SlightlyMad
Prince
Yeah, I actually like things like that, especially when they make use of a feature that's otherwise a detriment. It would be neat to see one for snow or ice as well (science outpost or something).
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City Development
- Thread starter Thalassicus
- Start date
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
This is possible: it's the mechanism Solar Power Plants use. I could make a "Research Outpost" building identical to the Observatory in effect but requires snow...
Ahriman
Tyrant
I don't think there is a need for this; I think it is fine for snow to just be bad territory. I also don't really see any advantage; it makes logical sense that a tall mountain is a good place for an observatory, it makes less sense that arctic wasteland is really a good research center. We do most of our research in cities, the polar zones are just non-productive. I think this is fine.
Whereas deserts we sometimes use because they can have lots of floodplains. There have been powerful civilizations that lived on/near deserts, but never a powerful civ that lived on/near arctic zones. The biological productivity is too low.
Txurce
Deity
There's not a need for a lot of stuff. Do we need chariots to move after firing? No - they're just fun, and add variety to the game's approach to warring.
Snow could just be bad territory, but a research outpost may well add occasional minor enjoyment to the game.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Arctic regions are actually not that bad in Civ. Map generation considers the fertility of various tiles, and low yields like snow get lots of extra resources nearby to compensate (like luxuries, fish, or deer in nearby tundra). Snow cities are usually on the coast too, and water tiles are quite valuable in TBC.
The bonus could be something other than science... perhaps tourism? Alaska is a popular destination for many cruises. I have a friend who manages personnel aboard a liner that sails from Alaska to Mexico and Hawaii.
The bonus could be something other than science... perhaps tourism? Alaska is a popular destination for many cruises. I have a friend who manages personnel aboard a liner that sails from Alaska to Mexico and Hawaii.
SlightlyMad
Prince
Yeah, it would be more of a fun-factor addition than anything else, and it should probably go in the industrial or modern era where the game is pretty much decided anyways so it's nice to have things that can speed up your win. Commerce would work perfectly, since the solar plant affects production and the observatory affects science. Maybe "Right-wing reality TV show" but you'd have to disable the city governor first ;P
edit: As serious suggestions: maybe a geothermal plant like iceland has? It would be weird to have it produce commerce though. Another possibility would be to take advantage of the fact that arctic regions have a lot of fish, and most arctic economies focus heavily on fishing. Maybe something that gives +1G on fish but requires both an improved fish AND a snow tile?
edit: As serious suggestions: maybe a geothermal plant like iceland has? It would be weird to have it produce commerce though. Another possibility would be to take advantage of the fact that arctic regions have a lot of fish, and most arctic economies focus heavily on fishing. Maybe something that gives +1G on fish but requires both an improved fish AND a snow tile?
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think we are in serious danger of falling into the MOAAAR! trap. I don't think in a mod that is primarily balance we should add features "just because". I think simpler is better.
There was a gameplay need for example for adding the aqueduct, and vanilla then copied us. But I don't see a strong gameplay need for a snow-related building, so I would advise against adding one. Feature creep is the biggest enemy of almost every mod.
Geothermal plants aren't related to polar zones, there are tons of geothermal plants all over the world; some of the earliest modern plants were in New Zealand, some of the biggest new ones are in the Philippines.
The reason there are lots of fish in Alaska and the Arctic in the 20th century is mostly because everywhere else they have been depleted, but those areas are much more dangerous and harder to get to and didn't have people, so there are more left.
It would also be odd for a fish tile to somehow benefit from the fact that a nearby land tile was frozen.
There was a gameplay need for example for adding the aqueduct, and vanilla then copied us. But I don't see a strong gameplay need for a snow-related building, so I would advise against adding one. Feature creep is the biggest enemy of almost every mod.
Geothermal plants aren't related to polar zones, there are tons of geothermal plants all over the world; some of the earliest modern plants were in New Zealand, some of the biggest new ones are in the Philippines.
The reason there are lots of fish in Alaska and the Arctic in the 20th century is mostly because everywhere else they have been depleted, but those areas are much more dangerous and harder to get to and didn't have people, so there are more left.
It would also be odd for a fish tile to somehow benefit from the fact that a nearby land tile was frozen.
SlightlyMad
Prince
Yeah, I'm really just throwing out "fun ideas." It might be something interesting to consider if it's decided something like that is needed for balance, but probably not a priority. The AI does have a bad tendency to found crappy polar cities though, and this would mitigate their losses somewhat when they do. Really though, we have so much to adjust to from the patch that we should probably not even think about it yet.
Ahriman
Tyrant
It's great to be creative and throw ideas around, and I apologize for coming across too negative.
But I think design changes happen best by starting with a problem and then looking for a solution, rather than starting with an idea then looking for a way to add it.
If the AI is founding too many polar cities (which is certainly plausible) then I would think the right solution would be to try to tweak AI settlement AI, so that it did a better job of calculating the value of a city site and had a decent threshold below which it would not settle. [As opposed to boosting the value of polar cities.] I think it is ok for polar cities to be mostly about grabbing resources.
@Thal
One problem is that deer on tundra is still a very weak tile. Is there any way to tweak the mapscripts so that a forest is always placed on a deer tile, or so that deer are placed on forests?
