Different way to handle [some] bonus resources + horses

[dunkleosteus]

Civ V divides resources into three categories: strategic, bonus, and luxury. All resources in each category are treated the same but it feels like an oversimplification, especially for organic products.

For the sake of the way luxuries function, I'll exclude them from this idea although many of them would work for it as well.

Basic problem I have: a lot of the bonus resources can be moved around and aren't. Wheat tiles give an increase in food production, but only exactly where the wheat has been growing since 4000 BC. Why can't my farmers share so that we all have wheat? And if the other farmers lack wheat, what exactly are they farming? I think the answer is that wheat is not being grown in that land, or rather that the fact that wheat is grown isn't what makes the tile better than other tiles. That tile should be renamed fertile soil. This neatly resolves the entire issue- the food bonus is intrinsic to the land and can't be moved around save shipping dirt by the truckload for centuries.

Other bonus resources aren't so lucky however- cattle and sheep can only be pastured where their ancestors have lived for generations. What's the matter? Bob wants to raise cattle too? Too bad Bob, you don't live where the cattle live. I see this as another problem with a solution that isn't as easy. One approach would be to label these tiles as "pasturable" tiles but I don't think this works as well because most land if not all non-desert land is pasturable. What I think works better is to have these animals appear in a few locations (bound to one continent, or on a few small, clustered islands depending on map type) and allow them to disperse after that. Obviously, the first civ that settles those tiles gets first dibs on animal husbandry but after that, animals spread around the world. In ancient times, it just wasn't possible to stop trade, and so although wheat, sheep and cattle may have been initially domesticated in a few areas, they quickly spread to all areas in contact with these initial locations.

Civs should have the option to pasture any land they choose and which animals to put on those tiles. This clearly raises an issue: it becomes incredibly beneficial to put cattle or sheep on every possible tile (unless you want mines in hills) because they increase the food yield pretty dramatically and stables give +1 production. I think this means pastures need to have their yields adjusted in accordance: raising animals does not actually increase food productivity dramatically. It certainly gives populations easy access to meat and proteins and a living animal acts as a storage method for keeping meat from rotting, but all in all, animals are a very inefficient use of land. They consume way more water and grain than they produce in calories, and so while important to many societies, don't actually provide more food than a farm would.

They do however have an important role in the productivity of many regions, and act as a commodity to be traded. For this reason, I think it's important that cattle and sheep do not increase the food productivity of the tile they're on. Instead, they should have a gold and production bonus. Cattle are often used as work animals and sheep provide wool for clothing and other textiles, but their consumption of grain or local grasses would nullify the food they provide (consider that the meat they produce cannot exceed the food they consume, either from the tile they're on or from your grain stores. At best, you break even for food production).

Horses should in fact be worse- unless you're eating your equine animals, they should reduce the food production of the tiles they're on to 0.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Labelling the tile "fertile soil" has the same problem than with animals : most of the plains and grasslands are fertile. More, if by "fertile" you mean "very fertile", soils stolen to forests (deforestation) are initially very fertile, considering most of the land should be covered by forests early, this makes for a lot of "fertile soils" to appear. Plus, appart from flood plains which aren't a resource, even naturally fertile soils can grow poor if too much exploited.

I think that there's another logic under the wheat resource and its likes. It's as you said that some regions are historically the craddle of civilizations and some others not. But, this logic fails as civs are not dispatched in that regard at the start of a game. I just think that gameplay-wise it forces the player to make choices as to place their colonies on the map, with an approximate relent of history accuracy as most of things are in Civ games.

If any, the irrigation graphics of Civ2 were more accurate, because it placed the role of water more at the center of agriculture, even if agriculture is still possible without a river but depends more of the (even trivial, not only radical droughts that can dry up rivers themselves) weather as natural precipitations. But there's a lack : fertility as fertilizers (natural or artificial) included and fallow. Here animals productions are useful. (that's I guess why animals kept to be raised, because of their natural fertilizers)

Additionnally, there can be in Civ5 wheat tiles in desert without fresh water that are quite poor. So it can't definitely be something totally related to fertility.

