Economy Civics: In need of a overhaul?
- Thread starter Uberness
- Start date
Sure, it's possible.
Another way to implement it would be to allow the creation of a specific improvement "Improved farm?" only when Agriculture is a civic (and degraded to "Farm" when it isn't), which grants +1 food beyond the standard farm bonuses. (Optionally, the change from Farm -> Improved Farm could be automatic, instead of requiring a separate build). Then any Technology benefits could be tacked onto it separately.
On the other hand, basic implementation strategy is not this teams' problem. To the contrary, if they really like a new feature, they often implement it in two or more different ways (look at the early 0.20 Basium/Hyborem spawn, or the current animal generation - Wolf -> Wolf Pack -> Wolf vs. Bear -> Bear Den -> Bear vs. Lion -> Lion pack -> Den -> Lion), and often eliminate the weaker one(s) later.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
It's all about survival of the coolest!
That one's a really good idea actually, a society focused entirely on farming doesn't produce lots of trade goods.
Don't like this one. -happy for foreign trade was in for a while, it's difficult to justify though and not fun especially as another civic already has this mechanic. I'd rather this civic have only positives, as trade route income is not 100% reliable if your neighbours close their borders.
Gamestation
Introducing Servo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 551
How's this for a change? Changes are underlined and only civics that are changed are listed.
Agriculture
High Upkeep (to deal with those who use Unyielding Order or Sacrifice the Weak)
+1
from farm
+1
in all cities
Conquest
Medium Upkeep
-25% War Weariness
Produce military units with food
New units recieve +2 experience points
Extra gold when conquering a city, reduced population in conquered city
Mercantilism
Low Upkeep
No foreign trade routes
+20%
in all cities
+1
from Market
+2
from Thieves' Guild
+100% cottage growth
+2
from village and town
Foreign Trade
Low Upkeep
+1 Trade Routes per City
-10% , +20% 
in All Cities
+1 from workshop
+10% Trade Yield from Trade Routes
Agriculture
High Upkeep (to deal with those who use Unyielding Order or Sacrifice the Weak)
+1
from farm+1
in all citiesConquest
Medium Upkeep
-25% War Weariness
Produce military units with food
New units recieve +2 experience points
Extra gold when conquering a city, reduced population in conquered city
Mercantilism
Low Upkeep
No foreign trade routes
+20%
in all cities+1
from Market+2
from Thieves' Guild+100% cottage growth
+2
from village and townForeign Trade
Low Upkeep
+1 Trade Routes per City
, in All Cities+1
from workshop+10% Trade Yield from Trade Routes
trade routes are generally pretty low volume (1-4 ) that's why you usually see 50% modifiers to them (and an occasional 25%). I doubt a 10% modifier would even be noticeable.
I like the previously proposed -50% yield under agriculture and that may be a good justification for keeping it's upkeep down (regardless of this, though I wouldn't make it high, maybe medium)
I could dig an agriculture civic like:
low upkeep
-50% trade route yield
+ from farms, pastures, plantations
-
from farms, pastures, plantations
I like war weariness reduction under conquest, and it makes sense, but I'm still not sure it's a good enough alternative. The military presence happiness modifier would be nice, but could also be too much. Maybe if it's possible to make it add happiness for every two or three units instead of just one, it might be a good balance.
so, what I'm liking for conquest would be:
medium upkeep
-25% war weariness
military units produced using
new units receive +2xp
+1 per 2 military units in a city
(on a side note, and a bit off topic, I don't really get military discipline all that much. maybe in later version it can increase great commander appearance or something)
I actually thing that mercantilism should give the +1 trade routes per city, and foreign trade should involve something else, maybe increase route yield. I'd also throw in an extra happiness for something. I think tavern is good one since its with the tech, and still requires a bit of building for the benefit. With an increase in trade routes, I'd tone down the coin increase.
