(9-008) Food/Farm/Specialist Tweaks

[redrum68]

Motivation
After early game, food and farms fall off in value. This pushes the current meta to spam lots of lower pop cities with little to no farms and using avoid growth which gets repetitive. Cities then often focus on working a few tiles and specialists and outside of your capital are very uniform with little variation. The current happiness system is a factor in this but changing it significantly is probably out of scope of this balance focused congress. There are 2 main issues that this is trying to tackle:

1. How can we make food matter more in mid and late game?
2. How can we make farms scale better compared to other food sources?

Approach:

• Increase food demand by increasing how much specialists consume. This also makes it so cities founded in food rich areas (flat land, river, coastal, etc) can support more specialists while cities in rough terrain (hills, forest/jungle, etc) would support less specialists but have higher potential production. This increases variation across cities and makes location more meaningful.
• Buff farms on resources as right now they are very weak and often where players choose to prioritize building GPTIs instead of farms. This helps to give a bit more early food and make these bonus resources matter more and in-line with other food bonus resources improvements like pastures/camps/nets.
• Buff some of the Granary line buildings to give extra food to farms as these buildings are a bit weak and rarely prioritized and this makes farms scale better into mid/late game.

---

Proposal Summary

• Specialists Consume +1 Food, Make the Era Scaling Kick-in at Medieval (increase food demand especially into mid/late game)
• Farms get +1 food from Aqueduct (Harrappan Reservoir gives +2 instead of +1 food) and Grocer (buff some weaker buildings and have farm yields scale better into mid/late game)
• Remove the small instant production from Aqueduct and Harrappan Reservoir (extra production doesn't really make sense on a food/growth building and the amount is very low)
• Farm on Wheat gives +1 food
• Farm on Rice gives +1 food
• Farm on Maize gives +1 food, +1 gold

Current Specialist Food Consumption

• Ancient to Information: 3-3-3-4-5-6-7-8

Proposed Specialist Food Consumption (Changes in Bold)

• Ancient to Information: 4-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

Current Aqueduct

• Food: +1
• +15% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +2 Food to Oasis/Lake
• When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output

Proposed Aqueduct (Changes in Bold)

• Food: +1
• +15% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +1 to Farm
• +2 Food to Oasis/Lake
• When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output

Current Harappan Reservoir

• Food: +3
• Production: +3
• +1% Food per Follower of Majority Religion
• +20% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +1 +1 to Farm
• +2 to Oasis/Lake
• When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output

Proposed Harappan Reservoir (Changes in Bold)

• Food: +3
• Production: +3
• +1% Food per Follower of Majority Religion
• +20% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +2 +1 to Farm
• +2 to Oasis/Lake
• When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output

Current Grocer

• Happiness: 1
• +15% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +1 +1 +1 to Figs
• Each Population in City: +0.2

Proposed Grocer (Changes in Bold)

• Happiness: 1
• +15% Food is carried over when City grows
• -1 Unhappiness from Poverty
• +1 to Farm
• +1 +1 +1 to Figs
• Each Population in City: +0.2

Current Farms on Resources

• Wheat
  • +1Food
• Rice
  • +1Production
• Maize
  • +1Gold

Proposed Farms on Resources (Changes in Bold)

• Wheat
  • +2Food
• Rice
  • +1Food, +1Production
• Maize
  • +1Food, +2Gold

 

[azum4roll]

Each improvement currently gets exactly one boost from buildings. While not a balance concern, I'd like this consistency to stay.

"When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output" is a really weak effect and can be buffed instead, which also promotes growing cities.

I'm not convinced that Grocer needs a buff. It's already a priority building when you want to get out of unhappiness.

Is there a reason why maize has to give 1 extra gold compared to the other two?

 

[redrum68]

Each improvement currently gets exactly one boost from buildings. While not a balance concern, I'd like this consistency to stay.

"When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output" is a really weak effect and can be buffed instead, which also promotes growing cities.

I'm not convinced that Grocer needs a buff. It's already a priority building when you want to get out of unhappiness.

Is there a reason why maize has to give 1 extra gold compared to the other two?

I actually would like to see improvements get boosts from more buildings so this would be more of a start to having more asymmetry there. But if others feel differently then we could consider different buffs to aqueducts and grocers and move the +1 food to farm to nearby techs.

I actually would rather just remove the "When a Citizen is born in this City: gain Production equal to 25% of City output" as its very weak and much less straightforward. I find that its an example of unnecessary complexity.

Grocers are pretty weak given they have a pretty high cost. Helps some with happiness but having them give +1 food to farms I think is a nice addition. If most players feel grocers aren't a little weak than I guess we could move the +1 food to farms to a tech instead.

Early game, gold is worth about half as much as production (slightly more than that but closer to half than 1 to 1).

 

[FPXI]

The asymmetry doesn't bother me at all. I like this a lot, I'm just not sure this buff is big enough? I'd like to see this paired with a scaling buff to farm adjacency bonuses and the ability to build farms on hills adjacent to fresh water.

