Free buildings revisited

Rwn · May 31, 2014

This modmod alters the buildings that you get for free in new cities.

It was built with the following philosophy:
- New buildings will give an initial boost to cities to get them productive/on track faster. The free buildings are mostly the cheap ones giving a :hammers:

or

bonus that you'll usually want to build first anyway, saving some tedious always-identical initial building lists and probably helping a bit the AI that might not prioritize those buildings currently.
- I tried to avoid free buildings that have penalties associated (maintenance cost, unhappiness). There are some buildings that give :sick: though.
- The free buildings are granted roughly one to two eras after they are discovered, excepted a few from early Prehistorical that are enabled when you get Tribalism. One key change you'll probably notice is that you get a free Stone Tools Maker in your new cities.

I'm no so familiar with latest tech era, so the free buildings are mainly centered up to mid-game. You won't probably build many cities by then and will have all the free buildings from previous eras anyway.

A bug I've noticed is that sometimes some free buildings are not built properly in the city; I don't know why that is (it's already the case with the original free buildings).

To use it, just place the file in your Assets\Modules\My_Mods\NewCityFree in place of the old one.
You'll need SVN 7550 (or later) since it uses the new Classical Lifestyle tech.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

Here's the list of free buildings for reference:

Spoiler :

Thunderbrd · May 31, 2014

Looking at this I wonder if I would want it or not... I really LIKE queuing up my cities when first built and you've taken out ALL the neat 1 or less than 1 round builds.

But it strikes me as adhering to some good general principles like not autobuilding much that adds a penalty.

Makes me think though... maybe we should allow settlers to gain promotions (and experience coming from the city when built) and give them free buildings according to those so you can choose the free buildings you'll start with (and you can even give the basic building hierarchy in those promotion selections too...) Some food for thought I'll chew on for a bit here.

I think, in the end, I won't use this because I don't want to not have all the little builds. If it were me designing the use of this system I'd have very few auto-free buildings. In the Prehistoric it'd pretty much be the Storage Pit and Fire Pit and that's it.

Rwn · May 31, 2014

Thunderbrd said:
Looking at this I wonder if I would want it or not... I really LIKE queuing up my cities when first built and you've taken out ALL the neat 1 or less than 1 round builds.

Yes, that's precisely the point

It just makes the new cities improductive for many turns and building always the same things before you can start thinking what you'd want to do with them, what you'd like them to specialize in.

Makes me think though... maybe we should allow settlers to gain promotions (and experience coming from the city when built) and give them free buildings according to those so you can choose the free buildings you'll start with (and you can even give the basic building hierarchy in those promotion selections too...) Some food for thought I'll chew on for a bit here.

Another idea I had was to have other settlers units (like tribesmen become settlers) which are more costly but that give more buildings when they build a new city.

I think, in the end, I won't use this because I don't want to not have all the little builds. If it were me designing the use of this system I'd have very few auto-free buildings. In the Prehistoric it'd pretty much be the Storage Pit and Fire Pit and that's it.

You have many little builds, just not the ones that give :hammers:

(and to a lesser extent, :food:

) past you first city. My point of view is, when there's no real choice involved (the :hammers:

buildings are nearly always those you want to build first), there's no point actually offering the choice. And it helps the AI actually make the right choice (not so sure that's the case currently - when I capture a city, I find it's missing some very basic buildings).

Thunderbrd · May 31, 2014

To me, this duration of building up your production and food and such has a number of features it adds that would be lost if removed:

1) It CAN be ignored and another approach utilized even though it may be substandard in general to do so. At times, for military purposes, this can become a necessity. What's the point of continuing to build up your production and food buildings when you've suddenly got a threat to the new city knocking on your door? Suddenly its more important to build some defensive buildings.

2) In kind, this also means there's a new city vulnerability period where it doesn't have the production yet to effectively react to an invasive action against it so this means that the player must plant their cities with some care regarding timing and the conflicts taking place.

3) This may seem to be the best approach but there may be points where it isn't. You can end up finding that your more effective means to growth might be to stop the massive food building string and inject some cheaper health buildings into the mix because it would be a faster way to get more food. You may find that the production and food building string takes up so much time that by the time it finishes you'll be so far backed up in crime and disease that it becomes more important to exercise some restraint and check in now and then to make sure that the city hasn't dug itself such a deep hole with its properties that it makes it even harder to get out. (The more we make an out of control property accelerate the rate of growing out of control the more we enhance this effect and make it unwise to forget to take care of these things AS you grow the city.)

