City Development

[Atwork]

It seems that food is quite plentiful in CIV5, esp. with maritime city-states. Question for those who have already played with this mod, doesn't giving the additional food bonuses to the granary (smokehouse) create a ridiculous abundance of food in a city with, let's say, two additional food resources?

 

[Perkus]

No. Maritime food is nerfed via Balance - Diplomacy which most of us would also use. It's not that common to have 2+ smokehouse resource in one city. The increased food via Fertilizer tech from Balance - City Improvements and the new Aqueduct building are much bigger factors in city growth than the smokehouse change.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Atwork
The food bonuses don't seem to be a problem, even with four such resources it's only +4. If you have four Maritime city-states you have 4 fewer food than vanilla post-renaissance.

@Perkus
I explored ways to give the Capital the Railroads bonus a few weeks ago. One idea I had was to give the Palace building a 50% bonus with the Railroads tech, but unfortunately there isn't an attribute for that in the buildings xml. My next idea was to create a duplicate post-railroads Palace that's exactly the same but with the bonus (and swap the two once you research it), yet that didn't work out so well either due to some hardcoded aspects of the domination victory condition. After trying out a few other alternatives, I gave up and decided to wait for c++ access.

Now that I think about it though... I might be able to create an invisible dummy building that's automatically awarded to your capital when you research Railroads. It's a really convoluted solution though, when changing it in the source code will likely be MUCH easier.

As for the crash... I've noticed the same thing, appears to be an issue with savegame compatibility. I'm not 100% sure what the problem is, but it might be because I'm adding entirely new things, not just changing existing things. My general philosophy is to give people more flexibility even if you run the risk of not having things work properly in a save. (The alternative is to checkmark the "affects saved games" box for the mod, this would block savegames entirely unless the version matches.)

I've added a few more things to the beta build (link):

• -20% per
• +1 per city
• +1 free (from difficulty)

Break-even point is population 5. More than this will be better than vanilla, less is worse.

 

[Perkus]

As for the crash... I've noticed the same thing, appears to be an issue with savegame compatibility. I'm not 100% sure what the problem is, but it might be because I'm adding entirely new things, not just changing existing things. My general philosophy is to give people more flexibility even if you run the risk of not having things work properly in a save. (The alternative is to checkmark the "affects saved games" box for the mod, this would block savegames entirely unless the version matches.)

I think I understand now why the Beta-7 crashes loading a saved game, and it's what you suspect. I made a small change to my private mod that adds a new building, upping the version. It started to crash with that same runtime error when loading my old save. Looks like Civ5 currently can't cope with reloading a saved game using with a mod version that adds new buildings which were not in previous versions, even if they're not built yet. Both yours and mine work fine if I start a new game. I noticed you already have yours flagged to "Affects Saves" (v7). Unfortunately because previous versions of it didn't have the flag on, and the saved game used those, it's not smart enough to prevent the load and it crashes. This is a pain. For my mod, I'll have to separate the new building into a separate piece that is marked save-affecting. I don't know if you want to split it off, or maybe rename it to reset the version to 1... Otherwise this update won't be compatible with games in progress.

For the railroad building, a mod named Echoes of Ages has a "Central Station" building which gives 50% production bonus, requires a Palace and Railroad. I'm using that myself for now.

EDIT: I just noticed a "Min Compatible Version" field in the mod manifest properties. Maybe that would fix it - if you set that to version 7, it might stop it from being compatible with existing saves?

 

[Thalassicus]

Ooo good idea, I hadn't thought of making a building that prereqs to the Palace.

I did set the minimum compatible version to 7 in the latest download, I think. And in the long run... it wouldn't really hurt if a single version is not backwards-compatible, out of weeks of gameplay.

 

[Perkus]

@Thalassicus
Yes, you did already have the min compatible version set, I never checked, first time I've come across that. Unfortunately it didn't help anything, because I am having this problem:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=397244.

I tried removing that min compatible version, and even removing the "Affects Saves" flag from version 7, and neither helped, it still insists on loading it if it's in my mods directory. Weird...

 

[Thalassicus]

I figured out what the problem is. The "affects saves" flag is incomplete. With it checked:

Save file with mod - cannot load without mod (game checks this and indicates you must have the mod).
Save file without mod - can load with mod (game does not check this and crashes).

