Town squares as hidden resources

**Quinn Inuit** · October 04, 2008, 01:31 PM

I was just thinking about it and we've got a 9-building tree slot being taken up just by the town square. Why not take advantage of that a little? I say we use town squares to represent single-region hidden resources. They will be technically upgradeable, but it'll be prohibitively expensive (9999 gold) Here's what I've come up with so far:
1: Town square
2: Aetolian League Agora (for recruiting Aetolian cav)
3: Rhodian Agora (for recruiting Rhodian Slingers)
4: Cretan Agora (for recruiting Cretan Archers)
5: Athenian Agora
6: Eleian Agora
7: Tarentine Agora

Anyone else have any ideas? I'd rather not use Sparta, and Syracuse is a multi-region resource.

**Pat89** · October 04, 2008, 07:11 PM

If you want to prefent the player from upgrading the various townsquare buildings and you don't want to have silly buildings with costs of 999999, then I would suggest the following:

Code:

building hinterland_town_square ;You have to add "hinterland_" to make it indestructable, right?
{
    levels town_square aetolian_league_agora rhodian_agora ; etc
    {
        town_square requires building_present town_square town_square
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
    {
        aetolian_league_agora requires building_present town_square aetolian_league_agora
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
    {
        rhodian_agora requires building_present town_square rhodian_agora
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
}

As you can see, the buildings require themselves in order to be upgraded... ie. When that building doesn't exist already, it can't be build

Another option is:

Code:

hidden_resources disabled ; <= Important change
 
building hinterland_town_square
{
    levels town_square aetolian_league_agora rhodian_agora ; etc
    {
        town_square requires hidden_resource disabled ; <= Important change
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
    {
        aetolian_league_agora requires hidden_resource disabled ; <= Important change
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
    {
        rhodian_agora requires hidden_resource disabled ; <= Important change
        {
            ; Blah... Capalities and whatever more goes here
        }
    }
}

The main idea is that you add another hidden_resource (HR) called "disabled" to the HR-line. This resource will NOT be added to any region. Since the building can only be build in regions where the HR "disabled" is, it can't be build anywhere

EDIT:
I said above:

Code:

requires building_present town_square level_X

But I'm no sure if it maybe should be:

Code:

requires building_present hinterland_town_square level_X

Since this is also added to the tree name...

Do you maybe now this? I'm not very familiar with indestructable buildings...

**HouseOfHam** · October 04, 2008, 07:46 PM

Why not give settlements the highest level possible to start with?

More specifically,

Code:

building hinterland_town_square ;You have to add "hinterland_" to make it indestructable, right?
{
    levels crossroads town_square aetolian_league_agora rhodian_agora cretan_agora athenian_agora eleian_agora tarentine_agora
    {
        crossroads
        {
            capability
            {
                ; none
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
                ; The tree is only 1 level deep!
                town_square
                aetolian_league_agora
                rhodian_agora
                cretan_agora
                athenian_agora
                eleian_agora
                tarentine_agora
            }
        }
        town_square
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        aetolian_league_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus aetolian units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        rhodian_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus rhodian units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        cretan_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus cretan units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        athenian_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus athenian units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        eleian_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus eleian units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
        tarentine_agora
        {
            capability
            {
                ; whatever needed for revolt bug fix plus tarentine units
            }
            construction 1
            cost 1
            settlement_min village
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }
    }
}

Then, in descr_strat.txt, most settlements would start off with town_square and the special ones with the appropriate agora. Since no one would have crossroads, there'd be nothing to upgrade.

**Quinn Inuit** · October 04, 2008, 08:49 PM

Wow, those are awesome ideas, thanks.

**Jamey** · October 05, 2008, 12:46 AM

These are all good ideas. I think I prefer HoH's solution, but any of them would work.

Also, is there a way to make the culture penalty for the town square go away? Right now, the minimum culture penalty for a settlement captured from another culture is around -15% contentment.

**HouseOfHam** · October 05, 2008, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Jamey

Also, is there a way to make the culture penalty for the town square go away? Right now, the minimum culture penalty for a settlement captured from another culture is around -15% contentment.

Yes, but you would need either culture-specific buildings, or culture-specific hidden resources. The latter would probably work better, since there would be 8 hidden resources freed up by the other town square changes. You'd need one per culture. For romans and egypt, at least, you could re-use aor_italy and aor_egypt. For other cultures, you may be able to combine multiple aor resources.

For rexample,

happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource aor_italy and not factions { roman, }
happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource barb_culture and not factions { barbarian, }
happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource carth_culture and not factions { carthaginian, }
happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource greek_culture and not factions { greek, }
happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource aor_egypt and not factions { egyptian, }
happiness_bonus 3 requires hidden_resource eastern_culture and not factions { eastern, }

**Pat89** · October 05, 2008, 05:20 AM

HoHs' option is a good one as well!!

Only you will have one level less to be used since you have the crossroad building as base. But if you don't need another (9th) building, HoHs' option is probably the easiest to use.

**Quinn Inuit** · October 05, 2008, 07:29 PM

That would work, but would be a bit of a pain. So there's no way to make a culture-neutral building? Alternatively, is there any way to specify the creator of a building so we only have to deal with one culture?

**Pat89** · October 06, 2008, 05:07 AM

There is the "requires building_faction" thing, but that doesn't seem to work...

**Clearchus of Sparta** · October 06, 2008, 06:29 AM

Someone has suggested that the "building_faction" option worked with RTW but not BI, but I dont know if this is true. (Perhaps we'll have to go back to RTW after all hehe)

**Pat89** · October 06, 2008, 06:58 AM

He CoS! You're back

**Quinn Inuit** · October 06, 2008, 08:48 PM

Yeah, I was just thinking I hadn't seen him around here much lately. Hi CoS!

Has anyone tried a building_culture command to see if it does anything?

**HouseOfHam** · October 07, 2008, 01:15 PM

From what I've read of other people's experiments, building_faction conditions are ignored.

And there is no building_culture condition.

**Pat89** · October 08, 2008, 12:38 PM

Just a question...

Do you need to specify building upgrades at all??

(ie will you get a CTD for example without them)

Otherwise simply leave all upgrade {} sections empty

**Clearchus of Sparta** · October 09, 2008, 07:22 AM

Hi Quinn

Ive been on holiday to Greece. Didnt get much sightseeing done this time but I met up with some friends who live in the Taygetos Mountains. Man those are impressive. I dont know where they found any flat land to fight any battles on round there. hehe There is so much rock in the ground, you wouldnt need caltraps. As for wearing bronze armour in that heat, after 20 minutes you'd be medium rare.

**Quinn Inuit** · October 09, 2008, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by HouseOfHam

From what I've read of other people's experiments, building_faction conditions are ignored.

And there is no building_culture condition.

That's a shame. Oh, well.

Originally Posted by PatricianS

Just a question...

Do you need to specify building upgrades at all??

(ie will you get a CTD for example without them)

Otherwise simply leave all upgrade {} sections empty

I think you have to or the build tree gets all funky. That might not be an issue here, but it causes enough strange bugs that I don't want to muck with it. We had some real problems with that while trying to put together the Greek colonies micro-mod.

Originally Posted by Clearchus of Sparta

Hi Quinn

Ive been on holiday to Greece. Didnt get much sightseeing done this time but I met up with some friends who live in the Taygetos Mountains. Man those are impressive. I dont know where they found any flat land to fight any battles on round there. hehe There is so much rock in the ground, you wouldnt need caltraps. As for wearing bronze armour in that heat, after 20 minutes you'd be medium rare.

Yeah, that doesn't sound like any fun at all. It's neat that you got to go to Greece, though.