Mid and late game

[namad]

Honestly just making the vizer never build any military buildings could probably work decently, I usually like to build those manually myself.

It's not a very big issue for me though I like getting the popups it's the best way to ensure all my cities are building what I want.

[mhek]

Oh, those. In those I just set whichever resource producing buildings I need most (or a random one if it doesn't matter), and don't give it any serious thought so it isn't taking up too much time. If the city is that bad I might even consider razing it.

True, but sometimes you still need those cities to prohibit the AI settling there - like near towers or nodes that you want to protect with troops. If you don't have a city on your own there, the AI might build one and if it's within 2 squares of your tower or node, you have to move your protecting troops away, as otherwise you get diplomacy penalties and war.

I agree it's annoying if you have 30 of these but by then you can usually safely enable the vizier (unless you are playing something like extreme or impossible - high difficulty means you have to put more effort into everything, even this unfortunately).

Not if you changed the grand vizier a bit Just kidding, I think I cannot convince you. How about another possibility:
The maintenance of all military buildings could be set to 0. To compensate, overall taxes could be lowered, so it would be approximately the same amount of gold available. Of course as a result, there would be less gold income at the beginning of a game. To balance this, the fortress could provide some gold coins.
This way the grand vizier would be less harmful to use on higher difficulties. What do you think about that idea? Do you think it would be unbalancing the game?

Honestly just making the vizer never build any military buildings could probably work decently, I usually like to build those manually myself.

Thanks for your support - we must be soul mates, haha.

[Seravy]

The maintenance of all military buildings could be set to 0. To compensate, overall taxes could be lowered, so it would be approximately the same amount of gold available. Of course as a result, there would be less gold income at the beginning of a game. To balance this, the fortress could provide some gold coins.

And who'll do all of that, sounds like about 70 hours of work? Aside from the other 70 hours that needs to sent thinking about how this will influence overall game balance... :D

Honestly just making the vizer never build any military buildings could probably work decently, I usually like to build those manually myself.

Most people actually prefer that. I have no idea why to be honest, after a certain amount, extra gold is pretty much pointless. It's not like you can store more than 30k anyway. And it's for buying buildings...isn't it better to just have them already built? On the other hand if a random AI wizard starts to spam Call of the Void on your production centers, it's convenient to have 30 of them just in case... yeah I know, I'm paranoid :D

By the way excluding military buildings means you miss out on a lot of resource production.
Colosseum requires a Fighter's Guild so it would not get built. That's a loss of about 6.5 gold a turn. (fame+unrest reduction)
Merchant guilds require a ship wright's guild so same there and that one is 40% gold!
And then there is Amplifying tower which requires Alchemist guild (yes that counts as a military building, it adds better weapons to your units) and is probably the most useful thing you can build in the late game.

In the end the only buildings not needed are the Armorer's Guild, the stables/fantastic stables, the shipyard and the maritime guild. Oh and the war college.

[mhek]

And who'll do all of that, sounds like about 70 hours of work? Aside from the other 70 hours that needs to sent thinking about how this will influence overall game balance... :D

I had someone particular in mind, but I don't say whom ;-) No seriously, I had no idea it would take so much time!

By the way excluding military buildings means you miss out on a lot of resource production.
Colosseum requires a Fighter's Guild so it would not get built. That's a loss of about 6.5 gold a turn. (fame+unrest reduction)
Merchant guilds require a ship wright's guild so same there and that one is 40% gold!
And then there is Amplifying tower which requires Alchemist guild (yes that counts as a military building, it adds better weapons to your units) and is probably the most useful thing you can build in the late game.

Alchemist guild would not need to be excluded. 2 Power production is worth the three gold of maintenance and amplifying tower should be built as well.
Colosseum would need to be built manually - but it's not a big deal. Even if not build, the loss would not be 6.5, but 0.5, as smitty + fighter's guild + colosseum together cost 6 gold to maintain. If you don't need the unrest reduction in a city (because they are happy enough without it), it could be even a small loss to build it ;-)
Merchant guild is another thing. Either the shipyard could only be build manually, or it should be also allowed by the grand vizier (maintainance could be optionally decreased to 0 in that case - assuming it would not be taking too much effort - on the other hand it's only 1gp, which should not be that big of a deal).

So if I had the skills to do it, I would remove smithy, fighter's guild, armorer's guild, stables, fantastic stables, war college, ship yard and maritime guild from the grand vizier. Those buildings would always be needed to be build by the player (if not already present in a conquered city anyways).

