BANANAS! 7 Food or 4 Food 2 Beakers? To Chop Or Not To Chop

[revelation216]

Sometimes you get a start near/on jungle and Sacred Path/Oral Tradition is taken.

In my opinion the pantheon choice is instead Sun God (+1 Citrus, Wheat, Bananas) which can give massive growth, especially near a Lake Victoria!

This gives:


Bananas have base 3 and get +1 for being worked, plus the bonuses stated above, although the -1 is a little confusing after chopping the jungle. I THINK it's +7 food. Lemme know if I am wrong.

Question is will the 7 from chopped jungle banana plantation end up beating the 42 for beaker output c5citizen: = )? If so, does it begin happen before it's too late in the game?

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I believe it will be 6 food and +1 prod from a plantation (after fertilizer) and 5 food, two beakers (no prod bonus) if you keep it as-is.

I have to say that I tend to leave it as-is as there's generally better things for your workers to be doing (like building trading posts on your other jungle spots).

 

[revelation216]

I believe it will be 6 food and +1 prod from a plantation (after fertilizer) and 5 food, two beakers (no prod bonus) if you keep it as-is.

I have to say that I tend to leave it as-is as there's generally better things for your workers to be doing (like building trading posts on your other jungle spots).

Even with Sun God?

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Even with Sun God?

I don't believe Sun God requires plantations -- pretty sure you get the +1 food regardless. That's why there's not a huge difference.

 

[jko1]

Th weird thing about banana plantations is that it removes the one hammer. So ya weirdly you get one extra food i think most people consider it better to not chop and get the two science. Not to mention that chopping jungle takes a million years for whatever reason.

 

[joncnunn]

Th weird thing about banana plantations is that it removes the one hammer. So ya weirdly you get one extra food i think most people consider it better to not chop and get the two science. Not to mention that chopping jungle takes a million years for whatever reason.

Which is why I moded resources to cancel out the base game removing a hammer from a banana plantation to help out the poor AI who actually will spend all those worker turns clearing the jungle and adding a calendar.

Granary bonus and Sun God both apply weather or not there is a plantation present and so isn't a factor.

To the OP, something is off in your screenshot.
In base game a Banana Planation adds 2 food (and subtracts 1 hammer) even before fertilizer. It is however the case that clearing the jungle that was almost always present removes 1 food (and added a hammer), so this is a lot of worker turns for a net result of +1 food and no hammer changes. Post fertilizer you will get an addition food from a plantation but that's kind of late.

I think I found the offsetting error, in base game a banana only adds 1 food for free on top of what the tile + jungle would have provided.

If this is a script, jungle is always on top of plains, but if this is a self made map, it can be found on top of grassland as well.

 

[Acken]

Sun god doesn't require plantation.

Fertilizer kicks in way too late to make growth better than what you have cumulated with 2 science.

Don't chop.

 

[jango76]

Bananas have base 3 and get +1 for being worked, plus the bonuses stated above, although the -1 is a little confusing after chopping the jungle. I THINK it's +7 food. Lemme know if I am wrong.

Yes, you're wrong

Jungles always occur on plains tiles. The base yield of a plains tile is 1 1. The jungle adds 1 and removes 1, so an ordinary jungle tile ends up with 2 0. Clearing the jungle gets you back to a plains tile, 1 1.

If there are bananas in the jungle, the bananas resource adds 1. So the net yield of the bananas jungle tile is 3. The value of the bananas can get boosted. Building a granary adds 1 food to the bananas resource to give you 4 0. Sun God also adds another 1 food to the bananas resource.

If you clear the jungle, you get 2 1 (or 3 1 with a granary etc.). If you then add a plantation, that adds another food, so 3 1 (or 4 1 with a granary).

The value of the plantation improvement can also get boosted: Fertilizer adds another food.

As others have said, it tops out at 6 1 for a post-Fertilizer plantation with Sun God and a granary, made up from 1 1 for the base tile yield, 3 from the bonus resource, and 2 from the plantation improvement.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Jungles always occur on plains tiles.

Not always, I think -- I've played on some of the expansion maps (like South America) where I see jungles with a 3 food base, I believe there is grassland underneath. Or it's a bug.

 

[joncnunn]

If you then add a plantation, that adds another food, so 3 1 (or 4 1 with a granary).

The value of the plantation improvement can also get boosted: Fertilizer adds another food.

As others have said, it tops out at 6 1 for a post-Fertilizer plantation with Sun God and a granary, made up from 1 1 for the base tile yield, 3 from the bonus resource, and 2 from the plantation improvement.

This part has a slight error, putting a plantation on Bananas in base game actually removes the hammer. So 0 production.

