Guide to The C2C Alternative Improvement Upgrade Mechanism

[Dancing Hoskuld]

IMO free specialists should be a bit rarer to obtain. I would need to total up all the buildings and/or wonders that give them to see how many can accumulate. At present the main council type buildings provide a fixed number of specialists. I would want to change these to require the right town chain improvement in the CV (subject to debate) to be built AND to receive a variable number of free specialist based on the number of town plots in the CV.

I would see it as the reverse. You need the administrative building in the city to be able to build the improvement. Otherwise the improvement should be the city as it is more advanced.

- cottage improvement requires a Village Hall built in the city
- village improvement require Town Hall in the city
- town require City Hall
- suburb requires Metro/capital admin

The problem with this is that we don't have a starting improvement in the chain.

 

[0100010]

I would see it as the reverse. You need the administrative building in the city to be able to build the improvement. Otherwise the improvement should be the city as it is more advanced.

- cottage improvement requires a Village Hall built in the city
- village improvement require Town Hall in the city
- town require City Hall
- suburb requires Metro/capital admin

The problem with this is that we don't have a starting improvement in the chain.

Well I disagree. There is no reason a village, town etc. can't exist without the city building. I see the city building more as an administrative office to help manged the already existing village(s) Why build the village council before the village itself exists?

This is also a difference of opinion on the role of those Village Hall/council building chain. You see them as something that manages the city itself due to the cities population. I WANT to change that to make the represent the management of the outside the city population (thus requiring an existing outside the city population) - whose population (within the city) is actually represented by the free specialists. Maybe we need a new building type set, though it would seem redundant to me, and I'd still want to steal away the free specialist part of it.

Also we at least have the ability to check the CV for improvements as a building req. Do we have the ability to do the reverse already in place? (to check if a city has a building before allowing a worker to build an improvement?)
How would a plot shared by multiple cities be handled?
How would a player, planning ahead, who wants to build town chain improvements in advance in the 3rd ring be able to do so, if the nearest city has wont have the Metro/Cap building for a long time?

Further more your restricting the basic commerce/culture gain from (especially when using realistic culture spread) by denying it to the player until after they have built the village hall or such. (which maybe they can't for a while cause they need troops or such first) This will badly affect the worker AI too, denying the town chain improvements until the city manager AI decides to build the requisite building.

And there is of course the problem you already said, no starting improvement. (unless you do the reverse as I originally suggested, then cottage is the starting improvement)

Unrelated to towns, but related to CV improvement checking, I still also want to put in CV requirements for Solar Panels, Hydro Dams, etc for the corresponding power plants to be buildable in the city.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I would see it as the reverse. You need the administrative building in the city to be able to build the improvement. Otherwise the improvement should be the city as it is more advanced.

- cottage improvement requires a Village Hall built in the city
- village improvement require Town Hall in the city
- town require City Hall
- suburb requires Metro/capital admin

The problem with this is that we don't have a starting improvement in the chain.

If we added a tag for free specialists from improvements then take away the free ones from the admin buildings and gave them to the cottage+ line (+1 free specialist from each stage of the line) that would be supercool and challenging but would make free specialists potentially even more plentiful. But giving the improvements a prereq of a particular building in the city would be also required - however, I can tell you - the processing on that would be horrible as it seems any city building check will always cost a lot of turn time.

What do you mean we don't have a starting improvement in the chain? You just gave it didn't you? The cottage?

 

[0100010]

If we added a tag for free specialists from improvements then take away the free ones from the admin buildings and gave them to the cottage+ line (+1 free specialist from each stage of the line) that would be supercool and challenging but would make free specialists potentially even more plentiful. But giving the improvements a prereq of a particular building in the city would be also required - however, I can tell you - the processing on that would be horrible as it seems any city building check will always cost a lot of turn time.

What do you mean we don't have a starting improvement in the chain? You just gave it didn't you? The cottage?

Just to be clear I was not suggesting attaching free specialists DIRECTLY to improvement via new improvement tags (though we could evaluate that feasibility at some point). My suggestion is to use a building (such as the admin buildings) to INDIRECTLY provide free specialists by way of the buildings free specialists tags. The difference however is going from a fixed number of specialists to a variable number based on counting the # of town chain plots in the CV. That might be something that needs coding or it might be achievable m that GOM code stuff that was added sometime back.

