Countering crime in the early eras

[Funak]

I still think it'd be helpful to new players if buildings that reduced the various types of unhappiness directly indicated such.

I don't know, do you really have to write on everything that adding science combats illiteracy? I mean do you have to have the text on an academy that working this is going to lower your illiteracy? Because to me that's the exact same thing as the wall.
Crime is defined as a deficit of city-defense, and walls increase city-defense.

Markets, banks and customhouses do passively decrease poverty by increasing the gold earned by the city, yet they don't need a text-blob telling you that they do, walls are the exact same thing.

 

[iwiws]

I don't know, do you really have to write on everything that adding science combats illiteracy?

I don't think so.
I began playing without reading any help outside from the in-game one, and realized in the first games that you had to build the buildings that produce defense/gold/culture/science to eliminate the unhappiness related to those yields.

In fact, I think it might even have helped that I hadn't played Civ5 for a while, so I had no real expectation about what a building should do (outside of the obvious wall = defense, market = gold,...).

 

[Gazebo]

I don't think so.
I began playing without reading any help outside from the in-game one, and realized in the first games that you had to build the buildings that produce defense/gold/culture/science to eliminate the unhappiness related to those yields.

In fact, I think it might even have helped that I hadn't played Civ5 for a while, so I had no real expectation about what a building should do (outside of the obvious wall = defense, market = gold,...).

It's a core concept of the unhappiness model, though. I mean, I'm sorry that users have a hard time with it sometimes, but the whole system is built around yield deficits.


G

 

[Bombad]

Illiteracy is just the lack of science production, but the Library still says it reduces Illiteracy on it.

Those are two different effects. The library adds science (that's the "+science per citizen" part) and also reduces the amount of science needed to avoid unhappiness from illiteracy (that's the "reduces illiteracy" part).

 

[Gort]

It's a core concept of the unhappiness model, though. I mean, I'm sorry that users have a hard time with it sometimes, but the whole system is built around yield deficits.

It would be pretty easy to resolve. It's just a couple of tooltips.

 

[Gazebo]

It would be pretty easy to resolve. It's just a couple of tooltips.

I really don't like it when people tell me something is 'pretty easy' to do.

'Just a couple' = every building in the game that affects science, gold, defense, or culture, because each can 'technically' affect unhappiness. Not to mention buildings added by other mods, policies, beliefs, etc. I'd be adding 'Reduces Poverty/Illiteracy etc.' to almost every tooltip in the game.

It is on the user to understand that, if you have poverty, it is because your city lacks gold, and thus you should make buildings that create gold. If that doesn't make sense, it is because you have not read the civilopedia and/or the happiness tooltips that are everywhere.


The help tooltips that address illiteracy/poverty etc. right now do so because they have modifiers on them that directly reduce the city's need modifier for that source of unhappiness. Whether or not they actively contribute to your city's yields is irrelevant, as the tooltip refers to that need reduction and that need reduction only.

I'm using bold and underlined text here to hammer this point home, as it seems there has been some confusion in the matter. I hope we can put this to rest now.

G

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Why doesn't the Military Academy reduce Disorder?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Fun fact: Putting an archer in your city actually makes its crime go up, as it lowers its defensive value.

 

[Gazebo]

Why doesn't the Military Academy reduce Disorder?

Because it doesn't?

Fun fact: Putting an archer in your city actually makes its crime go up, as it lowers its defensive value.

Eh?

G

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Eh?

Paris has a strength of 15. Put an Archer in it, and it suddenly has a strength of 14, and hence more unhappiness from crime. This happened to me some days ago when I first downloaded and played this mod and made me immediately turn away from it again.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I really don't like it when people tell me something is 'pretty easy' to do.

'Just a couple' = every building in the game that affects science, gold, defense, or culture, because each can 'technically' affect unhappiness. Not to mention buildings added by other mods, policies, beliefs, etc. I'd be adding 'Reduces Poverty/Illiteracy etc.' to almost every tooltip in the game.

It is on the user to understand that, if you have poverty, it is because your city lacks gold, and thus you should make buildings that create gold. If that doesn't make sense, it is because you have not read the civilopedia and/or the happiness tooltips that are everywhere.


The help tooltips that address illiteracy/poverty etc. right now do so because they have modifiers on them that directly reduce the city's need modifier for that source of unhappiness. Whether or not they actively contribute to your city's yields is irrelevant, as the tooltip refers to that need reduction and that need reduction only.

I'm using bold and underlined text here to hammer this point home, as it seems there has been some confusion in the matter. I hope we can put this to rest now.