But I think design changes happen best by starting with a problem and then looking for a solution, rather than starting with an idea then looking for a way to add it.
If the AI is founding too many polar cities (which is certainly plausible) then I would think the right solution would be to try to tweak AI settlement AI, so that it did a better job of calculating the value of a city site and had a decent threshold below which it would not settle. [As opposed to boosting the value of polar cities.] I think it is ok for polar cities to be mostly about grabbing resources.
@Thal
One problem is that deer on tundra is still a very weak tile. Is there any way to tweak the mapscripts so that a forest is always placed on a deer tile, or so that deer are placed on forests?
SlightlyMad
Prince
Sadly we can't tweak the settlement AI without access to the c++ can we? Anyways I haven't had ample time to test post-patch, so maybe it's not even a big problem anymore. The thing I've been noticing the most lately though, is that the AI has reached entire new levels of love for founding cities a single tile from the coast in my current game.
Txurce
Deity
Late game, though, right? In those cases, given their happiness levels, I think it's probably a net plus for them.
SlightlyMad
Prince
I often see it in their 2nd or 3rd cities. In my current game, Isabella expanded three new cities in a line across the coast from her capital, and every single one of them was a single tile from the coast. That's why I made the suggestion a while back that coastal improvements should be allowed for any city that has a coast tile in its radius.
Txurce
Deity
I see your point. I read too quickly and thought you meant islands. Yes, the AI doesn't seem to think about coasts at all.
GoodRevrnd
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Messages
- 144
Doesn't this mean you could remove the current implementation of the mountain requirement and use the Solar Power Plant approach instead, flagging for mountain tile instead of desert? I imagine the implementation for the Stoneworks, Stable, Blast Furnace, etc. might also be similar?
Edit: Herp derp, I guess the solar plant mechanic isn't really any different with "on or next to."
I see your point, but most mountain tiles seem to be overly stacked against you and I'm not convinced the benefits of the Observatory outweigh that. Nobody is ever going to settle next to a mountain just to build the Observatory. The overall compensation of your "fat cross" is far more important. I think the current implementation means at most you will have 1 observatory in 25% of your games. Why even have it then? The change I'm suggesting would probably change that to at most 2 observatories in maybe 50-75% of your games.
Ahriman
Tyrant
I agree that the benefits of the Observatory don't outweigh the penalty, but I don't think they should. Mountainous regions are unproductive, I think it is fine that areas with lots of mountains are generally less valuable (unless you are Inca).
No, but they might settle next to a mountain for many other reasons. I think the goal is not to make mountains good, it is to make them slightly less bad.
Being right next to a mountain hurts you in a much more serious way than just having one near you does, because if you just have one near you, you won't take it with culture.
More important to what? Merely having a mountain within 3 tiles isn't much of a penalty, because you have so many tiles that your culture could take that you will hardly ever cover all of them (or need to).
I think I get a bit more than that, but I don't think it needs to be super-common.
I disagree; I think that many cities would have a mountain somewhere within 3 tiles of them.
Txurce
Deity
Actually, I always give it serious thought, especially when other factors indicate a good science city. I've also read posts of players who actively seek them out for this reason. It's a matter of how much planning ahead you're doing.
That would be my guess.
I have often moved a city one hex from what I might otherwise have considered to be the optimal location just to get next to a mountain for an observatory. Could you use the Machu Picchu mechanic and require a mountain only within 2 hexes? Observatories would still be fairly uncommon I think.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Can't adjust any fundamentals of the AI.
Mountains are like a hole in the map as far as map generation is concerned... they're ignored for everything. This means for each mountain in our region, we get an extra tile of something else. I suspect the AI also ignores mountains completely for city placement... though obviously they're considered for unit pathing and chokepoints.
Yes, this means the Inca are not placed near mountains - they favor hills, a notable difference for terrace farms. Fixing that is on my wishlist of low-priority tasks.
I did this in v7.2.3, though the change was so minor I didn't record it... one of those undocumented changes that sometimes gets forgotten. In retrospect I should have recorded it in the patch notes. If you still notice any deer on no-forest tiles it's a bug to bring up.
Mountains are like a hole in the map as far as map generation is concerned... they're ignored for everything. This means for each mountain in our region, we get an extra tile of something else. I suspect the AI also ignores mountains completely for city placement... though obviously they're considered for unit pathing and chokepoints.
Yes, this means the Inca are not placed near mountains - they favor hills, a notable difference for terrace farms. Fixing that is on my wishlist of low-priority tasks.
I did this in v7.2.3, though the change was so minor I didn't record it... one of those undocumented changes that sometimes gets forgotten. In retrospect I should have recorded it in the patch notes. If you still notice any deer on no-forest tiles it's a bug to bring up.
The Macchu Picchu wonder requires a mountain within a 2-tile radius of the city, as far as I recall, could the same limitation not be applied to the observatory? Would make them a bit easier to get, but keep the mountain focus. Sounds plausible to me, as its a limit that is already ingame.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I could do that. It wouldn't have much direct gameplay impact since ring-2 mountain tiles are very expensive to purchase, and always chosen late for normal cultural expansion. It'd give a bit more flexibility though.
