Ideas to improve to buildings in DEI

[rem123456]

Here are some feedback about buildings in DEI that if appropriate could be applied to DEI 1.0.

1. I salute the creation of armed citizens as a substitute for the useless plebs. The problem is that these units make no sense as a garrison for Sparta where all citizens were very capable soldiers. The rest of the Spartan garrison applies more to other Greeks than to them. Instead they should use Spartan units, like periokos hoplites, Spartan hoplites and helot archers. The armed citizens could perhaps be replaced with helot spearmen.

2. Given that the previous buildings have considerable garrisons I assume it is an error that the monument of Leonidas and the Piraeus have no garrison. In fact, they should have larger garrisons which should include elite units (land and ships respectively).

3. Right now all the military buildings give the same garrison of cavalry and melee infantry. I think this should depend on the building type. The stables should give more cavalry, the marksmen range more missile units, the siege engineer workshop some siege weapons, etc.

4. The fortified towns and provincial capitals should give garrisons of superior quality than regular towns and capitals. Right now they all have the same garrisons.

5. Why does the sluiced mine increase land unit recruitment costs in 8%? From a gameplay perspective I’m already getting the squalor and it’s weird for a building to have 2 drawbacks and only one benefit. From an historical perspective a mine should supply lots of metal making the equipment of soldiers cheaper, not more expensive. And the labor source were usually slaves so this shouldn’t affect the freemen available for recruitment.

6. The reduction of construction costs some buildings give should be bigger given that in this game you build a lot less buildings that in Rome I. For example the limestone town gives a maximum reduction of 4% for the province, which isn’t significant at all. If it is going to remain so low then the bonus should be applied to your whole empire.

7. The wine town using food makes no sense as wine was an important part of the Mediterranean diet. Of course it wouldn’t make sense to reduce public order either. On the other hand the increase in recruitment costs would apply here as lots of recruits would turn into undisciplined drunks. And the +1 recruitment capacity could be taken away or construction costs could be increased if you need a drawback for the building.

8. Right now silk and purple dye towns give more money than gold towns and also give a bonus to commercial income. From an historical perspective this doesn’t make sense. Of course, those two goods were profitable and valuable commodities sold to the very rich, but having a mine of precious metals could be the basis of an empire. The army of Alexander the Great was possible because of his gold mines at Mount Pangaion, the army of Hannibal was possible because of his silver mines in Iberia, the fleet of Athens was possible because of the silver mines at Laurium, etc. Gold should give more money than any other resource. And gold also stimulated commerce more than any other resource given that it didn’t had to be sold for money but was money in itself, so a bonus to commercial activity is in order. Every faction should be fighting for the gold mines.

9. I think civilized factions should have access to the red industrial building tree. Given that they were more complex societies it wouldn’t be unfair to give them more buildings than to barbarians. The bronze furnace and iron workshop overlap with their military buildings but they could get salt workshops, jewelsmiths and perhaps other new buildings like a perfume shop or a furniture worshop. Also just like some barbarians like the Suebi don’t get the jewelsmith perhaps a few civilized nations shouldn’t get them either (the Spartans come to my mind). There are also other commercial buildings civilized nations could get, like money lenders. This could be compensated by giving barbarians more garrisons on their buildings perhaps.

[mephhhh]

im not sure all those modifications to garrisons would be necessary im quite content where they are at the moment right now but i pretty much agree with you on point 5 6 7 8. barbarians werent actually that barbaric and because history was pretty much written by the greeks and romans you wont get an unbiased point of view on the 'barbarians'. it was pretty much ancient day propaganda, much like how america paints middle easterners as terrorists.

[rem123456]

barbarians werent actually that barbaric and because history was pretty much written by the greeks and romans you wont get an unbiased point of view on the 'barbarians'. it was pretty much ancient day propaganda, much like how america paints middle easterners as terrorists.

Yes, I agree they weren't a bunch of savages, but still, they were less sophisticated. The fact our sources are mostly Greek and Roman is because they were more literate societies. And there is no Suebi equivalent of the Parthenon or the Coliseum. But yeah, I'm not saying barbarians should have mud huts and nothing else.

