How do you combine and upgrade buildings?

[sresk]

This is a confusing feature, and one I think needs to be looked at. I have no idea what buildings combine or how to discover this. What do I need to do build every combination of every building pair next to each other? This is simply impossible.

Please provide more in game info on how this feature works.

[Cirno]

In buildings tree you can find those with arrow up. Those can be evolved. It means than when you unlock specific building in next era it also unlock the ability to evolve the first one. It's a button same like for upgrading a production building. Which one is needed is mystery, but they are always in the same culture.

[Gilmund]

I didn't understand what buildings can be combined neither how you should discover these combinations.

[5PM - Aurélien]

You are not the only ones to not understand how it works, it is indeed confusing. We'll working on make it more understandable on future patches. :)

[Gilmund]

Originally posted by Nucreum:

You are not the only ones to not understand how it works, it is indeed confusing. We'll working on make it more understandable on future patches. :)

Thanks. I noticed the possible associations do appear at times in the building tree but i did not understand what triggers these associations and there is no popup telling you you've discovered something afaik.

I also did not understand if you have bonuses if you build the association of the antiquity building + middle age building next to each other or if "evolving" a building when available is enough.

[Bedna]

Ah, I got stuck and frustrated when entering the second age so I quit. But with the information here in this thread, I am now ready to once again try to figure out the evolving of buildings..
All I could see was "repair", with the icon that looked like "tear down building". But I CAN NOT tear it down, only "repair" the building for +2k wood etc... But maybe I should check ALL the buildings...

The question is, what do I do with the buildings I no longer want to keep since I can not remove them any longer...
It is all very confusing, but I see the devs are on top of it all.. :)

[5PM - Aurélien]

Originally posted by Bedna:

Ah, I got stuck and frustrated when entering the second age so I quit. But with the information here in this thread, I am now ready to once again try to figure out the evolving of buildings..
All I could see was "repair", with the icon that looked like "tear down building". But I CAN NOT tear it down, only "repair" the building for +2k wood etc... But maybe I should check ALL the buildings...

The question is, what do I do with the buildings I no longer want to keep since I can not remove them any longer...
It is all very confusing, but I see the devs are on top of it all.. :)

Indeed, decayed buldings need to be repaired before they can be evolved. You can't remove them, they'll stay here and if you don't repair them they'll become ruins in Renaissance and disappear in Age of Enlightment.

And yes, not all the building can evolve, only ones with the little arrow on the top left corner of their card in the building tree.

[sresk]

Originally posted by Cirno:

In buildings tree you can find those with arrow up. Those can be evolved. It means than when you unlock specific building in next era it also unlock the ability to evolve the first one. It's a button same like for upgrading a production building. Which one is needed is mystery, but they are always in the same culture.

I know your trying to be helpful, but that's insufficient, I knew all of that already and I'm telling you that the combo's being hidden behind a question mark is a very bad feature, not only do I not know what benefit the upgrade gives I don't even know what else I'll have to unlock to get the upgrade.

There needs to be a lot more information provided to give the player the info needed to make meaningful decisions.

[5PM - Aurélien]

Originally posted by sresk:

Originally posted by Cirno:

In buildings tree you can find those with arrow up. Those can be evolved. It means than when you unlock specific building in next era it also unlock the ability to evolve the first one. It's a button same like for upgrading a production building. Which one is needed is mystery, but they are always in the same culture.

I know your trying to be helpful, but that's insufficient, I knew all of that already and I'm telling you that the combo's being hidden behind a question mark is a very bad feature, not only do I not know what benefit the upgrade gives I don't even know what else I'll have to unlock to get the upgrade.

There needs to be a lot more information provided to give the player the info needed to make meaningful decisions.

In the first place we took this decision to prevent players who doesn't like being spoiled to keep secrets which buildings are during the next age. Maybe it's not that important now.

