Industrial and later Building/Unit Costs

[ls612]

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

+1 to this. We are allowing Crime to take over more of our balancing discussions, and I think that it is becoming an outsized factor, so increasing it will not help with this. Please wait until I add the Adjacency System before suggesting further - changes in the early eras.

 

[ls612]

From another thread

I've looked at some saves people have provided and at building costs, and have come up with an approximate formula for what a good hammer cost for buildings would be. This is from mid-Classical to the end of the Transhuman, so excludes the Prehistoric and Ancient eras


The X is the X column of whatever tech enables that building. That would lead to the following

• Cost of 125 hammers at the start of the Medieval Era
• Cost of 300 hammers at the start of the Renaissance
• Cost of 650 hammers at the start of the Industrial Era
• Cost of 1650 Hammers at the start of the Modern Era
• Cost of 3000 Hammers at the start of the Transhuman Era
• Cost of 9500 Hammers at the end of the Transhuman Era

This is the cost in the XML, that will be larger ingame due to gamespeed modifiers. This would be for buildings. For other things, here are what my calculations say would be good.

• Units: Same as buildings. Units will be cheaper because the multiplier for their costs in the gamespeeds is about half.
• National Wonders: 4x building cost for appropriate tech
• World Wonders: 10x building cost for appropriate tech
• Projects: 12x building cost for appropriate tech

How does this sound?

Feedback as always would be appreciated.

 

[Thunderbrd]

As a basis, that seems a good standard to start with, but each building should be considered a bit for rational increases or decreases offsetting it from the base calculation as given above.

 

[ls612]

As a basis, that seems a good standard to start with, but each building should be considered a bit for rational increases or decreases offsetting it from the base calculation as given above.

Yes, of course. I would suggest that these numbers get implemented as a start, and then people who get that far would give feedback on what is too cheap/expensive. That could go on for most of the V28 cycle, getting back to what I was saying about us having a whole release solely dedicated to housekeeping/balancing tasks.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Good idea. What about troop costs too though?

I'm of the opinion that it would be nice if units were relatively cheap to build and can be plugged out pretty rapidly. It makes invasions tougher (and more fun) and supports the new 'Ordering' system for the ai a bit. It also means its easier on faster settings to still get a war in at a given target 'era'.

But nevertheless, they should still be balanced along the same kind of lines with some guidelines applied.

This is all stuff that's been long overdue, yes.

 

[ls612]

Good idea. What about troop costs too though?

I'm of the opinion that it would be nice if units were relatively cheap to build and can be plugged out pretty rapidly. It makes invasions tougher (and more fun) and supports the new 'Ordering' system for the ai a bit. It also means its easier on faster settings to still get a war in at a given target 'era'.

But nevertheless, they should still be balanced along the same kind of lines with some guidelines applied.

This is all stuff that's been long overdue, yes.

The unit costs in the XML would be the same as buildings, but the gamespeed modifier for units is about half, so that should solve that problem.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@ls612

Just so you know I will not be adjusting costs until after the next release so we don't screw up things worse.

 

[ls612]

@ls612

Just so you know I will not be adjusting costs until after the next release so we don't screw up things worse.

Fine by me, as I've been saying, I think that the whole V27 to V28 cycle should be mostly balance changes, tweaks, stability, and AI related, with maybe some Multi-Maps thrown in.

 

[Thunderbrd]

It occurs to me that perhaps the base cost tag on a building should be more of a unique offset tag.

The rest of it could be made much easier on us if we were to say, define a base cost by the x layer of the tech that unlocks the building, cross reference adjusted by the building's declared 'special building type' then finally manipulated by our base cost tag to come up with what we currently consider the 'base cost'.

 

[Hydromancerx]

The other issue is identifying all the buildings from each era. Please help.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The other issue is identifying all the buildings from each era. Please help.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in the post above. I'm suggesting to code a base cost generator that takes information from an xml definition on each x line on the tech tree, say iTechBasedProductionCost. We'd establish, then, the base production cost of each x line on the tech tree that would be inherited as the base production cost for the buildings/units that were unlocked by a tech on that x axis.

