Building Conception

[zitro1987]

New buildings postponement factor
Every city has 5 status: Hamlet, Village, Town, City, Capital. They are based on city Population (1-4-8-12-15). Buildings will have a number in parenthesis indicating the level necessary for availability.

General goals for buildings
more separated usage for buildings (military buildings are separated from buildings giving units experience levels, buildings improving speed of growth from buildings giving food). However, some buildings still have 2 or more goals, giving them supportive role if the first one is unfulfilled.

• religious buildings = an important source of mana, with only Cathedral giving raw power
  
• No useless buildings solely used for building requirements.
  
• less prerequisites of type: I need University because of War college (but I don't need research).
  
• Loose tree, various goals, alternative playing styles
  
• Every building should have its rationale, "weak" buildings must be stronger.
  
• Early buildings more useful for small towns.
  

Food and Growth Buildings
- it is not as easy to gain food army superiority early in game.
- Almost every race can achieve at least 3 food per farmer.

• Granary (1) cost50/upk1 +1 max_pop +10 growth +3 food
  
• Farmer's M (1) cost 80/upk2 +3 max_pop +30 growth
  
• Stables (3) 150cost/2upk Cavalry-type units +2 food
  
• Shipyard (2) 100cost/0upk +2 food and triremes
  
• Forester's G (4) 300cost/5upk. Farmer +1 food bonus +25% production when constructing buildings.
  

Unrest Buildings
- players can reduce up to 2 unrest through military presence (4 units)
- Each racial unrest point means 1 unrest and an extra 12.5% unit recruitment cost.

• City Forum(1) cost 80/1upk -1 unrest, +1 research
  
• Jail (3) cost 150/2upk -1 unrest, -1 racial unrest
  
• Animist Guild (4) cost 300/4upk -2 unrest, domestic healing bonus
  
• Oracle (5)Cost 600/upk 5. -1 unrest, +2 fame Scouting 7.
  

Recruitment Buildings
-the buildings should be expensive, but not with excessive upkeep as units have high upkeep already.
-spearmen and swordsmen are automatically available without buildings
-A two step process is solely needed to get most races' top units.
-troops separated in a few races (armorer=javalineers, fantastic=dragon turtle)

• Armory (2): 100cost/1upk. Halberdiers and other troops
  
• Stables (3): 150cost/2upk. +2 food. cavalry type units
  
• Armorer's Guild (4) 500cost/3upk. advanced military units.
  
• Fantastic Stables (5) 650cost/4upk. Superior creature-like units.
  

Training Buildings

• Barracks (1) 100cost/2upk. regular units
  
• Fighter's guild (3) 300cost/4upk. hardened units
  
• Alchemist Guild (3) 300cost/4upk. Magic weapons
  
• War College (5) 800cost/8upk. veteran units
  

Research sequence
-combines research with magic units combat level. rationale: the educated priests are better in combat

• City forum (1) 80cost/1upk. -1 unrest, +1 research
  
• Library (2) 120cost/2upk. Total 4 research (+3 research),regular magic units
  
• University (4) 400cost/3upk. Total 10 research (+6 research), hardened magic units
  
• Wizard Guild (5) 800cost/4upk. +5 wizard_skill_investment, veteran magic units Magicians
  

Religious buildings
-Religious buildings no longer provide unrest bonus. Instead, they are your main city source of mana
-Shrine, parthenon give units, but relatively smaller increment of mana, final cathedral is a big leap
-It is possible to make Temple without Shrine prereq, so that one may skip shrine (e.g. high men)

• Shrine (2) 80cost/1upk +1 wizard_power_investment Shamans
  
• Temple (3) 200cost/2upk. Total 4 mana, (+4 mana). Allows use of nightshade.
  
• Parthenon (4) 400cost/3upk. Total 10 mana, (+6 mana) Priests
  
• Cathedral (5) 800cost/5upk. Total 8 power (+7 power). Cumulative overland healing bonus.
  

Economic buildings
-Marketplace provides strong early bonus but comparably weaker once city is developed
-Merchants provides outstanding bonus and does not require ocean, but has extreme cost.

• Marketplace (1) 60cost/0upk + 3 coins income
  
• Harbor (3) 250cost/2upk. commerce bonus to ocean tiles Galley, Warship (with Armorer)
  
• Bank (3) 350cost/0upk. 50% bonus
  
• Merchant (5) 1000cost/0upk. 100% bonus
  

Production buildings
-All production buildings should have high upkeep. Speed is costly in long term.
-Smithy and Sawmill have outstanding early bonuses but comparably weak once city is developed

• Smithy (1) xxcost/1upkeep. Early production bonus (brainstorming)
  
• Sawmill (1) xxcost/1upkeep. Early production bonus (brainstorming) Archers
  
• Miner's G (3) 250cost/6upk +50% bonus, 2xmineral bonuses
  
• Forester's G (4) 300cost/5upk. Farmers produce +1 food. +25% production bonus when constructing buildings.
  