G

I agree with you on the whole "should be easy to do thing", but the initial problem I faced was because the tooltips DO EXIST on some buildings. This implies that they are special and needing this distinction.

Using the 'crime reducing' buildings as examples let's look at what a new player will know about barracks.
The pedia says they "reduce crime". Great, but by how much. If I want to reduce crime with walls I know immediately that they add 6 to my defense and I can do the math. Barracks has no specifics about how this is done.

Let's use another example, constabulary. These also reduce crime and the pedia tells me such and they also reduce spy activity. The difference here is I'm told by how much the spy activity is reduced but not how much crime. This seems odd.
The same can said for all the Wonders that reduce crime globally. Admittedly you won't build a Wonder just to reduce crime but it would be nice to know by how much these Wonders affect your populace. (the early ones by -10% & the modern ones -30%)

I will concede here that all the relevant information is provided in the tooltip when choosing techs, so the argument could be made that the player IS given everything they need. It could also be argued that if this is true there is no need to explicitly state for some buildings they reduce unhappiness factors. In fact the pedia descriptions that do mention these, lack the specifics and are therefore not as helpful as they could be.

The minute you add something to one building to highlight an aspect of its use the implication about other buildings lacking them(tooltips), is that they also lack the feature.

Additionally, I still stand on my idea that "Crime" isn't a true description of what is the consequence of missing military/police buildings. "Insecurity" is apropos and also relects the hint given when examining each city lacking these structures:
"This city is dangerous!

I'll make the changes to the text if you are focused on more pressing matters. Clearly you want to "put this to rest" as much as I do, it's just you see no need for change whereas I see a need for improvement.

PS
Thal and I were going down the track of making the pedia use Lua to grab all the relevant details about buildings/units etc. to avoid the need to update it all the time. Did that avenue get explored at all and discarded as too much work? Is this something that might be looked at later?

 

[Gazebo]

Paris has a strength of 15. Put an Archer in it, and it suddenly has a strength of 14, and hence more unhappiness from crime. This happened to me some days ago when I first downloaded and played this mod and made me immediately turn away from it again.

Don't get worked up over bugs in a beta. That's the point of a beta. Report them and we'll do our best to fix them.

G

ExpiredReign,

Turn off 'no basic help text' and you'll find some useful info in the building tooltips for buildings that reduce happiness thresholds.

Also, there is info on each of those buildings in their tooltips on how much % reduction they do. Are you talking about the civilopedia? Otherwise I think you are missing the information that you seek.

Re: crime name, it was safety for a long time, but then some users asked me to change it to crime. So it goes.

G

 

[ExpiredReign]

Pedia, pedia, pedia!!
Sorry, my 'wall of text' probably blurred your eyes.

Yes I am referring to the pedia. My contention is that a new user coming to the game will need to know BEFORE they research or build something what that thing does. The pedia lacks, or confuses the issue of what you get, or do not get, with these buildings.
Yes the tooltips provide information about them in the TechTree so that's a good thing, but the pedia should be able to tell you everything you need to know.
Which brings me to the 'No basic help text'. Totally agree with you that this does provide a lot information about buildings but, and this is the crux of the matter, it only applies to stuff you have already researched and is available in the build queue. I like, need, to know about things in the planning of my game long before I am at the stage to build it, and this is where the descriptions of buildings that modify unhappiness are lacking, IMO.
I could be wrong but don't people use the pedia to find out what to do?

Crime -- safety, well if it was confusing before and a change was made then let's not confuse it anymore and I'll modify my view of it.

There are a few buildings that don't seem to give any benefit to tackling unhappiness and this may also be frustrating me. I go down the whole 'logical thing to do' but see no change and indeed the code doesn't show them helping where they 'logically' should.

Case in point: opera houses and the various guilds. I would imagine they would be a good source of 'Boredom' nullifiers but see they change nothing.
Then there's the 'poverty fighting' buildings. Most of these are buildings are those that aid food production/supply where I would logically look at gold production buildings. So I think: 'okay maybe it's just the term applied, like crime -- safety', then I see some obvious financial buildings giving a boost but not others!? Why the treasury or Great Cothon but not markets, banks, caravansaries or harbours etc.?
Can you see why I am confused and looking for descriptions to aid me?

There are other examples but I don't want it to look like a bashing, it isn't.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Just noticed comment in other thread about "important life changes" so feel free to totally disregard anything I've mentioned here.

 

[Gazebo]

Pedia, pedia, pedia!!
Sorry, my 'wall of text' probably blurred your eyes.

