Vokarya's Workshop: Buildings

[Vokarya]

I have another thing to look at, and that is specialist slots from buildings. I did some work on this before, but I think it's time to go back and look at it again. Specifically, I am looking to balance out the numbers of specialists of each type that are available with all the techs from a particular era. I think this makes a good set of checkpoints.

Priest specialists are exempt from balancing work. The factor that controls the number of Priests you can train is how many religions you have. You can get 1 Priest per religion per city from Temple, 2/X Priests per religion per city from Cathedrals (X is the number of Temples per Cathedral), 1 Priest from Scriptorum, and 1 free Priest from Seminary. We have almost twice as many religions as BTS, but I'm close to

Other things that I'm not going to consider for now are civic buildings (I think of those as an effect of their civic), limited buildings (Steel Mill, Info Net, Quantum Lab; the number of prerequisite buildings scales with map size, but the number of specialist slots does not, so it's a much smaller effect on big maps), and Wonders (slots are incidental, free specialists are a big bonus).

I'm counting free specialists as 1.5 specialists of their type; they're better than a specialist slot but not quite as good as 2 slots. There are only a few scattered free specialists, so I'm not going to try and balance those separately.

Also, this is the curve that I think I'm going to try to get close to:

• Ancient: 1 slot
• Classical: 2 slots
• Medieval: 3 slots
• Renaissance: 5 slots
• Industrial: 8 slots
• Modern: 10 slots
• Transhuman: 12 slots

In regular BTS, you can get anywhere from 4 to 7 specialist slots from buildings alone, depending on the specialist type. We have slightly less than 3 times the number of techs BTS does, so I think 12 is a good place to put the cap. If you want more than that, either dedicate your city with National Wonders or find an appropriate civic.

 

[aggri1]

Does consideration of specialists extend to employed citizens? I guess that's a separate issue, one which I think needs to be looked at. I mean, gatehouse using a citizen? Does anyone ever build that? There are a few that don't really make any sense in my opinion.

If it were up to me, I'd remove the concept entirely (or extend it universally, which would be a massive change, e.g. Factory employs 5 citizens but produces e.g. 20 ).

Looking forward to your specialist refinements in any case!

 

[Rezca]

Does consideration of specialists extend to employed citizens? I guess that's a separate issue, one which I think needs to be looked at. I mean, gatehouse using a citizen? Does anyone ever build that? There are a few that don't really make any sense in my opinion.

If it were up to me, I'd remove the concept entirely (or extend it universally, which would be a massive change, e.g. Factory employs 5 citizens but produces e.g. 20 ).

Looking forward to your specialist refinements in any case!

Gatehouse IIRC the reasoning behind the penalty of an employed citizen was that it takes someone to be manning and watching those gates. For the building's effects, it's far too severe a penalty. It's not like a Power Plant which gives amazing boosts to some buildings and is required for many many others - where a missing citizen seems almost minor in comparison - the Gatehouse is just useless with that Employed Citizen attached to it.

Workhouse isn't worth considering most of the time either.

 

[<Nexus>]

Gatehouse IIRC the reasoning behind the penalty of an employed citizen was that it takes someone to be manning and watching those gates.

...and a Library needs librarians, a School teachers, Markets merchants, etc. There are only a few "passive" buildings that need no manpower (Standing stone, Monument, Flagpole).
I feel that many buildings have this feature only because this feature does exist.
IMO all "Employed citizens" should be removed before the Industrial era, and leave/place them only on crucial buildings, like power plants and big factories.

 

[<Nexus>]

Just an idea:

Maybe Stoneworker's Hut could upgrade to Stonemason, and Sculpture's Workshop to Painter's Studio (though I'm not sure about this second one).
Of course SW's Hut would need to go obsolete later and give Stonemason +1 bonus with stone and marble. I think it would be an appropriate upgrade.

 

[Vokarya]

Does consideration of specialists extend to employed citizens? I guess that's a separate issue, one which I think needs to be looked at. I mean, gatehouse using a citizen? Does anyone ever build that? There are a few that don't really make any sense in my opinion.

If it were up to me, I'd remove the concept entirely (or extend it universally, which would be a massive change, e.g. Factory employs 5 citizens but produces e.g. 20 ).

Looking forward to your specialist refinements in any case!

