Building Times in Medieval Europe

[kozakk]

Well i changed my game manually to two turns per year. And i at first figured who cares about changing the building times and growth rates. But when i started building cathedrals i got thinking the 10 turns it takes to build a cathedral is only 5 years time, and even with original timescale for late era it would only be 15, where as the Notre Dame de Paris took 160 years (i think that's right). but at the same time i have trouble imagining it taking more then 2-3 years to build an inn, a brothel or a market. Being big on historical accuracy as many of you here are i wanted a more realistic portrayal of building times.

So basically im wondering how long would it take to build an average catheral, Notre Dame took a while but what about an average one. How long for an Abbey, a marketplace, a tavern, and a shipwright. Im not sure im going to go fully historically accurate because you can only build one thing at a time in a huge city which is kind of absurd, it would be nice if they M2 had a building system similar to the new recruitment system where you can build multiple buildings at a time, but they would simply take longer, but anyway that's a different topic.

Second if anyone could tell me how to actually go about changing the build times and growth rates or simply post a link to were i could learn this it would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Caesar Clivus]

To change construction times, open up export_descr_buildings.txt in the SS\data folder. Each building in the game has an entry. Near the bottom of each entry is the construction line. This is the line that determines how many turns it takes to build each building.

[Housman]

Hmm, I've been looking up a few things in regards to your question about the timespan it took to build a cathedral, so I made a list with some random cathedrals and how long it took to build them:

Aarhus cathedral, Aarhus, Denmark: 1190-1300
Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp, Belgium: 1352-1521 (or, if you prefer, present day: it was never actually fully finished)
Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany: 1248-1880(!)
St. Martin's cathedral, Utrecht, Netherlands: 1254-1517

The time it takes to build a cathedral is a tricky subject, though. Cathedrals are often rebuild, added upon, or repaired after a major disaster. If you want a good example of that, look up the Canterbury cathedral, which was originally built in saxon times, rebuilt in Norman style, was dedicated in 1077, but was still added upon in the following centuries, and has even had extensive work done on it as late as the 19th century (an entire tower was replaced).

One thing to pick up from this is that the time it takes to be build does not mean the time it takes for it to be ready for use. A cathedral could already be in use for centuries before it was actually finished.

[Ichon]

Well first of all it is a game and historical sacrifices are made in interests of game play quite extremely. I am bothered by ahistorical built times as well but so is the concept of a market in Baghdad functioning exactly the same as a market in Norway at every level is off as well.

The part which bothers me most however is the very slow marching speed and travel on ships. Sailing from England to Sicily can take 8 years and all your generals get scurvy and homesick with horrible morale. Well no doubt! Seeing as it took Magellan's ship only 3 years to round the entire world and half the way not knowing where exactly they were going its ridiculous. Or taking 6 years to march up or down Italy... land walking speed should be tripled and ships about 10x but the engine doesn't allow it. It would also make the game more chaotic for human player when AI can land an invasion fleet more easily and since the sieges are actually the one part closest to being correct(storming a city could be done in a few months but sieges did frequently take years vs walled cities) it wouldn't ruin the game to my mind.

[DeMolay]

there is also the fact that in reality , cities were building many things in a row , while in-game you can build onlly one thing after the other .

Notre Dame 's construction took nearly 2 centuries and a couple of restorations mainly because the monument is actually a couple of monuments put together , the first part was completed in 30 years , but there is also the lack of funds at some periods that postponed the project as it was insanely expensive , but during this time , the population of the city almost doubled and many other things were built like an university , many other churches , fortifications etc..

This said i agree that the construction's time for major monument should be longer and far more expensive but also especially , give far more benefits , for example more population increase , added financial benefits because of "pilgrimage" and especially more powerful traits ( like currently we have "visited Hagia Sophia, +1 piety ", i would prefer "visited Hagia Sophia" +3 piety +3 command against catholics and muslims +1 morale for instance ( but give this trait only to one guy/general) , because otherwise it doesn't justify to spend a lot of money and time to build them .


I also agree that the travelling time are perhaps a bit too slow , but at the same time , the modders who did it said that it was to encourage field battles and limit repetitive sieges . I still think a slight increase would be beneficial to gameplay or perhaps they should lower the possibility of having "scurvy" etc.. and the time before a general is out of supplies while traveling on land (well i usually put a full stack in a ship ready to be deployed in RR/RC , i can't avoid the scurvy thing but i think i don't consume my supplies when in a ship , so i think it's better to move along the coasts with your main army and position a ship next to it if possible , it's also better to give your army to a general who has "black or white stallion" or something , the trait that gives 25% faster travel ) , cheers

[Ichon]

The building 1 at a time would be nice to have 3-4 available but with construction time increased I suppose but since many must be built in a certain order as well to buy 3-4 buildings for 1 city would mean no construction another city unless you are super rich. That is a compromise I can live with.

The differences in travel times though have many in game effects which are strange. Naval power is reduced when in fact historically it was often decisive and this is to the detriment of the AI(since all naval battles are autocalc it evens playing field) also encourages leaving interior cities undefended when really there should also be a threat of invasion from the sea when regional great powers are contesting.

Roads also make overall small difference in distance traveled. If MW3 ever comes out it would be nice to have difference between cavalry and infantry armies show more variety. IE- in area with few road improvements cavalry have large speed advantage compared to infantry and siege move very, very slowly(but trait and ancillary allow construction of catapult etc during a long siege) but with more road improvements the differences between travel speed of cavalry and infantry narrow. What is the extra travel from basic road to paved roads- +20% ? In reality it doesn't make much difference in the game as between most bordering regions its impossible to travel from each city to the next in 1 turn even with paved roads though some cities are closer than others.

The modders could have increased travel times a bit but the engine puts a max limit on it due to the fact the AI can't compute larger distances as it increases variables too much(should it attack here or there... goes from worry about these 2 armies attacking to worry about these 20 armies). Also AI is usually single minded... if you are fighting it and it has 5 armies in range it would send them all which would change the battles hugely. So the best compromise is for me to make it 2 turns per year and increase build times and costs about 70% so something that took 6 turns to build now takes 10 turns but 5 years instead of 6 years etc. Speeds up the game a bit but hard to notice unless you play a very long early campaign. Marching from Venice to Belgrade wouldn't take the 7 years it takes now. Even with basic roads more like 3 years and with paved roads could be only 2 years which is +33% increase for paved roads(with ancillaries and traits stacking onto that).