RFC Europe - Buildings Thread

[st.lucifer]

Can we have some fish near Cornwall, please?

I'm open to bribes.


And now, back to the original thread topic? I think of it as a measure of the mod's quality that all of our threads bleed into each other - everything's closely linked and indispensible.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Crabs should be around the Atlantic coasts from Norway to North Africa, and in the Eastern Med.

I'm open to bribes.


And now, back to the original thread topic? I think of it as a measure of the mod's quality that all of our threads bleed into each other - everything's closely linked and indispensible.

Indeed, so split up the specific building proposals I made earlier, slightly amended, so people can specific what they agree and disagree with...

A) Remove the Butcher, giving the Cows and Pig bonus to the Grocer and the Sheep Bonus to the Warehouse. Warehouse requires market.
B) Merge the Carpenter and Mason into a single production building called the 'Builders Yard' or something similar, that operates like the Blacksmith (base +10% production, +5% for timber, marble, and stone, unhealthiness and can run an engineer).
C) Change the Tanner to the Tannery, and make it a production building like the Blacksmith and Builders Yard (10% base gives, +5% from deer, pigs, cows. unhealthiness and can run an engineer).
D) With two new middle era percentage-based production buildings, the Guild Hall is altered to providing +1 hammer for every workshop in the city radius, gives 3 unhealth and lets you run an engineer.
E) The Textile Mill is the big late game production building, it can only be built in a riverside city, has no base production bonus, but gives +50% production with Coal, and +15% Commerce for Sheep and Cotton, gives unhealthiness and unhappiness, gives 1 engineer slot.
F) The Inn obsoletes with Liberalism, the Coffee House is its successor building and gains +4 espionage.
G) All the buildings that provide experience bonuses to units now cause unhappiness in their city.
H) Luxury store now gets bonus from Dye, so Grocer, Warehouse and Store all get advantages from six resources each. Warehouse and Luxury store both allow 1 merchant.
I) Smokehouse doesn't give health bonus from fish (as fish already get one from the lighthouse).
J) Weaver gets a +1 bonus from fur as well (due to tannery losing fur)
K) Dungeons cause unhealthiness
L) Walls cause +2 unhealthiness (due to overcrowding within the walls)
M) We work out what is up with the Austria Opera House, and change it so it resembles a theatre rather than a colleseum (I'd suggest it gives the bonus 10% culture, and 1 extra artist of its current iteration, and additionally +1 happy with marble).
N) Toll House obsoletes with Economics.
O) Manor House obsoletes with Constitution.
P) Herbalist obsoletes with Chemistry.
Q) The cost of some health buildings is increased - Aquaduct to 200, Smokehouse to 150, Hospital to 250, whilst the cost of the Apothecary is dropped to 75 - providing concrete benefit to getting Arabic Mediciene early on.

On a non building note - Civil Engineering only giving colonies and no, you know, engineering has oft annoyed me - how about we have it give another +1 road movement as well, to show infrastructure improvement.

 

[st.lucifer]

On a non building note - Civil Engineering only giving colonies and no, you know, engineering has oft annoyed me - how about we have it give another +1 road movement as well, to show infrastructure improvement.

I'm cheating and skipping right past the building proposals, because I'm intrigued by this idea - what about having a railroad-analogue in the form of 'paved roads', available with civil engineering and built in much the same way? Cobblestones and wooden plank turnpikes are well within the time frame of the mod, and did represent a significant improvement over the ephemeral muddy roads of the medieval period.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I'm cheating and skipping right past the building proposals, because I'm intrigued by this idea - what about having a railroad-analogue in the form of 'paved roads', available with civil engineering and built in much the same way? Cobblestones and wooden plank turnpikes are well within the time frame of the mod, and did represent a significant improvement over the ephemeral muddy roads of the medieval period.

Maybe, but it should be nothing like as powerful as railroads - maybe 3 free moves instead of 10? Keep the tile bonuses though...

 

[BurnEmDown]

Will 3 moves justify building it? Maybe it's building time should be shortened to 1 or 2 turns.
Or maybe just +1 road movement is better.

 

[st.lucifer]

Maybe, but it should be nothing like as powerful as railroads - maybe 3 free moves instead of 10? Keep the tile bonuses though...

Will 3 moves justify building it? Maybe it's building time should be shortened to 1 or 2 turns.
Or maybe just +1 road movement is better.

It's a big map, so while the railroad movement bonus may be overkill, BurnEmDown's right in noting that 3 free moves isn't necessarily worth much. I'll propose making them expensive to build, (10 worker turns?) and require both stone and timber.