I hope I am not sounding demanding or anything, I just had the idea that there could be an improvement. If you check out my very first post from 2014, I asked back then if it would be possibe for fantstic creatures to reduce unrest - something that has always bothered me about vanilla MOM. You did it a while ago (so good!) and all the stuff you do is really fantastic

[Seravy]

I hope I am not sounding demanding or anything, I just had the idea that there could be an improvement.

I'm always open to discussions.
The main problem with your idea is that it would be mandatory. There might be players who are happy with getting all buildings, myself included.
Making multiple types of Grand Viziers is not really possible because...how do we make an interface for that?
But let's assume we can. And if we start going that way, there is no stopping. First an option for nonmiltiary buildings to be skipped. Then what about ships? On tiny land you will want ship buildings in all your cities (especially since each city is usually taking an entire continent)...but if we have a no military option, we might as well have an all-military one - sometimes you have enough money but need a larger army...an option to prioritize power producing buildings would nice too...and one for research...and one for gold, sometimes you must get more gold...and then I realize it's already 2025 and I still have more ideas to add :D
Might be my fault but I know myself, I don't do things halfway if there is a better possibility. And in stuff like the grand vizier, there always is a better possibility. And eventually I'll end up in the point where the game plays itself which I wanted to avoid :D

But ultimately, it's that this is just too subjective. Which is better? Being able to produce your best troops in all cities, or getting an extra 200 gold each turn? It depends on what happens in the game. In 95% of the time, neither is worse than the other and you win either way, in the remaining 5% it might influence the outcome, but we can't even say if the gold or the buildings are the one that help winning. It can be either depending on what exactly happens. So it's up to the player's preference. But since it isn't relevant 95% of the time anyway...why bother working on it if not working on it has the same results?

If the enemy has a way to destroy buildings effectively (meteor storm, earthquake or call the void spam, magic vortex in combat, etc) then not building military buildings can put the player in a very bad situation.

One thing surprises me though, and that's the fact so many players seem to care about this. I have a friend who already complained about it but he has a lot of compulsive behaviors and he isn't the type who would accept anything less than perfect so I wasn't surprised then. But it seems he isn't the only one, there is also you, your soul mate, and..even Hadriex seems to turn off the military buildings when he enables the vizier, even goes as far as to sell them. (I think he activated it way too early though, he still haven't beaten 3 of the 4 wizards yet)

Hey, I have an idea for the interface.
What if we replaced the text in the Vizier's window : "Do you want to allow the Grand Vizier to order the production of military buildings?" and then then "yes" buttons turns on one mode the No the other? Since turning it off doesn't go through the window so the "No" doesn't really have a function aside from extra confirmation...

fun fact, I probably spent more time talking about this in this thread than it would take to actually do it. Though, without the interface idea that wasn't an option...

Edit : If we go with the assumption that we want to keep it logical (instead of optimal) which I believe should be the goal, then this is the list of military buildings in my opinion (not going to use the AI's list which also includes Alchemist's Guild, since that is a borderline case between magic and military, also not going to include ship wright's guild because of merchants and ships being a necessity in many cases anyway)
-Barracks
-Colosseum (it's economic but indirectly and requires military buildings)
-Fighter's G.
-Armorer's G.
-War College
-Smithy
-Stables
-Fantastic Stables
-Shipyard
-Maritime Guild
-City Walls (clearly military and I've seen plenty of people who sell it...)

[mhek]

and then I realize it's already 2025 and I still have more ideas to add :D

That's why we all love you!

Hey, I have an idea for the interface.
What if we replaced the text in the Vizier's window : "Do you want to allow the Grand Vizier to order the production of military buildings?" and then then "yes" buttons turns on one mode the No the other? Since turning it off doesn't go through the window so the "No" doesn't really have a function aside from extra confirmation...

That's a brilliant idea! Very smart! How would the two options be called? Maybe something like:
"Who do you want to recruit as your grand vizier? -Gahatma Mandhi- -Kschingis Dhan-"
Haha.

fun fact, I probably spent more time talking about this in this thread than it would take to actually do it. Though, without the interface idea that wasn't an option...

Than it would take less than 70 hours to do

Edit : If we go with the assumption that we want to keep it logical (instead of optimal) which I believe should be the goal, then this is the list of military buildings in my opinion (not going to use the AI's list which also includes Alchemist's Guild, since that is a borderline case between magic and military, also not going to include ship wright's guild because of merchants and ships being a necessity in many cases anyway)
-Barracks
-Colosseum (it's economic but indirectly and requires military buildings)
-Fighter's G.
-Armorer's G.
-War College
-Smithy
-Stables
-Fantastic Stables
-Shipyard
-Maritime Guild
-City Walls (clearly military and I've seen plenty of people who sell it...)

[Seravy]

It'll look like this :
   

[mhek]

It'll look like this :

Super cool!