Feedback: Buildings and Wonders

[Xyth]

I think the Taj Mahal is fine as is.
I do not find it superfluous.

Maybe I'll keep it's Golden Age but give it something else in addition. I don't want it to feel weaker than the Unique Wonders, especially given its more expensive than many of them.

I would be glad if there were some thought given to ways to improve the very end of the tech tree for those of us who do not play with the space race. (I got sick of it as soon as other victory options became available in ?Civ II?) Usefully extending the tech tree to current day and 40 years beyond would take a lot of work, but I think it would be worthwhile. (I assume there are other mods that might help with this.) I hope this can get on the list of things to do eventually.
In this context, it might be easier to find a useful role for late wonders such as LHC.

I don't wish to expand the Future era into a full-fledged sci-fi era like many mods do. I do agree that there should be a few interesting 'bonus' items available there for the player that manages to reach it. Not a priority at the moment but definitely something for the todo list.

While I suspect 3 choices should be enough, 5 might be slightly better.
I assume what one could do is multiply all tech costs by factor, which would be 1 for the default setting.

The way I'd have implement this would be via new gamespeed options. So for example, there might be 'Marathon' and 'Marathon (faster research)'. There's really only space for one alternate setting either side of each main gamespeed or they start crossing over into each other which makes little sense. It might be worthwhile providing some alternate production speed options too.

The cost of doing so, of course, is an artificially depressed science rate, and techs which are inherently expensive because of the larger map and civilization size (I think; is that how they work?).

Yep, research rate scales by both gamespeed and mapsize. The AI's rate also scales by difficulty level.

One thing I think IS missing from research in History Rewritten is the monastery. In vanilla Civ IV, you get the technology to build them very early in the game, there's a strong incentive to build them for culture, for missionaries, and for science. If you're diligent about spreading religions through your empire*, that adds up to a 10% or 20% bonus to science production in most of your cities, possibly even more in the large central ones if you go out of your way to spread minority religions to them.

In History Rewritten, that bonus isn't available until some time in the Medieval period, so the only science boost you get is the one from libraries- in effect, something like 15% of the science production I usually have in the Classical and Medieval periods isn't there in HR.

Yeah, I made a deliberate decision to have religion be one of the major elements of the Medieval era. I suspect I need to make the benefits of religion, particularly the shrines a bit stronger though, because of this delay. Shifting the monastery research bonus later is a side effect of that.

I understand that you don't want civilizations spamming missionaries until a bit later in the game, but maybe we can come up with an early-game improvement that provides a limited science bonus to offset the lack of the monasteries? Perhaps something that offers a 10% or 20% increase, while removing the bonus from monasteries or decreasing it from 10% to 5%...

I'm certainly not adverse to adding more sources and modifiers for research but I think it would be best to see how the calendar changes and gamespeed tweaks feel first.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, I made a deliberate decision to have religion be one of the major elements of the Medieval era. I suspect I need to make the benefits of religion, particularly the shrines a bit stronger though, because of this delay. Shifting the monastery research bonus later is a side effect of that.

I'm certainly not adverse to adding more sources and modifiers for research but I think it would be best to see how the calendar changes and gamespeed tweaks feel first.

Okay. Well, we can start thinking ahead of time about what we might add to increase research in ancient/classical times. Organizations devoted to the expansion of learning and 'research' weren't really a widespread concept at the time, aside from repositories of scholars and documents already covered under "libraries."

Any ideas?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

In RFC: DoC, there is a wonder that increases the income from Shrines. Perhaps that would be a nice niche for the Hagia Sophia? Alternately, it could reduce the diplomatic penalty for having different state religions, though I'm not sure if that would be do-able and even if it were, how useful that would be. Or perhaps it could be something like the anti-Spiral Minaret or Sankore, giving some gold or science for the presence of a non-state religion.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I think the new version of Kiln is just a little too weak.

If one has access to peat it is OK; without access to peat it is marginal.

Please consider either:
1. making it a little cheaper to build.
2. making it a little stronger.

For example, instead of +2 commerce, it could be +1 commerce and +1 hammer.
Alternately, maybe instead of +2 commerce, it could be +1 commerce and +5% production, with the addition +5% if one has peat.

In any case, I hope you review the Kiln for the next version.

 

[Xyth]

In RFC: DoC, there is a wonder that increases the income from Shrines. Perhaps that would be a nice niche for the Hagia Sophia? Alternately, it could reduce the diplomatic penalty for having different state religions, though I'm not sure if that would be do-able and even if it were, how useful that would be. Or perhaps it could be something like the anti-Spiral Minaret or Sankore, giving some gold or science for the presence of a non-state religion.

