Castle Building

[orlanth]

I agree about the multiply-used plot problems & not being worth an extensive code rewrite. Also it would exacerbate my OCCPD (Obsessive Compulsive City Placement Disorder ) to the point where I can envision trying to frantically arrange city grids to have rims of specific tiles that need to be worked by multiple cities . But having a more gradual territory expansion like in C2C would be cool to eliminate the need for precise grid layout setups far in advance, and let cities grow more organically like in history while also letting generating YIELD_CULTURE to grow borders become more important.

Originally Posted by Nightinggale View Post
That is actually a fairly good point. We should have a profession costing 50 food, which then delivers 50 food when founding. That way it will be easier to found in really poor terrain, like a mining "colony" in the mountains. I did something like that in RaR in slow covered hills because it clustered silver mines in that area. Silver miners alone ate more than the city produced. Feeder service is really awesome for something like that. Feeder service also supplied all lumber because the colony couldn't produce any itself.
You're on to something there. I really like that idea and it could solve the issue of settlements starting with extra buildings. We could have a Settler profession that requires 50 food and 50 tools that players start with to found thier first settlement

That sounds good. It does seem like in vanilla its too easy for any unit to found a city getting many buildings for free; I wonder if it could make sense to restrict founding new settlements to a few Professions that load up with the Yields needed to construct their specific citytype, while also providing some Yields in the new city to enable Building construction to get going there. (Is the AI able to found special citytypes effectively by adoping city-founding Professions, or is it dependent on the vanilla system where any unit can plop down a new settlement?)

The many buildings that went into gradual construction of a Castle (or large Monastery or City) took generations of people living and working there to complete and expand, so it would be good to have a few base citytypes for feudal (Manor->Castle), religious (Monastery->Abbey) and burgher (Town->City) that start out with only a few basic tier Buildings, and you gradually add more to further develop it while importing yields necessary to continue long term construction. The profession that founds the city could also start it with yields like Food and Stone which would facilitate further continued development that you can customize as you like. I think the system NG developed for importing construction yields for Buildings under construction is an important advantage, so you can add some higher tier fortification Buildings that take awhile to complete and require Stone imports for completion, to simulate gradual construction and expansion of the castle over many years.

In my head for WH, I am working through the idea of Production Improvements (That let you generate a second or third tier yield on a plot) Like a weapons factory, and also buildings in cities that allow you to generate plot resources (Linke a monastery garden or allotments making food), but both would be less efficient than their 'proper' counterparts.

So for example a plot factory would generate 3 Rifles when worked, but a rifle factory in town would produce 6+ per person, but it would require the input yields, so there are upsides and downsides to both systems.

That is possible and you can actually see something like that in action with the Progenitor Improvements in old 2071, where you can unlock Professions that can recover advanced yields from special facilities you find on the map (after you conquer the Killbots guarding them). As you note this doesn't use inputs and creates the Yields from thin air (also the tile itself needs to have some base Yield using a Bonus) so it's likely not good to use this to make some sort of rurally based factories unless it really is mining or uncovering them from thin air like 2071. But it could be good for special unique sites on the map, or buildable modern improvements that can generate Energy/Electricity (eg Watermill -> Hydroelectric Dam buildable on Rivers, Windmill -> Wind Farm buildable on Hills, Solar Farm buildable on Desert, etc). It would be nice if you could build some special Improvements like this only once per 1-tile radius, like certain Improvements work in Dune Wars and Master of Mana. You can also generate abstract yields like Hammers, Crosses, Bells from certain map tiles that are of industrial/religious/cultural significance.

 

[Nightinggale]

I was just thinking of adding 50 food to have 50 food when starting a city at a location with poor food production. However the other ideas here could be interesting if the AI can figure out how to expand using such rules.

I think the system NG developed for importing construction yields for Buildings under construction is an important advantage, so you can add some higher tier fortification Buildings that take awhile to complete and require Stone imports for completion, to simulate gradual construction and expansion of the castle over many years.

I plan to make the AI use it as well. With the AI being able to produce yields in one city and use it in another, it will be possible to have buildings needing yields, which aren't likely to be widely available on plots next to each other, say stone and clam shells.