That's a separate issue, but I understand the problems. I tested an altered version of Casino that employed 1 citizen and I found the penalties were so severe that I dropped the idea.

 

[Vokarya]

Just an idea:

Maybe Stoneworker's Hut could upgrade to Stonemason, and Sculpture's Workshop to Painter's Studio (though I'm not sure about this second one).
Of course SW's Hut would need to go obsolete later and give Stonemason +1 bonus with stone and marble. I think it would be an appropriate upgrade.

I thought about those too, but that means with Stoneworker's Hut you have to carry the bonuses across all the upgrades (or stop somewhere, but that has its own problems), and I don't want to do that. Sculptor to Painter seems a little more reasonable to me. I might do that one. There is definitely enough overlap (Painter is available at Oil Painting, Sculptor obsoletes at Realism) that it wouldn't be too awful.

 

[Vokarya]

Here is my comprehensive look at Artist specialist slots. I've gotten it close to the ideal curve, and there aren't any free Artists to consider.

Another thing overall that I would like to reduce is the number of buildings that grant 2 or more specialist slots. Most buildings in BTS that grant specialist slots grant 2 specialist slots each, but there are only 2 or 3 buildings total that grant each type of specialist. We have over 5 times the number of buildings in AND, so I think we should spread the wealth out a little.

This is the current roster of buildings that provide Artist slots.

• Sculptor's Workshop: 1 Artist, obsolete at Realism; however, Sculptor's Workshop requires Stone or Marble in city vicinity; therefore, it is unlikely that many cities will be able to build one
• Theatre - Movie Theatre - Virtual Reality Theatre: 2 Artists, increasing to 3 at VR
• Artist Guild: 1 Artist, obsolete at Mass Media
• Painter's Studio - Photographer's Studio: 1 Artist, obsolete at Wearable Computers
• Art Gallery: 1 Artist
• Opera House: 2 Artists
• City Park - Paradise Garden: 1 Artist
• Broadcast Tower - Communication Tower - Network Node: 2 Artists, increasing to 3 at CT and 5 at NN
• Advertising Agency: 1 Artist
• Vacation Resort: 1 Artist

This results in a curve lower in the earlier eras and higher in the Industrial Era and later than it needs to be. My ideal curve was 1-2-3-5-8-10-12; this is 0-2-3-4-11-12-13, not counting Sculptor's Workshop.

So, here are the changes I would like to do:

• Storyteller Circle: Add 1 Artist slot. This gives every city the chance at 1 Artist slot in the Ancient Era.
• Theatre: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. This is mostly because I don't want early buildings to grant 2 Artist slots.
• Jewellery: Add 1 Artist slot. I think 1 building at Aesthetics should grant Artist slots, and this takes up the slack from Theatre.
• City Park: Delete the Artist slot. There are too many Artists in the Industrial Era and this needs to be brought down. Upgrading from Castle Garden to City Park will lose the Noble slot, but you will still get +1 happiness, +2 health, and +1 culture, which I think is worth 1 Noble slot.
• Broadcast Tower: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. Again, this is to lower the number of Industrial Era Artists.
• Movie Theatre: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. This is another cut to lower the number of Artists in the Industrial Era.
• Vacation Resort: Delete the Artist slot. Vacation Resort has a ton of different abilities, which I don't really like. I'd like to simplify this building a little. Also, the Modern Era artist count needs to come down as well.
• Virtual Reality Theater: Reduce to 2 Artist slots. This is another cut to reduce the Modern Era Artist count.
• Network Node: Reduce to 4 Artist slots. This is mostly because I don't want to see that many specialist slots on a single building. I really wish we had another Modern Era or Transhuman Era cultural building that we could assign Artist slots to. As it is, either Communication Tower or Virtual Reality Theater needs to stay at 3 Artist slots to keep the count right (since both Artists Guild and Photographer's Studio go obsolete during the Modern Era).
• Paradise Garden: Increase to 2 Artist slots. This is redistributing 1 Artist from Network Node.

This gives a curve of 1-2-3-5-9-10-12; one Artist higher in the Industrial Era, but I do want to leave Opera House as a true cultural center with 2 Artist slots, and the Broadcast Tower and Advertising Agency grant Artist slots in addition.