Finally, I believe that the logic behind wheat tiles hides behind a melt-prehistoric affinity of the series. Indeed, cities in Civ are middle hunter-gatherers (prehistoric) and middle post-agriculture. It's easily noticeable by seeing that every tile has an output unimprooved, and often an output that suffices to feed its own worker. (2+ food) For a matter of clarity (and horsepower), developers simply choosed to not represent it, at some exceptions. Indeed, blank grassland tiles for example are full of grains, berries, roots, and small game too like rabbits, phacocheres and birds, etc..., yes, yes, they are full of them lol, you can't see them but they ARE THERE.

Simply, tiles with them labelled are regions with more of them, that would take longer to deplete if resources were depleting ingame. Developers are just considering that people ingame migrate to another tile when the resources become scarce, and come back later meeting the same abundance. The thing is, a city range is awfully short, and can't represent by no mean the true territory a clan of hunter-gatherers would need. It is to say, that permanent cities represent moving camps , and more permanent cities the necessary moves of the clan , before farms are massively spammed that is. (talking about approximate relents of historical accuracy !)

This prehistoric bias is shown even late game, while the vast majority of the population should be specialists, and less then 10% should work the land, which is pretty much very far to be the case.

That's why I'm saying let's assume that bias, and make the game start before 4000 BC once and for all ! That would help draw the lines between the different eras.

 

[danaphanous]

I had this idea as well but couldn't think of any balanced way to do it. Reading your article gave me an idea though about how it could be done in a future civ iteration.

Food Crops:
what we need is more kinds of grains/produce. At the beginning of the game, even if you discover farming you have nothing to plant until you find something. Maybe each civ starts with a crop of their own though. As you explore you can find wild grains/plants and your scouts can consume their turn to "harvest" the resource. This gives an immediate food bonus to the closest city (depending on the plant) and then gives your workers the ability to plant that new plant when they farm. All farms are not the same but the yields reflect what you planted. Right now tile yields are too small to accurately reflect small variations within crops, but if they were increased to maybe x2 the current you could have different crops with differing yields. They would also get tile bonuses based on terrain and latitude. Some crops would like it warmer (bananas) others temperate, some even like cold climates or all climates (potatoes). some like coffee and grapes enjoy hills. There would be a bonus for planting the crop in the best locations. We could keep the original area the wild crop was found as a "productive" tile with bonus yields or just have it disappear when initially harvested. This requires more work but makes city sites more flexible and more improveable.

Luxuries:
Luxury sites can operate the same but could also join the new system. I think the food part of them should be allowed to be replanted at least. for instance, wines still only grow on that square but after finding them you get a crop called "grapes" you can plant elsewhere however it is not a tradeable luxury item. Personally, I think the whole luxury system is broken anyway. The vast majority of luxury items are manufactured by people. Think beer (corn), silk cloth, cotton clothes, etc... What I think is there should be many new buildings you can build that manufacture luxuries to export if the city around them has the raw ingredients needed. The city building produces the luxury and the actual plant, if there is one, is free to be planted elsewhere. Non-food crops like cotton can have gold, production, culture, faith, or science bonus yields instead. Again, adding a lot of new flexibility to city yields. Obviously sites of precious ore are an exception and will only be where they are discovered, but I'd enjoy adding back the old civ III system where the mines eventually are exhausted but there is a chance new sources appear with certain techs.

Animals:
These are trickier, but as you said, realistically they could be domesticated elsewhere. Since they don't carry seeds maybe after you first domesticate a wild group the herd slowly grows over time but only if you are working the tile. After a certain number of turns the herd "matures" and you get two herds. You can move the two anywhere else and it is a unit till settled. Drop the whole buildings that buff all pastures thing and just give it a passive tile yield bonus based on the species just like the plant idea. Animals can be more skewed toward gold/production but should give soem food too. Depending on terrain (plains is bad for farming and you can't farm tundra) animals might be preferential to farming or vice-versa. You'd have to decide. Maybe you could even get mountain goats for mountains or elk/reindeer for tundra if you were lucky! But you'd have to find/domesticate them first!

Towns:
As a third option so it isn't just plants and animals surrounding one core city allow the satellite town system from civ IV to come back where you can create a small town on a tile. This, if worked, grows in size and yields more gold over time. Perhaps being near a town might also boost yields on certain kinds of tiles, making them even more useful.

If you have the animal herd unit or the seeds you can trade them to other civs as a tradeable item so they can get your crops/herds and vice-versa. This system is both more realistic and provides more flexibility in developing your cities/terrain and your crops/animals would change based on the temperature and location just like in real life.