Urbes et Administratio - Attila Building Overhaul

[Augustusng]

Urbes et Administratio Released!
(Now works with the Last Roman campaign)

“Nervos Belli Pecuniam Infinitam”
“The sinews of war, infinite money”
- Cicero

Urbes et Administratio (UeA), translated “cities and administration,” is a building overhaul mod for Total War: Attila which aims to provide a more challenging, rational, and maybe even realistic aspect to the building system. This idea was born during discussions Leving and I had in Rome 2, especially concerning the sudden increases in corruption after reaching higher imperium levels. While the issue of corruption has been alleviated somewhat in Attila (it’s more gradual now), it’s still a bit arbitrary. This mod reduces corruption by approximately half of vanilla values, [There's no more corruption reduction in the mod, since CA made a similar change themselves] but to replace that, many more buildings have a maintenance cost attached to them. After all, real buildings and the services they provide require constant maintenance to function. Corruption will still grow with a bigger empire, but a more important concern becomes which buildings you want to build. Of course, this change may not have a great effect in the very late game if you plan construction well, but it will surely make you think about buildings a little differently! This is far from the only change in the mod, but it’s the most important. Everything else derives from this idea.

Currently, buildings from all cultures except nomadic/horde factions have been adjusted (except for a few small changes to horde buildings). Hordes may be okay as they are, since they don’t suffer from corruption in the same way as settled factions, but we may need to decrease their wealth from some buildings anyway. We would like to expand this mod in the future to make each building a little more interesting, like we’ve done with the governor/court/chieftain’s hold chains in the current version.

Maybe eventually we could move past a building mod into something more expansive, but that’s probably getting ahead of ourselves. Also, this sort of mod… might be possible in Rome 2. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried. There’s an appropriate column to add maintenance costs to buildings, but it’s unused and I don’t know if it functions or displays properly in the UI. We’ll think about making some startpos changes (especially to change the starting Roman situation), but that would make this mod incompatible with many others and requires more work on our part. We won’t make these changes soon, but maybe we will if this mod expands. Since we have not made startpos changes but have changed garrison sizes, some garrison units will need to replenish on the first turn.

Compatibility – UeA is save-compatible with existing campaigns, although you may run into problems, especially with garrison sizes and income. Starting a new campaign is highly recommended. Don’t be surprised if you load up an old campaign and you go bankrupt very quickly! While this mod is not compatible with most mods that change building effects, it is compatible with most unit and battle mods. For some more extensive battle overhauls, it will be important to put this mod earlier in the load order, but not for most. The new version with modified startpos requires a new campaign, and is incompatible with other startpos mods.

Feature List – not a full list, but the most important changes are listed here.

General:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Corruption reduced to approximately half of vanilla values.Again, this is no longer in the mod. Corruption is at the new vanilla values (60% maximum now).

Maintenance costs added to many buildings. For the most part, buildings that do not provide direct income in vanilla now require maintenance costs.

There are many changes, but you’ll notice just as many buildings that we haven’t changed at all. Food production and consumption has not been changed at all. Many other buildings have only undergone minor changes.

Many higher level buildings are slightly more expensive to build. [This change affects hordes]

Reduced cost of colonizing desolate regions.

Main City Building Chains:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The main city building in each region now represents the infrastructure and defense within the region. While higher level cities will cost more to maintain, they will make your province happier and more secure.

Income from subsistence removed.

Maintenance costs added. Barbarian cities cost half as much to maintain as Roman or Sassanid ones, but their other bonuses are decreased.

Improved garrisons. Major cities have roughly double the garrisons as in the vanilla game, while minor cities have slightly less than that [Garrison changes not yet included for the Last Roman campaign]. The number of bastion onagers is now equal for all factions.

Improved public order and growth bonuses.

Added an effect to major cities to reduce the upkeep of armies stationed nearby.

Agricultural and Fishing Port Buildings:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fertility is now even more important for the income of your farms. These farms, while an important source of livelihood for the lower classes, also bring an increased risk of animal-borne illness.

