Eliminating the Food Cost of Merchants

from Elemental Forums

I want to create a very simple mod to eliminate the food cost of merchants (a change I find ridiculous). 

However, it is very hard to figure out where the costs of the merchant building are being determined.

Deep in the Elemental, Data, English directory there is a directory for improvements and a directory for single player only improvements.  There is a file in there called KingdomSpecialImprovements and the merchant is listed there.  This is the only file I can find the merchant in.

However, the cost of the merchant there is listed as being 5 lumber and 1 food, while in the game the unit actually costs 10 materials and 1 food.

I copied this file into my Users/My Docs/My games/elemental/units folder and changed the food cost to 0.  I believe that what is happening is that it pulling data from both the core game files and my mod and doubling the cost and benefit.

Does anyone know how to do this?

By the way, the idea that this game is easy to mod is almost laughable.  Besides the fact that it requires manipulating directories in two different locations, the file directories do not remotely match up, making placement in the Users area pure guesswork.

8,465 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

There is a doubling issue with improvements. Basically, all gamemodifiers are always kept from the core file, even if you modify the type in a new file.

Therefore, if you want to reduce the cost of food by 1 to 0, you should set the food cost to -1 to counter the 1 found in the core file. All other gamemodifiers should be deleted from your own file.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I still must doing something wrong because now my merchants produce food.

When I set the mod'ed value to 0, the merchants still consume 1 food.

When I set it to +1, to nullify the core value of -1, the merchants produce 1 food.

I truly am starting to hate this game.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

        <GameModifier>
                <ModType>ConstructionResourceCost</ModType>
                <Attribute>Rations</Attribute>
                <Value>1</Value>
            </GameModifier>   

If you use that and no other gamemodifier, the game will make it cost 0 food, and produce 0 food. It will SAY it "provides" 1 ration, but that's just a bug in the text.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

My suggestion would be to create a new improvement rather than try to mod an existing one. 

For example, in my modded version (for my own play) I created a Throne Room improvement that can only be built once but provides 1 food and 1 gold.  

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 5


For example, in my modded version (for my own play) I created a Throne Room improvement that can only be built once but provides 1 food and 1 gold.  
End of Frogboy's quote

Hope this makes it into the vanilla.  It's the best solution to ensuring that you can get your civ off the ground.  Then, the initial production buildings can have a real cost/upkeep to elim. one incentive to spam cities.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

If they are going to remove metal from the maps, then maybe one way for me to still play this game would be to create a building that produces metal.

I still don't get why metal was removed.  How is having interesting weapons and armor unbalancing?

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting cygnetsong, reply 6

Quoting Frogboy, reply 5

For example, in my modded version (for my own play) I created a Throne Room improvement that can only be built once but provides 1 food and 1 gold.  
Hope this makes it into the vanilla.  It's the best solution to ensuring that you can get your civ off the ground.  Then, the initial production buildings can have a real cost/upkeep to elim. one incentive to spam cities.
End of cygnetsong's quote

 

But this doesn't prevent the huge bonus you get from conquering a rival capital. I would prefer some bonus being linked to factions...

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting cygnetsong, reply 9
+1food, +1gold huge?  Or something else I'm missing that's a "huge bonus"? 
End of cygnetsong's quote

 

Add to the mix the food patch, goldmine and shard you get in the beginning (edit: plus, adventure techs. Those are still spawned mostly in your capital ZoC). Or do you think you can jump start an economy with just the building Frogboy mentioned? I'm trying to say that I'm against the idea of a unique building in your capital producing what you need in the early game (+6 food/tech/gold) because that does nothing to address the "double income from double starting location control" you have in the game ATM-

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

ah, I see.  Yeah, if they implement it, I think it would replace the guaranteed resources near your starting location, rather than adding to it.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting cygnetsong, reply 11
ah, I see.  Yeah, if they implement it, I think it would replace the guaranteed resources near your starting location, rather than adding to it.
End of cygnetsong's quote

 

That's why I said I'd prefer the initial bonuses being linked to faction :). That way is just as if you had the building, without them being conquerable by a rushing player.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Just add a +1 food bonus to markets to cancel out of the -1 food cost. No need to create a new building or anything. It's a small and efficient fix.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Right there with you; I tried a few different things - namely:

* Copying KingdomSpecialImprovements.xml to my documents\my games\elemental\mods\data\english\ and the -1 change

* Making the change directly to KingdomSpecialImprovements.xml in elemental\mods\data\english\core improvements\only-sp\ and the -1 change

* This worked for one new game, then reverted again on the next new game I started

 

So now, I'm ready to toss this whole thing into the binary bin bucket, between all the performance issues and out of memory issues from earlier builds.

 

All I want to do is mod an EXISTING improvement and make it do what I want, without a whole bunch of shenanigans.  Similarly for spells and whatnot.

 

Quite tiresome, Stardock.

 

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 5
My suggestion would be to create a new improvement rather than try to mod an existing one. 

For example, in my modded version (for my own play) I created a Throne Room improvement that can only be built once but provides 1 food and 1 gold.  
End of Frogboy's quote

Frogboy, this issue is known for some time. Even when mods started appearing with 1.05. Why it wasn't looked up til now? It really hampers modding efforts, when you need some hocus pocus to make even simple building edits work properly.

And modding existing techs is pretty much impossible without making new tech tree (which would not be used by custom factions from workshop).

 

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

That Throne Room improvement, should it be added to the base game?