Specializing cities

[Harrier]

One concern is that the Tier 1 penalties sound hefty to me. I would be surprised if many of the buildings they unlock provide any benefit at all after that malus.

Just looked further and all the penalties seem too high.

I agree. The tier 1 penalties would stop players using them. -6% may be better.

Tier 2 - why do most have "+2:sick:, +2unhappy" ? Some are not as tasking as others.

Tier 3/4. Again %s need some reworking (some seem to severe).

 

[JosEPh_II]

I'm rather getting the impression that Hydro's oeuvre has become a sacred cow in C2C circles, so any shortcomings it may have end up directing disproportionately more time than they should, compared to other flaws that may need fixing instead.

Yes it was. But that is slowly changing as Hydro's presence is scarce to none now to say the least. The "sacred grounds" have been trodden upon by new palefaces. There are winds of change stirring, old aires are being dissipated in a new breeze. But beware! Lest the Frost King returns.

JosEPh

 

[Noriad2]

@RWN: for military focus, did you take into account that sometimes, excess food is used to help build units? As -10% food has a much-bigger-than-10% impact on the excess of food, a military focus may cause a considerable drop in unit production. I hope the access to additional buildings is worth that.

 

[Sparth]

Yes it was. But that is slowly changing as Hydro's presence is scarce to none now to say the least. The "sacred grounds" have been trodden upon by new palefaces. There are winds of change stirring, old aires are being dissipated in a new breeze. But beware! Lest the Frost King returns.

Hehe. Winter is Coming for sure

 

[Rwn]

One concern is that the Tier 1 penalties sound hefty to me. I would be surprised if many of the buildings they unlock provide any benefit at all after that malus.

Just looked further and all the penalties seem too high. Only the most currently OP buildings will be worthwhile, and they need fixing. Then when they are fixed, you will have virtually no beneficial buildings to build.

From my playtest it felt on the contrary too low (I'm wondering whether it shouldn't be doubled...). Remember that having just 2 education levels already gives you enough bonuses to make up for the tier 1 focus penalties, and that focuses unlock buildings that gives bonuses higher that the focus penalty itself. In practice, I found the penalties nearly imperceptible.

Also, the main benefit of a focus is the buildings it unlocks, not so much its direct bonuses. So even if some focuses are not as good as others or seem to carry significant penalties you'll want to build them at least occasionnally, especially as the ones you find most interesting will be more expensive.

That said, my mind is far from set set on the various direct bonuses/maluses (I even initially considered removing them altogether, but I find it gives a nice flavor), so your comments are welcome to tweak them.

@RWN: for military focus, did you take into account that sometimes, excess food is used to help build units? As -10% food has a much-bigger-than-10% impact on the excess of food, a military focus may cause a considerable drop in unit production. I hope the access to additional buildings is worth that.

That's a good point. At the moment I feel military focus is a bit weaker than the others (the main reason I'd want to build it early is for the Hunting Instruction building), so I could probably increase the military production bonus.

 

[Faustmouse]

It looks very interesting on a first glace, impressive job!

1) I just wonder about the Health focus. I can see that some cities have a famous university or hospital for a certain disease, but this focus shouldn't unlock so important - disease and buildings (at least not all of them...)

2a) A big Airport doesn't mean the city is great at space travel as well. It can be very difficult to lauch rockets when you have lots of air travel around. I'd consider splitting these two or merge the airport with trading.

2b) Have you considered that one focus gives a bonus to another? Like, if you have a trading city, it is more likely that they will develope a bigger port so they can trade even more / better. Or a city that produces gems and other intermediate products probably likes to manufacture them to the finish products as well (same is true for mining and processing since ore is HEAVY compared to an intermediate product like ingots).

3) What about obsoleting of focuses? Gathering appears to be a thing of the past by now.

4) I also don't mind the huge penalties. It's a trade-off after all and you want ot "force" players into specializing. That's fine for me

It's good to see some people with fresh ideas and energy to play around with old structures

 

[Rwn]

It looks very interesting on a first glace, impressive job!

1) I just wonder about the Health focus. I can see that some cities have a famous university or hospital for a certain disease, but this focus shouldn't unlock so important - disease and buildings (at least not all of them...)

Hm, agreed, there could be some basic buildings that don't require any focus, like the healer's hut, so that every city shouldn't have to develop this focus to grow past a certain point.

2a) A big Airport doesn't mean the city is great at space travel as well. It can be very difficult to lauch rockets when you have lots of air travel around. I'd consider splitting these two or merge the airport with trading.

TBH there's a lot of room for improvement on late-tier focuses, I haven't put too much work there since I want to see how it goes in the early game first. There could certainly be a separate focus for air and space, yes or new focuses for specific modern buildings or issues (ecology, energy production...).

2b) Have you considered that one focus gives a bonus to another? Like, if you have a trading city, it is more likely that they will develope a bigger port so they can trade even more / better. Or a city that produces gems and other intermediate products probably likes to manufacture them to the finish products as well (same is true for mining and processing since ore is HEAVY compared to an intermediate product like ingots).

This is indirectly simulated by giving access to buildings that require two (or more) focuses. I'm not sure "fixed" synergies would be good since it'll support either trying to build everything everywhere or specializing cities always in the same manner.

3) What about obsoleting of focuses? Gathering appears to be a thing of the past by now.

I've tried to broaden first-tier focuses to something else than just early techniques so that they stay relevant . Food includes cooking for example, production includes building construction, etc.
That said, I like the idea to alter focuses effects by tech in some way - maybe the tier 1 focuses could be "updated" into new tier 1 focuses at some point.

