World History Mod Conversation

[Nightinggale]

so there is a hard limit of 50 active yields? Does this include the 'abstract' yields, like religion, fealty, etc.?

50 was just an example. The only limit is a crowded city screen. Sorry for not being clear on this.

There is a hard limit, but I think it is 2147483646. I see no reason why this should cause problems for us. The same limit applies to number of... well more or less everything, units, buildings, professions....

 

[Nightinggale]

I'm coding it directly into M:C (Release version)


So far the multinvasions isn't big component (not many lines of code overall). But maybe later this mod could have use for github and own branch.

This mean applying the code would be to revert the git version to the release version, overwrite the source files with your version and then update to the newest git version. Rather trivial.... if I could remember which commit was the release version. We never started tagging the commits to refind the releases.

-Where's salt? It used to be very important trade commodity.

It ran away and hides in RaR
In fact RaR has both salt and rock salt. Sprites can be borrowed there. Also I agree that it used to be very important as it was the way to conserve food and the reason why we don't think that much of it today isn't it's unimportance, but rather the availability is so great that we take it for granted. There is an interesting tale about salt from the sengoku period in Japan. A country ran out of salt and due to war with neighboring countries were unable to get more. Some of the other countries then gave salt as a gift because "the common man shouldn't suffer famine just because the lords were fighting". One info here is that lack of salt meant food couldn't be stored, which lead to famine. It also said something about the feudal lords in Japan, which are otherwise not known for their kindness.

-Having luxury food and rich food sounds like overlap to me. Also maybe having tinned food (canned food?) can be expressed in game different way than a independent yield.

From a DLL point of view there are two kinds of food.
0: Food. Produces serfs or "free colonist" if a specific invention is known.
1: Luxury food: produces page

Luxury food can be turned off if it is unwanted.

This can somewhat be configured in XML, but I would like it to make it more modder friendly eventually.

-Clay is quite available almost everywhere in world. Does it need to be yield at all?

Clay is not just clay. Today China imports clay from Cornwall to produce better china. Go figure.

Maybe, instead of having continent tiles (africa,asia, etc), some yields, like silk worms could only harvested where silk worm bonus is available. Actually I think we could have possibility to plant some bonuses on map.

I can't remember the details, but isn't there some code where you can make a sheep bonus, which takes away 50 sheep from the nearest city? I seem to recall something like that. However it isn't important if it's there or not because it isn't that hard to add. TtW now has code to add/remove vaults from starting plots and the code for something like this would look somewhat similar. Maybe it should have a new profession, which takes up silk worms from a city and the unit loses this profession by placing them on a plot to gain the bonus. We have a few options for this worth looking into later.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Ok I just had a power cut and lost loads of feedback I wrote, so if the replies seem a bit short it is cause I am irritable!

About Yields:

I believe 50 yields is more than enough. Having dozens of yields doesn't add so much to game in my opinion if there is no real difference between their functionality.

The thing to remember is the game will be much longer, so we need to keep the player developing his infrastructure, to produce new yields and transport components between cities. so trade goods will need lots more lower goods in the later eras, also production of units and buildings will be more diverse.

Spoiler :

-Where's salt? It used to be very important trade commodity.

In truth we could have all kinds of other goods, but I had to start drawing a line somewhere. I focussed on lifespan and also production utility or geographcal uniqueness (This mostly plays out in the Medieval to Imperial era) salt could be used to make a food type, but beyond that it doesn't really have any more life span.. and 'food speciality' I have kind of made the middle east herb/spice trade!

Spoiler :

-Having luxury food and rich food sounds like overlap to me. Also maybe having tinned food (canned food?) can be expressed in game different way than a independent yield.

This is for an expansion of the M:C Squire Mechanic, in order to get the most elite people in a given era, requires you to have a more advanced food type. so herbs in classic(luxury food), spice from herbs (rich food) for the medieval era and tinned food (English! We invented the industrial revolution so everyone else can suck it! ) keeps spice alive and also reinvigorates the tin resource.

