Food Manipulation thread

[GeneralUrist]

I don't think Civ's food mechanism was ever intended to enable the conversion of production to food in even a limited manner and that's basically what they do and it disrupts reality a bit. But that said, they do serve an RL equivalent purpose if they are used to allow one city to support another through food shipping. I'd like to retain that while eliminating the production to food conversion process. Unfortunately, in terms of priorities, the project isn't yet fully on the radar.

Is there a way to make food merchants e.g. give a permanent -1 food to the city they're build in, and then give a permanent +1 food to the city they arrive in? This would essential simulate the creation of a shipping route by which one city sends its food to another, without ever converting hammers into food. Not ideal, but it would solve the conversion problem and also possibly mean less micromanagement when you want to use the merchants a lot. (maybe more than +/i 1, maybe don't have the transfer be 100% efficient. I'd like to ask if the idea is viable at all before talking balance.)

If the team is set on keeping the FMs as discrete transfers, maybe have the merchant drain the building city's entire food store, then give it to the receiver city? IDK if that's possible or practical.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Is there a way to make food merchants e.g. give a permanent -1 food to the city they're build in, and then give a permanent +1 food to the city they arrive in? This would essential simulate the creation of a shipping route by which one city sends its food to another, without ever converting hammers into food. Not ideal, but it would solve the conversion problem and also possibly mean less micromanagement when you want to use the merchants a lot. (maybe more than +/i 1, maybe don't have the transfer be 100% efficient. I'd like to ask if the idea is viable at all before talking balance.)

I actually do want to do something along these lines. Along with then automating the unit to keep cycling moving that route and if it has to or is made to break that cycle, then the transfer effect is broken.

 

[ecawilson]

I actually do want to do something along these lines. Along with then automating the unit to keep cycling moving that route and if it has to or is made to break that cycle, then the transfer effect is broken.

Isn't that a trade route? Is your plan to make each trade route be signified by a unit? Can the game handle that many more units? I am not opposed to making the 'blockade' function more robust, by actually ambushing the caravan to steal the goods or to prevent it from getting through or something along those lines... but that will make the game orders of magnitude more complex. I would love for the Silk Road to play more of a role, and have cities like Samarkand (or entire civilizations) be built up and thrive by catering to (or robbing) international trade... but can the engine (or player) handle that?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Isn't that a trade route? Is your plan to make each trade route be signified by a unit? Can the game handle that many more units? I am not opposed to making the 'blockade' function more robust, by actually ambushing the caravan to steal the goods or to prevent it from getting through or something along those lines... but that will make the game orders of magnitude more complex. I would love for the Silk Road to play more of a role, and have cities like Samarkand (or entire civilizations) be built up and thrive by catering to (or robbing) international trade... but can the engine (or player) handle that?

It sort of is. Wouldn't replace trade routes but rather give unitbased ones that can be ambushed by criminals and ruffians, stolen from, would need to be protected etc... I do also plan a land blockade function. I would mean for this to be a bit of a default way to benefit from merchant units when they aren't being used for more active purposes - and there are a number of very active purposes in providing supplies to stacks intended as well.

Current trade routes could be seen as free market activities. These would be state driven ones where strategic needs of the state are being directly addressed. A new frontier city needs some food because it's in the arctic perhaps. You're trying to send more production (which also wouldn't be so 'dump/one time use' based) supplies to a new outpost or where a wonder is being built perhaps. Maybe you need a resource to be considered 'in vicinity' but it's not in any city's vicinity so you setup a 'route' between the improved plot its on and a given nearby city. All of these kinds of things might use a similar repeat automation pattern. The thing is, once the 'route' is established, the effect is considered 'on' until the unit is interrupted. Until then the unit simply goes automated from point a to b to a to b repeating. If interrupted then the effect of the unit route is cut in the city(s). So protecting the unit then gives a strategic element the game currently doesn't have.

From a system resources perspective, it depends on how much this actually takes place. I don't see it being so critical that it would be a major game element. Shuffling stuff about with no net gain in the system doesn't necessarily have a lot of value unless it is done for direct, and often temporary, reasons. Whether you did it for yourself at all would be a fairly optional strategy really, one that takes a little investment into securing those routes from being exploited against you. I just mean for it to give some strategic access and elevate the black ops unit game play a bit. It would also be related to some of the things that would take place in the nomadic start.

