Civ6 additions to CP [roads&builders]

[merill]

Overview:
As the AI in civ 6 isn't on par with the community patch, what if we pick some of the new concept of civ6 to include them into our favorite mod?

As now, this mod include 2 additions:
- Workers are now limited to 4 improvements (can be increased by policies/wonders)
- Roads & railroads are automatically built when a trade route end.

How to install:

• for CP (or VP):
• Donwload the mod here v3.1 (v3)
• Extract it into your MODS folder.

• for VP with EUI:
• Download the archive here: v3.1 (v3)
• Extract it into your MODS folder.

Mod compatibility:
This mod modify UnitPanel.lua
Known issues:

• The AI don't build "war roads".
• The AI may "downgrade" your railroads to roads if he doesn't have the tech

What i need:

• there are some imbalance?
• Some bugs?
• a better name?
• How the AI is performing?
• some ideas?

 

[merill]

changelog:
v3:

• change machu pichu: remove +%gold for city connection, add +1 trade route, +5gold and +50% distance for land trade route.
• Add +2 gold per city connection for Discipline
• v3.1: remove a debug msg.

v2:

• An UI for EUI, showing the build cost of actions.
• Bug fix: Now roads are constructed on hills.
• Railroads appear when you have the railroad tech
• remove the gold from city connections, to counter-balance the free roads

v1:

• add a builder strength of 400 to workers (when all strength is consumed, they are released as free mens, i.e. the unit die)
• make each improvements cost 100 builder strength
• make repair cost half the price
• worker build improvements instantly
• make "+XX% improvements speed" also "+XX% builder strength for units" (cf policies and wonders)
• Trade routes now create roads along their path when their travel end (and railroads from modern era with railroad tech).
• Remove road upkeep
• Liberty: now +1 mvt for civilian, +1 improvement for workers (the +25% improvement speed) and-25% cost for building workers.
• Expertise: replace the +1 mvt for civilian by "+2 workers appear near your capital"
• Discipline: replace the "-50% gold upkeep for road" to "road cost 50% less builder strength to build"
• Pyramid: +25% improvement speed is now +1 improvement for workers
• Change civilopedia for workers and improvements

 

[thunderbird_14]

Ooh, more modmods , didn't actually knew that you can code .dll before

 

[Funak]

This sounds really cool, the builder-part was one of the things I liked the most about civ6.

Just a few notes.
You never mentioned improvements being built instantly, I assume they are, as that is kinda the whole thing but it is probably worth mentioning anyways.

Shouldn't roads be automatically converted to railroads the way roads are upgraded in civ6?

Internal trade-routes ending quickly shouldn't really be a problem, the traders in civ6 build roads the first time the pass over a tile. (I mean unless you really lowered the number or so)

Keep in mind that happiness(and liberty) kinda requires you to connect your cities early on, and you're limited to one trader for most of the early-game (I mean I guess this does give incentive to rush Sailing). Trade-routes also doesn't work the way they do in civ6, where they pretty much always chooses paths through cities, setting up trade-routes and extending their own range, so connecting multiple cities with one caravan will be harder.

 

[merill]

You never mentioned improvements being built instantly, I assume they are, as that is kinda the whole thing but it is probably worth mentioning anyways.

you're right

Shouldn't roads be automatically converted to railroads the way roads are upgraded in civ6?

I think auto-upgrade all roads makes railroads station too easy to build. A bit of micro to relocate trade route where we want railroads isn't bad, gameplay-wise (i think). And i prefer to be able to see roads along railroads, visually speaking.

Internal trade-routes ending quickly shouldn't really be a problem, the traders in civ6 build roads the first time the pass over a tile. (I mean unless you really lowered the number or so)

I doesn't understand the turn calculation for trade route in the dll.
In quick, the target turn for a trade route is 16 turn (24 in normal speed).
But i saw a trade route ended as low as 6 turns, it's a bit too short. Maybe pushing that to 12 (18 in normal)? what do you think?

 

[Funak]

I doesn't understand the turn calculation for trade route in the dll.
In quick, the target turn for a trade route is 16 turn.
But i saw a trade route ended as low as 6 turns, it's a bit too short. Maybe pushing that to 12? what do you think?

That's 24 turns on standard speed, quite a long time.
Honestly I really don't know, there are other factors involved in balancing trade-routes, like the Ottoman UA, I would probably leave it at what it currently is.

 

[ElliotS]

Keep the city connection gold. It's an important source of profit. You could lower it a bit, and increase it a bit with the authority policy since they're now free.

Can workers still build roads? Sometimes I want some roads in jungles or hills for troop movements.

 

[merill]

With the 11-10 version of VP, the v2 is out!
Many bugs removed, UI improved.
Need some more work with the no-eui version.

Keep the city connection gold. It's an important source of profit. You could lower it a bit, and increase it a bit with the authority policy since they're now free.

Can workers still build roads? Sometimes I want some roads in jungles or hills for troop movements.

I don't know. In my games, this income is on par with roads maintenance, or i swim in gold and i didn't care. If it's causing problems, i will re-add it.
If you can't play without, you can edit the Sql_changes.sql line 63-65 (VP values are -100, 6, 50).
Workers can still build roads.

 

[ElliotS]

How about the authority policy that reduced route costs, or machu pichu?

 

[merill]

Autarky should be unchanged, the city connection is here.
Machu pichu: You're right, i forgot that this wonder gives this bonus. It should gives something else now... maybe +5 gold per trade route?

 

[ElliotS]

Autarky should be unchanged, the city connection is here.
Machu pichu: You're right, i forgot that this wonder gives this bonus. It should gives something else now... maybe +5 gold per trade route?