I have come up with the idea of having yet another button for import. That one should be "surplus" meaning it only imports if all cities without surplus wont import. The AI will then use that one for exporting to mother country, but only for yields not needed locally.

With a bit of tweaking such a system might replace raw material yield group, and possibly more. In other words the AI will be more self configuring based on XML setup (I hope )

As you note this doesn't use inputs and creates the Yields from thin air (also the tile itself needs to have some base Yield using a Bonus)

Maybe we should explore/expand the possibility of adding plot demands to buildings. Just like some needs rivers or water plots next to the city, we could add requirements for any terrain. Imagine a hydro powerplant needing river and a mountain. Hydroplants needs height differences and mountains (waterfalls) are better at providing those. Alternatively tourism buildings making money based on terrain and possibly plotgroup population. We could also do something like that with bonus resources.
Production bonuses for terrain is also an option.

 

[Kailric]

I just discovered void CvCity::getVisibleBuildings. This sets the number and type of buildings that are displayed on the map. I divided the final number of generic buildings by 10 and then graphically my sprawling cities where reduced to just a couple or so generic buildings along with the Unique ones.

With this we can better define what is shown graphically for our cities, using CityType. I have been thinking about these Castle ideas and having Castles to simply work as Resource guardians and Military choke points.

So, you could found an Outpost, that can expand your borders, and function like your Towns, with the city management screen, except there is no Field labor screen.

These outposts will have a few advantages/disadvantages vs cities:

• Can be upgraded to higher tiers of Castles.
• They can be abandoned. This removes the city effect, and perhaps places an improvement in its place that can be re-inhabited if need be.
• They can be built next to your other cities and do not prevent cities from working that plot.
• They give bonuses to resources much like Strongholds do currently.
• They offer defense bonuses to cities in close approximation.
• If outside city radius they can gather resources from one or few select plots.
• Perhaps they receive a production bonus to Fealty, since they are more closely tied to the Realm.
• Can be converted to actual Towns if not within a cities radius.
• Expand borders and influence
• And with the above code they can be graphically represented well.

• They have limited storage.
• Limited Population.
• Limited Buildings.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

interesting...

I look forward to seeing the results

 

[Kailric]

[*]Perhaps they receive a production bonus to Fealty, since they are more closely tied to the Realm.

Hmm, we could say that if connected by a road, the Castle actually is set to the same amount of Fealty of the Nearest city.

The Problem with founding new settlements is that it lowers your over all Fealty rating that increases the time it takes to start your conquest. So, any settlement founded in late game is going to cripple your empire in this respect. Maybe there could be a civic that address this as well.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

To be honest It think the underlying mathmatics of the fealty (sentiment) system needs to be changed, as it is just a bit of a nightmare and needs rethinking in my opinion.

For every external unit you have your loyalty takes a hit and reduces the maximum amount of loyalty you can have...

It is just messy and complicated and a bit naff..

It either needs to be reworked, or we need to increase the amount of produceable fealty, either with more employment slots or bonus buildings or whatever, but this is another one of those vanilla features that punishes larger empires and the acquisition of more land...

To the degree that it is just tactically better not to bother, like with saving vs spending money, with the current king math, there is no point to savings..

 

[Nightinggale]

Vanilla is horribly off balance in regards to empire building. We have known that for 6 years by now.

What I don't know (yet) is what to do about it. It is all in the DLL and we can technically do whatever we want. The real question is: what do we want?

Rethinking the system could also include a certain amount of XML settings. After all our goal isn't to make multiple identical mods with different graphics. It would be nice to figure out a way to not make the mods behave precisely the same even though they share the DLL code.

Maybe we should have a thread for fealty redesign alone where people can brainstorm on how it should work. If that reach some sort of consensus, then we can start to figure out if/how that can be done in the code.

 

[Kailric]

We have made mention of this in other threads. I remember suggesting we make Fealty a per unit factor, however the whole primasis of "liberty bells" has been done away with so it stands to reason that we should redo the system.

Fealty could be a factor of a Units demands being met. Even to the point that when a unit joins your empire it gains instant Fealty based on how much of the units demands are produced. Fealty could then effect Production and Combat as it does now but on a per unit basis and it is gained by demands being met. Also, when a player changes Civics units with low Fealty could revolt and you would need to put down thier insurrection.