Example #s (up for debate):
Cottage = 0 free specialists
Hamlet = 0.5 free specialists
Village = 1
Town = 1.5
Suburb = 2

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well I disagree. There is no reason a village, town etc. can't exist without the city building. I see the city building more as an administrative office to help manged the already existing village(s) Why build the village council before the village itself exists?

This is also a difference of opinion on the role of those Village Hall/council building chain. You see them as something that manages the city itself due to the cities population. I WANT to change that to make the represent the management of the outside the city population (thus requiring an existing outside the city population) - whose population (within the city) is actually represented by the free specialists. Maybe we need a new building type set, though it would seem redundant to me, and I'd still want to steal away the free specialist part of it.

Also we at least have the ability to check the CV for improvements as a building req. Do we have the ability to do the reverse already in place? (to check if a city has a building before allowing a worker to build an improvement?)
How would a plot shared by multiple cities be handled?
How would a player, planning ahead, who wants to build town chain improvements in advance in the 3rd ring be able to do so, if the nearest city has wont have the Metro/Cap building for a long time?

Further more your restricting the basic commerce/culture gain from (especially when using realistic culture spread) by denying it to the player until after they have built the village hall or such. (which maybe they can't for a while cause they need troops or such first) This will badly affect the worker AI too, denying the town chain improvements until the city manager AI decides to build the requisite building.

And there is of course the problem you already said, no starting improvement. (unless you do the reverse as I originally suggested, then cottage is the starting improvement)

Unrelated to towns, but related to CV improvement checking, I still also want to put in CV requirements for Solar Panels, Hydro Dams, etc for the corresponding power plants to be buildable in the city.

Now I'm starting to 'get' what you're getting at.

You make good points about the prereqs and no the xml isn't ready for what DH suggested nearly as much as it would be the other way around and it would process far better as you suggest.

However, the city administration buildings are already key prereqs for a lot in their role as CITY administration buildings.

What I would suggest, given your current proposition would be:
1) We add another building line - Rural Development buildings or somesuch that do manage the exterior populations. Then each corresponds to the proper level of 'village' and would have one being in the city radius as a prereq. It'd be a building upgrade chain and each would ADD another free specialist for each level, much like our current admin buildings do.

2) To balance all these free specialists, make each building on both chains 'employ' a population with the employment tag (can't recall exactly what it's named offhand). This makes the 'free' part of the free specialist not so free - more of an 'enforced' specialist. But with these buildings unlocking other buildings and bringing the benefits they bring outside of this effect, they should still be valuable to build (maybe not as much as they WERE this way though so perhaps should be beefed up a little in value.)


Of course, then there'd be:
A) All the more reason to want the cottage+ line of improvements to take a nice long time to upgrade.
B) STRONG cause to want to make sure at least one plot in every city has been devoted to a cottage and maybe more just to make sure that if one of them is destroyed or must be replaced due to a surprise new resource popping up underneath it, you'd have one sacrificable. Of course if you have TOO many improvements this will lead to some hard choices won't it? I like...

 

[Thunderbrd]

Just to be clear I was not suggesting attaching free specialists DIRECTLY to improvement via new improvement tags (though we could evaluate that feasibility at some point). My suggestion is to use a building (such as the admin buildings) to INDIRECTLY provide free specialists by way of the buildings free specialists tags. The difference however is going from a fixed number of specialists to a variable number based on counting the # of town chain plots in the CV. That might be something that needs coding or it might be achievable m that GOM code stuff that was added sometime back.

Example #s (up for debate):
Cottage = 0 free specialists
Hamlet = 0.5 free specialists
Village = 1
Town = 1.5
Suburb = 2

Would take some coding along the 'not toooooo hard' lines. At the moment you can do this (ex: Boatyard: +1 free specialist for every fishing boats improvement (I think some others have been included in there too but I'm not sure)) but it's limited to the integer and cannot be less than a full 1. I like how that would work though so a little granularizing of the existing tag structure could be fairly easily done.

 

[0100010]

As for the "employee required" idea for buildings do it this way, I don;t know how far along this ism but I would do it this way:

The building provides one or more open specialist slots. The open specialist slots have a new tag bEmploymentRequired.
If EmploymentRequired is true, then the building ceases to function if free specialists have not been filled into those slots.

Thus it is still up to the user (or AI) to assign specialists to those open slots. but they can choose not to if they want. City Manager AI would need tweaking to populate required specialist slots before non required specialist slots.

