Caveman 2 Cosmos

[JosEPh_II]

All of this makes sense, I vote yay. There are many ways to balance income, and these buildings are, atm, far from the right path towards balance in that respect.

]If we did it that way, we could cut out most of the manufactured resources entirely. You don't need them to trade, as everyone has loads, the AI tries to spam you with them when trading (offering Gold Wares for Elephant?) and if you can make limits by buildings anywhere in your empire, that's much more sensible than all those resources which apparently exist only to prop up the building chains.

Why do I have this vision in my head of Robbie the Robot flailing his arms wildly about while shouting, "Danger Will Robinson! Danger!"

JosEPh

 

[Arakhor]

You’ve greeted my thoughts with that allusion before, but you have yet to explain why.

 

[Thunderbrd]

What level do you play on?

I am running a test game on my LEM scenario (looking for map errors) and at the start of the Industrial era, I get 34K per turn with 1.5 million in the bank on Noble, Marathon speed. Next I will try Prince, Snail after some map updates.

Yeah, Deity may have something to do with it. And I'm still early in the game. I cannot account for later gold balance issues but it MAY be civics that would have the greatest sway there if that's such a big issue later. Quite possible that we're putting a little to much ump into financial benefits from more advanced civics.

So am I in my Test game on Emperor and Normal game speed even with Rwn's Dangerous Animals contributions. Careful balancing to keep a few K in the treasury cause upgrading units Is Expensive along with keeping research slider around 70%. I actually find myself looking down the Tech tree for techs that allow new or updated versions of gold producing buildings. And Civic choices that cut maint. costs, even if they are earlier civics that have other malus than gold.

Isn't this what is wanted though?

Edit: @Harrier,
Still in late classical, with Med Era on the horizon.

JosEPh

Yeah, I'm not saying it's terribly off. It's actually pretty good imo. But making it worse, at least for what I've seen so far, seems wrong as its on the tough side of perfect.

I manage to usually keep my research at 100%. The thing is, I usually am doing this by having caught up on my builds and am building wealth to do it. Take off building wealth and reduce research to 0% and I'm still in the negative gold loss. Which is really telling me that there's too much emphasis on gold and not enough on commerce. I think THAT could strike a better balance imo.

Commerce should be any kind of state income that could just as easily translate directly into research, espionage or cultural benefits. It's really hard for the mind to sort out the difference properly and when you think you have you find something in the grey zone between gold and commerce that once you've determined where it falls corrupts the rest of the outlook on it for the rest of those modding choices to come. It's almost impossible to draw a strong definition between the two. But I do think it would be worthwhile to take some time, as a community, to have a deeper discussion on that and FIND a better definition of what is gold vs what is commerce than what we currently have. Even if it takes evaluating every source one at a time until an objective definition actually emerges.

The main point with those buildings is that they should represent the reality that you would not have one in every city. Personally I would prefer that they had implemented it that you could always build 1 but need 3 (or more) of the lower to build each higher.

The first buildings are often 'huts' and so on. Perhaps the next generation of those buildings, like 'shops/workshops' etc (and if there's only ever shops/workshops then it would apply) could well work in this manner.

I think we need to think about the actual way those sorts of businesses operated by era. Yes, now you have globalization and very little of what you consume is made directly in your community. But that wasn't the case early on.

All I'm saying is I kinda like your concept but it should be researched by industry, not just game theoried. It may not be best that one method fits all.

If we did it that way, we could cut out most of the manufactured resources entirely. You don't need them to trade, as everyone has loads, the AI tries to spam you with them when trading (offering Gold Wares for Elephant?) and if you can make limits by buildings anywhere in your empire, that's much more sensible than all those resources which apparently exist only to prop up the building chains.

I kinda agree... I kinda don't. I get the trade issue problem though I suspect there should be better ways to address it. The manufactured goods are a great setup for massive corporation improvements though. And many would play an excellent role in backing the equipment system if that ever gets off the ground properly.

But you also have a lot of valid points in that most of them are going to be accessed by all and national building effects could replace some of the need - with no less heavy 'free buildings everywhere' methods. Still... free buildings aren't tradeable.

And usually there's not a point in trading something to a nation that can't make it itself as doing so would rarely give the receiving nation an option it doesn't need to wait for the tech that unlocks the manufacturing building that produces it anyhow.

However, if that WERE given more strategic value then the AI's trades might be more reasonable. Consider if nearly all manufactured goods opened up their own building that DOESN'T HAVE a tech prereq and was thus something any nation provided the resource could benefit from!

 

[Thunderbrd]

You’ve greeted my thoughts with that allusion before, but you have yet to explain why.

I think in this case its because of all the hidden complexities trying to eliminate those resources might unveil and give us headaches to resolve along the way and how many of those would remain hidden until they show up in the bug reports.

 

[JosEPh_II]

You’ve greeted my thoughts with that allusion before, but you have yet to explain why.

It's just a "gut" reaction that I get when I see someone wanting to make wholesale changes. And it's not easy to explain either. But it has served me well over the years.

Maybe it's because I think the proposal is not thought out long term on it's overall effects it could produce on the mod? Or maybe that it's actually another one of those "too much gold/food/etc." complaints from high level players that end up hurting the lower level player? It just threw up warning bells for me. Maybe it will turn out to be nothing. But it usually does turn out to be one, of some sort, in the long run. Hydro hated me for doing this over the past 7 years.