I mentioned Law in another thread, this could be Produced by your Townhalls, with Courthouses giving a bonus to this. It could be called something else, something that deals with administration. The more law and order in your empire the more easily your Units can gain Fealty. Units such as Criminals and Bandits and Marauders could produce Corruption just being in your Realm.

Now, the conquest part, if this is left in Players could Declare themselves Emperor when at 50% Fealty as before except the Pope no longer attacks you up front. Instead the remaining Civs contribute to an Retrobution Force based on thier Attitude. This Army will attempt to deny you your Crown. The Pope will either help or hinder you.

Thats some quick thoughts on this...

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I think the 'fealty' concept is robust enough to absorb both law bonuses and criminality negatives.

Those who are loyal, are law abiding, those who are not law abiding are not loyal.

Fealty gives both strength and production bonuses, representing a happy and determined population.

I think to make it a 'per unit' concept will make it a bit of a micromanagement information overload (at least I think it would for me).

Personally I think it would be good if we could make something like the culture value, but a bit different.

By that I mean, you make culture and it collects towards the next level so when you get 100 culture points you get the next level.

With loyalty if we could make it so that for each pop point it adds say a cost of 100 fealty to the pot.

So to have 100% loyalty in a 1 person town you need to store 100 points, with a nobleman making 6 per turn that would take about 20 turns. if someone then joins the city a full bar would be 200, so the loyalty would drop to 50%.

This way we could make the cost per person an xml value. We could also potentially make it so that civics can change this value, and/or techs. if we put it in the unit infos, we could even change the loyalty price per person type. Or instead of civics changing the amount, we can just change the loyalty price of the unique civic units to reflect the same thing. So an administrative civic gives a cheaper loyalty price unit, and a more 'chaotic' or oppressive civic gives special units with a higher loyalty price.

So a criminal could cost 200 points of loyalty, so if you have lots of criminals join, it gives a much bigger negative to your overall loyalty and you have to do more work to get them loyal, or reform them to drop their price.

Right now fealty is a 'rate only' yield. you only get a loyalty bonus if you are producing loyalty, and it doesn' matter how much or how little time you spend making loyalty, if you stop what you made before doesn't matter.

When I read about the math, it was just a bit convuluted with all kinds of division math and just a long and complicated sum...

I think a simpler bit of math will yield a much more rewarding concept.

We could then also have various things that will add or drain either from the local or global loyalty pot, like a civic that cost 3 fealty per turm from your kingdom wide loyalty, so those civics require you to have good fealty producing infrastructure, or you will slowly see your kingdom slip into anarchy.

 

[Nightinggale]

So to have 100% loyalty in a 1 person town you need to store 100 points, with a nobleman making 6 per turn that would take about 20 turns. if someone then joins the city a full bar would be 200, so the loyalty would drop to 50%.

That would still reward small cities and cause loyalty to drop if the city grows.

The idea of making a culture like approach is interesting because border expansion doesn't happen in equal steps. First time is at 100, then 1000, then 10000. If we do something like that for loyalty, then we wouldn't have to do much to gain some loyal people, but it would take a massive effort to make every single person loyal.

The per unit loyalty isn't bad, but it will have to be done the right way. Say we grow a unit. It will then get the loyalty of all your cities combined (percentage). New units from outside starts with 0%.
When a unit joins a city, the following can happen:
1: the unit is more loyal than the city. In this case the city's loyalty in percentage is unmodified.
2: the unit is less loyal than the city. The city will then suffer a loyalty penalty based on the difference.

When a unit leaves a city, the loyalty of the unit is the city's loyalty or the overall loyalty, whatever is lowest. Maybe growth should be the lowest of those two as well.

I think that system will be somewhat strait forward to handle without too much micromanagement while at the same time it avoids the issue that cities drop supporting you due to growing population.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

yeah I probably need to have added a set of 'pools' to it.

So all loyalty is stored in the city in a pool, and all the city pools are added to the global empire pool, and the global 'price' is the total population cost, including those people not inside cities.

This way forward planning is rewarded, and sending in the admin early is a bonus.

And then the loyalty price in a city is compared against that cities pool, and anything above the total price means you have 100% loyalty.

So you can essentially 'store' loyalty ready for the next growth point, representing the preparations of expanding and developing a town or it's infrastructure, good administrators planning forwards.

