Development thread for 1.5

[AbsintheRed]

Plague is better than it was, thats a score for you
It works better imho, kill less units and more workers on the field. Spreads to cities, where it never did before and spreads to more city overall.
So it seems ok, in terms of it fulfill its duty. But due to plague i lost Tyros and Jerusalem by stability during plague. I was around -5 -10 when it happened. And thats no good nor seems realistic. Also the most hated mechanism is city secession anyway. I'm not working hard to lose it by any means.
ps: with Byzanc, arabs declares themselves again is also annoying beyond words. I kill them properly, they should've stayed dead for good
By then I was stable again. (~800ad) But the good old days past when you could upkeep the very solid status during the whole game.

Yeah, at some point I was thinking about removing the stability penalty from unhealth during plagues.
But I was convinced that it's better this way, and after some testgames I agree with it.

About city secession: if you are unstable, RFCE has to add some penalties for it. I feel very strong about this, it's the main part of the challenge in an RFC-style empire-building game.
Either secession or full collapse. I don't really see other alternatives for punishing you if you expand way too fast, without taking care of your stability.

 

[gilgames]

in this case its not expanding (i agree do not expand too fast!) i only retook what was mine, and with i was solid. after arabia died i went solid however (instead +20 just +5) but provinces went to border and no militarism, so its okey. Also i said i hate it, not that i know better solution.

AND about culture!!!! in this case all my cities were 100% own culture, even if they respawn, they shouldn't become 100% arabs If i manage to keep some city!
Germans also resőawns lots of times and it makes unhappyness and instability in their former cities. this could/should be fixed imho.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I'm trying to make Moorlands a little more useful.
For testing I will change a couple restriction for Cottages.
It can be built both on flatland Moorlands and on hill Moorlands.
There are quite a few other changes connected to this, for example they are buildable on the new Semidesert terrain too.
I'm very curious on the feedback on this, how does it feel to be able to have Cottages on most Hills for example?

 

[AtlantaMarty]

Revision 1222:

New base terrain: Semidesert - 1 production, +1 commerce near rivers, city founding only possible near fresh water
New base terrain: Salt Lake - 1 food, 3 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
New base terrain: Fresh Water Lake - 2 food, 2 commerce, +1 food with Harbor, +10% defence
New terrain feature: Islands (2 variety, green and rocky) - +1 food, +1 production, +10% defence
New terrain feature: Reefs - costs 4 movement points, 25% damage if naval units end their turn on it
Renamed Ice base terrain to Permafrost / Permanent Snow, Ice terrain feature to Sea Ice
You can no longer found cities on coastal Desert tiles, only near fresh water (same as for Semidesert)
Forts are buildable on Semidesert, Tundra, Desert and Snow tiles too
Fixed bug with terrain layer orders, thus corrected some blending mistakes when joining some terrain types together
Semidesert, Wetland and Tundra have +25 build time modifier, Desert and Permafrost have +50%
New button for Moorland, Dense Forest, Permanent Snow, Marsh, Tundra
Cottages can be built on Moorland, Semidesert and Tundra tiles too, but fresh water doesn't enable them automatically
Cottages no longer need at least 1 base food on the tile, so they can be built on most Hills

YES!!!!
This is amazing!

PS: Can you please post screenshots of these new terrains ingame?

 

[Publicola]

PS: Can you please post screenshots of these new terrains ingame?

Absinthered already did in the "Map Improvements for 1.4" thread.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

Absinthered already did in the "Map Improvements for 1.4" thread.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

 

[Force44]

My style of play leaves very little opportunity for cottages on hills.

(for me) They are a prime source of production.

If I got to know the optimum amount of cottages for stability sake I might change their improvement from mine to cottage more often.

Until then I fear I will have little to ad as feedback on this subject besides I consider farms and mines superior to cottages (overall) at the moment.

 

[Force44]

question: Are savegames compatible with the previous SVN version compatible with the latest SVN version?

request: If an SVN version breaks compatability for savegames from a previous SVN version do you/will you/could you note that in the SVN Changelog-thread?