EDIT: I've always thought the boatyards and Marina were overpowered due to those free specialists, plus it made little sense once those specialists got dropped into slots.

 

[Rwn]

Hmm... I haven't been having money problems... been finding the balance about right but only a little weighted towards easy perhaps. Civic choices have a LOT to do with that of course, as does capturing religious capitals and their shrines etc...

I'd say the major factor is the number of cities you have (along with the civics that change the maintenance cost of cities). It's easy to run a big surplus or a big deficit depending on how many cities you build; if you have lot of space to expand, it's really up to your playstyle. Maybe happiness could play a bigger role in limiting how many cities you may build.

Also, as most bonus from buildings, trade routes, etc. are usually or instead of , the slider do not have as much importance as it could. But that's probably a debate for another topic

To get back on-topic:
IMHO I'd be inclined towards setting/increasing the cost of improvements. The reason is, right now, the only cost you have to improve terrain is the (low) initial cost of the worker. After that, it's just a matter of letting it work - meaning that you can literally cover your territory with the latest improvements at no cost (except cottage, some roads and a few others). Building several workers early is a no-brainer given the "return on investment" they offer; for the rest of the game, it mostly just a matter of micromanaging them, there's no real "gameplay" cost preventing you to improve everything everywhere.

The gatherer (and slave) gameplay is slightly different: you have a cost to build the improvement equal to the cost to build the gatherer. I find the gatherer's cost a bit high and it'd be painful later in the game to have to move each unit from a city to the tile to improve, but gameplay-wise, it's more interesting than workers.

That's why I think having a cost to build or improve improvements would be a good thing: not because it'd be a way to decrease an overflow of gold, but precisely because it'd force to consider whether an improvement is worth its cost, especially if money if tight. An interesting game is always about (difficult) choices

An alternative, faster to implement solution (probably easier for AI too) would be to have a maintenance cost for workers (a few per turn), like city guards or healers. Not as "fun" as per-improvement cost IMHO, but would at least make the construction of packs of workers less of a no-brainer.

If increasing cost here cause money issues, some buildings could see their cost lowered to balance things up for example. Again, it's not about making the player spend more money, but that available development opportunities should come at a cost to allow different strategies than "build everything I can".

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'd say the major factor is the number of cities you have (along with the civics that change the maintenance cost of cities). It's easy to run a big surplus or a big deficit depending on how many cities you build; if you have lot of space to expand, it's really up to your playstyle. Maybe happiness could play a bigger role in limiting how many cities you may build.

I'd suspect larger empires have a harder time keeping their gold since they can overload themselves with upkeep which is good. It's a more sophisticated structure to ask a player to show growth restraint for GREATER benefit as that's so very counter-intuitive. One of the best things they did for CivIV as opposed to III.

Also, as most bonus from buildings, trade routes, etc. are usually or instead of , the slider do not have as much importance as it could. But that's probably a debate for another topic

You realize that buildings that influence trade show final benefits according to the slider setting BECAUSE trade brings in and the current slider settings are interpreted for the final values display right? Aka: Trade doesn't give any research. It gives commerce which the slider set to 100 will cause the building to show as research.

An alternative, faster to implement solution (probably easier for AI too) would be to have a maintenance cost for workers (a few per turn), like city guards or healers. Not as "fun" as per-improvement cost IMHO, but would at least make the construction of packs of workers less of a no-brainer.

If increasing cost here cause money issues, some buildings could see their cost lowered to balance things up for example. Again, it's not about making the player spend more money, but that available development opportunities should come at a cost to allow different strategies than "build everything I can".

Most civilian units do have a little extra gold upkeep. I wouldn't be against adding some support costs for workers IF we do feel we need to further reduce gold at some point. After implementing costs for upgrading though we may find ourselves all very broke so I want to see how that plays out in a test run next cycle first.

 

[Rwn]

You realize that buildings that influence trade show final benefits according to the slider setting BECAUSE trade brings in and the current slider settings are interpreted for the final values display right? Aka: Trade doesn't give any research. It gives commerce which the slider set to 100 will cause the building to show as research.

No, I didn't realize that since I often saw also as part of the trade routes output...

But still, the fact that you can run your civ at 0% permanently is a sign that most of your income do not come from which kind of defeats the purpose of the slider... That's especially true early game, when you have a -65% penalty to income - the tradeoff between and is then horrible, you have no incentive to leave the 100% area.