JosEPh

 

[sunrisereader]

manufactured goods could also be used to speed up construction speed of buildings/units and/or add minor bonusses to places where the goods are sold if you have them like at the grocer/market but these would have to be compensated by removing the base amount of gold/commerce these buildigs provide.

What happens to buildings that requrie a resource like the mariage cerimony when you loose access to a resource?
and what happens when you later get it again?

 

[Thunderbrd]

What happens to buildings that requrie a resource like the mariage cerimony when you loose access to a resource?
and what happens when you later get it again?

I believe they are temporarily disabled when the prerequisite resources are not available and reactivate when they become available again. It's been a fiddly spot in the code though and I'm not sure if its been manipulated since I last looked at it. I don't seem to be getting the messages on it like I used to but then someone may have changed that part of it too (maybe I did to reduce annoying messages... I dunno. Been a while.)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If we did it that way, we could cut out most of the manufactured resources entirely. You don't need them to trade, as everyone has loads, the AI tries to spam you with them when trading (offering Gold Wares for Elephant?) and if you can make limits by buildings anywhere in your empire, that's much more sensible than all those resources which apparently exist only to prop up the building chains.

The main purpose of the early manufactured resources is to ensure you can't build buildings in places you should not.

This was the only way open to us at the time. Since then we have auto buildings which may be able to replace some of them.

They make connecting your cities to the trade network even more important than in BtS.

The first buildings are often 'huts' and so on. Perhaps the next generation of those buildings, like 'shops/workshops' etc (and if there's only ever shops/workshops then it would apply) could well work in this manner.

I think we need to think about the actual way those sorts of businesses operated by era. Yes, now you have globalization and very little of what you consume is made directly in your community. But that wasn't the case early on.

My reasoning behind this was based on history. Even in ancient Rome there were potters in each town but there were a few pottery "industries" that provided to the whole nation. This is the same for the other three. The "industries" were able to provide better quality because they were built near better quality primary resource and had a larger group of specialists that could work on them.

Which suggests that you should not be able to build the "higher" building in the same city as one of the other industries.

BtW "hut" is just used as a place holder in leu of a more valid term.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@TB is there some special code in the dll for the Mountain Mine? If there is I don't think there needs to be.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@TB is there some special code in the dll for the Mountain Mine? If there is I don't think there needs to be.

No. I was wondering if there would need to be. If you can't sort it out let me know what you're running up against.

 

[Liquidated]

There's so many %hammer and %food buildings out there, there is no point going for commerce at least late industrial. Commerce is like a bonus you get from trade and spec spam but then again, most of that is fueled from much in the way of more food and hammers.

I tried cottages, ended up farming over them all or putting factories up in the problematic areas.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was thinking that if we increase the commerce bonus for towns and all their layers by about +1 or 2 it might help to balance them a bit... maybe even +2 to make them attractive rather than just balanced out.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I almost never bother with farms, preferring cottages on everything except barren where I put the workshops.

 

[Liquidated]

Adding in a few %commerce stats to buildings instead of just pure beakers starting around the Renaissance would make commerce tiles much more attractive. A little would go a long way.

 

[Harrier]

I almost never bother with farms, preferring cottages on everything except barren where I put the workshops.

Does that not indicate a possible flaw in the mod?.

I sometime do not post about flaws because they help me win a game.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Does that not indicate a possible flaw in the mod?.

I sometime do not post about flaws because they help me win a game.

Perhaps, but as I, like Liquidated, rarely build cottages maybe it's more of a direct link to play style and preference.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Does that not indicate a possible flaw in the mod?.

I sometime do not post about flaws because they help me win a game.

Perhaps, but as I, like Liquidated, rarely build cottages maybe it's more of a direct link to play style and preference.

JosEPh

Not a flaw but a play style choice. Having multiple avenues of play is good.

The problem with the changes to hunters in the modmods is that it reduces the play styles, ie it makes mine almost unplayable so if they get int C2C as is then I will not play

 

[JosEPh_II]

Not a flaw but a play style choice. Having multiple avenues of play is good.

The problem with the changes to hunters in the modmods is that it reduces the play styles, ie it makes mine almost unplayable so if they get int C2C as is then I will not play

While I like Rwn's Dangerous Animals I'm not advocating their inclusion into the Main. I was batting the idea around of combining my 2 modmods with his as a New Modmod to reduce the leg work needed to add all 3 into a game.

And just curious here, have you tried a game with DA modmod?

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

While I like Rwn's Dangerous Animals I'm not advocating their inclusion into the Main. I was batting the idea around of combining my 2 modmods with his as a New Modmod to reduce the leg work needed to add all 3 into a game.

And just curious here, have you tried a game with DA modmod?

JosEPh

I did an early version but have not had time since.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The sum total income from a farm in food or a mine in production is more than a village in commerce. Sure the playstyles may differ and that's good. But if we don't balance those out some, the town/villages then the player with the playstyle to use them is getting the shaft. And not the shaft mine.

They're also not an immediate build-to-best situation like farms and mines and they are the most attractive targets for pillagers. I'm thinking they may deserve to be, at their best, better than farms and mines in pulling what they are intended to pull in.