• Mechanician's G (4) 500cost/9upk +75% bonus. Catapult, Walls bonus
  

Special

• City walls (3) 150cost/2upk. Bigger defense bonus and range protection
  

First Image shows building tree (with original building names). Colors indicate city status level required (1-5)
Second Image shows different building names and descriptions.

[zitro1987]

[saved for potential storage of ideas]

[Catwalk]

Lots of great ideas here, and very well structured post

1) Have you considered letting the terrain production bonus be compounded by buildings? I always find it boring that the terrain production is irrelevant once you have a few production buildings. Effectively, that means food is always more important than a production bonus. If they're compounded by building bonuses, you will open up an entirely new dimension for settling plans.
2) I'm not sure if I understand the smithy and sawmill bonuses (excellent ideas, btw). Is your bonus actually reduced from 4 to 3 by having both? If so, I think that's rather counter-intuitive and I'm not sure what the balance benefit is. Already, if you build both you lose out on one of them half the time.
3) With the numbers above, what do you think the best strategies are? Off the top of my head, going for Granary and Sawmill first sounds like the right move for all your expansions. How about balancing this by making these buildings a bit more expensive in upkeep (and maybe a bit cheaper to construct), letting the player use these buildings more to boost important than buildings (if you have a strong economy already) rather than simply getting them first every time?

[kyrub]

3) With the numbers above, what do you think the best strategies are? Off the top of my head, going for Granary and Sawmill first sounds like the right move for all your expansions.

I hope not.

The main idea was: the first buildings decision should bring an important decision point, it should allow you a very situational choice.
First level buildings are 7: Granary, Farmer's market, City forum, Marketplace, Barracks, Sawmill, Smithy.

(situations where I can see every building being top priority)
a) peaceful and safe, with focus on quick City development = Farmer's Market
b) safe city, but need of more food for soldiers elsewhere = Granary
c) problems with early racial unrest = City forum
d) immediate need to balance the economy = Marketplace
e) border city, needing better quality defense = Barracks
f) same as e) but with some extra time (and potential double mineral usage later) = Smithy
g) peaceful and safe, with longtime focus on non-military buildings rather than quick military action = Sawmill

[WhiteMage]

What you present here is overall good. I have the following minor issues:
1. It would be better to make "City" 13-16 and not 13-15, so the increments will be always 4 for each status. It is easier to relate to as a player. It leads to purity and esthetic beauty.
2. For "stables" you state "military", but this is not clear what it means. Probably military units become available. If so, why not list some for shipyard?
3. For "Forester' G" you state "+25% building speed" and "+25% bonus on buildings". Not clear. I suppose you mean "+25% production", which reads better.
4. For "Forester' G" you state "Farmer's produce 3 food" and "Farmers produce +1 food". This appears to be a contradiction, since Halfling already produce 3 and in my past games farmers often produced 1 food, rather than 2 or 3 (depending on a complex formula, which employed rounding). Will the major exploit of turning each farmer and worker one by one in each city be improved in your mod? So 2 will really be 2? This is the single exploit I hate most in MOM. So any improvement would be appreciated.
5. You discuss mana vs. power. So a temple gives mana, which is added to mana income. Shrine gives power, which can be turned into mana, skill, or research. Correct?
6. "Sawmill (1) 60cost/1upkeep. 4 prod on non-military". Do you mean producing non-military, such as buildings?
7. Will you penalize changing the current production? That's the only way, I think, which will improve AI and lower human exploits, such as ladder buying. Otherwise your new rule (in my 6.) is useless.
8. You state "Mechanician's G (4) 500cost/9upk +75% bonus". Presumably you mean "production bonus".
9. Please upload a better quality picture for building tree. Zooming does not help.
10. In the picture, you have marketplace > bank > merchant path. Why not granary > farmers; and miners > mechanicians paths? Similar concepts but different decisions?
11. After testing the Balance and Speed and Insecticide 0.9B I reported that "City Walls" was sometimes not offered to be built, even though all the prerequisites were met. After further testing, now I know that this is due to having 12 different building options offered to me on the left and "City Walls" simply did not have a place for display and therefore a choice to be built (save game available). The 12 options include housing and trade goods, so we only have 10 slots available. As much as I like your idea of diverse options for players, the 10 slots limit will be a frequent problem for the human player, unless Kyrub helps out there somehow. If he can't, then I strongly advise to restrict the number of trees in your forest (using graph theory language) to 10. In your picture I counted 15 trees in your forest, which means that it would need 17 slots in the old MOM graphic interface.
12. You listed 32 buildings in the picture, but in v1.31 there were 33. Maybe there is 1 more building that you can design. Why would you not use that?

[zitro1987]

1. It would be better to make "City" 13-16 and not 13-15, so the increments will be always 4 for each status. It is easier to relate to as a player. It leads to purity and esthetic beauty.