possible mercantilism:
high upkeep
no foreign trade routes
+1 trade routes in every city
+15% in every city
+ from market, tavern
-2 from thieves guild
foreign trade would then be a bit of a different beast. I'm not sure that boosting route yields 50% would be quite enough, but 100% seem a lot, though most domestic trade routes are small compared to foreign, so a greater bonus would be more encouraging of open borders. I don't know why gold would be reduced but the culture boost is keen. throw in a little modifier to war weariness, and with the lack of an happiness increase, I think 100% yield increase is reasonable.
so, then foreign trade becomes:
low upkeep
+100% trade route yield
+20% culture
+25% war weariness
as far as guardians of nature goes, I wish there were some way to make it more useful for non-elf civs but that would probably reduce the benefit of being elves, and as such the civic seems to work as intended.
like a lot of other people, as it is now i pretty much stick with a few key civics and bollocks to the rest of them. I'd really like to see them get some attention.
) that's why you usually see 50% modifiers to them (and an occasional 25%). I doubt a 10% modifier would even be noticeable. I like the previously proposed -50% yield under agriculture and that may be a good justification for keeping it's upkeep down (regardless of this, though I wouldn't make it high, maybe medium)
I could dig an agriculture civic like:
low upkeep
-50% trade route yield
+
from farms, pastures, plantations-
from farms, pastures, plantationsI like war weariness reduction under conquest, and it makes sense, but I'm still not sure it's a good enough alternative. The military presence happiness modifier would be nice, but could also be too much. Maybe if it's possible to make it add happiness for every two or three units instead of just one, it might be a good balance.
so, what I'm liking for conquest would be:
medium upkeep
-25% war weariness
military units produced using
new units receive +2xp
+1
per 2 military units in a city(on a side note, and a bit off topic, I don't really get military discipline all that much. maybe in later version it can increase great commander appearance or something)
I actually thing that mercantilism should give the +1 trade routes per city, and foreign trade should involve something else, maybe increase route yield. I'd also throw in an extra happiness for something. I think tavern is good one since its with the tech, and still requires a bit of building for the benefit. With an increase in trade routes, I'd tone down the coin increase.
possible mercantilism:
high upkeep
no foreign trade routes
+1 trade routes in every city
+15%
in every city+
from market, tavern-2
from thieves guildforeign trade would then be a bit of a different beast. I'm not sure that boosting route yields 50% would be quite enough, but 100% seem a lot, though most domestic trade routes are small compared to foreign, so a greater bonus would be more encouraging of open borders. I don't know why gold would be reduced but the culture boost is keen. throw in a little modifier to war weariness, and with the lack of an happiness increase, I think 100% yield increase is reasonable.
so, then foreign trade becomes:
low upkeep
+100% trade route yield
+20% culture
+25% war weariness
as far as guardians of nature goes, I wish there were some way to make it more useful for non-elf civs but that would probably reduce the benefit of being elves, and as such the civic seems to work as intended.
like a lot of other people, as it is now i pretty much stick with a few key civics and bollocks to the rest of them. I'd really like to see them get some attention.
Gamestation
Introducing Servo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 551
so, what I'm liking for conquest would be:
medium upkeep
-25% war weariness
military units produced using
new units receive +2xp
+1
Why do people think that conquest should have the military garrison bonus? Your cities are not going to be growing if you use your excess food to create new units (and the point is that you would be building units in your cities while under conquest otherwise you should choose a different economy).
possible mercantilism:
high upkeep
no foreign trade routes
+1 trade routes in every city
+15%
+
-2
Why should an increase in 1-2 commerce trade routes justify a high upkeep and only a +15%
? Mercantilism would be worse than before.I'll agree that this would be a reasonable set up for foreign trade.
katika
Warlord
You might only have a few unit producing cities, but the main uses for military garrison happiness are to counter war weariness (which can be done more directly, but sometimes extra units are more effective) and to help just conquered cities (which will have loads of "we yearn to join the motherland" unhappiness and few buildings to provide happiness). So giving +1 happy per garrison for Conquest makes conquest easier.Why do people think that conquest should have the military garrison bonus? Your cities are not going to be growing if you use your excess food to create new units (and the point is that you would be building units in your cities while under conquest otherwise you should choose a different economy).
three things with the garrison under conquest: a.) there are things to build besides units, b.) changing from other category civics may create a lack of happiness (like moving from religion to nation hood, or religious discipline to military), and of course c.) captured cities.