Income from subsistence added.

Base income of agricultural buildings (not ports) halved, but income per fertility level doubled. [This change affects hordes]

Public Order penalties decreased. Squalor penalties increased.

Fixed nomadic cattle chain not giving the proper bonus to cavalry speed (think this is a vanilla bug, but maybe it was fixed in the last patch).

Trade Resources:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trade agreements are a bigger part of the economy, and holding resource locations is more lucrative.

Direct income added to each resource building that does not normally provide income directly.

Price of all trade resources doubled.

Commerce and Industry:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trade brings with it diseases from distant lands, while increased industrial production puts stress on an overworked population.

Squalor penalties from trade ports and market buildings increased (doubled in many cases, but not all). Public order penalties for most of these buildings are decreased.

Public order penalties from industrial buildings increased. Squalor penalties decreased.

Military and Religious Buildings:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Existing maintenance costs halved.

Added maintenance costs to all military buildings, not just the level 4 ones.

Increased replenishment at sea from military ports.

Small Public Order/Horde Integrity bonus from military buildings.

Sanitation Buildings:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Most sanitation buildings now have a maintenance cost.

Most sanitation buildings now also have improved sanitation bonuses.

Additional Building Changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Roman governor’s residence/Sassanid court palace/Barbarian chieftain’s hold chains have all been reworked. The barbarian chain is most similar to its vanilla version (only its wealth bonus has been decreased), but the Roman and Sassanid buildings are very different.

Romans and Sassanids now recruit spies from the administration chain, but champions from the military upgrades chain. Romans also recruit champions from the arena chain.

Most "wealth from culture" effects have been halved.

And probably more changes that I forgot to mention.

Future Plans:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Balancing, testing, and rebalancing.

More interesting/varied building chains for each faction.

Maybe rework the Roman garrison chain into an auxiliary barracks chain.

Rename corruption to something catchier. “Tax efficiency,” as it exists in the files probably wouldn’t work because of the positive/negative values, and I don’t like “empire maintenance” as DeI has it because we also have building maintenance, so it could get a bit confusing.

Maybe do something more interesting with hordes.

Startpos changes? This is far in the future, if ever, but I’d like for the Roman starting situations to be changed especially, along with fixing the starting garrisons. More specifically, change some starting buildings (higher level frontier cities as defensive garrisons), as well as changing starting armies and rebalancing their income.

Maybe eventually add -PO from garrisoned armies, if you know what I mean. I think that change goes really well with the increased public order we've given many buildings.

Seeing if this can be done in Rome 2. Also far in the future, if ever.

New Version with Modified Startpos:
I've added two new versions of the mod, with modified startpos (4TPY and 12TPY). I'm keeping the first version so that you can still use this mod with other startpos mods, but I really wanted to incorporate Magnar's climate change mod into this and adjust it a little bit. With his permission, I've done just that. My only adjustments are to rebalance the income per fertility level to fit with my own changes, and also to slightly increase or decrease the base fertility of several regions to really take advantage of ten possible levels of fertility. Let me know if you think some of the changes don't reflect any regions well, either historically or for gameplay. I may further adjust income or food, but for now this version makes for a somewhat easier, but also more realistic late campaign. Instead of the whole map becoming infertile and most farm options being useless, you can keep your wheat farms in fertile regions now! I'll balance this more when I get a chance to test it. I'd also like to make more startpos changes eventually - fixing starting garrisons, changing some Roman starting buildings (rebalancing their start in general), and removing mercenary onagers (because I despise them ). This version requires a new campaign, and is incompatible with other startpos mods.

Preview of the Fertility Changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Download Link:
Basic Version - Mediafire
Steam Workshop Link

Download Links (startpos versions):
4TPY Startpos Version - Mediafire
12TPY Startpos Version - Mediafire

Thanks to:
Leving for many of the ideas, work, thorough testing, and that fancy logo at the top of the post.
Theora for finding the corruption values in the db. "Tax_efficiency," it's called.
Magnar for his tutorials, his work on editing garrisons, and his climate change mod.
Daniu and crzyrndm's two tutorials for updating the PFM schema.
And of course, all of you who play the mod!

