I'll change the requirement for smokehouse from charcoal to wood, I've never even considered using charcoal in the smokehouse at my cabin, and as DH said charcoal isn't very smoky.
If you're doing any adjustments from this discussion pre-release, take care because I'm not sure that wood can be collected so early and not having a way to collect wood so early could cause some unforseen bind-ups in prerequisites. Though I have to admit it's very nice to see the pedia identifying where bonuses are used in the game so maybe it can be done more safely than I fear. It's possible, aka, that the OR prereq for the smokehouse was due to not having access to wood in any way that early.
Instead of making a new tag that obsoletes a resource but make it always on; why not just obsolete it and give a later building that has "+1
with XY" a flat +1
in the first place?
Because I'm going to be moving more towards the + gold with x bonus model in v39. That's part of what this discussion is for. I want us to start identifying where (in terms of buildings) products are brought to market or applied so that new planned tags for +x commerce or yield per population (measured in 2 decimal places so as low as potentially '+.01 gold per population' applications can be exactly how bonuses become useful to collect and possess access to. On the supply side, I'm also looking to get us to establish where bonuses are produced. Are they byproducts or are they something you go out of the way to make. If they are something you go out of the way to make, then what type of industrial or agricultural category do they fall into? This will be equally as important to identify because I'm going to seek to limit how many of a particular category of producer can be constructed in a given city, so that the production of resources becomes a nationwide effort rather than everything being made everywhere. Those limits may be manipulated by the player, and to do so may take sacrifices elsewhere, like cutting into how many commercial buildings you can build or other categories of production buildings.
With such a system, it will be absolutely necessary to break away from applying many flat modifiers. Flat modifiers may end up a little rare by the time this journey is complete.
Also I like the concept of buildings and resources influence techs A LOT. IMO, there shouldn't be any techs available that deal with molecular medicine or advanced physics if you don't have a physics or molecular biology lab.
We had not brought up buildings, and we were talking more about the presence of a bonus making it harder or easier to research a tech but what you suggest is actually 2 new ideas. 1) That the presence of at least one or more of a particular building can count as a bonus in this case (I would suggest to create a bonus to reflect this instead since having the code filter for that presence is going to require a slowdown or ugly caching that will still represent a slowdown now and then. Yes, certain types of research might be valid as a bonus AND trade worthy - An Anatomy Lab could give an Anatomy Research bonus.) and/or 2)A tech tag to reflect a modifier to its cost if a bonus is NOT possessed by the civilization. Maybe one tech tag that you get the nested boolean to say - 'modifier here is for if you HAVE the bonus' OR 'modifier here is for if you DON'T have the bonus' would be the way to address this.
Ok, I'm intrigued by this discussion surrounding Charcoal.
Let me spill some beans, as I just did a little in response to Mouse. I'm looking for how many ways a resource can be a positive strategic element in the game. If we can identify even a few, I don't feel that the ability to assume existence is not necessarily a reason to remove the resource. Because at the early stages of its introduction it could be ignored or overlooked or simply not prioritized enough to consume the limited city space for producing that category of resource. This then could make it something valuable to trade for because you just haven't had the room, construction time, or whatever, to generate the stuff.
Ash, I agree, is very trivial. It is such a byproduct that no nation even has to try to have it and more commonly it is garbage material to get rid of.
Charcoal, on the other hand, is not. I was really curious to see if we would find it to be just as trivial as Ash and thus worth eliminating. But I don't think we've made that determination at all.
Making charcoal is about getting rid of the stuff that makes the smoke
This sounds like it is NOT a simple byproduct but something one has to go out of the way to create. Further:
It can't be produced as a by product and there are small and large charcoal production facilities. One person can make enough for a village or two today. It does require a managed forest to produce enough wood for the production of charcoal. It is not the same wood that you would use for lumber but it is not "scrap" either. Though some scrap can be used if it is clean enough.
There are five producing building, four of which are prehistoric. A specialized charcoal maker exists for late ages.
Looking at the list, I think we are in error in how we give access to Charcoal. Aside from Charcoal Burner, a building to specifically generate charcoal, we are indicating it as a byproduct with the buildings that generate it for society. This is making it feel like an assumed possessed resource. Fire Pit and Bonfire... perhaps good OR prereqs for a Charcoal Maker's Hut or something along those lines, but we should NOT be saying that they automatically produce charcoal if charcoal is indeed NOT a byproduct.
In terms of charcoal history, is it actually too early to say that they were making the stuff? Or are we suggesting that in the earliest FORMS of charcoal, that it was something that was collected from the byproducts that were really just right to be considered Charcoal. This, too, would be a specific industrial effort for a community to engage in, so a Charcoal Collector might be the best early building for this?
