Imperator DD : Civilization, Buildings and Macedon

[x8ight]

I'd like to see Rural Planning have some diverse modifiers so that it would more specifically benefit something like decentralized tribal gameplay. As it stands, it could be argued an urban nation would get a good benefit from Rural Planning; the same cannot be said for a decentralized nation getting any real benefit from Urban Planning. I'd love to see this decision lean more heavily into differentiating Urban vs. Rural nation building.

Indeed, I find it hard to see how Rural Planning would benefit decentralized tribes significantly (maybe I'm wrong in assuming Tribes could ever get to this tech level). There's only 1 type of settlement building that boost tribesmen - it is also the most expensive making it hard to obtain to begin with. As a decentralized tribe I don't want slave pops, I only want tribesmen so building any of the other types would be detrimental to my nation because it would disrupt my tribesman pop ratios.

I realize decentralized tribes aren't the only "wide" gameplay options, but it is one dear to my heart and it feels very much that its gameplay is being forgotten. After all, half the map is tribal so it would be unfortunate to neglect tribes too much.

 

[Arheo]

Are you hiding the "respectfully disagrees" under your own posts?

No.

I think only the three more voted emoticons are shown

Yes, it only shows those apparently.

I think it's pretty much a universal consensus that this is terrible and should never be built by anyone...
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but allow me to propose a change
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This way we'd get the historical city walls around many of the cities of this period, it would give a strong reason for an army to fall back and garrison a city, and taking it from a well defended... uhh.. defender, would be much harder.

As indicated, all balance subject to change - this building in particular. Not entirely sure I agree that it's useless though. Might be niche, but one can hold up some pretty huge armies through a mountain gate with earthworks; yielding an effective combat width of 9 or 10 if memory serves. They can only be constructed in fort provinces; meaning unless your fort has fallen, you'll always be treated as the defender.

This makes me the big sad.

I'm a fan of these changes, I like the idea of limiting certain buildings, though I would argue that all buildings should be limited (maybe as a ratio? as in you can't build more X until you have more of Y etc) but all the changes are really for nought when the most problematic building in the game is unchanged. The "meta" strategy right now is just to spam aqueducts and these changes really do nothing to address that. People are still going to just make these ahistorical abomination cities with 100 aqueducts pouring enough water in there to make Venice look like a desert. Aqueducts would fit beautifully into that 3 per city catagory, or maybe even X aqueducts per civilisation level... just something to limit the absolute ridiculousness that is right now, and seemingly will still be, encouraged.

There have been additional changes to population capacity % modifiers which render this pretty hard to achieve. Notably, technology itself provides reduced population capacity %, and to receive the invention modifiers to popcap, you have to invest a considerable quantity of innovations to unlock the majority that were pretty much de facto available before. Whatever you're spending in these results in points you aren't spending elsewhere.

Without innovations, I've been hard pressed to get a metropolis above 300 pops (while cheating thoroughly, and building only aqueducts) - I don't see much value in entirely preventing this playstyle for those that wish to engage in it - the important thing is that engaging in it is now something you actively build towards, at the expense of other things.

EDIT: Another honorable mention is perhaps that the various bonuses to output for simply existing in a capital region/province/city have been hugely reduced. Civilization is key to output now - stacking population in somewhere that magically results in higher output is no longer nearly as viable.

 

[Decius]

Any chance we can take a look at the marketplace bonuses? +2.5% trade routes is mostly useless because of the large number of marketplaces you need to build to get a decent bonus, as compared to simply increasing the noble's ratio which gives much better bonuses (+research, +trade routes at a flat rate). Could we switch that to just be +Commerce Income as an approximate facsimile of the Tax Office?

Either that (+ commerce income) or increase the current +2.5% trade route bonus or add another bonus or a combination of the previous options.

 

[marze1992]

Later in the game, you can expect to see flourishing capitals approaching 70-90% civilization, with values higher than this being reserved for those truly keen on eking the most out of their territories.

That means that the achievement "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (As Rome, own and at least one City with 70 or more Civilization Value in every Province within the Palestine region), will become an hard one; or will you change the requirment, for instance, 50% civ value?

 

[Arheo]

That means that the achievement "What have the Romans ever done for us?" (As Rome, own and at least one City with 70 or more Civilization Value in every Province within the Palestine region), will become an hard one; or will you change the requirment, for instance, 50% civ value?

