New buildings!

[Acratenn]

Just adding my two cents here:

Railroad tracks: Wont it be a problem to make railroads require iron? I doubt we can make an improvement require non-integer amounts of a resource (Although I have no idea how LUA works in that regard, I expect it saves strategic resource requirements as an integer, and crash horribly when facing a float), and making each tile consume one iron is way too costly.

Wiring: Unrealistic much. Iron/steel was never used for wires, except as reinforcement for aluminium wires...

Building construction, Reinforced concrete: Practically the same concept. Maybe make bomb shelters / military bases require iron, or even mechanized infantry or guided missiles or maybe even make the new buildings people proposed here require iron?

Now highways and interchanges can be interesting, if we can come up with a viable use for them in late game...

 

[Thalassicus]

Steel is used for wire rope, not electrical wire. I should have been more specific.

What about a "suspension bridge" structure? It could replace the hydro plant, and consume iron instead of aluminum.

Suspension Bridge (replaces Hydro Plant)
Cost: 360
Production: +1 on Rivers

Requires: River

Requires: 5 iron
​

Another use of steel is cars. We could introduce an "automotive plant"? That might be too similar to the factory, however, which is why I was thinking of a "railyard" or "highway interchange" building which consumes iron and provides a trade or gold benefit.

 

[rhammer640]

i know this is maybe off topic as its not a building per say but while we are on the topic of bridges.... I always found it strange that once you researched the correct tech you just got bridges over rivers. I would love to have to choose to use a worker to construct a bridge as a tile improvement. I doubt its possible though. Oh well. End Ramble.

 

[Tarquelne]

I like the idea of buildings that consume a big chunk of strategic resources - they'd help further differentiate cities.

 

[Acratenn]

Now modifying the hydro plant is an idea I'm actually quite fund of, and we don't even need to rename it nor change the graphics, only change the resource. The only problem is, and I know it isn't set yet, that 5 iron can be quite a hefty cost, even if compared to aluminium, considering some civs may find themselves overflowing with horses (and aluminium) but with 0 iron (I know I did quite a lot).

Now a rail yard can be an interesting idea, we can use it as an upgrade to the central station: A national wonder, only buildable in the capital, which works around the railroad production bug but also gives other bonuses, like faster railroad movement or maintenance cost reduction. And of course costs iron.


And if we already mentioned horses, what about finding a few building that consume those?

 

[mitsho]

5 Iron is a hefty price though for one building. Wouldn't 4 make more sense, i.e. you can build 1-2 in your empire with standard distribution of the ressources (4-8 iron) ? Though the Suspenion Bridge (or any kind of bridge built by Gustave Eiffel) is a good idea. As for the Car Plant, why not? I see the Factory more as a general factory producing various things. Factories exist in every city and produce widely ranging stuff while car plants tend to be focused in one city of the nation and are highly specialized. (Another sort of highly specialized factories would be the ones producing chemical goods, paints and lastly medicine, it all ties in together).

If you want something that consumes horses I'r propose making circuses use up one horse but costing no maintenance. Thus you have the problem in the early ages of sacrificing a horse unit for happiness, and later on, well you can always use them up if you need them before building more costly happiness buildings. The other buildings I can imagine using up Horses would be a Postal station, i.e. where - before the telegraph - you changed horses so that you don't lose the time the horses need to regenerate. (Of course, I suck at google image search or I would show you a picture as Thal did )

This building would either help espionage (fast news travelling) or fit into a line of buildings enhancing trade routes. So we have the Warehouse or/and Wharf, making sea trade routes better, we have a postal station making land trade routes cheaper (and providing trade route bonus without road connection?) and we have a Main Station further enhancing the Railroad connection. The Main Station (it's a big public building, which makes it better imho than a generic railyard) could also use up iron, it would fit with the railways need iron theme. The Airport then would be the last building enhancing all trade routes once again.

Another building that I could imagine using up iron would be the Subway System. Just thinking of the New York Metro, Iron is used in wagons, on rails and in holding up the Tunnel System.

I know, more iron used up in the skyscraper than in the subway, but as an approximation. The Metro could give Yield Per Population in the city, which would make it quite powerful warranting the iron cost.