That would nerf authority though, because it loses a lot of it's benefit.

 

[merill]

That would nerf authority though, because it loses a lot of it's benefit.

Maybe i miss something, but the only thing in authority that could be impacted is "-50% maintenance for roads", right?
I have replaced it by "Roads cost 50% less builders points", to speed up the creation of "war roads". In your games, you feel that this bonus isn't enough?

 

[ElliotS]

Maybe i miss something, but the only thing in authority that could be impacted is "-50% maintenance for roads", right?
I have replaced it by "Roads cost 50% less builders points", to speed up the creation of "war roads". In your games, you feel that this bonus isn't enough?

The problem is that now roads are built automatically for the most part, with only a few war roads per game. Especially with the fact that you don't end up with a bunch of workers doing nothing at any point now.

-50% road maintenance used to be "worth" between 2 and 4 gold per city on average, so now authority has more money problems than before compared to progress.

Basically the -50% road cost was relevant for every route in every city all game, whereas the new bonus is only applicable for war roads once in a while and still requires you to spend production/gold on builders over combat units even if 50% less than progress.

I'd just add that city connections give +3 gold. That's the best equivalent to the old policy. (Assuming an average of 6 road tiles per city.)

 

[merill]

-50% cost for war road is worth ~10-15 prod for each road constructed. And now, with the "instant build" of workers, forts and war roads are more useful.

I've added +2gold per city connection for Discipline and boosted machu pichu.
Maybe machu pichu is a bit too strong now. I don't know if it really need the +1 trade route.

 

[josephrandall]

How well does the AI respond to this changes ?

 

[merill]

Pretty well.
Roads are built by trade-routes, connecting their cities well enough and to other civilizations (for war) better than before.
Workers are built when needed, so no shortage on this front.
The only thing I have done is to remove the ability to build road for the AI. I let it for the payer because some love micromanaging their road layout.
The AI thing i should do (but haven't the time for) it to add a worker to an army to create instant forts & roads for defence & offence.

 

[tu_79]

This sounds really interesting. But I wonder if removing gold from city connections is just a little bold. That's a main source of gold. Couldn't it just be weighted to match income with road upkeep? Usual cost of each city connection is 4-5 gold, going 8-10 with railroads, plus the tactical roads. Maybe tweak the city connection income so that it yields 0.20-0.25 gold every pop, if that's possible.

Road maintenance was there to avoid road spamming. Can't roads over villages be abused?

I usually play without events, so it won't bother me, but how does it work with bad events enabled? Wouldn't you be producing many workers just to repair things? Or does the modmod disable bad events by default?

Other than that, it's a great idea.

 

[merill]

Thank you

This sounds really interesting. But I wonder if removing gold from city connections is just a little bold. That's a main source of gold. Couldn't it just be weighted to match income with road upkeep? Usual cost of each city connection is 4-5 gold, going 8-10 with railroads, plus the tactical roads. Maybe tweak the city connection income so that it yields 0.20-0.25 gold every pop, if that's possible.

Your gold income is really that bad with this mod? (it is fine for me, but we can have different playstyle) If so, my preference is going to buff the sea/land trade routes instead (my though is that gold from city connection is an artefact of the time when trade routes doesn't exist, proof: it's called trade route in the civlilopedia).

Road maintenance was there to avoid road spamming. Can't roads over villages be abused?

I was thinking it was "resolved" in the recent version? It cost you hammer now instead of gold, anyway. Maybe i should remove the road building ability from the worker.

I usually play without events, so it won't bother me, but how does it work with bad events enabled? Wouldn't you be producing many workers just to repair things? Or does the modmod disable bad events by default?

Repairing is half the cost of improving, so you have a free repair per worker. These event are now a bit more bad, but repairing is now faster.

The greater gameplay change, imo, is the really faster start it create. Settling -> 3 turn latter, all big juicy tiles can be harvested. And at the game start, that mine you couldn't afford before (because of the lack of time) is now a possible hammer optimization option.

 

[tu_79]

Thank you

Your gold income is really that bad with this mod? (it is fine for me, but we can have different playstyle) If so, my preference is going to buff the sea/land trade routes instead (my though is that gold from city connection is an artefact of the time when trade routes doesn't exist, proof: it's called trade route in the civlilopedia).

I was thinking it was "resolved" in the recent version? It cost you hammer now instead of gold, anyway. Maybe i should remove the road building ability from the worker.

Repairing is half the cost of improving, so you have a free repair per worker. These event are now a bit more bad, but repairing is now faster.

The greater gameplay change, imo, is the really faster start it create. Settling -> 3 turn latter, all big juicy tiles can be harvested. And at the game start, that mine you couldn't afford before (because of the lack of time) is now a possible hammer optimization option.

a) I haven't played it yet. I was just thinking about keeping the same balance as raw VP. If you put more punch on trade routes, then you are actually unbalancing trading civs. If you remove gold from city connections then you are nerfing growth civs.
b) I see it costing hammers, the hammers it costs to produce the worker. And I won't waste it on roads if they aren't going to be useful, so I would only expend them on very tactical roads. My concern was about villages. But maybe villages no longer gets gold for a simple road over them, just from roads that connect to other cities.
c) I won't enable events, but even if I did, I'd reccommend to play this with no bad events enabled by default. I wonder if this is possible to set for default by the mod itself.

 

[Anastase Alex]

You need to change the Coloseum (Rome Unique building) to compensate the loss of city connection bonus gold.
Perhaps +1 gold per city connection? or a flat +2 gold?