C2C - Flammability

[Koshling]

Hmm. The question is where is the balance for that threshold? Seems like you would quickly get no fires again once you got fire fighting buildings in place. The only reason the fires can be frequent is there is nothing to counter it until the Town Well. I know there are forges and factories that increase it later but most can be countered by the other anti-fire buildings.

I have been thinking that perhaps an auto-build building could be made if you had access to the river or ocean that gave a small anti-flammability. That would at least reduce some prehistoric era problems. But not help people who did not settle near a body of water.

I think the issue is that there are so few things that CAN result from flammability early on (basically the one burn event and not much else), so it cannot possibly be progressive. That's why I'm suggesting splitting the event into multiple events that all look the same to the user but have increasing probabilities of occurring (makes higher flammability progressively more likely to trigger a burn down, rather than it being basically an on/off thing as it is now). This approach has the benefit of not requiring any new code, or buildings.

However, I also like your idea of an auto-build small anti-flammability building that comes with a water source. Obviously they are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Sure you could try you idea too. Like you said they are not mutually exclusive. But yeah I agree there are so few prehistoric events that fire happens a lot. It would be nice to have more types of prehistoric events anyways, not just because it makes fire events frequently but because the same ones over and over can get boring.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I agree both ways of approaching the issue are equally valid and not mutually exclusive.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

The volcano event is not working, I don't know if it is firing. I think I need to rework it completely making it three events rather than the current one with 3 different outcomes (not Outcomes) just to make it easier to understand and maintain.

I want to add in a whole bunch of early diplomacy events to do with Indigenous Peoples. Adding more events so reducing the fire events. Adding these events requires me adding the new diplomacy properties and a new UI screen.

 

[Nimek]

I think town well should give -5 flamability points

 

[DRJ]

I think town well should give -5 flamability points

Good idea and maybe increase it to -10 with the tech that represents the Archimedic Screw? Nice kind of small bonus for the planned book mod as well

 

[Hydromancerx]

I think town well should give -5 flamability points

Um they do. Here are some of the current anti-flammability building stats ...

- Town Well (X23) = -5
- Irrigation Canals (X25) = -5
- Aqueduct (X32) = -5
- Cistern (X33) = -10
- Water Pipes (X35) = -10
- Fire Brigades (X35) = -15
- Hand Pump (X36) = -5
- Artesian Well (X38) = -5
- Water Tower (X48) = -10
- Wind Pump (X51) = -5 (Should be -10)
- Reservoir (X53) = -25
- Pumping Station (X55) = -15
- Fire Station (X56) = -25
- Water Treatment Plant (X57) = -100
- Fire Hydrants (X57) = -25
- Desalination Plant (X63) = -10
- Fire Hanger (X63) = -25
- Fire Dock (X74) = -20

 

[Azurian]

Here is a Fire Property Icon (if you want it).

 

[lordrune]

Hate to necro this, but I'm new to the mod, and I've had several buildings burn down in one game in the prehistoric era. No bandits or anything operating in my city. Flammability is ranging between 5-10 (depending on what's just been built and what has just burnt down). Assuming it's not a bug of some sort, how frequent should these events be and what's the formula? Is there a 'safe level' of flammability where you won't have too many issues, and did I go over it, or is the chance a linear proportional thing and I just have been unlucky?

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are threshold levels for events to be capable of triggering, yes. I don't know what they are exactly. Part of the problem with repetition being so common is simply inherent in the event structure. There aren't enough events to make it infrequent enough. When flammability becomes a repetitive problem it's because it's basically the only event you can qualify for.

 

[lordrune]

Thanks, that explains it. I'll try experimenting to make sure I'm below certain numbers (maybe 5?) at least up until the point where I have multiple cities, as that effectively dilutes that event and gives me more benign and less irritating ones instead.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Thanks, that explains it. I'll try experimenting to make sure I'm below certain numbers (maybe 5?) at least up until the point where I have multiple cities, as that effectively dilutes that event and gives me more benign and less irritating ones instead.

The events are not always triggered by the condition. In this case where your Flammability level is. So keeping your Flam below 5 may not change the event from happening. But the event(s) are triggered by a random chance generator. You can have the careless apprentice burning down the forge multiple times with early Flam at 0 or 150 or anywhere inbetween. It's why they are called Random Events. You can turn Random Events Off. Either at Game start set up or thru World Builder. Or you play thru them. They do eventually change as the game ages.

JosEPh

 

[lordrune]

Yeah, I figured that now.
Kinda broken, isn't it?

Most of the properties make sense to me but flammability seems to be something that is going to really annoy you in the early part of the game, then become something you are best off completely ignoring. Unless you turn the events off, but is that the best solution?

If there was a way to disqualify the burning event from occuring twice to the same city within a certain number of turns (e.g. 50 on snail, adjusted for game speed) then it wouldn't be so bad. Temporary modifier maybe (Change flammability to dynamic instead of static?)

Alternatively couldn't you use a similar system to education, crime, disease etc to trigger special buildings at certain flammability levels?
e.g. 0, no effect
1+: Fire - Occasional Burns: The low level of fire hazard in this city occasionally leads to injury. +1 health +1 unhappy
6+: Fire - Occasional Fires: There is substantial fire hazard in the city, focusing city resources on rebuilding. +1 health +2 unhappy -5% production
11+: Fire - Regular Fires: Fire is a regular problem, leading to loss of life and infrastructure. +2 health +3 unhappy -10% production -10% food
21+: Fire - Apocalypse: Buildings get burnt down more often than they stay up. +2 health +6 unhappy -20% production -20% food, -10% gold

Numbers are guessing as I don't really know the full tech tree that well and certainly how this might hurt the AI is a concern.