But we agree the UX and explanation about evolution of buildings is very bad atm, we will work on it for sure during EA.

[sresk]

Originally posted by Nucreum:

Originally posted by sresk:

I know your trying to be helpful, but that's insufficient, I knew all of that already and I'm telling you that the combo's being hidden behind a question mark is a very bad feature, not only do I not know what benefit the upgrade gives I don't even know what else I'll have to unlock to get the upgrade.

There needs to be a lot more information provided to give the player the info needed to make meaningful decisions.

In the first place we took this decision to prevent players who doesn't like being spoiled to keep secrets which buildings are during the next age. Maybe it's not that important now.

But we agree the UX and explanation about evolution of buildings is very bad atm, we will work on it for sure during EA.

I get it, there's a balance between providing a sense of discovery and accomplishment , and providing a feeling of agency. Because this is far more of a puzzle game, the agency of making meaningful decisions far out-ways exploration imo. If resources where larger and I was building multiple copies of every single building, then stumbling into what is effectively a random buff is fine.

But that's the point as the game is designed right now it feels random, maybe I'll get lucky and accidentally stumble into the combo, but there is no amount of planning ahead that's going to allow me to benefit from the combo.

The sense of randomness needs to be removed and the the sense of meaningful choice returned. Sure I suppose you could do that by massively increasing the tool tips with a bunch of clues, but then I'm trying to solve a riddle, that will be solved by going onto a wiki.

The easiest solution is to remove the question mark and provide more info a and clarity to the player.

[5PM - Aurélien]

Originally posted by sresk:

Originally posted by Nucreum:

In the first place we took this decision to prevent players who doesn't like being spoiled to keep secrets which buildings are during the next age. Maybe it's not that important now.

But we agree the UX and explanation about evolution of buildings is very bad atm, we will work on it for sure during EA.

I get it, there's a balance between providing a sense of discovery and accomplishment , and providing a feeling of agency. Because this is far more of a puzzle game, the agency of making meaningful decisions far out-ways exploration imo. If resources where larger and I was building multiple copies of every single building, then stumbling into what is effectively a random buff is fine.

But that's the point as the game is designed right now it feels random, maybe I'll get lucky and accidentally stumble into the combo, but there is no amount of planning ahead that's going to allow me to benefit from the combo.

The sense of randomness needs to be removed and the the sense of meaningful choice returned. Sure I suppose you could do that by massively increasing the tool tips with a bunch of clues, but then I'm trying to solve a riddle, that will be solved by going onto a wiki.

The easiest solution is to remove the question mark and provide more info a and clarity to the player.

I perfectly understand what you feel, you're not alone.

We thought the game to be a "trial & error" city builder, like Frostpunk but not hardcore, allowing people to chill while playing it, and starting a new game once they finished one or if they are blocked/lost.

But despite the vast majority of people who like it that way, we are conscious other dislike it very much.

[piemax]

I agree with srek, I get the desire to avoid spoilers in an RPG, but not in a strategy game, especially one that is intended to be highly replayable.

[sresk]

Originally posted by 5PM - Aurélien:

Originally posted by sresk:

I get it, there's a balance between providing a sense of discovery and accomplishment , and providing a feeling of agency. Because this is far more of a puzzle game, the agency of making meaningful decisions far out-ways exploration imo. If resources where larger and I was building multiple copies of every single building, then stumbling into what is effectively a random buff is fine.

But that's the point as the game is designed right now it feels random, maybe I'll get lucky and accidentally stumble into the combo, but there is no amount of planning ahead that's going to allow me to benefit from the combo.

The sense of randomness needs to be removed and the the sense of meaningful choice returned. Sure I suppose you could do that by massively increasing the tool tips with a bunch of clues, but then I'm trying to solve a riddle, that will be solved by going onto a wiki.

The easiest solution is to remove the question mark and provide more info a and clarity to the player.

I perfectly understand what you feel, you're not alone.