Nope

 

[BorisTheSpider]

I would have to agree with the devs in regards to earthworks and other related buildings - with changes to combat width and introduction of mountain pases, if they were placed in strategic location they could give the edge to a smaller army. Though I will concede that such an application is situational, I would also argue that is what makes it interesting and meaningful when it Is applied

 

[x8ight]

EDIT: Another honorable mention is perhaps that the various bonuses to output for simply existing in a capital region/province/city have been hugely reduced. Civilization is key to output now - stacking population in somewhere that magically results in higher output is no longer nearly as viable.

Way to bury the lede!

 

[Lord Lambert]

Might be niche, but one can hold up some pretty huge armies through a mountain gate with earthworks

I'm not sure that encouraging cities to be built on mountain chokepoints is really the right way to go if I'm honest. I mean, I know they already are through cities being the only territories capable of multiple fort levels, but I don't know how much I really like that.

Without innovations, I've been hard pressed to get a metropolis above 300 pops (while cheating thoroughly, and building only aqueducts) - I don't see much value in entirely preventing this playstyle for those that wish to engage in it - the important thing is that engaging in it is now something you actively build towards, at the expense of other things.

Id not taken techs and inventions into consideration, but it's good if that is really the soft limit of what is achieveable through actively pushing for a megacity. I don't ever want to see a 1000+ pop city again >.<
I would argue that aqueducts are still something that could be changed, and with civ value representing sanitation now, it would be good if aqueducts were limited by or were more responsible for civ value than for pop cap.

 

[Decius]

There have been additional changes to population capacity % modifiers which render this pretty hard to achieve. Notably, technology itself provides reduced population capacity %, and to receive the invention modifiers to popcap, you have to invest a considerable quantity of innovations to unlock the majority that were pretty much ed facto available before. Whatever you're spending in these results in points you aren't spending elsewhere.

Without innovations, I've been hard pressed to get a metropolis above 300 pops - I don't see much value in entirely preventing this playstyle for those that wish to engage in it - the important thing is that engaging in it is now something you actively build towards, at the expense of other things.

But this doesn't change something about the necessity of building a lot of aqueducts in order to increase pop capacity, which is required to gain more building slots? So if I want more buildings, I have to use most of the slots for aqueducts, what leads having less slots for other buildings, what leads to cities with a lot of aqueducts and a few other buildings.

I fully understand that 2.0 isn't about buildings and I'm very happy with the changes we get for the Marius update, but please keep it in mind for future updates and ideally one of the next after 2.0

I wrote in an earlier post in this thread, that maybe detaching the increase of pop capacity from aqueducts (giving the aqueduct new bonuses and maybe a small percentage bonus to pop cap) and tie pop cap more to the other current factors and/or add a new factor, how pop cap is gained. Of course this needs to be balanced and take some work, but my suggestion is meant for another update and not 2.0.
I guess there are multiple solutions for this issue, but I'm just suggesting one.

 

[Symbra]

2 weeks before 2.0 (and tech trees) was announced I was spending a lot of time working on a tech tree mod.

Now I've been working on a building overhaul with building caps and now this. Are you guys stalking me or do our design ideas have this much overlap?

(With Agamidae's Better UI mod)

RIP to the hours it took to figure out building cap scripts, but I guess it will work better with properly implemented caps anyway. Consider this a sneak peek!

Also, hire me for content design.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Civilization is key to output now - stacking population in somewhere that magically results in higher output is no longer nearly as viable.

Civ is an always increasing value? Will we have deflation? Temporary setbacks besides Barbarians attacks? As news have shown lately, we cannot take civilization for granted. And Rome is also an example, long before its fall.

 

[Arheo]

But this doesn't change something about the necessity of building a lot of aqueducts in order to increase pop capacity, which is required to gain more building slots? So if I want more buildings, I have to use most of the slots for aqueducts, what leads having less slots for other buildings, what leads to cities with a lot of aqueducts and a few other buildings.

The thing that makes aqueducts most valuable is any modifier that increases % population capacity. If you ever reach a point where this value can exceed 150%, then aqueducts can begin to support more pops than are required to build them. Firstly, this should no longer be close to possible due to a long list of balance tweaks. Secondly, Aqueducts do not contribute to civilization capacity, unlike all other building types. Getting civ as high as possible is now, in most situations I've encountered thus far, comparable to stacking more people in a place by building pure aqueducts.

