SDK Request - New building effects based on number of bonuses

[Ahriman]

IIRC, most of the complications from corporation maintenance come arise when the corporation is spread to multiple cities. Its no so bad with just the single city corp.

Certainly, even with large numbers of spice resources, the spice corps don't seem to have sizeable maintenance costs.

 

[God-Emperor]

IIRC, most of the complications from corporation maintenance come arise when the corporation is spread to multiple cities. Its no so bad with just the single city corp.

Certainly, even with large numbers of spice resources, the spice corps don't seem to have sizeable maintenance costs.

In my current game, with 40 spice resources the corporation maintenance is only 3.58 before the Tribunal cuts it in half. That is located in a pop 13 city (my capital, which turned out to be rather water limited so it is stable at this size with every possible water producing/modifying building and improvement).

This cost is pocket change.

 

[Ahriman]

This cost is pocket change.

Yes, corp maintenance is trivial *if* the corp is only in its headquarters city.

Hence, just switching to a wonder that gives +3 gold per spice will be almost identical, but much cleaner.

 

[Ahriman]

1.6.5 looks great, I'm looking forward to trying it, and it seems to have fixed many of our current issues. Can I suggest this thread's sdk changes as a priority for the next version? I think it would add a lot.

 

[Deliverator]

The Wonder paper design includes a couple of uses of this. Since we want the new wonders for 1.7, now would be a good time.

 

[davidlallen]

Not completely working yet, but here is a teaser.

 

[Afforess]

Nice work. I just noticed this thread. I'll have to "borrow" this feature once it's done.

 

[Deliverator]

Not completely working yet, but here is a teaser.

Good stuff.

 

[davidlallen]

Well, it is working, but I need some suggestions on how to display the effect. I have attached the files you can use to try it; install over 1.6.5 only. If you build your initial palace and look at the help, you will see it has huge bonuses for all the yields and commerces. Now use WB to give yourself some spice resources and put harvesters on them. If you hunt around in the city screen, you can see the effects. For example, if you have five spice resources, you will see a lot of extra water and hammer income at the top of the city screen; you will see a high espionage per turn rate in the espionage screen, etc. All of the computations are working. The key new text in the building xml file is:

	<BonusConsumed>BONUS_SPICE</BonusConsumed>
	<CommerceProduced>
		<iCommerce>200</iCommerce>
		<iCommerce>300</iCommerce>
		<iCommerce>400</iCommerce>
		<iCommerce>500</iCommerce>
	</CommerceProduced>
	<YieldProduced>
		<iYield>600</iYield>
		<iYield>700</iYield>
		<iYield>800</iYield>
	</YieldProduced>

The four commerce values are gold, beakers, culture, espionage, and the three yield values are food, hammers, commerce. The values are divided by 100 before use.

In the city screen, when you hover over any building, you get a *static* help text. It says what the building does. It does not give you any actual rates. Every player and every city will show the same help. I can't think of any place where you can see values which are different for each building. Any suggestions?

I have overloaded some of the corporation fields so these building yields look just like corporation yields. That does not seem to help much.

If you also found your civ's spice corporation, you will see even more commerce income. At least for this one, there is a popup where you can see the effects. In the upper right part of the city screen, there is a list of all the corps in the city. The hover help for the corp does show the dynamic effect. That is, the commerce income shown there is multiplied by the number of resources you control. So for corporations, you can see all the values.

Where should I display the values for the building?

 

[Slvynn]

great job indeed

 

[Ahriman]

It sounds like its working, fantastic.

Where should I display the values for the building?

I'm not sure I quite understand the question.
i) Spice corps will just be buildings; we will remove the corporation aspect of them entirely.
ii) The buildings should display their yields in the building list, just like for religious shrines.

This may be a foolish question (I don't understand the technical issues), but can we also make sure that this gets released as a modcomp that can easily be plugged into other mods (and that it can work for any resource the mod designers want)?

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

but can we also make sure that this gets released as a modcomp that can easily be plugged into other mods (and that it can work for any resource the mod designers want)?

yes please we could really use this for warhammer

 

[davidlallen]

ii) The buildings should display their yields in the building list, just like for religious shrines.

Ah, thank you. I wasn't able to find an existing example where the yield of the building is dynamic. That is the example I was looking for. I can probably find how the shrine alters its hover help, and do the same thing. That will be the right solution.

can we also make sure that this gets released as a modcomp that can easily be plugged into other mods (and that it can work for any resource the mod designers want)?

It will work for any *one* resource the person writing the xml wants. I did not put in the more complicated code to allow a list of resources. I have done a number of very small changes, each of which is probably not interesting to other modders. This one may be interesting, so I will try to release it as a modcomp. It is not obvious how to do this, because the changes for this feature occur in files, which also have dozens of other dune wars related changes. In addition these files are (currently) built on an old version of RevDCM, so these files also contain dozens of RevDCM changes.