We thought the game to be a "trial & error" city builder, like Frostpunk but not hardcore, allowing people to chill while playing it, and starting a new game once they finished one or if they are blocked/lost.

But despite the vast majority of people who like it that way, we are conscious other dislike it very much.

Btw I do actually enjoy my brief time with the game so far, and am looking forward to finishing off my first play through. And I'm very appreciative that the dev team has taken the time to engage with us players, please don't take this discussion as a player ranting and hating because its not intended in that way.

So here's my last couple of thoughts on this. If the game was built more like a rougelite with a meta progression system, I can see having some upgrades hidden behind unlocks that require multiple play throughs. Which BTW that would be kinda fun :)

Or if the game was short enough that each play through was 15-30 minutes long and the game was designed in a way that players are going to be trying dozens of different builds over 50+ replays again some mystery would be called for.

Or again if resources where so abundant that the players where going to be building multiple copies of every building, then the combos would be discovered naturally.

None of those are true, this is a longer puzzle game, not a replayable rougelite, I'd bet that most players are going to get at most 3 to 12 replays out of this as its built right now, 1 or 2 replays with each primary faction/ideology. With the content in the game right now without having any type of meta progress I can't see much replayability beyond that. On top of that resources are very constrained only 10%-50% of the total number of buildings is going to be built in each run. There just isn't enough population growth to allow for much more than that.

So with all of that there needs to be as much information as possible available to the player, because each desision is a large fraction of the limited resources available. If it where me I'd just remove the question marks entirely and make the info available. If you really feal its important to leave the info hidden and force some discovery then hide the unlock behind the faction points. Say once you've accumulated and or spent 50-100 construction points then the upgrade for the construction buildings is unlocked and made visible. That way its a reward for focusing on one faction. It removes the feeling of frustration and replaces it with a feeling of acheivment for being focused.

[skwerewolf]

Personally I have no problem with the evolution being unknown (it would actually be weird if in ancient era it showed you info about building from medieval era). The information appears as soon as you discover the higher age building...

However I don't understand how the evolution is supposed to work with multiple options? I reached medieval era, saw that one of the ancient buildings has two different evolutions, so I built the cultural building I needed for the evolution I liked, but when I opened the ancient building, it was showing only the other evolution (disabled because I haven't built the medieval cultural building for that one)?

[LawfulLeah]

Originally posted by sresk:

Originally posted by Cirno:

In buildings tree you can find those with arrow up. Those can be evolved. It means than when you unlock specific building in next era it also unlock the ability to evolve the first one. It's a button same like for upgrading a production building. Which one is needed is mystery, but they are always in the same culture.

I know your trying to be helpful, but that's insufficient, I knew all of that already and I'm telling you that the combo's being hidden behind a question mark is a very bad feature, not only do I not know what benefit the upgrade gives I don't even know what else I'll have to unlock to get the upgrade.

There needs to be a lot more information provided to give the player the info needed to make meaningful decisions.

there are combos????

[Pavel9]

I think I've figured out the mechanic for this, but it needs someone to verify it.

The combination to allow a culture building to evolve is you need the same culture type and rank from the different eras.

And of course to have actually built the building that can evolve in the previous era, as noted above, they all have an up arrow in their graphic in the building tree

Examples are;

Production, Ceramic Workshop + Glazed Pottery Workshop -> Stoneware Workshop
Commerce, Emporium + Portus (?) -> Salt Port

The upgraded buildings seem to be pretty powerful in different ways, e.g. can have much higher attractiveness or satisfaction benefits

It's actually hinted at in the text items for each combination, but it needs trawling through each description to find out which culture building evolves to what

The above idea was a hunch which I've tested in a long sandbox build, about 1000 cycles past the usual game limit. Eleven different buildings can currently be combined unless I've miscounted (Ancient plus Medieval eras)

Sandbox is much better for learning the game than the standard mode in my experience, due to the lack of time limit