Dynamic Yield Effects Suggestions

[LikeNothing]

In vanilla a City's Yield [, , ] is predominantly decided by the Terrain and Resources within that City's BFC. Trade Routes bring some , but only become significant mid-late game, and Corporations's effects are even later and more limited. Beyond these, Yield is seldom affected by factors other than BFC Terrain and Resources. Usually, a player can largely predict a City's end game Yield, and as a result most of its potential, based on its BFC alone. What happens in the rest of the Civilization has little effect, other than indirectly through Civ-wide progress.

One of my all time favorite features of DoC is the new Corporations, because they affect Yield dynamically. By dynamic I mean factors outside of a City's BFC can affect the City's Yield directly (as opposed to indirectly through Civ-wide progress) and specifically (specific to this City as opposed to necessarily uniformly across all Cities in the same Civ). IMO Dynamic Yield Effects make the game more interesting and realistic.

As Leoreth's seemingly eternal energy keeps DoC progressing through the years, I perceive in His design increasing moves towards dynamic Yield changes:

-- The new City States civic in 1.15. Settling GPs from across your Greek / Roman empire in your Core under City States stabilizes your Core by increasing its , whereas the (and as a result, growth) in your Egyptian colonies are consumed. This is both gratifying and realistic.

-- Limited Resource Effects for 1.16. bonuses translate into .

-- Larger Maps for 1.16. Yield effects limited to the BFC (such as the Redistribution Civic as of 1.15) are less unrealistic when the map scale is small, like vanilla RFC and DoC have always had. For a larger map, each BFC covers a less amount of area corresponding to geographic reality, and Dynamic Yield Effects become more necessary for realism. Moreover, larger map means more instances of every Resource, which makes effects which count the number of resources like Corporations more refined.

 

[LikeNothing]

Besides making me marvel at the art and genius of DoC, these changes also reminded me of a few ideas along the same lines:

[1] Resources affect Yield % through Buildings.

For example, Iron gives +5% with Forge, Silk gives +5% with Weaver. This is a feature in many other RFC mods, such as RFCE and RFC Asia. DoC has mostly resisted widely incorporating this feature so far, possibly because it exacerbates snowballing of large empires and is unrealistic (one instance of Iron boosts the entire Civilization's % , regardless of the Civilization's size).

Now, with Limited Resource Effects, DoC can incorporate this feature more widely. The effect is that Resources would affect more than one City's Yield (vanilla), but less than the entire Civilization's Yield (Resources affect Yield % through Buildings, but without Limited Resource Effects). It is more realistic and interesting than either extreme.

 

[LikeNothing]

[2] Trade Routes Bring .

Some may recall this as the Lombard UP in RFCE++. It may also be features in Civ 5 or 6 (I am not certain as I have not played either). Needless to say, this has very strong basis in realism. For a mod covering much greater timespan and geographic area like DoC, I have thought of the following plan to implement this.

-- An early game Civic that allows Trade Routes to bring to the Capital. This can replace the 1.15 Redistribution Civic which, for reasons mentioned above, will become less realistic with a larger map. Such a Civic would also synergize well with Trade Routes based UBs (Phoenicia), Wonders (Great Lighthouse, Basilica di San Marco), and UPs (see below).

-- New Roman UP: Extra Trade Routes in Capital, Trade Routes bring extra to Capital. IMHO this captures the centralized nature of the Roman Empire better than the (already excellent) current UP.

-- Trade Routes bring to all cities with a late game Technology, for example Microbiology or Refrigeration.

 

[LikeNothing]

[3] Various Wonders

Golden Gate Bridge: Excess in the City brings extra and .

Burj Khalifa: Oil Industry brings and to the City.

Eiffel Tower: (In addition to bonus) Trade Routes bring extra to the City.

Sydney Opera House: (In addition to bonus) All Trade Routes are Foreign and bring the Resource Effects of connected Cities.

Broadway / West End: Hit Musicals. More Resources are needed now that Resource Effects are limited.