I don't know why I put high on mercantilism. I guess i was thinking of vanilla's free specialists, so scratch that. This makes me think, though, maybe scratching the gold increase and just giving a free merchant in every city might be kind of cool.
I don't know why I put high on mercantilism. I guess i was thinking of vanilla's free specialists, so scratch that. This makes me think, though, maybe scratching the gold increase and just giving a free merchant in every city might be kind of cool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yakk View Post
Agriculture:
-50% trade route yield (!)
That one's a really good idea actually, a society focused entirely on farming doesn't produce lots of trade goods.
U huh, if you're looking at any historical accuracy thats mince. Agriculture on any scale is what made the production of trade goods possible at all. The richest and most envied civilisations were all based on massive agriculture. Maybe you should be looking at how the other civics interact with agriculture and each other.
For example Aristocracy should have high, very high maintenance due to all the corruption but produce better experienced units, or maybe simulate it by trimming the production. Agriculcutre is the foundation stone of human civilisation it should be there. To be honest. Agriculture should increase food and trade. Agriculture shouldn't affect XP to units because during the off season people were free to do their civic bit (Think Pyramids for example, Angkor Wat) It also allowed a large well trained military to be maintained all year (Rome, Greece, Persia) Yes they dragged the feudal levy with them, but that was not to win battles with.
Originally Posted by Yakk View Post
Agriculture:
-50% trade route yield (!)
That one's a really good idea actually, a society focused entirely on farming doesn't produce lots of trade goods.
U huh, if you're looking at any historical accuracy thats mince. Agriculture on any scale is what made the production of trade goods possible at all. The richest and most envied civilisations were all based on massive agriculture. Maybe you should be looking at how the other civics interact with agriculture and each other.
For example Aristocracy should have high, very high maintenance due to all the corruption but produce better experienced units, or maybe simulate it by trimming the production. Agriculcutre is the foundation stone of human civilisation it should be there. To be honest. Agriculture should increase food and trade. Agriculture shouldn't affect XP to units because during the off season people were free to do their civic bit (Think Pyramids for example, Angkor Wat) It also allowed a large well trained military to be maintained all year (Rome, Greece, Persia) Yes they dragged the feudal levy with them, but that was not to win battles with.
You've missed the point completely. Agriculture civic represents putting the increased food production efficiency from agriculture (the technology) right back into farming surplus food for growth, rather than using the freed up population to produce something else. Civ trade routes represent commodities that can be traded over long distances without spoiling such as metals and salt.
But those commodities require population to work them, which wouldn't be a available without agriculture. So my point stands. The most lucrative trade routes often utilise the most processed items, Silk, wine, incense and spices.
Under agriculture civic, many of the citizens that would have been processing these goods are working on extra farms to produce surplus food instead.
All civs make use of agriculture technology obviously. I think you may have been confusing the technology with the civic.
All civs make use of agriculture technology obviously. I think you may have been confusing the technology with the civic.
Since the other thread on agriculture flatlined, I'll post here too.
Farms are better than any other improvement regardless of civic choice as long as happiness isn't an issue. If you skip aristocracy, caste system, agriculture, sacrifice the weak and scholarship all, you still gain more benefit from a farm than a town when you have enough happiness to use your food and are beyond the working tiles in population. The monetary output of a farm is the farm and two specialists. For a grassland tile, that cottage is only sustaining itself, at 5 commerce, the farm can sustain itself and two merchants, six commerce, or two scientists, 6 science, a combination, engineers or priests. The civic changes just make the happiness void problem worse. Civilians are better than cottages once you're using just caste system and scholarship. If you run guilds for that final civic, you can have massive bard, sage and merchant production, with a few religions in the mix, your priest limit is substantial as well. Throw in a hall of kings and you're guaranteed to win any culture war without even needing culture production independant of other things.
