Here is what I am looking at for Camps. For reference, this is my target yield curve (based on the curve for Farms built on a food resource).
Ancient 2.5
Classical 2.5
Medieval 3.5
Renaissance 3.5
Industrial 4.5
Modern 6
Transhuman 9
To start, Ivory Camps and Fur Camps are balanced. Ivory gives +1F/+1P/+1C, while Fur gives +1P/+3C. Since 1F = 2C, this is fair. However, Deer is a little bit stronger than it should be. Deer gives +2F/+1P/+1 Health. If we take out the +1P, then Deer is balanced against the other two. All three Camps would then net +2.5 points of yield.
Camps get +1 commerce at each of Matchlock and Repeating Weapons, and +2 food with Artificial Evolution. So Camp starts to fall behind once most improvements get a boost from either Agricultural Tools or Crop Rotation.
I think a good first step would be +1 food with Feudalism. I would like to spread these bonuses out somewhat if I can. This makes Medieval Camps worth +3.5 yield (in line with Farms), Renaissance +4 (a touch better), and Industrial +4.5 (still in line). The second step would be to add +1F and +1C with Ecology. This brings the Modern yield up to +6. Finally, add +1P from Artificial Evolution as well as the +2F. That is a total of +9, exactly where it should be.
I considered having Camps upgrade to Forest Preserve, but there is a small problem in that Ivory can appear on Flood Plain tiles as well as Jungle. If I made Camp upgrade to Forest Preserve, then you would have Forest Preserves on tiles without Forests. Even setting <bBonusMakesValid> to 0 doesn't stop an improvement from upgrading. <bBonusMakesValid> is used to limit certain improvements to resource tiles only and allow improvements on tiles that are not normally allowed (such as Mines on bonus squares wherever they are). I really don't want to change the name of Forest Preserve. Furthermore, while there is a Plant Forest improvement, the creation of the Forest is actually tied to the Build Forest action, not the improvement.
Classical 2.5
Medieval 3.5
Renaissance 3.5
Industrial 4.5
Modern 6
Transhuman 9
To start, Ivory Camps and Fur Camps are balanced. Ivory gives +1F/+1P/+1C, while Fur gives +1P/+3C. Since 1F = 2C, this is fair. However, Deer is a little bit stronger than it should be. Deer gives +2F/+1P/+1 Health. If we take out the +1P, then Deer is balanced against the other two. All three Camps would then net +2.5 points of yield.
Camps get +1 commerce at each of Matchlock and Repeating Weapons, and +2 food with Artificial Evolution. So Camp starts to fall behind once most improvements get a boost from either Agricultural Tools or Crop Rotation.
I think a good first step would be +1 food with Feudalism. I would like to spread these bonuses out somewhat if I can. This makes Medieval Camps worth +3.5 yield (in line with Farms), Renaissance +4 (a touch better), and Industrial +4.5 (still in line). The second step would be to add +1F and +1C with Ecology. This brings the Modern yield up to +6. Finally, add +1P from Artificial Evolution as well as the +2F. That is a total of +9, exactly where it should be.
I considered having Camps upgrade to Forest Preserve, but there is a small problem in that Ivory can appear on Flood Plain tiles as well as Jungle. If I made Camp upgrade to Forest Preserve, then you would have Forest Preserves on tiles without Forests. Even setting <bBonusMakesValid> to 0 doesn't stop an improvement from upgrading. <bBonusMakesValid> is used to limit certain improvements to resource tiles only and allow improvements on tiles that are not normally allowed (such as Mines on bonus squares wherever they are). I really don't want to change the name of Forest Preserve. Furthermore, while there is a Plant Forest improvement, the creation of the Forest is actually tied to the Build Forest action, not the improvement.