Industrial and later Building/Unit Costs

[ls612]

Continuing off of what Shenryyr talked about in the Balance thread, this is a big enough issue that I think it warrants it's own thread. The issue really starts in the early Renaissance era, but is less pronounced there.

My question is, what does everyone think about a suitable cost increase across the board for things in the later eras. My initial analysis suggests it should be

• Renaissance: 1.5 times Cost
• Industrial: 5 times Costs
• Modern: 7.5 times Cost
• Transhuman 10-40 times, between the start and the end of the era, it really begins to pick up there.

Based off of some rough numbers I ran in my head. If anyone has a more scientific method about this or a better suggestion please post it.

 

[Koshling]

Continuing off of what Shenryyr talked about in the Balance thread, this is a big enough issue that I think it warrants it's own thread. The issue really starts in the early Renaissance era, but is less pronounced there.

My question is, what does everyone think about a suitable cost increase across the board for things in the later eras. My initial analysis suggests it should be

• Renaissance: 1.5 times Cost
• Industrial: 5 times Costs
• Modern: 7.5 times Cost
• Transhuman 10-40 times, between the start and the end of the era, it really begins to pick up there.

Based off of some rough numbers I ran in my head. If anyone has a more scientific method about this or a better suggestion please post it.

Well, it's plausible, but it's not clear if it's ENTIRELY building costs that should be increased, or hammer production that should be curtailed. Especially once you get fusion power plants and so on, the hammers produced get a bit crazy, so my feeling is that by the time you reach transhuman rebalancing on the supply side is needed as well as on the consumption side, which may well mean the modifier you propose ofr transhuman is too big.

Also, how do you plan to implement this? Building by building in the building XML or some other way?

 

[ls612]

Well, it's plausible, but it's not clear if it's ENTIRELY building costs that should be increased, or hammer production that should be curtailed. Especially once you get fusion power plants and so on, the hammers produced get a bit crazy, so my feeling is that by the time you reach transhuman rebalancing on the supply side is needed as well as on the consumption side, which may well mean the modifier you propose ofr transhuman is too big.

Also, how do you plan to implement this? Building by building in the building XML or some other way?

I'd like to have an EraInfo tag, but I won't have the time to make that with the other stuff I'm planning, so unless someone else makes it it'll have to be building by building.

 

[Koshling]

I'd like to have an EraInfo tag, but I won't have the time to make that with the other stuff I'm planning, so unless someone else makes it it'll have to be building by building.

By era would suck - large changes that happen sharply at era boundaries just wouldn't be nice I'm afraid.

 

[Hydromancerx]

You must also remember there are that many more buildings to build in those eras. Thus if your a builder like me, you also want to try to build more buildings. If the later buildings are too expensive compared to earlier one then people just will not build them. Thus later buildings have to give bigger benefits to warrant more cost.

 

[ls612]

By era would suck - large changes that happen sharply at era boundaries just wouldn't be nice I'm afraid.

You must also remember there are that many more buildings to build in those eras. Thus if your a builder like me, you also want to try to build more buildings. If the later buildings are too expensive compared to earlier one then people just will not build them. Thus later buildings have to give bigger benefits to warrant more cost.

What would a better solution be then? I think that the numbers Shenryyr was getting are quite a bit outlandish, and need to be reigned in somewhat.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well some of the problem is that some buildings last a long time. For instance if may be very expensive early in game but by the industrial era it may seem very cheap. Only because in relation to other buildings at the time.

Note that specific examples would be helpful since we cannot really generalize all building within an era. Also some buildings may seem very cheap in a well developed city while the same building could appear very expensive in a newly made city because the well develop city is generating so many hammers.

 

[JosEPh_II]

What would a better solution be then? I think that the numbers Shenryyr was getting are quite a bit outlandish, and need to be reigned in somewhat.

But is shenryyr using the SVN or vanilla v25? I've not seen anyone ask him which he's using.

I will say this the current game I'm playing, I've Never had this much gold. But I'm also starting to get a decent handle on crime and it's counter. Gold early game was much tougher than it was once I reached Med Era (Now in Ren Era and it's only 30AD). But then again I was isolated from the AI up till Caravels.

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

But is shenryyr using the SVN or vanilla v25? I've not seen anyone ask him which he's using.

I will say this the current game I'm playing, I've Never had this much gold. But I'm also starting to get a decent handle on crime and it's counter. Gold early game was much tougher than it was once I reached Med Era (Now in Ren Era and it's only 30AD). But then again I was isolated from the AI up till Caravels.

JosEPh

I agree with you, from Prehistoric to Medieval things are pretty balanced. I only want to increase and roduction: costs in the Renaissance and beyond.

 

[Hydromancerx]

But is shenryyr using the SVN or vanilla v25? I've not seen anyone ask him which he's using.

I will say this the current game I'm playing, I've Never had this much gold. But I'm also starting to get a decent handle on crime and it's counter. Gold early game was much tougher than it was once I reached Med Era (Now in Ren Era and it's only 30AD). But then again I was isolated from the AI up till Caravels.

JosEPh

From what I can tell from he save he posted it was vanilla v25 (I think).

However you having no money in your games is nothing new.

As for crime, the crime attached to difficulty level should fix most of those problems. Not sure if AIAndy or ls612 are doing it.

