Early Game Tile Yields

[Funak]

I should have been more clear. I don't want all plantations improved (bananas and citrus are perfectly fine, as food is a great yield), it's just the ones that spawn on plains/grassland/desert and improve gold output that are underwhelming (perfume, incense, sugar, etc.). Gold is substituted for food in the case of these, except gold is an inferior yield in a 1:1 ratio.

More generally speaking, instances where a tile yields gold instead of food should be closer to 2 gold=1 food to make it closer to a decision. Here's another example I don't like:

Spoiler :

The coral tile and fish tile are honestly about equal here imo, with the decision on which to work coming from your needs atm. Only problem is this coral is improved, while the fish is not. Improving the fish makes it a 4 yield tile vs the 2 food, 2 gold coral, which makes the decision a no brainer. If we want food resources to be objectively superior to gold resources then this is fine, but I would argue that this should not be the goal.

I think all of this really comes down to you undervaluing gold way too much. Sure I wouldn't place gold at 1 to 1 with food but I wouldn't say its 1 to 2 either. Fish are supposed to be more powerful than luxurytiles, I mean just compare it to any other waterbased luxury after the lighthouse. Just like Bananas pretty much blows all plantationbased luxuries away (possible exception with citrus).

Anyways the main problem here, that plantations didn't actually provide any yields, unlike all other improvements in the game, have been solved so I think we are done here. Extra gold is going to make most plantation-resources about equal to the miningluxuries(minus salt, which in my eyes is pretty much equal to citrus)

 

[joosegoose25]

I think all of this really comes down to you undervaluing gold way too much. Sure I wouldn't place gold at 1 to 1 with food but I wouldn't say its 1 to 2 either. Fish are supposed to be more powerful than luxurytiles, I mean just compare it to any other waterbased luxury after the lighthouse. Just like Bananas pretty much blows all plantationbased luxuries away (possible exception with citrus).

Anyways the main problem here, that plantations didn't actually provide any yields, unlike all other improvements in the game, have been solved so I think we are done here. Extra gold is going to make most plantation-resources about equal to the miningluxuries(minus salt, which in my eyes is pretty much equal to citrus)

Yeah, I think this is just going to be a case of agreeing to disagree. I believe food is at least twice as valuable as gold, and if that thinking deviates from the norm then I'm not sure I have much else to say.

I was actually about to bring up fish, but if they are in fact intended to be incredibly superior to the other sea resources then I suppose there's no point talking about them. Eh...I want to anyways.

Spoiler :

The difference between fish and coral is laughable. Even if you truly think food:gold should be valued 1:1, the coral is still worse. Again, if the goal is for fish to be super tiles then this is okay, but if that's the case then I believe we have another simple agree to disagree topic.

 

[Funak]

The difference between fish and coral is laughable. Even if you truly think food:gold should be valued 1:1, the coral is still worse. Again, if the goal is for fish to be super tiles then this is okay, but if that's the case then I believe we have another simple agree to disagree topic.

Most of the bonus-resources (fish, wheat, bananas, deer, cattle, sheep, stone) provides way stronger effects than luxuries, which in my mind is pretty fair considering luxuries gives you happiness and are tradeable.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but is it really unreasonable that fish provides you with more food than corals do? I mean can you even eat corals?

 

[DLimited]

The thing with gold is, it gets worse the more GPT you already have. Food gets better the more you already have (getting that growth down a turn is useful!), as are hammers (overflow) and basically any other yield.

In BNW I didn't mind working gold resources as much - Market + Bank + Tradition meant I could really up the GPT if I wanted. Here I'd just rather grow faster always. Considering most plantation luxuries (can) spawn on simple plains, grassland or desert, well. No reason to work them, really. If I go from +20 to +23 GPT is not going to make or break my earlygame/a war or anything.

 

[Funak]

In BNW I didn't mind working gold resources as much - Market + Bank + Tradition meant I could really up the GPT if I wanted. Here I'd just rather grow faster always. Considering most plantation luxuries (can) spawn on simple plains, grassland or desert, well. No reason to work them, really. If I go from +20 to +23 GPT is not going to make or break my earlygame/a war or anything.

