What's up with the granary?

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Anyone notice that the granary doesn't seem to take affect during the city's current growing cycle? Here's an example. If the city is a size 2 and you complete the granary, when you go up to size 3, 50% of the food is NOT retained. It's not until you go up to pop 4 that it works. So even though the granary was completed while the city was size 2, it wasn't there yet for a complete cycle.

I've seen this happen a couple times, and I thought it was a fluke the first couple times since I wasn't really paying attention. With my newest game I kept a close eye on the situation and the behavior above is what I'm seeing. I don't remember seeing this in IV.

Does the granary need to be built a X turns before the growth to take effect, or is it a complete cycle.

[KMadCandy]

i saw the mechanics discussed in detail in an article once but i forget where. it doesn't start storing food right away.

i can't answer your specific question, but i do remember one potentially helpful thing from that article that i have no idea where to find atm: the best time to whip (or buy) a granary is when your food bar is low, not when it's high and the city is about to grow.

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Originally Posted by KMadCandy

the best time to whip (or buy) a granary is when your food bar is low, not when it's high and the city is about to grow.

Yeah, this is what I was doing when I noticed the problem. I quickly found out that manuevering things such that the granary is built a turn before growth wasn't working out.

I'm just curious (how long / how much food) is needed for it to do its thing.

[KMadCandy]

try this one. it kind of makes my head spin atm so i didn't read it carefully but it seems to be addressing what you're talking about? my apologies if it doesn't.

it's probably not the one i'm remembering since it says "As noted by Perugia (check his post below), the optimum time to complete the granary is when the food bar is exactly half full. Any earlier and the granary is sitting there at it's max inner storage limit waiting for the city to grow which is a waste as the hammers invested could be used elsewhere. Any later and the granary will be short." but it has like numbers and tests and scientific stuff so maybe it's better?

[gettingfat]

Granery in my understanding is effective for the immediate next pop growth cycle only when it's built before the food bar hits half full. If it's past there you have to wait for more cycle. Say if you're currently a pop 2 city and a few turns to pop 3. You chop the granery, the food bar will not start at the mid point once your city hit pop 3 later. You have to wait till pop 4 to see the effect. Anyway, I'm not very sure so somebody please correct me if wrong.

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Originally Posted by KMadCandy

try this one. it kind of makes my head spin atm so i didn't read it carefully but it seems to be addressing what you're talking about? my apologies if it doesn't.

it's probably not the one i'm remembering since it says "As noted by Perugia (check his post below), the optimum time to complete the granary is when the food bar is exactly half full. Any earlier and the granary is sitting there at it's max inner storage limit waiting for the city to grow which is a waste as the hammers invested could be used elsewhere. Any later and the granary will be short." but it has like numbers and tests and scientific stuff so maybe it's better?

That explains it. If you build it a couple turns before growth, you won't magically keep half of the food. You have to wait for food to accumulate in the granary. I wasn't aware that this system was taking place behind the scenes and granary food was actually being tracked.

It would appear that it's still beneficial to build it near growth, but it won't be 50%. Thanks again for pointing out the article.

[OTAKUjbski]

To put it very simply:

Build your Granary when the city's food bar is at 50%.

A Granary always starts with zero food and can only accumulate food starting the turn in which it's built. Think of the Granary as one structure and the city's stores as a warehouse across town. When the Granary is built, future food production will go to the Granary ... the food already in the city's warehouse stays right where it's at.

Let's look at 3 cities over 5 turns. Each of them has a surplus of +9 food and will grow in exactly 5 turns. Each has a Granary queued to be built one turn apart successively:

City 1.

Turn 1: 10 / 39 (growth in 4) - (Granary in 1 turn)
Turn 2: 19 / 39 (growth in 3) - 9 food in Granary (10 in city)
Turn 3: 28 / 39 (growth in 2) - 18 food in Granary (10 in city)
Turn 4: 37 / 39 (growth in 1) - 19 food in Granary (18 in city)
Turn 5: 26 / 42 (growth in 2) - 21 food in Granary (5 in city)

City 2.

Turn 1: 10 / 39 (growth in 4)
Turn 2: 19 / 39 (growth in 3) - (Granary in 1 turn)
Turn 3: 28 / 39 (growth in 2) - 9 food in Granary (19 in city)
Turn 4: 37 / 39 (growth in 1) - 18 food in Granary (19 in city)
Turn 5: 25 / 42 (growth in 2) - 21 food in Granary (4 in city)

City 3.

Turn 1: 10 / 39 (growth in 4)
Turn 2: 19 / 39 (growth in 3)
Turn 3: 28 / 39 (growth in 2) - (Granary in 1 turn)
Turn 4: 37 / 39 (growth in 1) - 9 food in Granary (28 in city)
Turn 5: 16 / 42 (growth in 3) - 16 food in Granary (0 in city)

You can see that as soon as the Granary is built, it starts accumulating food. 39 / 2 = 19. This is why the Granary built at the halfway point in City 2 on turn 3 had the same affect as the Granary built before the halfway point in City 1 and why the Granary built in City 3 after the halfway point had only a limited affect.

Hope that makes sense.

-- my 2

[Dominico]

wow i never knew this. Interesting thanks!