[Discussion] Special Buildings

DeletedUser4460

Guest
Special buildings haven't changed a lot over the years and some are less popular than others or their usefulness can be unclear (descriptions), maybe their bonus effect is too low...

Feel free to post here any suggestions regarding Special buildings (left: Theater, Thermal baths, Library, Lighthouse, right: Tower, Divine statue, Oracle, Merchant's shop):
  • how to revamp existing Special Buildings
  • new concepts
  • do you prefer more / less buildings / more choices
Please share your feedback about the following proposals (of other markets):
  • War council: + 5% attack power (to replace Tower or as a new building)
  • Library revamp: reset researches without the use of culture points
I hope you will post nice ideas too!!! Think creative :p
 

DeletedUser5524

Guest
Make the oracle give a bonus to spying like the research you can research in the acd. Maybe increase the travel time of spies?

A building that slightly reduces cost or time of troops?

That might be a decent change
 
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DeletedUser4460

Guest
Make the oracle give a bonus to spying like the research you can research in the acd.

That might be a decent change
critics of this idea say that Oracle's current function at its best is not having to stack caves for example on wonder islands as you get a report of every spy attempt
 

DeletedUser11525

Guest
For the current special buildings, I generally build Baths, and either Tower or Shop. Bath for the extra population, and Tower for the extra defense, or shops in safe cities for WW use. Theater takes too long for each CP, at only slightly less resources than a normal City Festival, so there is little benefit there. The extra research from the library is nice, but less important with the bandit camps (you don't need to research all of the offensive units everywhere). The lighthouse can help get attacks/defense where its needed quicker, but I'd rather have the extra units from the Bath.

On the other side, the statue can be helpful during WW, but it competes with the larger resource delivery of the shop. The oracle is too limited. Knowing that there was a spy attempt really only tells you who knows what's in your city, but does nothing to help protect the city.

With the proposed library revamp, I could see building a library temporarily to clean up whats been researched that I'm not interested in, and then demolishing it to built the bath. This would cost a little resources, but save CP to open another city slot.

Making the oracle cover a group of cities, or provide misleading results might make it more useful, but its up against stiff competition with the tower and shops.

There are already so many heros and boosts to improve troop costs and build times, there really isn't much reason to add more.

Maybe being able to build a luxury residence to help build up the hero in the city? A 3rd special building slot?
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
Maybe being able to build a luxury residence to help build up the hero in the city? A 3rd special building slot?
I like this..."Luxury Residence" which increases the level of any hero stationed there by 3(?) levels. Not sure if the hero would still be capped at 20, or if there would be a way to make it 23. This would be a really interesting question for players, especially with lightship cities. 60 pop is a lot, but so is 3 levels on aristotle...hmmm.
I see this as replacing the divine statue, which is just a poor concept. Nobody maxes out temple in all cities, at least after the first few, and temple is much more effective per pop than the divine statue is. Only reason to ever choose this is with cities close to WW islands, and personally I find it quite boring.
Could also replace library, see below.
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The real question is what you put on the left side to be a viable alternative for baths. One thing that would help this, I believe, would be a large buff for the lighthouse, which is currently underwhelming. You lose something like 500 population (60+what the baths give) in exchange for a very small boost in speed. A lighthouse that you could actually choose without losing a staggering 50 LS (by not choosing baths) or 62 birs, or ~450 OLU/DLU, would spice up city builds a lot. personally I think that special buildings are one of the only places to really strategize and personalize your cites, let's add options with more differences.
Also, if this buff were bigger I see it as being an interesting option for CS cities...couple this with the bigger sails research, and it could be quite appealing, especially on CQ worlds. Then, it could also be good for siege-breaker cities as well. I'm getting excited just thinking of the possibilities! Let's make city builds fun again, like they were before everyone went with baths.