Increased income from Shrines is an interesting concept for a wonder, and the Hagia Sophia is in a good place in the tree for that too. I'll see if I can hunt down or figure out the code for that.

Diplomatic effects is certainly one area that hasn't been tapped for wonders. I'll have a think about what's possible. Thanks for these suggestions!

I think the new version of Kiln is just a little too weak.

If one has access to peat it is OK; without access to peat it is marginal.

Please consider either:
1. making it a little cheaper to build.
2. making it a little stronger.

For example, instead of +2 commerce, it could be +1 commerce and +1 hammer.
Alternately, maybe instead of +2 commerce, it could be +1 commerce and +5% production, with the addition +5% if one has peat.

In any case, I hope you review the Kiln for the next version.

The Kiln will have +10% production for Peat in the next version. Peat's pretty common so I'm not worried about the Kiln not being that great without it. I think the cost could be lowered slightly as well though.

 

[Howard Mahler]

The Chinese unique building seems a little weak.
(It adds +1 happy per 20% increase in culture.)

As always, the relative strength of a bonus depends on the situation and playing style, among other factors. To me this bonus while useful seems a little weak compared to some of the other unique buildings.

(The Chinese do have a strong unique unit.)

The Vietnamese unique building is also based on Theatre, but instead gives +1 Artist.

Possibilities:

1. Change the Chinese special building to be based on some other building, presumably one of the many new buildings added to HR, and give it an interesting and better bonus.

2. Change the Vietnamese special building to be based on some other building, presumably one of the many new buildings added to HR, and give it an interesting bonus; give the pavillion the +1 artist instead of its current bonus.

It would not hurt when time is available to review if there are other cases where it would make sense to base a unique building on one of the many new buildings added to HR.

 

[Xyth]

The Chinese unique building seems a little weak.
(It adds +1 happy per 20% increase in culture.)

As always, the relative strength of a bonus depends on the situation and playing style, among other factors. To me this bonus while useful seems a little weak compared to some of the other unique buildings.

It's not weak, but it is quite situational. I agree that I could probably find something better for it. Added to the todo list.

It would not hurt when time is available to review if there are other cases where it would make sense to base a unique building on one of the many new buildings added to HR.

I've been making a few changes like that each version. Off the top of my head: Swahili UB (Cemetery), English UB (Tavern), Indian UB (Cemetery), Turkic UB (Bath), Amorite UB (Bath), Kushan UB (Tavern). There's bound to be a few more that would benefit from such a change too. I don't see a suitable candidate for the Pavillion though. The Viet UB certainly couldn't replace anything else.

At some point it would be worthwhile reviewing all the UBs and UUs systematically and adjusting any which we feel are too weak or too strong.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Barracks is the only building that requires no tech.
It might be better to require a tech.

For example, Archery while not a perfect fit might work.
Instead, one could have a tech such as "Military Training" which would allow the Barracks. In the current 0.9.5 tech tree, the only place "Military Training" could fit is in the first partial row, as a prerequisite to Archery.

Just a a thought.

 

[Xyth]

Barracks is the only building that requires no tech.
It might be better to require a tech.

I think it's that way so that there is always some non-unit item to build at game start, regardless of your starting techs.

I'm not sure if it needs to be that way or not, personally I don't really have a preference either way. It's probably not worth adding an entirely new tech just for this though.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think we need everything to require a tech, so I agree with Xyth.

 

[Xyth]

Shifting this discussion by Mr Sulu to this thread:

I've seen the new wonders (Though I haven't been able to play your mod yet) Great Job! I'm glad to see my Brandenburg Gate idea came through with flying colors. It's nice to have some contributions to such an excellent mod. However, I see a general lack of Asian wonders in this mod. I had an idea that you could make the Terracota Army from China's unique wonder to a World Wonder. It would give Great Prophet Points and would provide +2 Happiness in all cities and +50% Great Person Generation in the city in which it is built. You could then make the current Seasonal Palace wonder graphics into a ne Chinese Unique Wonder "The Forbidden Palace".

Here's my idea for the Wonder

Terracotta Army
Cost: 450 Hammers
Unlocks at Employment
Requires: Cemetery
+10 Culture
+2 Great Prophet Points
+2 Happiness in all cities
+50% Great Person Points

As you said there are alot of European Wonders, and not as many Asian or Middle Eastern wonders, so here's some more ideas

The Red Fort
Cost: 600 Hammers
Unlocks at Artisanry
+8 Culture
+2 Great Merchant Points
+1 Gold for every citizen in this city

I can't find graphics, but I'm relatively sure that in RFC: DOC they have a Red Fort Wonder, so perhaps we could find graphics there?

