit from having more than 1 of a resource there isn't any realism reason to build factories, so might as well make them produce more types of things instead of more of the same type of thing.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

We have the code for a basic quantity manufacturing system in Platyping's Manufactured Resource mod. Basically each resource in your nation produces x consumable resource, eg each improved copper resource produces produces 2 copper consumable per turn. Then each unit requires 1 copper to build with out the consumable you can't build the unit. Consumables can't be traded because the AI does not know what to do with them. The current AI ensures that the ai nations get the resource so no extra AI is needed there.

The question is how do we use this in C2C? Also how do we display it in a way that it makes sense to the player that the reason they can't build that ship is that they don't have enough rope (consumable)?

C2C takes transportation into account so that copper may be available in one city but not in another until you have the tech needed to transport it. Platyping's code is based on a national store that any city can access even if it is not connected to the trade network.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to consolidate some factories, based on their inputs. So instead of a clothes factory, a sail factory, and a rope factory you have a cloth factory that requires hemp/silk/linen/cotton or whatever fibers, and produces cloth and all the things you can make from that cloth. It's not really realistic, but neither is the fact that a rope hut takes 50 and a rope factory takes 10,000 and they produce the same amount of rope. Until we get some kind of benefit from having more than 1 of a resource there isn't any realism reason to build factories, so might as well make them produce more types of things instead of more of the same type of thing.

Makes total sense to me. So will you be working on this then? Or is this basically speaking to Hydro and he's not answering?

We have the code for a basic quantity manufacturing system in Platyping's Manufactured Resource mod. Basically each resource in your nation produces x consumable resource, eg each improved copper resource produces produces 2 copper consumable per turn. Then each unit requires 1 copper to build with out the consumable you can't build the unit. Consumables can't be traded because the AI does not know what to do with them. The current AI ensures that the ai nations get the resource so no extra AI is needed there.

The question is how do we use this in C2C? Also how do we display it in a way that it makes sense to the player that the reason they can't build that ship is that they don't have enough rope (consumable)?

C2C takes transportation into account so that copper may be available in one city but not in another until you have the tech needed to transport it. Platyping's code is based on a national store that any city can access even if it is not connected to the trade network.

I'd LOVE a volumetric resource management system but it's a VERY complex thing to do and we'd really have to test whatever was done extensively before releasing it onto the SVN to make sure that it's not terribly annoying. It would probably have to be able to blend into the mod as an option - representing further difficulty in implementing of course. You bring up a lot of the first valid questions but just reading that post I'd have many of my own.

Personally, I've got far too many projects on the plate to even consider this angle of the game so I would not be able to offer help here for some time to come. I can see the can squirming from all the many powerful worms within before the can is even opened. The AI work alone... makes me shudder. There's some things I'll be doing in the (hopefully) near future that would enable us to make AI work on things like this much easier on us.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Platyping's code does not need any AI. It works based on the ai doing what it does now ie improving and connecting resources to the trade network. It has no buildings that convert resources to other resources. Even if it did then the ai on choosing the building to be built would not change since the production of a bonus is surely already included in the decision on what to build next.

edit actually that latter is something we need to address for the player. When suggesting what to build next any buildings which produce a resource the player does not have should be suggested. Eg the Butchery - the number of games I have forgotten to build one and then had to import raw meat. This is done in the dll unfortunately so I can't do it.

BtW I have been away the last week. I've playing a multi player strategy game. 1 hour turns are not unusual and the whole genre is set up to antagonize new players so they wont continue playing. At least some warn newbies and suggest ways of avoiding older hands leaching of them. In the one I tried the old hands find it amusing and actively use the method to get rid of new players - or that is the idea I get from reading the forums. I am now reaching the point of 4 hours per turn (turn = the time between actions I can do) and it is getting boring.

 

[Thunderbrd]

If you think it's convertable to the C2C environment and would play out well I'd love to try it. Is there a way to 'easily' make it optional?

To answer you're question, a display on unit and building help hovers stating Requires X resource then showing (x/y) x would be the amount the city has available while y would be the amount the unit will cost. So it would be a line (hopefully right at the bottom) for each resource req saying something like:
Requires Copper Wares (x/y)

Would be best to show that line regardless of whether the resource is available or not.

Also... on the resources panel is it possible to show the current income and storage of a given resource? Is it possible to have storage limitations in a city, potential overflow, transportation of said resources via merchant units? There's a lot that could be done here... I think in C2C a LOCAL storage tracking mechanism would be necessary, rather than a national one.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Argh! I forgot the storage of data from python to the save appears to be being corrupted. This means that this mod can't be done. I suppose we could write it to an INI file - no that would not work for loading other than the current/latest save.

The may have been caused when Koshling did the latest graphics paging. Apparently he tried to merge in the Event Signs. Event Signs are all done in Python so perhaps it would have been better just to call whatever the redraw function is.

edit gah what am I talking about! Platyping's mod doesn't use that method. It adds the consumable resources to the capital city! So yes we may be able to make stuff local. It would needs a whole new set of resources to work since normal resources are not quantitive.

 

[Yudishtira]

Agree but it may be best to make buildings that replace them instead of not obsoleting them. Building 'huts' in the modern era doesn't seem to make much sense.

I personally don't like adding identical buildings with different names for later eras. But if we can decide what those buildings are, maybe I'll do it that way.

Poison is obsoleted by Chemistry, so should the Chemicals building also give Poison? After all, some poisons have other applications eg. digitalis is a medicine. And of course, overdoses of medicines are often poisons...

Then again, why should you be forced to close your Snake Pit and stop cultivating Curare by a tech?

Can we just change Bone to be supplied by the Slaughterhouse (& line if any)?

And then we could just rename the Mask Carver's Hut to Mask Carver, and have it not go obsolete.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I personally don't like adding identical buildings with different names for later eras. But if we can decide what those buildings are, maybe I'll do it that way.

Poison is obsoleted by Chemistry, so should the Chemicals building also give Poison? After all, some poisons have other applications eg. digitalis is a medicine. And of course, overdoses of medicines are often poisons...

Then again, why should you be forced to close your Snake Pit and stop cultivating Curare by a tech?

Can we just change Bone to be supplied by the Slaughterhouse (& line if any)?

And then we could just rename the Mask Carver's Hut to Mask Carver, and have it not go obsolete.

I agree with the proposals but I think Hydro should be the final word on this matter.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I will have to think on those. However I am unsure how useful bone or masks would be in the Transhuman Era.