Variable building times

[moosey]

Hey guys, im sure this may have come up before but is there any way to have a building take different amounts of time to build for diferent prices, for example a 3turn build building being able to be built in 2 for twice the money as an option.

Ive got a feeling its probably hardcoded or otherwise impractical but just thought i would ask anyhow.

Thanks

[Landwalker]

Well, you can add new structures (for example, 6.1/RR/BGR (I'm not sure which is responsible) has stuff like the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople), but I've only seen pre-built ones so I don't know if you can do the same with buildable options -- however, I know it was possible in Rome, and Medieval 2 uses pretty much the same engine, so I don't know why it wouldn't be possible this time around.

That said, I don't have the faintest idea how one would go about doing this. It seems like it would be possible (although you'd have to do something like make two "copies" of the same building with the different price/time values, and figure out a way to make them mutually exclusive), but attaining it is beyond me.

Cheers.

[Vince Noir]

You can do this by editing the export_descr_building file, found in your mods\stainless_steel\data directory. Hope this helps.

[moosey]

Is there a cap on the number of buildings you can put in the game? I could try to see if i can make 2 copies of each building but as you said making the mutually exclusive, so far you can only do buildings to only be available once another has been made...

YOu could do it in Rome!?!?! I missed that boat, lol.

I might have a rummage around when i have some time off, try making 2 dirt roads or something to see if i can get it to work.

[Landwalker]

I don't know if there's a cap on buildings, but there is on factions, units, the map, provinces, etc., so I wouldn't be surprised.

Some mods in Rome, like Europa Barbarorum, had completely revamped buildings and building trees, at least some of which were mutually exclusive with one another, so it can at least theoretically be done. The problem may come with trying to make duplicates of *every building*, and how high (or low) that cap is.

Cheers.

[aduellist]

There is a limit on the number of tech trees, which limits the number of buildings. OTZ hit it in his AOR mod and had to eliminate the "wonders" buildings in order to implement all his barracks lines.

[moosey]

so in a word it wont be possible to duplicate all buildings.... shame, thought i was onto something there. lol

[aduellist]

so in a word it wont be possible to duplicate all buildings.... shame, thought i was onto something there. lol

It is possible. There's just a limit on how many times you can do so. If you want do do a "building_X_fast" and "building_X_cheap" with different build times and costs, that's completely possible. OTZ hit the limit because he essentially duplicated the military trees for barracks, stables and ranges like ten times each (once for each faction/cultural group). All I can suggest is "go forth and experiment".

One potential issue is switching between "fast" and "cheap". I'm not claiming any particular expertise, but I think once you've selected your first building in either the "fast" or "cheap" line for each tree in a given settlement, you'll be stuck there. So once you've built your first "cheap" castle barracks, for example, all the rest of your castle barracks in that settlement will perforce be available from the "cheap" line only.

[moosey]

Are you saying that i could possibly do it for one faction but i couldnt do it for all factions with the limit on building types?

Yeah, ive been thinking it would be difficult to make it so one could build slow and fast buildings in any order.

Thanks for the help anyway, its probably gonna be a while until i have significant time off work to have a good crack at it but i will let everyone know if i get anywhere.

Thanks guys

[Stark of Winterfell]

In a similar vein, would it be possible to make it so that larger cities could build multiple buildings at once?

[aduellist]

Are you saying that i could possibly do it for one faction but i couldnt do it for all factions with the limit on building types?

Yeah, ive been thinking it would be difficult to make it so one could build slow and fast buildings in any order.

Thanks for the help anyway, its probably gonna be a while until i have significant time off work to have a good crack at it but i will let everyone know if i get anywhere.

Thanks guys

Factions only become an issue if you intend to make a separate tech tree for each building line for each faction. If you just intend to duplicate the existing ones then you should be fine.

The tricky part about switching back and forth would be doing it in such a way that you aren't able to build both the "fast" and "cheap" versions of each building. Not sure how that could be accomplished. Like I said, I know basics but am no expert.

In a similar vein, would it be possible to make it so that larger cities could build multiple buildings at once?

That's a hard coded limit unfortunately. Would that it could be changed. Haven't found anything in the Mod Workshop that indicates it can be, though.

[frederickm]

or do the easy thing and just use add money cheat with a negative value then process_cq