Spoiler :

-Cut stone produced from stone sounds like unnecessary repetition too.

Cut stone and stone masonry was an art form as much as a construction technique, it requires immense labour and skill. A cave man can pick up a stone and have a tool, an architect cannot pick up a stone and have a Sistine Chapel! How many wonders of the world would exist without stone masons and cut stone? For that I feel it needs a representation in history beyond simply digging it out of the ground..

Spoiler :

-Precious metals sounds bit boring, when we could have gold and/or silver.

Precious Metals was to kind of fudge the utility of it, it could just be Gold, but Precious Metals includes Gold, Silver, Platinum, etc. Through the ages these have evolved beyond there use for adornment and are now commonplace in both utility and high technolgy applications, from cars, to skyscrapers, to space stations, even kettles!

Spoiler :

-Clay is quite available almost everywhere in world. Does it need to be yield at all?

Clay and pottery was flippin everywhere, potters throughout the ages have been flippin litter bugs! It's uses are many from the dawn of time to the modern era. Decoration, pots, bowls, vases, bricks, roof tiles, central heating and on into modern ceramic applications! If you are going to argue for salt as an important historical resource, then clay and it's uses trump it by a mile! (especially in terms of game application) It can even be used as an altenate way to get cut stone for building purposes (Brick works)

Spoiler :

-Wooden Goods sounds like totally unimportant commodity.

Then you must not own a chair, table, or wardrobe? or a desk? or a wooden spoon? or ever used a piece of cut wood for anything?
Wooden Goods represents everything from furniture, to bowls, to wagon wheels and earlier aircraft frames!

Spoiler :

-Also having cars and modern cars etc. is quite unnecessary overlapping in my opinion.

the car has completely transformed in it's hundered year life span, it is similar to comparing an abicus to a computer, because they both help you add stuff up. The difference between a steel skin car and a modern car are massive, in terms of price, technology, and materials used, construction processes, design... it is not possible to make a modern car out of an old car because half the parts would be missing!

Spoiler :

But overall, you have done really nice thinking

Maybe, instead of having continent tiles (africa,asia, etc), some yields, like silk worms could only harvested where silk worm bonus is available. Actually I think we could have possibility to plant some bonuses on map.

Yeah I thought about this, But I wanted to keep them really distinct, so that every continent produces an abundance (relatively speaking) of only one or two things, so that it really encourages the player to colonise (it is still the name of the game) so that when you arrive in a 'New World' everything really does 'feel different' even the look and colouration of the town minimap, as the land is producing different stuff to 'Home'. we could do the bonus shuffling system, (and it probably will have some stuff in some form) the alternative for things like the modern era could be the invention of 'synthetics' and 'bio-engineering' that would allow you to get silk worms or 'silks' in buildings from oil or plastics, so the modern world sees the end of the geographical imperative. But if you really want to max out its production ya gonna need to trade or have production centres at source!

Ok nope that is pretty much everything I reckon!

 

[Kailric]

I did not see the 'multiple lines' stuff added to MC, is that in the available 'release' or just the hub version?

It is only in the hub version atm.

I see the possibility for a lot of exciting stuff here (still working it out exactly) but you could have all kinds of 'initial founding types' throughout the eras spawned from different units, that then give specific bonuses. So you could 'as the eons pass' defound obselete city sites (like a monastery) and refound it as an industrial minig site (one any other of so many possibilities) But all that thinking is for further down the line.. 1 Step at a time!

Instead of refounding a city though, cities can be modified by what buildings you add or what techs you have, that is some techs could convert cities to another type.

The great thing about code is that it can be made to look and feel different at the gamer level, without actually changing the code from one mod to the next (just making some tweaks.) the Prime example is what Kailric did with the Civic Code, he blended a bunch of existing concepts and made them look like something completely new, using the FF points system etc.. I mean everytime I look at it i just think... "damn that was sneaky clever!"

