Cargo ship food vs Hanging Gardens

[Clause]

Do you still bother to build HG in higher difficulties since cargo ship gives you more food with less hammer to build?

HG cost u 150 (gives you 6 ) meanwhile
Cargo only cost u 100 (gives you up to 12 )

I think HG need some kind of buff, what you all think?

 

[Matthew.]

lol...

Yes, trading routes give a stupid amount of food so lets buff HG (already one of the stronger wonders in the game)

I think it is more likely trading routes will get their numbers adjusted in an upcoming patch.

 

[ParadigmPlague]

Hanging garden also gives you +1 culture, and +25% GP generation where you build it. It also can never be plundered.. its very strong imo

 

[True_Candyman]

Both is always nice

Cargo ships food revenue is actually fine i think. It progresses the game nicely, and really does elevate the need for trade routes. Everyone can get them, so if you intentionally neglect them you will fall behind, just like any other aspect of the game really.

 

[Byzantine Bomb]

The Hanging Gardens I find most useful in a desert or Tundra city. Time spent on that wonder could be spent focuses on the Great Lighthouse, Great Wall or something else.

 

[Matthew.]

It is great anywhere. 6 food means you can work 3 mine tiles without sacrificing growth, which then translates into being able to build that "something else" even faster. Hell, it used to give 10 and was deemed "too powerful", so why they'd buff it and not nerf 12 food trade routes, I have no idea.

 

[True_Candyman]

The Hanging Gardens I find most useful in a desert or Tundra city. Time spent on that wonder could be spent focuses on the Great Lighthouse, Great Wall or something else.

Spending time on the hanging gardens generally speaking means you spend less time on everything else in the long run

 

[Seek]

It is great anywhere. 6 food means you can work 3 mine tiles without sacrificing growth, which then translates into being able to build that "something else" even faster. Hell, it used to give 10 and was deemed "too powerful", so why they'd buff it and not nerf 12 food trade routes, I have no idea.

Well you're not getting 12 food from TRs in the classical era. 10 food that early is crazy powerful.

 

[Matthew.]

Yeah, I know. And so is the food that trade routes give during classical as well. Not that I'm asking for a nerf to internal trade routes, but I would argue that in their current state they are border-line game breaking, so buffing wonders to match them is a terrible idea.

 

[Roxlimn]

I believe food routes from land in the classical is about 4 per route. It's not game-breaking given that you're tanking your income to get that. Coastal routes give 8 per route but require more hammers per trade unit, and additional hammers in Triremes to guard the unit lest it be plundered (happens a lot if you don't make triremes).

This constitutes a small buff to small island isolated starts in that you can fogbust a tiny island with 3 tight cities, and then proceed to abuse TRs for food and production without building the additional guardian crafts. You'll still need at least one to explore, and perhaps another to upgrade to Caravel when you near Astronomy.

 

[Matthew.]

There is a reason I said borderline, and not outright game-breaking. In comparison, a maritime CS gives a much smaller boost.

Keep in mind that you can get multiple trade routes, yet HG is limited to one. You won't tank your economy if you have one trade route act as a "Hanging Gardens".

 

[Roxlimn]

Alright then. I haven't actually done the numbers here, so let's unpack that a bit. This should be interesting.

Let's assume that you're going to buy out a Maritime for an Ally with money. I believe that the Maritimes give 2 food to the Capital and one food to the supporting for Allied? Plus lux, of course. In a 3 city empire, that's equivalent to 2 land routes in Classical - and a good Land Route at that, since the value of the lux is at least 5 gpt.

For this, you pay something like 1000 gold for 90 influence? That's a cost of about 11 gpt at 1 influence loss per turn? Worth around 2 good Land Routes, which is the return you get. Initial Allied costing is waived against the initial hammer cost of the route/s. Presumably, you would instead put that into military units to do favors for your city state friend.

Seems equivalent to me.

You can either put the extra 2 Land Routes into gold to fund CS gifting and such, or put them into food. If your routes are good, Maritimes should return well. If they're bad, go for the food routes. Break point seems to be about 5 GPT per route being equivalent to about a 4 food route (for a small civ).

 

[Matthew.]

I dunno if you can make a comparison like that. 1.) too many variables 2.) food surplus is generally more important than total number of food. That is, +6 food on one city is more powerful than +1 to 6 cities.