4) Somewhat summarizing the above, the hypnotic assignment of All production then All food can be a mental trap for a player and challenges the player to take note of when this has become sub-optimal.

5) This challenges the player to take note of where the hidden production and food buildings may exist in the building trees and to more carefully determine when to move to get them to maximize that growth. (Alpha Child Labor for example.)

6) In many cases just selecting out a string of production buildings from the cheapest to build to the most expensive has points where this is NOT the fastest route to the greatest production. For example, the Stone Tools Maker is good to shoot for in front (which is also 'hidden' behind the Stone Gatherer's Hut or whatever it's called) because although it will take a few rounds to complete its effect is far greater than what you'd have achieved by the same round invested into the cheapest production builds.

7)Another summary of above points: I enjoy the challenges in analyzing these growth periods for maximizing the speed of city growth and development. With all the little adjustments to this structure that comes from new buildings and buildings obsoleting I find it's rarely ever the same analysis with each new city. Interestingly enough... this is one of my FAVORITE aspects OF this mod! Breezing past it stating it's a burdensome annoyance is hard for me to understand considering I enjoy this part of the game (developing new cities) more than I enjoy most of the rest of it. So I have to think some players just aren't finding this kind of 'analyzing to get any edge possible' the point of the game for them as I do for me.

and this is probably the most important point for overall gameplay, even for players that would prefer to automate their cities and never have to look at a city screen or choose builds in the first place (or at least have a good autopilot they can choose to 'tweak' once in a while):

8) It forces the new cities to be an economic burden for a time which means they will take a bit to begin to offer the nation any return on investment for building them. This limits the speed of nation growth in the game which I think is very important.

If you take that buildup period away you will end up with cities becoming profitable way too quickly imo.

EDIT:

And it helps the AI actually make the right choice (not so sure that's the case currently - when I capture a city, I find it's missing some very basic buildings).

You might be surprised how good the AI is at finding these nuances I mentioned and navigating these build periods with perfect accuracy. The reason you capture cities and find basic buildings missing is because nearly all buildings have a 50% chance of being destroyed when a city is captured.

Rwn · May 31, 2014

Thanks for the feedback (and the comment regarding buildings destruction on capture).

I think I understand you point of view, but I think it all comes back to what we enjoy - if you're familiar with Myers-Briggs profile test, I'd say you have a high (S)ensitive profile (interested in details, in tactics, in precision...) while I'm much more i(N)tuitive (interested in "big picture", in strategy...). Personnally, I enjoy trying to understand things, but once I've a mostly good understanding, though not perfect, I just lose interest

Dancing Hoskuld · May 31, 2014

There are already a large number of autobuild buildings some of these add :hammers:

and other stuff. They need to be reviewed and many eliminated or consolidated in some way.

Thunderbrd said:
Makes me think though... maybe we should allow settlers to gain promotions (and experience coming from the city when built) and give them free buildings according to those so you can choose the free buildings you'll start with (and you can even give the basic building hierarchy in those promotion selections too...) Some food for thought I'll chew on for a bit here.

We got rid of this because it did not work for the AI. It was a player cheat.

It would need to be done in the dll to not be a cheat. Which means XML tags for modability.

edit When I build anew city I press "1" and get all the initial buildings I want. then 2 to get the so called hidden ones.

Whisperr · May 31, 2014

A couple of things I have noticed.

* If the Granary becomes a free build, there is no point to the National Wonder "Strategic Grain Reserve".

* The fire pit, there is not point, except for the golden age, to build the National Wonder "Captured Fire" ( I think that is what it is called).

* The bazaar, is a pre req. to build so many to be able to build the Great Wonder "Silk Road". So it is illuminating the challenge to get them all built. So once you have access to it you will be able to build it.

* The forge - building so many forges is an event that is common in the game, so apart from getting your cities up to 6 pop. you are eliminating the challenge in fulfilling this quest.

This is just a couple that come to mind without having to research all other wonders and events.

Also I don't like a lot of pre builds. I don't build every building in every city, an one that stood out from your list for me is the "Town Well".

Thunderbrd · May 31, 2014

Dancing Hoskuld said:
There are already a large number of autobuild buildings some of these add and other stuff. They need to be reviewed and many eliminated or consolidated in some way.

We got rid of this because it did not work for the AI. It was a player cheat.

It would need to be done in the dll to not be a cheat. Which means XML tags for modability.

Of course that's how I'd wanna go about it. And come to think of it... we'll need the same tags for certain dynamics planned for the Nomadic Start project.