We could even create 'Faction Specific' research trees, by giving the faction an unresearchable tech at the start that is the prerequisite for a whole line of stuff to follow. (just takes imagination and Xml copy/paste graft!) Again 1 step at a time!!

Heh, yeah its fun stuff and saves a whole lot of time when you simply tweak the existing code. Faction Specific should be easily done. It is something I want to add as I want to add in the playable Islamic Culture Civs and they would have a different Research tree as well as other concepts.

What do you say? Should we make a branch for multiple invasion development?

A branch for world history XML development wouldn't be a bad idea either. Col2071 already exists like that in an M:C branch. Using a branch instead of a new project makes it easier to move commits from one mod to the other.

Well both these concepts are interesting to me and after we have M:C developed close to what we have planned then I'd love to help out on these, so yeah, having them as branches is a good idea.

You are talking about the new demand system, which isn't fully implemented yet. This is the goal and it still needs XML setup. Also I'm going to implement PlotGroups from Civ4, which will make the cities aware of neighboring cities connected by road.

What I stated isn't liked is the fact that you can invent a marketplace, build it and then you can sell unlimited amount of goods directly from your city. As this is the primary income you will have a really hard time until you get it. Once you have it, you will become really wealthy in no time to a game breaking wealth. This is a game breaking balance issue.

I think he is refering to the release version Trading Post/MarketPlace/Guild Hall system of selling goods. You can't really sell "unlimited" goods. Only a small fraction each turn. It works like the vanilla Warehouse except you can sell goods any time instead of when they "overflow" and you can set the profit percent which is currently set at 100% in the release version. The Warehouse of vanilla sells for 50%. So in terms of game breaking wealth it would give more cash to a player but M:C also requires more cash than the vanilla, some reasons for this is the Military system and the wider array of Arms and Armor needed in order to build a substantial army and also from the fact that your Settlements start with fewer buildings, and the cost to build the new improvements, and other things as well. Even under the release version all these things plus the other new concepts can be balanced out in the XML so that nothing is game breaking.

In fact RaR has both salt and rock salt. Sprites can be borrowed there. Also I agree that it used to be very important as it was the way to conserve food and the reason why we don't think that much of it today isn't it's unimportance, but rather the availability is so great that we take it for granted. There is an interesting tale about salt from the sengoku period in Japan. A country ran out of salt and due to war with neighboring countries were unable to get more. Some of the other countries then gave salt as a gift because "the common man shouldn't suffer famine just because the lords were fighting". One info here is that lack of salt meant food couldn't be stored, which lead to famine. It also said something about the feudal lords in Japan, which are otherwise not known for their kindness.

Salt was a Yield in M:C but I replaced it with Spices. I wanted to give Spices a more important role. So I made Spices used instead of Salt to make Luxury food. When I did that I didn't have a need for Salt production wise so I just removed it. So, think of Salt as being added to Spices.

I can't remember the details, but isn't there some code where you can make a sheep bonus, which takes away 50 sheep from the nearest city? I seem to recall something like that.

Yeah there is, it works for Cattle and Horses too maybe. I am not sure how modder friendly it is but it should be close to it as most of the options are in the XML.

We keep the tax system (mechanic) basically think of it in reverse, you start with absolute authority, all tribute and tax and income goes to the 'crown' but if you mistreat your people they begin to demand a share of the profits, land owners want to keep a 'cut' of tax and yields and profits etc. So we start with a 0% tax cut and it goes up, 10% tax cut up, and up until eventually you are forced to surrender 100% of the 'crown' income to those Ungodly Upstarts! then you are left with one and only one choice! WAR!!!

I was having similar thoughts. Fealty and Taxes could be tied together. Like you say, you have absolute authority over all income but in order to increase Fealty you have to relinquish some of that authority. The more you relinquish the less profits but the more happy your people are and the more Fealty they can produce. It could be set up like Civ4 where you have a slider that adjusts the Tax rate and Fealty rate. I remember certain Techs allowed you to increase the tax rate by a more percent as well. Man I need to play Civ4 again, it has been so long. I have Civ 5 but just haven't got into it yet.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I think tech slider increase was a mod addition, that certain civic options had a maximum slider percent... I think.