I would throw out the number of +25% speed (instead of the current +15%). I know this is large, but so are the baths. For lighthouse to be viable, we either buff it hugely or we reduce the effect of baths.
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critics of this idea say that Oracle's current function at its best is not having to stack caves for example on wonder islands as you get a report of every spy attempt
I agree; the oracle does not need to be changed. Yes, it will always be less popular, but that is okay! That is the whole reason there are 4 options...some of them are allowed to be very situational.
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As to the theatre...it just needs to be a shorter duration, no way around it. Currently it's far more effective just building baths and moving res around to run city festivals, as it's essentially impossible to keep festivals running 24/7 in all cities while building troops. And while we're at it, make the Strong Wine research affect it. If the threatre didn't last as long, you could quite viably have LTS-providing cities on the core choose it instead of baths, aiming to run theatre 24/7 and still have some res for occasional festivals, because theatre is inexpensive.
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War council: + 5% attack power (to replace Tower or as a new building)
BOOOOOORRIIIINNNNNG :p
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With the proposed library revamp, I could see building a library temporarily to clean up whats been researched that I'm not interested in, and then demolishing it to built the bath. This would cost a little resources, but save CP to open another city slot.

Agreed...I don't see a way to make the library usable as a long-term solution, without reducing the base number of research points from 4 to 3 (or 3.5). Currently it's just too easy to get all the researches you really need. And while I do like this option of reducing the total points, I think it's much more plausible that we just replace the library with something, like my suggestion for the Luxury Residence above.

Thanks for reading! I welcome any thoughts on what I have wrote, both positive and negative. :cool:
 
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DeletedUser7768

Guest
Can we have a Morg Statue? Please? HI Morg, its been a very long time.. But let me see. Adding Two buildings that will take a few days to build or longer, you have to put resources into them just as you would to build a world wonder but only you can put those resources into them.. When they are finished building, they will give you every thing all the other buildings give you but little bit stronger on the buffs.
 

DeletedUser836

Guest
My idea for special buildings

Current Special Buildings
Merchants shop: Same bonus

Oracle: Through the oracle, you can see parts of the future. This results in 15% increased attack strength.

Divine Statue: +10 temple levels

Tower: Same

Lighthouse: 25% faster

Library: By building a library you can share some of your researches with all your other cities within a certain radius. You may select 5 per library.

Thermal Baths: Same

Theater: Decreases the costs of city festival by 20%

Tier Two Special Buildings
Just an idea...

Aqueducts: Increases the amount of population by 10%.

Cellar: By digging a cellar in the warehouse, you can store 7500 more resources.

Diplomatic center: By building a diplomatic center, you negotiated a deal with battle point villages. You will receive 20% more resources.

Lyceum (higher education school): Civilians learn how to manufacturer new weapons. Militia strength increased by 140%

Acropolis: By building the acropolis, the island has a safe haven in-case of outside invaders. Farming villages will give 50% more units with a 20% increase in time.

Merchant's Landing: Another Phoenician Merchant (He was sweet talked by his wife) comes to trade with your city, and goes in between cities like the normal one. Also, the Phoenician Merchant's deals are 15% lower cost to you while giving you 25% more.
Limit 4 Extra Merchants! Percents do not stack.

Trading Office: Resources flow into your city through trading resulting in a 20% increase in resource production.

Hall of Legends: The off/def strength of the resident hero is increased by 140%


Most of this was from an idea I posted several years ago (on another forum).
 
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DeletedUser16157

Guest
I like some of this, but disagree with the following (nothing meant personally :) ):

Tower: +15% defense strength
Why exactly would we buff the by far most popular selection on the right side? I understand that this is used less on conquest worlds than revolt, but it's still vastly more popular than divine statue or oracle.

Lighthouse: 15% faster
Uhh, that is the current lighthouse. :p I do agree it needs a buff though to be a viable option over baths. I explain my thinking in my post above, but in short, what are the thoughts on 25%?

Aqueducts: Increases the amount of population by 10%.
Eww, the same exact bonus as baths? :eek: But that's already the obvious choice in basically every city...Cool idea for aqueducts though...I wonder what other bonus those could provide. Maybe they water the fields, increasing res production?

Lyceum (higher education school): Civilians learn how to manufacturer new weapons. Militia strength increased by 25%
I absolutely love this idea for a bonus, though I think it would need to be like 100% for it to be viable...maybe even 150%.

Hall of Legends: The off/def strength of the resident hero is increased by 15%
There are not currently any heroes with relevant off/def strength; I don't see how this building would be useful.
I personally think there should be a hero that gives a fairly small bonus, but has great offensive stats, but that's an idea for a different thread.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts on my critiques :) Just trying to help do my part to revive the forums, and it's fun to analyze how our precious game could be even better.
 

