Industrial+ Buildings

Stalker0

Baller Magnus
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Dec 31, 2005
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I wanted to take a look at the more modern buildings and see how they are shaping up. I am going to put a star (**) next to buildings I think could use a look at.

INDUSTRIAL

Zoo
: Has a good general use for forest and jungles but also more specific CV benefits. I think its in a good place.

Public School: Solid

Hotel**: Its laser focused on CV which I personally don't like. The other CV buildings like stadium and airports have secondary uses, and I wish the hotel did as well.

Train station: Strong production building. I think the ITR bonus is worthless (does anyone use food ITRs at this point?) but the base bonuses are very good.

Seaport**: The building itself is amazing, the only thing I question is the +20% supply boost. It feels like that should also go to the train station or neither should have it. I know we want coastal cities to generate more supply but that's a pretty significant bonus.

Arsenal: Used to be more worthless but I find them essential for coastal cities nowadays, so they have a very solid niche.

Museum**: Museums are the first building in the culture line I ponder not building or delaying. Its getting to that point where its just a bit expensive, compare it to the Public School for example which provides more raw bonuses and is cheaper. I will still build them, but its the point where I begin to question its worth.

Agribusiness: Good building, I am not as in love with them as some people but they are solid buildings, especially for food heavy cities that could use a new use as food starts to wane as a yield.

Factories: One of the big VP success stories for buildings. Used to be really weak, now is a strong building that drives a legitimate desire for coal.

Military Academy: Solid.


MODERN

Hospitals
**: I actually like hospitals, but I struggle to find a time to build them. I generally only get them when playing Industry or through Freedom's universal healthcare. There's just a lot of other things to build.

Stock Exchange**: Pretty much only a capital building at this point, and sometimes not even then. Its very hammer expensive for what it does.

Refinery: Does its job when you need it.

Wire Service: I would argue the last truly great building, the bonuses of this building if you have been paying attention to your CS friends is gigantic.

Mine Field**: The defensive bonuses are good, my concern is more governor behavior. It seems to me that the AI governor will often pull your workers off of water when an enemy navy comes in, neutering the mine fields ability. That is supposition, I haven't confirmed it, but it does feel that way sometimes.

Research Lab: The science bonuses are alright, but honestly its all about GS at this point, so the extra GS specialist +33% more GS on top is what sells this building.

Broadcast Tower: A good reward for your large cities, it is just enough culture at this point in the game to be worth it.


ATOMIC ERA

Medical Lab: The +2 instant pop is the appeal of this building, the specialist bonuses are just "ok". The building is not strong enough to make me want to build hospitals, but if I am building hospitals I will absolutely get this building.

Stadium**: Having a GA focused building at this stage is fine, but Great Artists produce so much GAP at this point that 1000 points is literally a drop in the ocean. I think this building is ready for an instant bonus, I could see 1 turn of GA (that way multipliers don't mess with it and make it too good). Or if you wanted to get more out of the box, perhaps the city (or all cities) gain X amount of Great Artist Points, similar to the CS quest but for artists.

Military Base: I don't find the air prod bonus that enticing, but again for coastal cities you want every speck of defense you can get.

Recycling System: Again does what it needs to do.

Police Station**: This building exists for 1 purpose, to let me build the National Intelligence Agency in the capital. That's it, even if I take New World Order I still would never build this thing.

Strategic Air Defense: Its a niche defense building, but I think it does what it needs to at this point in the game. Sometimes the AI is aggressive with nukes and you need to be prepared. Having your capital nuked can easily be game ending.

Airport: Really good building.


INFORMATION

Hydroelectric Plant**: In most scenarios, the wind plant is simply better. Honestly I think you can just give it +3 to coast and ocean tiles....the cities that get the most benefit from that have generally struggled anyway, and frankly the slight boost in yields isn't going to move the needle much at this point in the game.

Nuclear Plant**: The theoretical niche is a TALL city with a lot of specialists that you can then leverage the mighty +25% prod bonus. With experience, I have found that my Tall capitals are generally using enough land that the Wind Plant still provides equal or more bonus, and consuming uranium is much more costly than iron. I have used it in a blue moon but rarely.

Solar Plant**: My issue with the plant generally is, the cities I am using processes is are also often the cities where I am good just to let them keep running processes, instead of burning hammers on this building. Investments have to pay off really quickly at this point in the game to be worth it.

I think you could remove the aluminum cost, let this be the "cheap" power plant.

Wind Plant: The only power plant I find consistently good and solid, and the boost it provides is just enough to warrant the investment.

Spaceship Factory: Does its job.
 
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Museums could use a base yield of Culture so they don't seem reliant on its theming bonus.