As far as bonuses go, why not double movement along a paved road in the same way we do for ocean tiles? For an improvement bonus, we have a lot of production available on the map already, so I'd suggest adding a commerce bonus rather than a production or food bonus. Alternately, we could have a paved road give one extra food, hammer, or commerce, depending on what the tile produces the most or least of. That may not be possible or practical to code, and increases the learning curve a bit - the original suggestion is more familiar and probably more easily implemented.


This is still just a suggestion, but it gives workers something to do in the late game and represents the progress in overland travel that we start to see in the Renaissance and beyond - from muddy, bandit-infested paths through dense forests to rudimentary highways capable of supporting coaches and heavy horse traffic.

 

[merijn_v1]

I suggest paved roads have +1 more than normal roads. So 3 and with Vaulted Arches 4. They get +1 with Machine Tools. So they have 5. They don't get +1 from a mine, but +1 from a town (and even a village)

Summary
Road:
2, +1 with Vaulted Arches
Paved Road:
3, +1 with Vaulted Arches and +1 with Machine Tools. (5 total)
+1 from Town (and maybe village)

 

[Wessel V1]

That would make the cottage even more overpowered I think. I prefer a +1 production bonus for lumber- water- and windmills. We also have to alter production costs for certain units and buildings then, since many late cities can massively produce the most expensive units in no time (< 3 turns). It wouldn't hurt so much if these values are changed anyway IMO.

 

[sedna17]

I agree with all suggestions except:

B + C) Blacksmith, "builder's yard" and tannery are now all essentially the same, except for the specific resources they use. This occurs often in our current design also, but I regard it as less than ideal. In plain BTS, this doesn't happen; the closest is market (+25% gold +luxury) and grocer (+25% gold +health). On the other hand, perhaps it's easier for a player to remember that these three buildings are all the same except for their resources.
D) +1 hammer for workshops is redundant with a civic, and would make workshops by far the best choice. I preferred the original "Industrial-park-like" plan of allowing multiple engineers.
O) By default, "obsoleting" the Manor House will only mean that the -10% maintenance is lost (and, of course, that you can't build it anymore). The culture will (and should) stay, and the defensive bonus also stays. I don't think this is a problem, I'm just noting it.

I like the idea of a new fast road to be built by (otherwise bored) workers. Unfortunately the most important developments in road building appear to have occurred mid-to-late 1700s, too late to be important in our mod. The wikipedia article on this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_road_transport) says,

As states developed and became richer, especially with the Renaissance, new roads and bridges began to be built, often based on Roman designs. Although there were attempts to rediscover Roman methods, there was little useful innovation in road building before the 18th century.

Thus, our mental model can just be the establishment of more good roads rather than genuine new road-building technology. I don't think it matters that much. Gameplay will be improved by allowing faster land movement. I'll try a few combos of speed and cost and see what looks good.

A) Remove the Butcher, giving the Cows and Pig bonus to the Grocer and the Sheep Bonus to the Warehouse. Warehouse requires market.
B) Merge the Carpenter and Mason into a single production building called the 'Builders Yard' or something similar, that operates like the Blacksmith (base +10% production, +5% for timber, marble, and stone, unhealthiness and can run an engineer).
C) Change the Tanner to the Tannery, and make it a production building like the Blacksmith and Builders Yard (10% base gives, +5% from deer, pigs, cows. unhealthiness and can run an engineer).
D) With two new middle era percentage-based production buildings, the Guild Hall is altered to providing +1 hammer for every workshop in the city radius, gives 3 unhealth and lets you run an engineer.
E) The Textile Mill is the big late game production building, it can only be built in a riverside city, has no base production bonus, but gives +50% production with Coal, and +15% Commerce for Sheep and Cotton, gives unhealthiness and unhappiness, gives 1 engineer slot.
F) The Inn obsoletes with Liberalism, the Coffee House is its successor building and gains +4 espionage.
G) All the buildings that provide experience bonuses to units now cause unhappiness in their city.
H) Luxury store now gets bonus from Dye, so Grocer, Warehouse and Store all get advantages from six resources each. Warehouse and Luxury store both allow 1 merchant.
I) Smokehouse doesn't give health bonus from fish (as fish already get one from the lighthouse).
J) Weaver gets a +1 bonus from fur as well (due to tannery losing fur)
K) Dungeons cause unhealthiness
L) Walls cause +2 unhealthiness (due to overcrowding within the walls)
M) We work out what is up with the Austria Opera House, and change it so it resembles a theatre rather than a colleseum (I'd suggest it gives the bonus 10% culture, and 1 extra artist of its current iteration, and additionally +1 happy with marble).
N) Toll House obsoletes with Economics.
O) Manor House obsoletes with Constitution.
P) Herbalist obsoletes with Chemistry.
Q) The cost of some health buildings is increased - Aquaduct to 200, Smokehouse to 150, Hospital to 250, whilst the cost of the Apothecary is dropped to 75 - providing concrete benefit to getting Arabic Mediciene early on.