DeletedUser4460

Guest
What do you think about not 8 but 12 special buildings from which you could choose any 2 or maybe 3?
Is it a necessary to have this left / right distinction?
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
What do you think about not 8 but 12 special buildings from which you could choose any 2 or maybe 3?
Is it a necessary to have this left / right distinction?
To be realistic, I think 3 is unlikely. They'd have to remake the entire city artwork to find a new spot to put the building.

I do like the idea of being able to pick two buildings from the same side though. It both simplifies the game for new players to learn while also increasing the strategic depth by allowing new combinations. This would still have to be accompanied by balance changes though, such as those suggested above, as with the current builds, I think almost all cities would be either:
Baths & Lighthouse
Baths & Tower
Baths & Merchant shop
Baths & Theatre
 

DeletedUser836

Guest
I like some of this, but disagree with the following (nothing meant personally :) ):


Why exactly would we buff the by far most popular selection on the right side? I understand that this is used less on conquest worlds than revolt, but it's still vastly more popular than divine statue or oracle.


Uhh, that is the current lighthouse. :p I do agree it needs a buff though to be a viable option over baths. I explain my thinking in my post above, but in short, what are the thoughts on 25%?


Eww, the same exact bonus as baths? :eek: But that's already the obvious choice in basically every city...Cool idea for aqueducts though...I wonder what other bonus those could provide. Maybe they water the fields, increasing res production?


I absolutely love this idea for a bonus, though I think it would need to be like 100% for it to be viable...maybe even 150%.


There are not currently any heroes with relevant off/def strength; I don't see how this building would be useful.
I personally think there should be a hero that gives a fairly small bonus, but has great offensive stats, but that's an idea for a different thread.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts on my critiques :) Just trying to help do my part to revive the forums, and it's fun to analyze how our precious game could be even better.
1. Mainly being buffed due to the fact that people often have 2 or more strength buffs on attacks.
2. the 15% was a typo, 25 was what was meant
3. If someone has an idea for another building/bonus, please speak up.
4. Let me see what I can do with that one.
5. If you take Deimos, he has max off stats of 1050 at level 20 and defense stats of 120B, 120S, 150D. With the 15% buff, it would be 1208 for off, 138B, 138S, 173D.

What do you think about not 8 but 12 special buildings from which you could choose any 2 or maybe 3?
Is it a necessary to have this left / right distinction?
City artwork would have to be reworked massively. Every left side building with the exception of lighthouse is in the same spot and every right building is in the same spot.
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
City artwork would have to be reworked massively. Every left side building with the exception of lighthouse is in the same spot and every right building is in the same spot.
My point exactly. Seems like a whole lot of work for not a lot of benefit. Would definitely be an improvement in my mind, as I explain above, but would take a lot of work from devs. They'd even have to restructure the senate layout and the quests that require you to select a left and right special building.


1. Mainly being buffed due to the fact that people often have 2 or more strength buffs on attacks.
2. the 15% was a typo, 25 was what was meant
3. If someone has an idea for another building/bonus, please speak up.
4. Let me see what I can do with that one.
5. If you take Deimos, he has max off stats of 1050 at level 20 and defense stats of 120B, 120S, 150D. With the 15% buff, it would be 1208 for off, 138B, 138S, 173D.

1. I mean, sure...but it's still by far the most popular option on the right side. A buff would make it even more popular, and punish people who choose merch shop, statue, or oracle even more than it already does. Aren't the idea of balance changes to increase variety, not decrease it? :)

2. In that case, I agree completely!! A change from lighthouse of +15% speed to +25% would be incredible (and a very easy change to make). It would be enough that it actually contends with baths as a viable alternative on the left side and increases the depth of strategy in the game.

3. I think aqueducts is a cool idea for a building, but it shouldn't be a duplicate of the already boring baths, it should water the fields and increase res production (or something else).

4. I think that is a really cool idea for a building mate, something that increases the strength of the militia.

5. Okay...so there would be a building that only affects deimos? And the current deimos has the offensive strength of 14-30 slingers, depending on his level. A +15% increase to this strength would increase the power by 2-9 slingers of the entire nuke. So instead of having, say, 1800 slingers worth of power in your nuke, you are using 60 population and a valuable building slot to have 1809 slingers worth?? How would this be viable?
What are your thoughts on the Luxury Residence idea MarkASp and I suggest above?

