Making late game improvements (windmills, watermills, lumberthingies) better

[Elm]

Mines are still the only things that can discover new resources, in the new model (with increased chance from earth mana) correct?

 

[Asthix]

Im not eager to implement new features to address balance issues. Especially those that require AI changes. Its not that we wont ever add new features for this kind of stuff, but our first step would be in balancing them with the features we have.

Well, I think the community here and Kael especially might say that my suggestion should stay exclusive to Fall Further & I know its a little off topic but here it is:

The end of the changelog for FFv.44 says that workers will be able to build any improvement right from the start but that without the proper tech it will take ten times as long.

I think this is a great idea because it makes the early game more interesting (something that's hard to do IMO) and from what Xienwolf has said it seems to help the AI prevent building snafus.

So I'll ask, would you consider this change for FfH?

 

[Kael]

Well, I think the community here and Kael especially might say that my suggestion should stay exclusive to Fall Further & I know its a little off topic but here it is:

The end of the changelog for FFv.44 says that workers will be able to build any improvement right from the start but that without the proper tech it will take ten times as long.

I think this is a great idea because it makes the early game more interesting (something that's hard to do IMO) and from what Xienwolf has said it seems to help the AI prevent building snafus.

So I'll ask, would you consider this change for FfH?

Probably not, sounds like a NoobTrap to me.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

So workshops are better than mines now? The food hit can be hard, but for desert hills . . .

 

[Imuratep]

You can't build workshops on hills so the best you will get at the beginning is either or , what means that it's only for cities which really lack production, but at least it's usable.

 

[Grey Fox]

Even if you could build it on hills you couldn't build it on a desert hill cause it requires 1 food to build (or the -1 food would be a bit silly).

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Shows how often I've used workshops.

I think I built one once in vanilla, but switched it out later.

 

[Bitwise]

Shows how often I've used workshops.

I think I built one once in vanilla, but switched it out later.

They're nice for the infernals. No need for food so you can get extra hammers that way.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

35. Archery gives +50% chop production.
36. Lumbermills moved form Iron Working to Archery.
37. Workshops moved from Smelting to Construction, given +1 commerce, the +1 hammer moved from Construction to Smelting, given +2 hammer at Guilds.
38. Watermills removed.
39. Windmills given +1 hammer.

Hmmmmmm.

For forested hills, Lumbermill vs. mine is a good consideration now for most of the game, health vs. a quick burst of hammers. Either mines or windmills become a no brainer eventually, depending on which of blasting powder or machinery you hit first, but that's so late that I really don't mind.

You can still make an early production city without hills. Find forests, ???, profit. At guilds, you can turn some of the lumbermills into workshops if you have some excess food kicking around. So, windmills are a real option for hills now. So are cottages for grassland ones. Mines were so ubiquitous because you had no other options for good production early, and the new lumbermills solve that problem. Yeah, definitely feel now that there was no need to directly nerf them.

Riverside windmills/workshops are a cute trick for financial. We'll see how much I like them in practice, though. That's harder for me to predict.

 

[Verily]

Windmills are still painfully late in the game, although they would actually be useful in patch r. Would it be possible to move them a little earlier in the tech tree, maybe to Mathematics?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Nice points Kael! I guess I will start building windmills and watermills now

 

[Grand Seeker]

Thematicly I enjoy Watermills ALOT better than windmills actually, and would rather cut windmills than watermills. I rather see my hills filled with mines than windmills. Since watermills can only be build on rivers they cannot be spamed and for me that fits much better.

Having watermill give +1/+1/+1 and later +1/+2/+2 sounds perfect

 

[Kael]

Thematicly I enjoy Watermills ALOT better than windmills actually, and would rather cut windmills than watermills. I rather see my hills filled with mines than windmills. Since watermills can only be build on rivers they cannot be spamed and for me that fits much better.

Having watermill give +1/+1/+1 and later +1/+2/+2 sounds perfect

Yeah, I thought about this. From a flavor perspective I prefer watermills over windmills too. But rivers were already so good to players, especially in the early game that I didnt see a need to have the "big diverse improvement" also be a river improvement. River cities didn't need a boost.