The way I see it is this: Each internal trade route has the ability to act as a Hanging Gardens (yes, weaker in beginning and stronger at end, but roughly equal). You have the choice of when you want it with no competition, unlike HG. You can choose to move it to different cities, unlike HG. You can decide later on to turn it back into a GPT route, unlike HG. You can choose to build it regardless of social polices (let's pretend that the majority of players don't already choose Tradition ).

I agree with the OP that the wonder has become less desirable in BNW, I just disagree on the proposed change.

 

[Roxlimn]

I was being conservative. In the Classical Era, it's not unheard-of to expand to 4-6 cities through various means. Maritime food surplus grows automatically. The low surplus spread over lots of cities is much more beneficial to a sprawling empire than a concentrated food dump, since the value of the food dump decreases as the pop increases.

I don't know that I'd class them as equal since HG contributes to Great People and Routes do not. At what point does the added points make for a Great Engineer, and how that's valued in Food Routes?

There are advantages to it, but I'm unsure as to whether it makes the HG less desirable. It depends on the happiness situation, I suppose. As India, I would want all the things. Why not make HG first and then Routes later and take every scrap of food you can get? HG can increase the point at which the Food Routes make a noticeable dent on growth.

I can see this being less necessary with other Civs. HG essentially frees an early TR - similar to Petra or Colossus (but available earlier). And it can stack. Is that a fair valuation? The hammer cost of TRs is fairly significant. The HG also provides a free Garden, FWIW. The main issues are AI competition and policy cost.

 

[Vuffster]

The Hanging Gardens also allow you to have one city be the focus of your GWAM generation, since that six food feeds three specialists for free, and it comes with a free Garden - regardless of city location - which you can then stack with the National Epic. You can do the same by sacrificing a trade route for most of the game, but I'd rather invest a little more early production in HG.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I always get both of them.

 

[Clause]

Hanging garden also gives you +1 culture, and +25% GP generation where you build it. It also can never be plundered.. its very strong imo

Don't think so if you consider the risk of HG being snatch by others. For me i prefer to buff HG back to where it used to be.

Cargo is just damn so yummy. Beside lower hammer cost, you can instant purchase this stuff.

 

[Babri]

Do you still bother to build HG in higher difficulties since cargo ship gives you more food with less hammer to build?

HG cost u 150 (gives you 6 ) meanwhile
Cargo only cost u 100 (gives you up to 12 )

I think HG need some kind of buff, what you all think?

1. Hanging Gardens gives a free garden. (even to non-river city)
2. Trade ships can easily be pillaged by barbs early in the game. So that food is very risky.
3. Internal trade routes are a bit OP, that doesn't mean we should boost HG to make it OP as well

My suggestion is to rebalance internal trade routes.

An easy fix for internal trade routes is to heavily nerf its base food/production value but it can then be increased by bonus resources & cities own excess food supply. So you'll need to have improved bonus resources/extra food in your cities to make them powerful enough.

Similarly production routes base value would be very weak but would be enhanced by bonus resources & some strategic ones, as well as affected by city's production.

 

[sonicandfffan]

I believe food routes from land in the classical is about 4 per route. It's not game-breaking given that you're tanking your income to get that. Coastal routes give 8 per route but require more hammers per trade unit, and additional hammers in Triremes to guard the unit lest it be plundered (happens a lot if you don't make triremes).

This constitutes a small buff to small island isolated starts in that you can fogbust a tiny island with 3 tight cities, and then proceed to abuse TRs for food and production without building the additional guardian crafts. You'll still need at least one to explore, and perhaps another to upgrade to Caravel when you near Astronomy.

The early game income is terrible and I'm still looking at the best way to deal with that.

Selling luxuries seems to be the most reliable way to avoid income difficulties.

I might experiment with building roads between cities, building cities closer together and using trade routes to boost growth. I noticed in my last game that city connections were bringing in more money than trade routes even in the late game so it might actually be beneficial to your income to switch your trade routes to growth instead.

 

[Babri]

The early game income is terrible and I'm still looking at the best way to deal with that.

Selling luxuries seems to be the most reliable way to avoid income difficulties.

I might experiment with building roads between cities, building cities closer together and using trade routes to boost growth. I noticed in my last game that city connections were bringing in more money than trade routes even in the late game so it might actually be beneficial to your income to switch your trade routes to growth instead.

Look for salt, gold, silver, ivory,sugar... they are excellent sources of income. Each of them provides 3-4 gold per tile. Gold & silver are even more better as they have a pantheon associating with them & mint further boosts them.