Would also, along with automated natural trade routes as we have them, play a major role in the spread of Ideas (cultures, religions, languages etc...).

 

[ecawilson]

isn't there already a problem with automated movement and pathfinding? If I recall correctly, loading a game with units automated causes significant problems. This would exacerbate those problems considerably, right? Is fixing unit automation and pathfinding on the radar?

 

[Thunderbrd]

isn't there already a problem with automated movement and pathfinding? If I recall correctly, loading a game with units automated causes significant problems. This would exacerbate those problems considerably, right? Is fixing unit automation and pathfinding on the radar?

The only problem I'm aware of is its impact on OOS errors and a few other sub-optimal routing choices because it cycles through the units in the group rather than looking at the group as a whole in some places. And yeah of course I want to fix those things as well.

 

[Joij21]

Pie's Ancient Europe VI has this exact same feature where you can trade using transport units that go back and forth between cities. Not only that but they can be completely automated or micromanaged depending on the player. Goods in cities also have a price that goes up or down based on supply and demand. You can buy copper cheaply in a city that has a lot of it, then sell it to one that has none at a higher price. What's more is that the city you sell the copper to gets a copper resource inside of it for a certain amount of turns after the trade, before later fading away. The AI knows how to trade as well. This way all you need to do is open borders with the AI and you can receive tons of resources you don't have without ever having to negotiate for them via diplomacy. It's pure free market goodness.

The system is balanced out by having a chance for the trade units to take damage or get destroyed by bandits through a risk meter. You can lower the risk by paying gold to give the units a mercenary escort. Ocean trade units can also easily be sunk by pirate units which just about everyone has in the mod. So while a sea transport can't run into bandits it can still be sunk by pirates, thus giving some viability to land transports at the cost of bandit vulnerability.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Goods in cities also have a price that goes up or down based on supply and demand.

I was really thinking about this sort of thing eventually being included too. I'm not sure how much I want to invest into the system but apparently someone in the game design world has been listening into my thoughts or I've been tuning in to what's already out there, one of the two. That's EXACTLY what I thought perhaps long term might be cool. It's not actually that unique - I think some Sid Meiers trading games worked on that sort of basis a long time ago. I had been considering how it could be done here and there are certainly ways to set up some interesting local value maps on resources. This would probably be a pick up and drop off type of system as opposed to a system that assumes that round by round, the unit is faster than it is moving but the movement is there to show a way to interact with it tactically on the map.

The AI knows how to trade as well.

The analysis of potential value in routes would be easier for an AI than a player so as far as profiting from it goes, the AI would probably have an edge over any player without infinite patience. The player's edge is a deeper level of strategic insight into how to exploit such foreign units with their criminals and ruffians and such.

The system is balanced out by having a chance for the trade units to take damage or get destroyed by bandits through a risk meter. You can lower the risk by paying gold to give the units a mercenary escort. Ocean trade units can also easily be sunk by pirate units which just about everyone has in the mod. So while a sea transport can't run into bandits it can still be sunk by pirates, thus giving some viability to land transports at the cost of bandit vulnerability.

Here, all that would happen directly by unit activities, which would certainly make USING those kinds of units a LOT more fun.

 

[Joij21]

This would probably be a pick up and drop off type of system

That's exactly what it is and it's a mod for civ4.

 

[Thunderbrd]

That's exactly what it is and it's a mod for civ4.

Cool... may well have to look into how they go about it but I'd probably program it a little differently in that we have such a distinction here in Vicinity resources. Maybe they do in a way as well...

 

[Joij21]

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/pies-ancient-europe.352646/page-190#post-14322648 Here it is.

 

[Joij21]

Cool... may well have to look into how they go about it but I'd probably program it a little differently in that we have such a distinction here in Vicinity resources. Maybe they do in a way as well...

I believe vicinity resources are a thing based on the last time I played the mod. This is because you can also trade domestically within your empire and not just with foreign cities. I noticed that if you have two cities in your empire connected by a route, the city that is right next to a resource seems to give a slightly cheaper price than the one that only receives it by the route. So essentially you can sell copper from a city with copper next to it to one that has copper but none physically next to it and make a profit.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I believe vicinity resources are a thing based on the last time I played the mod. This is because you can also trade domestically within your empire and not just with foreign cities. I noticed that if you have two cities in your empire connected by a route, the city that is right next to a resource seems to give a slightly cheaper price than the one that only receives it by the route. So essentially you can sell copper from a city with copper next to it to one that has copper but none physically next to it and make a profit.

