No Stone Works on plains???

[kaspergm]

This is interesting to me. I know that the game likes to stuff desert starts with resources to compensate for the useless tiles so does this same points system mean that luxuries will generally be scarcer on a Plains start?

Yes and no (*long rant ahead warning*) ... the system is a bit more complicated than that, because there are several algorithms going. Luxuries will probably be less affected, or at least the number of different resources, because those are distributed mainly by the map being divided into regions and with each region (allowing for one starting civ) having roughly the same amount of (different) luxury resources.

Secondly, there is an algorith checking for the fertility of each region, and specifically for locating starting positions and checking those. In this process, I think both the overall score as well as the number of fertile plots (which I think means potential for at least 3 Food, or possibly even 4 Food, it's been a while since I looked into it) and productive plots are determined. A starting location needs to meet a certain standard (which I think will depend on your difficulty level) in order to be deamed acceptable, and the game will place bonus resources to make up for low food/production potential in your starting region, the bonus resource of choice depending on what region you start in (Plains will get Wheat, Grass will get Cows or Stone (if low on production), Hills will get Sheep, Tundra will get Deer, etc.). Also in this proces, I think extra luxuries can be assigned to poor regions if the number of luxes are too low compared to the number that needs to be on the map according to the size after the first placement cycle, but overall I think the type of your region will mostly have impact on what and how many bonus resources you will get - as well as how large your region will be.

All in all, the process is quite complicated (there are also steps to check for Strategic resources), I know some people find this approach overly complicated, myself I must say I think it's a bit of a technological marvel. However, there are some small balance issues and inconsistencies in the way some of these scores are applied, not only with the Plains/Grass thing, but also Hills come out strange, because the presence of a Hill will add +1 score to the terrain it sits on, which I think means that Desert hills will add only a score of 2 (native Desert is 1, and then +1), while Grass hills will count as 4 (3+1) and Plain hills will count as 5 (4+1) - and this in spite of all hills giving the same yield in game! (That might be an artefact from an earlier stage of the game where Hills were supposed to add yields additively to base terrain yield, as was the case in Civ4, which seems to be indicated in some of the other terrain files.)

I myself tend to find that Plains starts come out as being very bad, whereas Desert starts tend to be perhaps the strongest, which I think is a bit of a mistake given that Desert is supposed to be a barren terrain, and these scores might carry at least some of the reason for this.

 

[Dogmouth]

Great explanation, kaspergm. +1.

 

[Smokeybear]

Not luxuries, but definitely "bonus resources" like wheat, cattle, sheep, deer, and stone.

I recently had an all-grassland (with grassland hill, forest, and coast) start that had normal luxuries (1 marble and 2 ivory), two stone, three sheep, and one cattle. Pretty OP compared to a plains start. After Stable and Stoneworks, the capital was cranking 33 hammers/turn without a workshop.

That's my experience as well. A good grassland start with stoneworks improvements is almost always a much better city for me than any plains start without them. I've almost always had a harder time getting ahead with a plains start, as the extra hammer on most tiles does not in any way whatsoever make up for the woeful lack of food and growth. Even after researching Civil Service, getting +3 food for river farms on plains is much poorer than cities with +4 food from farms, in the growth department. And the slower you acquire citizens, the slower you win. IF you win. Frankly, denying a plains city from being able to build a Stoneworks, is quite the same as kicking a man who's already down. And to quote kaspergm (a truism, IMO): "I myself tend to find that Plains starts come out as being very bad".

 

[Melchizedek]

Just found this thread after building about three cities near stone and marble on plains in a deity game. My cities have no rivers. It's a pretty bad start, and I don't understand why the developers think plains are so great they need to be handicapped so arbitrarily. Grassland/hills gives you the same base yields but more flexibly, as mentioned above.

 

[Vitruvius]

The chances for having a plains tile in a stone area is very low. The issue shouldn't be about plains vs grassland start, because if you have stones then its most certainly a grassland start. The chances of having a plains tile for your city spot is very low. If there is, just move your settler. The difference becomes either you get an extra grassland tile to work on but can't build stoneworks or you get a plains instead of grassland but can build stonework's.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Agent327]

i have wondered the same thing often, but i believe that this would make plains be a production monster, most likely game-breakingly so(someone else will have a better explanation)

No, someone forgot that your city production is always 2 (unless built on Hills).

