City Specialization Brainstorm

[myclan]

By simply reducing the number of slots, besieged cities will become a significant burden on the empire, as they will be filled with laborers instead of temporarily filling the slots of engineers, merchants, or scientists. These slots during a siege can be considered a replacement for blocked landscape improvements such as manufactories, academies, and towns. If a city has lost access to the academy and there is no scientist slot, then it is impossible to compensate for the missing part of the science and the city will have a stable unhappiness. This dropped part of science will also affect the overall happiness of the empire. The unhappiness of the entire empire will weaken the army, which will receive a -10..-20% penalty in combat operations.

To compensate for lost culture from villages or luxury, you can simply instantlymove a piece of art or music from one city to another. This cannot be done with local science and gold. since it is pointless to send caravans from a besieged city.

Cities located in the middle of the ocean on small islands will be very difficult to develop, as they clearly have a problem with hammers. But they will have a huge number of citizens, since everyone works in the ocean and produces +2 food, in addition to the food eaten, before modifiers.

Overpopulation will also be a problem in mainland cities due to excess food and fewer specialists.

I think cities being surrounded should suffer from unhappiness, to urge reinforcement to solve the problem. And if we need more employment, just buff the labors. They can produce a bit of production/culture/science/gold, but no GP and much weaker than specialists.

 

[Bryan317]

This mod and quite frankly the vanilla version are pretty locked down on this "build everything" concept. There was a comment that in reality most cities have the same types of infrastructure. That's mostly true. But VP still takes things to the extreme. For instance apparently every city has a Castle. In fact, even a new city that has been founded in 2024 must build a castle if they want a Military Base. How can we get away from this?

I just think the issue brought up here is bigger than we think. And as mentioned, balancing could be destroyed.

 

[Anarcomu]

Got an idea about this : making some buildings "upgradable" through age.
Mechanically :

• Some buildings (A) have an associated building (B), considered an upgrade.
• (A) can no longer be build when (B) is unlocked. Ideally, production should be transferred to (B), the same way it works for obsoleting units production being transferred to the next.
• (A) provide a strong production boost towards (B), like 50% or even 100%, representing that you already have part of infrastructure build.
• (A) is destroyed upon completion of (B).
• (A) cannot be build if (B) - or (C) if it exists - is already build. (case when you conquer an enemy city with technological advance).
• (B) should be a strict upgrade from (A), having everything (A) gives and more. Or maybe not.

This system brings two big improvement (imo) to the game :

• It reduce the amount of buildings in a city (cleaner),
• It makes new cities have less overall number of buildings to build, which make it easier to manage :
  • Less click for the same result
  • Heavy production cities will be less prone to the limitation of "one building per turn"

This would be, of course, a very big change with lots of testing, balance, consideration etc. Not sure if it is worth it, just throwing ideas around.

 

[Bryan317]

I almost like the idea of removing Castles from the military build tier. Make it a unique building and more like the Civ4 concept. Where IF you built one during the appropriate era you will get a culture bonus after its made obsolete. Otherwise if you didn't build one it's now locked out.

 

[dylansan]

Got an idea about this : making some buildings "upgradable" through age.
Mechanically :

• Some buildings (A) have an associated building (B), considered an upgrade.
• (A) can no longer be build when (B) is unlocked. Ideally, production should be transferred to (B), the same way it works for obsoleting units production being transferred to the next.
• (A) provide a strong production boost towards (B), like 50% or even 100%, representing that you already have part of infrastructure build.
• (A) is destroyed upon completion of (B).
• (A) cannot be build if (B) - or (C) if it exists - is already build. (case when you conquer an enemy city with technological advance).
• (B) should be a strict upgrade from (A), having everything (A) gives and more. Or maybe not.

This system brings two big improvement (imo) to the game :

• It reduce the amount of buildings in a city (cleaner),
• It makes new cities have less overall number of buildings to build, which make it easier to manage :
  • Less click for the same result
  • Heavy production cities will be less prone to the limitation of "one building per turn"

This would be, of course, a very big change with lots of testing, balance, consideration etc. Not sure if it is worth it, just throwing ideas around.

I kind of like this idea, but without (B) replacing (A).

For example, you can build a shrine (A) and then a temple (B) later. If you skip the shrine, it becomes obsolete, but you can still build the temple, just without the benefit of the buildings that came before. This wouldn't require quite as much rebalancing.

Biggest issue I can imagine is that if your science output is large enough, you may obsolete things quicker than you can build them and end up with less infrastructure as a result.

Also, any buildings/wonders that rely on having X number of something built would have to be adjusted. And of course some things like guilds would never go obsolete (they have no upgrade/replacement anyway so that makes sense).

