Troubles with building upgrades

[tdb]

I've noticed a couple minor problems with building upgrades:

First, Celtia's unique building (Dun, replaces Walls) gives Guerrilla 1 to all units built in that city. When upgraded to High Walls, this no longer applies. I can sort of understand this, perhaps higher walls are unsuitable to provide the necessary training. I don't know if there are other similar cases.

Second, Bakery can not be built with Modern Granary, since it requires Granary. This is usually not a problem if you're aware of it, since even Pioneer gives only Granary in the new city, not the modern variant. However, to an unsuspecting player, or when capturing a city from AI, it's possible to end up with a city with Modern Granary but no Bakery. One workaround is to sell the Modern Granary and rebuild stuff in the correct order, but it's still annoying.

 

[chairface]

I have a similar problem with replacement buildings not counting for quests, as mentioned in bug reports. A quest like "build x ports" is easy to fail if you already have access to Commercial Ports, which do not count towards the number of "Ports" and replace existing Ports. A bit more integration of replaced buildings into quests/unique buildings/etc would be nice.

 

[Afforess]

I am not sure if this is a bug or not, but when I used a spy to demolish an enemy cities high walls, it didn't downgrade them to regular walls, the city just lost all of their walls altogether.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am not sure if this is a bug or not, but when I used a spy to demolish an enemy cities high walls, it didn't downgrade them to regular walls, the city just lost all of their walls altogether.

Yea, this is the way upgrade buildings work in RoM. Lose an international port to s spy like I did and you have to start from scratch with a harbour and work your way up.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I've noticed a couple minor problems with building upgrades:

<snip>

Second, Bakery can not be built with Modern Granary, since it requires Granary. This is usually not a problem if you're aware of it, since even Pioneer gives only Granary in the new city, not the modern variant. However, to an unsuspecting player, or when capturing a city from AI, it's possible to end up with a city with Modern Granary but no Bakery. One workaround is to sell the Modern Granary and rebuild stuff in the correct order, but it's still annoying.

This is a design feature, it has been this way since Zappara introduced Modern Granary.

JosEPh

 

[tdb]

This is a design feature, it has been this way since Zappara introduced Modern Granary.

JosEPh

Any rational explanation to it? If the Bakery requires a supply of grain provided by the Granary, why won't Modern Granary do? Shouldn't it just store more grain than the old version?

 

[JosEPh_II]

That's a ? that only zappara can answer.

JosEPh

 

[zappara]

Granary upgrades to Modern Granary
Bakery upgrades to Food Processing plant

Bakery requires Granary
Food processing plant requires Modern Granary

It's made this way because of the xml tag limitations - there is no OR check for building requirements, adding such would require sdk changes. RoM uses xml and python combination for building upgrade lines and I've tried to keep it as simple as possible because complex python code slows down the game.

 

[tdb]

Ah, good to know. I didn't have food processing plant available yet.

 

[Agentus]

I have to admit: So far I haven't found those building upgrades to be too useful. Some of my issues with them (compared to just having separate buildings with prerequisites):

1. It is harder to figure out what a new building actually does. When I first played RoM the whole upgrade thing wasn't obvious and I just thought: Wow, that Commercial Port is amazing - until I figured out the actual effect was much less.

2. It obsoletes some UBs like Cothon or Iron Forge which reduces their usefulness.

3. It introduces problems like the mentioned counts for quests, or the Bakery-> Processing Plant with Granary -> Modern Granary prerequisite thingie.

4. What kind of upgrade is Bakery -> Processing Plant anyway? Their bonuses are hardly alike (apart from the fact that it mostly is a food bonus) - and the Forge->Steel Mill one bothers me as well. One of the most expensive buildings and all you effectively get is Steel? That also goes back to issue 1 - it is just not obvious. Why isn't the Steel Mill just a building with pre-requisite Forge that only produces Steel (and maybe a -10% hammers without power). With a single view it would be obvious what the effect is opposed to now. No real need to make this an upgrade.

And the only advantage I see is making the city screen a little less cluttered with buildings.

 

[zappara]

And the only advantage I see is making the city screen a little less cluttered with buildings.

Yeah and less graphics also means less MAFs.

Anyway, I've now changed most of the building upgrade lines so that the newer buildings no longer require the earlier version ie. if player has the knowledge to build advanced building, he can do so. This should save some turns f.ex. in case where spy destroyes your International Port and you would have to build all harbor buildings again, now you can build International Port directly.

 

[generalstaff]

2. It obsoletes some UBs like Cothon or Iron Forge which reduces their usefulness.

I do not mind UBs being obsolete if they are useful for either half of the game.

4. What kind of upgrade is Bakery -> Processing Plant anyway? Their bonuses are hardly alike (apart from the fact that it mostly is a food bonus) - and the Forge->Steel Mill one bothers me as well. One of the most expensive buildings and all you effectively get is Steel? That also goes back to issue 1 - it is just not obvious. Why isn't the Steel Mill just a building with pre-requisite Forge that only produces Steel (and maybe a -10% hammers without power). With a single view it would be obvious what the effect is opposed to now. No real need to make this an upgrade.

I agree, the theme of building upgrades is that the upgrade produces the same as the previous building plus a little more.

I personally like building upgrades since it saves on clutter and graphics and is realistic.