Wonders production cost penalty

[bloblo]

Hello everybody.
First off, let me thank all the creators of these awesome mods and patches; I'm through the first run with korea and the game feels completely new and fresh.
I only play in single player, and I'm not the a person who seeks for a challenge (bear in mind i usually play in Prince difficulty) : I enjoy building a powerful civilization, seeing it grow throught the different eras and build almost all the wonders I can.
Now, I know this feature is there for balancing reasons, but i want to reduce (or cut) the wonders penalty cost for having biult previous wonders. I searched through the forum,the .xml and .sql files in the #2 folder of MODS ( i installed the vox populi .exe 8-7-4) , but i didn't find anything.
I am sorry if this question was previously asked, and i don't want to sound arrogant or anything, can anyone help me please? Thanks in advance.
Ps: Is my english bad? This is one of the few texts i recently wrote, be patient

 

[tu_79]

Hello everybody.
First off, let me thank all the creators of these awesome mods and patches; I'm through the first run with korea and the game feels completely new and fresh.
I only play in single player, and I'm not the a person who seeks for a challenge (bear in mind i usually play in Prince difficulty) : I enjoy building a powerful civilization, seeing it grow throught the different eras and build almost all the wonders I can.
Now, I know this feature is there for balancing reasons, but i want to reduce (or cut) the wonders penalty cost for having biult previous wonders. I searched through the forum,the .xml and .sql files in the #2 folder of MODS ( i installed the vox populi .exe 8-7-4) , but i didn't find anything.
I am sorry if this question was previously asked, and i don't want to sound arrogant or anything, can anyone help me please? Thanks in advance.
Ps: Is my english bad? This is one of the few texts i recently wrote, be patient

Your english is more than enough.

I cannot help you with changing the penalty production, but I suggest you try it as is. There are some reasons for this, namely avoiding that one civ takes all wonders for itself and preventing an all wonders strategy, that can't work in this mod.
If you go all for wonders, you are going to neglect vital parts of the game, unless you play on settler difficulty. Plan ahead, set your goals and beline to the wonders you reaally need.

If you really like wonders, try Egypt.

 

[bloblo]

Your english is more than enough.

I cannot help you with changing the penalty production, but I suggest you try it as is. There are some reasons for this, namely avoiding that one civ takes all wonders for itself and preventing an all wonders strategy, that can't work in this mod.
If you go all for wonders, you are going to neglect vital parts of the game, unless you play on settler difficulty. Plan ahead, set your goals and beline to the wonders you reaally need.

If you really like wonders, try Egypt.

Thanks for the reply. I actually found a way to disable that feature: for anyone wondering, go to ...\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Core Files\Core Changes and open "CommunityCommunityPatchDLLChanges.sql" with an editor (i used notepad++). Here you'll find a line that says "BALANCE_CORE_WONDER_COST_INCREASE"; change the value from "1" to "0" and you're done (worked on 8-7-4, to test in 8-23). Anyway, I'll try following your advice, it brings indeed many more layers of strategy to the game, thanks

 

[DrT]

That's useful, but does anyone know just the reducing part of the OP? I'd like to change the values from 25 15 10 to something else. If I can avoid switching it off, I'd prefer to just reduce the penalties.

 

[Moi Magnus]

That's useful, but does anyone know just the reducing part of the OP? I'd like to change the values from 25 15 10 to something else. If I can avoid switching it off, I'd prefer to just reduce the penalties.

In the file:
(1) Community Patch (v 88)\Core Files\Core Values\CoreDefine.sql

Change those values:
'BALANCE_CORE_WORLD_WONDER_SAME_ERA_COST_MODIFIER'
'BALANCE_CORE_WORLD_WONDER_PREVIOUS_ERA_COST_MODIFIER'
'BALANCE_CORE_WORLD_WONDER_EARLIER_ERA_COST_MODIFIER'

 

[DrT]

Fantastic, thanks!

 

[agc28]

Recommended Changes: I think the cost penalty modifier for the wonder should be wonder-specific OR conquered wonders do not count toward the multiplier.

Recently, I conquered a capital, I find that they have 9 ancient/classical wonders constructed there (giving me a 90% production penalty), and most of those wonders may be useless to me.

Why should a Great Wall (easily obsolete) or an Oracle (instant bonus) give the same amount of penalty as a Petra (can be insanely powerful even in later eras)?

 

[CrazyG]

I would like to see that eventually wonders no longer count towards the penalties. Like stonehenge and petra are no longer being factoried when I try to build the Louvre

 

[MorphBer]

Maybe stop counting ancient and classical ones at some point, as most of them have free buildings or insant bonuses

 

[Infixo]

I, on the other hand, was always wondering why Wonders cost 0 maintenance. Every small simple building costs something, but Eiffel Tower 0. Neuschwanstein 0. Etc. Big, complex buildings usually, all 0.