 

[joncnunn]

Not always, I think -- I've played on some of the expansion maps (like South America) where I see jungles with a 3 food base, I believe there is grassland underneath. Or it's a bug.

Yes, the fixed expansion maps sometimes have grassland underneath jungle. As would a user generated map.

But scripted maps always have plains underneath jungle.

 

[jango76]

This part has a slight error, putting a plantation on Bananas in base game actually removes the hammer. So 0 production.

Huh, you're right. The plantation adds 2 and removes 1. So you get up to a max of 7 0.

Shows how often I build plantations on bananas. Maybe I'll think about doing it sometimes - that's a nice chunk of food, even without Sun God. The 2 would still hurt to lose in the middle game, though.

 

[NukeAJS]

Someone already mentioned this, but your workers should be doing something else, generally.

If they don't have anything to do, I think about it like this: if you have the happiness to spare and it's early in the game, take the food. If you don't have the happiness or it's later in the game, leave them. My reasoning is this:

More population = more science. So, if you can spare the time to cut the jungle down and put up the plantation, the extra food will mean more pop and more pop means more science. Also, since you don't get any science until your university goes up, you obviously have to wait for the education tech and the time to get the university up. In my opinion it's worth it to have that extra food, but only if it's earlier in the game.

 

[Acken]

No because the unchoped banana provide 2science after universities. This is way more science than 1-2 food will ever provide. Especially since there is little chance you want to spend 15worker turns for it in the early game.

 

[neilkaz]

I agree with Acken. No chopping. I want the science later.

Note also what a nice tile jungle with a TP on top of it is in the mid game. Of course, TP's take a long time to build on jungle (Pyramids helps) and you can't TP over bananas.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[joncnunn]

and you can't TP over bananas.

.. neilkaz ..

Yup, a very early balance patch to Vanilla removed the ability to put improvements that didn't benefit the resource over a known resource.

 

[Vitruvius]

I think not chopping bananas may not always be the right thing to do. If you have high worker output (if you steal a lot and have liberty/pyramid). Chopping the banana is not costly at all. The extra food before university can allow you work additional production in your city or simply make it grow faster. You sacrifice two science later on but you will get one extra food back at fertilizer. I personally think the two science is overrated because you get more flexibility with two food instead. You can choose to work specialists, hills or whatever depending on the situation. There's just more flexibility. Not to mention that two food = 1 pop which in turn = 1 base beaker and 1 specialist (3 beakers if science specialist) for a total of 4 science. But then again, if you have other priorities, don't chop. If you have fast workers lying around go ahead and chop them.

 

[Acken]

2 food doesn't equal 1 more pop no that is not how it works. 2 food equal slightly faster growth, which means the real benefit of these 2 food are only in the interval where the other strategy has yet to grow one more pop.
And if your city has some decent food so that these 2 aren't all that you produce, then this interval is small and does not make up for the 2 science that cumulate EVERY turn (after universities around T115). And remember you only get one additional food before fertilizer that comes very late.

 

[chazzycat]

it seems unlikely to me that the value of 1 food is going to surpass 2 beakers in general. the value of 1 food has diminishing returns as the game goes on, and the bananas would be chopped pretty late so its just not going to make a big difference in growth, not enough to offset 2 beakers.

but I also think "never chop" is too extreme. I could see it being a good choice in the following circumstance:

1) fertilizer is researched much earlier than usual (this is viable in certain dirt)
2) a city is founded or captured relatively late, so that it's undersized when you research fertilizer
3) multiple bananas are present
4) you have surplus workers or no higher priority tasks

in this situation where you really want to grow a satellite city, you have fertilizer researched and plenty of workers, it could be a good choice. It's not uncommon to have 3 bananas in 1 city and 6 food DOES make a difference in a small city. 1-2 food in a medium city really doesn't.

 

[Vitruvius]

2 food doesn't equal 1 more pop no that is not how it works. 2 food equal slightly faster growth, which means the real benefit of these 2 food are only in the interval where the other strategy has yet to grow one more pop.
And if your city has some decent food so that these 2 aren't all that you produce, then this interval is small and does not make up for the 2 science that cumulate EVERY turn (after universities around T115). And remember you only get one additional food before fertilizer that comes very late.

The chopped won't be leading by 1 pop every turn but enough turns to make a difference. Even if it doesn't, for every two chopped bananas, a citizen can be pulled off a grassland farm to work a specialist for 3 science or 2 production (more with secularism) + GP points without sacrificing growth. There is a reason why people chop river jungles even though they provide way more benefit after universities because they can be trade posted. Universities T115 is just one way for playing the game. What if I want to go metal casting into machinery for a xbow rush? The 5 food banana will allow me to work one less farm for one more mine.