Map Improvements

[Thunderbrd]

Massive upgrades to mines and farms have been brilliant, creating a much larger gradient from poor to productive lands and the system has been nicely balanced to the new gradient.

Well done!

But now we need to update other improvements to that system. The lumbercamp, junglecamp, windmill, rivermill, and village lines, to name a few, have gone unchanged and its making it tough not to want to just tear down every forest on the plains and only use farms and mines. We also see some resources, even in the early phases of the game, being less effective with plantations than simply building a farm over it (even AFTER the buildings the resource access would grant... huh???) Some thought needs to go into the other improvements to balance them to the new farms and mines.


Furthermore, it is my belief that most resources should have a chance of turning up due to the improvement on a plot. I feel that Timbercutting improvements should give a chance for prime timber, apples, lemons, deer, fur etc to pop up. I also think that forest creature resources should be able to appear in preserves. Anyhow, just some food for thought - something to audit down the line here.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Furthermore, it is my belief that most resources should have a chance of turning up due to the improvement on a plot. I feel that Timbercutting improvements should give a chance for prime timber, apples, lemons, deer, fur etc to pop up. I also think that forest creature resources should be able to appear in preserves. Anyhow, just some food for thought - something to audit down the line here.

This is anathema to me. I dislike the way jungle camps, farms and mines do it now. As well as the Great Farmer. It just destroys the trade system imo.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Perhaps we should bundle all those into a game option then? I would want to go FARTHER into that direction rather than withdraw from it. In fact... I would love to see a Great Prospector who can enforce a mine to pop out a resource (after giving the soil a full evaluation).

I find all these concepts to be very true to Real World examples therefore I like their functions.

The issue with Trade, imo, is that we have not volumetricalized resources yet. THAT would make the trade end of the game a lot more intense than it currently is in its ultra-simplified format.

 

[climat]

The issue with Trade, imo, is that we have not volumetricalized resources yet. THAT would make the trade end of the game a lot more intense than it currently is in its ultra-simplified format.

But it will not happen soon.. I agree with DH for now.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It is not just that. We don't have climate control on where plant/animal resources can grow. I have seen rubber in the polar region for example. Other mods allow the planting of the grain crops by workers. If we had some sort of biome control on the grains then I would not have a problem with workers doing this, and doing it quickly.

I have suggested elsewhere that the stealing of animal/plant resource that you don't have should be a spy mission, which if successful would give you the ability to plant one or two of that crop/animal in the correct niche. That to I can live with because it has happened in our history - tea and rubber being two examples. Lets face it, most of the crops and animals farmed in Australia came from elsewhere.

BTW while the Great Farmer is implemented the way it is you can't have a Great prospector.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I see your point on the climate issue... and if its enough of an issue, we can put it on the todo list on how to fix that with another metric in the xml/dll/python for those mission buttons for the great farmer.

And... what's the limiter on the Great Prospector concept based on the Farmer?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I see your point on the climate issue... and if its enough of an issue, we can put it on the todo list on how to fix that with another metric in the xml/dll/python for those mission buttons for the great farmer.

And... what's the limiter on the Great Prospector concept based on the Farmer?

It uses a call back which returns true or false but does not know what the unit is that is doing the call so you can only have one such unit. If your prospector is on a peak the farmer code will return no you can't build that there and so the prospector wont be able to mine. Similarly if you are on a flood plain the prospector may say no (you don't find gold) so the farmer can't plant wheat.

We "just" need to change to a different mechanism. Unfortunately it is not straight forward to do.

 

[Thunderbrd]

ok... we'll put it on a backburner at the moment then and give it some thought. The fix to that seems as if it could be also worked into a fix for the climate control you were talking about too.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Mine upgrades do not appear rational. A mine generally gives +6 while a strip mine only gives +5 and +1 . You'd think it would improve at Modern Mine, and it does... sorta. Something like +6 :Hammers:, +1 :Gold: but tears down forests so usually -1 from that ends up with it still being worse for production than a basic mine.

Frustrating.

Also, we've really gotta allow watermills to not tear down forests where placed. Currently they are absolutely useless unless on a terrain that can use nothing else.

And windmills are just too weak to care to utilize.

On a related note, the fact that electric train tracks and standard railroad looks identical is extremely frustrating. I also still think that these would be best saved for connecting one city to the next and making the train station capable of something similar to airlifting along connected routes where other train stations exist (but without the lift limits of the airports.) This would make highways useful, allowing trains to connect cities for rapid transport between them and provide faster transportation off the direct train routes.

And its kinda frustrating what happens when you build railroad through a tunnel last I checked.

 

[Il Principe]

Could the windmill improvement be made neccesary for the windmill building? That would give a reason to build it.
Somewhere else it was discussed to make a weather simulation system. once ( and if) this is implemented windmills with a wind dependent output mgiht be an idea. There is a reason why they only became realy popular in flat and coastal areas in the real world.

 

[Koshling]

@DH - you mentioned you were wroking on some improvemnts to the cottage line a couple of weeks ago. Did anything come of that?

 

[hotrodlincoln]

It is not just that. We don't have climate control on where plant/animal resources can grow. I have seen rubber in the polar region for example. Other mods allow the planting of the grain crops by workers. If we had some sort of biome control on the grains then I would not have a problem with workers doing this, and doing it quickly.

I have suggested elsewhere that the stealing of animal/plant resource that you don't have should be a spy mission, which if successful would give you the ability to plant one or two of that crop/animal in the correct niche. That to I can live with because it has happened in our history - tea and rubber being two examples. Lets face it, most of the crops and animals farmed in Australia came from elsewhere.

