Brief Build Critique

[Colleptic]

Brief Build Critique: (I will be using this to assist many modes and I hope my ideas can helpout the game balance/realism).

Certain build times are way, way too long and others are too short. Most build times should go down as time progresses. At the beginning, after the emergence from what we like to call the Dark Ages, building should be extremely long, for instance Land Clearance should be one of the longest in the game.

As the game progresses, time progresses and if we want to be accurate, building should start to become mechanized and simple buildings like inns/coaching houses should become trivial. The Palazzo del Te (1400’s) was built in 10 years and it was considered one of the grandest pleasure palaces. Do not forget the game wanders into the time of the Reaissence, which means build times must go down if we want to be acurate. (We even enter the time of the High Renaissance).

Below I give some examples of what I mean.

Markets:

They have always just growen with cities, they are basic. Their build times should go up, but should not become reidculisly long. This is one example of infrastructures within cities that are byproducts of their the population. They grow and merge freely; build times should really just reflect the time it takes for the population to accept all the new types of trade avalibale. But, the market’s growth should be a manditory trigger for other build options, such as Smiths and Trading Ports. This is where the programmers can slow down and control city expansion, rather than just make everything super long to build.


Farms:

- land clearance should be longer than farm build time, after this is done, farming is straight forward
- lower level farms should be no longer than 2-4 years (this is due to land clearance being done and basic farming villas in the first stages would be family oriented and operations would take a mere few years to complete.
- high level farming, would have slightly higher build times, but they still merely a byproduct of the smaller farms expanding territory. Usually they are from farm/family mergers, which allows for them to create a larger market for themselves.

Farms in general, should not have extremely long build times, but they should have triggers! For instance, you should be forced to build the market upgrade first. Until then the farming upgrade should be greyed out; without the new market for support, the larger farm infrastructure of that area is useless.

Smiths:

I have hated this upgrade in all strategy games and I change it whereever possible. The basic level of smith shops are linked to the merchants and commoners. They can set-up shop in a year; two if we want to factor in getting a good customer base etc. Once again, maybe grey-out the upgrade untill the market for the city level is made. (Without the proper flow of Smithing materials…no smith etc...can it also be linked to resource trade...thus making trade actually important?)

-low level smiths are economy based and run by the commoners, thus very fast build times, but linked to the trade of the area…no iron/tin/coal being traded in that area or being imported in…maybe no smith? (This would be the same for a gunsmith…no sulphur imports…no gunsmith?)
- higher level armouries should be linked to the barracks of the settlement. Their build times should not be as long as they are in the game, but definitely longer than the lower level ones. They should have the same resource requirements, but require the city to have a higher level barrack system to support the empire's military machine that they must build amour for.

Cathedrals:

Churches and Cathedrals are handled quite well, but they are some of the exceptions regarding longer build times. Even with the rise of the architect towards the end of our time period here, they get so absurdly grand, they take forever to build. The Cathedral for Florence took 170ish years to complete in full (the dome was the biggest factor). Now, we do not have to make the cathedrals and huge cathedrals that long to build, but catherals should take at least 30-50years.

Furthermore, I think huge cathedrals should be limited in some way. The settlement should have a theologian’s guild at Gm level I think is the best solution. Thus, only a few cities will get to build one, making it more historically accurate. I would make the build time on them around 75 years. To compensate for the extreme build times, make a few more bonuses, unique traits, troops etc. to come out of cathedrals and especially huge cathedrals.

[repman]

I like the idea to use the market to control a lot of buildings. We always have to test if the AI can handle it. Resource dependent buildings is although an interesting aspect. I don't know if the AI is building theologians guilds.

repman

[Re Berengario I]

I'm also not at all satisfied on how buildings are handled by MTW2.

I already planned down some huge changes, but we have some problems linked to the game engine itself.

For example Cathedrals usually took centuries to be completed WHEN and IF they were completed (actually the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, was never completed in middle ages, neither in renaissance, its facade was completed in XIX century, the cathedral of my city, Bologna, has still its facade half builded).