I was thinking, in the overall world Broadway is somewhat famous, but the Sydney Opera House is far more so. So I was thinking we could replace Broadway with the Sydney Opera House, as thus far all of the "entertainment" wonders are American.

Sydney Opera House
Cost: 1500 Hammers
Unlocks at Photography
Requires: City must be built on coast
+8 Culture
+2 Great Artist Points
+50 Culture
Provides Hit Musicals

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191714
Here's some graphics

 

[Mr. Sulu]

Thanks Xyth. So thoughts?

I'll transfer these here too

Burj Khalifa
Unlocks at Globalization
Cost: 1675 Hammers
+6 Culture
+2 Great Merchant Points
+2 Trade Routes
+50% Foreign Trade Route Yield in All Cities

Sorry I couldn't get this more organized but you should find Burj Khalifa about halfway through the page
http://forums.civfanatics.com/newrep...e=1&p=11164056

Big Ben
Unlocks at Economics
Cost: 1150 Hammers
+8 Culture
+2 Great Merchant Points
+2 Great Merchants
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4399865

Bolshoi Theatre
Unlocks at Humanism
Requires: Theatre in city
Cost: 1000 Hammers
+10 Culture
+2 Great Artist Points
+2 Free Artists/Free Theatre in all Cities
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=276290

 

[Xyth]

However, I see a general lack of Asian wonders in this mod.

Yep, there definitely needs to be more Asian wonders.

I had an idea that you could make the Terracota Army from China's unique wonder to a World Wonder. It would give Great Prophet Points and would provide +2 Happiness in all cities and +50% Great Person Generation in the city in which it is built. You could then make the current Seasonal Palace wonder graphics into a ne Chinese Unique Wonder "The Forbidden Palace".

There are several Unique Wonders that are probably worthy of upgrade into world wonders. The Terracotta Army is definitely one of those and I agree that the Forbidden Palace is ideal to take it's place as the UW.

I can't find graphics, but I'm relatively sure that in RFC: DOC they have a Red Fort Wonder, so perhaps we could find graphics there?

I have that downloaded but I don't see it in the files anywhere, I'll have a more thorough search later though.

I was thinking, in the overall world Broadway is somewhat famous, but the Sydney Opera House is far more so. So I was thinking we could replace Broadway with the Sydney Opera House, as thus far all of the "entertainment" wonders are American.

I'm not sure what I want to do with the entertainment wonders and their associated resources. On my list to review at some point. I agree that the Sydney Opera House (in some form) would be a worthwhile addition as a modern era wonder.

 

[Mr. Sulu]

Ignore this, the one below is clearer.

 

[Mr. Sulu]

I found a link, I don't believe the Red Fort is in the mod but in one of the SVNs

Here's a possible link, it could be something
https://www.assembla.com/code/Dawn_of_Civilization/subversion/nodes/Assets/Art/Structures/Wonders


Here's the whole site link though
https://www.assembla.com/code/Dawn_of_Civilization/subversion/nodes

 

[davidtylr]

I reckon we should get rid if the hit musicals, hit movies and hit music. Get rid of rock and roll. Change Broadway and Hollywood to something else. I was thinking like a national wonder.

Hollywood
Require cinema to build
+ 4 culture in city where its built
+25% in city with a cinema

Broadway
Require Theatre to build
+ 4 culture
+ 1 culture in city with a Theatre

Downloading the new version now. Thanks Xyth.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The extra "hit" resources are arguably needed to permit further population growth in the modern era, by which point you're coming pretty close to maxing out the possible happiness from religion and resources if you've been trading and building vigorously.

 

[Mr. Sulu]

I personally think there should be more modern skyscrapers, so here's my ideas. Since Burj Khalifa is already an idea, here's some more.

Empire State Building
Unlocks at Electricity
Cost: 950 Hammers
+2 Great Merchant Points
+2 Free Merchants
+1 Gold per Citizen in this City
Here's Graphics
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=18280

Taipei 101
Unlocks at Telocommunications
Cost: 1400 Hammers
Can turn 4 Citizens into Merchant
+2 Relations with all leaders
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=18283

 

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think we want too many skyscraper wonders; it gets repetitive. Unless there's a huge shortage of modern wonders to build (and thinking about it, there might be), we shouldn't be adding three or four of the things.

 

[Keinpferd]

We want many skyscrapers.