City Development

[Txurce]

My personal solution to the river/watermill problem is to move the 1 from base river terrain to the Watermill, and remove the Watermill's river-adjacency requirement (so cities one/two tiles away could still build it). This idea met with resistance when I suggested it the first time, so I moved on to other priorities, but I still feel it would solve both problems. Any thoughts or opinions on this are welcome.

I like the idea of one type of each specialist for the National Epic. I added a culture multiplier to it so culture-victory focused players can improve the yield of Artists and Landmarks early in the game. I might replace this with the one-of-each-specialist idea though, I'll think about it for a while.

What's the river/watermill problem? Or is two problems? I ask because it's been a long time since I had any problem with either.

Regardless, by moving it from the river and making it the key to river gold you 1) make its name pointless and 2) force everyone with a river to build one.

Seek, which version?

 

[Txurce]

I occasionally choose Aristocracy when I already have a monument, then wait to research the next culture building... after which I fail to receive it for free. has this happened to anyone else?

 

[Seek]

I occasionally choose Aristocracy when I already have a monument, then wait to research the next culture building... after which I fail to receive it for free. has this happened to anyone else?

That's the way the mechanic works, for better or worse. If there's no available building in your oldest cities, it'll move on to the next oldest, even if it hasn't been founded yet. Researching a tech with the next building will not grant anything, you need the tech when Legalism is selected. Timing, therefore, is extremely important - see MadDjinn's Siam Let's Play series on Youtube for an example of how to screw this up (the vids are fun to watch, he's really a good player).

Hope this was clear, it's kind of hard to describe succinctly.

Seek, which version?

The one that Thal mentioned, where river gold showed up with the watermill.

 

[Txurce]

That's the way the mechanic works, for better or worse. If there's no available building in your oldest cities, it'll move on to the next oldest, even if it hasn't been founded yet. Researching a tech with the next building will not grant anything, you need the tech when Legalism is selected. Timing, therefore, is extremely important - see MadDjinn's Siam Let's Play series on Youtube for an example of how to screw this up (the vids are fun to watch, he's really a good player).

Hope this was clear, it's kind of hard to describe succinctly.


The one that Thal mentioned, where river gold showed up with the watermill.

Thanks for the very clear clarification!

 

[Txurce]

Is there a vanilla bug that stops you from getting the free GP at the end of the Freedom tree?

 

[Thalassicus]

The problem with rivers is 1 is too powerful. I'm confident it needs to be 0.5, but half-yields are not possible with the way the UI is built. I've considered various workarounds to this over the past year such as:

• Increase all yield numbers by a factor of 5 for more fine-tune control across the board (income, maintenance, costs, everything).
• Move the bonus to watermills.
• Delay the bonus to Sailing.
• Apply the bonus only to improved tiles.

The best solution is option A, but without access to the c++ it's hard to do.

The problem with Watermills is separate: they don't have a distinct role. Granaries and aqueducts are clearly a food role for any size of city. Watermills traditionally have a high cost to build and maintain, which would normally indicate they're for large cities, but their fixed yields are better for small cities, so the building is self-contradictory.

While the problems are independent of one another, they do tie in together somewhat with option B. There's other ways to fix both problems though and B isn't necessary.

Regardless, by moving it from the river and making it the key to river gold you 1) make its name pointless and 2) force everyone with a river to build one.

Could you clarify #1, and do you feel I should remove the gold bonus from Harbors? (the +1 on water tiles)

 

[Busdriver]

I agree that option A is definitely preferable. I think issues with tile yields go well beyond just riverside gold. Early game, for example, I think 1 for villages is not enough, while 2 is too much. I would say the same for the new Commerce tree: +1 per village is not enough for patent law, while +2 is too much. Increasing the amount of gold available may also open up options for having villages grow over time, as in civ IV (although that may be beyond the scope of this mod). Since this is infeasible for now, I would rather just see the gold bonus moved back to a tech or link it to improvements than put it on the watermill. Personally, I am very happy with the current incarnation of the watermill. It is very useful in certain situations while not being necessary in all river cities.

 

[Txurce]

The problem with rivers is 1 is too powerful. I'm confident it needs to be 0.5, but half-yields are not possible with the way the UI is built. I've considered various workarounds to this over the past year such as:

• Increase all yield numbers by a factor of 5 for more fine-tune control across the board (income, maintenance, costs, everything).
• Move the bonus to watermills.
• Delay the bonus to Sailing.
• Apply the bonus only to improved tiles.

The best solution is option A, but without access to the c++ it's hard to do.

The problem with Watermills is separate: they don't have a distinct role. Granaries and aqueducts are clearly a food role for any size of city. Watermills traditionally have a high cost to build and maintain, which would normally indicate they're for large cities, but their fixed yields are better for small cities, so the building is self-contradictory.

While the problems are independent of one another, they do tie in together somewhat with option B. There's other ways to fix both problems though and B isn't necessary.



Could you clarify #1, and do you feel I should remove the gold bonus from Harbors? (the +1 on water tiles)

I appreciate that the gold balance is not right, and that you're trying to fine tune a flawed instrument.