Having the option to work some gold-tiles to stay positive on income is actually fairly good. Gold also reduces unhappiness, while food kinda increases it(sorta), poverty usually remains the biggest unhappines contributor for most of the game.

Again, I think you guys have mistaken this, no one is saying that gold is better than food, or that gold is equal to food, but that plantationluxuries were actually worse than tradingposts in 9 out of 10 cases.
There are like 3 or 4 luxuries that actually gives you food, and don't get me wrong, those are REALLY good, but the majority just gives you gold. The foodbased luxuries are the oddities and they exist to make the game more random. They also usually spawn in bad terrain to make up for lost yields from that.
Salt usually spawns in Desert or Tundra
Citrus and Chocolate usually spawns in Jungle(which used to be extremely terrible)
Furs (which I'm honestly not sure is supposed to be here) tends to spawn in tundra.

 

[joosegoose25]

Most of the bonus-resources (fish, wheat, bananas, deer, cattle, sheep, stone) provides way stronger effects than luxuries, which in my mind is pretty fair considering luxuries gives you happiness and are tradeable.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but is it really unreasonable that fish provides you with more food than corals do? I mean can you even eat corals?

"Way stronger effects" are what bother me--I am okay with food resources having a slight edge, as there's no way everything can (or should be) completely equal. Seeing a 4 food, 1 hammer tile (or even a 3 food, 1 hammer) vs a 1 food, 1 hammer, 2 gold tile comes across are a larger gap than there needs to be IMO. It is usually best to work the higher food/hammer tiles unless you are getting an obscene amount of gold otherwise, but I see no reason for it to a complete no-brainer. Not to mention I believe the AI favors gold tiles more than a human would, so slightly boosting gold resources would only help I think.

With regards to coral...no, I never argued for more food, just for better overall yields compared to fish. Whether that means less food for fish (I would have zero problem with -1 food, they are kind of super tiles currently) or better yields for coral (more gold? culture? something else?), I'm not picky. Luxuries are also less important in CBP so I don't value their additional benefits as much as I would.

The thing with gold is, it gets worse the more GPT you already have. Food gets better the more you already have (getting that growth down a turn is useful!), as are hammers (overflow) and basically any other yield.

In BNW I didn't mind working gold resources as much - Market + Bank + Tradition meant I could really up the GPT if I wanted. Here I'd just rather grow faster always. Considering most plantation luxuries (can) spawn on simple plains, grassland or desert, well. No reason to work them, really. If I go from +20 to +23 GPT is not going to make or break my earlygame/a war or anything.

This echoes my sentiment precisely. If two tiles have the same amount of yields but only one contains gold, no way I'm working the tile with gold. There would need to be more overall yields for me to work those tiles.

Again, I think you guys have mistaken this, no one is saying that gold is better than food, or that gold is equal to food, but that plantationluxuries were actually worse than tradingposts in 9 out of 10 cases

No, but what I am saying is that in the early game (back to the title of this thread ), the majority of plantation luxuries are so bad that I would rather work unimproved tiles with no resources (forest, jungle, lake, oasis, marsh, floodplains, or even sea with a lighthouse). If we really don't think this is a problem then I'll start to shut up, but I wanted to start this conversation because it struck me as really odd and counter-intuitive.

For the record, I would also be okay with these luxuries remaining weak in the early game but more than making up for it later on. Would make for some fun variety among luxuries, rather than merely having strong and weak ones.

 

[Funak]

"Way stronger effects" are what bother me--I am okay with food resources having a slight edge, as there's no way everything can (or should be) completely equal. Seeing a 4 food, 1 hammer tile (or even a 3 food, 1 hammer) vs a 1 food, 1 hammer, 2 gold tile comes across are a larger gap than there needs to be IMO. It is usually best to work the higher food/hammer tiles unless you are getting an obscene amount of gold otherwise, but I see no reason for it to a complete no-brainer. Not to mention I believe the AI favors gold tiles more than a human would, so slightly boosting gold resources would only help I think.

