Magil
Monarch
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2010
- Messages
- 1,618
Something's always felt "off" to me about the economy in Civ VI (and V for that matter). When I refer to the economy herein, I'll be generally referring to global yields like Science, Culture, Faith, and Gold, with a lesser emphasis on local yields like Food and Production. In VI, those aspects of your economy are primarily generated by Districts and Buildings in the form of flat yields. You also get a little bit of science and culture from raw pop. Neither of those I much care for. My general area of competence is in the modifiers system, I barely understand how to lua (I will be trying to learn later on, but for now I'm trying to see what I can accomplish using only xml/sql and no scripts). Now, please excuse my stream-of-consciousness style babbling about all the ideas I have for this mod, I haven't properly organized my thoughts and it might be terrible to read, but here goes:
I want to move the economy. I want it to focus on these three things primarily:
The first step is to make tile yields more relevant to the economy. The Village improvement was my shot at it:
Of course, what's the fun in the village and trade routes if you can't play with their yields? New buildings and policies are aimed at doing this. The Scrivener's Office (working name subject to change) provides an additional +1 science for village improvements within 6 tiles of a Campus... but only if the city that builds it has no Campus district. A policy might improve the science output of all village improvements in cities with Campus districts, while another policy might give +100% science in cities that lack Campus districts. Above all else, I want to see more diversity in districts and how cities are built.
Districts are being expanded on to varying degrees. The Entertainment Complex and Neighborhood are gone. The amenities-boosting aspects of the Entertainment Complex are being folded into the Theater Square and Commercial Hub districts. Market rows in the Commercial Hub give you special "trade good" luxury resources based on what luxuries you have access to. Some are quite extensive; the harbor can be specialized into either a food/trade district or a shipyard, which branching paths for the buildings which are mutually exclusive. Some have a lighter touch, the Campus district has a Renaissance/Industrial tier of 3 buildings that are mutually exclusive with each other, between the University and the Research Lab, but has no other extensive changes (aside from the buildings being redesigned around %-based yields as previously mentioned). For the most part, the housing aspect of the Neighborhood should be covered with villages, which provide 0.5 housing for every two. That's not much, but the housing-per-village will be able to be improved starting in the Industrial era with Urbanization (haven't decided precisely how yet, but it will be done).
Now, I'm no fan of the whole wide versus tall debate. I think it's absurd. But, I do want Civ VI to be more rewarding in terms of rewards for growing and building up your cities. I just don't want it to be in an empty "X yield per Y pop" kind of way. Tile improvements are a first step in this direction. In vanilla Civ VI a city largely caps out in science production once you've built all the buildings in the Campus district (you can get a little more out of raw pop, but the amenity cost makes this problematic). In this mod this will not be the case, as long as the citizens can work more villages it can provide more science. I'm also including some "provides X yield per Y specialty district" buildings at the higher tiers, with an aim at rewarding a player for growing enough pop to support those districts, and building them.
Ultimately it's about rewarding investment. I've removed all maintenance costs from buildings. However, districts, including the city center, now have very high maintenance costs--6 gold per turn for most of them, though unique districts are less (as well as certain other districts like the Holy Site and Aerodrome). This means that merely placing a district is sort of an initial investment that takes time to pay off, and I've removed the scaling costs from districts. Ideally I'd like a sort of scaling maintenance cost but I'm not certain how to code that yet. Maintenance in general is hard to mess with using modifiers, and a negative gold yield has other problems. This also helps to cut down on rapid early-game expansion, as you could easily bankrupt yourself by building too many cities too quickly. The palace has regional yields out to 6 tiles (+3 gold and +1 amenity, other yields are shifted to be capital-specific) which means nearby cities are easier to support than distinct cities.