Most civilian units do have a little extra gold upkeep. I wouldn't be against adding some support costs for workers IF we do feel we need to further reduce gold at some point. After implementing costs for upgrading though we may find ourselves all very broke so I want to see how that plays out in a test run next cycle first.

I was originally suggesting it as an alternative for implementing upgrading costs in fact (not that I'd be particularly against a maintenance cost for workers in addition)

I don't think you can really be broke up to the middle of the game (where available space becomes scarce): if you have less gold, you just slow down a bit your expansion (i.e. wait until your current cities earn more gold before building new ones). It's mostly a matter of how fast the expansion you (as modders) want to allow.

Having gold as the main limit to expansion (as it is the case in C2C as well as in vanilla) means that most of the time you'll want to dedicate your gold to expansion since cities are a major driver of power on the long term (through territory, production, etc.), making alternative uses for gold (unit upgrading comes to mind) very costly in comparison until there's no more room for expansion. That's why I'm wondering whether adding other mechanisms to limit expansion (unhappiness for example, which already exists but is rarely an issue) could indirectly help with gold management.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Trade can also give production and even food - I THINK this is based on civic choices if I'm not mistaken.

Many buildings do work with gold as opposed to commerce but that may not be a bad thing. As for the early game, the only reason one would move off of 100% research is if they absolutely have to to maintain the military they've built up... Or I suppose if it costs to improve then to to save for those costs (if you can't already get it from goodies).

Actually the way you might be able to get an early game that forces the slider under 100% research is to play without goodie huts... that's the whole reason to get them is so you don't have to drop under 100% research if you end up running in a negative for a bit. Well... that AND the FREE techs of course

 

[Rwn]

(I edited my post while you posted yours, just in case you missed the second part of my post)

Actually the way you might be able to get an early game that forces the slider under 100% research is to play without goodie huts... that's the whole reason to get them is so you don't have to drop under 100% research if you end up running in a negative for a bit. Well... that AND the FREE techs of course

Actually, regarding initial goody huts, the tech penalty to even up the initial -1 is quite significant and I don't like the fact that very random factors (goody huts and natural wonders) could be significant factors in early performance, so I usually set initial to 100 for everyone... But I'd never thought of playing without goody huts, that's definitely something I'll try (I'll also have to desactivate from natural wonders).

 

[Thunderbrd]

I don't think you can really be broke up to the middle of the game (where available space becomes scarce): if you have less gold, you just slow down a bit your expansion (i.e. wait until your current cities earn more gold before building new ones). It's mostly a matter of how fast the expansion you (as modders) want to allow.

Having gold as the main limit to expansion (as it is the case in C2C as well as in vanilla) means that most of the time you'll want to dedicate your gold to expansion since cities are a major driver of power on the long term (through territory, production, etc.), making alternative uses for gold (unit upgrading comes to mind) very costly in comparison until there's no more room for expansion. That's why I'm wondering whether adding other mechanisms to limit expansion (unhappiness for example, which already exists but is rarely an issue) could indirectly help with gold management.

There IS the city limits option which enhances unhappiness if you overgrow at a certain point. I don't use it because I'd rather rely on the gold balance factors you mention. However, to me it's not GOLD per se so much as maximizing research. This is where it's interesting... if you overgrow you choke off your research until that growth has begun to realize it's return on investment. I feel that overexpansion can be a big mistake already. We'll see by just how much in the comparisons taking place in the PVP pbem games running right now... lol.

I also find it very easy to be broke in the early game - not nearly as much so in the later game but then again... haven't reached later eras in a while to see how it stands now. But if you let things like crime get out of hand, you'll really suffer. And civic choices are quite critical.

 

[Faustmouse]

As for the gold limiting growth: It only is that case in the very early game. I recently updated the SVN and every new city now gives 50% more gold then it costs when founded. And this despite the fact I'm 145 cities over my maximum (late medieval).

 

[Thunderbrd]

As for the gold limiting growth: It only is that case in the very early game. I recently updated the SVN and every new city now gives 50% more gold then it costs when founded. And this despite the fact I'm 145 cities over my maximum (late medieval).

And there's the issue with getting overly aggressive with free buildings for new cities.

Perhaps we need to add an adjustment to the # of cities upkeep by era somehow.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

And there's the issue with getting overly aggressive with free buildings for new cities.

Perhaps we need to add an adjustment to the # of cities upkeep by era somehow.

There should be an upkeep cost based on the cohesion of your nation. At first it is difficult to keep two cities as one nation if it takes a generation to communicate between them. That is in part what the Rev system is about.

