Working Mana Nodes

[Chandrasekhar]

I was just thinking about how you can't have a mana node and a standard improvement on the same tile, and it got me thinking... It's desirable to have cites in range of as many normal resources as possible, not only because they're more culturally secure, but also because the city can benefit from the high food/production/commerce value that the resource gets when worked.

It seems that the opposite is true for mana nodes. A mana node is stuck giving that two food, or one food/one production, or whatever the base stats of the tile it's on are. Unless you aren't willing to harvest the mana node, you're stuck having a tile that really isn't that efficient. So, I have a suggestion:

How about mana nodes give a bonus depending on what improvement is put on them? A water node might give health (like a forest), an earth node might give production, a spirit node might give happiness, a life node might give food, and so on and so forth. I think this would make mana nodes much more valuable, which is probably a good thing. At the very least, it would make it so that people stop avoiding having them in the city radius.

 

[Kael]

I was just thinking about how you can't have a mana node and a standard improvement on the same tile, and it got me thinking... It's desirable to have cites in range of as many normal resources as possible, not only because they're more culturally secure, but also because the city can benefit from the high food/production/commerce value that the resource gets when worked.

It seems that the opposite is true for mana nodes. A mana node is stuck giving that two food, or one food/one production, or whatever the base stats of the tile it's on are. Unless you aren't willing to harvest the mana node, you're stuck having a tile that really isn't that efficient. So, I have a suggestion:

How about mana nodes give a bonus depending on what improvement is put on them? A water node might give health (like a forest), an earth node might give production, a spirit node might give happiness, a life node might give food, and so on and so forth. I think this would make mana nodes much more valuable, which is probably a good thing. At the very least, it would make it so that people stop avoiding having them in the city radius.

The reason we didnt do this is it messes with the AI. If the improvements offer different benefits the AI will pick the one it considers the best and build a bunch of those (since its largely ignorant of the other benifits). So we made them all equal.

One thing we did consider, and I would still like to do some day, is that the mana upgrade change the tiles around the node. So making it into a nature node will pop ancient forests all around it, water node pops rivers, death node kills the worker, etc etc.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

*Slaps forehead* Ah, why didn't I think of that!? Yeah, I guess the AI would just build one type. Hmm, couldn't the AI be tweaked to not do that? I know the AI was never intended in vanilla Civ IV to choose between different improvements on a resource, but it would be cool if it was possible.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that human players don't necessarily give all of the nodes equal weight, either. Some of us love Earth, or Death, or Enchantment, and that's all we build. Perhaps the AI could be tweaked to take this into account?

One more idea: perhaps instead of all mana being created equal, each type of mana could be recognized as different by the AI, though the player would still see it as the same. For example, the description might just say "Mana: Requires Alteration, Requires any Node," while the AI sees "Earth Mana: Requires Elementalism, Requires Earth Node." or whichever is determined by the map generator. It seems like this might work, though I know little about coding, but what do you think?

 

[Kael]

*Slaps forehead* Ah, why didn't I think of that!? Yeah, I guess the AI would just build one type. Hmm, couldn't the AI be tweaked to not do that? I know the AI was never intended in vanilla Civ IV to choose between different improvements on a resource, but it would be cool if it was possible.

Yeap it could be done. But we try not to use the SDK unless we have to.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that human players don't necessarily give all of the nodes equal weight, either. Some of us love Earth, or Death, or Enchantment, and that's all we build. Perhaps the AI could be tweaked to take this into account?

The ai leaders all have mana preferences too.

One more idea: perhaps instead of all mana being created equal, each type of mana could be recognized as different by the AI, though the player would still see it as the same. For example, the description might just say "Mana: Requires Alteration, Requires any Node," while the AI sees "Earth Mana: Requires Elementalism, Requires Earth Node." or whichever is determined by the map generator. It seems like this might work, though I know little about coding, but what do you think?