But overall you'd have to be more picky about what you prioritize in each city. Older cities would have buildings only available in earlier eras, but newer ones could maybe get up to speed a bit faster (?) because they don't have to build every building in a line to get to the current ones.

Edit: To add, as someone who hasn't played in a while and isn't too familiar with all the buildings, I think I'd be far less overwhelmed in mid to late game if the building list wasn't clogged with stuff I had already decided to skip several centuries ago. Obsoleting old stuff would do that sort of automatically.

 

[Bryan317]

I kind of like this idea, but without (B) replacing (A).

For example, you can build a shrine (A) and then a temple (B) later. If you skip the shrine, it becomes obsolete, but you can still build the temple, just without the benefit of the buildings that came before. This wouldn't require quite as much rebalancing.

Biggest issue I can imagine is that if your science output is large enough, you may obsolete things quicker than you can build them and end up with less infrastructure as a result.

Also, any buildings/wonders that rely on having X number of something built would have to be adjusted. And of course some things like guilds would never go obsolete (they have no upgrade/replacement anyway so that makes sense).

But overall you'd have to be more picky about what you prioritize in each city. Older cities would have buildings only available in earlier eras, but newer ones could maybe get up to speed a bit faster (?) because they don't have to build every building in a line to get to the current ones.

Edit: To add, as someone who hasn't played in a while and isn't too familiar with all the buildings, I think I'd be far less overwhelmed in mid to late game if the building list wasn't clogged with stuff I had already decided to skip several centuries ago. Obsoleting old stuff would do that sort of automatically.

Yes. This is similar to what I mentioned with the Castle situation. If these types of mechanics where applied to all types of buildings it would do more than create more unique cities. Civilizations would be more unique based on their victory path. I mean this sounds like a complete overhaul, but it's nice to brainstorm.

 

[msw1]

Agreed it's a cool idea but would need to be something of a complete overhaul. So many policies, wonders etc. buff specific buildings. And how would newly founded cities in later eras build anything if they can't build the basic infrastructure buildings that give them the production to build the later era's buildings?

 

[rkkn]

didn't read through every post, but I'll throw out how another 4x does it. One of the things is it has a lot of terrain-dependent buildings, though it's not explicitly terrain locked. For example there are two or three buildings that add science to any tile that already has science. Most tiles have no science, but in some regions, such icy regions, almost every tile has science, so it's very strong there. Additionally, some buildings are very strong but require strategic resources to build, so you can't just build them everywhere, most of the time.

 

[msw1]

That could be good. That's sort of how the More Wonders mod does it and I think that works well.

 

[myclan]

I like the idea when Castle becomes available, Wall becomes obsolete (no effect at all and no longer can be built), but you can build a Castle faster if you already have a Wall. The Wall has already protected your cities before Medieval Age so not useless even it becomes obsolete later. Castle can have a effect of current Wall+Castle for balance issues.

 

[Bryan317]

I like the idea when Castle becomes available, Wall becomes obsolete (no effect at all and no longer can be built), but you can build a Castle faster if you already have a Wall. The Wall has already protected your cities before Medieval Age so not useless even it becomes obsolete later. Castle can have a effect of current Wall+Castle for balance issues.

I'm curious why you like this. I tend to make my opinions based off of what is historically accurate. In this case, an outer perimeter wall and an inner castle is totally possible. If you play Medieval Total War 2 you'll be quite familiar with this if you attack a "Citadel"

To add to this, I may get what you're trying to do. The unrealistic thing once again is every city builds a wall. I even attempt to not prioritize them for aesthetic flair. Again I think there was a Civ 3/Civ4 concept that applied well here (I may be mixing up the versions, they all blend together now) But I believe Walls had a set of "cons." In other words there should be some reasons why some civilizations may choose not to build them. Maybe they restrict trade. Or something else that someone that isn't warlike may not prefer.

 

[azum4roll]

I'm not opposed to having some early buildings in lines obsolete.

Buildings obsolete when the next building in line is available (e.g. Walls obsolete at Chivalry).

Obsoleted buildings
1. cannot be built;
2. are still effective;
3. are immediately destroyed when the upgraded version is built.

Upgraded buildings retain all stats and abilities of the obsoleted buildings.
So Castle would have +1 city strike range, +14 CS, +125 HP, +2 flat damage reduction, +20% supply from population, -10% empire size modifier, +1 on quarry, +1 art slot.

This also further lowers building maintenance late game.

 

[Bryan317]

I guess walls in every city makes every playthrough feel like a war game in a savage land.

I know there is definitely a technological era where Walls are essential. Trebuchets, and certainly Cannons end this era. But walls can still be something that a savage warlike civilization may have in every city, even til modern times. But I'm guessing most of us here don't think of our local big cities as walled up citadels.