At any rate there's a little modcomp now that fixes the issue. (Stoneworks On Plains, check Steam Workshop.)

 

[beetle]

WRT to OP, yeah, I was burned by that one game too. It is very arbitrary, and heavily weighs into the choice of settling tile when near stone.

I myself tend to find that Plains starts come out as being very bad, whereas Desert starts tend to be perhaps the strongest, which I think is a bit of a mistake given that Desert is supposed to be a barren terrain, and these scores might carry at least some of the reason for this.

Thanks for all that KasperGM, sorry to have missed it last month. I never quite understood why folks on this board like desert starts so much. Whether folks realize it or not, it’s not actually the desert they like, but all the extra bonuses the game adds to dessert starts.

 

[Calouste]

WRT to OP, yeah, I was burned by that one game too. It is very arbitrary, and heavily weighs into the choice of settling tile when near stone.



Thanks for all that KasperGM, sorry to have missed it last month. I never quite understood why folks on this board like desert starts so much. Whether folks realize it or not, it’s not actually the desert they like, but all the extra bonuses the game adds to dessert starts.

I'm fairly fed up with desert starts, to the point where I often reroll. It comes down to getting Petra, and if you get it you will have a ridiculously easy game, and if you don't get it, you're screwed.

 

[danaphanous]

I'm fairly fed up with desert starts, to the point where I often reroll. It comes down to getting Petra, and if you get it you will have a ridiculously easy game, and if you don't get it, you're screwed.

Petra is not that good. In my experience it just makes the desert tiles not suck. I got it one game and it only tacked on +1 food +1 production to the desert. since it omits flood-plains this was pretty much only worthless tiles anyway. still helpful but by no means game-breakingly. It was very nice for desert hills though. That early +4 production AND food point is great. For desert tiles though: after farm this only makes them like a farmed plain. still barely normal.

But with this: Morocco + Desert Folklore + Petra + Kasbah = ridiculous desert tiles. They are better than normal tiles. Food is still only nominal, but a few flood-plains makes up for it. Total: +1 gold, +2 food, +2 production, +1 faith. And on golden ages every single tile doubles in gold because Kasbah adds that 1 gold to them all. On top of that, you're impossible to invade due to the +50% defense. Fortify in there and you're at double combat abilities. You'll break infantry with riflemen and riflemen with pikemen, on even footing just forget about it.

 

[joncnunn]

On the original topic; this is easily moddable:

Just remove line 2295 <ProhibitedCityTerrain>TERRAIN_PLAINS</ProhibitedCityTerrain> in the civ5 buildings file. (As usual you need to be within an expansion2 folder with BNW)

Desert Start: If this is a flood plains start, it's decent even without Petra. And Desert Faith works in flood plains (unlike Petra)

 

[kaspergm]

I'm fairly fed up with desert starts, to the point where I often reroll. It comes down to getting Petra, and if you get it you will have a ridiculously easy game, and if you don't get it, you're screwed.

Petra obviously IS a huge boon for desert starts, but I don't think that's the major issue. For me, the main problem is that the ratio of flood plains : deserts is wrong - too much flood plains, too little desert. Flood Plains are identical to normal grassland tiles with regards to fertility, and desert hills are identical to normal hills and on top of this even can get desert folklore and petra bonus. Sure, you will normal have a handful of regular desert tiles that are useless, but that is not an issue till fairly late in game where you work all workable tiles (and if many of those "bare" desert tiles are laced with strategic or luxury resources, they may even be decent to work), and the disadvantage of a few bad tiles may actually work for you if it means you get more above-average tiles to give the same average value (and then last but not least, let's not forget that Desert Folklore is overpowered now because it gives faith on flood plains which are both numerous and perfectly workable and hence should not qualify).

 

[Calouste]

Petra is not that good. In my experience it just makes the desert tiles not suck. I got it one game and it only tacked on +1 food +1 production to the desert. since it omits flood-plains this was pretty much only worthless tiles anyway. still helpful but by no means game-breakingly. It was very nice for desert hills though. That early +4 production AND food point is great. For desert tiles though: after farm this only makes them like a farmed plain. still barely normal.