So you can better develop an 'expansive' strategy. We can also assist this process with other fealty bonuses, like the meeting of demands and such, so if you don't have local admin, at least having local trade logistics will provide a certain amount of loyalty, and could be enough for a small town.

 

[Kailric]

I think I finally come around to the idea of starting with very Basic Buildings. I have added a WorkBench "Building" that Villages will start with. I am thinking like this...

Village: (Anyone) WorkBench, Firepit (Tools), and Village Hall
Monastery: (Monks) WorkBench, Monastery, and one free industry (Wine Maker's House etc)
Outpost: (Troops) WorkBench, Firepit, and Outpost

Now, just how these city types function is the question. I'll have to go back and read this thread. If we can figure out Castles, then the rest will be easier.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Do I presume by castles that you mean the outpost?

To my thinking Maybe the monastery should start with a small chapel(crosses) rather than an industry. But Monastic Industries get a bonus (like they are now).

Monasteries were not established as industries, but as places of worship/reflection etc.

The fact that they became such industrial successes, is probably due to the fact they had a lot of spare time to burn and could get very good at something they set their mind to.

I don't think they would build the monastery and a place to make something in one hit. It would be later when a brother would say, you know with all these grapes around we could make some wine for communion, oh this wine is rather good maybe we could sell the extra. Especially if a new convert happens to be a dynamite wine maker!

So I would break it down something like this.

Village: WorkBench, Firepit (Tools), Village Hall and (perhaps it's free industry as well like now)

Spoiler :

(so that you have an oppurtunity to make money from the get go. Just depends how fast you want the player to 'get started'. I don't find this too much of a headstart, rather a great decision to be made at the start of the game to focus on making money or something else like fealty(FF gaining), growth(food) or building (lumber, hammers), etc.)

Easiest to raise pop. limits.
Can build 'Townie/City' buildings like taverns, theatres, courts, markets, banks, Inventors Job, and large 'third tier' buildings like Universities, Cathedrals and 'Factories'.

Monastery: WorkBench, Monastery, Chapel.
Hardest to raise pop. limit (It is not an easy thing to decide to be a monk),
Bonus to produced goods (Wine, Ale, Cloth, I can't think of others.) [We could perhaps think about tying in the new Bonus resource system here, perhaps a certain building(s) could produce a bonus resource that increases the price/income of a specific good or we could just stick with the production boost, I think either works fine.]
Has it's special buildings like Library, Shrine, etc.
Boost to Cross Production.
Less/worse/harder to make defensive buildings (after all they are monks)

Outpost: WorkBench, Firepit, and Outpost.
Harder than a town to raise pop. limit.
Best defensive buildings (or perhaps quicker to make [or both], as things like walls have a much smaller 'footprint' to protect)
Bonus to weapons and armour production.
Perhaps some kind of bonus to garrison. (Maybe something like anywhere else the unit can be 'trained' but here they can become 'trained' and then can gain 1 promotion. Something like that)
Bonus to Culture (although this could just be that it is easier to build things like walls which generate culture)
Could also have certain civic benefits as well from garisson, like a garrison in a town generate +2 Yield, but a garrison in an Outpost gains +3 Yield. Maybe..
Perhaps a Bonus to fealty as well, as they are good for bringing unruly populace into line.


This would create a situation where outposts and monasteries are good early to mid-game sites. As they get lots of 'specialist' benefits.
Monasteries get research, cross production and produced goods (although you need villages to supply the raw materials effectively due to limited Pop. size) in a quick and easy fashion.
Forts can get more military equipment made, and miltary training, and fast culture benefits. So good for border sites and border control pressure.

But Villages (which grow into proper towns and cities) will eventually out perform them both in just about every way (production wise) as they can have larger populations, 'Big' buildings that can have more workers and a larger 'per worker' production rate, along with all of the special 'townie' buildings like theatres and courts.

This way you need to keep a good mix of all three, because if you don't have enough forts and monasteries, you will get out paced in the early-mid game, but equally if you don't have enough villages, you will get outperformed in the late game as villages grow into cities and the renaissance city advances begin to 'usurp' the strength of the Medieval Castle and Monastery.