Permissions:
Use it freely. Please credit me if you incorporate it into another mod.

Update Log:
3/5/2015 - Updated for the Longbeards DLC and released!
3/5/2015, again - Fixed (hopefully) the diplomatic effects from the governor/court chain.
3/6/2015 - Several rebalances. Reduced wealth from culture and reworked sanitation/squalor penalties.
3/6/2015, again - Even more changes. Moved some public order effects around and made lower level garrisons slightly weaker.
3/8/2015 - A few small fixes (left in some fraction values by accident in two Sassanid sanitation buildings).
3/11/2015 - Fixed barbarian level 1 minor sanitation buildings providing too much growth, and cleaned up the garrison table. It shouldn't affect garrisons in existing campaigns (didn't in the tests I ran anyway).
3/25/2015 - Updated for Tin Isles Patch, and added a version with startpos changes, incorporating a modified version of Magnar's climate change mod.
3/29/2015 - Rebalanced sanitation buildings, as well as camel, curing, and Celtic farm chains, and hopefully fixed bastion onagers.
3/31/2015 - Fixed the building_levels table in the base version of the mod, and added a 12TPY climate version.
4/29/2015 - Fixed nomadic cattle chain not giving the proper bonus to cavalry speed (think this is a vanilla bug, but maybe it was fixed in the last patch); Added small public order/horde integrity bonuses to military recruitment buildings; Rebalanced 12TPY version construction times; Slight increase to resettlement cost (still much less than vanilla).
5/21/2015 - All the stuff above should really be in this update I guess. Also the Eastern Roman level 3 minor city squalor should be fixed.
6/26/2015 - Updated all versions to work with the new patch. However, the mod should only be played with the grand campaign for now.
7/17/2015 - Updated all versions for the Last Roman campaign. Garrisons have not been updated yet though.
9/15/2015 - Updated for the Empires of Sand DLC. Slightly nerfed the Ma'rib Dam's factionwide income bonus.
12/11/2015 - Updated for the White Huns patch, and removed the corruption reduction from the mod. No changes to Charlemagne yet.
12/12/2015 - Quick update to the startpos versions. Fixed text for fertility levels.
3/3/2016 - Updated for the Slavic Nations DLC. Barring any small fixes or unforeseen future DLC/patches, this will likely be the last update for this mod. It will continue to be updated in a more involved way as part of the larger overhaul mod I'm working on, Europa Perdita.

[Draewn]

I'd been hoping to see some good Campaign-side reworks to go with all the great battle mods that have been appearing - will be cool to see how this works out!

[JoeSaunders]

I'm liking the sound of this - the increased maintenance costs should compete nicely with army upkeep, which may lead to an interesting choice between military and cultural development.

[Dath1]

Release date?

[dmboss]

Seems good!

[Augustusng]

After updating the PFM schema and adding the new Longbeards DLC building entries (no changes to them for now. They seem okay as-is), the mod is released!

[Augustusng]

Update: fixed the diplomacy bonus from the governor/court chain by adding a new effect. Hopefully it works now.

[justfun]

Thanks for the mod, I was looking forward to it after reading the announcement some days ago because buildings balancing in vanilla really bothers me.

But after loading up my ERE late game with the mod for a quick glance I have to say that it makes everything to easy. Reducing corruption more than doubled my income in my tightly managed empire from 40.000 to 100.000 gold per turn. The government building chain is now even more useful as it already is in the base game as an all-purpose building, while perhaps the player should have to make difficult choices: Happyness vs. taxes vs. anti-corruption policy.

The garrisons are also too big - it is even in vanilla easy to fend of a full stack with a level 3 garrison, with your changes even more.