I was wondering how "working" or different the hub version is compared to the released version.. It just seems like the more I learn the less that is actually needed to be created or 'worked around'! It's great! I can't wait to learn about trade screens to make my first version! I am practically there already to make my medieval world map mk1 scenario!

 

[Nightinggale]

Ok I just had a power cut and lost loads of feedback I wrote, so if the replies seem a bit short it is cause I am irritable!

I lost a computer to a lighting strike once
After that happened I invested in an UPS. I could do with one for £50, but I spent twice that amount to get one, which can deliver way too many watt. The result mean I get 20 minutes of desktop battery life. The router is on the UPS as well. It turned out to be a good investment as I lost count of how many 1 second power failures I have had since I put it up without disturbing the computer
Completely off topic for this thread, but I felt like this remark was a must to that statement. UPS is not just something for big companies. The cheapest ones do a great job for a fraction of the cost of a computer. I wish I knew that before losing a computer.

 

[Kailric]

I was wondering how "working" or different the hub version is compared to the released version.. It just seems like the more I learn the less that is actually needed to be created or 'worked around'! It's great! I can't wait to learn about trade screens to make my first version! I am practically there already to make my medieval world map mk1 scenario!

You can see what changes we have made to the hub version here https://github.com/Nightinggale/Medieval_Tech/commits/master.

I just did some research on Salt and found a cool website here http://www.maldonsalt.co.uk/About-Salt-Salt-an-amazing-history.html

An excerpt from their page:

In ancient times, salt (or the lack of it) could drastically affect the health of entire populations. Trade in salt was very important, and salt was valuable enough to be used as currency in some areas. The Trade in salt is older than taxation. Bars of salt were carried from the coast of Africa to inland cities of the Middle East where precious goods such as jewels and silks were traded for it by Arab merchants. Salt was such a valuable commodity in some places that it was traded once for ounce for gold.

This gives me an idea for Salt in that say 200 salt is needed as well as food in order for a City to produce a Peasant/Serf/Noble/Colonist. That way Salt can have a need but not be tied to any production.
Edit: This could tie into a World History mod as well and when a certain tech is research Salt production becomes a minor issue and is then no longer required for population increases.

 

[Nightinggale]

This gives me an idea for Salt in that say 200 salt is needed as well as food in order for a City to produce a Peasant/Serf/Noble/Colonist. That way Salt can have a need but not be tied to any production.
Edit: This could tie into a World History mod as well and when a certain tech is research Salt production becomes a minor issue and is then no longer required for population increases.

Not a bad idea. However 200 sounds like a lot considering it is on top of 200 food. Maybe it should be needed food divided by 4. We could also say you get unit A with food alone and unit B if you also provide salt.

Another historical correct approach would be to link salt to city size. We already have a size limitation. We could increase this by consuming an amount of salt each turn for each unit over the limit. Feeder service ensures that this will not drown in micromanagement.

 

[Kailric]

Not a bad idea. However 200 sounds like a lot considering it is on top of 200 food. Maybe it should be needed food divided by 4. We could also say you get unit A with food alone and unit B if you also provide salt.

Well it would just depend on how available Salt is in the game, if it is rare then it would require less perhaps. There would be a message like when a building needs more materials that says, "Town needs 50 salt in order to expand it's population".

Another historical correct approach would be to link salt to city size. We already have a size limitation. We could increase this by consuming an amount of salt each turn for each unit over the limit. Feeder service ensures that this will not drown in micromanagement.

So, what you are saying is that you can increase a Cities max population with Salt and if the City has no Salt units will start to leave the City just like they do when the City is in Starvation. That's a potentially good idea.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

I think for salt to be such a basic need, it would need to be opened and closed by a tech, otherwise it could destroy certain civs chances, incase they cannot find somewhere to 'harvest' it or cannot afford to buy it..So it would come into effect in the mid classics era, and then go out in the industrial era it sort of becoming a merge with the spice/flavour trade of tin food..

hmmm... I don't know... I am wary of it becoming so central to development that it can cripple a civ..perhaps instead of it being directly related to food, we could make it linked to something like fealty, so a building consumes it and has a big fealty boost, so it kind of goes into the health/happiness and well being of your populace rather than your growth rate.