On a non building note - Civil Engineering only giving colonies and no, you know, engineering has oft annoyed me - how about we have it give another +1 road movement as well, to show infrastructure improvement.

 

[embryodead]

Regarding roads, what I really liked about the Charlemagne scenario bundled with BTS was the pre-placed Roman Roads. Some of them survived into the Middle Ages proper, even a few fragments of them alongside normal roads make the map look really cool and they don't have to be buildable.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I agree with all suggestions except:

B + C) Blacksmith, "builder's yard" and tannery are now all essentially the same, except for the specific resources they use. This occurs often in our current design also, but I regard it as less than ideal. In plain BTS, this doesn't happen; the closest is market (+25% gold +luxury) and grocer (+25% gold +health). On the other hand, perhaps it's easier for a player to remember that these three buildings are all the same except for their resources.

I actually prefer the design, as it makes the player have to think about their situation (which of the buildings to go for first/second/if at all considering the unhealthiness) whilest providing some base bonus if they get it wrong.

D) +1 hammer for workshops is redundant with a civic, and would make workshops by far the best choice. I preferred the original "Industrial-park-like" plan of allowing multiple engineers.

You're probably correct about that, now should it be 2 engineer slots for 2 health or 3 for 3?

I like the idea of a new fast road to be built by (otherwise bored) workers. Unfortunately the most important developments in road building appear to have occurred mid-to-late 1700s, too late to be important in our mod. The wikipedia article on this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_road_transport) says,

Thus, our mental model can just be the establishment of more good roads rather than genuine new road-building technology. I don't think it matters that much. Gameplay will be improved by allowing faster land movement. I'll try a few combos of speed and cost and see what looks good.

Sounds good, I do think that a better version of the 'road' type movement rather than 'railroad' type movement would be more desireable - horses still ride along roads faster. Additionally we could say flavour-wise that it's improvements in bridge and tunnel building (hence coming with Civil Engineering) allowing previously difficult features to be bypassed rather than a leap forward in road technologies.

 

[st.lucifer]

You're probably correct about that, now should it be 2 engineer slots for 2 health or 3 for 3?

I vote for 2/2. This makes it possible to run 3 engineers, while the current system caps out at 1.

Sounds good, I do think that a better version of the 'road' type movement rather than 'railroad' type movement would be more desireable - horses still ride along roads faster. Additionally we could say flavour-wise that it's improvements in bridge and tunnel building (hence coming with Civil Engineering) allowing previously difficult features to be bypassed rather than a leap forward in road technologies.

That's more or less what I had in mind - I thought that paving would be a good way of representing that, but we could really just phrase it as 'improved road'. If we were to bump movement along improved roads to half cost, or 5 tiles/move, that would essentially duplicate the function of railroads in RFC without overpowering them. A 1-movement unit would still take several turns to travel across a large country such as France or Spain, but cavalry units could travel quickly across long distances on improved roads. Requiring roads to be improved by workers increases the need for workers in the late game, and represents the increased spending and labor required to update the infrastructure.

 

[jessiecat]

Sounds good to me. Let's do it.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I vote for 2/2. This makes it possible to run 3 engineers, while the current system caps out at 1.

Well the proposed changes to the Tannery and Builders yard included them freeing up 1 engineer slot allowing a total of 5, albeit at the cost of 8 unhealthiness.

Should we a) remove the engineer slots from the 3 production buildings and just have the guild hall slots, b) have only the blacksmith retain an engineer slot, c) only the blacksmith gets an engineer but the tannery and builders yard get something else to compensate d) keep all five slots, or e) remove the 3 production building slots but give an engineer slot to another early building (Siege Workshop?).

As to the roads, we can call them Raised Roads - building them above the natural level to improve drainage was a major development (if less important than Tarmac and gravelwork) and was within the timeframe of the mods late techs (18th century). This also allows us to keep the 'RR' short designation .

