Marble and Lime Settlements?

[ashmizen]

I've just started DEI, and I'm not too familiar with some of the new concepts introduced. Is there something that Marble and Limestone do that isn't mentioned in the build description in DEI?

I feel like I'm missing something, because the very low income, single digit construction cost reductions is very very weak compared with all the other settlement buildings. It seems that the income and construction cost reduction is greatly less than in Rome II vanilla, but what is added to compensate?

Iron and Copper settlements give massive income (up to 500), +Weapon and Armor %, and some random small bonuses (+1% research?). I'm pretty sure this is almost overpowered, and certainly better than Vanilla.
Mines and Lead settlements produce massive income, better than vanilla Rome II as well.
Food settlements like Olives, Grains etc seem to be similar to Vanilla - low income but gives instead of costing food.

Marble and Limestone seem to be extremely bad, both compared with Vanilla, as well as other Minor Settlement types. They don't have an interesting affect (-2% or -4% construction cost didn't seem to help much, maybe save 50-100 gold per turn, if you build every turn in that province), and their income is reduced by like 100-200 compared with other settlements, with seemly nothing to make up for it. They still cost massive -8 food, yet provides less income, and no benefits that settlements like Iron, Copper, Glasses, or Horses might produce.

DEI is so well balanced, I feel like I must be missing something. What am I missing?

[Grizwald714]

Building shave defiantly taken a nerf since 1.0 in how much income they make a turn. While a resource won't always make u a lot of money it will have other benefits. For example the more resources you have the easier trade agreements are to get and the more they are worth. Also other resources like marble are required to build higher level buildings which means if you don't have it or can't trade for you can't build your level 3 city. The last thing is they make making getting the most out of your proviences easier, for example if you have a glass wear and a gold resource town in the same provience build an industrial settlement.

[ashmizen]

Building shave defiantly taken a nerf since 1.0 in how much income they make a turn. While a resource won't always make u a lot of money it will have other benefits. For example the more resources you have the easier trade agreements are to get and the more they are worth. Also other resources like marble are required to build higher level buildings which means if you don't have it or can't trade for you can't build your level 3 city. The last thing is they make making getting the most out of your proviences easier, for example if you have a glass wear and a gold resource town in the same provience build an industrial settlement.

It just seems uneven? I mean, Iron and Copper is almost crazy good - 500 gold, +10% weapon damage, +5% armor, 120 tradable iron. Even at the L1 levels, it's 100 income, 5% armor and 5% weapon, and 20 iron. You get high income in settlement, trade goods, and the best troop bonuses in the game. I think they also offer troop cost reduction as well.

I think glass, gold, etc are fine - they have their fair share of good bonuses - I'm just curious about Marble and Limestone specifically, since they seem really BAD compared with all the other trade good settlements. Not only is 2% construction cost worse than any of the other bonuses, but it also has less income than the other food-costing trade settlements as well. They have the income of the food PRODUCING trade settlements like olives or whatever, but cost the same -8 food as the others.

[ashmizen]

L4 Marble (compare with the other L4 trade settlments below):
-8% construction costs (regions_in_this_province)
-8 food (this_region)
180 wealth from manufacturing (industry) (this_building)
+3 growth per turn (this_province)
-10 public order per turn (squalor) (this_province)
+2% research rate (this_faction)
160 marble (this_building)



L4 Glassware:

L4 Copper:
+1 army recruitment capacity (this_province)
-6 food (this_region)
500 wealth from manufacturing (industry) (this_building)
+5 growth per turn (this_province)
-10 public order per turn (squalor) (this_province)
-6% heavy unit recruitment cost (this_province)
180 copper (this_building)

L4 Silk
-8 food (this_region)
+24% wealth from all commerce (regions_in_this_province)
800 wealth from local commerce (this_building)
+3 growth per turn (this_province)
-10 public order per turn (squalor) (this_province)
+2% research rate (this_faction)
160 textiles (this_building)

L4 Gold
-8 food (this_region)
650 wealth from manufacturing (industry) (this_building)
+3 growth per turn (this_province)
+2% research rate

L4 Timber
+1 army recruitment capacity (this_province)
-7 food (this_region)
300 wealth from manufacturing (industry) (this_building)
+30% wealth from industry (regions_in_this_province)
+2 growth per turn (this_province)
-9 public order per turn (squalor) (this_province)
140 timber (this_building)

[ashmizen]

Other buildings with similar duel negatives (-8 food, -10 squalor) is Silk (same) and Timber (less at -7 food, -9 squalor).

To make it worth the massive duel negatives, they have both a huge wealth bonus, and a really amazing ability (+25% commerce income, +30% industry income). These abilities alone will produce more income than the -8% construction cost. Marble should be 800, exactly the same as Silk. To make it interesting, since Marble is both a luxury good like Silk but also used in construction like Timber, it could be 400 industry, 400 commerce.

[ashmizen]

I mean, everything other trade resource produces massive wealth except Marble - even Timber is producing 300*1.3=400 wealth, and that's not including the 30% bonus to industry for other buildings.

Historically Marble was a very nice trade good - maybe not Silk's 800 wealth, but certainly should be worth more than Timber.

I don't really see how construction cost reduction can be worth that much - a 8% reduction off a 3000 building is something like 240, except you really can't build every single turn - both due to running out of building you can build at your tech level, and that buildings take many turns to finish before you can build again. Given building slots of maybe 15 building slots in a province, you'd be lucky to average 1 per turn for 60 turns (that means all buildings must be upgraded every 15 turns, and even then, after turn 60 they will be fully upgraded at L4), and after that your province will be fully upgraded with L4 settlements.

So, for 60 turns the income + construction cost savings might be similar to other building's base income. However, you're missing out on any other benefits, and you need to constantly build buildings to achieve this "income". Plus, the 500, 600, 400 income of the other buildings will be boosted further by tax rate, slaves, commerce/industry bonuses, etc. The 240 gold "per building" cost savings does not increase, and indeed goes to 0 once you finish building all the buildings you want to build.