The same is very true with very long improvements like land clearance, etc

But we have the problem that the engine allows the building of one structure at time, so if we decide to set the building of a cathedral on a realistic time span we are unable to build anything else for over a century, which isn't something we can afford in gameplay terms.

So I think we must abstract things a little more, we should consider the building more than of a building itself but a technological improvement. I think this is the best method to depict things in a more realistic way.

So for example a smith will represent not just the craftsmen on an anvil in his shop, but the technological improvement which allowed the crafting of better weapons through new steel alloys and metallurgic tecniques.

[Colleptic]

The above is what I thought would be a problem.

Maybe a huge cathedral should only be available when all tech/buildings are done in that city? Could we also link it to how many cathedrals are build in total for that faction, i.e., one must build 5 cathedrals then one huge cathedral will open up to a city that has finished all building? A-sort-of a final city upgrade…but it is a huge cathedral instead?

I would like to see something dynamic regarding building in this game…it is very boring, the same thing for all cities, everytime gets really boring.

PS: I think we can safely say after Brunelleschi's dome, it was structurally complete; the reset was all details like the fascade and interior art.

[Colleptic]

Hey could something like this be programmed…

A final city upgrade based upon the last thing that was built? This way you have to pay attention the final thing you chose to build and where etc. For instance, in a city if an armoury is built last, when that is done it can trigger another city upgrade (or after a certain population it pops up, whatever works). The upgrade that pops up would be a full-out foundry of sorts. If the person chooses a cathedral, the upgrade will be a huge cathedral etc. If possible, this could be done for each building item, like barracks or docks and if it is a fortress, the same will apply, but with a few different options of course.

This might make building more strategic, in a war zone one might build a barracks last to open up a final upgrade that gives some sort of recruiting bonus there...an extra slot and some experience or something. Can something like this be done, or something similar?

[Re Berengario I]

Hmmm I instead think to unlink the various buildings from the size of the settlement. If the player or the AI want to build a huge cathedral in a small city why I should stop them? It's both silly and unhistorical.
If I instead makes the various trees like representations of the tecnological advances in the various fields (political, religious, military, commercial, etc) I think it would be a lot more exciting.
The only limit will be the era system, the same I'll use for military units so to avoid too much anacronistic problems. Btw it wasn't the size of a city to prevent to build a cathedral but technological advances, you can spot huge cathedrals in what weren't enormous settlements for sure, just make a trip in France or Germany.

[SickBoy13]

My only gripe is the disproportionate income for financial buildings.
Other than that, take as long as you like on the building times.

[nikolai1962]

I've found that making a lot of buildings dependent on others can help the AI by pushing it into building the most important things first. E.g roads help the AI path-finding so making a lot of buildings dependent on a market and then making markets dependent on a road makes the AI build roads quicker.

It can be annoying sometimes when palying as you have to go through a set sequence but it can definitely help the AI in some situations.

[RivieraKid]

But we have the problem that the engine allows the building of one structure at time, so if we decide to set the building of a cathedral on a realistic time span we are unable to build anything else for over a century, which isn't something we can afford in gameplay terms.

Is it not possible in scripting to have 'representative' buildings which when built will add a couple of buildings to the city? for example, if you build a market it adds a market, a blacksmith and a trading port to the city. Or for the longer things like cathederals could you detect how far along the build is and at say 50% completion add a stonemason (which give a bonus to building fortification or something...). Just so you can link things that would crop up together.

Or maybe even better just add these buildings automatically when the city reaches a certain size - then you can have longer build times for other things and have cities more specialised. after all, humans will be humans and if there is demand someone will make money out of it.

[Re Berengario I]

It doesn't make a lot of difference if you build 1 building or a bundle of buildings if their overall effect is the same. And I agree that the buildings should represent "exceptional" ones, not the ordinary ones that can be found in every city. The new building trees I'm designing is taking this in account.