Factories and Stock Exchanges should give +4 to their GP improvement.

Stock Exchanges need some oomph. The reduction in purchase costs a good start. A 20 Pop city gets 3+10 Gold, that's low.

Police Stations should really come earlier.
 
For the record, I send food ITRs to my capitol as a holdover from vanilla when you wanted your capitol to be as big as possible.

If I'm building a mine field, I would almost always rather have 2 cruisers/field guns. If I were facing someone with no navy, less movement is not going to deter me. 2 ranged ships can be the difference between losing a ship a turn and that ship making it home.

I always build police stations to keep people from stealing my money. I hate it when I have 5k saved up for a big unit upgrade and someone steals all of it

Broadcast towers are a pretty good source of gold too if you get the theming bonus
 
I like to build nearly every building, but there are some I'd skip (or delay, in the case of Industry):
  • Hotel, if I have very low terrain culture and no Great Works in the city
  • Agribusiness, if I don't have lots of farms/pastures.
  • Mine Field, even with Industry and excess Iron - I don't even know if it works. Tiles are no longer "worked" when an enemy ship is around them.
  • Military Base, for safe cities. Would build it sometimes just to lower unhappiness.
  • Spaceship Factory, only built in the cities that will produce spaceship parts, or have high science output.
 
Stock exchanges could definitely use a buff. I'd love to see them given a bit more flavor tied to global trade and corporations. Here's what I'm imagining:

Building a stock exchange provides
  • +1% gold in this city for every 2 global trade routes, scaling with map size
  • +100 gold (instant yield) whenever a corporation is founded, and +50 gold for every corporation already founded
  • +2 gold to every foreign franchise on empire
  • 2 merchant specialist slots
These numbers will of course need to be adjusted for balance, but you get the idea.

The benefit of tying the stock exchange to the global economy is that it's both more flavorful and more true to life, plus it adds a rubber band for lagging civs to catch up to an economic runaway. This idea may be complex enough that we're drifting into mod-mod territory, so I apologize if what I'm proposing is too complicated given the existing code.
 
I wanted to take a look at the more modern buildings and see how they are shaping up. I am going to put a star (**) next to buildings I think could use a look at.

INDUSTRIAL

Zoo
: Has a good general use for forest and jungles but also more specific CV benefits. I think its in a good place.

Public School: Solid

Hotel**: Its laser focused on CV which I personally don't like. The other CV buildings like stadium and airports have secondary uses, and I wish the hotel did as well.

Train station: Strong production building. I think the ITR bonus is worthless (does anyone use food ITRs at this point?) but the base bonuses are very good.

Seaport**: The building itself is amazing, the only thing I question is the +20% supply boost. It feels like that should also go to the train station or neither should have it. I know we want coastal cities to generate more supply but that's a pretty significant bonus.

Arsenal: Used to be more worthless but I find them essential for coastal cities nowadays, so they have a very solid niche.

Museum**: Museums are the first building in the culture line I ponder not building or delaying. Its getting to that point where its just a bit expensive, compare it to the Public School for example which provides more raw bonuses and is cheaper. I will still build them, but its the point where I begin to question its worth.

Agribusiness: Good building, I am not as in love with them as some people but they are solid buildings, especially for food heavy cities that could use a new use as food starts to wane as a yield.

Factories: One of the big VP success stories for buildings. Used to be really weak, now is a strong building that drives a legitimate desire for coal.

Military Academy: Solid.


MODERN

Hospitals
**: I actually like hospitals, but I struggle to find a time to build them. I generally only get them when playing Industry or through Freedom's universal healthcare. There's just a lot of other things to build.

Stock Exchange**: Pretty much only a capital building at this point, and sometimes not even then. Its very hammer expensive for what it does.

Refinery: Does its job when you need it.

Wire Service: I would argue the last truly great building, the bonuses of this building if you have been paying attention to your CS friends is gigantic.

Mine Field**: The defensive bonuses are good, my concern is more governor behavior. It seems to me that the AI governor will often pull your workers off of water when an enemy navy comes in, neutering the mine fields ability. That is supposition, I haven't confirmed it, but it does feel that way sometimes.

Research Lab: The science bonuses are alright, but honestly its all about GS at this point, so the extra GS specialist +33% more GS on top is what sells this building.

Broadcast Tower: A good reward for your large cities, it is just enough culture at this point in the game to be worth it.


ATOMIC ERA

Medical Lab: The +2 instant pop is the appeal of this building, the specialist bonuses are just "ok". The building is not strong enough to make me want to build hospitals, but if I am building hospitals I will absolutely get this building.