@Rwn: You did a good job thinking it through from your angle of course... and yes I suppose I must admit to it being somewhat preferential but the one part I wouldn't find purely preferential would be the vast acceleration you're giving to nationbuilding that will make it harder for games to stretch out into later eras of play.

Rwn · Jun 1, 2014

Whisperr said:
A couple of things I have noticed.

* If the Granary becomes a free build, there is no point to the National Wonder "Strategic Grain Reserve".

The free Granary comes much later than Strategic Grain Reserve (about 2 eras later), so it's still interesting to build. Also remember that the free buildings are only for new cities built after a certain tech is researched; all cities you have when you discover the tech do not gain the free buildings.

* The fire pit, there is not point, except for the golden age, to build the National Wonder "Captured Fire" ( I think that is what it is called).

Currently, the National Wonder obsoletes at The Fire (which you discover about at the same time as Tribalism), and you directly get a free Fire Pit in new cities when you get The Fire... So I haven't really changed anything here.

* The bazaar, is a pre req. to build so many to be able to build the Great Wonder "Silk Road". So it is illuminating the challenge to get them all built. So once you have access to it you will be able to build it.

* The forge - building so many forges is an event that is common in the game, so apart from getting your cities up to 6 pop. you are eliminating the challenge in fulfilling this quest.

You still have to build the cities after you get the quest - it's not free buildings for every city! I missed the 6-pop prerequisite for the forge, though, I'll remove it.

Thunderbrd said:
@Rwn: You did a good job thinking it through from your angle of course... and yes I suppose I must admit to it being somewhat preferential but the one part I wouldn't find purely preferential would be the vast acceleration you're giving to nationbuilding that will make it harder for games to stretch out into later eras of play.

The "accelerated start" was not really the main purpose of these changes, I agree that something could be done about it to maintain the current balance. I'm thinking significantly increasing the :hammers:

cost of Tribemen/Settlers to compensate - this reminds me that in Vanilla, building a Settler was quite a drain of resources compared to C2C; I'd like to see how it plays out in terms of balance.

Rwn · Jun 1, 2014

Rwn said:
I'm thinking significantly increasing the cost of Tribemen/Settlers to compensate - this reminds me that in Vanilla, building a Settler was quite a drain of resources compared to C2C; I'd like to see how it plays out in terms of balance.

Hm, I wonder how to do that. Currently, the Tribe and Settler entries have a iCost set to 0 and 1 respectively, that can't be right...

Dancing Hoskuld · Jun 1, 2014

Rwn said:
The free Granary comes much later than Strategic Grain Reserve (about 2 eras later), so it's still interesting to build. Also remember that the free buildings are only for new cities built after a certain tech is researched; all cities you have when you discover the tech do not gain the free buildings.

The Strategic Grain Reserve gives you gives you free granary in all cities, both those you currently have and those that you will get. So it is only useful for players without rivers.

Rwn · Jun 1, 2014

Dancing Hoskuld said:
The Strategic Grain Reserve gives you gives you free granary in all cities, both those you currently have and those that you will get. So it is only useful for players without rivers.

Not sure what you mean with rivers?

My point was, if you don't build the Strategic Grain Reserve, you'll get free Granaries, but much later and only in the new cities you'll build after you get the required tech. So it's still interesting to build the Reserve to 1/ get free Granaries much earlier on 2/ to get them in every city, not just those you'll build after you get the tech for free Granaries in new cities.

Dancing Hoskuld · Jun 1, 2014

The Strategic Grain Reserve can only be built in a city on a river.

I am finding it interesting that my Free Buildings mod has been changed because people don't like what is in yours. :lol:

Thunderbrd · Jun 1, 2014

Dancing Hoskuld said:
The Strategic Grain Reserve can only be built in a city on a river.

I am finding it interesting that my Free Buildings mod has been changed because people don't like what is in yours.

I'd see it more as the issue has been brought to the front of people's minds in general which you unfortunately struggled to achieve when you were trying to bring it up before. In all actuality, the default applications you'd setup were MORE problematic from some player opinion perspectives and the fact that you had added it and we finally realized it (since there's no fricking displays saying it's taking place or will take place in the game) it's kinda like the improvement upgrade matter where a particularly problematic modification having gone in really brings the situation to an alarm - must address now - focus.

So again, as I told 0100010, it was probably good you did add these even if they weren't well received because by being not well received it brought attention to the mechanism finally!

In summary, my argument is to make no free buildings apply to the main mod at all, but I'll work on getting it setup as a Settler's unit ability with promos to support it. The free past a tech concept, imo, simply takes too much out of the player's control no matter how it's applied.