 

[st.lucifer]

Well the proposed changes to the Tannery and Builders yard included them freeing up 1 engineer slot allowing a total of 5, albeit at the cost of 8 unhealthiness.

Should we a) remove the engineer slots from the 3 production buildings and just have the guild hall slots, b) have only the blacksmith retain an engineer slot, c) only the blacksmith gets an engineer but the tannery and builders yard get something else to compensate d) keep all five slots, or e) remove the 3 production building slots but give an engineer slot to another early building (Siege Workshop?).

Why not break it down this way:
Blacksmith -1H 1 engineer possible
Guild Hall -2H 1 engineer 1 merchant possible
Tannery -1H 1 engineer possible
Construction Yard -1H 1 engineer possible

The siege workshop suggestion is interesting. It also brings up another possible deficiency - a blacksmith should probably be a requirement for a siege workshop. And while we have too many buildings as is, I'm wondering if it might be worth putting in a separate armorer building, available with plate armor, which would give +1xp to all pre-gunpowder units.

As to the roads, we can call them Raised Roads - building them above the natural level to improve drainage was a major development (if less important than Tarmac and gravelwork) and was within the timeframe of the mods late techs (18th century). This also allows us to keep the 'RR' short designation .

Works for me.

 

[jessiecat]

The siege workshop suggestion is interesting. It also brings up another possible deficiency - a blacksmith should probably be a requirement for a siege workshop. And while we have too many buildings as is, I'm wondering if it might be worth putting in a separate armorer building, available with plate armor, which would give +1xp to all pre-gunpowder units.

Why not just have it upgrade to Armourer with Plate Armour? No extra building, just a change of name?

 

[Disenfrancised]

Why not break it down this way:
Blacksmith -1H 1 engineer possible
Guild Hall -2H 1 engineer 1 merchant possible
Tannery -1H 1 engineer possible
Construction Yard -1H 1 engineer possible

The siege workshop suggestion is interesting. It also brings up another possible deficiency - a blacksmith should probably be a requirement for a siege workshop. And while we have too many buildings as is, I'm wondering if it might be worth putting in a separate armorer building, available with plate armor, which would give +1xp to all pre-gunpowder units.

Brainwave - the Guildhall, rather than allowing specialists, gives a bonus from them in the city instead! Either 1 hammer per specialist, or 1 gold per specialist, or 1/2 hammer per engineer and 2 gold per merchent or artist (representing craftsmen). Still gives -2 health though. This shows the increased productivity of artisans working together, and we then leave 4 possible Engineer slots from each of the production buildings and seige workshop (we also make the seige workshop rather more expensive - its a rare royal cannon foundary and school of trebucet builders rather than commonplace).

Thus the player thinks about what they're doing - if its a specialist economy then the Guildhall is good, otherwise its effectively one less building.

 

[st.lucifer]

Brainwave - the Guildhall, rather than allowing specialists, gives a bonus from them in the city instead! Either 1 hammer per specialist, or 1 gold per specialist, or 1/2 hammer per engineer and 2 gold per merchent or artist (representing craftsmen). Still gives -2 health though. This shows the increased productivity of artisans working together, and we then leave 4 possible Engineer slots from each of the production buildings and seige workshop (we also make the seige workshop rather more expensive - its a rare royal cannon foundary and school of trebucet builders rather than commonplace).

Thus the player thinks about what they're doing - if its a specialist economy then the Guildhall is good, otherwise its effectively one less building.

I like it. I'd vote for 1 gold/specialist - 1 hammer could add up really fast, especially when bonuses from blacksmith et al are applied.

Making the siege workshop more expensive also represents how expensive/complicated massive siege equipment was.

 

[sedna17]

I think we can only (easily) apply a single bonus to all specialists. +1 gold to all specialists seems not overpowered.

I started modding some of these changes last night. I couldn't bring myself to give walls +. It's historically appropriate and I like having more , but...

The problem is, as a human player, I would just not build walls, and I'd be fine. The number of times you'll find yourself seriously defending a city is pretty small, the AI just isn't that competent at attacking. But I like building walls and castles. Without a downside I can still in good conscience them when I have nothing else to do

 

[BurnEmDown]

I think the problem is the AI. For example in my latest England game I conquered northern France and was about to take Paris, I noticed that France had a huge stack in Bordeux, something like 10 knights 4 terbs and 6 or so Foot soldiers (the ones with 7 STR and 20% city attack I think). France could easily use this stack to take back it's cities but it chose to keep it there and let itself collapse after I took Paris.