Yeah, this is kinda how we have it working now. Basically the computer calulates all of the things it thinks matters about the possible improvements (which comes out even) and then it adds in the leader weighting. I think Chalid added a function to apply a negative modifier if it already has the mana type. After all that it rolls a dice, adds that amount in and plans on making that plot into the one with the highest result.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

So, in that case, wouldn't it be possible to make the mana improvements give bonuses after all? Heck, you could just have them all give the same bonus if it came down to it, though it wouldn't be that good for the flavor, of course.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

why arent mana nodes all ready classified. like a fire node and earth node and such all you have to do is build a elemental node on a fire ndoe to get a fire ndoe instead of having just blank ndoes it would make for a more intresting game i think especially with trying to build the towers

 

[eerr]

because then you might never get the type of mana you want, i think theres also less blank mana than mana types on most maps

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

no there must be more or the victory condition for collecting mana nodes to build the tower would never work.

 

[Bad Player]

A water node might give health (like a forest), an earth node might give production, a spirit node might give happiness, a life node might give food, and so on and so forth.

Another problem would be balance since 1 extra happiness is worth a lot more than 1 extra food or resource.

 

[eerr]

you can get about
8 mana rescources from the religious shrines/some buildings
and most capitols start with another(which may or may not be redundant)
making 9 possible mana scources...
without nodes...

 

[Chalid]

And probably some more to come...

 

[Azragaul]

I noticed playing recently that once a mana node has been made into a certain type of mana its stuck. Where as before you could pillage it and make something new. I wonder if there might be a way to come to a happy medium where it would be possible to change the type of mana the node is produceing after you pillage it. Maybe an Archmage or Summoner that can work the tile in some way to revert it back to a neutral mana node which could then be reworked into the kind of mana you needed/wanted. If this Tower of Mastery VC is going to require different types of mana I would think I am going to need to be able to tweek mana nodes once in a while. It would kinda suck to be one mana type away from victory only to have no way to get it and 3 Earth nodes because your former neighbor decided he/she likes Earth mana.

 

[eerr]

seriously, thats over half the mana types without even starting on mana nodes
before the team is done, there may even be a wonder for every type of mana!, no nodes required....(but a hellofa productive city is)

 

[Chalid]

It should work pillaging the nodes at least it always worked for me .
There was a bug in the intern Version but that should be solved. I"ll check it on Monday if there is a condition where it does not work. (It could be a problem when the land is not possesed by anyone when you pillage the node so eg. directly after the conquest of a city.).

In the meanwhile simply build the node that you can build again and pillage it once more. that should work.
But for the future we are thinking of changing the way you can reassign the nodes, but we are not yet sure how we will do it.

 

[Chalid]

@eerr:
Exactly as i said in the other Thread. Having to acquire all Manas sounds difficult when one first hears it, but it is possible on nearly all maps and it makes the victory a valid choice (even if it is difficult sometimes).

 

[hadrian11]

Is there a way to make it so that mana node improvements that change cultural control are automatically removed? That would be a possible solution for how to make it so that mana nodes can be changed when conquered or culturally captured.

 

[Kael]

Is there a way to make it so that mana node improvements that change cultural control are automatically removed? That would be a possible solution for how to make it so that mana nodes can be changed when conquered or culturally captured.

Yeap, Chalid mentioned the same thing and I think we will give it a go.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

If you made all of the mana nodes give the same amount of yield like +2 shields & +2 trade it would make them into usable tiles, and the AI wouldn't prefer one over another because of yield differences anymore would it?

 

[Giolla Phadraig]

It seems like the best solution considering AI problems is to make them all provide the same benifit as others have suggested.

Lets see what should worked mana provide:

Food: Doesn't seem to fit in terms of flavor
Production: Possibly... the presence of magic increasing your citizens capabilies to work
Commerce: I think this is the best fit as the effect on a cities trade and or learning (where most commerce usually goes) would be the most obvious fit.

So my vote:
+1
+3

 

[wilboman]

I fully agree. Mana nodes should give some sort of benefit. I personally have no problem with them all giving the same benefit.