Which I think would reflect the shift from the medieval to renaissance life quite nicely.

 

[Kailric]

Here is a crazy idea. As a village grows, it begins to take up more space. Even in Col this is true as the city graphic, cosmetic buildings and such, begin to spread all around. So, why not add a little realism in that as a City grows you begin to loose plots to farm or harvest from. Land would then become a resource. Say every, 4 citizens removes one Plot. Also, the number of Buildings would reduce plot space. You can counter this somewhat by building Housing and perhaps by other means, techs, civics, etc. But, as true to life, in order to provide more space in your cities you have to give up farm lands and such.

In order for a city to grow there must be cleared land as well so you would have to chop down trees to make room. On the city screen you would have a counter for the number of plots you can work. By default there is 8 plots for use, if that hits 0, you can simply no longer work any more fields. This makes it so there is no code to choose what plot gets used up, the player can still work what ever plots he wants up to the max allowed.

This would create a need for Expansion and the founding smaller settlements. This would be a good place to plop a Castle. They allow for good defense and protect their lands around them. They would allow for several smaller buildings, thus small industry, but your Cities would be where the industry is, supported by your villages and lands.

Monasteries would work similar to castle with the focus on piety and smaller economic industries as apposed to military for castles. Either of these can advance to City status but they will lose lands. This is the general idea so far...

Do I presume by castles that you mean the outpost?

To my thinking Maybe the monastery should start with a small chapel(crosses) rather than an industry. But Monastic Industries get a bonus (like they are now).

Just seen your post. Yeah, Outposts is where castles will be. I like your ideas and will mull over them some more.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I like that idea of 'Max workable plots'. (especially if we can change the rules with xml changes)

I would say that Castles and Monasteries shouldn't be allowed to grow to cities, for the reasons I stated above.

I was thinking about the idea of 'satellite' villages around towns/cities, and this 'max plot' system seems like a great way to do it, as you can build villages 1 square away from the city, allowing it to work the terrain around the city when the city cannot do it itself. This allows you to still work the land when it is lost to the city, but it means you have to implement the transport logisitics to do it.

I would say that Monasteries should have a hard limit of about 8 people, this gives them a chance for 2 researchers, 2 priests(crosses), two industialists (produced goods) and 2 terrain workers (to feed the industry), if you want to have more industry in one monastery, you have o give something up, like moving raw yields production to a satellite village.
I think a similar limit for castles would work too.

I can't remember how the 'city plot' works in the current build, but maybe we could have it change how much it produces to by buildings of certain types, to stop any exploit of spamming villages to get two plots worked by one person. (I don't know if this is necessary though, I wouldn't exploit it, but more hard core people might.)

 

[Kailric]

I was thinking about the idea of 'satellite' villages around towns/cities, and this 'max plot' system seems like a great way to do it, as you can build villages 1 square away from the city, allowing it to work the terrain around the city when the city cannot do it itself. This allows you to still work the land when it is lost to the city, but it means you have to implement the transport logisitics to do it.

But, the reason you can not work the land is because it is full of buildings, streets, etc. so it would be counter to the idea. I think there would need to be a system setup that wouldn't allow you to exploit plots like this.

I would say that Monasteries should have a hard limit of about 8 people, this gives them a chance for 2 researchers, 2 priests(crosses), two industialists (produced goods) and 2 terrain workers (to feed the industry), if you want to have more industry in one monastery, you have o give something up, like moving raw yields production to a satellite village.
I think a similar limit for castles would work too.

That may be too "hard" a limit, will have to play test. Also, often times whole cities where built around Monasteries or Castles. Thus my Connection Bonus of these City Types I propose below.

Ok, I am working on some changes. For one, you can research Monarchy right after Manorialism to get your Outposts going. Medieval Hunting has been moved to require Monarchy and leads to Feudalism, it also allows the King's Forest Improvement. Here is the list of ideas...

