Improve buildings to work for the situation in fodlan which is different from vanilla CK3
Background
I consider there to be three immediate aspects to buildings which should be explored separately:
Unique Buildings (TODO: Create design issue)
Regular Buildings (during the War of Unification)
Development (for future earlier bookmarks, lower on the priority list)
There is also a 4th aspect which is Buildings for Non Fodlan/Church areas as they are not subject to technological suppression.
Related systems which should work in cooperation with buildings are Innovation, Development, Economy and Military balance.
It is not realistic to tackle all of the systems at the same time without delaying improvements for a long period of time. Therefore we should embrace an iterative process where we continuously improve all aspects at the same time while having an understanding of the long term vision of how the systems will mutually benefit one another. The current long term vision is not yet defined.
Game Design
Inspiration
(Open for Discussion)
My initial design draws significant inspiration from another CK like game called Star Dynasties. I believe the canon situation in fodlan is quite similar to the background lore in Star Dynasties and as a result we can take much of what their system uses.
In Three Houses lore, the church is actively suppressing technological growth to prevent a repeat of the great disaster that led to the War of Heroes. In addition, we know that Fodlan has been ravaged by war for almost 300 years which has a tremendously negative impact on the state of the world in terms of resources that can be brought to bear.
In Star Dynasty, the lore is that technology has stopped advancing due to a calamity which destroyed Earth, and all that remains are remote underdeveloped/populated colonies fighting over the remaining resources available. Each planet has semi-unique buildings that can be built. Buildings cannot be upgraded (due to the technological lore limit) but can be repaired. Combat results in the destruction of buildings.
Design Limitations
In Vanilla CK3 the AI is very poor at choosing what buildings to build.
Development would be very hard to justify/make economically worthwhile as the current time frame focus of the mod is only 5 years (War of Unification).
There are in game lore reasons for no technological progress to occur
Balancing multiple levels of buildings adds additional complexity when other important related systems have not been fully designed yet
(Mostly) Single/Double Level Building Upgrades
Since the timeframe of the current war is so short, it would be premature to add in other levels of buildings. Especially when we don't know how to properly balance those effects yet. Most players will not be able to see more than 1-2 levels of upgrades in the timeframe of the war, if they have the spare money to upgrade buildings.
Semi-Unique Duchy Level Buildings
Each duchy will have a semi-unique set of buildings that can be built based on in-canon resources. You can think of this as similar to the trade good system from Europa Universalis/Victoria. We aren't defining a completly unique building, but each duchy will be able to build 1 special building from a list of pre-defined buildings. For example, Bernadetta's holding can have horse archery related buildings. Leicester can have a trade associated buildings. Certain dukes in the Empire can have mage related buildings.
Choice A) We can spread out the buildings among the counties to give holding multiple counties something worth building
Choice B) We only implement them in the duchy capital for V0 (less work), non capital counties can have some very basic military/economic buildings.
I lean towards Choice B for the initial implementation
Impactful Strategic Choices
As the player will have limited access to resources and a limited choice of where to build during the timeframe, each building should feel impactful. This works well if we have unique buildings in each duchy. In addition, by having each duchy have a different 'resource' building, it adds strategic value to taking certain locations on the map.
Building Types:
Economic Building
Manor Farms - Flat Grassland
Trade Center - River/Coast/Major Cities
Mills: without advanced technologies, mills can only be built in areas situated near a river or which have lots of wind (hilly areas)
Apothecary Guild - Effect TBD
Blacksmiths Guild - Cheaper Weapons/Relics
Masons Guild - Construction Bonus
Burghers Guild - Effect TBD
etc
Military Resource Building
Each military building will:
Unlock the associated Men At Arms for the Owner and their Liege Lords
Enable Peers and Vassals to Purchase a unit of Men-At-Arm via a Personal Interaction (via spawn_army, easier to implement) or spawns a mercenary company with the MaA in question which can be hired, the profits going to the owner (harder to implement)
Provides a Non Additive maintenance and reinforcement discount for the MaA in question
Have a upkeep cost
Basic Units will not require resource buildings
Example Resource Buildings:
Horse Breeding - Required to Unlock Mounted Units
Pegasus Stable - Required to Unlock Pegasus Knights
Hunters Camp - Required to Unlock Archers
Wyvern Lair/Wyvern Merchants - Required to unlock Wyvern units
Mage Academy - Required to unlock Mages
Healers Guild - Required to unlock Healers
Dark Mage Order - Required to unlock Dark Mages
Military Fortification Building
Temporary Military Fortifications can be built in any location for a cheap cost (either that or disabled for AI since it is bad at deciding this)
Strong Military Fortifications can be built/already exist in major known canon stronghold areas and/or logical map chokepoints (eg between two mountains)
Theological Building
Known Tombs of the Goddesses
Known Church Location
Known Historical Sites
Magical Building
This will be another category of buildings once we have a magic system implemented
TBD
Canon Sources:
Need Assistance from Researchers to determine what to assign to each Duchy.
