More diversity for buildings

[Faustmouse]

As I told Hydro, there are tags for buildings that aren't utilized, but can have powerful effects.

For starters, there is the Expression System AI Andy put into place.

For example, this code can give a building +5 Air Pollution, if you have the Tech Industrialism.

 <PropertyManipulators>
                <PropertySource>
                    <PropertySourceType>PROPERTYSOURCE_CONSTANT</PropertySourceType>
                    <PropertyType>PROPERTY_AIR_POLLUTION</PropertyType>
                    <iAmountPerTurn>5</iAmountPerTurn>
                    <Active>
                        <Has>
                               <GOMType>GOM_TECH</GOMType>
                               <ID>TECH_INDUSTRIALISM</ID>
                        </Has>
                    </Active>
                </PropertySource>
            </PropertyManipulators>

Obviously, it works the same for all properties, so you can give a police station -5 Crime if you have Law Enforcement (for example).

Instead of the Tech, you can change it that a building gives +3 Water Pollution if you have the resource lead. In theory, it should be possible to put another building as req for being active, so that your bank gives +5 crime IF you have a gun shop built in your city. This can open up new possibilities and I'm sure Hydro or Pepper can see some applications for their buildings. Obvious stuff for me would be increasing pollution with certain resources and tech during the industrial era, and then a decline of these through the modern and TH era.




Another cool set of tags was introduced by TB earlier. It was me who asked him to program them, but then I never got around to do something with them (sorry )
With them you can have a building that generates X per population in a city. Or another building that costs y per population. If you had a national wonder that gives such a building for free, I can see a good way to boost smaller empires:

Free Education would give the Free Education - Effect for free in all cities.
The Effect would give you a -50% cost modifier for all educaltional buildings (libraries, universities...) and a nice research bonus to them. But it would cost like 10 per population.

If you have a small empire (4 cities with 20 pop) that would be 800 for a nice effect, but if you want to achieve this with 20 cities at 20 pop, that's a crippling 4000 per turn! The key point is to get the balance right in a way, that huge empires can't really afford these buildings, while smaller ones can and get a massive bonus for it.

The tags are:
<CommercePerPopChanges>

and

<YieldPerPopChanges>

 

[Toffer90]

Is this the link you were thinking about LINK

 

[Faustmouse]

No that is for the expression system. I was looking for the one for "per population" tags. But this link is usefull as well!

 

[Toffer90]

These tags?

<CommercePerPopChanges>

<iCommerce>X</iCommerce>
...​

</CommercePerPopChanges>

<YieldPerPopChanges>

<iYield>X</iYield>
...​

</YieldPerPopChanges>

 

[Faustmouse]

Yes, thank you!

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've been strongly considering using these for diseases.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Some of these could also be used for game speed adjustments as well. And even possibly Handicap levels. It would be very good for C2C if our Noble Difficulty level was more in tune wuith BtS Noble level for incoming new to C2C players. That was my intentions for listing adjusting handicaps this year for v38.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Thanks for posting. Lets talk about potential buildings that could be improved using the the "per pop" or "expression system" code.

I personally think the Solar Roofs could use this for hammers.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've said it before too but crime... this is one of the best ways I think we could make crimes naturally scale to the city they emerge in.

 

[Faustmouse]

Crimes would be great, yes.
And certain buildings that are directly affected by city size, like street lights, sewer systems, solar roofs...

Probably even markets or other stores can use it in a way like "+0,1 per pop if you have the resource silk". Combining the Expression system with the per pop system, this should be possible.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Probably even markets or other stores can use it in a way like "+0,1 per pop if you have the resource silk".

I'm pretty sure you'd have to just make the resource be a prereq and make the silk peddlers building give +0.1 gold per pop. But yes, it's a powerfully beneficial way to scale economic impacts by city size, which would be very accurate to realism.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I've said it before too but crime... this is one of the best ways I think we could make crimes naturally scale to the city they emerge in.

I support this.

 

[Shoobs]

I support this.

Same
The whole idea of making buildings look at population size instead of a flat value seems like an amazing feat in and of itself in terms of innovation and balance, giving you reasons to get them in larger cities but postponing them in your more distant outposts.

That said, certain areas of the world that benefit more from certain kinds of resources ( say cold areas with furs, etc ) could be looked at if those cities are naturally small.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Once I complete the redesign of the Advanced Disease system we can work on implementing these tags into those disease structures as an example of use. They can get some testing in application that way as well. I hope that we can eventually include crime outbreaks into the same generic system and that it will be more visible how that can work with these tags after disease designs are proven with them.

 

[Shoobs]

From a design perspective, if what I foresee and hope from a design perspective... your idea will make disease and crime both less dangerous early game AND give more a bite later on. As it is, I find crime to be "HOLY COW THIS NEEDS FIXING NOW"/"DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON". post warfare Prehistoric to "meh" once metals is achieved, leaving me quite capable of steamrolling and being incredibly lazy in how I do things. Disease is in a similar boat. Don't really need to deal with it as the way I play tends to make it "meh" to the point of only needing a unit ( or two ) after a certain point.