Improvements

The building changes seems to have been lost in the latest build of the mod; I can't find them in your xml.

On a related note, have you tried Building_AreaYieldModifiers in CIV5Buildings.xml?
I wanted to drop all food yields by 1 in my mod, and have granary increase them by one, but it doesn't seem like the game uses that table :( There doesn't seem to be a way for buildings to alter improvements either.

Code:
<Building_AreaYieldModifiers>
	<Row>
		<BuildingType>BUILDING_GRANARY</BuildingType>
		<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
		<Yield>1</Yield>
	</Row>
</Building_AreaYieldModifiers>
 
@Azazell
I read over the patch notes carefully, and to my knowledge the mod should work perfectly fine with the latest patch.

@Tarkeel
Sorry for the confusion, just trying to organize things a bit.

The City Development mod now focuses primarily on balancing internal city development of buildings, wonders and specialists. The Terrain Improvements mod balances external development (worker and GP tile improvements).

Some of the changes in recent weeks resulted in a lot of overlap and I sorted it out with these two categories, which is how I'll be organizing things from now on (internal vs external).

Version History
v. 8
  • Moved Butcher, Harbor, Research Lab, and Stable changes to the Balance &#8211; City Development mod (reason 1 reason 2).
  • Several Great Person improvements can now access resources they&#8217;re built on.
  • Engineering now gives +1 to Quarries.
  • +1 +1 for Natural Wonders.
 
going to try your mods , look good . More intresting than just changing production rates .

I definetly like how you are resisting suggestions that sound to OP , i like how these mods are to make the game more intresting and balanced rather than completely changing the game . Carry on resisting the OP suggestions , especially ones that affect the game from the very first turn.
 
Keep up the great work Thal!
I also love how your balance changes are only minor little tweaks, that nevertheless still have a significant and meaningful gameplay impact - for the good ofc! :)

Keep it this way, and I will keep downloading all your mods ;)
 
May I ask what your thoughts were on why you changed Iron to be revealed by Mining?
 
Great Mod as usual :)

One minor oddity: With your changes to the GP-Improvements, customs house, citadel and landmark now heavily favor being placed on a resource. Since trading posts are a universal improvement, the actual gold benefit of these on resourceless tiles is 5, 0 and 0 respectively, but on resource tiles you get the full 7/2/2 gold (compared to the normal resource improvement). Not really a big issue, I doubt anyone will run out of resource tiles to put GP-Improvements on ;)
 
Another tranlation finished ;) :

Code:
	<Language_ES_ES>
		<Update>
			<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_BUILD_FORT_REC" />
			<Set Text="Esto mejorará la Defensa [ICON_STRENGTH] de todas las unidades militares que se encuentren en esta casilla, y causará 1 de daño a enemigos adyacentes." />
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_BUILD_FORT_HELP" />
			<Set Text="[COLOR_NEGATIVE_TEXT]Cuesta[ENDCOLOR] 1 [ICON_GOLD] de Oro en mantenimiento por tuno.[NEWLINE][NEWLINE]+50% a la Fuerza defensiva [ICON_STRENGTH] para todas las unidades que se encuentren en esta casilla, realiza 1 de daño a los enemigos en casilla adyacentes." />
		</Update>
		<Update>
			<Where Tag="TXT_KEY_CIV5_IMPROVEMENTS_FORT_TEXT" />
			<Set Text="[COLOR_NEGATIVE_TEXT]Cuesta[ENDCOLOR] 1 [ICON_GOLD] de Oro en mantenimiento por turno.[NEWLINE][NEWLINE]Un fuerte es una mejora especial que le concede una bonificación defensiva al hexágono y daña a enemigos adyacentes a él. No obstante, no concede bonificaciones en territorio enemigo." />
		</Update>
	</Language_ES_ES>
 
It seems this mod drastically alters the game balance and creates an abundance of resources. Is this true?

If by resources you mean food/production/gold, then yes, it alters it, but I wouldn't say drastically. The biggest impact by far I think is the increased hammers from every mine & forest. It very noticeably increases overall production in all cities. But I think a lot of people felt this was appropriate because cities were fairly starved for production and I think in civ 5 we also had workshops, and mines produced more.

I think it may be a little too high right now, but since we can't add halves, it's tough to get it perfect. I am not sure how long SS components *should* take to build, but in my last game my most productive city was making boosters in 5 turns, and the other stuff in 8. My other oldest cities were making the non-boosters in about 10-14 turns.
 
I think it may be a little too high right now, but since we can't add halves, it's tough to get it perfect. I am not sure how long SS components *should* take to build, but in my last game my most productive city was making boosters in 5 turns, and the other stuff in 8. My other oldest cities were making the non-boosters in about 10-14 turns.

I guess the lumbermill bonus at steampower could be removed, at 2 hammers they already compare well with trading posts (especcially when factories and railroads come into play).