 

[Rezca]

All that sounds good to me - having an early Artist potentially available (Assuming you can spare the citizen to run the specialist) on the Storyteller Circle I especially like

 

[<Nexus>]

I thought about those too, but that means with Stoneworker's Hut you have to carry the bonuses across all the upgrades (or stop somewhere, but that has its own problems), and I don't want to do that.

I think that by the time you build Stonemason, it's bonuses are high enough to compensate SW Hut's bonuses. If that's not enough we could add a flat +1 .
Just an idea.

Artist slots overview looks good.

 

[<Nexus>]

I was looking around last night in hope of getting some ideas that may help Vokarya's attempt to introduce some more trans-human buildings. I focused on possible upgrades and also tried to focus on techs with lower trick count. (I admit that most names are... err... let's say just placeholders )

1)
I remember there was an attempt to have a Railway Station building. How about a building chain that is similar to the Port line, but on land?

Railway Station (at Railroad) upgrades to
Railway Hub(?) (at Electronics) upgrades to
Traffic Hub(?) (at Automated Traffic)
Traffic Hub + International Port upgrades to Commercial Nexus or Traffic Portal (at Teleportation)

2)
Brothel --> Android Brothel (at Androids)
Remove the penalty and add some income. ("It's fully legal, so it can be taxed.")

3)
School --> Insta-School (at Brain Machine Interface)
("Students simply download book-lore directly to their brains. They only need to learn how to put it into use.")

4)
Customs Office upgrade?
I have nothing concrete in mind, but this seems to be a pretty old building by that time.

5)
Monument --> Holo-Monument (at Controlled Plasma)

6)
Police Station --> Pre-crime Center (at Thought scanning)
("Attempt to prevent any crime before they happen by scanning citizens' minds for dangerous thoughts.")

7)
Casino --> Pleasure Dome (at Thought Scanning)

7b)
BTW I have an other idea for Casino:
It could generate a random amount of . E.g. between -1 and +4. -1 means someone took the jackpot
I believe it should be very easy to code in python. Generate a random number and multiply it by the number of Casinos.

 

[Samson]

Storyteller Circle: Add 1 Artist slot. This gives every city the chance at 1 Artist slot in the Ancient Era.

I think this is great. I thought I would add my thoughts about this change: Having a specalist this early will mean that the village hall will be worth building earlier. Previously it only gave you a bureaucrat (?) which was not very usefull. With the artist slot it could give you an artist, which in the early game is much better.

I think that by the time you build Stonemason, it's bonuses are high enough to compensate SW Hut's bonuses. If that's not enough we could add a flat +1 .
Just an idea.

I do not find that the bonus from Stonemason is very much. If you have already built the castle (it comes earlier and gets 100% with stone so I frequently built them ASAP) then it is only 5% over woodcutter, so 1 hammer if you have 20 base hammers, which is hardly worth the investment.

 

[Arakhor]

I think the Storyteller Artist will help bulk out the early game, certainly.

 

[youmakemefart]

So, here are the changes I would like to do:

• Storyteller Circle: Add 1 Artist slot. This gives every city the chance at 1 Artist slot in the Ancient Era.
• Theatre: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. This is mostly because I don't want early buildings to grant 2 Artist slots.
• Jewellery: Add 1 Artist slot. I think 1 building at Aesthetics should grant Artist slots, and this takes up the slack from Theatre.
• City Park: Delete the Artist slot. There are too many Artists in the Industrial Era and this needs to be brought down. Upgrading from Castle Garden to City Park will lose the Noble slot, but you will still get +1 happiness, +2 health, and +1 culture, which I think is worth 1 Noble slot.
• Broadcast Tower: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. Again, this is to lower the number of Industrial Era Artists.
• Movie Theatre: Reduce to 1 Artist slot. This is another cut to lower the number of Artists in the Industrial Era.
• Vacation Resort: Delete the Artist slot. Vacation Resort has a ton of different abilities, which I don't really like. I'd like to simplify this building a little. Also, the Modern Era artist count needs to come down as well.
• Virtual Reality Theater: Reduce to 2 Artist slots. This is another cut to reduce the Modern Era Artist count.
• Network Node: Reduce to 4 Artist slots. This is mostly because I don't want to see that many specialist slots on a single building. I really wish we had another Modern Era or Transhuman Era cultural building that we could assign Artist slots to. As it is, either Communication Tower or Virtual Reality Theater needs to stay at 3 Artist slots to keep the count right (since both Artists Guild and Photographer's Studio go obsolete during the Modern Era).
• Paradise Garden: Increase to 2 Artist slots. This is redistributing 1 Artist from Network Node.

