Granaries don't work!

I'm playing Rome as a deity, huge map, 8 civs. Civ3 single-player, v1.29f. At present I have built granaries in 3 towns/cities but only the last one built seems to have effect on my food store. The other granaries used to be working properly but has ceased to. In the city screens they are listed as improvements but the food box is displayed as no granary present. I tried to sell the newest granary, but this did not make any of the other granaries resume function.

Of course AI cheats terribly at this level, but to steal my food...? If this can't be solved I'll never build granaries again. My habit has been to build the Pyramids. Maybe I had better stick to that.

Are the cities growing through size 6 to 7? There used to be an exploit with granaries at that point, so the granary is emptied when you grow to size 7l it should start to work again at size 7-8 growth.

edit to add info

A size 5 city needs 20 food to grow; witha prefilled granary of 10 food, it needs 10 more to grow to size 6.

It then starts size 6 with 10 food in the granary and 10 needed. When it gets those extra 10 it grows to size 7.

It starts size 7 with NO FOOD in the granary, and needs a full 40 to gro to size 8.

It starts size 8 with 20 in the grananry and 20 more needed.

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The 'exploit' was that a size 7 town used to keep 1/2 the food in the granary i.e. 20 food. If you build a worker that very turn it drops to size 6, but has 20 food, so grows stright back to size 7. Repeat indefinitiely for a never ending stream of workers.

The same change was made at 12-13 growth. You could argue you should keep your old food store, but Firaxis decided to zero out the granary instead.

Also the granary line is only shown if your food box is half full. If you just built the granary or experienced starvation you might not have enough food.

No, I have experienced that bug before. Seems to be something that Firaxis missed. I don't know how to reproduce it though.

I have never had a problem with the granary not working. It will look like it isn't working when the following happens:

1. You just built the granary (or pyramids), and you have less than half the food required to grow. For example, at size 1-6, you need 20 food for each population, and if you only have 5 food in there when you complete the granary, the granary won't show up until you store up 10 food (but it IS working, you just need to fill the granary up that first time). This is why it is best to try and complete a granary just before increasing in population (so you get to keep 10 food that was stored up and get the benefits of the granary immediately).

2. When you hit size 7 or size 13, the granary is emptied, so it looks like the granary is gone, but it is still working. You just need to fill up the granary again.

3. Starvation. The granary stores food, so you can go longer before losing population from starving, but once the granary is emptied, you have to fill it back up again, before you will see it, just like in situation #1 and #2.

Edit: 4. You have just founded a city, or captured a city. If you have the pyramids, for example, even though the granary is automatically given to you in the new city, you need to fill up the granary the first time (store up 1/2 the food required to grow before you will see the granary box)

Larse, Bamspeedy's advice is excellent, I would say the best regarding this subject. In the GOTM (Game of the Month), he consistently expands much more rapidly than anyone else. In fact, he wrote an exceptional article in the War Academy called, "Babylon's Deity Settlers." It is a must-read. Here is the link to it:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_deity_settlers.shtml

(Great job on the article, Bamspeedy, and in GOTM18!)

hey thank a tonne for the link it was a good read

Good job, Bamspeedy. A well written and informative article, explaining why you did things.

Welcome to the forum, larse. You can find a ton of good info once you learn your way around. I highly recommend the war academy.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3academy.shtml

Stirring it up for the first post, eh? Not bad - I learned something new - line not always visible - who knew?

Let us know if this resolves the problem.

Originally posted by scotland_no1
hey thank a tonne for the link it was a good read

Click to expand...

You're welcome. If you liked that one, do check out the War Academy, as alamo said, because there are some excellent articles. Fortunately, there are more by Bamspeedy, so be sure to read all of his first! The guy is a world class player and an excellent communicator, as well.

ACtually, when you grow from size 6-7 or 12-13, you DO keep the food in the granary box. If its 10 food from 6 to 7, then you start at size 7 not with a half full granary, but with 10 food.

My bad Hygro. What fooled me, at least, was that the 'saved' 10 food at 6-7 isn't in a partially full granary - it's stuck in the food box like any other kind of food. So I noticed I had no granary, but didn't spot the carried over food.