Vokarya's Workshop: Buildings

[os79]

It was built by someone (forgot who) to satisfy people who prefer long games and are annoyed by idling their cities in early games.
Adding in my vote too lol. Prefer to play with it.

 

[JosEPh_II]

+1 too

JosEPh

 

[Afforess]

Gonna have to rain on the parade and say I never play with Early Buildings. They always felt unbalanced and made the game too easy, like lowering the difficulty two levels. I was never a fan and included them only due to the large demand.

 

[oldnooob]

I don't use it either and that's why options make this mod more enjoyable for more players.

 

[oldnooob]

I have just reached Plastics in my current V30 game and have noticed some balance issues between hydro power, oil power and steel mill.
It seems that Steel mill provides more hammers with less pollution than oil power plant.

I must take issue with hydro power creating any pollution and costing any food. Why you ask? because I live in the part of the world serviced by the mighty Columbia River which provides clean power and huge amounts of irrigation water to two countries. Think of the Aswan dam. built to irrigate and power a whole country. I just don't get the need to add pollution and subtract food from renewable power sources.

 

[Rezca]

Gonna have to rain on the parade and say I never play with Early Buildings. They always felt unbalanced and made the game too easy, like lowering the difficulty two levels. I was never a fan and included them only due to the large demand.

Which buildings are in the Early Buildings option? It's been so long I can't even remember


I think Apiary is one, and I always questioned why it never obsoleted like Wheelrights and Town Watches did.

 

[Rezca]

I have just reached Plastics in my current V30 game and have noticed some balance issues between hydro power, oil power and steel mill.
It seems that Steel mill provides more hammers with less pollution than oil power plant.

I must take issue with hydro power creating any pollution and costing any food. Why you ask? because I live in the part of the world serviced by the mighty Columbia River which provides clean power and huge amounts of irrigation water to two countries. Think of the Aswan dam. built to irrigate and power a whole country. I just don't get the need to add pollution and subtract food from renewable power sources.

The building itself doesn't 'cost' any food. None of the power plants do. They do however require one of the city's citizens to be taken out of the workable tiles to operate the power plant - like removing a worked tile to use that citizen as a specialist. It's the same concept, except it's mandatory to have the citizen removed for the power plant to run.


It's been so long since I've built a Hydro plant that I can't remember if it has any attached to the building itself or if it's just not replacing a Coal/Oil plant like it should be, so I can't comment on that one.

 

[Noyyau]

The Hydro plant itself does not give any , but the presence of power in the city does, if I understand correctly.

And yes, a power plant requires one citizen to be employed in order to be functional.

 

[Vokarya]

I still have a few ideas that I want to put together before I upload a new build. Here is one that I've wanted to do: the Regenerator. This is a Transhuman Era upgrade of the Hospital, and is designed to give Regenerative Medicine some content beyond the Genetic Soldier.

View attachment 378044View attachment 378045

The Regenerator replaces the Hospital, increasing the Health bonus per citizen from 0.25 to 0.3, the unit healing bonus from 25% to 40%, and adding on fully healing 3 units per turn.

I think the hardest part of doing a future building is finding appropriate art. I found the icon in a very nice collection of sci-fi buttons and the building art was originally created as an SMAC Cottage (there are also upgrades with more parts). I felt these looked appropriately futuristic enough to use.

 

[Rezca]

I still have a few ideas that I want to put together before I upload a new build. Here is one that I've wanted to do: the Regenerator. This is a Transhuman Era upgrade of the Hospital, and is designed to give Regenerative Medicine some content beyond the Genetic Soldier.

View attachment 378044View attachment 378045

The Regenerator replaces the Hospital, increasing the Health bonus per citizen from 0.25 to 0.3, the unit healing bonus from 25% to 40%, and adding on fully healing 3 units per turn.

I think the hardest part of doing a future building is finding appropriate art. I found the icon in a very nice collection of sci-fi buttons and the building art was originally created as an SMAC Cottage (there are also upgrades with more parts). I felt these looked appropriately futuristic enough to use.

Aww no fair, you got a source of Salt right next to your capitol

Jokes aside, I like this idea. Icon looks nifty, and can't see anything real wrong with the concept itself either. Futuristic 'hospitals' ^^


On a slightly different topic, has there been any thoughts as to a way to get some of the Extended Castles buildings to last longer instead of promptly obsoleting At Economics (I think a few do so at Rifling though)?
I like the idea and all, but I hardly play with the option anymore because the games tend to just speed by the "Castle Age" too quickly for anything other than the Catacombs to be even remotely useful. Unless you're playing on one of the Slower-than-Marathon speeds anyway.

 

[Spirictum]

Aww no fair, you got a source of Salt right next to your capitol

Jokes aside, I like this idea. Icon looks nifty, and can't see anything real wrong with the concept itself either. Futuristic 'hospitals' ^^


On a slightly different topic, has there been any thoughts as to a way to get some of the Extended Castles buildings to last longer instead of promptly obsoleting At Economics (I think a few do so at Rifling though)?
I like the idea and all, but I hardly play with the option anymore because the games tend to just speed by the "Castle Age" too quickly for anything other than the Catacombs to be even remotely useful. Unless you're playing on one of the Slower-than-Marathon speeds anyway.