Trade routes are a difficult thing. Right now each city center district increases your trade route capacity by 1 starting at Foreign Trade (I may move this behind a city center building, but I think building the trader is investment enough). Commercial hubs and harbors do not add trade route capacity, but there is a building you can build to do so in each district. Those buildings are mutually exclusive. However, the trade station in the Commercial Hub, which increases your trade route capacity by 1, is a prerequisite for the Customs House in the Harbor, which improves local trade route yields, so investing in both districts in the same city is still lucrative (it goes both ways for the Trade Pier and the Caravansary). Districts now generally provide some of their yield as an origin yield, IE trade routes from a city with a Campus get +1 science, but not trade routes to the Campus (except for international trade). Domestic trade is generally restricted to gold, except for some special exceptions. The new Agricultural Complex district enables food trade, while the Industrial Zone enables production trade (both domestically only).
New districts? Yeah, two, to sorta-replace the two I'm removing. The Administrative Precinct is a district aimed at diplomacy and espionage, starting out by giving you additional influence points per turn and eventually improving spies/city-state yields. The Agricultural Complex provides food as regional yields and enables food trade. Both of these are still in the early planning stages, but the mechanics I've tested for them so far work. City-states, like most other non-combat-related game elements, are rebalanced to work better with these changes. The current plan is to reduce the yields granted by city-state envoys and move them off of all other districts; they only improve the yields of the Precinct now. Specializing in this aspect of the game will allow you to get large yields from each Precinct while also giving you unmatched influence with city-states. Of course, it will take up one of your valuable district slots to do so. The Administrative Precinct has a special district project that grants you an Envoy upon completion (and has a higher scaling cost than other district projects). As far as unique districts go, the Acropolis is now a unique Precinct, the Street Carnival is a unique Theater Square, and I'm planning to rework the Mbanza into a unique improvement.
Speaking of uniques, I have a few plans for those:
If anyone has any thoughts or feedback, feel free to let me know, as I do appreciate it. Right now I'd say I have the mod about 30-50% coded and everything is peachy so far, which leaves me rather optimistic about it. Here's some screenshots from the mod-in-progress that really isn't finished; the later stuff especially needs fleshing out, but shows that real work is being done and things are progressing:
I want to move the economy. I want it to focus on these three things primarily:
- Tile yields
- Trade routes
- Specialists
The first step is to make tile yields more relevant to the economy. The Village improvement was my shot at it:
- The Village provides +1 gold and additional gold based on the tile's appeal. Requires at least zero appeal.
- +1 science if within 6 tiles of a campus, and an additional +1 science if adjacent to the campus.
- +1 culture if within 6 tiles of a theater, and an additional +1 culture if adjacent to the theater.
- +2 gold if within 6 tiles of a commercial hub, and an additional +1 gold if adjacent to the commercial hub.
- +1 faith if within 6 tiles of a holy site, and an additional +1 faith if adjacent to the holy site.
Of course, what's the fun in the village and trade routes if you can't play with their yields? New buildings and policies are aimed at doing this. The Scrivener's Office (working name subject to change) provides an additional +1 science for village improvements within 6 tiles of a Campus... but only if the city that builds it has no Campus district. A policy might improve the science output of all village improvements in cities with Campus districts, while another policy might give +100% science in cities that lack Campus districts. Above all else, I want to see more diversity in districts and how cities are built.
Districts are being expanded on to varying degrees. The Entertainment Complex and Neighborhood are gone. The amenities-boosting aspects of the Entertainment Complex are being folded into the Theater Square and Commercial Hub districts. Market rows in the Commercial Hub give you special "trade good" luxury resources based on what luxuries you have access to. Some are quite extensive; the harbor can be specialized into either a food/trade district or a shipyard, which branching paths for the buildings which are mutually exclusive. Some have a lighter touch, the Campus district has a Renaissance/Industrial tier of 3 buildings that are mutually exclusive with each other, between the University and the Research Lab, but has no other extensive changes (aside from the buildings being redesigned around %-based yields as previously mentioned). For the most part, the housing aspect of the Neighborhood should be covered with villages, which provide 0.5 housing for every two. That's not much, but the housing-per-village will be able to be improved starting in the Industrial era with Urbanization (haven't decided precisely how yet, but it will be done).