I really don't consider agriculture that big a deal. Foreign trade is rather pointless unless you're just dying for culture production, but mercantilism is outstanding when you're at war with everyone and conquest is equally nice in a bind when you're swamped and need as much unit production as you can manage. Yes, it can be a crutch, but the problem I see is happiness modifiers. People seem to think sacrifice the weak is a more severe problem, but while you can grow much faster, and gain that aid from agriculture in it, you still have the same happiness limited growth. Unhealthiness is rarely an issue, only when using unyielding order does it truly present itself as a barrier to growth. You can't really outgrow your possible food production with agriculture unless you can get an unreasonable happiness level.
A city with no obstructions has 20 working tiles, with agriculture that's a maximum possible 91 population, ignoring health and happiness of course. With sacrifice the weak, it's doubled, 182 population. On the other hand, happiness is more likely to be capping around 15 for the evil bastard running stw, and thanks to compassion civics, higher for everyone else. The slavery option is still there, but that further harms your happiness, you can really tank a places population by chewing through too many people in a short period of time. Rarely do I run farm lands with stw. As a result, I almost never use aristocracy either, the happiness just isn't there. There's really only a problem with these other things, although a 5 science and two culture sage is approaching the effectiveness of a town, when you can greatly modify happiness in an upward direction.
For people following guardian of nature, it comes through a massive level of happiness and health from ancient forests on every tile, but they take a very long time to get started. Even then, they are capped around 30-40 depending on the other available modifiers, which is still a massive boost of course, but having a third to half your population as specialists is really a fairly minor boost in settlement power when you're talking about ancient forest cottages and farms with a base value of four split between food and production.
I find the great person rushing bit to be disturbingly effective, but there doesn't really seem to be anything wrong with agriculture, just unyielding order. Slavery is self limiting by happiness nukes, regardless of how fast your population can grow back, and specialists are limited by the same thing. It's only when three or six massively powerful cities have huge populations that dwarf the normal maxims that agriculture really becomes a serious issue.
I would like it to be a later tech, it is rather... early for such an effective use. Can one of the food bonuses be tied to a later tech? Foreign trade could definitely use a boost, or just lose the negative, but I don't see a problem with the other civics, different uses for different situations. It would be nice to make unyielding order have some sort of limitation, when combined with sacrifice the weak it's beyond cheeseball. Eight or nine population per farm with +2 science output specialists running the viel with improved science output... Perhaps give order mana negative impacts on evil civilizations? Restricting liches spheres of magic could be a nice change as well, three cities still allows for some exploitive abuse in limited circumstances, but six is enough for a dominating empire on a fairly good sized map.
Farms are better than any other improvement regardless of civic choice as long as happiness isn't an issue. If you skip aristocracy, caste system, agriculture, sacrifice the weak and scholarship all, you still gain more benefit from a farm than a town when you have enough happiness to use your food and are beyond the working tiles in population. The monetary output of a farm is the farm and two specialists. For a grassland tile, that cottage is only sustaining itself, at 5 commerce, the farm can sustain itself and two merchants, six commerce, or two scientists, 6 science, a combination, engineers or priests. The civic changes just make the happiness void problem worse. Civilians are better than cottages once you're using just caste system and scholarship. If you run guilds for that final civic, you can have massive bard, sage and merchant production, with a few religions in the mix, your priest limit is substantial as well. Throw in a hall of kings and you're guaranteed to win any culture war without even needing culture production independant of other things.
I really don't consider agriculture that big a deal. Foreign trade is rather pointless unless you're just dying for culture production, but mercantilism is outstanding when you're at war with everyone and conquest is equally nice in a bind when you're swamped and need as much unit production as you can manage. Yes, it can be a crutch, but the problem I see is happiness modifiers. People seem to think sacrifice the weak is a more severe problem, but while you can grow much faster, and gain that aid from agriculture in it, you still have the same happiness limited growth. Unhealthiness is rarely an issue, only when using unyielding order does it truly present itself as a barrier to growth. You can't really outgrow your possible food production with agriculture unless you can get an unreasonable happiness level.