I'm playing a game on marathon, I'm at renaissance in 1470 AD, and since ~1250 AD I've received several attacks from england, which is the only nation that can cross the ocean, and if it wasn't for herbalists, castle keeps, castle gatehouses and the building that benefit archery units, I would already be dead. It did a great difference in my game, and It'll still make for ages because economics will take too long to be researched

 

[Rezca]

I'm playing a game on marathon, I'm at renaissance in 1470 AD, and since ~1250 AD I've received several attacks from england, which is the only nation that can cross the ocean, and if it wasn't for herbalists, castle keeps, castle gatehouses and the building that benefit archery units, I would already be dead. It did a great difference in my game, and It'll still make for ages because economics will take too long to be researched

I kinda forgot how slow AND game speeds are compared to BTS's
Probably should have said anything slower than Normal or Epic. Aren't you also playing a reeaaaally large map script too? I've found that massive map sizes tends to slow down tech pace a bit as well.

I've only played maybe... Two Huge maps so far, and only one Marathon speed game (Was the last time I saw barbarians posing a threat too, coincidentally) so my suggestions probably shouldn't be taken too seriously
That aside, I've always wished that Castles could stick around longer, even back in Warlords and BTS.

 

[Spirictum]

I kinda forgot how slow AND game speeds are compared to BTS's
Probably should have said anything slower than Normal or Epic. Aren't you also playing a reeaaaally large map script too? I've found that massive map sizes tends to slow down tech pace a bit as well.

I've only played maybe... Two Huge maps so far, and only one Marathon speed game (Was the last time I saw barbarians posing a threat too, coincidentally) so my suggestions probably shouldn't be taken too seriously
That aside, I've always wished that Castles could stick around longer, even back in Warlords and BTS.

Yeah exactly, I'm playing on Gigantic (I kind of think Marathon is a lot on AND, so I'll try Epics from now on, they are 300 turns bigger then BtS Marathon, so I think it'll be ok). But there is nothing more satisfying for me then playing in ever bigger maps. The bigger the map, the more real the game gets to me.

There is a mapscrit I like a lot that I used on LoR. It's called Totestra. It's based on Perfect World but have some additional options and seems to make more interesting maps.

The creator also made a Totestra Huge, that had many sizes above Huge. It's scale was like: Standard was already bigger then Huge, so Huge is so big, the game is slow as hell in the Ancient Era in my computer (my pc is not something good anyways, but the difference is drastic). But I had never seen a map so incredible in my life. Archipelagos indeed looked like archipelagos, and not 2 or 3 one tile islands connected, but a series of 3-tiled, 2-tiled and then one tile islands making an incredible image on the World View.

Just for comparison, the maximum zoom out you could make on Huge size of Totestra Huge could only show you something a bit larger then a fourth of the total map! It was insane.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I've slowed down Medieval Era a long time ago, it was even faster months ago. Now I feel it's ok (I'm playing on Large maps and usually blitz speed for testing purposes). I'll try slower speed once I'm done with tech diffusion and we have next Vokarya's release.

 

[Rezca]

Yeah exactly, I'm playing on Gigantic (I kind of think Marathon is a lot on AND, so I'll try Epics from now on, they are 300 turns bigger then BtS Marathon, so I think it'll be ok). But there is nothing more satisfying for me then playing in ever bigger maps. The bigger the map, the more real the game gets to me.

There is a mapscrit I like a lot that I used on LoR. It's called Totestra. It's based on Perfect World but have some additional options and seems to make more interesting maps.

The creator also made a Totestra Huge, that had many sizes above Huge. It's scale was like: Standard was already bigger then Huge, so Huge is so big, the game is slow as hell in the Ancient Era in my computer (my pc is not something good anyways, but the difference is drastic). But I had never seen a map so incredible in my life. Archipelagos indeed looked like archipelagos, and not 2 or 3 one tile islands connected, but a series of 3-tiled, 2-tiled and then one tile islands making an incredible image on the World View.

Just for comparison, the maximum zoom out you could make on Huge size of Totestra Huge could only show you something a bit larger then a fourth of the total map! It was insane.

I'm playing a Huge Highlands map right now on Prince difficulty, and I have to say other than the turn times (Which I just pick up my Nintendo DS for a moment while I wait) it's been a lot of fun. First game in ages that didn't promptly end before or shortly into the Industrial. Several nations are in the Modern era, and there's five world powers right now.
The Iroquois*, Pacal II, Dido of Carthage, Charlemagne, and myself. Everyone else is either a vassal or irrelevant when it comes to the power graph. Holy Rome started to rise into power after I invaded Degwandega (Spelling? )'s lands and razed several of his cities to slow him down after he was running away with score and wonder building - most notably my primary target: A size 47 city with tons of wonders inside it! Almost six in there, and he's still taking up most of the "Top 5 cities" graph. Disgusting! He dropped from like, 82 on the Mastery count (Mine being 74 or so) down to just a few points above mine after I made peace.