When I said option B made the name "water mill" pointless, it was because it didn't have to be on the water. Like Busdriver, I happen to like the current version, so would prefer option C (sailing) or D (improved tiles) or both (if possible). Again, that's because with option B, pretty much everyone with a river would have to build the water mill asap... right? That would put it up there with monuments, libraries and markets.

 

[Thalassicus]

Just because there's no major river nearby doesn't mean there's an absence of smaller streams. There's waterways and places to build watermills almost everywhere in the world.

The reason I've always been slightly puzzled about the reaction to Watermills is it's the same effect Harbors have (previously the Seaport). One gives 1 on water tiles, the other on river tiles. Both types of tiles are about equally common on most map scripts. If the Harbor is okay, why wouldn't the same effect on another building be okay too?

 

[Txurce]

The reason I've always been slightly puzzled about the reaction to Watermills is it's the same effect Harbors have (previously the Seaport). One gives 1 on water tiles, the other on river tiles. Both types of tiles are about equally common on most map scripts. If the Harbor is okay, why wouldn't the same effect on another building be okay too?

I'm sorry, I forgot to answer that question. For me the difference would be timing. By the time I research Compass en route to caravels (750 BC - 250 AD) I already have enough chices as to what to build (starting with universities) that I almost never build a harbor. (The game I'm finishing now is a good example - I wanted to build one in Thebes, and never got around to it.) Whereas the water mill comes with The Wheel and, given the circumstances, I wouldn't think twice about building it.

This doesn't mean I haven't been myopic about non-river coastal cities, by the way.

 

[Busdriver]

Right now, river tiles and coastal tiles start very similar, at 2 1. However, river tiles can be improved by workers while coastal tiles cannot. The lighthouse and harbor buildings remedy this by improving coastal tiles to a similar level as improved river tiles, balancing coastal cities with river cities. This is why I have no problem with the harbor. Furthermore, it is possible to have a coastal city that does not work many water tiles (the only sea tiles most of my coastal cities work are fish and luxuries), which means that the harbor is not always useful for a coastal city. On the other hand, river cities will almost always work their river tiles before the others, even without the gold, since the river tiles improve way earlier. This means that a watermill would always be worth building for a river city.

 

[Txurce]

On a separate note, shouldn't the Burial Tomb have a specialist slot, like the temple it replaces?

 

[manarod]

I like the idea of watermill improving river titles, but only cities on river should be able to build it, just like the harbour. This limitation will help to limit the power of the river bonus, otherwise it will easy to create a city just a title away form the river and have all the benefit for almost all the game.
I'd like to see again the +2 food bonus, sometimes the is only a 1 title long river, and the watermill doesn't seem interesting in that scenario

 

[Thalassicus]

That's very odd, I'd never noticed Firaxis removed the artist slot from the burial tomb. I wonder why? I didn't feel the building was overpowered.

 

[Seek]

While I'm definitely enjoying the new river gold changes in beta b6, the cultural tile-acquisition AI got a little messed up by it I think. City is choosing third ring non-river grass over second ring river sugar, for instance (and this is after about a dozen tile grabs! Still won't get the sugar, I'll have to buy it for 120G.) Is there a way to emphasize riverside tiles even if their yields are "the same" as those not on a river?

Also, I'm seeing some large plots of iron and horse. (Playing on the Eastern US from the recent map pack, don't know if that has anything to do with it.)

 

[Txurce]

While I'm definitely enjoying the new river gold changes in beta b6, the cultural tile-acquisition AI got a little messed up by it I think. City is choosing third ring non-river grass over second ring river sugar, for instance (and this is after about a dozen tile grabs! Still won't get the sugar, I'll have to buy it for 120G.) Is there a way to emphasize riverside tiles even if their yields are "the same" as those not on a river?

I hadn't noticed unusual tile acquisition in my b6 game (where India is growing appropriately big, by the way). Do you mean in a default situation, or when you set a city for culture (or whatever the "food" equivalent is? I didn't do that.

 

[Zeppelin4]

When you build a Temple shouldn't Incense give a culture bonus?

 

[Seek]

When you build a Temple shouldn't Incense give a culture bonus?

The monastery gives a culture bonus on incense - it would be redundant if the temple did as well.

 

[Stalker0]

Incense is actually super good for culture, because it actually allows you to build the monastary which is a net +3 culture on top of the +2 culture it provides.

 

[Thalassicus]

I don't think border expansion is influenced by yields. The setting in the xml is -1 ("ignore"), and from what I've seen the game seems to favor tiles equally regardless of yield.

What does matter is distance. This is basically how many "moves" it takes to get from the city to the candidate tile. Crossing a river is a high movement cost, so tiles across rivers are typically late for expansion. This is also why hills, forests, and mountains are acquired after flat/open terrain.

I put clothing resources (silk/fur/cotton/dye) on the temple because spiritual ceremonies around the world typically involve more elaborate clothing than everyday wear. Incense and wine already have a similar place on the Monastery, and I wanted to keep the temple as a clothing theme.