We need two checkmarks, one for each situation. Currently we only can control the first situation.

Alternatively, they could just make it so the game doesn't crash when new things are added. I suspect this would be more difficult to solve though.

 

[Thalassicus]

Argh this is annoying... I've discovered that any version change of a mod that includes new items (units, buildings, wonders etc) will cause the game to crash if you load savegames of earlier versions (or no use of the mod at all) even if those units/buildings/wonders aren't built. I didn't think going from 7 to 8 would cause the problem since nothing new is added in 8, only a few data entries are altered. This is frustrating. -_-

I could split the parts off that cause compatibility issues into a separate file to solve the problem... but we can't control mod load order! One problem compounds with another... oh well.

I think the only solution is to just update mods when you start a new game, not during existing games.

 

[Perkus]

Wow, that's pretty brutal, much worse than I realized. So saves made with v7 now don't load with v8 ? What a mess.

 

[Matte979]

NOTE: The parameter <MinCompatibleSaveVersion> seem to disable other modifications, this could be related to me using an old save game, I removed the new building manually. You set the flag affect save game that should be enough I would not mess with the MinCompatibleSaveVersion.

 

[travlake]

First: thank you SO MUCH Thalassicus for all the hard work. You made civ V a lot better for me.

Onto the reason I'm posting: Version 8, at least the one I got from ModBuddy, includes the changes to happiness (now 3 per city plus 0.8 per pop). I don't mind, I just don't see it anywhere in the documentation, so you should either change the documentation or remove the happiness change.

Regarding the happiness changes, I like what you've done but would like to propose an alternative (which I've been playing with for a while):

1) 3 unhappy per city
2) 1 unhappy per population
3) +1 baseline happy for each difficultly level.
4) Colosseum, Theater, Stadium all now cost 4 gpt.
5) Colosseum +4 happy, Theater +6 happy, Stadium +8 happy.
6) Forbidden palace and planned economy now -33% unhappy from number of cities (+1 happy/city as in vanilla).
7) India now +66% unhappy per city, -50% unhappy per population. (compared to +100% unhappy per city, -50% unhappy per pop).

Rationale:
- 1 and 3 are same as you have now.
- 2 makes the mental arithmetic easier, avoids the rounding issue of every 5th population being free.
- 4 and 5 compensate for extra unhappy from 2, and make happiness much easier when you have cities that can build theaters and stadiums.
- 6 makes it harder to ICS by combining forbidden palace and planned eco.
- 7 buffs india, who really gets whacked by the +6 unhappy per city when each city costs normal civs +3 unhappy.

 

[killmeplease]

i like +50% effects
does this increase happiness in a city a wonder built or a global happiness?

 

[Thalassicus]

Argh this is annoying... I've discovered that any version change of a mod that includes new items (units, buildings, wonders etc) will cause the game to crash if you load savegames of earlier versions (or no use of the mod at all) even if those units/buildings/wonders aren't built. I didn't think going from 7 to 8 would cause the problem since nothing new is added in 8, only a few data entries are altered. This is frustrating. -_-

I could split the parts off that cause compatibility issues into a separate file to solve the problem... but we can't control mod load order! One problem compounds with another... oh well.

I think the only solution is to just update mods when you start a new game, not during existing games.

Seems I was mistaken about this, the game was actually complaining because I'd renamed a mod folder.


@Matte979
Thanks for suggesting that, I changed it back to 0 for the next version.

@travlake
6) Done. Thanks for pointing out planned economy... I'd changed forbidden palace but forgot about the policy.
7) Done. I hadn't intended to change India so dramatically.

Regarding 2/4/5, do you often calculate out happiness values? I usually just place cities and deal with unhappiness if necessary. Typically I have more of a thought of a general, "I can support X number of cities without dropping into unhappiness," rather than figuring individually "X cities costs me Y unhappiness and can provide Z happiness from buildings, for a net effect of.." etc. I set up my larger cities (pop >10) to avoid growth, and disable that whenever I have high happiness and don't have a good spot to build a new city. The problem with shifting the happiness from population to buildings is it'd still allow you to ICS with small population by buying a few more buildings.

The goal is to actually make it easier to achieve and manage higher populations (which are more fun), and the only way I see to do so is to decrease unhappiness from population.


