Terrain improvements

[Ogi123]

So to no clutter main thread there are some thoughts about current improvements and what/why change them.

1) Windmill - currently useless at best you can get 2f/2g on hills/grassland with river, at time of machinery I usually run trade economy so merchant is always better. Considering that in this mod hills are max 1f by themselves and machinery is late tech I propose +1f/+2h/+1g. Nothing earth shattering since most hills give no yield.

2) Cottage - as for now I usually build them only when is impossible to irrigate plot, because more powerful farm + better specialist means that runing SE is usually more effective. Growth times to town are crazy long, merchant works from start. I already proposed change in main thread give them -1f/+2g and two techs to incerase this to -1f/+4g (printing press and ?), can be build without current restrictions, don't grow.

3) Watermill - As of now it's look not that bad... until you realise that you can irrgate and put tradesman to work. Two watermills on plains +4f/+2h/+2g(+6f on grassland), farm and tradesman +4f/2h/2g(+5f on grassland). Not much difference (1unhealthy?) and considering machinery is very late in tech tree I think it shuold get bonus. My proposition is +1f/+2h/+1g so same as windmill.

Any thoughts about this, why I' wrong, what I missed? Or eventually why I'm right...

Edit: Damn forgot about lumbermill, perhaps 2 or 3h? Since it can be only builid on forests it isn't that powerful.

 

[Swarbs]

I don't see your point around windmills - 2f,2g means that the citizen working the windmill will feed themselves, whereas a merchant will not. Two grass hill windmills are equal in commerce to one grass farm and one merchant, and windmills are the only way to use hills. I don't think windmills should give food and hammers as that would make windmills way way OP (Pella, Athens, Rome, Mediolanum and Antioch would all get an extra 10+ hammers) but maybe they could give an extra food with agrarianism.

As before, I think cottages are good as they are, but perhaps with better yield boost for villages (+3h) and towns (+4h), and the ability to use civics to speed up growth (maybe serfdom and wage labour).

Your version of the cottage would be better achieved by a trading post, which can be built alongside rivers imo, and is in addition to cottages, not instead of them. Can be built with sailing, -1f/+2g and an extra gold from stern rudder and machinery.

I agree with the extra hammer boost to the watermill, and would also say to the lumbermill. These work in vanilla civ, as labourers only give +1, but with the artisan in CW they need to be boosted or people just won't build them, or use them.

 

[Ogi123]

2f/2g is best case scenario of grass hill and river, what if it's plains/hills? 1f/1g is useless and never used.

 

[Swarbs]

2f/2g is best case scenario of grass hill and river, what if it's plains/hills? 1f/1g is useless and never used.

That's the whole point, and the main reason this mod doesn't have mines on hills without resources. Hills were not very useful in the classical world. Part of the charm of this mod is that it's not just vanilla civ, where every tile can be built on - some parts of the map just aren't very useful. It makes tactics and skill more important than just building improvements everywhere to create massive super cities.

 

[Ogi123]

Except you are still creating super cities, they are just situated on flat terrain. And I argue about changes to machinery improvements because otherwise it will never be resarched, since farm + specialist works better.

 

[Sorindafabico]

Except you are still creating super cities, they are just situated on flat terrain. And I argue about changes to machinery improvements because otherwise it will never be resarched, since farm + specialist works better.

Indeed, Machinery is often too costly for the benefits it gives, and in late game i prefer to research wage labor/manufactured trade to get more stability (combining with trade economy/bureaucracy/empire) and gold - or I need to care about military techs. The production is often good enough (workshops/specialists/textile factory/tannery/blacksmith) and watermills and lumbermills often have little effect on hammers.

 

[Swarbs]

Except you are still creating super cities, they are just situated on flat terrain. And I argue about changes to machinery improvements because otherwise it will never be resarched, since farm + specialist works better.

That's again the whole point.The best cities are the ones with good flat terrain for building, and good resources. There's no way a city founded on hills with no resources nearby should be able to grow as large and productive as a major city in a strong location like Rome or Byzantium.

I agree that windmills are not as good as farms with specialists. But then that's how cities worked back then - Rome, Byzantium and all other major cities were massive cities full of merchants and artisans and fed by surrounding farms. Windmills were less widely used as they weren't all that productive.

I agree machinery isn't the most useful technology on its own, but then technologies shouldn't all be equal and precisely balanced, just like improvements and units. Some techs were more important in the classical world, and that's how it should be in the game. Machinery leads on to printing press, astrolabe and blast furnace, and whilst windmills, watermills and lumbermills aren't great, they do give some improvements to tiles - a city with few flat tiles won't have many farms anyway, so windmills will still be valuable.

 

[Ogi123]

It's a question of choice, currently I as player have very little choice in optimum strategy and would like to change that. If you feel that historical realism in such abstracted game as civ is more important than playability, then I'm afraid that I must disagree.

 

[Swarbs]

It's a question of choice, currently I as player have very little choice in optimum strategy and would like to change that. If you feel that historical realism in such abstracted game as civ is more important than playability, then I'm afraid that I must disagree.

Making windmills OP is not going to give a choice of optimum strategy. If anything it will do completely the opposite - with OP windmills everyone will use windmills ahead of everything else. A grass hill windmill with 2f,2h,1g would be used by everyone, so strategy goes out the window.

You have already admitted that you usually run trade economy. But for a player who doesn't run trade economy, windmills can be a valid option, particularly for cities with lots of hills and very few farms.