This is becoming a nice little discussion :D
 

DeletedUser11525

Guest
Always nice to see a nice, respectful conversation on the forums.

I threw Luxury Residence out as an option since training heros is one of the few things that don't already have some sort of increase available. Population has the baths; all of the various offensive/defensive units have various buffs/heros/research to improve them; etc.

Some of the proposed changes would make the existing specials more interesting. I'm still not convinced there's much that can be done to make the theater more interesting, but that's just my opinion.
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
I'm still not convinced there's much that can be done to make the theater more interesting, but that's just my opinion.
Literally all that needs to happen is for theatre plays to be reduced from 5 whole days on a speed 1 world to, say, 2 days (double that of a city festival). It would be enough that people could run 24/7 theatre plays and still have res left over to do the occasional city festival.
 

DeletedUser836

Guest
My point exactly. Seems like a whole lot of work for not a lot of benefit. Would definitely be an improvement in my mind, as I explain above, but would take a lot of work from devs. They'd even have to restructure the senate layout and the quests that require you to select a left and right special building.




1. I mean, sure...but it's still by far the most popular option on the right side. A buff would make it even more popular, and punish people who choose merch shop, statue, or oracle even more than it already does. Aren't the idea of balance changes to increase variety, not decrease it? :)

2. In that case, I agree completely!! A change from lighthouse of +15% speed to +25% would be incredible (and a very easy change to make). It would be enough that it actually contends with baths as a viable alternative on the left side and increases the depth of strategy in the game.

3. I think aqueducts is a cool idea for a building, but it shouldn't be a duplicate of the already boring baths, it should water the fields and increase res production (or something else).

4. I think that is a really cool idea for a building mate, something that increases the strength of the militia.

5. Okay...so there would be a building that only affects deimos? And the current deimos has the offensive strength of 14-30 slingers, depending on his level. A +15% increase to this strength would increase the power by 2-9 slingers of the entire nuke. So instead of having, say, 1800 slingers worth of power in your nuke, you are using 60 population and a valuable building slot to have 1809 slingers worth?? How would this be viable?
What are your thoughts on the Luxury Residence idea MarkASp and I suggest above?

This is becoming a nice little discussion :D
1. I guess it can stay at 10% then.

5. The hero I mentioned was just an example. I increased the bonus to 140% to make it viable.

As for your idea... looks good!
 
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Rodrk

Peltast
Cool discussion, special buildings are pretty limited and most everyone uses the same couple builds. From time to time you conquer a city and laugh about a lighthouse or oracle.

Baths, Tower, Merch Shop are all fine.

Changes for the rest

Statue - needs to have a bigger boost to be relevant. In the later stages of the game, it's even more uselss
Theater - need to lower the cost / time to be utilized
Lighthouse - a more significant speed boost would help, i still don't see many people forgoing the population boost of baths for this
Oracle - I like the idea of an attack boost, but should be balanced against the tower
Library - The research reset is a cool idea

I just don't know that changing these buildings will increase their usage. For me nothing will replace the population boost of the baths. But -

Whoever mentioned the library being able to reset research with no culture point cost was a cool idea. If you want to see people change their builds, you likely would need options that made sense in this type of way. Especially with the bath slot, you need buildings that serve a short term need.

anyway, lots of cool stuff being proposed and all the ideas sound better then anything i can come up with lol
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
Statue - needs to have a bigger boost to be relevant. In the later stages of the game, it's even more uselss
Theater - need to lower the cost / time to be utilized
Lighthouse - a more significant speed boost would help, i still don't see many people forgoing the population boost of baths for this
Oracle - I like the idea of an attack boost, but should be balanced against the tower
Library - The research reset is a cool idea

Statue: Of course a larger bonus is a good start, but the way that favor production works (using a square root, better explanation is on wiki), it becomes almost pointless to build more temples as you get high in cities. Even with just a few cities, people rarely max out the temple, and that is a better favor per pop ratio than the divine statue is. In short, I still don't think people would really use this...should either be replace, or...new idea! What if the divine statue allowed myth units not of that god to be stationed in the city?