4) I also don't mind the huge penalties. It's a trade-off after all and you want ot "force" players into specializing. That's fine for me

It's good to see some people with fresh ideas and energy to play around with old structures

Thanks!
Honestly, players shouldn't be afraid of the penalties, I really found them much less impactful that I expected.

 

[Harrier]

3) What about obsoleting of focuses? Gathering appears to be a thing of the past by now.

What about gathering wild mushrooms (porcini, etc), wild herbs, truffles etc. Agreed, only small scale but still occurs. Not that this is really relevant to the game.

 

[Rwn]

What about gathering wild mushrooms (porcini, etc), wild herbs, truffles etc. Agreed, only small scale but still occurs. Not that this is really relevant to the game.

Currently they are behind the "Farming" focus, which is roughly equivalent to the "Raw materials" focus for food/plants.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

There is one problem I see with these, you can choose a specialization before you get the tech that defines it.

I would see gathering upgrading to herding at Dog Domestication, pastoralism at Animal Husbandry or farming at Agriculture.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

How does this work with the "Free at Tech" tag on the buildings. In particular the market, barracks and the like you are supposed to get with the Colonist and Pioneer units. You currently don't because the AI can't and I was in the middle of fixing it. Then I remembered we don't need Platyping's mod for anything but the extra pop and we can do that another way also.

 

[Rwn]

How does this work with the "Free at Tech" tag on the buildings. In particular the market, barracks and the like you are supposed to get with the Colonist and Pioneer units. You currently don't because the AI can't and I was in the middle of fixing it. Then I remembered we don't need Platyping's mod for anything but the extra pop and we can do that another way also.

Well, that remains to be checked since I don't know exactly how those free buildings will be built when it'll work, but my guess is that they will be built in the city and immediately deactivated because they are missing the prerequisites (meaning that if you build the required specialization later, you'll indeed get the building for free but not before). Sounds rather good if it indeed works that way.
(by the way, the Market has no specialization prerequisite, it's one of the "key" buildings that any city should be able to build regardless of specialization).

For this modmod I'm currently considering streamlining things a bit and completely removing all the bonus/malus for each specialization (which are a bit intimidating, confusing and cluttering the interface) and instead replace them by a maintenance penalty (such as +10% maintenance per spe., more for higher spe.). Much easier to understand and manage while still achieving what I want.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

FYI It is the NewCityFree tag. I think it is only set in some of the optional modmods at the moment.

 

[Rwn]

FYI It is the NewCityFree tag. I think it is only set in some of the optional modmods at the moment.

Oh, the NewCityFree, I remember now Well I'll test that some time.

 

[Yudishtira]

How does this work with the "Free at Tech" tag on the buildings. In particular the market, barracks and the like you are supposed to get with the Colonist and Pioneer units. You currently don't because the AI can't and I was in the middle of fixing it. Then I remembered we don't need Platyping's mod for anything but the extra pop and we can do that another way also.

It just occurred to me to wonder why the AI has trouble with this. Don't the successive units obsolete their predecessors? If not, why not? And if so, surely the AI can handle not building archers after he gets gunpowder...

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It just occurred to me to wonder why the AI has trouble with this. Don't the successive units obsolete their predecessors? If not, why not? And if so, surely the AI can handle not building archers after he gets gunpowder...

I am not sure what you are saying here.

The Colonist and Pioneer used to give free buildings and extra pop when settled as a city but that bit of code only worked for human players. That is why they have been turned off, for now.

Platyping's mod does the same thing as NewCityFree (ie a tech) plus a bit. All we need extra to NewCityFree is the population bit and I think we can do that on the units so we will be able to have those units back but all they will give is the extra pop when they settle a city. Every settler unit will give the buildings if you have the tech. Thus it works for everyone not just the human player(s).

 

[Noriad2]

I am not sure what you are saying here.

The Colonist and Pioneer used to give free buildings and extra pop when settled as a city but that bit of code only worked for human players. That is why they have been turned off, for now.

Platyping's mod does the same thing as NewCityFree (ie a tech) plus a bit. All we need extra to NewCityFree is the population bit and I think we can do that on the units so we will be able to have those units back but all they will give is the extra pop when they settle a city. Every settler unit will give the buildings if you have the tech. Thus it works for everyone not just the human player(s).

If you give free buildings to a new city, wouldn't that give boatloads of money if you sell off those buildings for money (CTRL-A) and disband the city? Depending on the price of the settler and the rewards for selling the buildings, this may be a competitive way of making money.

P.S. if you want to powerlevel a new city, that is what merchants and food merchants are for. Especially as the hammers given from merchants can overflow your city bar without hammers being lost, unlike the hammers from captives. Their only drawback is that they are national units with a very low maximum number (5) in play.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

If you give free buildings to a new city, wouldn't that give boatloads of money if you sell off those buildings for money (CTRL-A) and disband the city? Depending on the price of the settler and the rewards for selling the buildings, this may be a competitive way of making money.

P.S. if you want to powerlevel a new city, that is what merchants and food merchants are for. Especially as the hammers given from merchants can overflow your city bar without hammers being lost, unlike the hammers from captives. Their only drawback is that they are national units with a very low maximum number (5) in play.

Cities are put where they are put for a reason and as time passes the government ensures that when they are placed they get the buildings that are needed. That is all this represents and is covered in the extra cost of the Colonist and Pioneer units.

 

[Faustmouse]

Any news on this one?

 

[Rwn]

Any news on this one?

Too much things to do at the same time Originally I intended to put it on hold because I wanted to do some other things with buildings, something I haven't got the courage to start yet. But I'll get back to it at some point.