A city with no obstructions has 20 working tiles, with agriculture that's a maximum possible 91 population, ignoring health and happiness of course. With sacrifice the weak, it's doubled, 182 population. On the other hand, happiness is more likely to be capping around 15 for the evil bastard running stw, and thanks to compassion civics, higher for everyone else. The slavery option is still there, but that further harms your happiness, you can really tank a places population by chewing through too many people in a short period of time. Rarely do I run farm lands with stw. As a result, I almost never use aristocracy either, the happiness just isn't there. There's really only a problem with these other things, although a 5 science and two culture sage is approaching the effectiveness of a town, when you can greatly modify happiness in an upward direction.
For people following guardian of nature, it comes through a massive level of happiness and health from ancient forests on every tile, but they take a very long time to get started. Even then, they are capped around 30-40 depending on the other available modifiers, which is still a massive boost of course, but having a third to half your population as specialists is really a fairly minor boost in settlement power when you're talking about ancient forest cottages and farms with a base value of four split between food and production.
I find the great person rushing bit to be disturbingly effective, but there doesn't really seem to be anything wrong with agriculture, just unyielding order. Slavery is self limiting by happiness nukes, regardless of how fast your population can grow back, and specialists are limited by the same thing. It's only when three or six massively powerful cities have huge populations that dwarf the normal maxims that agriculture really becomes a serious issue.
I would like it to be a later tech, it is rather... early for such an effective use. Can one of the food bonuses be tied to a later tech? Foreign trade could definitely use a boost, or just lose the negative, but I don't see a problem with the other civics, different uses for different situations. It would be nice to make unyielding order have some sort of limitation, when combined with sacrifice the weak it's beyond cheeseball. Eight or nine population per farm with +2 science output specialists running the viel with improved science output... Perhaps give order mana negative impacts on evil civilizations? Restricting liches spheres of magic could be a nice change as well, three cities still allows for some exploitive abuse in limited circumstances, but six is enough for a dominating empire on a fairly good sized map.
Randolph
Warlord
I'm a fan of Gamestation's suggestions above, all those options look really desirable. I would increase the upkeep for mercantilism though to make foreign more competitive as an financial option (and maybe increase the bonus to trade route yield; + 2 coins in towns and villages is a huge bonus to compete with). It might also be neat if foreign trade could improve diplomacy.
*nod* -- agriculture economy means that your economy is built around food, food and more food. Not built around people doing things with the food -- just more food!
-happy for others is easy: your society is getting lots of goods from free trade, theirs isn't.
The only negatives are war weariness and the -10% gold. Other than that this is a kick-ass civic.
The -gold is a minor detail: the trade route income will more than make up for it, if you have good trade routes. If you don't have good trade routes, then this civic becomes a bad choice.
And if you are an expansionistic warmonger, this is also a bad choice, even if it has large economic benefits for large empires.
So we get civics based on what phase your economy is in:
This is great for an early economy -- gets you off the ground quickly. As your empire grows, it gets worse: agriculture is a poor way of holding together the economy of a huge nation. You need something more refined.
This slows down your growth a bit, but is otherwise a good warmonger civic. You can turn breadbaskets into military factories.
A builder civic. Making war as merchant houses is hard -- but possible, given the massive gold bonus. Gold rushing and +50% gold is crazy synergy. The gold cost of units, the penalty to military unit production, and the lightbulb penalty prevent you from being an unstoppable force.
You could probably make a military empire using this -- but it would be one of elite units, not a swarm.
Best for peaceniks and tech mongers. Being at war while under foreign trade hurts badly, but it lets you stay a huge empire -- it just doesn't help you get the empire!
Each one is clearly better in it's area of expertise:
Agriculture: Small city population booms.
Conquest: War
Merchant Houses: Building and developing cities.
Foreign Trade: Technological and Cultural growth.
I could see a civilization moving between them from era to era. Agriculture early on, to get the initial population boom. Conquest to increase the empire size. Merchant Houses to build up the newly conquored territory. Then Foreign Trade to slingshot into the later part of the tech tree, or to new military technologies, to start off a new wave of Conquest...