Again you need to stop comparing bonus-resources with luxuries. If anything whine about how much more powerful the fish-tile is compared to the sheep-tile. That would make a better topic . The answer however is pretty easy and it comes down to coastal starts generally being way worse than non-coastal start (for yields) in vanilla. Why it stayed around in CPP I don't really know, but then again I haven't really heard anyone complain that Coastal starts in CPP are too powerful. Fish also feels less common than other bonus-resources, I mean I've settled cities with 8 sheep in workable range, but I don't think I've ever had more than 5 fish within range, and that's on one or 2 tile islands, making those cities pretty weak in comparison.

No, but what I am saying is that in the early game (back to the title of this thread ), the majority of plantation luxuries are so bad that I would rather work unimproved tiles with no resources (forest, jungle, lake, oasis, marsh, floodplains, or even sea with a lighthouse). If we really don't think this is a problem then I'll start to shut up, but I wanted to start this conversation because it struck me as really odd and counter-intuitive.

For the record, I would also be okay with these luxuries remaining weak in the early game but more than making up for it later on. Would make for some fun variety among luxuries, rather than merely having strong and weak ones.

I actually think I'd work a plantation over a forest/jungle tile. 3 gold in my eyes is way better than 1 production.
Other than that I don't really see why working luxury-resources is supposed to be such a no-brainer as you suggest. They get fairly strong later on when you get the related building improving the luxury, one or two of the techs that improve yields on plantations or maybe the plantation pantheon.
Most of the mine-based luxures are in exactly the same spot, they (usually) provide 0 food even so most people will probably keep them unworked aswell.



Btw, do workboats provide any yields at all in base? I know the a coral gets +1 gold when you improve it, but that is from the resource itself isn't it? So if workboats are in the same boat(lol) as the plantation it should probably be adjusted aswell.
While we are at it, Quarries do produce 1 hammer, right?

 

[Strigvir]

Btw, do workboats provide any yields at all in base?

1f and later get improved with techs.

 

[Funak]

1f and later get improved with techs.

That's impossible, Coral don't get any food when you improve it. So the improvement itself can't provide food.

 

[Strigvir]

That's impossible, Coral don't get any food when you improve it. So the improvement itself can't provide food.

1food 2culture comes from UA, 1 gold - from improving or whatever "when worked" means. So 1 food left.

 

[Funak]

Spoiler :

1food 2culture comes from UA, 1 gold - from improving or whatever "when worked" means. So 1 food left.

One of those pictures is from before it was workboated, the other one is after it was workboated, the only difference is 1 gold, which is from the resource itself.

In your case I don't really know tbh, maybe it's a bug with Japan?

 

[Funak]

I did some research, and it seems like the following improvements provide no base yields at all, in spirit of the resent changes to plantations, maybe similar actions should be taken for them:
Fishingboats
Quarry
Pasture
Camp

 

[Delekhan]

Quarries get their bonus through Stoneworks I believe. And technology improves their yields as well. By the Industrial Era an improved stone tile on grassland produces as much as a Manufactory.

Same for fishing boats; they get a bonus from lighthouses and seaports, as well as from technology.

 

[Funak]

Quarries get their bonus through Stoneworks I believe. And technology improves their yields as well. By the Industrial Era an improved stone tile on grassland produces as much as a Manufactory.

Same for fishing boats; they get a bonus from lighthouses and seaports, as well as from technology.

They all get bonuses from stuff, but that goes for mine, farm and plantation resources aswell.

What it comes down to is that a Farm provides a base yield of 1 food, a mine provides 1 hammer, a plantation provides 1 gold a lumbermill provides either 1 hammer or 1 gold, a tradingpost provides 2 gold. Fishingboats, Quarries, camps and pastures however provide no base yields at all, making them less valueable when fully improved..

 

[Strigvir]

One of those pictures is from before it was workboated, the other one is after it was workboated, the only difference is 1 gold, which is from the resource itself.

Are you sure some mod isn't overwriting yield changes?