 

[Infixo]

Maybe stop counting ancient and classical ones at some point, as most of them have free buildings or insant bonuses

It would probably be an easy change just to count Wonders from earlier eras, but not earlier than e.g. 3 eras in the past. And increase the modifier accordingly. So, in Industrial it would ignore ones from Ancient, in Modern from Classical, etc.
That way if you conquer a city and it contains a bunch of really old Wonders, your modifier will not jump too much up.

 

[tu_79]

It would probably be an easy change just to count Wonders from earlier eras, but not earlier than e.g. 3 eras in the past. And increase the modifier accordingly. So, in Industrial it would ignore ones from Ancient, in Modern from Classical, etc.
That way if you conquer a city and it contains a bunch of really old Wonders, your modifier will not jump too much up.

I see this a bit arbitrary.
Why don't let the penalty fade?
There are 8 eras.
Cost from wonders of the same era are full cost. Cost from wonders of older eras get cheaper every passing era by proportional additive values.
An example.
one wonder in classical, one in medieval, we are at renaissance.
Being at renaissance: 1+2+3+4 = 10
Added cost for the classical wonder at renaissance: (1+2) / 10 = 0.3
Added cost for the medieval wonder at renaissance: (1+2+3) / 10 = 0.6

But penalty should also be increased. I don't know exact number, but suppose that each wonder increase the cost of the next one by 5%.
In our case, currently building a wonder at renaissance would cost +10%. With my proposed fading cost, it would be +4.5%: (0.3 + 0.6) * 5%. This can be too low to prevent wonder hoarding, though

So, if the fading cost is to be implemented, base cost should be doubled, at the very least. In this case, in our example we would get: (0.3 + 0.6) * 10% = 9%.

Then, if we only built stonehenge and we are at industrial era trying to build a wonder, the cost would be:
Base for industrial (1+2+3+4+5) = 15
Added cost for the ancient wonder at industrial: (1 / 15) * 10% = 0.7%. Almost nothing.

 

[Infixo]

There can be many algorithms. I just proposed a change that should be really easy to implement.

 

[tu_79]

There can be many algorithms. I just proposed a change that should be really easy to implement.

Probably, but it feels arbitrary. Why 3 eras and not 2 or 4?
Also, some weird situations may happen. If Egypt build every wonder in ancient and classical, then he's free to do it again in Renaissance/Industrial.
I kind of like current system. And the only thing that is apparently disliked is for those captured wonders. But even that I don't feel the need to change.
If it's a wonder, it does wonderful things anyway. Unless it's a one hit wonder, with immediate effect. Then, good job for the builder, bad luck for the conqueror.

It makes easier for civs that were backwards the whole game to get a grasp on some of the latest, strongest wonders, so I rather don't touch it.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The penalty already lessens over time. Same era = 25%, 1 era = 15%, 2 eras = 10%. Another step for 3 eras = 0% doesn’t feel arbitrary at all.

 

[Infixo]

Probably, but it feels arbitrary. Why 3 eras and not 2 or 4?

Like I said: there are many algorithms possible, and ALL of them are arbitrary. Game rules are arbitrary by definition.

 

[tu_79]

The penalty already lessens over time. Same era = 25%, 1 era = 15%, 2 eras = 10%. Another step for 3 eras = 0% doesn’t feel arbitrary at all.

But I fear it could lead to the old situation where most wonders were built by just two-three civs.

 

[Infixo]

But I fear it could lead to the old situation where most wonders were built by just two-three civs.

Why? Each civ goes by the same rules, and Wonders are spread all over all Eras.
If you are a warmonger, you will eventually get most of wonders, regardless of production penalties.
Actually, in current state you have NO choice, you have to conquer them, because cost of building will be provibitive.

 

[tu_79]

Why? Each civ goes by the same rules, and Wonders are spread all over all Eras.
If you are a warmonger, you will eventually get most of wonders, regardless of production penalties.
Actually, in current state you have NO choice, you have to conquer them, because cost of building will be provibitive.

I don't know if it is still feasible, but there was something called by Enginseer 'going thick'. You could conquer one civ or two, but the focus is on getting the best developed and grown cities, so you don't expand further. In such cases, you may get some wonders from your 1-2 captured capitals, but not that many that you can't build any more wonders by yourself. Unless you really go warmonger non stop, then you deserve to not be able to build any wonder, ever.

 

[Galbias]

It would probably be an easy change just to count Wonders from earlier eras, but not earlier than e.g. 3 eras in the past. And increase the modifier accordingly. So, in Industrial it would ignore ones from Ancient, in Modern from Classical, etc.
That way if you conquer a city and it contains a bunch of really old Wonders, your modifier will not jump too much up.

That sounds good. It's not a perfect solution to the problem of conquered Wonders that give you an instant bonus, but all the "better" ones I can think of (adjusting the modifier of each Wonder, possibly differently depending on if it's conquered or built, or giving the instant bonus to a conqueror) would be much more difficult and messy to implement.