Now, I'm no fan of the whole wide versus tall debate. I think it's absurd. But, I do want Civ VI to be more rewarding in terms of rewards for growing and building up your cities. I just don't want it to be in an empty "X yield per Y pop" kind of way. Tile improvements are a first step in this direction. In vanilla Civ VI a city largely caps out in science production once you've built all the buildings in the Campus district (you can get a little more out of raw pop, but the amenity cost makes this problematic). In this mod this will not be the case, as long as the citizens can work more villages it can provide more science. I'm also including some "provides X yield per Y specialty district" buildings at the higher tiers, with an aim at rewarding a player for growing enough pop to support those districts, and building them.
Ultimately it's about rewarding investment. I've removed all maintenance costs from buildings. However, districts, including the city center, now have very high maintenance costs--6 gold per turn for most of them, though unique districts are less (as well as certain other districts like the Holy Site and Aerodrome). This means that merely placing a district is sort of an initial investment that takes time to pay off, and I've removed the scaling costs from districts. Ideally I'd like a sort of scaling maintenance cost but I'm not certain how to code that yet. Maintenance in general is hard to mess with using modifiers, and a negative gold yield has other problems. This also helps to cut down on rapid early-game expansion, as you could easily bankrupt yourself by building too many cities too quickly. The palace has regional yields out to 6 tiles (+3 gold and +1 amenity, other yields are shifted to be capital-specific) which means nearby cities are easier to support than distinct cities.
Trade routes are a difficult thing. Right now each city center district increases your trade route capacity by 1 starting at Foreign Trade (I may move this behind a city center building, but I think building the trader is investment enough). Commercial hubs and harbors do not add trade route capacity, but there is a building you can build to do so in each district. Those buildings are mutually exclusive. However, the trade station in the Commercial Hub, which increases your trade route capacity by 1, is a prerequisite for the Customs House in the Harbor, which improves local trade route yields, so investing in both districts in the same city is still lucrative (it goes both ways for the Trade Pier and the Caravansary). Districts now generally provide some of their yield as an origin yield, IE trade routes from a city with a Campus get +1 science, but not trade routes to the Campus (except for international trade). Domestic trade is generally restricted to gold, except for some special exceptions. The new Agricultural Complex district enables food trade, while the Industrial Zone enables production trade (both domestically only).
New districts? Yeah, two, to sorta-replace the two I'm removing. The Administrative Precinct is a district aimed at diplomacy and espionage, starting out by giving you additional influence points per turn and eventually improving spies/city-state yields. The Agricultural Complex provides food as regional yields and enables food trade. Both of these are still in the early planning stages, but the mechanics I've tested for them so far work. City-states, like most other non-combat-related game elements, are rebalanced to work better with these changes. The current plan is to reduce the yields granted by city-state envoys and move them off of all other districts; they only improve the yields of the Precinct now. Specializing in this aspect of the game will allow you to get large yields from each Precinct while also giving you unmatched influence with city-states. Of course, it will take up one of your valuable district slots to do so. The Administrative Precinct has a special district project that grants you an Envoy upon completion (and has a higher scaling cost than other district projects). As far as unique districts go, the Acropolis is now a unique Precinct, the Street Carnival is a unique Theater Square, and I'm planning to rework the Mbanza into a unique improvement.
Speaking of uniques, I have a few plans for those:
- Unique buildings generally avoid the mutual exclusivity of districts. They are always available to be built, no matter how you choose to specialize a district.
- Unique tile improvements will generally be improved by any building/policy/etc. that improves villages. This should hopefully help them be more relevant. Other adjustments may be necessary.
- The Mbanza will effectively be a village that can only be built in jungles and woods without the appeal-based gold, but with a larger flat gold yield and some food. It won't replace the village, but it will compliment it. It will improve the appeal of rain forests, allowing villages to be placed around them.
If anyone has any thoughts or feedback, feel free to let me know, as I do appreciate it. Right now I'd say I have the mod about 30-50% coded and everything is peachy so far, which leaves me rather optimistic about it. Here's some screenshots from the mod-in-progress that really isn't finished; the later stuff especially needs fleshing out, but shows that real work is being done and things are progressing:
Spoiler :
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