 

[AbsintheRed]

question: Are savegames compatible with the previous SVN version compatible with the latest SVN version?

request: If an SVN version breaks compatability for savegames from a previous SVN version do you/will you/could you note that in the SVN Changelog-thread?

Will try to, but sometimes it's hard to tell.
Also I will probably forget this most of the times
The commit with the new terrain types will definitely break save games.

 

[AbsintheRed]

YES!!!!
This is amazing!

PS: Can you please post screenshots of these new terrains ingame?

It's funny that you post this even before you checking it ingame, or even seeing some sceenshots
Then again, even though these are way easier to add than many of the changes for 1.4 for example, or most of the changes from the previous commits, these are way more spectacular

 

[El Bogus]

My style of play leaves very little opportunity for cottages on hills.

(for me) They are a prime source of production.

If I got to know the optimum amount of cottages for stability sake I might change their improvement from mine to cottage more often.

Until then I fear I will have little to ad as feedback on this subject besides I consider farms and mines superior to cottages (overall) at the moment.

Same here. When I'm in Manoralism + Serfdom, I build farms and mines. When in Apprenticeship + Guilds (and I've discovered Replacable Parts), I build watermills and windmills. Maybe mines could get +1 with Replacable Parts, too, so they can somehow compete with the very strong windmills in RFCE.

 

[Swarbs]

Same here. When I'm in Manoralism + Serfdom, I build farms and mines. When in Apprenticeship + Guilds (and I've discovered Replacable Parts), I build watermills and windmills. Maybe mines could get +1 with Replacable Parts, too, so they can somehow compete with the very strong windmills in RFCE.

I agree with this - when you reach Replaceable parts and run Apprenticeship, you essentially replace all mines with windmills as they have the same and +1. I think mines should get a similar bonus at this point, so they are still more productive.

Although I would say that ignoring cottages in the early game and defaulting to Serfdom + Manorialism isn't optimal for all civs. The loss of a trade route and high civic cost of Manorialism will often outweigh the +1 from farms and +2 from manor houses, particularly for food rich civs with a low happy cap. In general I find Manorialism is only useful for the bonus stability, and doesn't give any bonus to commerce, particularly once cottages have grown to hamlets and beyond.

I personally rarely build cottages on hills, but it can be useful for cities with high and already and for a civ which needs to boost commerce in order to focus on long term research ahead of short term production.

 

[Swarbs]

Btw has there been a decision around the English UP yet? I still feel it is substantially underpowered due to activating too late, and particularly now you can cottage moorlands, which were the only default location for workshops in England imo.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Same here. When I'm in Manoralism + Serfdom, I build farms and mines. When in Apprenticeship + Guilds (and I've discovered Replacable Parts), I build watermills and windmills. Maybe mines could get +1 with Replacable Parts, too, so they can somehow compete with the very strong windmills in RFCE.

I agree with this - when you reach Replaceable parts and run Apprenticeship, you essentially replace all mines with windmills as they have the same and +1. I think mines should get a similar bonus at this point, so they are still more productive.

Although I would say that ignoring cottages in the early game and defaulting to Serfdom + Manorialism isn't optimal for all civs. The loss of a trade route and high civic cost of Manorialism will often outweigh the +1 from farms and +2 from manor houses, particularly for food rich civs with a low happy cap. In general I find Manorialism is only useful for the bonus stability, and doesn't give any bonus to commerce, particularly once cottages have grown to hamlets and beyond.

I personally rarely build cottages on hills, but it can be useful for cities with high and already and for a civ which needs to boost commerce in order to focus on long term research ahead of short term production.

True, mines should also get a boost.
You guys are right about cottages on hills, but cottages can now be built on flatland Moorland tiles too.
I consider that an improvement, as previously you could only build workshops on those tiles.

Btw has there been a decision around the English UP yet? I still feel it is substantially underpowered due to activating too late, and particularly now you can cottage moorlands, which were the only default location for workshops in England imo.