BTW while the Great Farmer is implemented the way it is you can't have a Great prospector.

I have always been annoyed by the lack of climates as well. The easiest thing to do would probably to split the terrains out...so grassland becomes "Temperate Grassland", "Tropical Grassland" and so on. This wouldn't even require a change in appearance, just two terrain types that do the exact same thing, but have different names. The only difference between them would be what resources and animals spawn on them. Coastlines already function this way, as there is no real difference between the tropical, polar, and temperate coastlines.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Mine upgrades do not appear rational. A mine generally gives +6 while a strip mine only gives +5 and +1 . You'd think it would improve at Modern Mine, and it does... sorta. Something like +6 :Hammers:, +1 :Gold: but tears down forests so usually -1 from that ends up with it still being worse for production than a basic mine.

Frustrating.

Also, we've really gotta allow watermills to not tear down forests where placed. Currently they are absolutely useless unless on a terrain that can use nothing else.

And windmills are just too weak to care to utilize.

We really need to go through all the improvements and make sure they are balanced and flow through. Unfortunately we have been concentrating on increasing the spread to the new eras and getting the impreovemnets to happen at the correct time to make sure balance is correct.

Windmilld destroying forests is one of those things that go on/off from version to version. Some people complain theat they are too OP if they don't remove the forest and others say they are too UP if they don't

On a related note, the fact that electric train tracks and standard railroad looks identical is extremely frustrating. I also still think that these would be best saved for connecting one city to the next and making the train station capable of something similar to airlifting along connected routes where other train stations exist (but without the lift limits of the airports.) This would make highways useful, allowing trains to connect cities for rapid transport between them and provide faster transportation off the direct train routes.

And its kinda frustrating what happens when you build railroad through a tunnel last I checked.

The original idea, in RoM, was that if you could not build a railway you should eventually be able to build a highway or electric railroad network instead which would provide exactly the same functionallity. It was an attempt to add diversity without causeing too much of a barrier to growth. This has changed in C2C. However I feel that highways, railroads and electric railways should be the same in affect and cost but shoudl not replace each other which was causeing the AI to continually replace one with the other. I would like to see zepplin routes for freight and passangers as an alt-timeline also. That would require the USA never to have banned the export of helium.

@DH - you mentioned you were wroking on some improvemnts to the cottage line a couple of weeks ago. Did anything come of that?

Unfortunately RL has gotten in the way of this. I was going to add another early level and addjust all the levels by tech researched. I shoudl be back in a week or so, at the moment I can get 15 minutes of internet access at the local library now and then.

I have always been annoyed by the lack of climates as well. The easiest thing to do would probably to split the terrains out...so grassland becomes "Temperate Grassland", "Tropical Grassland" and so on. This wouldn't even require a change in appearance, just two terrain types that do the exact same thing, but have different names. The only difference between them would be what resources and animals spawn on them. Coastlines already function this way, as there is no real difference between the tropical, polar, and temperate coastlines.

If we get multiple features per plot it may be easirer to do climate but we will have to wait and see. The mapscripts will need to be changed or resourses to have climate included in the plant and animal lines.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Windmilld destroying forests is one of those things that go on/off from version to version. Some people complain theat they are too OP if they don't remove the forest and others say they are too UP if they don't

They wouldn't be now with the way mines and farms are so powerful, and rationally, they can exist in a wooded setting without disturbing the forest much. Additionally, why shouldn't river spaces have a little more benefit than non-river spaces if maintained properly? It might be nice, too, to have a river harbor improvement that works much the same way for aiding in lumber transport down rivers. I think there's a better name for that though...

 

[P A Y N E]

I wouldn't even notice whether the other improvements were having an impact since my cities are usually surrounded by nothing but mines and farms anyway.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

When I get back I am going to go through all the improvements. Especially to find out why you can't build cottages on barren and the like.

I will also be moving all the resources that are currently terrain features, eg coconuts, back into resorces. I have discovered a different way of defining the art stuff so I may be even able to do mangrove swamps.

 

[Necratoid]

How exactly would harbors help with lumber transport? Sure barges... but the fastest way to send lumber downstream in large amounts is to dump the logs in the river and have crazy lumberjacks running along the floating logs with spiky shoes and pointed sticks playing the game of don't die... of course that requires you to have lumbermills, but still.

 

[Sgtslick]

Worker use is definitely simplified for me at least, possibly a good or bad thing depends i guess. Its simplified coz all i need to do is automate and then customize the automation to remove everything except farms and mines (and the resource ones).

 

[Thunderbrd]

How exactly would harbors help with lumber transport? Sure barges... but the fastest way to send lumber downstream in large amounts is to dump the logs in the river and have crazy lumberjacks running along the floating logs with spiky shoes and pointed sticks playing the game of don't die... of course that requires you to have lumbermills, but still.

As I said, Harbor isn't the right term. But perhaps a port of entry for those logs that not only counts as a lumbermill where its at but also enhances all adjacent lumbermills +1 :Hammers:

They used to build massively elaborate waterslides, I think called sloops, that they would send the lumber down, gather it all at a particular site on the river, and then do, yes as you say, ride the lumber down in a game of 'I hope I don't die doing this'. It was a huge improvement over dragging every log out one by one with horsepower.

 

[Hydromancerx]

They used to build massively elaborate waterslides, I think called sloops, that they would send the lumber down, gather it all at a particular site on the river, and then do, yes as you say, ride the lumber down in a game of 'I hope I don't die doing this'. It was a huge improvement over dragging every log out one by one with horsepower.

Do you mean a Log Flume?