 

[myclan]

I'm curious why you like this. I tend to make my opinions based off of what is historically accurate. In this case, an outer perimeter wall and an inner castle is totally possible. If you play Medieval Total War 2 you'll be quite familiar with this if you attack a "Citadel"

To add to this, I may get what you're trying to do. The unrealistic thing once again is every city builds a wall. I even attempt to not prioritize them for aesthetic flair. Again I think there was a Civ 3/Civ4 concept that applied well here (I may be mixing up the versions, they all blend together now) But I believe Walls had a set of "cons." In other words there should be some reasons why some civilizations may choose not to build them. Maybe they restrict trade. Or something else that someone that isn't warlike may not prefer.

My point is quite straightforward, just lazy.

If it's ancient age, and I want to protect my city in the frontline, I will prioritize building a wall in it. But may not in my backyard city.

But later, when I want to reduce my city size by building a castle in it. I just want to build the castle only to gain the effect, not wall then city.

The same when I want to build an armory, not having to build the barrack first.

 

[dylansan]

I'm not opposed to having some early buildings in lines obsolete.

Buildings obsolete when the next building in line is available (e.g. Walls obsolete at Chivalry).

Obsoleted buildings
1. cannot be built;
2. are still effective;
3. are immediately destroyed when the upgraded version is built.

Upgraded buildings retain all stats and abilities of the obsoleted buildings.
So Castle would have +1 city strike range, +14 CS, +125 HP, +2 flat damage reduction, +20% supply from population, -10% empire size modifier, +1 on quarry, +1 art slot.

This also further lowers building maintenance late game.

I disagree with destroying the obsolete building when the upgrade is built.

1. If the upgrade gets the stats and abilities of the old building, there's no reason to build the old building if you're near the tech for the new one. It's just a waste of hammers. If city A has walls and city B does not, once they build a castle the benefit of building the walls disappears.
2. Rather than helping city specialization, this would tend to make all cities the same. City A and B now both have a castle and no walls.
3. In real life, we don't demolish the university to build a public school. We don't demolish the hospital to build a medical lab. Old buildings remain while new ones are added. A city can have an old historic castle or market and also have a military base or a bank.
4. Buffing the stats of every later stage and demolishing the early buildings would give the same yields as leaving the stats as they are and letting old buildings remain. The latter requires much less effort.
5. If maintenance costs of too many old buildings becomes a problem (I don't think that's likely in practice, considering old buildings cost much less than modern ones), it's always possible for the player to choose to destroy them and sacrifice the yields/effects.

The way I see it, City A with walls and a castle is better than city B with just a castle, but city B can use those hammers to build other stuff, then build the castle relatively quickly because it doesn't need to build a completely different building first.

As far as founding cities later in the game, I think the behavior of pioneers and colonists would have to change. It is kind of funny that in the 1800s, some colonists would build a new city with... an ancient shrine and monument, an amphitheater, etc. Perhaps if pioneers and colonists just gave a bunch of food and production when used, that could support the cities while they build up some infrastructure. If they start with more population, there's a risk they could starve if the food buildings don't get built fast enough. Maybe they could start at 1 pop and a bunch of food in storage to be used to grow as the player sees fit?

Aside from the pioneer/colonist changes, the changes for buildings would be as follows:

• remove requirements to build the previous building in a line
• make buildings unbuildable when the next building in a line unlocks (at this point, the only link between buildings in a line would be the way they obsolete, and their similarities in function)
• remove all required buildings from national wonders (or don't! Maybe it's okay if they can be missed, or not be valid options in every city! They would likely warrant tweaking at the very least)
• adjust policies, beliefs, and tenets which reference specific buildings.

I think the result of this would be that every city has a different mix of buildings based on its priorities, and that every city would have fewer buildings overall, which would require some balancing to make feel right. But I think it would be a good direction to experiment with.

 

[CppMaster]

make buildings unbuildable when the next building in a line unlocks (at this point, the only link between buildings in a line would be the way they obsolete, and their similarities in function)

I agree with everything except this. Why prevent from building a library when universities are unlocked? Your civilization still is able to build it, so why not?

 

[dylansan]

Well, the whole point of making buildings obsolete is to ensure cities can't always build every single building, so they have to diversify and be picky. However...

I agree with everything except this. Why prevent from building a library when universities are unlocked? Your civilization still is able to build it, so why not?

This is a tough one. Some buildings, like amphitheaters and monuments, make sense to obsolete, because there's no need to build an ancient monument in a modern city. Libraries are tricky, because they represent a building from classical antiquity, like the Library of Alexandria, which would be odd to build in modern times. But as you point out, it's also odd to not be able to build any library at all.

Then there are things like the hospital, which really doesn't make sense to obsolete just because medical labs get invented. They serve different purposes.

And there are buildings like the herbalist, which is not part of a building line, but should still probably not be available in 2050.

