The idea is to add more buildings AND give certain buildings more requirements. This will reduce the Build Everything Syndrome (BES), AND it will make you think more carefully about expanding to certain terrains based on your overall strategy and current technologies.



A) Most tile-based 4X games I played usually have a number of buildings that require a certain terrain to be present within the city territory in order to be built. For example: In Civ 5, the Solar Plant can only be built in a city with Desert nearby. Similarly, in EL we can add technologies in Era 3 that allow you to build improvements in extreme terrain, such as:

1- "Solar Focus": ((Description: Exposing Dust to focused solar radiation results in exponential growth of energy reserves. Can only be built in desert biome)). Gives +1 industry per worker. +15% industry when constructing buildings. 2 Dust maintenance

2- "Meltdown Hydroponics": ((Description: Careful expansion of underground hot springs has allowed the production of vast pools of icy water, suitable for the cultivation of resilient polar plant life. Can only be built in Snow biome)). Gives +1 food on Ice and Snow tiles without forest. +10% in Winter. 2 Dust maintenance

3- "Floating Villages": ((A lack of sufficient living space means small island dwellers willingly accept the possibility of living afloat on huge platforms connected by bridges and ferries. Can only be built if City tile has 2 or more nearby Coastal tiles)). +1 per worker. Gives +20% industry when producing units and stockpiles. 1 Dust maintenance



4- "Tunnel Network": The city must have a mountain and/or 3 cliffs in exploitation. All your Armies in this region can now move through cliffs and mountains. Moving through mountains cost 3 movement points. Armies in mountains can not be attacked. The militia of connected regions with Tunnel Networks will reinforce each other regardless of distance. Trade Routes can bypass blockade by 50%.



5- "Shrine of the Endless": ((A construct that serves as both a temple to the ancients as well as a research facility to study fallen artifacts from the stars. Can only be built near mountain/ridge)). Gives +5% and +5% Influence per mountain tile in exploitation.



6- "Camouflaged Turrets": Militia units defending this city have +2 Attack and Damage per Watch Tower in this region, and another +2 attack and damage for every watch tower advancement technology you have researched.



7- "House Reinforcement": Militia units defending this city will gain +2 Defense per Level 1 district, +3 Defense per Level 2 District, and Level 3 districts grant an additional rank of the "Block" ability to militia up to a maximum. Militia units also gain +2 movement points.



4 and 5 are unlocked with an Era 4 technology called "King of the Hill"



6 and 7 are unlocked with an Era 2 or 3 technology called "Partisan Engineering"



B) Other building requirements such as:

1- "requires 10 or more population to be built" can be introduced (only a requirement: it does not actually consume population).

2- "Can only be built in a level 2 City" OR "Can only be built in a level 2 City with a level 2 district" etc...

This will make players focus on building certain improvements in bigger cities more often. Also useful for small condensed empires with few but large cities (aka Broken Lords)

3- "Can only be built with 2 or more nearby anomalies"



Please share your ideas, ladies and gentlemen!



EDIT: Remember, I am only giving examples here. Any idea can be modified, refuted, replaced etc...

I'd love to see more buildings (that are also more difficult to maintain) to reduced the BES. More buildings that are specific to biomes or tile types would be a very welcome addition, as would be buildings that interact with city placement and borough levels.



I'm drawing blanks on specific ideas right now, though, so I'll have to come back to this thread another day.

City defences would be nice, defence towers and such.

We already have this - certain buildings only work in forests etc. Still more buildings of this type would be great.



Buildings that either are biome unique, or have differing effects per biome would be another great addition.



The problem is that every city feels identical. This may work well balance wise, but its incredibly boring gameplay wise.

In endless space, planet size, type (including FIDS and approval), and anomalies could all have a large impact on what you were going to build the system into. In endless legends...not so much. Please make terrain matter!

I like yourpoint of view . Think it appeared before on forums.



The point is that in actual way, a apart from one building giving industry from forest, there are only buildings giving science/dust/food from sea/rivers/exploitations/terrain with previous FIDS of same kind.