[rem123456]

Oh, also I would love edicts so that agricultural buildings can sell excess production of food and market buildings (like forum cuppendinis and forum boarium) can buy it when having shortages. This would add realism and improve gameplay.

Btw, did any dei devs saw this post? I had to study honga during a while to make.

[Alu10]

Number 4 i find is a good idea. the walled cities should really have better troops than the normal villages

[Dresden]

Yes I like many of your ideas Some of them I have already been working on for 1.0.

For the edicts idea, I wonder if there is a way to tie it to the buildings be required (or at least the edict is only really good if you have those buildings). I will look into that.

[rem123456]

Yes I like many of your ideas Some of them I have already been working on for 1.0.

For the edicts idea, I wonder if there is a way to tie it to the buildings be required (or at least the edict is only really good if you have those buildings). I will look into that.

That's great!

[blub19]

Yes I like many of your ideas Some of them I have already been working on for 1.0.

For the edicts idea, I wonder if there is a way to tie it to the buildings be required (or at least the edict is only really good if you have those buildings). I will look into that.

you can add effects to edicts with buildings and from the strategic edict submod we know that 8 edicts are posible. so you could add an empty edict that gets its effects form the buildings.

[TheOrangeProject]

Hm the only thing which really anoys me about the current garrisons is the fact, that the AI got 80% 1 1/2 - 2 turns (sometimes?), while i have to wait 10 turns. The AI takes a settlment and i am not able to counter it with a full stack, because the garrisson is almost full. I dont see the point here. Normally i dont mind to lose a settlement due to my own mistakes, but i will reaload in those situations, because i dont like it, that my gameplay experience suffers to unfair events.
I never liked it about TW games, that instead of making the AI smarter the AI gets bonus stuff. They can give that the AI on VH or L, but not below. There already other semi fair stuff in the game i dont like at all.

[ABH2]

For the edicts idea, I wonder if there is a way to tie it to the buildings be required (or at least the edict is only really good if you have those buildings). I will look into that.

The effect_bonus_value_provincial_initiative_effect_record_junctions table is the key to creating effects for the edicts. I was still relatively inexperienced when I made the edicts mod, but a lot is really possible with the edicts.

It should be possible, as stated above, to create a blank edict or to create an effect entirely dependent on the construction of certain buildings. So, let's say we wanted a 'sell' food edict.

Simply create an effect that impacts food production based on an edict. Link it to the building in question. Let's say a level one farm. When the edict goes into effect, you lose -1 or however much food you want. To get the right income, however, you'd need to a separate effect to add the wealth. The edict should add up the buildings from all the buildings in the province. You have your selling food edict.

I wish I had time to focus on these things, but I have other tasks. Hopefully DeI can develop the idea in the meantime.

[tomFoolery]

Good points there. I'd say there needs to be a somewhat better balance found between buildings of the same tree/type. For some cultures, there ends up being one particular industrial, or sanitation, or city center building line that very rarely gets built, just because it can very rarely live up to the other building lines within it's tree. Also, because I know some "eastern barbarians" have temple buildings that add a culture other than their own, it should be ensured every building that gives culture should give the culture of the owning faction, although there should be some exceptions to this, such as the satraps palace and cavalry recruitment buildings of the Seleukids and Baktria giving a small degree of eastern culture.

Also, I can't imagine why military training buildings can't be built in minor settlements. I know there's a submod for this, which I never play Rome 2 without, and I don't see why it shouldn't be default feature of DeI.

[Lordberk]

I think some thing needs to be done with training field buildings. Maybe all of them merged into one building or completely removed. Or at least they should be made retrainable. They are chore to build and use and occupy too many precious building slots.

[Dresden]

The training buildings give an advantage to the player because the AI does not min/max like the player does. Allowing them to be built in every city would heighten that advantage even more. Right now, you have to make a choice about which one you want for a province rather than getting to have them all.

@ABH2 Thanks for the quick tutorial, I will get to work and see how to best balance some new edict ideas.

[Lordberk]

Then could they be made at least retrainable?

[Noone likes Thebes:(]

I consider mines to be very weak buildings at the moment. I wish there were special mines tied to resources like how Rome I had mines in only some areas. Mines were historically crucial to the wealth of many powers but I always find myself using Quarries instead.