So in essence if you don't have it, people get sick and weak and die younger, and will generally not be as happy or flourishing. The Ruler that can provide salt for his peoples needs, will receive their love and loyalty. Or perhaps as a 'crosses' production method, so the nation that has plenty of salt will attract people more readily as they will have a strong, healthy, diet and people will flock to the 'security' of that salt market.

I think that might be better rather than it being linked to base food need.. also how rare would it be.. we could have a salt building that has a prereq of a pier and then it consumes wood in exchange for salt, and or some desert tiles could have a salt flats bonus that provides it?

Or we could replace or add it to the 'africa' continent, as your notes said it came from africa to arabia. (although I also know it was a big produced commodity in china also..) so maybe deserts everywhere?...

In my head I am starting to like the idea of salt producing Fealty, as a kingdom without salt 9at least in the World Mod) would be more at risk from rebellion and a kingdom with salt (producing more fealty) would have healthier more productive citizens because of the fealty bonus boost....

 

[Kailric]

hmmm... I don't know... I am wary of it becoming so central to development that it can cripple a civ..perhaps instead of it being directly related to food, we could make it linked to something like fealty, so a building consumes it and has a big fealty boost, so it kind of goes into the health/happiness and well being of your populace rather than your growth rate.

Well you pretty much prove my point. According to historians no access to salt was crippling to a Civ. So, sense salt was such a critical component to a thriving Civ it should be related in the game as such. There are probably several ways to implement this and I'll keep it in mind.

Already in M:C you can get a boost to Fealty by building a Tavern and then selling Ale to the locals through the market. I believe this affect is moddable through the XML and can be applied to any yield and production.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

yeah in terms of crippling a civ, the problem is a gameplay one, in history there were 100s/1000s of potential civilizations. So there are plenty can die out and still civilization emerged in diverse quantities.

If three civs die out cause they can't get salt in the first 50-100 turns of the game (or whatever) you've got a big old hole there!

I do like the 'requires 50 to salt to grow' message idea/system perhaps kicking in after a certain size.. that is a bit less crippling as you could still have a collection of 'underdeveloped' towns making up an empire...

Yeah the 'fealty buildings' in M:C was what gave me the original idea.
I was first thinking of a building that could produce either fealty or crosses (same building) to give you a choice of boosting immagration or loyalty(production bonuses) then I remembered that they both affect immigration so it became meaningless!

But that did get me thinking of ways to use crosses more..

What is the math behind immigration? is that 1 point of any of the 3 factors equals 1 immigration point? or do you need 1 of each to produce an immigration point?

 

[Kailric]

What is the math behind immigration? is that 1 point of any of the 3 factors equals 1 immigration point? or do you need 1 of each to produce an immigration point?

The current math in M:C is iCrossRate + ((iEducationRate + iBellRate) / 2). This number is not a float so anything over 0.0 is considered 1.

 

[Nightinggale]

The current math in M:C is iCrossRate + ((iEducationRate + iBellRate) / 2). This number is not a float so anything over 0.0 is considered 1.

No. Int division is always rounded down.

 

[raystuttgart]

Int division is always rounded down.

That's correct.

 

[Kailric]

No. Int division is always rounded down.

Ahh, so anything less than 1 will be 0? I probably knew that but forgot at some point the rule. I wonder if I should change the math then?

 

[Nightinggale]

Rounding down:
(iEducationRate + iBellRate) / 2

Rounding up:
(iEducationRate + iBellRate + 1) / 2

Rounding up with any divisor:
(iEducationRate + iBellRate + (n - 1)) / n

I'm not sure if it really matters if it is changed or not. It only matters if education and bells combined is uneven and then it is just off by a single cross. I say it is more of a gameplay design decision than a coding decision. Making it round up increase the calculation time by a single CPU cycle (seriously, just one!) meaning we absolutely don't care for technical details in this matter.


