Buildings shouldn't just be locked behind ages

[Foke]

I'm probably misunderstanding but so far it seems that buildings are only locked behind the ages and not by certain advances or institutions. Johan said in TT#19 that ages were global so doesn't this mean that backwards countries will be able to build more advanced buildings before they unlock any of the institutions in that age or research any of the techs that accompany it?

Like can a Native-American country suddenly just build cannonmakers simply because the Renaissance just spawned in Italy? If so it really shouldn't be able to

 

[Dev2150]

why didn't aztecs build cement factories? are they stupid?

 

[matfer13]

I'm probably misunderstanding but so far it seems that buildings are only locked behind the ages and not by certain advances or institutions. Johan said in TT#19 that ages were global so doesn't this mean that backwards countries will be able to build more advanced buildings before they unlock any of the institutions in that age or research any of the techs that accompany it?

Like can a Native-American country suddenly just build cannonmakers simply because the Renaissance just spawned in Italy? If so it really shouldn't be able to

They would need to research it first which maybe can take longer if you don't have certain institutions, also I doubt that the American natives can research Cannon making off the get go without having bronze, iron, steel smelting, let alone gunpowder technologies

 

[Foke]

They would need to research it first which maybe can take longer if you don't have certain institutions, also I doubt that the American natives can research Cannon making off the get go without having bronze, iron, steel smelting, let alone gunpowder

Okay I just didn't see anywhere that buildings were research locked

 

[Gianvitus]

Buildings are unlocked via advancements, which are tied to ages

 

[McEwanMaster]

Yeah, as @Gianvitus said, Advances are often what unlocks buildings. You can see a couple of examples in this screenshot from the Advances/Technology TT:

"Metallurgy" unlocks the Blacksmith building, "Weaponsmith" unlocks the Weaponsmith building, etc.

 

[Azgabeth]

Okay I just didn't see anywhere that buildings were research locked

maybe read then?

 

[Nitan17]

maybe read then?

To be fair devs often say "this is an X Age building" (like in today's Saturday Building post) without mentioning Advances at all, I can see where OP's confusion came from.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

..basic research of even skimming the TT please..

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

Pretty sure thats how they work. But the advances themselves are locked behind ages

 

[keaswaran]

..basic research of even skimming the TT please..

Most of the relevant TTs don’t mention any advances - they just mention the age. The devs very often do this sort of minimalist communication, where they just assume people are aware of something that they haven’t mentioned in several months. (And to be fair, some of the more enthusiastic readers really are aware of these things.)

 

[GenericType]

I'm probably misunderstanding but so far it seems that buildings are only locked behind the ages and not by certain advances or institutions. Johan said in TT#19 that ages were global so doesn't this mean that backwards countries will be able to build more advanced buildings before they unlock any of the institutions in that age or research any of the techs that accompany it?

Like can a Native-American country suddenly just build cannonmakers simply because the Renaissance just spawned in Italy? If so it really shouldn't be able to

Ages are stupid IMHO. They are arbitrary, and are all Eurocentric. Why the hell would Japan unlock a Whatchamacallit Factory only in the Age of Renaissance when they have no concept of Renaissance in like, ever? Shouldn't they unlock the building if they have already researched the tech for it?

Ages should be region-specific, or hell, country-specific, and all these buildings and techs should just be wrapped up inside the tech tree itself. Replacing that could be like Japan having a country-specific age where they "discover" Portuguese and Dutch traders willing to trade them next-generation matchlocks and flintlocks, including cannons, and that should unlock an age of upheaval in Japan where they battle or embrace Christianization, along with improvements in warfare due to better cannons and rifles.

Consequently ages should not be linear, but branching. What if Japan embraces Christianization and the resulting warlords became more tame, possibly resulting in an early end of the Sengoku Era under a Christian shogun and an Eastern Papacy that tries to rein in the violence? What do we call that age then, Age of Something Eurocentric?

 

[Ispil]

Ages are stupid IMHO. They are arbitrary, and are all Eurocentric. Why the hell would Japan unlock a Whatchamacallit Factory only in the Age of Renaissance when they have no concept of Renaissance in like, ever? Shouldn't they unlock the building if they have already researched the tech for it?

Ages should be region-specific, or hell, country-specific, and all these buildings and techs should just be wrapped up inside the tech tree itself. Replacing that could be like Japan having a country-specific age where they "discover" Portuguese and Dutch traders willing to trade them next-generation matchlocks and flintlocks, including cannons, and that should unlock an age of upheaval in Japan where they battle or embrace Christianization, along with improvements in warfare due to better cannons and rifles.

Consequently ages should not be linear, but branching. What if Japan embraces Christianization and the resulting warlords became more tame, possibly resulting in an early end of the Sengoku Era under a Christian shogun and an Eastern Papacy that tries to rein in the violence? What do we call that age then, Age of Something Eurocentric?