Not yet, but I didn't forget about it.
Also the cottage change is connected to it on some level.

 

[Force44]

I'm not sure about the improvement of mines late game.

I like it that improvements get obsoleted by other improvements. (watermills->workshops & mines -> windmills)

Also I like it that there is a reward for keeping some woodlands around. (+1 vs mines)

So if mines get another production can lumbermills also receive an upgrade so that they are still preferable over mines (which is already questionable because of the possible discovery of additional resources on tiles with mines)

 

[Swarbs]

True, mines should also get a boost.
You guys are right about cottages on hills, but cottages can now be built on flatland Moorland tiles too.
I consider that an improvement, as previously you could only build workshops on those tiles.

Oh that is an improvement without a shadow of a doubt. Now you can actually use flat moorland tiles rather than sitting around waiting for Guilds!

Maybe a commerce boost to mines would be better for the late game. So instead of its being a case of windmills starting out worse than mines and ending up better, the two improvements diverge and give different benefits - +1 for windmills vs +1 for mines.

Gives the player more freedom, and represents the increased commercial impact of metals and mining as replaceable parts increased the value and practicalities of manufacturing commercial goods en masse.

 

[El Bogus]

Although I would say that ignoring cottages in the early game and defaulting to Serfdom + Manorialism isn't optimal for all civs. The loss of a trade route and high civic cost of Manorialism will often outweigh the +1 from farms and +2 from manor houses, particularly for food rich civs with a low happy cap. In general I find Manorialism is only useful for the bonus stability, and doesn't give any bonus to commerce, particularly once cottages have grown to hamlets and beyond.

Yeah, I agree. Especially for the early gameplay of Denmark and Norway the overseas trade outweighs the bonuses of Serfdom + Manorialism. For Norway, this is even true for the whole game for they can't build that many farms.
But the threshold is very low imo. Let aside the +2 , you only need to work 3 farms to compensate a 3 trade route which often you can only get in your capital. And then think about the +1 of each farm!

That in mind, it would be very useful if Africa and Asia each became continents on their own, so that you don't have one very large continent and only England (and Ireland, ...) have the overseas trade routes. That would also boost Trade Economy for Arabia and so on.

You guys are right about cottages on hills, but cottages can now be built on flatland Moorland tiles too.
I consider that an improvement, as previously you could only build workshops on those tiles..

Another reason I don't build cottages on hills is that imo cottage tiles should be self-sustaining (on a tile with at least 2 ) because they are an improvement that you actually have to be working to be good. Production tiles can be micromanaged depending on if you want growth or production. Same goes ofc for Moorland.
So, the change is an improvement for Moorland but only a minor one.

 

[El Bogus]

Maybe a commerce boost to mines would be better for the late game. So instead of its being a case of windmills starting out worse than mines and ending up better, the two improvements diverge and give different benefits - +1 for windmills vs +1 for mines.

I thought about that one, too. I think, production is pretty high in the game, so +1 on mines might be overkill. +1 on the other hand could be good, but it's definitely still worse than +1 .

 

[gilgames]

I thought about that one, too. I think, production is pretty high in the game, so +1 on mines might be overkill. +1 on the other hand could be good, but it's definitely still worse than +1 .

Agree, +1 will do the trick for mines.
Also what if towns add +1 food only on grasslands? representing an agricultural town which were pretty common in middle ages, maybe add to have a form or two next to it?

 

[El Bogus]

At first, I thought this would be a good idea. But I actually prefer if only areas get urbanised (i.e. cottaged) that can sustain the cottages. So industrial areas still need farms while North Italy and London and so on will be urbanised.
That said, I think North-East Germany (where I come from) has access to too much valuable ressources. This region is underdevelopped/sparsely populated until today. So something like salt, timber, maybe amber is okay. But too many food ressources are a bit unrealistic. Take them away and the Hanse becomes much more desirable there. Right now it just adds (yeah, yeah and population) and thus instability.