Otherwise I think we need to make sure not to add too many gold or production adding buildings. That's why I propose the Trade Route line as a sort of standard.

Coming from Game-to-Reality, I would like a building that gives culture to warmongers (and only) so that we can make the Culture buildings be destroyed on conquest again. I think that's more realistic and it means you got a longer time getting the new city up and running again before annexing it. The Culture Buildings were retained so that Conquerors as well can use the Social Policy System, but if we see a way to only let them build that building or only warmongerers benefit from it, that would be marvelous I don't have any real propropsition though...

 

[Acratenn]

Are you thinking in the lines of a victory gate? A monument that can only be built in conquered cities, or as many times as cities you have conquered? (Whatever is more realistic).

Now about the postal stations, espionage and trade bonuses are a great idea (also a good use for highways in as a late game upgrade for it, consuming iron of course), but connecting cities w/o roads doesn't feel like the right direction.

Now about sky scrapers, why not add these as a growth supporting building?

 

[Thalassicus]

5 iron can be quite a hefty cost, even if compared to aluminium, considering some civs may find themselves overflowing with horses (and aluminium) but with 0 iron (I know I did quite a lot).

In the mod each player territory gets 5 iron, enough for one building in the modern era. You do have a point though. 3-4 iron would be an okay requirement for whatever modern iron-consuming building we come up with. That would still be about 1 building per player.

 

[Seek]

Can the AI be made to value iron and horses in the post-renaissance eras? If not there would be some balance issues with this line of ideas.

 

[Royco]

You're description immediately brought me to Kontor. I bet there's also a Italian/Portuguese etc. equivalent. For the later probably the Feitoria?

Well a "Kontor" is just an office, still use it in Norway, damn didnt know Kontor was such an early concept.

 

[Royco]

Steel is used for wire rope, not electrical wire. I should have been more specific.

What about a "suspension bridge" structure? It could replace the hydro plant, and consume iron instead of aluminum.

Suspension Bridge (replaces Hydro Plant)
Cost: 360
Production: +1 on Rivers

Requires: River

Requires: 5 iron
​

Another use of steel is cars. We could introduce an "automotive plant"? That might be too similar to the factory, however, which is why I was thinking of a "railyard" or "highway interchange" building which consumes iron and provides a trade or gold benefit.

Maybe find a later use for copper? Electrical wiring?

 

[mitsho]

Well a "Kontor" is just an office, still use it in Norway, damn didnt know Kontor was such an early concept.

Well, every word has meanings in various languages. It refers basically to the office of a Merchant and thus has been around for a long time. As they are often storing units as well, and those often are clustered in a specific district down at the docks anyways, I guett warehouse is a pretty good meaning for what we are talking about. The Kontor then could be a Unique Building for the Danes, Swedes or Germans if there's a modmod that adds a third unique.

Can the AI be made to value iron and horses in the post-renaissance eras? If not there would be some balance issues with this line of ideas.

I guess, that's the key. Is it hardcoded how high they value certain strategic ressources, or has it more to do with the fact, that there are no units/buildings left that need them?

Are you thinking in the lines of a victory gate? A monument that can only be built in conquered cities, or as many times as cities you have conquered? (Whatever is more realistic).

Yes, but isn't one of the National Wonders basically an Arc de Triopmhe? And they are usually built at home, not in the conquered cities anyways. I'm not sure what's codeable though. Maybe to differentiate, we could have a Victory Column, of which the one in Berlin is the most famous, but we don't really need another such wonder, do we The Column would give you culture per conquered city (I guess that's the easy way to go about it). The other effect is that every time you make a peace agreement that is favourable for you or you raze a civilization to the ground, you can build one of those (1 per city) and they simply give a lot of culture.

Now about sky scrapers, why not add these as a growth supporting building?

I was thinking this as well when I wrote it down, and I guess there's room for a +5 building in the Modern or Atomic Age. They essentially allow your cities to grow despite of room, so the food bonus fits. And a basic skyscraper doesn't really interfere with a Empire State Wonder or the "World's Tallest Building" Project I'd say

 

[Tery Buster]

Buildings in Civilizations are more like government investment rather than just some element in a city.