Theatre: Agreed. This is a no-brainer...theatre plays take way too long.

Lighthouse: Agreed, a change from +15% to +25% is needed.

Oracle: I still find an attack boost option kind of boring...would way rather see the oracle left as it is (there are definitely situational uses here) or replaced with something else like Luxury Residence, myself.

Library: The only thing about making library reset researches is that people will build it, reset the researches, and then replace the library with something else. I don't know is this is a problem, exactly...just a thought.
 

DeletedUser4460

Guest
Amazing ideas! Please keep them coming :p

Time to give my 2 cents too. In general I'd prefer to give an additional function to all buildings above the current, have 12 buildings instead of 8 and 3 free choices - dare to dream big :D

Theater: theater plays + 15% cheaper and shorter city festivals (reason: City festival duration is too limited compared to BP generation if players farm)
Thermal bath: 10% population increase + 50% shorter healing time for heroes (healing power of thermal water...)
Library: additional research points + free deletion of research
Lighthouse: 15% speed increase for fleets + trade

Tower: 10% increased defense strength + don't allow catapults to damage random buildings (stone hail doesn't have a counter effect)
Divine Statue: 5 additional temple levels (like now) and 15% reduced favor cost for myths
Oracle: uncover enemy spies and attacks (spells should not protect the incoming attacks to a city with oracle)
Merchant's shop: +50% trade and +10% storage capacity

From the new building proposals with some changes:
Luxury Residence: +10% improved hero effect + heroes travel 50% faster to the city
Diplomatic Center: 10% more resources / units from farming villages + 50% more trade capacity with farming villages
War Council: 10% attack power + 10% battle experience
Stadium: 10% faster training and less cost of all troops
 
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DeletedUser16157

Guest
Ooh morg you have some really interesting ideas here! I still think it's unlikely that we will get 4 whole new buildings, at least not any time soon. Much more realistic to ask for replacements and buffs.

Theater: theater plays + 15% cheaper and shorter city festivals (reason: City festival duration is too limited compared to BP generation if players farm)
I think it's intentional that city festivals are less efficient (but not much so, actually, if you calculate out the res of making 300 troops) than building an army, because war is more fun, and the devs don't want to heavily encourage pure-simming, which is, to most, a boring way to play. Stronger wine in the academy should, however, affect theater plays...I think that's a must. On top of that I'd personally like to see theater plays reduced to twice the length of a city festival (currently 5 times the length).

Thermal bath: 10% population increase + 50% shorter healing time for heroes (healing power of thermal water...)
Why oh why would we give thermal baths a buff??? This is the only thing you posted that I very much disagree with.

Lighthouse: 15% speed increase for fleets + trade
This is a really interesting concept. Personally I have just been advocating for +25% speed increase, and I still that is the best option. Interesting concept about trade speed too though.

Tower: 10% increased defense strength + don't allow catapults to damage random buildings (stone hail doesn't have a counter effect)
As with baths, I am not sure why the most popular option on the side would be made even stronger.

Divine Statue: 5 additional temple levels (like now) and 15% reduced favor cost for myths
YES!!! I think it would need to be 20% to be viable, however.

Oracle: uncover enemy spies and attacks (spells should not protect the incoming attacks to a city with oracle)
I don't understand what you mean. :(

Merchant's shop: +50% trade and +10% storage capacity
To clarify, this would keep the same bonus as the current merchant shop. On top of that, it would have +10% warehouse capacity. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, I absolutely agree with this!

Luxury Residence: +10% improved hero effect + heroes travel 50% faster to the city
I honestly love this idea. Wish I had thought of the heroes traveling faster myself. This makes the residence a definite contender for lightship cities instead of baths, because ari is so useful.

War Council: 10% attack power + 10% battle experience
Stadium: 10% faster training and less cost of all units
Both of these seem slightly overpowered to me. Especially the War Council.

What were your thoughts on the increased militia strength building (Lyceum) that figree2 and I describe above? I think it's a really fun idea.
 
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DeletedUser16016

Guest
How about a Gold mine that produces say 10-20 gold per day? This would help smaller players a lot and ones that can't afford gold. I gotta say the prices of gold are kinda ridiculous especially when it takes so much to insta complete things or so much for the events
 
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