[MOD] Caravan mod

[Impaler[WrG]]

As for the idea of a "Food Merchant" basicaly you build it and when it fires off in a City it adds Food rather then Production. This could serve as a means of moving food from place to place. To get around the exploit of using high production output to esentialy convert Hammers to Food the unit would have a high (I'm thinking 75% to possibly 100%) negative Production modifier linked to the tec that alows the unit. That combined with the use surplus food tag of the settler and worker would basicaly mean the unit is built out of near pure food. The surplus food isnt affected by the Production Modifier its just added 1 for 1 to the Build Bar.

This would realy encourage specialization of "Farm" Cities that just pump out Food Convoys to feed huge Industrial Megalopolis, cities that dont even have adiquite local food Production. As far as we know food is the only limiting factor on a Cities Size. This could get very interesting...

Actualy getting the AI to use such a thing inteligently would be a near impossible pre SDK. But what the heck this is a MOD for humans

On another note it would be kind of neat to have a "Tractor" and "Locamotive" unit if its not possible to have SMAC like harvesters. Tractors and Locamotives would sit on Plots and passivly incresse the output +1 food for Tractors ontop of Farms, Plantations and Windmills, +1 Production for a Locamotive in a Mine, Quarry or Lumbermill plot. The units might perform their additions by silently and invisibly upgrading the improvments to otherwise identical but unbuildable versions that have higher outputs. By use RealFort style unitmovment checking to alter plots each time one of them moves. Ofcorse map clutter might become a problem if these guys are sitting on half the plots in your empire. It might need to be a national unit.

[tywiggins]

I don't think you can give a tech a production modifier. Even if you could, wouldn't it change your production even if you weren't building that particular unit?

It would be nice if there were two separate build costs. One for food, and one for hammers. So then you could have a unit that is created by only food, or a set number of food and a set number of hammers, or only hammers.
Also if this were possible it would be nice to be able to build a food unit with your food and a building/wonder/project/other unit with your hammers at the same time.

I don't remember exactly what the SMAC harvesters did. But your tractor and locomotive units could probably be done like you say. But it could probably be done in a better way after the SDK. When the yield is collected, you could probably add +1 hammer or food if the right conditions are met.

But I don't care much for the idea of those units. I would rather have a building that increases yields, a tech that increases yields, or increase the yield with roads or railroads, or even a civic that increases yields.

Here's an idea to encourage "Farm" Cities. Create a new building. The new building will greatly increase food production and drastically decrease hammer production. This would work really well with the food merchant. I tested this out by created a new building called "Food Factory". It tripled food production and decreased hammer production by 100%. Even if you have a Forge, Factory, and Power Plant you would get 0 hammers, unless you were building something that had a bonus to production from resources or a bonus from a trait. (Or if you have the ironworks) A city with a food factory could grow very quickly. Just think of a city with the globe theatre and a food factory. It could have lots of specialists.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I ment a Production modifier for the Unit that would require the tech in question. On closer inspection though it seems that cant be done, rather it could be done by ProductionTrait which links to leader Traits, all leaders could get an Empty leader trait that would be usefull for a wide variety of MODS that apply such effects, the effect will be limited to only the unit with the ProductionTrait and can be different on different units.

My initial Brainstorming leads me to having the "Food Merchant" be called a CowBoy. It fits the mid game time period when they would become avalible and its quite historicaly acurate (cattle roundup were basicaly for the purpose of moving food over long distances). It could also be an atleat somewhat atainable goal to make the Unit Graphic by combining reskined Cows and a reskinned Scout.

As far as numbers go I am thinking a Production cost of 50 with a -100% Production modifier linked to the Empty Trait (or some better solution if it can be found). Ofcorse if the city has a Forge or other such facility this will counter the -100% to alow at most a modest 2:1 convertion of hammers to Production. Production speed will still depend on surplus food. When the CowBoy fires off the "Slauter Herd" ability the city would get something in the neiborhood of 30 food.

Tech requirment someware around SteamPower/Rifling

[tywiggins]

I hadn't thought of creating a new trait. That should work. A generic food caravan makes more sense to me. After all, cows were not the only food ever moved in history.

I would make the food caravan available early on, possibly after the wheel and requiring horses. I would set the cost at 50. It would give 30 food like you suggested.

Then I would make an upgraded food caravan unit available after refigeration. I would set the cost for this at 75. It would give 60 food.

For both, I would give them a -200 percent modifer for having the trait(to ensure that a city with forge, factory, power plant, and ironworks would not be able to use its hammers to help build the unit.

To compensate for some of the lost production, I would give some small amount of gold when the unit is used. Maybe 10 and 15 gold respectively.

[lordroy]

im gonna give this a try and see if I can incorp it into what im doin...

-=R=-