I think the original difficulty of the game should be unchanged - it is about the demise of empires after all. But apart from that I like your approach, many vanilla buildings for the Roman empire - especially the main buildings as well as the trade ressource buildings - need to be more pronounced.

[Augustusng]

Thanks for the feedback. The balance is still in a pretty early state, but I doubt I'll be able to make the late game any more challenging. A tightly managed empire is still going to make a lot of money, especially with the ERE faction trait. I can't do much to stop a player from picking all the best options, except to make the options less attractive. I'm considering decreasing the income for many buildings, especially at higher levels, to offset the decrease in corruption even more. Well, the decreased corruption isn't meant to make the game easier, although of course that does happen. It's meant to make the cost of running your empire less arbitrary than just a corruption percentage. If it's just too easy, I'll consider increasing the corruption amount, but that undermines the main idea of the mod a bit (a more rational system of taxation than corruption), and I'll probably have to make startpos changes to help the ERE in that case (with these changes, it was hard to keep them starting with a positive income).

The big garrisons are meant as a way for the higher level city buildings to be more useful to build, since they don't give income anymore. If you don't like the larger garrisons, it's easy to simply delete my building_levels_armed_citizenry table in PFM (or I guess I could release a version without the garrison table). Doing that will revert garrisons to vanilla. And while this is a game about the demise of empires, for the most part only the Huns historically had the knowledge/skills among all the invading tribes to be able to besiege a fortified Roman city. It shouldn't be easy for some marauding tribe to actually invade the Roman Empire. But really, I'm talking about something that might be done better in a larger overhaul. This is just buildings for now.

[Augustusng]

Update: several rebalances. A few are described in the OP (changes to agricultural, commerce, and industry buildings mostly). If I've done this right, squalor and public order should be a little harder to manage as you develop your cities. Hopefully it's not too hard either - it's a difficult balance to achieve with all these building effects. Please do let me know if you think some buildings are too good/not worth building.

I've also halved the income from most buildings that provide "wealth from culture" effects, since these buildings all provide something else that makes them worth building already.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

This sounds very good, I will test today. I am always impressed by the use of Latin in your titles that is a good enough reason to try

[justfun]

Now my income with your mod dropped from 100.000 to 60.000 (vanilla 40.000), seems more reasonable. I will definitely give it a try with my next WRE game.

I can only remark on the ERE, but I spotted a few things: I have less corruption now, but I could not spot the reason. Is the reduce still tied to the government building chain? It is not shown in the description anymore. And with the reduce in public order this one seems pretty useless now.

Why not move the public order bonus from the main buildings to the government ones? Security (and some growth) could be the main focus of the main building chain. It is a little bit tricky that the security effect is negated by the settlement battle maps - you only get walls with the last level. Thats why garrisons should be more pronounced with the different levels: The could have near to none at the first and a good one at the third level, while the fourth only adds the walls. I think garrisons at the first levels are too strong in your mod.

Your remark about empires having less problems points to a major issue in the base game - re-building the empire should be hard and keeping it together quite some trouble. CA managed it with corruption, but if you take it out, everything is fine for a human player.

The problems could be brought back into the game with high level buildings being more expansive to build and being dependant on food. Food becomes ever more of a problem in the late game and could force the player to abandon some buildings or accept a food loss in some build-up provinces at the price of the 25% percent tax reduce. In my late game I had >1.000 food in a barren Europe and every province was still full of level 4 buildings.

Thanks for your work! My many remarks can hopefully be justified with my great interested in your mod!

[Ritmas]

IMHO, buildings are way too "static" to make/resemble the decay of an empire and I would suggest overhauling the governor system as well. Maybe making that every province should have a governor and expand their traits, maybe add invisable ones if possible, so you wouldn't just replace them the moment they become 'not beneficial'. This also would make assigning governors a worthwhile, as atm they usually after a dozen of turns just cause trouble.

[Jin-]

Works with your diplomacy mod? Should i load it before this one?

Hehe, ERE on hard makes -1,2k turn from vanilla +10k

[Augustusng]

Works with your diplomacy mod? Should i load it before this one?