Carthage and the Iroquois were at war shortly after, and they both went from 0.7 to 1.4 ish on the Power Rating during this war. I took that opportunity to declare on Carthage while she was distracted and razed a few border cities as well as her capitol (Size 52 with Buddhism Holy city and two founded corporations). Right now Pacal's the only immediate worry I have, since he has Fission and is the only nation that hasn't seen war with a power similar to his own in centuries. Of course, I am keeping an eye on Carthage and Iroquois since the last time me and the Iroquious leader made peace, he was at or around the 1.4 power rating, but quickly returned to dwarfing me in power. Charlmagne is a close friend, and hates Pacal and Degwanda - the latter having had constant wars and multiple city razings on both sides.

Despite the constant warring and the rampant ceasing of relations, almost everyone is at the same page in terms of tech.


I must say that I think my being able to stand up to and overcome some of these wars - when I was fighting with an army that was close to a generation behind in military tech at times - was due to my Commander, who had been in service since BC years and had a huge army leading with him. The amount of Withdrawal chances they had was astounding, and I rarely lost any units. The AIs on the other hand... Well, I see them with like five commanders sitting in a city, rarely with more than one (if any) promotions, and the vast majority of their units seem to be scarcely promoted unless they're veterans from previous wars. As much as I've grown to liking the Great Commanders option, it really seems like it makes the game a full difficulty easier since the AI hoard them instead of using them (And I don't see many settled generals either. Some, but not many)


That minor note aside, it's shaping up to be a very exciting game, and the first one that hasn't ended early with an Industrial or Pre-Industrial rampage on my part in a looooong time


*While I was playing I kept thinking about how your story will go if/when you reach the modern era
It's been a fun read, and I loooove those maps you made

 

[Spirictum]

Yeah, play bigger maps!

I like bigger maps because they have a more realistic feeling. There will be plenty more civs on the game, and they will be considerably bigger. And you won't feel like attacking the farthest civ on your continent because the distance is so insane it doesn't compensate. Of course even in huge maps modern era onwards makes distance not so important anymore, but still considerable. So try bigger maps, it's awesome.

And another thing I find quite fantastic is trying a *hard* game. I don't mean a game where you play on a higher difficulty, or just with hard options enabled. I mean playing a game on a quite hard difficulty for you, but not impossible, and you play with that civ you have no idea what to do, because it's focus isn't on wonder/religion/intenseboost, but on things you're not used to play, and as you start playing you see yourself losing the race with everyone else: few wonders, no religions. And then you have to win with all odds against you!

For example, it's a lot interesting to play with a charismatic/spiritual/industrious/philosophical/financial* because their strategies seem almost straitforward: XP/Civics&Religions/Wonders/GPs&GAs/Teching.
(* former financial, not sure if the new one is as powerful as the former one)

But playing with an Organized/Creative or Agrarian/Imperialistic for example, and specially with a civ that has late UU and UB (no Egypt, Celt, Rome, Carthage, Hittite, Zulu, Greek, Maya, Aztec, Inca) goes exactly in the direction I pointed.

And that's what happened in that Iroquois game. Not only I picked an Organized/Creative, but it was my first game so I wasn't aware of many things in the beggining and lost most wonders and all religions to other nations. That's why it's so hard now, but this gives it more purpose for me! And thanks about the maps! I love maps since I was on school, and I've messed with photoshop for a time, so I could bring both together to make my game's maps.

 

[<Nexus>]

I still have a few ideas that I want to put together before I upload a new build. Here is one that I've wanted to do: the Regenerator. This is a Transhuman Era upgrade of the Hospital, and is designed to give Regenerative Medicine some content beyond the Genetic Soldier.

View attachment 378044View attachment 378045

The Regenerator replaces the Hospital, increasing the Health bonus per citizen from 0.25 to 0.3, the unit healing bonus from 25% to 40%, and adding on fully healing 3 units per turn.

I think the hardest part of doing a future building is finding appropriate art. I found the icon in a very nice collection of sci-fi buttons and the building art was originally created as an SMAC Cottage (there are also upgrades with more parts). I felt these looked appropriately futuristic enough to use.

Cool!
That model is very... errr... exotic

 

[Vokarya]

I'd like to move Bunkers (both the building and the improvement) from Electricity to Artillery. The main reason is that Electricity is one of 7 techs with double-digit trick counts and I'd like to spread that out a bit more. Artillery's a bit loaded as well, but not as bad as Electricity. What do you think?

 

[Rezca]

I'd like to move Bunkers (both the building and the improvement) from Electricity to Artillery. The main reason is that Electricity is one of 7 techs with double-digit trick counts and I'd like to spread that out a bit more. Artillery's a bit loaded as well, but not as bad as Electricity. What do you think?

I think it'd make sense from a gameplay perspective, and wouldn't cause many problems - if any at all

 

[<Nexus>]

I'd like to move Bunkers (both the building and the improvement) from Electricity to Artillery. The main reason is that Electricity is one of 7 techs with double-digit trick counts and I'd like to spread that out a bit more. Artillery's a bit loaded as well, but not as bad as Electricity. What do you think?

It makes sense.