Also, shouldn't the tech costs for mining, iron working and engineering be changed to account for the changes in the mod? Engineering and mining are quite powerful techs now, while iron working doesn't really warrant its increased cost compared to other classical techs anymore.
 
@JuggernautOfWar
This mod does not affect resource abundance. Are you using any other mods?

Also, the changes are relatively small. Even in a city completely surrounded by 20 hills or forests, the build time of something that used to be 10 turns will now be 8 turns. This situation of a blanket of forests is rather rare... on average in most cities, the difference is even less.


@Zeppelin4
Like Perkus said it came from a discussion on the strategy forum on ways to balance horsemen vs swordsmen. After adding it I realized it might fit better in the Units balance mod, though it does have some cross-effect on Terrain Improvements (earlier production) Civilizations (Russia) so it's hard to figure out where to put it. The primary advantage of having Iron revealed earlier is going for Swords is less of a gamble if you know you'll be able to use them.


@Joneill
I realize what the problem is. I added +2:c5gold: to the citadel/landmark/customs house to compensate for the fact you're forgoing a trading post, so that shouldn't take effect when built on an improvement. Removing the +1:c5gold: bonus is an easy solution for the gold angle, though I'll have to figure out something different for the +1:c5production: of customs houses built on gems.

There's some other places GP improvements are advantageous too. Oasis (though rare) makes an excellent spot to put a GP building since you can't improve the tile with a worker. They can also turn otherwise-useless desert into a very valuable tile, which was useful on a game I had where my capital was on flood plains surrounded by desert.

This can be useful on non-desert too... for example, non-river grassland are normally rather useless for a production city, but dropping a Manufactory there makes it a very powerful 2:c5food:4:c5production:. This can be significant compared to placing it on a strategic resource elsewhere if your main production city doesn't have any strategic resources in its radius.


@juances19
Thanks, will include the translation right away! I've also started including the English localization in a separate file, so you can see all the stuff to translate in one place.


@Joneill
I think the primary reason for the cost of Iron Working is it unlocks both Swordsmen and Barracks. Revealing Iron probably isn't as big a big factor. I agree the cost might be excessive though, 50% more than Horseback Riding. I could reduce it to just 25% more, or increase the cost of Horseback Riding.

Engineering actually costs the same as other early-Medieval techs like Currency. My approach was to bring the value of Engineering up to the value of Currency since they cost the same. Civil Service costs more, but it does unlock three powerful benefits: +1:c5food: farm boost, +50%:c5goldenage: Chichen Itza, and resourceless Pikemen. I'm not sure the benefits of Engineering quite match that trio.
 
@JuggernautOfWar
There's some other places GP improvements are advantageous too. Oasis (though rare) makes an excellent spot to put a GP building since you can't improve the tile with a worker.
Unfortunately, my GP seem unable to build on oases, which would be great. I actually think oases could use a little boost, 3 food and 1 gold isn't really all that much even early in the game and the surrounding desert (usually with a few useless wheat-sources) certainly doesn't help ;).
 
Plantations actually clear features (unlike camps) so it doesn't get a jungle science bonus. I think this is the yields, though would help to check my math:

1:c5food: 1:c5production: : Plains
+1:c5food: : Banana
+2:c5food: -1:c5production: : Banana Plantation
+1:c5food: : Mod

5:c5food: : Total for Bananas
5:c5food: : Max for floodplains wheat (with this mod, and not counting gold bonus that applies to anything)
4:c5food: 1:c5production: : Max for plains non-river wheat
5:c5food: 1:c5production: : Max for plains river wheat (with this mod)

It's available later than wheat (requires Masonry) but can be fully improved once that's researched, so overall is about a sidegrade or slightly weaker.

2. I agree, luxuries also give the happiness bonuses, so I'm hesitant to buff them any more... already quite useful. I've considered for a long time giving mined gold and silver -1:c5production: (to compensate for the Engineering bonus)... though still uncertain about it.

1. Sorry if I was a bit unclear in my post about bananas; here is a more strait forward version of my point.

The "smokehouse/butcher/grocer/ect." building used to give each resource it effected +1:c5food: independent of the improvement on the resource tile. The effect this had was making bananas that were unimproved in a jungle superior to bananas that were improved (which removed the jungle).

"Unimproved" - 3:c5food: +2:c5science: (uni) +1:c5food: (smokehouse) = 4:c5food: 2:c5science: = 6 yield
"Improved" - 3:c5food: +1:c5food: (plantaion) +1:c5food: (smokehouse) = 5:c5food: = 5 yield

This problem is solved by shifting the +1:c5food: from the smokehouse to the plantation giving both a versions a total yield of 5.

2. I would fully support the inclusion of -1:c5production: to mined silver/gold due to their significantly higher yield over all other resource types.

3. Furthermore: I fully support the change to GP improvements counting as resource improvements. However I also feel that the current barrier to making GP improvements lies less with the improvement itself and more with the obscene power of great scientists. On higher difficulty levels, no matter how much you want to make any other type of GP, you are required to make GS's in order to compete technologically and every single one of them must be used to bulb techs. As it stands, on immortal/deity, there is no incentive what-so-ever to produce anything but GS's all game long.

