[Vote] (2-09) Proposal: Change special Farm yields for Wheat, Rice, Maize

[ma_kuh]

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VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 9
Proposal: Change special Farm yields for Wheat, Rice, Maize, tailoring their unique bonuses to their likely terrains.

Current yields:
Rice: +1 +1
Maize: +2
Wheat: +1 +1

New yields:
Rice: +1 +1
Maize: +1 +1
Wheat: +2

Rationale:
According to 2.6 patch notes:

Rice can spawn on Marsh & Grassland tiles in tropical regions
Maize can spawn on any Grassland or Plains tile as well as Flood Plains in tropical regions
Wheat can now spawn on non-tropical Plains as well as non-tropical Desert tiles with fresh water

To this end, I'm trying to tailor the yield needs for each region based on something they tend to lack:

• Rice: marsh and grasslands in tropical regions are likely to have lots of jungles and a surplus of food with few hammers
• Maize: grasslands, plains and flood plains in tropical regions are a sort of middle-ground, but the inclusion of plains means there's more of a chance at having sufficient production
• Wheat: non-tropical plains probably have decent access to hammers, and deserts tend to desperately need food (and either have good gold-producing luxuries or hills)

 

[pineappledan]

Rice wheat and maize already give different yields on improvement. this was specifically done so that we could keep resource boosts consistent on the buildings.

 

[CrazyG]

I agree with dan about improvements being different so the building can be concise. But I really think something ought to be done with these resources. Rice is an awful resource that appears on awful land. It's easily the worst resource in the game by an enormous margin. The only value I see in it is the comedic effect of picking the pantheon to boost it so that your cities have more population than they do production.

Maize is a slightly better farm, which is still a pretty bad tile but might actually get used. At least its better than rice.

Wheat is actually useful. On plains, especially plains without freshwater, this is a pretty important food source. I often make a farm because these cities can lack food and need to grow. The change to +1 production instead of food was interesting, while generally I like hammers I've actually had a few spots where I wanted that food. Its also odd that a farm isn't giving food.

 

[ma_kuh]

I see, I didn't realize the yield tweaks had been put on the farms instead.

Maybe I'll amend the proposal to tweak the farm yields instead then. I think the reasoning for a change is still sound.

 

[glaivemaster]

This doesn't make much sense to me. Like pinappledan says, the unique differences are on the Farm upgrade already, which covers making these distinct, but also I think a Granary's purpose is to improve food production, so i don't think it should be worrying about other yields.

 

[stii]

I agree with dan about improvements being different so the building can be concise. But I really think something ought to be done with these resources. Rice is an awful resource that appears on awful land. It's easily the worst resource in the game by an enormous margin. The only value I see in it is the comedic effect of picking the pantheon to boost it so that your cities have more population than they do production.

Maize is a slightly better farm, which is still a pretty bad tile but might actually get used. At least its better than rice.

Wheat is actually useful. On plains, especially plains without freshwater, this is a pretty important food source. I often make a farm because these cities can lack food and need to grow. The change to +1 production instead of food was interesting, while generally I like hammers I've actually had a few spots where I wanted that food. Its also odd that a farm isn't giving food.

Well you could utterly redesign the mod

In the base game having huge cities is a great thing and I do think this mod has swung a bit too far in the other direction, people shouldn't have to lock growth.

 

[ma_kuh]

Updated OP with new proposal, based on feedback. I don't want to open a discussion on whether Granary should have mixed yields or not, I just want Farms on resources to be better for their respective terrains.

New Proposal: Change special Farm yields for Wheat, Rice, Maize, tailoring their unique bonuses to their likely terrains.

Current yields:
Rice: +1 +1
Maize: +2
Wheat: +1 +1

New yields:
Rice: +1 +1
Maize: +1 +1
Wheat: +2

 

[CrazyG]

Well you could utterly redesign the mod

In the base game having huge cities is a great thing and I do think this mod has swung a bit too far in the other direction, people shouldn't have to lock growth.

Vanilla actually has good logic for what resource goes where. Stone appeared on grassland (not plains or hills), because grassland lacks production. Wheat gave food and appeared on plains but not grassland. And sheep appeared in hills, because hills lacked food. All the resources served a purpose.

With rice/maize/wheat, currently we've given rice, the heaviest food resource, to the high food land.
We gave wheat, the highest production of the three, to the highest production areas.

 

[azum4roll]

A short Discord discussion about this back when all 3 resources gave food on improvement, for reference.

 

[Stalker0]

To me this is ultimately a question of....do you want resources to average out terrain, or maximize terrain?

Current version pushes the terrain into its chosen yield more aggressively. Wheat on plains gives a lot of hammers, rice on grassland a lot of food.

The updated proposal would average them out more. Rice and Wheat both gives a balance of food and hammers.

 

[ma_kuh]

Agreed. In this case I feel, because food/production balancing in the ancient era really can be night and day in terms of playability, this is a case where having the yields compensate for the start is warranted.

I don't want to just homogenize jungles and forests, but I think some of that differentiation can come out a little later, on techs, pantheons, and so on.

 

[N.Core]

Interesting change, I sponsor this. I also agree that Rice should provide Production since it requires more manpower IRL.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by N.Core.

 

[Rekk]

In terms of gameplay, this makes production starts higher in production, and food starts higher in food. In general, I'm pretty sure this will mean that the resources will spawn less frequently, since the main point of bonus resources is to help even out the yield extremes of each biome.

@azum4roll can correct me on this.

 

[azum4roll]

These three still give food at base. It's only the improvement that changes, and resource placement doesn't care about that.