@killmeplease
The changes in the Wonders section are just described in terms of percentages. Machu Pichu goes from 550->450 (-20%) and the Eiffel Tower goes from 8->12 (+50%). Happiness is still global, as in vanilla.

 

[travlake]

6) Done. Thanks for pointing out planned economy... I'd changed forbidden palace but forgot about the policy.
7) Done. I hadn't intended to change India so dramatically.

Cool, thanks!

Regarding 2/4/5, do you often calculate out happiness values?

Not often, but when I am near 0 happy I look at how much growth I want in the short term (i.e. how many unworked good tiles/desired specialists I have) and then try to get that much new happy pronto. Like you I try not to grow cities unless I have something I want shortly.

With the 0.8/pop unhappy, the above is a bit trickier. Lets say I want to grow 7 pop in the short term; I may need 5 more happy or 6, depending on where I am in the rounding cycle. E.g. if I have 20 citizens now = 16 unhappy, I need 6 new happy because 27 citizens = 22 unhappy. But if I have 24 citizens now = 20 unhappy, I only need 5 new happy because 31 citizens = 25 unhappy.

The above is a cooked example, and really not that important anyway, at least compared to proper balance. But if another way of balancing it is available, we might as well avoid the annoyance of rounding considerations.

The problem with shifting the happiness from population to buildings is it'd still allow you to ICS with small population by buying a few more buildings.

The goal is to actually make it easier to achieve and manage higher populations (which are more fun), and the only way I see to do so is to decrease unhappiness from population.

I thought about that and agree it is a problem. I have two things to add though:
1) Is it possible to make Theater require something like 6 pop, Stadium 10 pop (random numbers that need more thought)? I haven't figured out how if it is, but you are way better at this than me.

2) You could also just crank up the gold/hammer ratio for buying the happy buildings

2) There are already a few pretty strong mechanisms in place that favor few big cities vs. lots of small cities:
- Unhappy faces per city (now a lot stronger with the 3/city, no way to wipe it out with wonders/policies).
- National wonders (some of which should be a lot better).
- Luxury resources providing happiness civ-wide instead of per city. More cities dilutes the importance of luxuries.
- Multipliers make big specialized cities more efficient use of tiles (more important when tiles are better) than small cities.

All of these things together don't measure up to the benefits of many small cities in vanilla ciV, but the library change, maritime change, addition of aqueduct, etc. all tilt the scales towards big cities enough without the extra happiness hit IMO.

 

[elprofesor]

This comes kind of late, but regarding the issue on the pyramids: what if it gave 3-4 great engineer points(instead of the point it already gives)? With the spread GP spots, right now great engineers are just slightly more difficult to come around than other GPs, but we still have to wait some time to get one from buildings. I think this simple change would make the piramids great for later wonders, giving it some "we are the wonder-builders" flavour.
The same can be applied to other seemingly weak wonders, such as the Great Wall, although the problem with the latter is rather the incompetence of the AI at warfare than being underpowered (i've never played MP, so I don't know if it really is).

 

[Thalassicus]

That's an interesting idea. No wonders have specialists in the vanilla game, which I find sort of odd. It would make sense to add a few more points, though I did add an engineer slot to water mills. The slots are the main way to get specialists.

Slots look like this:

Artists - 2 in Classical and Renaissance
Engineers - 1 in Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial
Scientists - 1 in Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and 2 in Modern
Merchants - 1 in Medieval, Renaissance and Industrial

Looking at the tech tree and considering the difficulty of getting merchants, it might be interesting to put a merchant slot on the Harbor and/or Seaport. It really does highlight why Scientists were overpowered... more slots than any other type, and 2 in the ancient era, plus the crazy buff to lightbulbing.

 

[alpaca]

I gave your balance mods a first try today and I have a small oversight to report (and maybe some balance nags): Siam has a unique building, the Wat, which replaces the university. It's meant to be a university that provides some culture but you changed normal universities to 2 scientist slots while leaving the Wat at 1, which actually makes it kinda worse than a normal university.

The obvious fix would be adding a slot to the Wat but I would ask you to consider removing the extra slot from the universities instead. Having just 2 scientist slots in the first two buildings has some positive influence on the game in my opinion. Scientist specialists would be a little less dominant (and therefore GS, too) and you already changed the tradition tree to generate even more science from specialists. Also, universities are quite strong enough as they were and don't need the additional slot.