 

[tmv]

Change flammability to dynamic instead of static?

I think that would be a very difficult project, and it would make things less realistic. You take care of a fire hazard and flammability is gone - static property.

If the same was true in the real world for pollution, a very big source of problems we are currently facing would be gone. The same goes for crime (sending a few police squads into crime-ridden ... places wouldn't do anything in the short run, at first either corruption or murder would skyrocket). And even for diseases the same is true, even if the effect is a bit reduced (epidemics usually don't last this long). You cannot bring education up just by throwing money at it. And even with tourism places are more popular if they have been popular in the past.

In short: While there is a "real world explanation" for flammability being different from the other properties (when flammability was developed, there was no generic property system in place), there are also "in-universe" reasons for this difference.

 

[Faustmouse]

Maybe what's needed is a second event with the same prereqs as the burning down events, but instead with "a fire occured, but we were able to deal with it" aka nothing happens. Just to have another event to combat the common early fires.

 

[lordrune]

I think that would be a very difficult project, and it would make things less realistic. You take care of a fire hazard and flammability is gone - static property.

I didn't quite get all of what you're getting at. But my point is this and I'm not quite sure if you grasped it, because you haven't addressed it.
What's realistic about the risk of a fire in an individual city being entirely unrelated to the extent of flammability in the city (as long as it is greater than 'none at all'), but that can be reduced simply by having many other possible events occurring in the event system? Even by settling 10 cities, with everything else in your game being equal in the hypothetical situation that I'm using to explain why the mechanic's broken, you've reduced the chance of a fire in an individual city by a factor of 10. There's no explanation that can allow that to make sense.

On the other hand, it seemingly makes no difference whether flammability in any of those cities is '1' or '200'. You could probably engineer a city where you are burning as much as you can in the ancient or classical era, with no town wells or other mitigation, but it's going to be so much safer than your prehistoric city just with one fire pit, because of how this is all implemented.

I get what you mean by 'difficult project to rework' but tbh this implementation is extraordinarily immersion breaking. I love almost everything else about the mod that I've seen, for what that's worth, I'm just talking about the bit that seems sorta anti-intuitive in a very 'in your face this mechanic works in a screwy way and what are you going to do about it' fashion.

Maybe what's needed is a second event with the same prereqs as the burning down events, but instead with "a fire occured, but we were able to deal with it" aka nothing happens. Just to have another event to combat the common early fires.

That's not going to fix the fundamental issues with it, but it can't hurt for sure, although I think it could be prehistoric era only, maybe even just the first half of the prehistoric era before tribal expansion. You don't want to kill fires off, just see if you can't figure out some way to change it so they aren't an early game headache and then something you can easily afford to forget about, when the way fire hazard works in the real world is very different.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Flammability, Air pollution, and Water pollution are all unfinished projects. Understand this. None of them will Break the game, but yes they are annoying at times.

They were originally designed and the base elements put in Before we started using the Property System. Crime, Disease, and Education have received more attention and had more conversion from an additive system to the Property System which is an involved Multiplicative system. The author of all these systems no longer mods C2C. The author of the Property System no longer mods either. Picking up and continuing another Modder's ideas and system is a learning process. Especially if the author was well versed in coding and programming.

Events were done long before either of these 2 systems came into play into C2C. Some events were adjusted when these system started being integral parts. And again the author of the Events no longer mods here.

Those of us left also have Projects that are 1st and foremost more important to each individual modder. Occasionally they overlap or are worked on in conjunction when different skill sets are needed. This project has Goals it is trying to achieve and get into place. So some of the projects can lay idle for a ling time.

Finally we are all hobbyists and C2C is our Hobby but not our Job. ThunderBrd and Dancing Hoskuld's perseverance and dedication to this mod is 2nd to none. We all take the criticisms seriously. But we also can only do so much at any one time on any one area.

The Mod has faults and things left undone. But we do try to keep it from falling apart. This Is a Massive Project 2nd to no other Mod ever made for BtS. But we the modders are human and not computers and we do not get any reward from it but personal satisfaction when some player says, "Thank You for making this Mod".

JosEPh

 

[lordrune]

Those are all fair points!
I discovered this mod only last week, haven't put it down since, it really is a lot of fun and I do appreciate the work that the coders, past and present, have done and are doing. To put this into context, you guys have perhaps the most ambitious design concept for a 4X mod that's ever been seriously attempted, and you've done it justice. I'm having a blast and can't wait to see how my games start developing into the later eras, although I'm coming to grips with the mechanics still and I tend to restart a bit while I do that.

I need to put any critical feedback in that perspective, because right now I am getting too much sheer pleasure playing this mod to talk that much about it!

 

[JosEPh_II]

Thank you lordrune.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe what's needed is a second event with the same prereqs as the burning down events, but instead with "a fire occured, but we were able to deal with it" aka nothing happens. Just to have another event to combat the common early fires.

We might want to give some thought to creating some repeatable events that are not entirely blank but certainly can dilute those events that come up far too often. If we were to come up with say 10 events per era that have minor effects that can happen repeatedly to blend in with things like flammability events, herds, added hunting rewards, etc that happen like a broken record as it is, we can do much to help in this regard. Blank events could work but surely we can do better than blank, no? Sounds like a solid brainstorming session is in order.