Monasteries
Starts with:
-the Abbey (where your monks work and play)roduces Fealty
-Library- This is where your Scribes will work producing Research
-A Chapel, Work Bench, One Free Industry


Features, Buildings and Effects

• -No Military Buildings/Production
• -They will be allowed only tier 2 Industries/Buildings (Warehouse, but no Warehouse Expansion, etc.)
• -Max Religious Buildings and Faster Build times
• -Max Walls
• -Unique Building: Shrine
• -Unique Building: Library
• -Unique Building: Garden- works like an extra Well +2 Food
• -Unique Building: Cloister (used for study and meditation) Bonus to Religion/Research
• -Unique Building: Sacristy (storage for valuables) Shrine Bonus, Increase Storage for Gold/Silver/Wine Perhaps
• -Unique Building: Refectory (Kitchen/Dinning Hall) Produces Luxury Food with Extra Bonuses perhaps
• -Unique Building: Dormitory (monk beds) Increase Population Max

Outposts:
Starts with:
-Outpost: Produces Fealty
-Work Bench, Fire Pit, Stockade

Features, Buildings and Effects

• -Outpost can upgrade their Keeps to Castles
• -Only tier 1 none military industries/buildings (this means Trading Post only, etc)
• -Max Military Industries
• -Bonuses to Military
• -Free Promotion when Units Created here (perhaps)
• -Unique Building: Keep
• -Unique Building: Barracks-Increase Training
• -Unique Building: Bake House- Produces Luxury Food
• -Unique Building: Cellar-Increased Storage for Wine/Ale
• -Unique Building: Towers- North,South,East,West-adds defense Bonus, Auto Attacks when maned by Archers
• -Unique Building: Drawbridge/Moats- Increased Defense
• -Unique Building: Gatehouse- Increased Defense
• -Unique Building: Barbican- Upgrade to Gatehouse- Auto Attacks
• -Unique Building: Prison- Convert Criminals
• -Unique Building: Siege Workshop
• -Unique Building: Palace

Villages
Starts with:
-Village Hall, Fire Pit, Work Bench, One Free Industry

Features, Buildings and Effects

• -Max none Military Industries/Buildings
• -Walls cost Double
• -Only tier 2 Military
• -Unique Building: Banks
• -Unique Building: Mints
• -Unique Building: Storehouse Expansion
• -Unique Building: University

I am also thinking about connection Bonuses. If a City is Connected to a Outpost/Castle and within a certain Distance the City gains a Defense Bonus and a Fealty Bonus, all depending on the buildings in the Outpost/Castle. Perhaps also, if the Castle has enough Defense with Towers and such, the City/Monastery can not be attacked until the Castle Falls. This was similar to how war took place in those time as you could not leave a maned Castle and go assault a City because the Castle Defenders would attack from the rear.

Also, a Connection Bonus from Monasteries for increased Religion and perhaps other bonuses. Each City only gains benefit from one Castle/Monastery. The Castles and Monasteries could gain a benefit from each other and Cities as well.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

What I would say to the land working situation, is it is just a matter of 'limited scale' when it comes to the map display.
So the 8 plots around a city are all unworkable by that city, but a village that overlaps can use those tiles as it is actually working the miles of field that the city is not using for houses, but are too far away for the populace to be able to carry the wares back to the city.
Thus you need to have a transport to carry those wares to the city warehouses and markets.

So a large city cannot support itself, it needs satellite villages and transport logistics to keep it supplied with raw materials. But these villages don't need to have purely seperate work tiles.

Generally dedicated Monasteries and Castles are in a more isolated area (particular monasteries, as they were retreats from society), towns and villages would grow up near them and do a lot of work and trade with them because there was a solid market situation.
Which is why I think they should not be able to grow very large.
They can grow just large enough to be really great at what they do, but not large enough to be able to do anything else.
Their Role was always dedicated to a very specific situation and undertaking, they were not really 'open' to being intergrated into a larger community 'on site'.
They would interact and be involved with the world around them, but were always seperate and distinct from them, because of their primary nature.
Defense or quiet spiritual contemplation.

I see the specialist 'Towns' like Mosteries and Castles as being like 'Micro Towns' or 'Massive Buildings' so villages(that could become towns or even cities) might get placed next to a monastery or castle to help supply raw materials etc. but they are a seperate 'city founding'.

I think Castles and Monasteries should have very limited capabilities and size limits etc. but what they do they do brilliantly until the arrival of Cities with Cathedrals and Factories and Arms Industries which by sheer volume and quantity will overtake the more specialised 'Cottage Industries'.