Yes I am referring to the pedia. My contention is that a new user coming to the game will need to know BEFORE they research or build something what that thing does. The pedia lacks, or confuses the issue of what you get, or do not get, with these buildings.
Yes the tooltips provide information about them in the TechTree so that's a good thing, but the pedia should be able to tell you everything you need to know.
Which brings me to the 'No basic help text'. Totally agree with you that this does provide a lot information about buildings but, and this is the crux of the matter, it only applies to stuff you have already researched and is available in the build queue. I like, need, to know about things in the planning of my game long before I am at the stage to build it, and this is where the descriptions of buildings that modify unhappiness are lacking, IMO.
I could be wrong but don't people use the pedia to find out what to do?

Crime -- safety, well if it was confusing before and a change was made then let's not confuse it anymore and I'll modify my view of it.

There are a few buildings that don't seem to give any benefit to tackling unhappiness and this may also be frustrating me. I go down the whole 'logical thing to do' but see no change and indeed the code doesn't show them helping where they 'logically' should.

Case in point: opera houses and the various guilds. I would imagine they would be a good source of 'Boredom' nullifiers but see they change nothing.
Then there's the 'poverty fighting' buildings. Most of these are buildings are those that aid food production/supply where I would logically look at gold production buildings. So I think: 'okay maybe it's just the term applied, like crime -- safety', then I see some obvious financial buildings giving a boost but not others!? Why the treasury or Great Cothon but not markets, banks, caravansaries or harbours etc.?
Can you see why I am confused and looking for descriptions to aid me?

There are other examples but I don't want it to look like a bashing, it isn't.

Most people do not read the civilopedia.

I'm not sure why this is so confusing - the need modifiers have nothing to do with yields, but rather the needs. Yields are not the same as needs, yields are what you produce per citizen, needs are what you need per citizen. So a building can raise yields without affecting needs, and a building can lower needs without raising yields.

Guilds, for example, give you specialists, which make culture, so it affects your culture yield, but does not affect the need. Therefore it gets no special 'need modifier' tooltip.

G

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Don't get worked up over bugs in a beta. That's the point of a beta. Report them and we'll do our best to fix them.

Well nobody told me this was still a Beta.

 

[Zanteogo]

Two things,

First I have to agree that what helps with happiness and what doesn't is confusing until you actually play the game a bunch of times. This is mostly because some building actually state they lower a certain type of unhappyness while others don't. I know when I was new to CPP it confused the heck out of me and I did a whole lot of "guessing" in hope it would help.

Second, I actually disagree with how crime is applied right now. Defensive buildings become a "must have" for all cities past a certain size. This kills the ability to have front line city's, core and back cities, because at some point you pretty much need to build at least walls and castles in all of them. It's actually part of a greater issue with CPP. Most buildings have multiple use now and become pretty much required. A prime example is the barracks. Without CPP you normally would only build this building in cities that would be producing units regularly. With CPP it becomes something you want to build in ALL your cities.

I don't mean to judge the free work that has been done with CPP, but the retooling of buildings to make much more of your cities "general purpose" rather than specific use is actually a step back that CPP has taken civ. (Don't get me wrong, I still love CPP)

 

[Gazebo]

Two things,

First I have to agree that what helps with happiness and what doesn't is confusing until you actually play the game a bunch of times. This is mostly because some building actually state they lower a certain type of unhappyness while others don't. I know when I was new to CPP it confused the heck out of me and I did a whole lot of "guessing" in hope it would help.

Second, I actually disagree with how crime is applied right now. Defensive buildings become a "must have" for all cities past a certain size. This kills the ability to have front line city's, core and back cities, because at some point you pretty much need to build at least walls and castles in all of them. It's actually part of a greater issue with CPP. Most buildings have multiple use now and become pretty much required. A prime example is the barracks. Without CPP you normally would only build this building in cities that would be producing units regularly. With CPP it becomes something you want to build in ALL your cities.

I don't mean to judge the free work that has been done with CPP, but the retooling of buildings to make much more of your cities "general purpose" rather than specific use is actually a step back that CPP has taken civ. (Don't get me wrong, I still love CPP)

You don't have to do anything, but not walling or fortifying a city with military power will lead to crime. That's a reality whether or not a city is a frontier city. The point of the CBP is to create hard choices, as every building should, theoretically, have a use in every city. The absence of utility for buildings is a false notion of specialization. Specialization exists in the CBP based on prioritization of needs and wants.

G

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Because it doesn't?
G

Seriously, he has a point.
You would expect that this building would do the same as its two predecessors.

 

[Bombad]

Why doesn't the Military Academy reduce Disorder?

The disorder reduction role is taken over by the "police" building line after the armory. Every unhappiness source can be reduced by four different buildings. For crime, the buildings are thus Barracks -> Armory -> Constabulary -> Police Station.