This gives a curve of 1-2-3-5-9-10-12; one Artist higher in the Industrial Era, but I do want to leave Opera House as a true cultural center with 2 Artist slots, and the Broadcast Tower and Advertising Agency grant Artist slots in addition.

All of this makes perfect sense

 

[Rezca]

I was looking around last night in hope of getting some ideas that may help Vokarya's attempt to introduce some more trans-human buildings. I focused on possible upgrades and also tried to focus on techs with lower trick count. (I admit that most names are... err... let's say just placeholders )

1)
I remember there was an attempt to have a Railway Station building. How about a building chain that is similar to the Port line, but on land?

Railway Station (at Railroad) upgrades to
Railway Hub(?) (at Electronics) upgrades to
Traffic Hub(?) (at Automated Traffic)
Traffic Hub + International Port upgrades to Commercial Nexus or Traffic Portal (at Teleportation)

Something like this might be an upgrade to Paved Roads I suppose?

2)
Brothel --> Android Brothel (at Androids)
Remove the penalty and add some income. ("It's fully legal, so it can be taxed.")

Android Brothel doesn't sound too good to me
An expansion to the Brothel perhaps, but Androids?

3)
School --> Insta-School (at Brain Machine Interface)
("Students simply download book-lore directly to their brains. They only need to learn how to put it into use.")

C2C had something like this IIRC, but it was an Education Civic and not a building (Last time I checked). If there's an upgrade like this to the School, let's think of a better name
(Hi-Tech Robot still needs to go, btw. Sentient Warmech?)

4)
Customs Office upgrade?
I have nothing concrete in mind, but this seems to be a pretty old building by that time.

An upgrade sounds good, but what would we call it? What would it do?

5)
Monument --> Holo-Monument (at Controlled Plasma)

Controlled Plasma doesn't sound like a great place, but the virtual reality-ish techs already have loads of stuff.

6)
Police Station --> Pre-crime Center (at Thought scanning)
("Attempt to prevent any crime before they happen by scanning citizens' minds for dangerous thoughts.")

That name
I think this is already accomplished with the Mind Control Center honestly.

7)
Casino --> Pleasure Dome (at Thought Scanning)

Master of Orion hmmm?

 

[Arakhor]

How about E-School?

 

[Vokarya]

Compared to Artists, Engineers are in really good shape already. The wrinkle here is the free Engineers in the Modern Era. This means we need to cut back on Engineer slots in that era just a bit.

The sources of Engineers are:

• Forge: 1 Engineer
• Armourer - Cannon Forge - Arsenal: 1 Engineer
• Townclock: 1 Engineer, obsolete at Electronics
• Foundry: 1 Engineer
• Factory: 2 Engineer
• Construction Firm - Industrial Park - Citycreche: 1 Engineer, increasing to 2 Engineer slots + 1 free Engineer at IP
• Manufacturing Plant - Nanofactory: 2 Engineer
• Design Studio: 1 free Engineer
• Mech Assembly Plant: 1 Engineer
• Android Factory: 1 Engineer

This gives a curve of 1-2-3-4-7-9+2-11+2. The +'s represent the free Engineers. If you count free Engineers as 1.5 the value of an Engineer slot, that's 1-2-3-4-7-12-14, or a bit higher in the Modern Era and Transhuman Era than we should have. So there are a couple cuts of Engineer slots:

• Reduce Manufacturing Plant and Nanofactory to 1 Engineer each.
• Increase Construction Firm to 2 Engineer slots.
• Reduce Industrial Park and Citycreche to 1 Engineer + 1 free Engineer each. It's still not a penalty to upgrade from Construction Firm, as you go from 2 Engineer slots (each requiring 1 Citizen to fill) to 1 Engineer slot and 1 free Engineer that doesn't cost a Citizen.