Either that and/or I can add a gameoption that allows players to turn the free buildings off and then y'all can figure out whatever you want to do with the mechanism's application.

Dancing Hoskuld · Jun 1, 2014

Thunderbrd said:
In summary, my argument is to make no free buildings apply to the main mod at all, but I'll work on getting it setup as a Settler's unit ability with promos to support it. The free past a tech concept, imo, simply takes too much out of the player's control no matter how it's applied.

Either that and/or I can add a gameoption that allows players to turn the free buildings off and then y'all can figure out whatever you want to do with the mechanism's application.

I disagree with both of those suggestions.

1) I would prefer a totally different mechanism as I have outlined elsewhere. When you build a city you choose what type of city it is and get the free buildings that are appropriate to that type. So a defensive city will get the early walls and towers while a farming community will get farm related improvements. Note: you choices of city will vary with technology and civics and probably after City Planning you will get a pop-up screen with a list of buildings ~~and a number of points~~ to use in selecting which buildings to build.

2) Rather than a game option we should extend the MLF system to make it more friendly. This would involve a much friendlier set-up screen. Note MLF already allows a number of different set-ups for sub modules where you can have sets turned on or off and give the sets a name as well as the individual

Thunderbrd · Jun 1, 2014

Dancing Hoskuld said:
I disagree with both of those suggestions.

1) I would prefer a totally different mechanism as I have outlined elsewhere. When you build a city you choose what type of city it is and get the free buildings that are appropriate to that type. So a defensive city will get the early walls and towers while a farming community will get farm related improvements. Note: you choices of city will vary with technology and civics and probably after City Planning you will get a pop-up screen with a list of buildings ~~and a number of points~~ to use in selecting which buildings to build.

2) Rather than a game option we should extend the MLF system to make it more friendly. This would involve a much friendlier set-up screen. Note MLF already allows a number of different set-ups for sub modules where you can have sets turned on or off and give the sets a name as well as the individual

Both of those would be a lot further off in development than an immediate solution.

As for the Settler ability we need the tag use for the Nomadic Start project anyhow. So it would at least be a project that overlaps with other needs.

Hydromancerx · Jun 1, 2014

Well one issue I dislike is how this (as in the free buildings in general) influences the the city size requirements. if they are built when a city is founded then what happens to buildings that require city size 6 or more?

One idea I had is have a set of buildings that can ONLY be built by the settler type units. I don't know what to name them but they would give increasing Building Production. Such as ...

Band of Homo Sapiens = +5% Building Production
Tribe = +10% Building Production
Settler = +20% Building Production
Colonist = +40% Building Production
Pioneer = +80% Building Production
Aircraft Settler = +160% Building Production
Spacecraft Settler = +320% Building Production
Seedship = +640% Building Production

Dancing Hoskuld · Jun 1, 2014

Hydromancerx said:
Well one issue I dislike is how this (as in the free buildings in general) influences the the city size requirements. if they are built when a city is founded then what happens to buildings that require city size 6 or more?

They are not built. Anything that does not have all its requirements met or is obsolete is not built.

Hydromancerx · Jun 1, 2014

Oh I see. I thought the Pub/Tavern/Dive Bar req level 6, but I guess not.

Thunderbrd · Jun 1, 2014

Hydromancerx said:
Well one issue I dislike is how this (as in the free buildings in general) influences the the city size requirements. if they are built when a city is founded then what happens to buildings that require city size 6 or more?

One idea I had is have a set of buildings that can ONLY be built by the settler type units. I don't know what to name them but they would give increasing Building Production. Such as ...

Band of Homo Sapiens = +5% Building Production
Tribe = +10% Building Production
Settler = +20% Building Production
Colonist = +40% Building Production
Pioneer = +80% Building Production
Aircraft Settler = +160% Building Production
Spacecraft Settler = +320% Building Production
Seedship = +640% Building Production

So that would be a permanent modifier in that city that would exist for as long as the city exists so after a while you'd want to abandon all your cities and rebuild them?

Furthermore this is taking away the point for those who are FOR the whole autobuild on tech concept which is to reduce the amount of buildings one must queue while at the same time harming one of the major points for having NO autobuilds in the most direct way possible - causing cities to graduate faster!

It's not going to hold back the steamroll if we can't make new city planting's a costly and somewhat risk filled investment. If they come into play with a head start on anything it's going to support national growth and growth stability. This would not be so bad if it were limited so some selectable options and added some interesting decisions to gameplay.

Free buildings revisited

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