With setting up of new cities, I think we should take a totally different approach. The free buildings is old BtS and the auto buildings are c2C but may be a bit over done. When you create a new city it is for a reason, until you have chiefdom, the reason is totally terrain based, if it is next to a stone or metal then it is a mining village, if next to a food resource then a hunting/gathering camp, if on the coast next to a fish type resource it is a fishing village. The buildings it gets depend on its type and your government level. With Monarchy you can settle "defensive villages". With City Planning you get much more control. It is a big project.

 

[Rwn]

There IS the city limits option which enhances unhappiness if you overgrow at a certain point. I don't use it because I'd rather rely on the gold balance factors you mention. However, to me it's not GOLD per se so much as maximizing research.

I do use the city limit option but its rarely an issue vs. maintenance gold cost... Though maybe in the (mid?) late game it would prevent overexpansion. Regarding the lack of impact of gold in the late game, a quick fix (without city limits) would be to review the reduction in maintenance cost from civics.

This is where it's interesting... if you overgrow you choke off your research until that growth has begun to realize it's return on investment. I feel that overexpansion can be a big mistake already. We'll see by just how much in the comparisons taking place in the PVP pbem games running right now... lol.

I also find it very easy to be broke in the early game - not nearly as much so in the later game but then again... haven't reached later eras in a while to see how it stands now. But if you let things like crime get out of hand, you'll really suffer. And civic choices are quite critical.

Yes, I also like this mechanism which was very well tuned in vanilla and works well also in C2C My point was that, because cities are so much valuable for long-term growth, you always have an incentive to be as close as possible to what you can afford in maintenance cost. This means that, unless there's another limit to expansion (cost of settlers, lack of land available...), you'll want to stay not to far from break even point. If you increase or decrease gold costs/incomes, you'll just increase or decrease the rate of "potential expansion" that a good player will want to reach, but not really give more gold in the players' treasury - again, this is mostly true in the early game with plenty of available land. And the reason why gold always feels scarce in the early game...

 

[Harrier]

Perhaps we need to add an adjustment to the # of cities upkeep by era somehow.

What RI does is increase the unhappiness and unhealth of each city as you progress through the era's. Every era change increases the malus of every city. The increase for each era also gets larger. I dont know if you do the same, as I have not been playing this mod for very long. Also I get distracted by map changes I keep making.

But in RI when entering a new era, if you have not planned beforehand you may have to change what your citizens do and adjust your city sliders (science,culture gold) settings accordingly.

The idea is as we progress we want and expect more. So an era change makes us unhappy/unhealthy if we do not get the benefits of new techs. etc.

I know you have implemented unhealth in a different way - but maybe increase unhappiness by a big factor every era change. Maybe auto construct a building i.e. "People Expectations - Medieval" each era which adds unhappiness by a large factor.

 

[Faustmouse]

What RI does is increase the unhappiness and unhealth of each city as you progress through the era's. Every era change increases the malus of every city. The increase for each era also gets larger. I dont know if you do the same, as I have not been playing this mod for very long. Also I get distracted by map changes I keep making.

But in RI when entering a new era, if you have not planned beforehand you may have to change what your citizens do and adjust your city sliders (science,culture gold) settings accordingly.

The idea is as we progress we want and expect more. So an era change makes us unhappy/unhealthy if we do not get the benefits of new techs. etc.

I know you have implemented unhealth in a different way - but maybe increase unhappiness by a big factor every era change. Maybe auto construct a building i.e. "People Expectations - Medieval" each era which adds unhappiness by a large factor.

We had an idea that luxury resources vanish over time and give a malus if you don't have them. For example:

Shoes come available in Ancient (I think). They give +1 .
In Classical, they give nothing if you have them, but +1 :man: if you don't have them.
In Medieval and later, they give nothing and +2 if you don't have them.

 

[Lyrrix]

Spoiler :

RED: Causes me to Crash to Desktop. (Go straight to jail. Do not pass GO! Do not collect $200.)

ORANGE: Skips through multiple instances of this upgrade, I assume that they are different mines that I'm telling them not to upgrade at that point.

BLUE: Removes the improvement, and seems to have a 50/50 shot of freezing/crashing or just continuing on.

Pretty sure it's not my system...
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
Processor: Intel i3 (3.3 GHz)
RAM: 6 GB
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 560 Ti (yes, drivers are updated.)