On Banks and universities

[Unimatrix11]

You mean with the pyramids, Kuci ? (gosh - sometimes, after the other thread, i just cant help but when i think about how much sense civ makes sometimes)

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Willem


It still doesn't make any sense. What's putting up a bunch of bricks and mortars have to do with losing research? And how is building a Bank any different then any other building?

Well ,the whole point is that a bank or a university si not only a brick and mortar building but an institution, wich requiers either financial or intellectual capital in RL.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Thinking about it, i find it hard to estimate the impact of this on the game. An example:

You just researched banking and a neighbor happens to declare war on you about the same time. Now you wanna build military and the banks. Well, i dont know about you, but those juicy banks... i want them... but i need to build troops - ahhh what a pain in the... But () if i save my immediate income in a way by not building the banks now, then its not so hard... I like that. I will reasonably defend myself, but still will want the war to be over asap, so i can get around to build the banks.

I'm realy not good at modding, I may give it a try in a few weeks though. Probably a good rule would be to play one difficulty level above you're current one, since there is no way *I* could mod the AI to understand this...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Banks do cost money to build.

So does any building. Why should only Banks be singled out?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Well ,the whole point is that a bank or a university si not only a brick and mortar building but an institution, wich requiers either financial or intellectual capital in RL.

Not while it's being built. Then it's just another construction project like any other building that goes up. It doesn't make sense to single out those two buildings for a penalty and none other.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Civ.

How so? I haven't come across any reference to indicate that it requires money to build one, just Hammers.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Willem


Not while it's being built. Then it's just another construction project like any other building that goes up. It doesn't make sense to single out those two buildings for a penalty and none other.

How does it make any less sense than having settlers and workers be the only units that consume food while being produced?

Maybe while the university is being built, all the smart folks in the city have to think really hard about how to design their curricula, what majors to offer, where would be the best site for the campus coffee house, and what art to hang in their offices, so they can't be bothered to think about Replaceable Parts or Astronomy for a while.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
How does it make any less sense than having settlers and workers be the only units that consume food while being produced?

Because historically Civ has a price for producing those units. In Civ3 & SMAC, you lost population for settlers/pods. In Civ4, they decided to change the dynamic a little. Instead of growing while you build the settler then losing 2 pop at the end, you instead don't grow while you build the settler.

They probably could have eliminated surplus food and reduced the hammer cost of the units, but instead they created a mechanic to make it slightly more interesting.

There isnt really a basis for what you want to do, historically or as a game mechanic. If you really want to emulate what happens with settlers/workers, you need to convert a portion of the base commerce generated by the city workers, before it's filtered through the slider %, with specialists/buildings modding it. How you are going to establish what is "surplus" base commerce I don't know, since there isn't base amount needed for a city like there is with food. Maybe use the same measure: All gold in excess of popX2 is converted at a 1/2 rate to hammers.

Edit: I believe trade routes modify base commerce, not sure what effect that would have on my suggestion.

[DirtyMartini]

Well, despite my first post, I don't really think it's a good idea. It would be odd, without precedent (as you said), and (probably) hard to balance. I was just being argumentative. A also liked the image of University professors sitting around with little beakers floating out of their heads...

[Willem]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
How does it make any less sense than having settlers and workers be the only units that consume food while being produced?

When a new city is founded, it will take awhile for it to be self-sufficent. The crops will need time to grow after they've first been planted. It might take almost a year before the city is able to produce any of it's own food. So they're going to need a bit extra to tide them over until their own farms can sustain them. Which means that the city they're coming from will have to provide them with that surplus.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Fitz
They probably could have eliminated surplus food and reduced the hammer cost of the units, but instead they created a mechanic to make it slightly more interesting.

im sure its a balance issue as well. if those units were produced like all of the others then a food heavy, hammer poor start would be far inferior to one that was production heavy.

[snoopy369]

This doesn't make any sense at all. It is a horrible gameplay change; multipliers is a core element of Civ, and you'd take those away to make it more about production (=war). Yay another ****ty RTS.

Your realism doesn't even make sense to me (how does a university cost research???), but either way, realism is irrelevant; you might as well dump workers or research entirely as make this change.

[nbarclay]

To amplify a point Fitz made earlier, prior to Civ IV, cities lost population when they built settlers and workers. That created a feel of a city sending out some of its people to found a new city, or as a roving work crew. As a practical matter, the result was that settlers and workers had two different costs: one in shields (hammers) and one in food to replace the lost population. For example, in Civ III, a settler cost 30 shields (hammers) and two population points, while a worker cost 20 shields and one population point.

Civ IV adopted a simplified mechanism where instead of requiring X amount of food (to replace lost population) and Y amount of hammers, settlers and workers have a single cost that both food and hammers count toward. That doesn't provide the same feel that you're sending part of a city's population out to found a new city or form a work crew, but it makes for a much simpler early phase of the game - especially for people who micromanage which tiles cities work. (In Civ III, the micromanagement involved in optimizing settler or worker production could be a serious hassle because the cities kept oscillating in size, requiring moving laborers around as the cities grew and shrank if a player wanted to keep working the optimal combination of tiles.)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
You mean with the pyramids, Kuci ? (gosh - sometimes, after the other thread, i just cant help but when i think about how much sense civ makes sometimes)

No, I mean as opportunity cost. You could be building Wealth.

[gdijedi7]

I think the idea makes perfect sense.

To get a bank going, people need to put money into it. Like all things, in Civ, that person is you.

To get a University going, you need to pull "scientists" (in the civ sense) into the University to get it going.

Once the initial "capital" is invested in the bank (ie, it gets built) it produces the extra money you wanted.

Once the "intellectual capital" is "invested" in the University, you get the extra research you wanted.

I think it sounds great.