I have been thinking a bit about salt. I fear it can ruin the game. TAC needed cotton for wagon trains meaning you had a really hard time if you landed somewhere with no cotton production. This made cotton way more strategic valuable than say tobacco even though they paid the same in Europe. RaR needs hemp and there are alternatives to wagon trains meaning it's less of an issue (but can still be an issue). Adding reliability on a specific yield without providing it everywhere (like lumber or food) can cause game breaking problems.

One possible solution would be that buildings increasing the population limit can do it for free or they can use a yield each turn for each population it serves extra. That way one building needs salt, another needs sugar and so on. As most civs will then have one or two of those it will become more balanced and it will reward a civ with a good internal transport system to provide yields from local and far away places to increase the population limit more than the enemies. The only major problem I see in this is that the AI can build a building, which is useless unless you have salt without considering if it has salt. This is something, which should be looked into if we end up doing this.

 

[Kailric]

I have been thinking a bit about salt. I fear it can ruin the game. One possible solution would be that buildings increasing the population limit can do it for free or they can use a yield each turn for each population it serves extra. That way one building needs salt, another needs sugar and so on. As most civs will then have one or two of those it will become more balanced and it will reward a civ with a good internal transport system to provide yields from local and far away places to increase the population limit more than the enemies. The only major problem I see in this is that the AI can build a building, which is useless unless you have salt without considering if it has salt. This is something, which should be looked into if we end up doing this.

One man's fear is another man's assurance Salt has been said to be the subject of conflict and war thus if your Civ does not have it that would either give cause to form trade deals or take it by force. Both of these are aspects of the Age and what I would like to see portrayed in the M:C mod. I just finished watching the first two episodes of the Vikings: Who where they
series and it has inspired me. The Vikings where both excellent traders and what they couldn't get through trade, or just because they simply wanted a fight, they took. Making certain Vital Goods rare or harder to obtain sounds like a good way to set up cool strategy and diplomacy options and adding more character to the game. Adding Both these ideas mentioned above to the M:C mod for play testing would be simple to do.

Another thought along these lines is Monopolies. Venice is said to have rose to economic greatness through its salt monopoly. Monopolies were big deals back then and how can this be portrayed if every one has the same access to all goods? In the M:C mod I have already placed Spice and Silks solely in the hands of Barbarians but I think it would be neat to have certain goods only produced in certain areas, like Amber in its day was only produced around the Baltic area. Civ4 did a good job of this somewhat in the way it handled resources. When you discovered Iron the resource appeared on the map and if you didn't have access to it you either raced to get it first, fought your way to it, or made trade deals. I want all three to be options in M:C.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Spoiler :

but I think it would be neat to have certain goods only produced in certain areas,

Yeah I am planning this sort of idea with my continental tile sets, where each continent will produce different things.

 

[Nightinggale]

Amber in its day was only produced around the Baltic area.

Amber "production" is resin falling into water. Norway has the right trees, coastlines and temperature to start the production. However amber floats and a lot of the norwegian amber ends up on shores in Denmark and Scotland. It isn't just the baltic, which "produce" amber. I wonder if Canada produces amber as well. The forest in Newfoundland goes strait to the coast and conifer forest is the best kind for amber production. As far as I know conifer is really common in Canada.

Civ4 did a good job of this somewhat in the way it handled resources. When you discovered Iron the resource appeared on the map and if you didn't have access to it you either raced to get it first, fought your way to it, or made trade deals. I want all three to be options in M:C.

I tested inventing a bonus resource and after fixing a bug it worked just fine. However we need a python update to hide resources on the map until you actually invent them. In other words it should be a working feature with only a (serious) graphical issue.
Trade deals could be improved. Exchanging X yield A for Y yield B each turn or something like that. Possibly gold could go into such an agreement as well.