But with this: Morocco + Desert Folklore + Petra + Kasbah = ridiculous desert tiles. They are better than normal tiles. Food is still only nominal, but a few flood-plains makes up for it. Total: +1 gold, +2 food, +2 production, +1 faith. And on golden ages every single tile doubles in gold because Kasbah adds that 1 gold to them all. On top of that, you're impossible to invade due to the +50% defense. Fortify in there and you're at double combat abilities. You'll break infantry with riflemen and riflemen with pikemen, on even footing just forget about it.

Well, as kaspergm explains above, deserts are considered low value tiles by the map generator, and as a consequence you get more bonus resources with a desert start. And although any flat desert tile just becomes the equivalent of a plain with Petra, a flat desert tile with a resource becomes a plain with a resource, and they're not half bad, and you will have quite a few of them.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Can I edit my file on a mac to make that change? I've never done any of that under the hood stuff.

Well, I don't know about file paths for macs, but for windows it goes something like this:
1) Go to the folder: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\Assets\DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML\Buildings
* This assumes you're using BNW
** You'll probably have to adjust the file path for Macs
*** On my computer it's Program Files (x86), so that may vary too

2) Open CIV5Buildings.xml with notepad

3) Find this (I recommend CTRL-F and using STONE_WORKS as a keyword rather than scrolling):

		<Row>
			<Type>BUILDING_STONE_WORKS</Type>
			<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_STONE_WORKS</BuildingClass>
			<Cost>75</Cost>
			<GoldMaintenance>1</GoldMaintenance>
			<PrereqTech>TECH_CALENDAR</PrereqTech>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_STONE_WORKS_HELP</Help>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_STONE_WORKS</Description>
			<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_CIV5_BUILDINGS_STONE_WORKS_TEXT</Civilopedia>
			<Strategy>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_STONE_WORKS_STRATEGY</Strategy>
			<ArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_BUILDING_FORGE</ArtDefineTag>
			<MinAreaSize>-1</MinAreaSize>
			<ConquestProb>66</ConquestProb>
			[B][COLOR="Red"]<ProhibitedCityTerrain>TERRAIN_PLAINS</ProhibitedCityTerrain>[/COLOR][/B]
			<Happiness>1</Happiness>
			<HurryCostModifier>0</HurryCostModifier>
			<IconAtlas>NEW_BLDG_ATLAS2_DLC</IconAtlas>
			<PortraitIndex>1</PortraitIndex>
		</Row>

4) Remove the bolded red line

5) Save and play

 

[joncnunn]

Also, you need to make a copy of it to another directory that steam doesn't know about in case firaxis later releases a patch that modifies that file to make it easier for you to re-implement the change.

 

[beetle]

Well, as kaspergm explains above, deserts are considered low value tiles by the map generator, and as a consequence you get more bonus resources with a desert start.

I think that skewing does two things:

1. Your starting city does not even need Petra to already be an above average location. The generator has undervalued nearby hills, so you are being overcompensated with resources.
2. The above average location lets you chase wonders that might otherwise be unobtainable at a high difficulty level. Petra is not the only wonder this applies to, but it’s an obvious choice.

I would argue that Petra is actually more important for a non-capital city. But then, you probably picked that spot despite the desert, not because of it, and it is also a very good spot. I have had only fair success getting Petra myself, so I don’t depend on it to salvage a location.

I agree that both dessert and Petra are over rated. But with this little reveal, it explains why dessert starts feel so OP. Yes, Petra merely changes poor tiles to average, but that’s in a location that is already excellent (either because of the generator or because you picked it).

 

[danaphanous]

Hmmm...well I haven't played a lot of desert starts. The one game I got Petra it just salvaged an awful non-start spot with a lot of desert resources and made them less food-negative. If what you are saying is true then I'm on your side...that does seem OP for start positions.

 

[CraigMak]

I think the idea is that plains already give you enough hammers, however just because you settled on a plains tile doesn't mean you are surrounded by plains. It's a very bad mechanic. I once settled on the only plains tile around me because it was jungle and I couldn't tell what was under the jungle and was unable to make stone works. very stupid

 

[Tabarnak]

I hate when i settle on a forest tile with stone tiles around to only discover that this tile was in fact a forested plains tile

 

[Nick Carpathia]

It's quite possible to check if a forest is grass or plains.

What really annoys me are Jungle tiles, which are by definition plains underneath, but still get the no stoneworks malus.

 

[beetle]

What really annoys me are Jungle tiles, which are by definition plains underneath

Is that always the case? Jungles are never grasslands when you clear them?