Note that Agriculture has the neat property that +health aliases into +food very quickly. It never gives you less growth than other civics -- 2 sickness is not as important as 2 food. If you have a health surplus (from whatever source -- varied diet, buildings, etc), you can grow fast and big.
And your population won't crash when you grow out of it.
Ringtailed
Anthropomorphic Lemur
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 247
Please don't put any more -happiness for not having a civic in. It's a very frustrating mechanic.
Came up with a couple other ideas for economy civics and other things, one based on the maoi statue wonder in BtS.
At fishing or sailing:
Seafaring: +1 production and commence for water tiles, negatives, if it needs any, -1 production on mines perhaps.
Great for lanun, Good for everyone else.
At hunting or animal husbandry how about:
Live off the Land: +2 food +1 production from jungles, deserts (not floodplains) tundra, +1 food from camps and pastures.
Gives people with really bad starting locations and lack of farmland a chance to recover until they can turn them into more useful squares until later on when you can start chopping and changing the land, (suggestion, move jungle chopping down a tech, 800 is expensive for a civ that is stuck in bad land, easy for a civ in good land)
for agriculture, just lower it by 1 food problem solved.
Can likely remove or rework foreign trade and merchantism or make them super strong for trade/specialists/gold.
This way you got Three diffient early economy techs with Three diffient results. you would have one for coastal empires, one for jungle/desert/tundra/hunting empires, and one for grass and river empires
Also all resources should be given a slight improvement, doesn't make sense that building a farm over something like banana sugar or cows and pigs is better then using a pasture or plantation and makes the ideal city spots just plain rivers and grass, yawn.
Some suggestions
Water resources except pearls +1 base food
whale +2 food +2 production
Pastures for cows +2 food
Pasture for pigs +3 food
Pasture for sheep/toad +1 food +1 base commence
Deer +1 base +1 camp
Banana +1 food
Sugar +1 food +2 commence
Regeants +1 food
Wine +1 food
Tell me what you think of this, and if the makers of the mod are reading, tell me if any of these ideas are worth considering.
At fishing or sailing:
Seafaring: +1 production and commence for water tiles, negatives, if it needs any, -1 production on mines perhaps.
Great for lanun, Good for everyone else.
At hunting or animal husbandry how about:
Live off the Land: +2 food +1 production from jungles, deserts (not floodplains) tundra, +1 food from camps and pastures.
Gives people with really bad starting locations and lack of farmland a chance to recover until they can turn them into more useful squares until later on when you can start chopping and changing the land, (suggestion, move jungle chopping down a tech, 800 is expensive for a civ that is stuck in bad land, easy for a civ in good land)
for agriculture, just lower it by 1 food problem solved.
Can likely remove or rework foreign trade and merchantism or make them super strong for trade/specialists/gold.
This way you got Three diffient early economy techs with Three diffient results. you would have one for coastal empires, one for jungle/desert/tundra/hunting empires, and one for grass and river empires
Also all resources should be given a slight improvement, doesn't make sense that building a farm over something like banana sugar or cows and pigs is better then using a pasture or plantation and makes the ideal city spots just plain rivers and grass, yawn.
Some suggestions
Water resources except pearls +1 base food
whale +2 food +2 production
Pastures for cows +2 food
Pasture for pigs +3 food
Pasture for sheep/toad +1 food +1 base commence
Deer +1 base +1 camp
Banana +1 food
Sugar +1 food +2 commence
Regeants +1 food
Wine +1 food
Tell me what you think of this, and if the makers of the mod are reading, tell me if any of these ideas are worth considering.
How's this for a change? Changes are underlined and only civics that are changed are listed.
Spoiler :
These changes sound great, I think I'll immediately change some of my xml files to adopt some of them in my current 0.22h installation. I really can't stand agriculture as it is now, it's been incredibly overpowered ever since it was changed some versions ago, whereas the other civics apart from Guardian of Nature are rather useless. Your changes seem quite sensible compared to the current economic civics.
I just wish Kael would do something about these civics himself, especially agriculture, as I don't like having a non-canonical FfH2-Version on my PC.
Similar threads