Then, we could create a simple modifier based on special building type (it would require getting comfy with this section and classifying most of our buildings accordingly - for example, walls and castles and such would be classified perhaps as a Barrier Defense special building type) that we could use to generically tweak all building costs in a given class.

Then use an offset or tweak value to specific buildings in the building info itself (most of which we could just leave at 0.)

Then in the code itself, it calculates the base value of the building and injects that wherever we currently use the hand-defined building values we currently define on each building in the building definition in the xml.

Something similar could be used for units too.

This would make the job of going through and redefining the building costs by game stage tremendously simplified. The code itself would look up the building by 'era' but more specifically by its unlocking tech and the x axis that tech lies on the tech tree.

We could also thus utilize the same basic function to designate the 'era' of a given building, by finding the era of the tech that unlocks it, even express that on the building help itself.

Units could certainly use that kind of love before we start going in to really flesh out the combat mod too. Would make it much easier to work through.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Thunderbrd

Some buildings have 2 tech requirements and some techs are from different eras as well.

 

[Faustmouse]

Then you should use the later tech, because its the tech that REALLY unlocks the building.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@Thunderbrd

Some buildings have 2 tech requirements and some techs are from different eras as well.

Then you should use the later tech, because its the tech that REALLY unlocks the building.

What he said. The most advanced of the prereq techs would be the one that would be counted. But that's a good thing to keep in mind if I go about trying to program such a system for us. (Wouldn't start til after v27 release though.)

 

[ls612]

The other issue is identifying all the buildings from each era. Please help.

You could use Koshling's old XML scanner tool to list all buildings and their prereqs, and then use it to also list all techs by era, and then use a spreadsheet utility to manipulate those two lists.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Then you should use the later tech, because its the tech that REALLY unlocks the building.

I have been saying that since C2C first came out but everyone else argued against it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Working out this automatic build cost structure is something I have very high on my agenda (hoping to complete it this week so we can get the xml defined on it within the freeze period.)

 

[ls612]

Working out this automatic build cost structure is something I have very high on my agenda (hoping to complete it this week so we can get the xml defined on it within the freeze period.)

I'd prefer not to go all-out on that, the build costs through Mid-Classical are good as they stand IMO. This new system could introduce new issues, which would be the exact opposite thing we want to do during the freeze.

 

[ls612]

@Hydro:

Here is a spreadsheet of what the Building costs would be exactly under my new system. Note that I have excluded the Galactic Era for now due to the fact that we don't know exactly how that is all going to work. If you want I also can make and attach a spreadsheet of Techs and their columns and Buildings and their Tech requirements.

Column Cost
30 80
31 90
32 100
33 105
34 110
35 120
36 130
37 130
38 140
39 150
40 160
41 180
42 190
43 200
44 220
45 230
46 250
47 260
48 280
49 300
50 320
51 350
52 370
53 400
54 420
55 450
56 490
57 520
58 560
59 600
60 640
61 680
62 730
63 780
64 840
65 890
66 960
67 1020
68 1100
69 1150
70 1250
71 1350
72 1450
73 1550
74 1650
75 1750
76 1900
77 2000
78 2150
79 2300
80 2450
81 2650
82 2800
83 3000
84 3250
85 3450
86 3700
87 3950
88 4250
89 4550
90 4850
91 5200
92 5550
93 5950
94 6350
95 6800
96 7300
97 7800
98 8350
99 8900
100 9550

 

[Hydromancerx]

But would it always be true? For instance lets say you have 2 factories. One that requires at tech X and another that requires tech X AND Y. Tech Y is farther down the tree than tech X. However both factories have the same stats. Should the first building cost less than the second building?

As it is now both buildings typically cost the same unless said factory is very advanced.