I think the solution requires two things:

1. Remember that the cities in Civ are abstractions.

Real cities have many many buildings not represented in the game. Just because something is not listed in the building list doesn't mean it's not present.

If it's the year 2000 in game, and City A has a Library and City B does not, I think the way to interpret that is: City A has preserved an ancient library for ~2000 years, and it is a historical fixture of the city. And City B has not. But both could still have public libraries for their citizens.

A smokehouse in an ancient city might be a major source of food and an important development for the growth of a civilization. A modern smokehouse is just another business, albeit a novelty. Only the former is really worth representing in game.

2. Take it on a case by case basis.

It's clear from the hospital example that we probably shouldn't just make any building in a line obsolete when the next one unlocks. And some buildings without lines (smokehouse, herbalist) probably should obsolete so they stop clogging my production screen. I'm not sure how to best deal with this consistently, but the most important things are that (A) it's obvious to the player when something will stop being available, and (B) there is plenty of time to build a building before it obsoletes, so it doesn't feel like a rip off.

 

[Bryan317]

I sometimes just imagine that the early era building become something of a modern version. Only a few select building wouldn't make sense and its mostly the miltary line.

Arenas become sports stadiums. Monuments and shrines can always be appreciated. Amphitheaters can be something more modern, but if you Google an Amphitheater in your nearest big city you'll see they still exist.

Things along the military line get harder to imagine. I just jump through mental hoops and imagine the castle is some type of modern defense structure. And walled up cities in 2024 just don't make sense. But walls become an essential building. At some point you simply must build them to keep your happiness under control.

 

[ma_kuh]

I like the idea of obsolete and destroy-on-upgrade. It cleanly solves the problem of old cities having all of the obsolete buildings as an additional advantage over fresh cities, without a new city's ability to catch up. I think giving a production discount on upgrades (or refund, if that's easier,) would be fair.

In the spirit of abstractions, I'd look at the "destroy-on-upgrade" in this light: you aren't literally destroying the building/infrastructure, you are just highlighting the most advanced part of the city. When you build your first council, that's your most impressive form of knowledge transfer. Once you discover writing and start building libraries, your councils still exist, but it's no longer as important as your libraries. And so on, through the ages.

The challenge is that any special mechanics, like Council's science-per-birth, would want to be applied to everything in the chain at that point, which could lead to tooltip bloat, or other workarounds that might hide information. A more radical redesign would be that instead of carrying over a handful of independent small abilities, each era's building has it's own thing as the focus. But that's probably a topic for a different thread.

On the topic of Walls+, I think the whole line is a little misplaced as both a defensive structure as well as a Needs modifier. Just cut out that part and it suddenly becomes less mandatory to waste production in your safe cities on these buildings.

 

[dylansan]

It cleanly solves the problem of old cities having all of the obsolete buildings as an additional advantage over fresh cities, without a new city's ability to catch up.

Again, this doesn't really solve the issue of city specialization. Later cities will end up with the same buildings as ancient ones, and the effects of those buildings would be effectively the same as they are now.

You'd have one building instead of 2 or more, but the yields and effects would be as if you had built all of them, so—how is that better?

Your first cities have developed for thousands of years. It makes sense that it would be difficult to match their splendor with a modern settlement. In theory, not having to build every precursor building could allow new cities to develop faster than they would if they had to build everything. If pioneers don't give free buildings they would definitely have to boost in some other way (I like a big instand production/growth yield).

I do see your point that later cities might be missing too much. I already think later buildings will need some buffs (and all buildings higher production cost?) to account for the fact that all cities will have fewer buildings in general. Perhaps some early buildings could be made less "vital" by including similar effects in later buildings, but several of the early production buildings aren't part of a line and probably don't need to obsolete anyway. I could picture some changes to the food line as [Granary - Aqueduct - Grocer - Hospital - Medical Lab] is a bit of a weird mix of unrelated buildings that have similar effects. But for thematic reasons, everything from Grocer forwards doesn't need to obsolete, so growth shouldn't be an issue.

I agree with you about walls. In fact, I think the fact that so many buildings have multiple, sometimes unrelated effects is part of the reason it feels necessary to build them in every city. Often one aspect isn't really helpful, but another is enough of a bonus to build it anyway. I don't think I would mind if buildings were a little more specialized. For example, the Arena gives 1 culture, gives Tourism based on population, gives production from barracks/forge/armory, boosts perfume and olives, reduces boredom, and is required for a Circus/Zoo/Stadium. The last part is maybe the main reason they end up getting built everywhere, but even without that, it feels foolish not to build it in every city even if you're not particularly worried about boredom or focused on tourism. There are lots of policies/beliefs/etc. that give boosts to particular buildings as well, which ends up making them seem essential in every city. Though, those policies would likely need some consideration if buildings could become obsolete, anyway.