 

[Alpakinator]

Currently:
Mines gain +1 at Steel, Combustion and Robotics and +3 at Steam Power.
Pasture gains +2 at Civil service, Fertilizer and +3 at Robotics.
Lumbers gain +1: +1 at Metallurgy and Combustion.
Farms only gain +1 at Civil Service, Fertilizer and +3 Robotics.

So at the end of Industrial, Combustion currently we end up with:
9 mines,
2.5 , 6 3 1 1 lumber triangles
and 7 2 2 grassland farm triangles near a river
(assuming all buildings have been built, and no policy boosts were chosen).

Robotics can be ignored, its way too late to matter to the balance at all.

 

[Alpakinator]

I dislike that agribusiness turns farms into food focused lumbermills, makes imporvmeents less distinct (but also makes farms not terrible).

 

[Alpakinator]

Its very hard to judge the relative value of especially late game. Id say gold raises in value sharply and food drops relative to production.

 

[vyyt]

Can we make farms possible on hills next to fresh water again? I don't know why they were removed many years ago, but it would help with making farm triangles for the adjacency bonus.

 

[redrum68]

The asymmetry doesn't bother me at all. I like this a lot, I'm just not sure this buff is big enough? I'd like to see this paired with a scaling buff to farm adjacency bonuses and the ability to build farms on hills adjacent to fresh water.

Yeah I tried to keep it pretty simple as I didn't want to go too far and would rather have something pass Congress to improve them. If there is a strong consensus though I'd gladly add a bit more into this proposal or someone could counterproposal. But having adjacency bonuses increase at some point mid/late game I think would be good.

Currently:
Mines gain +1 at Steel, Combustion and Robotics and +3 at Steam Power.
Pasture gains +2 at Civil service, Fertilizer and +3 at Robotics.
Lumbers gain +1: +1 at Metallurgy and Combustion.
Farms only gain +1 at Civil Service, Fertilizer and +3 Robotics.

So at the end of Industrial, Combustion currently we end up with:
9 mines,
2.5 , 6 3 1 1 lumber triangles
and 7 2 2 grassland farm triangles near a river
(assuming all buildings have been built, and no policy boosts were chosen).

Robotics can be ignored, its way too late to matter to the balance at all.

I think its good to list out the building costs as well since agribusinesses are quite expensive and require horses so large upfront investment and you need to have a good number of farms in a city to really make them worth it.

Its very hard to judge the relative value of especially late game. Id say gold raises in value sharply and food drops relative to production.

I'd say late game is like 2 food ~ 1 gold ~ 1 prod but the food value fluctuates a lot based on how much happiness you have and how large cities already are. Also the closer you get to victory the less and less food is worth since at some point you just don't have many turns to work the new pop.

Can we make farms possible on hills next to fresh water again? I don't know why they were removed many years ago, but it would help with making farm triangles for the adjacency bonus.

I like it but not sure if that is easy to add in or would require DLL?

 

[FPXI]

I think its good to list out the building costs as well since agribusinesses are quite expensive and require horses so large upfront investment and you need to have a good number of farms in a city to really make them worth it.

I'm sure there's a good reason, but why do agribusinesses require horses anyway?

 

[Legen]

I'm sure there's a good reason, but why do agribusinesses require horses anyway?

Iirc, it was because that's around the time when Horses become useless as a strategic. Agribusiness was meant to keep Horses relevant as a strategic resource in the late game.

 

[FPXI]

Iirc, it was because that's around the time when Horses become useless as a strategic. Agribusiness was meant to keep Horses relevant as a strategic resource in the late game.

Hmm. Can't say i've ever actually considered a war to get horses for my agribusiness.

 

[redrum68]

Hmm. Can't say i've ever actually considered a war to get horses for my agribusiness.

Yeah they generally aren't good enough and usually you have plenty of horses since its their only use then at that point. I think the idea was decent but you almost need multiple buildings that use horses so you have more demand and different options once horse units are done.

 

[azum4roll]

You don't really have that many horses to support agribusiness in every city.

 

[redrum68]

You don't really have that many horses to support agribusiness in every city.

Probably not every city since they cost 2 but it would still be nice to have multiple options for horses so its not just build agribusiness or let your horses sit there doing nothing.

 

[paul_soryu]

You don't really have that many horses to support agribusiness in every city.

Unless you took Autocracy and built an AgriReich with doubled Horses (quadrupled with Russian AgriCzarship)

 

[usadefcon1]

Is there a mod to play this now? Or is this to be developed in the future?

 

[redrum68]

Is there a mod to play this now? Or is this to be developed in the future?

No though if it doesn't pass then I might make it one. I think its close to a no brainer though worry that maybe the specialist changes could turn people off and whether I should break it into multiple smaller proposals.

 

[pineappledan]

Can you guys please use the civ 5 emotes? Reading these proposals takes way longer having to reinterpret all this

 

[vyyt]

I like it but not sure if that is easy to add in or would require DLL?

Farms on hills were possible in the past (and in vanilla?), I also remember modding them back in. So I think it should not be a complicated thing.