Well, first off, thank you Thalassicus for using my idea!
Idea:
To improve the Fertilizer tech, as well as late game farms through the addition of +1
to each and every farm (stacking with Civil Service) upon researching Fertilizer.
Basic In Game Reasoning:
Currently, there is no incentive to research this tech when your empire has even relatively few rivers / lakes because it is so easy to allow multiple cities access to those riverside farms. Also farms are relatively useless when a critical mass of Maritime city states are acquired.
Real Life Justification:
Fertilizer is not a substitute for a source of fresh water in farming. Presumably it allows "low water yield" farms to produce better crops and thus +1
. However, it would also allow high water yield farms to produce superior quality crops that would grow in a more abundant fashion, thus providing more food / acre.
Further, more specific reasoning:
First, I actually skipped the tech entirely the last two Immortal games I played due to the fact that it is close to, but not required for the top 2/3 of the late game tech tree. You need gunpowder / chem for mil sci / steam power, but not fertilizer. This made me sad because I love the idea of techs that improve tile improvements but there was just no reason to take it because ...
Second, by the point in the game where I can actually tech Fertilizer I have replaced 90% of my farms with trading posts. My reasoning for doing so is two-fold. One, maritime CS's provide a lot of food by then. Two, the total yield of other tile improvements passes the farm. e.g. trading posts -> +2
+1
, Lumber Mill -> +2
with the idea that if an engi specialist is +1
for 2
then +2
must be > than +2
on a tile. Probably not 2:1 but still a better improvement. So, if farms were a net +3 (+3
from +1 farm, +1 CS +1 Fert) it would help make them competitive with every other improvement in the game.
Third, farms are a non-spammable tile improvement. You can theoretically build them everywhere, but with no caste-system to support infinite food, there are no direct benefits after the second, third, or fourth farm in a city radius (depending on other available resources). This means that, while +1
to each Trading Post would be MASSIVE throughout an empire, even with a large (10+ cities) empire, +1
per freshwater farm would never net an overwhelming gain in yield per turn unless you were lucky enough to get a million river tiles and played a science / specialist economy with many many many farms.
Fourth, if the change allowed people to set up a farm-based economy then I would actually consider the change a god-send. As it stands, there is only one viable economy type and I don't like that at all. If you could plan for Fertilizer to jump start your lagging specialist / farm economy then yay!
I do understand the idea of conserving balance, however I would argue that adding
to freshwater farms is, if anything, more beneficial to the AI who seems hell-bent on farm building as is
And, let's face it, as it stands, giving the AI bonuses will just make the game more fun
Breakdown of Farm yields over gametime (all based on a grassland tile):
1. No Civil Service, No Fertilizer
--River Farm: +3
+1
--Lake Farm: +3
--Grassland Farm: +3
2. With Civil Service, No Fertilizer
--River Farm: +4
+1
--Lake Farm: +4
--Grassland Farm: +3
3. With Civil Service, With Fertilizer
--River Farm: +5
+1
--Lake Farm: +5
--Grassland Farm: +4