So watermills went and windmills stayed. I was okay with the "big diverse improvement" being a hill improvement because it made city settlement options more interesting and gave a reasonable alternative to mines (though Im still thinking windmills may be coming to late).

 

[Blackmantle]

I (likely rather unsurprisingly ) would also think earlier windmills (possibly starting a tad bit weaker and progressing offer time) with more steps to reach their full potential would be much better.

From a flavor perspective i actually find Lumbermills by far the most unthematic (if the improvement had another name and look i might think differently, but the graphics and feel is just off for a fantasy-world imo. Any chance they get a flavor-remake? Carpentry perhaps or something like that...). But i see much reason in the need for them and not Watermills.

@ Folks liking Watermills (i actually much like the flavor of both Water- and Windmills, both being ancient ideas. Yet as modern as they could ever be. ):
Also mind the strange requirements / restrictions on building them.
I think its good riddance from perspecitve of Gameplay.
Less sources of confusion for new players is mostly a good thing.
Especially if all Improvements have a sensible place in the game and thus become necessary for playing the game well / to the max.

 

[Demus]

(though Im still thinking windmills may be coming to late).

how about having a basic windmill become available at crafting (say, +1 food), and moving the +1 hammer from engineering to mathematics? Would make the windmill quite early, somewhat useful for the real hilly starts, but requiring some teching up to do to become viable in non-highland starts

 

[TheJopa]

I like that windmills were cut, I actually wanted them out of the vanilla civ as well. It makes no sense that entire tile is used only for a watermill near river- wouldn't you farm the rest of the area, and make watermill only a minor addition to your farming areas? It even looks weird graphically.


But... Since we have graphic, and we lack factories and powerplants in FfH -
Is there any chance we could get watermill as a building? It could be built in cities next to river, and would provide +25% hammers and two engineer slots? If there is a need to make it less similar to forges, then instead of +25% hammers it could use levee mechanic and provide +1 hammers next to rivers?

 

[Emptiness]

But rivers were already so good to players, especially in the early game that I didnt see a need to have the "big diverse improvement" also be a river improvement. River cities didn't need a boost.

I agree strongly with this, and was glad to see that watermills didn't end up stronger. For flavor reasons I'd like to see them return, but not if they make building near rivers even more important than it is now.

from Patch r changelog:
36. Lumbermills moved form Iron Working to Archery.
In this case I would rename the tech from Archery to "sophisticated wood crafting" or Woodcrafting, or something similar

I've seen a couple of people suggest a name change for the archery tech. I'd just like to point out that the ability to build bowmen is still the most important aspect of the tech. The fact that lumbermills are also unlocked by the tech is incidental, and imo should not influence the name of the tech enough to justify a change.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Is it possible to set the watermill and windmill to be the exact same thing. Well what I mean is that you would give a worker the order to build "mills" and depending on the location it would be either a watermill (on river tiles) or a windmill. It would pretty much be just eye candy.

 

[Xuenay]

Interestingly, I seem to be in a minority in that I nearly always build windmills if I have the option to choose between a windmill and a mine.

The reason's simple. Assume a grassland hill, that's a base 1 food and 1 hammer (or two? I forget). Say that there are three of these in the city radius. I could build a mine, and get the production bonus... or I could build a windmill, increasing the 1 food to 2 and allowing the tile to support another. If I build windmills on all three hills, then I get more production than I'd get by building a mine on one tile, plus they allow me to work a fourth tile.

Now that windmills got boosted and mines nerfed, I doubt I'll ever build mines.

 

[Algeroth]

Very nice changes indeed. And I'm more than content with axing the watermills. Just few things:

1) The bonus for mines from Aerte should be increased. The mines should be improvement of choice for civ running Aerte. IMHO +2 should be right to represent the skilful craftsmen.

2) The commerce bonus for workshops would be more flavourful at Alchemy.

3) Could we get the Mill building? Or anything with earlier engineer slot?