My point is, we need to make the collection and generation of commercial grade charcoal be an evolving pathway of dedicated buildings that would compete with other possible bonus-generating buildings such that you may, and in many cases would, opt to not have one. This will remove the sensation of it being an assumed resource your civilization has access to.
Further, access to wood would be a prerequisite for any building that generates charcoal. You might be able to justify that you can find burnable material for a fire pit no matter where you are, but if you can't get wood, you can't make charcoal. And it is very possible to end up without a wood source anywhere nearby. If you're on a huge scrub without a forest or any real wood products, or a desert, or permafrost... very easy to not have access in some slightly extreme environments. This means it is NOT assumable that the civilization would automatically be assumable to have access to it.
Charcoal is considered the least desirable fuel when blacksmithing. While readily available, charcoal may not even reach the necessary temperature to soften iron and steel without a lot of fuel and constant airflow. You can burn through a lot of charcoal quickly and still not achieve the proper temperatures.
- This is the main reason to keep the differentiation between charcoal and coal. Coal burns hotter and also longer per kg fuel. One can smelt iron and steel with it, though it is easier with regular coal.
- Classical romans were the first to use it for iron smelting.
- Wikipedia - "In the 16th century, England had to pass laws to prevent the country from becoming completely denuded of trees due to production of iron. In the 19th century charcoal was largely replaced by coke, baked coal, in steel production due to cost."
Thus, Charcoal suits as an OR prerequisite for many industrial buildings, as just wood isn't good enough. BUT being a poor substitute for better, we would represent that with access to, say, Coal, giving a bonus to the benefit from those buildings, or a reduction in their penalties (like pollution), though in the case you mentioned, coal seems to enhance pollution so maybe you'd prefer to NOT have a more productive building at the cost of it being more polluting (with access to coal) and thus avoid getting coal access at first. It might eventually be best to strongly cut down on how many places are generating charcoal if we're working with a more volumetric system (which this is all intended to help set us up for being able to more easily and effectively implement in a manner that makes a strategic impact.)
Charcoal generating buildings would consume wood resources in a volumetric system. For now, the existence of wood is still boolean. But again, getting setup for volumetric is part of the point here and converting one limited thing to another limited thing is a part of how that plays out.
So where would Charcoal add benefit to your civilization? How do we make it worth generating or trading for in a system where there are limits to trade good generating sources?
Positive effect applications mentioned (and more I've thought of):
- Imu - rather than being a generator of charcoal, should probably be a better building WITH charcoal, as it makes it more efficient and enjoyed (thus more food is consumed and increased food efficiency). So something like +.1 food per population with access to charcoal. (And we reduce or eliminate the Imu's base food bonus.) This would also count for any other central cooking facility in the game more specialized than a fire pit.
- DH said - "It is a clean source of heating for houses." So it could counteract some heating unhealth source or give some +health to a heat source that should be providing health but doesn't under the assumption of unclean fuel unless you have access to charcoal. I'm thinking of the Hypocausts building here but there are potentially others.
- DH said - "on the barbecue" - the obvious for most of us. So it is useful to be sold to folks at a market. Some market buildings, thus could reflect this private usage by a +.0x food per population with charcoal(from how it benefits society in the same way is the Imu uses charcoal) and a +.0x gold per population with charcoal(from taxed proceeds of the sales) Note that Coal would NOT be beneficial to be applied in this manner thus again there is a differentiation enough to validate Charcoal's existence.
- DH said - "Then there are the artistic uses of it." Hell yeah there are. Not just that, in some societies, this was its primary use. In the earliest eras, charcoal is equal to pencil. Writing can't even take place without it or something else to write with. So at least there would be some reflection of this. If we have a stationary store, it would certainly get a gold bonus. For cave paintings and so on, a culture bonus. We'd need to review all buildings we have to see where this 'artistic' effect becomes a possible OR prereq or a way to enhance the building's effects.
- Joe said -"Many Water purification processes use Charcoal today. Most Refrigerators that have water taps have charcoal filters. Many kitchen sinks water systems also use Charcoal filters. I think some Air filtration system may also use charcoal. need to check up on that though." Thus it becomes a prerequisite for filtration system manufacturing and/or a way to improve certain buildings to influence them to reduce pollution further and/or directly increase health.
Given this list of ways to make Charcoal count in the game, I think we have lots of reason to keep it and demand a dedicated line of buildings (of which the Charcoal Burner becomes one step in that evolutionary line) for generating it. But we should also plan to eliminate it as an assumed byproduct of other industrial buildings.
By category, this would be a 'Wood Industry' resource. There MUST be a significant amount of such category resources in the game for there to be a significant reason to strategically balance out improvement usage on plots (either locally or at least nationally)... another goal this discussion is leading to.
Before I summarize some determinations on the tracking post on page one of this thread, thoughts anyone?
They clean water by removing heavy metals.