They probably don't have vicinity quite as we do in their coding but have given some ability to detect how close the resource is to the city and take that into account. Very similar to what I was thinking really. I'll take a look when it becomes a more immediate project I'm focusing in on.

 

[Joij21]

The system in action.

As you can see this city is connected to the whole empire but has copper in its vicinity.

Here we have the button to automate a route between two cities. We instead will manually purchase the goods instead.

This button will allow us to purchase goods from the city manually. So lets do that.

Here is the goods selection menu. As you can see copper is selling at 30 gold. Lets purchase that and see if we can sell at a greater price.

Now that we purchased the copper you can see it is loaded inside the ship.

Here we are at Rome. Notice Rome is part of the trade network but the copper is going for 33 gold instead of 30. This indicates that vicinity is being taken into account for goods pricing. So lets sell and make a profit using the sell button.

And here we have it, we have sold copper for 33 gold in Rome making 3 gold in profit. Notice we received 0 research. This is because our trade was a domestic one, foreign trades will also produce research as an additional bonus but not domestic ones.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The system in action.

View attachment 563394

As you can see this city is connected to the whole empire but has copper in its vicinity.


View attachment 563395

Here we have the button to automate a route between two cities. We instead will manually purchase the goods instead.


View attachment 563397

This button will allow us to purchase goods from the city manually. So lets do that.


View attachment 563399

Here is the goods selection menu. As you can see copper is selling at 30 gold. Lets purchase that and see if we can sell at a greater price.


View attachment 563400

Now that we purchased the copper you can see it is loaded inside the ship.


View attachment 563401

Here we are at Rome. Notice Rome is part of the trade network but the copper is going for 33 gold instead of 30. This indicates that vicinity is being taken into account for goods pricing. So lets sell and make a profit using the sell button.


View attachment 563403

And here we have it, we have sold copper for 33 gold in Rome making 3 gold in profit. Notice we received 0 research. This is because our trade was a domestic one, foreign trades will also produce research as an additional bonus but not domestic ones.

Nice. Very similar to the plan I had in mind for the LONG term.

 

[GeneralUrist]

On-map within-empire strategic resource trade route seem needlessly complex/micro-heavy to me, but I very much like the idea of food transfer 'sustained' by a unit moving back and fourth. So long as the unit only represents the trade but doesn't physically carry food in lump sums (with the cities just getting a passive +x or -x) it remove some of the wonky-ness of discrete transfers, and it also means you don't need an additional city interface to cancel the food transfer. Presumably under Size Matters the food merchant can be merged or split to change the amount of transferred food without needing to have multiple CPU-sucking merchants moving.

This system could work for hammers also, but I would like for the ability to deliver lump sums to also be maintained. Sometimes I just want a quick burst of extra hammers to get something specific done, rather than set up a long-term transfer.

One issue is how it is handled when there is no land route between cities (since food merchants are land units), or when a pure land route is much longer than than a land/naval route (doesn't make sense to trade from Madrid to Morocco by going around Mesopotamia for example).

 

[JosEPh_II]

This whole last page of food discourse is OT to this thread. Sure wish you all had made a new thread instead.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah noticed that but moving discussions from one thread to another is a pain in the ass and discussions have a natural tendency to drift subjects since one response leads to the next.

 

[irishhombre]

I love the rambling nature of the discussions, opening each discussion is like playing the lotto, I never know what the topic might be.

 

[ecawilson]

Yeah, it bothers me too, a thread going off topic. I have to decide whether I want to keep a thread on topic, or actually communicate. In the past, on this forum, I have erred on the side of communication, because I know how EASY it is to split threads in civfanatics. Problem is, apparently, there is no active moderator for C2C. I think that is the real problem. Not off topic posts, or the difficulty of splitting a thread, but lack of administration. I assume that it existed here, once, but people have retired or fallen ill or moved on. Maybe it is time to ask that someone else have mod privileges for this sub forum. At least until one of the adults comes back. Or, on the other hand, get a current mod to agree to upkeep duties like that. I've seen here on civfanatics, someone just @'s the mod, asking them to split from post X to post Y into a new thread entitled "ZZZ", and if they recognize the person and it doesn't seem stupid, they do it. Takes seconds of their time.

Though, that has been a while... maybe things have changed?