This results in a curve of 1-2-3-4-8-7+2-9+2. Again, with the 1.5 modifier, that's 1-2-3-4-8-10-12, or almost exactly the curve I proposed. It's a touch low in the Renaissance, but I think Great Engineers are probably the most valuable Great Person type, so I think it's okay if they are lower in one era.

 

[<Nexus>]

Something like this might be an upgrade to Paved Roads I suppose?

Yeah, good idea

Android Brothel doesn't sound too good to me
An expansion to the Brothel perhaps, but Androids?

Why not? It is a... khmm... "quite obvious usage"

C2C had something like this IIRC, but it was an Education Civic and not a building (Last time I checked). If there's an upgrade like this to the School, let's think of a better name

-->

How about E-School?

(Hi-Tech Robot still needs to go, btw. Sentient Warmech?)

I like it.

Customs Office upgrade?

An upgrade sounds good, but what would we call it? What would it do?

I have no idea for the name (I think it's better to leave it for native English speakers, instead of coming up with something really silly )
What would it do? Just increase its bonus and cost.

Controlled Plasma doesn't sound like a great place, but the virtual reality-ish techs already have loads of stuff.

I think a better understanding on plasma physics would help in creating life like holograms.

That name
I think this is already accomplished with the Mind Control Center honestly.

At least I didn't say Pre-Cog from Minority Report

Master of Orion hmmm?

Feel free to suggest anything better

 

[Vokarya]

Magistrates are the late-comer to the specialist pool. The big problem is a lack of Magistrates after the Industrial Era. For Magistrates to make sense, they need to be tied to a government building, and there's a lack of those after the Modern Era. It's also somewhat difficult to tell Magistrates apart from Nobles (in the early eras) or Spies (in any era). As far as Nobles go, I think we are best off with the current approach; Monarchy, Aristocracy and Feudal all allow unlimited Nobles, while the only ordinary building that gives a Noble slot is the Castle Garden.

• Village Hall - Town Hall - City Council - Metropolitan Administration: 1 Magistrate, increasing to 2 at Metropolitan Administration.
• Courthouse: 1 Magistrate
• Castle: 1 Magistrate, disappears before the end of the Renaissance either when Castle upgrades to Star Fort (at Metallurgy) or goes obsolete (at Economics)
• Jail - Cryogenic Prison: 1 Magistrate
• Customs House: 1 Magistrate (coastal only, but fairly common)
• Police Station: 2 Magistrates
• Skyscraper: 1 Magistrate

This gives a curve of 1-2-3-5-8-8-8. Looks good up until the Modern Era. However, I find it very difficult to come up with a good concept building for a governmental building that is not buildable before then. I did find one concept that I think would work. The "new building" card is one that I am reluctant to play now, but this does provide Magistrate slots AND it's a Modern Era building which we are a bit short on AND it has enough infrastructure requirements that it won't clutter up the building list until you are ready for it.

Surveillance Network

• Cost 450 (double production speed for Deceiver leaders)
• Requires Wearable Computers tech
• Requires Computer Network
• Requires Intelligence Agency OR Security Bureau OR Security Center
• Requires access to Power (same as Computer Network)
• 2 Magistrate slots
• +25% espionage
• +25% espionage defense
• -2 happiness
• -1 happiness with Liberal
• Upgrades to AI Surveillance

AI Surveillance would then inherit all the bonuses from Surveillance Network without needing most of its other requirements. I think AI Surveillance should add requires access to Power, but none of the other requirements (the AI Network comes with its own computer network and evaluation system). Also increase AI Surveillance's cost to 1000 (it gets double production speed with Semiconductors, which you will probably already have anyway).

This covers the Modern Era going up to 10 Magistrate slots, but to really fill it out, we would need something else for the Transhuman Era. Or we can just settle in at 10 Magistrates tops.

 

[Samson]

Magistrates ...

I feel magistrates are a "somewhere to put specialists if you have nothing else for them to do" class, so I think it does not matter that there are not so many slots later in the game, when you are unlikely to be using them anyway.

Only producing 66% of the GPP the other specialists do, and producing less benifit than most others, is coupled with a great person who produces a fraction of the beakers when used to bulb, is rubbish when settled and whos special ability, while in some circumstances could be vital (ending a war that you are loosing) but I have never used, generally adds up to a rubbish specialist type.