King Solomon's Mines

[agc28]

Can we allow all NWs to produce +2 Tourism? Maybe after archaeology is discovered? Of course, this will be doubled for spain.

 

[Thalassicus]

I figured out a much simpler and better way to improve natural wonder placement. I started with the vanilla method, then added two things:

• Check the site is decent for a city.
• Discourage citystates from appearing near it.

This is actually better than my first idea. We already want to claim territory between us and opponents, and adding a natural wonder in that contested area won't really change our strategy. The NW is better in an uncontested area to give us an reason to settle away from opponents. Wonders in contested areas also makes it too obvious where to settle first.

Another huge benefit is this method's so simple it only took me 30 minutes to code, while the original plan of analyzing territories would have taken days.

 

[mitsho]

I'm okay with a Tourism-on-NW thing and then the World Congress-Resolution increasing it by adding more culture. Though we might be doubling it and adding too much? Another option would be to add happiness to the tiles. What about one automatic tech-based boost (yield a) and one via congress (yield b)?

Sure, that way of placing NW seems fine. It's easy enough... Is that effect absolute? (I like some CS having a NW for variety)

 

[Ahriman]

2 tourism per NW seems like too much. That's as much as you get from a great work. 1 seems more reasonable, we want it mostly for flavor.

I figured out a much simpler and better way to improve natural wonder placement. I started with the vanilla method, then added two things:
Check the site is decent for a city.
Discourage citystates from appearing near it.

The only potential problem here is that it might end up pushing city states out of decent city sites onto marginal ones, but there are probably enough decent sites that city states will still mostly be placed ok (and it's alright if there are some weak ones).

Something else I noticed when playing as Venice and buying city states: they don't seem to build the granary or any growth buildings. This may be part of why they are so small and don't seem to grow well, which contributes to their economic weakness and the lack of science they give (from Patronage).

The shift of culture from buildings -> writer/artist specialists (which they don't use) also seems to make their cultural borders expand more slowly?

It might be nice if there was something that could be done to improve city state's ability to grow.
[But this is low priority.]

 

[mitsho]

Aren't the culture borders of CS 'coded', they always seem to expand in the same manner and speed (might have something to do with the same build oder in all CS...). In general, I'd prefer more variety here, but that's a very marginal thing...

 

[Thalassicus]

The citystate wonder avoidance is flexible, so they can still appear near a wonder if there's no better option. I also made sure citystates have at least 1 ring of decent tiles surrounding them now. The vanilla game had no check like that, allowing citystates surrounded by truly horrible terrain like snow.

 

[Ahriman]

I also made sure citystates have at least 1 ring of decent tiles surrounding them now.

 

[Teholb]

I figured out a much simpler and better way to improve natural wonder placement. I started with the vanilla method, then added two things:

• Check the site is decent for a city.
• Discourage citystates from appearing near it.

This is actually better than my first idea. We already want to claim territory between us and opponents, and adding a natural wonder in that contested area won't really change our strategy. The NW is better in an uncontested area to give us an reason to settle away from opponents. Wonders in contested areas also makes it too obvious where to settle first.

Another huge benefit is this method's so simple it only took me 30 minutes to code, while the original plan of analyzing territories would have taken days.

Nibbl- err, Thalassicus for president!


I was wondering, do a set number of NWs spawn according to map size/number of civs, or is it completely random?

 

[Thalassicus]

It's a fixed number of natural wonders which depends on map size.

 

[shaken]

Nibbl- err, Thalassicus for president!


I was wondering, do a set number of NWs spawn according to map size/number of civs, or is it completely random?

This little bit of code controls how many Natural Wonders spawn in a game:

From AssignStartingPlots.lua

-- Determine how many NWs to attempt to place. Target is regulated per map size.
-- The final number cannot exceed the number the map has locations to support.
local worldsizes = {
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_DUEL.ID] = 2,
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_TINY.ID] = 3,
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_SMALL.ID] = 4,
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_STANDARD.ID] = 5,
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_LARGE.ID] = 6,
[GameInfo.Worlds.WORLDSIZE_HUGE.ID] = 7
}

You can just change those numbers and you'll have more (or less) wonders in your game, just make sure you change the appropriate AssignStartingPlots.lua based on which expansion you are using (there is an AssignStartingPlots.lua for the base game, G&K, and BNW).

 

[Thalassicus]

I will add a setting in the Cep_Options file to control natural wonder quantity more easily. This will be in version 3.1.9.

 

[Teholb]

Ah, thanks guys. I was almost positive it seemed random, but that just goes to show confirmation bias Perhaps I need to explore earlier more, before everything is snatched up, hehe.

I will add a setting in the Cep_Options file to control natural wonder quantity more easily.

. . . or maybe I'll cheat a little and add extra

 

[Stalker0]

2 tourism per NW seems like too much. That's as much as you get from a great work. 1 seems more reasonable, we want it mostly for flavor.

I'd say as many people visit the grand canyon every year as people go to see a specific painting, though i could be wrong.

I'm in favor of buffing NWs, i really don't find them that exciting right now.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd say as many people visit the grand canyon every year as people go to see a specific painting,

Right, but from a gameplay perspective you have to invest great people points in getting a great work, and you have to construct a building that has a slot for them, whereas the natural wonder is just there, it doesn't cost you anything. Rewards should be based on investment costs.

 

[albie_123]

True, but to be perfectly honest there isn't a huge variety of ways to get tourism. I wouldn't mind a few more.

 

[Ahriman]

True, but to be perfectly honest there isn't a huge variety of ways to get tourism. I wouldn't mind a few more.

I'm wary of adding more ways to get things in general. I think this is something that GEM went a bit overboard with. The problem is the more different ways there are to get things, the less important each individual way is. When trade routes are one of the only ways to get gold, then they matter. If there are lots of other ways to get gold, they don't matter so much. When shrines and temples are the main ways to get faith, then they matter. When there are a ton of different beliefs and wonders that all give faith income, the shrines and temples start to matter less. I'm a bit worried that we're leaning towards a design where there are too many different ways of getting culture, and where we're adding more culture income without scaling up great works as tourism sources, so it will become harder to get a tourism victory.

I *like* that to get tourism you need to use the great artist types. It makes them meaningful, and adds a nice tradeoff between engineer/scientist/merchant great people and the culture great people.

[Still, it's unlikely you'll have more than a couple of natural wonders, so the difference between 1 and 2 is not that big a deal.]

 

[mitsho]

It's not really "adding" something as there already was the World Congress Resolution in the base game. It just makes sense to change that one from Culture to Tourism.

But I agree with you, they should compare to the investment used for Great Works. Theming seems the way to go to make Great Works matter more, but then there are few spots to 'theme' in (and how good is the AI at that?).

 

[Ahriman]

It's not really "adding" something as there already was the World Congress Resolution in the base game.

Right, but that takes a successful resolution - it takes player action and diplomatic power, it doesn't just happen by itself. We might be better off just to leave the effect to the World Congress, it helps make the Congress more meaningful.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Getting back to the 'feature' that started this thread.

Is there any reason why we shouldn't make King Solomon's Mines 'passable'?

 

[Thalassicus]

I think made them passable for v3.2. I do wish units moved on top of natural wonders, though... a minor art issue.