Settler = -2 Crime Per Pop
Chieftain = -1 Crime Per Pop
Warlord = 0 Crime Per Pop
Noble = +1 Crime Per Pop
Prince = +2 Crime Per Pop
Monarch = +3 Crime Per Pop
Emperor = +4 Crime Per Pop
Immortal = +5 Crime Per Pop
Deity = +6 Crime Per Pop

 

[LumenAngel]

I think late medieval must have a little +25%. University or bank seems too easy to construct in a big city.
If I look my 3 best cities in production (I m early Renaissance in my actual game), a BIG part of my production comme from Priest and Engineer. because I play with big city with a lot of Guard to counter crime, using Yoruba for the good food bonuses, I already have some 40+ cities, with a large number of priest/engineer. So, even by nerfing some profuction building, I will still have a big capacity in these cities.

Maybe specialists are too powerful too?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I actually have a treasury at 30AD of over 110K and making 3K/turn @70% research, 10% Culture and 10% Esp. Like I said most gold I've ever had in recent memory using C2C. And I still do not have a single Jewelry in any of my cities.

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

I actually have a treasury at 30AD of over 110K and making 3K/turn @70% research, 10% Culture and 10% Esp. Like I said most gold I've ever had in recent memory using C2C. And I still do not have a single Jewelry in any of my cities.

JosEPh

Which is why I think that there is some serious balancing needed after the Medieval Era. I don't want to touch the Medieval or earlier eras.

 

[Nimek]

I agree. In v25 i am in transhuman and almost all buildings in most cities cost 1-2 turns to build (on snail)

 

[Koshling]

From what I can tell from he save he posted it was vanilla v25 (I think).

However you having no money in your games is nothing new.

As for crime, the crime attached to difficulty level should fix most of those problems. Not sure if AIAndy or ls612 are doing it.

I still think changing crime per pop like this is a REALLY bad idea. It's FAR too much of a step. Something FAR more granular us needed. I'd you go to 10 or so per pop (which you have to in this scheme a high difficulty) you'll just swamp every othe factor out with crime and make difficulty completely dominated ONLY by crime. I has to either be less than 1 per step (which means rescaling the entire system to make a step of 1 equivalent to a lesse step as things stand, and their requires changing all the XML that impacts crime on every building etc.), or not be a mod on the population crime, but just a modified on crime generally (a percentage modifier should work and be granular enough)

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Koshling

You sure? Because we have had people complain both ways on the same crime level. One side saying there is too much crime while the other saying its too weak or not noticeable. Having it linked to difficulty would allow for those that think crime is too much to be happy by choosing a lower difficulty while those that think its too weak would have a more difficult setting.

Note if it would be possible to have a separate crime difficulty setting that would be even better.

 

[Faustmouse]

@Koshling

Note if it would be possible to have a separate crime difficulty setting that would be even better.

What amout a "modular difficulty level"? You wont choose "deinty" or "monarch" any more but you could set crime per pop or bonus health or AI Bonus Research or AI Bonus Production or AI cleverness etc seperatly to different levels.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was thinking a difference of 1 crime per pop per difficulty level was a bit extreme. I'd have it vary 1 every 2 difficulty levels at least.

 

[Koshling]

@Koshling

You sure? Because we have had people complain both ways on the same crime level. One side saying there is too much crime while the other saying its too weak or not noticeable. Having it linked to difficulty would allow for those that think crime is too much to be happy by choosing a lower difficulty while those that think its too weak would have a more difficult setting.

Note if it would be possible to have a separate crime difficulty setting that would be even better.

Oh, I'm total in favor of 'linked', just not like this. This linkage is too strong - by the time you get to diety you're at about 10 crime per pop, so a size 20 city generates 200 per turn (which pus its stable equilibrium level at about 2000). I'm not sure if it's possible to cope with that, but even if it is, the effort required will dwarf the effort required to cope with pretty much all other factors, and you'll be left with city management boiling down just to fighting crime. If it was 0.5 per pop per difficulty level that might be ok (or 0.3), but since its an integer system that would require us to rescale everything we have currently (so all trigger levels move up a factor of say 10, all current crime sources by a factor of 10 etc. to leave the same situation as now, but allow for more granular modifiers). Doing that means changing every XML element that currently deals with crime (to the rescaled values), and would also render save games problematic (we'd need to do extra backward compatibility work).

An easier solution, it seems to me, is just to introduce a global (player wide) population crime modifier, which amplifies by a percentage the population source, and have THAT scale with difficulty - that way no XML changes are needed and we can have a much more gradual effect that would b functionally equivalent to a sub-1 increase per level.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Quite frankly Crime is still evolving and I suggest No Change for now. Yes I did say that No Change.

The introduction of Hydro's and Praetyre's building chains will take a bit to re-evaluate what it takes to handle Crime, Air, Water, Flammability, and Disease. Some new buildings have helped. And there are new detractors as well.

Right now it's like a Step process. Crime builds to a certain level but you can only mitigate it so far in the early game. Then new techs open new Crime resources so it builds till you get another set to help control it. By the time you get Guards you can build enough, plus with the Anti Crime bldgs that have become available, to start actually reducing Crime levels. Then another step starts because by this time the River/harbor/Admin bldgs become necessary and a new step starts.

I propose that this be held off until after Hydro is done with the building chains. Otherwise you are just trying to adjust on the "fly" and the results will be wildy variant.

JosEPh