What I think that the devs should do to: 1st add more importance to terrain where you found your cities, and 2nd reduce BES, is mix the buldins and terrain, like science from ice/rocks, industry from rocks/woods, food from sea/woods, dust from sea/rivers, etc... And instead of buildings wich give bonus to explotaition tiles, and tiles with previous FIDS, put another building specific for a third terrain tipe, improving distric production, giving high bonus for anomaly or anyother idea that makes it specific to some terrain.



Then, do what you're sayin, and with this extra buildings, the BES will be lowered, as you be unavble to build every building in every city and mantain a reasonable army at same time, and you'll have to consider better where to found a city based on terreain and specialization you want for this city.

KrimsonVagus wrote:


2- "Meltdown Hydroponics": ((Description: Careful expansion of underground hot springs has allowed the production of vast pools of icy water, suitable for the cultivation of resilient polar plant life. Can only be built in Snow biome)). Gives +1 food on Ice and Snow tiles without forest. +10% in Winter. 2 Dust maintenance

Specially like this one. It gives cities on icy regions a chance to grow without the bonus only for explotation + previous produced FIDS. but instead of +10% in winter, I prefer: winter immunity for food pruduction on ice tiles (not snow, cuz you¡re constructing under ice, not underground)...

Great feedback so far!



There's a reason why I suggested "Floating Villages" to give +20% production towards units and stockpiles. If we add more buildings with more specific functions, the player will naturally feel motivated to specialize his cities. So if I have a coastal city with Floating Villages, I will say to myself "Hey, I will make use of this by focusing this city on army production.. and maybe I will research stockpiles to use them in this city as well (cuz I can produce them faster)!"

Buildings like this can even change your whole strategy and tech priorities. (also works for wonders, I guess)



I'm sure many of you guys have similar ideas



Also, I find it strange that no buildings exist that interact with Mountains. If we add powerful buildings that get high FIDSI from mountain OR Can only be built near mountain tile, it will motivate players to settle near them as well. Imagine something like "Shrine of the Endless": ((A construct that serves as both a temple to the ancients as well as a research facility to study fallen artifacts from the stars. Can only be built near mountain/ridge)). Gives +2 and +2 Influence on mountain tiles (or something like that...)

lo_fabre wrote:
but instead of +10% in winter, I prefer: winter immunity for food production on ice tiles (not snow, cuz you¡re constructing under ice, not underground)...

I guess that depends on balancing. However, winter immunity is somewhat redundant cuz you can easily get it in the mid-late game with heroes. Winter BONUS however is slightly more interesting. I could be wrong though...

KrimsonVagus wrote:




Also, I find it strange that no buildings exist that interact with Mountains. If we add powerful buildings that get high FIDSI from mountain OR Can only be built near mountain tile, it will motivate players to settle near them as well. Imagine something like "Shrine of the Endless": ((A construct that serves as both a temple to the ancients as well as a research facility to study fallen artifacts from the stars. Can only be built near mountain/ridge)). Gives +2 and +2 Influence on mountain tiles (or something like that...)

Interesting idea. May be not producing FIDS, imo devs put the mountain just to do it: don't allow you to pass through this tile and having production from it. But I like the idea of an improvement which give you some bonus for being near a mountain. As all said before it will give more importance to terrain and make difficulty choices when placing cities. something like not giving production from the city with mountains, but increasing the production of tiles around it.

I guess that depends on balancing. However, winter immunity is somewhat redundant cuz you can easily get it in the mid-late game with heroes. Winter BONUS however is slightly more interesting. I could be wrong though...

See your point. That kind of improvements would need testing and balancing before putting on final game.

More is better..... always.

I updated the original post with more tech/building ideas based on discussion from other similar posts.

Here are the other posts with similar topics, for future reference:



1- Brainstorming new tech ideas: /#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3364-brainstorming-new-tech-ideas



2- Gameplay enhancements (future expansions/add-ons?): /#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3378-ideas-for-gameplay-enhancements