It stands to note that I have used GG's, the only other GP ever produced, to improve resources while creating a stronger defensive line on a front I wasn't planning on pushing and was duly satisfied with the results. Your improvements have sufficiently moved the citadel into competitive efficiency with the corresponding golden age I could have had! Yay!
 
Ahh I see what you're saying now about Bananas... so it had a good unintended consequence of changing to to a Smokehouse!

A good point you make is although a nerf to GS lightbulbing will solve several balance issues, it'll make Deity much harder, so just keep that in mind for when I finally find a way to do it. :)

Of course, deity is meant to be nearly impossible, so it's probably not a bad thing.
 
Unfortunately, my GP seem unable to build on oases, which would be great. I actually think oases could use a little boost, 3 food and 1 gold isn't really all that much even early in the game and the surrounding desert (usually with a few useless wheat-sources) certainly doesn't help ;).

What'd be cool though not sure if it's implementable, a gold bonus based on the number of desert tiles around it. Idea being, if it's out in the middle of the desert, more caravans will be stopping by as it's the only choice and thus, more gold. It's right next to a flood plains? Less need to stop there and less gold.
 
That's an interesting idea MilkmanDan. I think it's possible with the current tools, too. I will put it on my "if I have time" todo list. :)

Great Mod as usual :)

One minor oddity: With your changes to the GP-Improvements, customs house, citadel and landmark now heavily favor being placed on a resource. Since trading posts are a universal improvement, the actual gold benefit of these on resourceless tiles is 5, 0 and 0 respectively, but on resource tiles you get the full 7/2/2 gold (compared to the normal resource improvement). Not really a big issue, I doubt anyone will run out of resource tiles to put GP-Improvements on ;)

Okay, so I've been thinking about this for several days now and finally realized where the odd part is. This is what confused me when I considered the fact you pointed out, yet couldn't figure out what was wrong on a per-improvement basis.

  • The difference between a mine and mined gold is +3:c5gold: (not counting other factors). The gold itself gives +2 and a mine on gold gives +1.
  • So logically, the difference between a Manufactory on a hill and one on a gold hill should also be +3:c5gold:. This is easy to do, I just duplicate the same mechanic with mines: improving gold gives +1 to the Manufactory. Same method also works for the other GP improvements on any hilltop resources.

However, an oddity comes into play with flatland resources like Ivory.

  • The difference between a normal tile and Ivory is +1:c5gold:. (TP is 2, plantation'd cotton is 3.)
  • A Customs House is 7:c5gold: on a normal tile. Therefore, it should be 8 on Ivory, right?
  • However, here's the oddity. I have to reduce the gold of a Customs House when it improves Ivory. Otherwise it's:
    • +2 (resource)
    • +7 (customs house)
    • +1 (improved)
  • Totaling 10:c5gold:, a net of +3 over building it on a normal tile, not +1.

This took me a while to fully understand, since it's counter-intuitive that to keep the value of 2 + 7 equal, it must add to 8!

Now, from a mathematical perspective this will retain perfect balance. The question is though... would this feel balanced? Perception is an important factor in a lot of things. I learned this years ago when doing the Balin's Tomb dungeon crawl mod for WC3... if I had a particular orb on the right side of a shop's window people wouldn't buy it and would think it's underpowered, yet if it was on the left side I saw multiple people buy it every single game, even with the same effect. The difference is the simple fact that people in many countries read from left to right, and unintentionally placed a higher value on things at the front of a list.

Still, in the long run I think it's better to actually have things equal, even if it's not intuitively obvious at first glance. Just don't be puzzled when 2 + 7 = 8. :lol:

It that makes more sense if you consider already-improved tiles. A TP is 2 and improved Ivory is 3. The Customs House should offer +5 over both, yielding 7 and 8.
 
While I'm reading through the xml files, I found something which seems weird. In GP Improvement.xml:
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_QUARRY</ImprovementType>
<ResourceType>RESOURCE_MARBLE</ResourceType>
<YieldType>YIELD_GOLD</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_CUSTOMS_HOUSE</ImprovementType>
<ResourceType>RESOURCE_IVORY</ResourceType>
<YieldType>YIELD_GOLD</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>

<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_QUARRY</ImprovementType>
<ResourceType>RESOURCE_MARBLE</ResourceType>
<YieldType>YIELD_PRODUCTION</YieldType>
<Yield>2</Yield>
</Row>
<Row>
<ImprovementType>IMPROVEMENT_LANDMARK</ImprovementType>
<ResourceType>RESOURCE_GEMS</ResourceType>
<YieldType>YIELD_GOLD</YieldType>
<Yield>1</Yield>
</Row>

Not sure if it's a bug since I haven't checked that in game, but maybe worth some checking. ;)
 
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