Kyrub actually brought this up. The 1-4-8-12-15 feels symmetric in terms of population needed (3,4,4,3) while 1-4-8-12-16 is consistent later (3,4,4,4). I was concerned with difficulty in reaching 16 pop to get best buildings so we have 15 as tentative but may end up with 16 if it works better

2. For "stables" you state "military", but this is not clear what it means. Probably military units become available. If so, why not list some for shipyard?

Stables is a hybrid military and food building. Races get some sort of mounted unit. Shipyard just gives a little trireme which is too weak for combat.

3. For "Forester' G" you state "+25% building speed" and "+25% bonus on buildings". Not clear. I suppose you mean "+25% production", which reads better.

4. For "Forester' G" you state "Farmer's produce 3 food" and "Farmers produce +1 food".

That was sloppy of me, will fix discrepancies (it's +1 food per farmer and +25% faster production for buildings_

Will the major exploit of turning each farmer and worker one by one in each city be improved in your mod? So 2 will really be 2? This is the single exploit I hate most in MOM. So any improvement would be appreciated.

I'll let Kyrub on this one. I'm sort of aware of this, but I find it too much of micromanagement tedium.

5. You discuss mana vs. power. So a temple gives mana, which is added to mana income. Shrine gives power, which can be turned into mana, skill, or research. Correct?

Yep.

6. "Sawmill (1) 60cost/1upkeep. 4 prod on non-military". Do you mean producing non-military, such as buildings?

Yes, I'll clarify it.

7. Will you penalize changing the current production? That's the only way, I think, which will improve AI and lower human exploits, such as ladder buying. Otherwise your new rule (in my 6.) is useless.

Game will be modded to prevent ladder-buying exploit.

8. You state "Mechanician's G (4) 500cost/9upk +75% bonus". Presumably you mean "production bonus".

Yes.

9. Please upload a better quality picture for building tree. Zooming does not help.

I don't know how to do that as original image was large and clear, maybe Kyrub will help me on that.

10. In the picture, you have marketplace > bank > merchant path. Why not granary > farmers; and miners > mechanicians paths? Similar concepts but different decisions?

We want to allow the choice of getting farmers market first as it may be best choice in some circumstances. The miner>mechanician solved a race building limitation dilemma (plus, a player might want to go straight to mechanician so he gets our improved catapults)

11. After testing the Balance and Speed and Insecticide 0.9B I reported that "City Walls" was sometimes not offered to be built, even though all the prerequisites were met

. The 5-level system almost the problem. Hopefully, it will be a rare inconvenience whenever you don't build anything and let city grow to pop 8.

12. You listed 32 buildings in the picture, but in v1.31 there were 33. Maybe there is 1 more building that you can design. Why would you not use that?

It's hard work to get new buildings in, and the building removed has coastal graphics. We've felt 3 shore buildings was overkill.

[WhiteMage]

Kyrub actually brought this up. The 1-4-8-12-15 feels symmetric in terms of population needed (3,4,4,3) while 1-4-8-12-16 is consistent later (3,4,4,4). I was concerned with difficulty in reaching 16 pop to get best buildings so we have 15 as tentative but may end up with 16 if it works better

I think it is 4, 4, 4, 4: 1-4(hamlet), 5-8(village), 9-12(town), 13-16(city), 17-up (capital)

Stables is a hybrid military and food building. Races get some sort of mounted unit. Shipyard just gives a little trireme which is too weak for combat.

I don't get it. You changed it to "Shipyard (2) 100cost/0upk +2 food and triremes", which is fine, but Shipyard also gives food and unit. So technically it is also a hybrid military and food building, just like Stables: even if you give 0 melee and 0 range attack to transport, which I don't recommend.

Game will be modded to prevent ladder-buying exploit.

Great, but how about using non-military production bonus and switching to military before finishing production? Will you prevent that?

[VM]

The graphics could be changed tough. If you want I can look into that.

[FrancoK]

I'm really impressed!

Redeveloped the buildings and it make sense!

Not an easy task.

I've few questions:
1. Shipyard and Harbor needs the city to be built near the sea? Will a river/lake be enought?
2. Can you explain more about Trireme? What are the prerequisites, only Shipyard? Stats?
3. Magicians always start as veterans?
4. What is the Cathedral Cumulative overland healing bonus 3%?

[zitro1987]

Triremes require only shipyard: I do not consider it 'military' as it has 5 melee, 1 armor, 2 resistance, 5hp, 4 movement, 3 cargo (it's simply for transport)

Yes, shipyard and harbor need a coast just like coastal buildings in 1.31

Magicians always start as veteran.

The cathedral cumulative bonus is not 3% which is why I deleted that part in the post after (but you caught it). We are thinking of 1hp extra healing per turn (overland) per cathedral (capped at 3hp).

Interesting exploit from Whitemage (military-nonmilitary), I'll let Kyrub answer that one. I think if we do 4-4-4-4, we might be a bit too restrictive for the sake of perfect symmetry.