Disregarding the names of the ages themselves, ages are just a "time gate" on various features of the game so that you can't just plough ahead on one particular branch of the advancement tree and have a very silly "we've got medieval castles but rifled muskets" sorta thing going on.

 

[GenericType]

Disregarding the names of the ages themselves, ages are just a "time gate" on various features of the game so that you can't just plough ahead on one particular branch of the advancement tree and have a very silly "we've got medieval castles but rifled muskets" sorta thing going on.

Don't they have time-ahead penalty for techs researched outside of the year they were actually researched in our own time? And with almost 600 techs around, I am not even sure if somebody can research all techs, it's inevitable that we are going to specialize one way or the other. The only country that I think that can research all techs is China, given its large population and the potential to generate huge amounts of tech points, and in a case where you already researched all the techs you could in an age, it seems arbitrary that you can't continue researching more advanced techs just because Europe is still way behind and haven't unlocked the next age yet.

 

[Ispil]

Don't they have time-ahead penalty for techs researched outside of the year they were actually researched in our own time? And with almost 600 techs around, I am not even sure if somebody can research all techs, it's inevitable that we are going to specialize one way or the other. The only country that I think that can research all techs is China, given its large population and the potential to generate huge amounts of tech points, and in a case where you already researched all the techs you could in an age, it seems arbitrary that you can't continue researching more advanced techs just because Europe is still way behind and haven't unlocked the next age yet.

It's also a time gate for things like institutions as well. Also worth noting that when I say "time gate", I very much mean that the ages are literally just "100 years". There's nothing else to them, at least given the last time I asked Johan about it. I think some cabinet actions as well as cabinet size are tied up in it. I think also some situations are tied to ages as a trigger.

But yeah, like... ages are literally just subdividing the game into 100-year blocks. With some stuff attached to them that really just exist to make the mere progression of time open up more gameplay regardless of what you do as a state. Not really the biggest fan of it, myself, but the point I'm trying to make here is that the names have nothing to do with what they're actually doing.

 

[Praetorian44]

It's also a time gate for things like institutions as well. Also worth noting that when I say "time gate", I very much mean that the ages are literally just "100 years". There's nothing else to them, at least given the last time I asked Johan about it. I think some cabinet actions as well as cabinet size are tied up in it. I think also some situations are tied to ages as a trigger.

But yeah, like... ages are literally just subdividing the game into 100-year blocks. With some stuff attached to them that really just exist to make the mere progression of time open up more gameplay regardless of what you do as a state. Not really the biggest fan of it, myself, but the point I'm trying to make here is that the names have nothing to do with what they're actually doing.

Based on the recent TT #57, it seems that ages have been changed so that "each age feel more unique and different to play, while also adding interesting choices." Each age has a set of static modifiers that affect all countries, and they also unlock new mechanics, government reforms, and societal values, and they affect the price of goods in the market. So it does seem there's a bit more to them than just the cabinet and situations.

 

[Ispil]

Admittedly I've not paid too much in the way of attention given I plan on mostly ripping out whatever the devs added there, but good to know that it'll be more than I was initially expecting.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

speaking of buildings, we have 2 additional new and strange features:
age focuses and background sourced advances. Age focuses means you can get the lvl 1 but not lvl 2 of a building. The same is true for background focuses like switching religion and suddenly you cannot have a later age.

The question being: if you have age 1 and 2 lack age 3, can you go from 2 to 4 should you in the case of age focuses acquire it? Or is the age 3 REQUIRED for 4?

 

[Eruth]

speaking of buildings, we have 2 additional new and strange features:
age focuses and background sourced advances. Age focuses means you can get the lvl 1 but not lvl 2 of a building. The same is true for background focuses like switching religion and suddenly you cannot have a later age.

The question being: if you have age 1 and 2 lack age 3, can you go from 2 to 4 should you in the case of age focuses acquire it? Or is the age 3 REQUIRED for 4?

I cannot parse what you’re trying to say, and the random colors do not help. Are you asking if you can skip an age? Because explicitly you cannot, they are universal and linear

 

[bokorthedust]

I cannot parse what you’re trying to say, and the random colors do not help. Are you asking if you can skip an age? Because explicitly you cannot, they are universal and linear

He's asking about buildings which would be locked behind advances which are flavor/country/religion specific, or are locked behind the focuses you can take, and what would happen if you no longer satisfy a previous condition for getting advances unlocking upgrades to said buildings (such as forming a country, so no more - let's say - French buildings for you, or switching religion, so no more Catholic building for you in the next age if you went Protestant). I'm pretty sure his whole premise is wrong because it'd be terrible game design to lock generic buildings behind the dynamic and context-sensitive portion of your advances, but that's what I think he's trying to talk about.