A library being built does not mean that one library is being raised, but means that, in this city, an effort is being made to focus library placement and document accessibility.
The same way a factory doesn't mean one single building, but more like an factory complex.
Following this line, new building would have to represent whole sectors, and not just one kind of building.

Having, like, subway station as a building, would mean a whole network of subway trains. Or having like, night club as a building, would mean a whole tendency of clubs placement along the city and the adapt of the population to frequent those.


Having that said,
In my point of view, building walls means building defense measures around cities.
This way, I find that the game lacks short-time defense measures commonly used by cities along the history.

My point is that, when a city is under siege, it would be wise to halt the production queue and build a Palisade Wall, or any other name, that would finish between 2 or 4 turns most of cases.
This would represent light defenses in a city.
I find this interesting in the game since it would make fast strikes much more strategic, since cities without light defenses would suffer from heavy penalties under landed attack, possibly even loosing population from siege attacks.

For this to be historically accurate and game balanced, I suggest it to work this way:
-Hammer cost vary from city size
This would mean a small city with big production will finish it much faster than a big city with low production.
-High maintenance cost, possibly vary by city size
This would make players build it only when needed, and also sell it back when the siege is over

The motivation of this building is many historical examples of strong cities being razed due to surprise attacks. Good examples are the barbarians assaults against roman lands and the Blitzkrieg attacks from German empire in the WWII.

 

[Dunkah]

And if we already mentioned horses, what about finding a few building that consume those?

Glue Factory... +1 per horse resource...

 

[Acratenn]

Glue Factory... +1 per horse resource...

You know what? I was doing my best to avoid this suggestion.

I hope you are happy with yourself.

 

[mitsho]

Well I guess, you're not the only one, that sprung to my mind as well

 

[Thalassicus]

Can the AI be made to value iron and horses in the post-renaissance eras?

If you mean trade value, the AI's valuation of a resource depends on uses for the resource. Try trading a large quantity of a strategic resource to an AI in the classical era. The AI offers a fixed gold rate per resource... up to a point. After passing a threshold it offers 0 gold for further trades. The threshold for strategic resources is not constant. It appears to depend on what units/buildings they have, how militaristic they are, and some other factors. These factors normally decrease to 0 in the late game, so with more stuff to build, the value would be higher.

 

[Drawmeus]

The stuff that has to exist - Airport, something skyscraper-y.

You could potentially do something like a horse race track in the modern era consuming horses for gold or culture or both, to solve the totally obsolete strategic resource thing.

I wonder if you could do something with Horses, by the way, where a city can have a high maintenance cost that supplies horses, but requires horses, so you can't build it without horse access in the first place, but once you've got them built you can invest in having horses. Basically aimed at the fact that horses work like iron (totally static, inanimate resource) and that feels weird.

 

[Babri]

I would say there should be building which enhance the rest of the luxuries. Luxuries like spices & gold are enhanced by granary & mint respectively. Similarly we can have textile mills which provide additional gold on dye, silk & cotton. Also copper should be a bonus resource enhanced by forage & may boost production of early units for flavour.

We can also get a lot of ideas from cIV mods like Realism Invitus where there are many building for different type of resources.

 

[Thibaulthc]

° +25% with railroad connection: a little bit OP, could require some iron, steel or coal, or a station (building that require one resource and allow the +25%

° horses later: could be used to create some happiness from equitation (5 horses = one building that gives +4 for example)

° skyscrapers, buildings boosting or allowing to more pop in one city (city pop would be limited to 20 without the skyscrapers). require steel (new resource from coal+iron)
(I saw a mod like that in the workshop, I'm stealing a part of the idea :/ )

° iron + oil to create automobile factories, which gives for each

° airports: would be to easy to allow traderoutes, unless they are very expensive.. could boost a bit
military airports: to avoid the problems with AI relocating aircrafts, it could allow a city to have more than 3 aircrafts

° I would love buildings that would use luxury resources like strategic resources, but I don't know if it's moddable..
I made a thread there: but not an answer... I guess it sucks... lol
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=466380

° energy buildings that create a new resource "energy" would be great, but I guess it's to complex to mod and use by the AI (would be required by some buildings like Hospital, Stock Exchange, Research Lab,...)

° buildings like church that would boost faith is a big lack
(would be nice to have a church or whatever, that gives +"number of followers" % faith)