Buildings

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I think it is about time we got started thinking about what buildings we are going to have in the game and their affects.

I am going to try to help with this a lot more than in other areas, because I cannot help with the unit models and other people had the units covered.

I think we should first decide what type of tech tree to have. I think one similar to the RTW tech tree would work best, because there are such major developments during our time period and a flat tech tree would not take those into account.

[Narayanese]

I think having barracks and stables isn't good, as those were present in all cities. Basic early units such as gothic swordsmen and knights and militia should be recruitable from the first turn after all, only units that were designed after 1402 or that are made up by bourgeois should reuire big cities imo.
Banking and guns are the two most evolving features of the period I think, so those should improve with city size.
Also the amount of gold you make has to be reduced so that it is the treasure that limits army size, and forcing to player to cycles of peace (where units are dispanded) and war which is more realistic and good for gameplay.

Just my thoughts...

[Yggdrasill]

Good ideas Narayanese especially the one about cycles of peace to replenish ones coffers...

My thoughts on the subject...regarding units. I think it would be very detrimental to the game balance and the way units relate to each other (cost-effectiveness) if we keep the old system of upgrades through blacksmiths and armouries. All the balancing of the units that we make in an effort to force the players to use proper units in their proper timeframe will go down the toilet if new units have to compete with the old ones that have seen extensive retraining and thus have superioir weapons and armour. Armour and weapons upgrades are going to be reflected by different unit stats. So an early 16th century man-at-arms is going to have better armour value simply because he had better armour available than his counterpart in the mid 15th century. Additional armour and weapon upgrades don't fit in the equation.


In my opinion, armouries and blacksmiths should have an economic effect only - as an increase in trade (after all, weapons have always sold well), and perhaps a decrease in the cost of units (basic market dynamics - the more goods on the market, the lower the prices).
Only gunpowder units should perhaps receive some kind of additional upgrade possibility (better rifles, firing mechanisms and better gunpowder).

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I like the idea of not using armor and weapon upgrades, however, I am not sure if we can use them to lower unit cost that would be interesting to look into.

I think all units that are not; elite, province specific, introduced post 1402 or somewhat rare should be trainable at the beginning, but we will need to also take into consideration if a city was known for or not known for something. Take Crete they had excellent archers from what I know, that province should start with the ability to train Cretan archers and possibly more advanced archery buildings than other cities.

We could also make it where every city starts with a certain level of barracks and such, but allow lower levels so that if somebody pillages a city it must be rebuilt from square one.

I like the idea of limiting money flow, but how will we do this exactly? We could lower the overall fertility or trade benefits or we could simply make troops more expensive than in RTW. Where basic archers may cost 190 in RTW we could make them cost two to three times that in CTW and keep the overall money scheme relatively unchanged.

[Narayanese]

We could use the temples (of which you can only have one per city) to be used to represent a dominant guild/industry in each city. Thus weponproducing citie could have Weponsmith and armourproducing cities armoursmith, and other cities whatever they were famous for or had as dominant industry. Thus we could also ditch the blacksmith tech line.

I like the idea of limiting money flow, but how will we do this exactly? We could lower the overall fertility or trade benefits or we could simply make troops more expensive than in RTW. Where basic archers may cost 190 in RTW we could make them cost two to three times that in CTW and keep the overall money scheme relatively unchanged.

Yes, lower trade benefits, raise unit costs, and don't include farming upgrades, I think.

On training times: Maybe we could have zero turns for levies, one turn for professional troups and two or more turns for troops who have been granted land (eg knights). Thus restructuring of the society to get more knights and similar would require long time, while you could get levies in an "emergency".

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I am not sure that troops who are granted land should necessarily take longer. For example the Ottoman Timars were used as a fast response low cost force to take on military duty without the need to pay them as a staqnding army. They would be raised quickly, perhaps instantly like levies because they were already trained and equipped and merely needed to be mobilized and thrown into battle.

I like the idea of getting rid of farming upgrades, not only are these pretty unrealistic by this time period, but fertility should be the deciding factor.

I am not sure if it would be best to use temple as trade buildings, because religion should also be important. I believe hearing that CA is going to include an actual religion system, like in MTW so having temples for a society's god(s) is important. What sort of bonus should these give? In my opinion only a bonus to population loyalty or possibly religious zeal if possible.

I think we could get rid of forums, curias and such if we are going to decrease the power of trade and instead have these trade (job trade not commerce trade) buildings. This would also allow for larger or more advanced facilities.