Stadium**: Having a GA focused building at this stage is fine, but Great Artists produce so much GAP at this point that 1000 points is literally a drop in the ocean. I think this building is ready for an instant bonus, I could see 1 turn of GA (that way multipliers don't mess with it and make it too good). Or if you wanted to get more out of the box, perhaps the city (or all cities) gain X amount of Great Artist Points, similar to the CS quest but for artists.

Police Station**: This building exists for 1 purpose, to let me build the National Intelligence Agency in the capital. That's it, even if I take New World Order I still would never build this thing.

I tend to agree with this post in general. But here's a few different viewpoints:

Hotells
It has been noted by some that it's quite boring if you're encouraged to build every building in every city. I think it's nice with niche buildings (like hotells) and would acctually like to see more of these type of buildings, enabling more interesting diversified strategies.

Police Station
I kind of like it when I get to kill foregin spies. That's fun.

Stadiums
I agree with this one; it feels pretty useless besides that it's needed for tourism. But then again, it could be considered as some sort of niche building.

I find that I rarely build these above tourism buildings at all, which I'm okey with since I rarely bother about wining a cultural victory.

Stock exchange
I too find it quite expensive, but I'm kind of willing to build it due to the reduced price in gold purchases. In reality it's maybe something that you can live without since i doesn't affect the game in any noticable way.

Museums
I agree that they feel expensive, but my love for culture has me building them without any hesitation whatsoever. One shouldn't forget about the 'theming bonus' either, which I exploit to the maximum diggin artifacts all over the place.
 
A simple update for Hotels would be to allow them to absorb 1 urbanization (aka 1 unhappy from a specialist), or maybe 2. While you can work lots of specialist slots in the late game, you will suffer a fair amount of urbanization, so hotels could be a nice way to smooth that out a bit.
 
Stock exchange
Absolutely vital building for any industry player. Increase the tile bonus on towns, and I think it’s good.

hotels
Niche buildings are fine. Maybe airports could be nerfed by giving them hotels as a building requirement tho? Can’t have commercial air flights without a place for people to stay.

stadium
2 problems I see: they don’t contribute enough to :c5happy:happiness. But, at the same time, I think the :c5unhappy:boredom reduction is a really bad idea. Boredom is used as a :tourism:tourism modifier, so this building delays CVs, and so I think boredom reductions should not exist this late. Replace boredom reduction with flat happiness.
I don’t like @Stalker0’s idea of free :c5goldenage:ga turns, because that messes with a host of other effects (Brazil would get permanent carnival from this for instance). Maybe each stadium could lower the cost of the next GA (new code), or just increase the instant :c5goldenage:bonus? Could also give stadiums a % boost to :greatwork:Concert tours. First though, change the :c5happy:happiness Bonus.

police station
Increase the :c5unhappy:distress reduction! Triple it!
That’s seriously the first and easiest fix, you need to shift :c5unhappy:unhappiness down to boredom for late game.

re power plants. I think the process bonus should be on ALL plants. I have resurrected my old power plants mod that splits hydroelectric into hydro and tidal, and I think it was a better system.
 
While niche buildings are necessary and fun, I think some of them don't justify their costs because they're simply just not good enough at what they do. There are some great ideas in this thread already, so I'll borrow and add a few points:

Museums on empire receive :c5culture: + :tourism: instant yields (scaling with era?) every time a :greatwork:/artifact is gained.

Hotels reduce 1 urbanization. Local :tourism: output increased by X% for every active foreign :trade: to this city.

Stadiums definitely need a tweak, but I can't think of anything at the moment.

Minefield needs to move away from the "on worked tiles" for more consistency, so simplify the effect to be a water version of the Great Wall; any naval/embarked unit that enters owned territory loses all movement for that turn. You could also have it reduce all enemy naval/embarked movement by X if within 3 tiles of the city (this would be pretty OP, but probably justifiable considering the hammer/strategic cost). Another unique idea is to inflict enemy naval/embarked units with a small chance (5%) to be destroyed every time they move within 3 tiles of a city harboring a minefield.

I also think the power plants need another tweak -- the wind is supposed to be the most generic, yet it's arguably the strongest -- but if we want to incentivize building them, can we at least scrap the iron requirement for the wind/hydro pants? Most players would probably rather use any remaining iron on another naval ranged/siege unit. I agree with Dan that the process bonus should apply to all plants, with aluminum/uranium required plants granting better efficiency.

Somewhat off topic, but months ago I started working on a modmod building to help boost the tourism game a bit more. A water based equivalent to the Zoo, my "Aquarium for VP" would bring tourism bonuses to sea resources, one of the only remaining things I've yet to see utilized for VP. Now, of course there are already many great buildings compiled into @Asterix Rage "More Buildings for VP", but I'm optimistic that the Aquarium would be a great candidate for full VP integration, if I can ever find the means to complete it.
 