As mentioned in a previous post, it is practically (due to the myriad other system changes) difficult to achieve true megacity currently. I feel like one of the more overlooked changes here, however, is that pop happiness and ratio buildings are capped. It will be difficult/impossible to stack single-modifier super/mega-cities, and the impact of situational or cultural happiness on territories is felt more keenly without the ability to totally offset happiness with unlimited buildings.

It's understandably easy to look at a system in a microcosm and feel that not enough has changed, but do try and take into account the significant technology and invention pacing that acts as a gate to certain aspects of min-max-y playstyles.

 

[Iaminfantry]

I can't wait to play some imperator again!

 

[IsaacCAT]

It's understandably easy to look at a system in a microcosm and feel that not enough has changed, but do try and take into account the significant technology and invention pacing that acts as a gate to certain aspects of min-max-y playstyles.

Indeed, we do not have the whole picture. Until you release 2.0 we will be walking in the dark. So many changes you are cooking in 2.0 that we are lost. This is truly 2.0 I:R. I hope it arrives sooner rather than later.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Indeed, we do not have the whole picture. Until you release 2.0 we will be walking in the dark. So many changes you are cooking in 2.0 that we are lost. This is truly 2.0 I:R. I hope it arrives earlier than later.

*insert desperate imperator fans for 2.0 beta to satisfy our lust of toppling the ursurper kassander*

 

[antrachton]

It's getting better and better...
But i'd say having ONLY 16 buildings to build is not challenging at all. It's rather poor...
Other than that I'm happy with the development

 

[cristofolmc]

but I am even less keen on an arbitrary 'maximum' capacity.

Well the arbitrary maximum capacity is what the game has now. I would get rid of that abritrary pop capacity, and introduce real life pop capacity, which by the way, is in the game already. Food! But somehow food doesn't limit pop capacity really. As the city grows you get more slaves, more trade routes, and the food supply is guaranteed always.

What is arbitrary is spamming a magical building ad infinitum so you can get infinite pops. There are other more dynamic way if youre gonna keep the pop capacity feature, to increase it. For instance, some trade goods could increase it. Or the number of trade routes. I don't know, there are many choices. I'm not even against a building that increases it, I'm against it being spammable ad eternum, because the way the game works, more pops exponentially increas your income, so more pops is much more profitable than any other bonus from any other building. Why would I build a building that gives +10% tax or 10% output when I can increase by the tens each pop output by just increasign it. Why settle with +10% tax of 1 tax income when I can get 300 pops that give me +10 tax directly wthout any other building, just spamming aqueducts?


Anyway, other than that, very good work, keep it up. you and the team are amazing and are turning this around!

 

[antrachton]

And with regards to building limits - I'd love to have it moddable, including non-city territories (1 building??, 2 would be good).

 

[Plundererking]

This is nice to see

 

[cristofolmc]

well. All other buildings will give civ value, and civ value gives pop output. A city with all aqueducs might be at like 50% civ value, while one with a mix will be at 75%, meaning 25% higher pop output across the board.

Colour me optimistic. I think the details of civ value change (especially tick-rate) can become quite interesting in the tracks of these changes.

... to scale up the efficiency of a city you’ll need:

1. a growing population (presumably still predominantly through migration driven by free pop capacity)
2. a high or quickly growing civ value (make sure it has room to tick up through buildings)
3. A majority of pops with integrated culture

Not really, not with the new changes of civ giving even MORE pop capacity. Its just ridiculous. Its also a %+. So now you can get even MORE pops in your mega city by building less aqueducts, but still, the more aqueducts, the more pops from the % from civilization will give you. So yeah, now instead of needing 50 aqueducts to support 2000 pops you wil only need 50 and be at top civilization level.

Again, its ridiculous. Why would I spend precious building slots on tax offices when I can spend them on aqueducts? Well, tax offices gives civilization which gives pop capacity, that would be the reason. But thats only the more reason to get rid of the aqueduct. Buildings are already effectivelly, ALL OF THEM, giving you pop capacity. And not a flat number, no, a %! Which means the more pop capacity you have, the more you will gain with each civ point.