A second small thing: Water Mill is still completely useless. +2 food for 2 gpt? No, thanks. The engineer slot is no saving grace, either, because I typically want to run scientists (I can get more production via mines, after all). The granary-gone-smokehouse is still bad, too. Unless you play without maritime CS or have bad luck with getting them. You might want to look at the bonuses for Siam, by the way. I got +2 in all cities in the Medieval era iirc. This makes Siam quite strong in your mod compared to the other civs that only get +1. The problem is, of course, that the Maritime bonus is rounded, not exact.

 

[Thalassicus]

Thanks for pointing out the Wat issue. I've moved the extra scientist slot to the Research Lab in the current development version.

I agree about the watermill, I've been considering buffing it. In early game I've found the watermill useful for my military city once all hills are being worked. It's a good production boost when you've run out of other sources.

The main bonus of the engineer slot however is if you're running with a specialist economy, such as if you're playing the Ottomans (which have +33% creation as a new trait). It's converting 2 into 213 (science from the buffed Landed Elite policy in the tradition tree) which is quite good, especially since the Manufactory improvement got a buff in Terrain Improvements. In the renaissance with specialist policies it becomes insane, up to +0.4 1 3 3 3.

Basically, it scales better as the game goes on. To improve its early game value, someone suggested adding a 2 to the building itself, which is an interesting idea.

In most of my games I build the Smokehouse if I have two of the resources nearby. That's 4 for a 1/turn maintenance, quite good. It's situational, but still useful. It'll be better once we can convert the Maritime bonus from fixed food to a % increase.

You're right that Siam gets a bonus, I haven't seen the civ listed at the top of any "most powerful civ" polls however, so I felt the buff makes sense. Post-renaissance they have 3 from Maritime compared to other civs' 2, so it's 50% in mid to late game. This is the period Maritime makes the most difference, when empires are larger.

 

[alpaca]

Thanks for pointing out the Wat issue. I've moved the extra scientist slot to the Research Lab in the current development version.

I agree about the watermill, I've been considering buffing it. In early game I've found the watermill useful for my military city once all hills are being worked. It's a good production boost when you've run out of other sources.

The main bonus of the engineer slot however is if you're running with a specialist economy, such as if you're playing the Ottomans (which have +33% creation as a new trait). It's converting 2 into 213 (science from the buffed Landed Elite policy in the tradition tree) which is quite good, especially since the Manufactory improvement got a buff in Terrain Improvements. In the renaissance with specialist policies it becomes insane, up to +0.4 1 3 3 3.

Basically, it scales better as the game goes on. To improve its early game value, someone suggested adding a 2 to the building itself, which is an interesting idea.

In most of my games I build the Smokehouse if I have two of the resources nearby. That's 4 for a 1/turn maintenance, quite good. It's situational, but still useful. It'll be better once we can convert the Maritime bonus from fixed food to a % increase.

You're right that Siam gets a bonus, I haven't seen the civ listed at the top of any "most powerful civ" polls however, so I felt the buff makes sense. Post-renaissance they have 3 from Maritime compared to other civs' 2, so it's 50% in mid to late game. This is the period Maritime makes the most difference, when empires are larger.

Yes, the engineer is potentially good but you still have to build the water mill, divert a pop for it, and pay 2 gold maintenance. How about making the water mill work similar to the Aztec UB? A percentage boost to food produced in the city would make it quite useful and favor large cities. The smokehouse is situational indeed, but I find I typically have better things to build. Maybe if you improved the base food to +3?

I think people are severely under-evaluating Siam. They have a very strong civ ability and an excellent UU with a quite good UB. In vanilla the ability doesn't really shine because you don't need the extra food (and you can typically get the same by just allying more CS with Greece for example) but in balance they become a powerhouse because of the bonus.

 

[Txurce]

I think people are severely under-evaluating Siam. They have a very strong civ ability and an excellent UU with a quite good UB. In vanilla the ability doesn't really shine because you don't need the extra food (and you can typically get the same by just allying more CS with Greece for example) but in balance they become a powerhouse because of the bonus.

This is quite possible. These mods nerfed Greece and China and buffed a few of the low scorers, but there is definitely a way to turn siam into a powerhouse. However I think all these revisions need to be tried before pushing one down again. For example, the Ottomans are now also quite impressive, like Persia.