Modding Specific Terrain Yields

[Eagle0600]

I'm creating a new civilisation for Civ5 and would like to improve yields for this civ on specific tiles. Does anyone here know a way to do that?

If it helps, the specific changes are to increase yield on desert and tundra to both be 1 1, and to add an additional 2 for each city.

But this has to only affect one civ, so as far as I know, that has to be done via the (rather lacking) trait options or Lua (which I have not yet touched).

 

[Spatzimaus]

You can create a trait that combines a food boost in Trait_YieldChanges table with a new custom desert-only improvement that can only be used by one civilization. (See the DLCs for examples of these). It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's a lot closer than anything outside of Lua can get you. And Lua is a very, very bad way to do something like this, as the AI would have no clue what it was doing.

 

[Eagle0600]

I was hoping not to have to use improvements, but it seems like I'll have to. One for each terrain type (desert and tundra), then; they'll have to be cheap to build, too.

I might also throw in a free worker. Maybe one that can only build these new improvements?

Thanks for the AI input, it's not something I had considered.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Thanks for the AI input, it's not something I had considered.

Most XML mods don't have to deal with AI shortcomings; that tends to be limited to the more complex Lua mods, which is why I was bringing it up. While Lua can easily be used to change whatever yields are necessary, the AI just can't account for any changes made after the decision point.

In most areas, the AI can simply use Flavor ratings to make its decisions, and so little effort is needed to make the AI account for new additions. This is just one of the areas where the AI has major shortcomings; Improvements and Specialists are two parts of the game where the engine explicitly checks yields instead of using Flavors (although both have Flavor tables, the game doesn't appear to use them at all), so depending on what you do it may or may not work well.

 

[Eagle0600]

I've decided to alter the Farm, Fort (two flavours, one for desert and one for tundra), and Trading post to all equalise the yield of a basic tundra or desert tile to match a plains. No features or resources allowed. It's limited, but a powerful early game trait anyway.

 

[Pouakai]

IIRC, you will need to change the allowed terrains for those improvements, as I don't think farms can be built on desert and tundra that aren't adjacent to fresh water. I could be wrong though

 

[Eagle0600]

I'm pretty sure that desert can be built on any desert tile, and not on tundra. Checking now.

Besides, I'm making four different improvements: Farm for desert, fort for desert, fort for tundra, and trade-post for tundra. Each one is a copy of the original with an altered yield (+1 in desert, +1 in both desert and tundra). Farm and trade-post retain their tech upgrades.

The only trouble I'm having is getting the workers to actually build something, but I'm done for now; I'll be back to it later.

 

[Pouakai]

You'll need to make sure that you only have the new ones and not the originals, or are you planning both? You'll also need to give your improvements the same tech boosts as the originals (Fertilizer and something else for farm, Economics for TP)

 

[Eagle0600]

The entire point is they only boost specific terrain types, so I can't remove the originals. And as for tech boosts, I just copied them from the existing entries.