 

[Funak]

Are you sure some mod isn't overwriting yield changes?

They aren't even my pictures, I copied them out of the thread, but I've played enough to know that this is how it work. The coral is not going to turn into a 3 food tile when you improve it.

If you don't believe me just check the civpedia, under improvements, you can easily see the baseyield of all improvements, or the lack thereof.

 

[Gazebo]

Out of the interest of (my) time reading through this, what's the takeaway here? Has an agreement been made? From what I can tell, the issue seems to be that bonus tiles aren't balanced. So, what would balance them, in your opinion(s)?

G

 

[Funak]

Out of the interest of (my) time reading through this, what's the takeaway here? Has an agreement been made? From what I can tell, the issue seems to be that bonus tiles aren't balanced. So, what would balance them, in your opinion(s)?

G

There is really nothing worth reading here. There were 3 problems to start with, one of them have been solved, one probably can't be solved because of reasons, and the third could easily be solved if you feel like it.


1. Plantations were useless leaving plantation-based resources way weaker. You solved this by adding yields to the plantation.

2. Not all resources are generated equally some provide two yields some only one yield. Some get more yields from being improved than others (I think so anyways). This is going to conflict heavily with "More Luxuries" so you can probably not do anything about this at all. Another issue that you probably can't fix here is that gold is generally less valuable than food or production, nothing to do about it really but it makes the food/production based luxuries more powerful than the goldbased ones. However since the food/production based ones are way less common this shouldn't really be a problem.

3. Just like the plantation other improvements exist that provide no yields at all in base. This makes resources based around these improvements a lot weaker than other resources, especially with the addition of yields on the plantation. The ones I found that currently provides no yields are:
1. Fishingboats
2. Quarry
3. Pasture
4. Camp
This you could probably easily fix if you felt like it, easiest way would be adding 1 gold to each of them, but if you feel like it you could probably add any yield to them. With the exception of food to quarries or production to fishingboats most yields would make sense for all of them.



Thanks for your time.

 

[Strigvir]

1. Plantations were useless leaving plantation-based resources way weaker. You solved this by adding yields to the plantation.

Every plantation translates to 2-6% of yields in case of unhappiness issues or 10+ gpt with friends/another 2-6% of yields. That's more than any other resource tiles.

3. Just like the plantation other improvements exist that provide no yields at all in base. This makes resources based around these improvements a lot weaker than other resources, especially with the addition of yields on the plantation. The ones I found that currently provides no yields are:
1. Fishingboats
2. Quarry
3. Pasture
4. Camp

But that's wrong, how could you know that unique improvements provide nothing at all, when you can't build them outside of handful resources in the first place?
I just made a comparison, avoiding all yield-related techs and got this:
http://s15.postimg.org/s479qwfh5/8930_2015_06_21_00009.png
http://s24.postimg.org/bg2uyehg3/8930_2015_06_21_00010.png
As you can see at base almost all improvements provide +1 yield be it a camp or mine.

 

[Funak]

Every plantation translates to 2% of yields in case of unhappiness issues or 10+ gpt with friends/another 2% of yields. That's more than any other resource tiles.

But that's wrong, how could you know that unique improvements provide nothing at all, when you can't build them outside of handful resources in the first place?
I just made a comparison, avoiding all yield-related techs and got this:
http://s15.postimg.org/s479qwfh5/8930_2015_06_21_00009.png
http://s24.postimg.org/bg2uyehg3/8930_2015_06_21_00010.png
As you can see at base almost all improvements provide +1 yield be it a camp or mine.

Just read the civ-pedia under improvements, the improvements with actual yields on them clearly states their base-yields. Those without says nothing at all.

However your picture clearly shows that some luxuries actually don't get any improved yields from getting improved outside the bonus from the improvement itself. That is kinda weird. Quite a few of them do however, salt for example. It is clearly a question of balance however, not about symmetry which is what I suggested.


Maybe the best solution would be fixing the issue I mentioned first and then focus on getting some yield-balance for the luxuries as a whole. As you've showed with your picture, actually testing this out wouldn't be that hard.