Strategy:
1) Assign Known Specalizations based on Lore (Eg Characters who are from a House and their Proficiencies, Known Locations)
2) Fallback is to assign based on terrain
Desired Outcome
Strategic Impactful Building Options for the player in the current timespan of the mod
System is setup for future expansion and works well with other systems
AI is competent at buildings
Future Considerations
We can add in additional levels of buildings in the future to support say, the church doctrine on technological suppression ending, or to model no suppression outside of fodlan.
Might need to rethink this because I can't seem to successfully implement a unit cap without going through horrific hacking and even then it's very buggy....
Purpose:
Improve buildings to work for the situation in fodlan which is different from vanilla CK3
Background
I consider there to be three immediate aspects to buildings which should be explored separately:
There is also a 4th aspect which is Buildings for Non Fodlan/Church areas as they are not subject to technological suppression.
Related systems which should work in cooperation with buildings are Innovation, Development, Economy and Military balance.
It is not realistic to tackle all of the systems at the same time without delaying improvements for a long period of time. Therefore we should embrace an iterative process where we continuously improve all aspects at the same time while having an understanding of the long term vision of how the systems will mutually benefit one another. The current long term vision is not yet defined.
Game Design
Inspiration
(Open for Discussion) My initial design draws significant inspiration from another CK like game called Star Dynasties. I believe the canon situation in fodlan is quite similar to the background lore in Star Dynasties and as a result we can take much of what their system uses.
In Three Houses lore, the church is actively suppressing technological growth to prevent a repeat of the great disaster that led to the War of Heroes. In addition, we know that Fodlan has been ravaged by war for almost 300 years which has a tremendously negative impact on the state of the world in terms of resources that can be brought to bear.
In Star Dynasty, the lore is that technology has stopped advancing due to a calamity which destroyed Earth, and all that remains are remote underdeveloped/populated colonies fighting over the remaining resources available. Each planet has semi-unique buildings that can be built. Buildings cannot be upgraded (due to the technological lore limit) but can be repaired. Combat results in the destruction of buildings.
Design Limitations
(Mostly) Single/Double Level Building Upgrades
Since the timeframe of the current war is so short, it would be premature to add in other levels of buildings. Especially when we don't know how to properly balance those effects yet. Most players will not be able to see more than 1-2 levels of upgrades in the timeframe of the war, if they have the spare money to upgrade buildings.
Semi-Unique Duchy Level Buildings
Each duchy will have a semi-unique set of buildings that can be built based on in-canon resources. You can think of this as similar to the trade good system from Europa Universalis/Victoria. We aren't defining a completly unique building, but each duchy will be able to build 1 special building from a list of pre-defined buildings. For example, Bernadetta's holding can have horse archery related buildings. Leicester can have a trade associated buildings. Certain dukes in the Empire can have mage related buildings.
Choice A) We can spread out the buildings among the counties to give holding multiple counties something worth building Choice B) We only implement them in the duchy capital for V0 (less work), non capital counties can have some very basic military/economic buildings.
I lean towards Choice B for the initial implementation
Impactful Strategic Choices
As the player will have limited access to resources and a limited choice of where to build during the timeframe, each building should feel impactful. This works well if we have unique buildings in each duchy. In addition, by having each duchy have a different 'resource' building, it adds strategic value to taking certain locations on the map.
Building Types:
Economic Building
etc
Military Resource Building
Each military building will:
Basic Units will not require resource buildings
Example Resource Buildings:
Military Fortification Building
Temporary Military Fortifications can be built in any location for a cheap cost (either that or disabled for AI since it is bad at deciding this)
Strong Military Fortifications can be built/already exist in major known canon stronghold areas and/or logical map chokepoints (eg between two mountains)
Theological Building
Magical Building
This will be another category of buildings once we have a magic system implemented
Canon Sources:
Need Assistance from Researchers to determine what to assign to each Duchy.
Strategy: 1) Assign Known Specalizations based on Lore (Eg Characters who are from a House and their Proficiencies, Known Locations) 2) Fallback is to assign based on terrain
Desired Outcome
Future Considerations