I don't think a monastery should have access to Cathedrals, as they are 'Spirituallity on an Industrial scale' to serve the spiritual needs of a community of thousands or even 100s of thousands.
A Cloistered community of monks has no real need of something on that scale, nor would anyone finance that kind of undertaking there.

This way you have to think carefully about what you build and how you develop your empire.

Too many Monasteries and Castles, and you will find yourself lacking proper industrial capacity in the latter game, as well as a lack of raw materials.

If you grow too many Villages into Cities, you will again lack enough raw materials to feed and run those cities. If you make sure to 'satellite' those cities with villages, then you can provide the needed resources, with one or 2 transport vehicles.

I really like the idea of the connection bonus between monastery/castle and a city.
As this again highlights the kind of 'special nature' of these 2 town types, that being that they don't give out their full potential unless they are connected to a proper city. (perhaps a certain advanced building like a City level admin building) quite how we would decide which 1 city it would give the bonus to I am not sure(as in what code logic it would use).

Perhaps Monasteries and Castles could work like the missions and trade posts, being that every 'City' (designated by that admin building or whatever) gets +X from monasteries and castles in it's plot group this could also be either switched on/off by certain civics, or to make them better than missions and TPosts the civics just make them better or worse.

I think also Taverns, Theatres and the like should also be limited to only villages. (or more accurately the town sized village, perhaps requiring an upgraded fealty building before they a can be built)
I don't see Castles or Monasteries having room, desire or market for those kinds of buildings. They might have a building type that provides the same kind of output but on a tiny scale, but again I don't think they should as it takes away from the specialised nature of those Town Types.
Perhaps instead of producing output, they simply consume a certain amount of goods for profit to provide a domestic market. Like a Feast/Banquet Hall that consumes Lux. Food and Booze for profit in the castle.

I also like that the Outpost starts with a stockade.

Also I don't like the idea of the change to a library from a monastery to provide research, I think it should stay as it is, with the monastery (because after all this is the name of the town type) provide the research building, and the library is an expansion that improves the research rate. I really like that the way it is. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

All in all, I really like the choice I am presented with when it is time to found a new city, and I would enjoy that choice being much more strict, in that I know each chocie has very important strengths and weaknesses, so I should think carefully about my needs for that site and the wider area.

 

[Kailric]

Also I don't like the idea of the change to a library from a monastery to provide research, I think it should stay as it is, with the monastery (because after all this is the name of the town type) provide the research building, and the library is an expansion that improves the research rate. I really like that the way it is. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

All in all, I really like the choice I am presented with when it is time to found a new city, and I would enjoy that choice being much more strict, in that I know each chocie has very important strengths and weaknesses, so I should think carefully about my needs for that site and the wider area.

All your ideas and thoughts hold merit (such as no Cathedrals in Monasteries) so I'll take them into consideration when designing this. Be sure it will all be XML-able

My thoughts with the Library change was that I wanted to do away with the "Village Hall" in the Monastery city type. So, I made the Monastery produce Fealty in the Center and the Library produce Research, replaced by the Cloister. Basically the buildings in the settlement make up the Monastery. We can do away with the Building type "Monastery" and replace it with "Abby", perhaps. But should the Center building in a Monastery produce Fealty? Ideas?

Edit: I created a new thread for all the city types http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=13487564#post13487564

 

[Nightinggale]

I have been thinking about limiting buildings, but in a different way than mentioned here. If we assign a category to buildings, we can limit the number of buildings of the same group.

Say we have a production type for buildings (weavers, winemaker etc). We can then have set a limit to how many production buildings we can have in a city. This limit can be affected by whatever we like, such as other buildings, population or tech. Those buildings will then not have a location on the city screen like the buildingInfos have right now. Instead the city has slots for production buildings, which fills up with the buildings we build in the order they are build.

The end result will be to make it possible to have say 8 production buildings, but only 3 slots meaning we will only have to reserve room for those 3 buildings. This frees up room for other buildings or whatever we like. We can also do stuff like only placing two slots in monasteries because we need more room for holy buildings or whatever.

I don't think this will be hard to do. I already rewrote the python code to place buildings into using XML to place buildings rather than python meaning we are no longer using vanilla code to draw buildings. This mean the code in question is known, both in location and behavior.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

hmmm sounds cool night!