Once "we" figure out the best way to release, "you" (the Warhammer team) will need to merge my changes into your sdk. As I recall, you do not have any sdk programmers, not even for merges of modcomps, so this may be a problem for you.

 

[Ahriman]

I did not put in the more complicated code to allow a list of resources.

Unfortunate. Is this something that you might have the time to easily add, out of the goodness of your heart? Hopefully its mostly some copy and paste.

It is not obvious how to do this, because the changes for this feature occur in files, which also have dozens of other dune wars related changes. In addition these files are (currently) built on an old version of RevDCM, so these files also contain dozens of RevDCM changes.

Hmm, sounds challenging.

As I recall, you do not have any sdk programmers, not even for merges of modcomps, so this may be a problem for you.

We managed to acquire a part-time SDK programmer (Opera, who has worked on Orbis for FFH and the LENA modmod of Orbis), so hopefully we might be able to merge it in.

 

[davidlallen]

Based on Ahriman's observation about shrines, I have now added part of the missing information to the city screen. See this thread for details and hopefully a solution. The civilopedia screen in the attachment above already gives enough information to show whether the new xml is correct, and the in-game effect is correct. So I'm not going to post the small improvement in the hover help; I will wait till I get the building list data correct as well. But, the internals are done, working, and ready for use.

 

[davidlallen]

After a tip from returning guru koma13, I have fixed the other part of the city screen, so the modcomp is completely working. Attached is a replacement zipfile which you can use to test the feature; it makes the palace a huge powerhouse producing everything. I have also packaged it as a separate modcomp in this thread.

 

[Ahriman]

so the modcomp is completely working

Great job guys - thanks to David and Koma.

 

[davidlallen]

There are a few different threads I probably could have posted this on, but I assume most frequent readers follow all new posts. (If you are not reading this, please let me know.)

Since we have the yield per resource consumed capability in 1.7, it is time to remove the spice corporations and replace them with a direct yield per resource. This has been part of the game since certainly 1.1, possibly before.

So, you would think I understand how this existing capability works. But, I cannot figure it out. The corporation is defined to give 3 commerce per spice. So, I should just look in the capitol city screen to find the number of connected spice resources and multiply by 3 to find the corporation income. Then I should be able to check this number in the financial advisor, in the leftmost commerce column for corporations.

I have checked a few and I have no idea how this number is computed. In one late game I had 31 spice resources connected, and my corp income was 70. In one early game I had 6 spice resources connected and my corp income was 36. WTH ??

Perhaps I have forgotten something simple. I plan to remove all the corps and corp buildings, and instead give you a +3 commerce income per spice, on your palace building. That will be easier to understand, hopefully. But it seems I cannot predict what effect it will have on relative commerce rates, since I cannot understand how the corp commerce is computed.

Any simple reminders?

 

[Deliverator]

IIRC the HQ building currently gives ~+5 gold, +1 beaker, and the corp gives +3 gold per spice, and some maintenance.
A buildnig that gave +3 gold per spice with no maintenance should be pretty similar to this, no?

It's probably pretty similar and easier to understand than corporate maintenance which has an insanely complicated formula.

We pretty much agreed earlier in this thread that a building giving +3 commerce per spice was roughly equivalent to the one city corporation approach. Cutting maintenance out of the picture should only make a small difference.

I'm wondering whether it might be interesting to keep CHOAM as a Corporation, rename the Landsraad Directorate -> CHOAM Directorate and have it produce corporation income for CHOAM. Alternately, go for the building approach as have CHOAM Directorate give a small amount of additional income per spice.

 

[Ahriman]

I have checked a few and I have no idea how this number is computed. In one late game I had 31 spice resources connected, and my corp income was 70. In one early game I had 6 spice resources connected and my corp income was 36. WTH ??

Very strange. Is that from the financial screen? In general the mouseover corporation yield in the city screen that has the corp seems to be fairly predictable.

We pretty much agreed earlier in this thread that a building giving +3 commerce per spice was roughly equivalent to the one city corporation approach.

I think I'd make it +3 gold, not commerce. So you can get a huge gold income, but still can't run more than 100% science and so there is some cap on how much you can power ahead.
I like the idea of spice maknig you rich, not making to technologically advanced.

I'm wondering whether it might be interesting to keep CHOAM as a Corporation, rename the Landsraad Directorate -> CHOAM Directorate and have it produce corporation income for CHOAM. Alternately, go for the building approach as have CHOAM Directorate give a small amount of additional income per spice.

I think the Landsraad religion works fine as it is. Having a trade religion helps keep it separate from Imperium, which is a culture, happiness and diplomacy religion.
I don't see any gain from trying to use corporation mechanics from it instead.
But the Landsraad shrine building should also get the +3 gold per spice.
And yes, Landsraad directorate should be renamed CHOAM directorate, which is what it was always intended to be called.