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A simple update for Hotels would be to allow them to absorb 1 urbanization (aka 1 unhappy from a specialist), or maybe 2. While you can work lots of specialist slots in the late game, you will suffer a fair amount of urbanization, so hotels could be a nice way to smooth that out a bit.
I like this.
Well you should, because it was your idea :thumbsup: I included it because it's the simplest solution. That addition helps wide-play a bit, but I personally still don't think that's enough; I think the current "25% (land/wonder) culture --> tourism" is usually trivial outside of the capital, even for CV focused play -- I could be wrong due to not playing tall often, but I'd be interested to see the impact of this with satellite cities in super tall play. That's why I suggested giving it another feature for tall with the TR aspect. Let's keep it simple and revise my first proposal:

Hotels reduce 1 Urbanization. Local :tourism: output increased by X% (no more than 5) for every active foreign :trade: to this city.

The reasoning is easy, in that foreign traders/caravans/shipping will need accommodation on their journey, and a higher concentration of foreigners inhabiting your city for extended periods of time -- even if they are traveling back and forth and not residing permanently-- leads to naturally increased tourism for that city.

I.e., A tall capital city with a Hotel and late game tourism output of 500, while receiving 5 active foreign TR's, would get an additional 125 per turn, which is certainly not game-breaking considering the swath of instant yields that take over the late game. This is also a bonus that would be out of player control, due to the fact you obviously can't dictate where civs send their TR's or if they even trade with you at all -- civs will often leach off tall runaways throughout the game using TR's, but late game that all changes if a civ is approaching a CV and is declared on... That extra 125 tourism per turn then goes bye-bye. I also used an extremely example; most capitals won't be outputting 500 tourism when Hotels come online, let alone satellite cities.
So do I, I'll be using this in my games from now on :) Thx for the idea!
Supreme Leader rarely turns down praise, but on this occasion you may thank Stalker0 ;). Even if people disagree with my other proposed addition, the urbanization reduction is a given, and I'm glad the building will see some love.
 
I generally find most post-Renaissance buildings to be useful and have a good niche - there are only a few outliers for me.

Hospitals: This building does a lot things and yet it doesn't really do that much. I think the food bonuses could be removed and the science boost swapped with the 15% food carryover from medical lab (so the lab would give science now). The carryover is a powerful bonus for a building that pretty much any modern society wants.

Stock Exchange: Does very little for its cost. I usually build this only with Industry for the % bonuses and slight poverty reduction. Playing into corporations sounds like a flavorful way of buffing them.

Police Station: Similar problem to Constabularies, you only really should build this in 1-2 cities while police sounds like something you'd like to have everywhere. They also come in really late.

Power Plants: Wind is almost always much better than all the other options - Hydro is often buffing tiles that you don't want to work, Nuclear takes uranium instead of iron for a comparable benefit and Solar is just plain terrible.
 
So with 3-2 patch, G is trying a stock exchange at -20% cost instead of -10%. Certainly a buff, though I had an idea that may be more interesting, and promote the desire to build the building in more of your cities.

Stock Exchange (complete rewrite)
  • 1 merchant
  • City gains 1 gold for every luxury type you have a copy of, and every town.
  • Rush costs in all cities reduced by 5% (maximum 25%)
So one thing I notice is that towards the later game, luxury happiness is not nearly as relevant as it once was. It takes a lot of luxs to move the needle, and its often more efficient at this point to invest in landmarks and public works if you really need to move your happiness. So with this idea, it gives us an incentive to continue to accrue luxs. This also makes the building useful in all cities (similar to the chancery). I estimate about 14-16 GPT from the building in most games I've played, which is a bit lower than the building in your capital, but significantly higher in your satellite cities.

I also made the rush reduction a little stronger if your willing to invest in more exchanges (aka 5). Tall civs still get equal benefit with wide due to the maximum cap being 5 cities, which is standard Tall play.

Lastly I did a wide scaler on the town bonus as well, again allowing multiple towns and multiple exchanges to scale up stronger than the current flat +2 bonus.


So let me know what you think.
 
I think the Zoo is overtuned right now.

I would take the TR Trade route boost off it; I think it's unnecessary, and it cuts into the Caravansary/Harbor/Customs House flavor, since the zoo is not a trade-oriented building

I'm still holding out for my Power Plant rework to get popular consent; I think the reshuffle onto an Alternative Energy tech was a stroke of genius on G's part, but the distribution of yields and other powers on the plants still needs some massaging.
 
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