Hehe, ERE on hard makes -1,2k turn from vanilla +10k

Yep, works with my diplomacy mod. Load order shouldn't matter. And yeah, the ERE has a tougher start in this mod - but on the other hand, the WRE has an easier one...

[*** RoYaL sPaRtAn GuArD ***]

awesome work bro....

[Jin-]

Yep, works with my diplomacy mod. Load order shouldn't matter. And yeah, the ERE has a tougher start in this mod - but on the other hand, the WRE has an easier one...

I tried with WRE and it was like back to Barbarian Invasion. -6k per turn. Armies won't replenish because of constant bankrupt. Normal difficulty, higher was even harder. I like it, but what i don't like how troops get attrition on bankrupt situation.

I'm using Fall of the Eagles and Radious. Or maybe KAM's combat mod upkeep costs is messing the balance for now, don't know. But i would not say WRE is easy now, million times harder than in Vanilla

[Augustusng]

Update with several more changes as I continue to fine-tune the mod. Moved around some public order effects mostly, and made lower level garrisons slightly weaker.

Now my income with your mod dropped from 100.000 to 60.000 (vanilla 40.000), seems more reasonable. I will definitely give it a try with my next WRE game.

I can only remark on the ERE, but I spotted a few things: I have less corruption now, but I could not spot the reason. Is the reduce still tied to the government building chain? It is not shown in the description anymore. And with the reduce in public order this one seems pretty useless now.

Why not move the public order bonus from the main buildings to the government ones? Security (and some growth) could be the main focus of the main building chain. It is a little bit tricky that the security effect is negated by the settlement battle maps - you only get walls with the last level. Thats why garrisons should be more pronounced with the different levels: The could have near to none at the first and a good one at the third level, while the fourth only adds the walls. I think garrisons at the first levels are too strong in your mod.

Your remark about empires having less problems points to a major issue in the base game - re-building the empire should be hard and keeping it together quite some trouble. CA managed it with corruption, but if you take it out, everything is fine for a human player.

The problems could be brought back into the game with high level buildings being more expansive to build and being dependant on food. Food becomes ever more of a problem in the late game and could force the player to abandon some buildings or accept a food loss in some build-up provinces at the price of the 25% percent tax reduce. In my late game I had >1.000 food in a barren Europe and every province was still full of level 4 buildings.

Thanks for your work! My many remarks can hopefully be justified with my great interested in your mod!

No idea why you have less corruption. I didn't change anything that should affect that - but I actually have done so in the most recent update. You should see a change in corruption if you have any treasury buildings. As for food production, I'll think about it, but for now I haven't changed any food effects at all.

I tried with WRE and it was like back to Barbarian Invasion. -6k per turn. Armies won't replenish because of constant bankrupt. Normal difficulty, higher was even harder. I like it, but what i don't like how troops get attrition on bankrupt situation.

I'm using Fall of the Eagles and Radious. Or maybe KAM's combat mod upkeep costs is messing the balance for now, don't know. But i would not say WRE is easy now, million times harder than in Vanilla

The increased upkeep costs of Kam's battle mod will do this. You should have a healthy, positive income as the WRE if you disable that mod. No idea if Radious changes anything in that regard, but FotE shouldn't - although FotE's huge garrisons will get even bigger using this mod alongside it. You might want to delete the garrisons table in my mod if you're also using FotE.

[Jin-]

Thanks, it worked after i removed the upkeep changes in KAM's mod. I liked to be back in bankrupt age, but not with unit attrition. Maybe there is some way to disable unit attrition in bankrupt?

[Augustusng]

Maybe there is some way to disable unit attrition in bankrupt?

I guess it might be possible, but I don't know where to find that effect. The food shortage penalties are in effects_bundles_to_effects_junctions, but I'm not sure about the bankruptcy ones.

Also update: a few small fixes to a couple of buildings. Nothing that should affect any campaigns dramatically.