Forest/jungle plantation luxury starts and tech tree

[LukaSlovenia29]

Starts with forest/jungle plantation luxuries (silk, dyes, citrus, cocoa) require considerably more technologies to start exploiting them than any other luxury start.

Do you think this needs addressing and if so, how? Add forest/jungle chopping to the calendar?

 

[tu_79]

This is the bad side. The good one is that you are safer hidden in the jungle.

 

[Dawnpromise]

This is the bad side. The good one is that you are safer hidden in the jungle.

Unless your neighbors are the Aztecs.

The real upside is that forests naturally give +2 food +1 production, so you can actually put of training a worker and just skate by off the forest yields.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

The defensive upside is also present with non-plantation forest/jungle luxuries (truffles etc.) and with hill luxuries (cases where gems etc. are on non-hills are rare).

The benefits from basic forest/jungle tiles are also present with non-plantation forest luxuries and resources, all available earlier (mining...).

All the while you're losing the benefits from connecting those luxuries (happiness, faith, trade,..., you miss out on).

 

[Dawnpromise]

One more small bonus of forest starts: You can chop them for a production boost once you've researched proper tree cutting.

Personally I'd like to see an option to flatten hills once you research dynamite. But I think I may just have a small fetish for the idea of being able to terraform my empire.

 

[CrazyG]

I find Jungle starts much stronger than starting on open grassland. The non forest plantations are generally really weak tiles, and those starts really commonly won't have any 4 or 5 yield tiles to work from the start. Remember that citizens eat 2 food, so 2 yield tiles don't give you a net increase, and 3 yield tiles effectively only give you a net of 1. Three grassland tea gives the same yield as a one pop city working jungle marble.

The only time I have issues in Jungle is if there are no gold sources available; which I think is just citrus. It does bother me that I have to research animal husbandry and construction when there won't be any pastures or quarries.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Dawnpromise, that option is available also in other luxury starts, unless you start no-where near any forests/jungles. Also, what harm would it do if we added chopping to the Calendar tech?

Agree on terraforming, including the hills you mention. I posted a while ago on wishing it were possible to have an action to remove sheep and other bonus resources, perhaps lasting many more turns than usual worker actions, but the replies of it being difficult to code and train the AI seemed very convincing, so alas I've more or less given up on this.

CrazyG, I think it's important to take into consideration not just the tiles themselves, but the lost turns of not being able to have a monopoly on them, trade them, gain faith from them (goddess of festivals and other pantheons where they might directly or indirectly increase faith). And again, what would be the harm of adding chopping/clearing to the Calendar tech? I think it would bring more balance to the force, errrm..., VP.

 

[peterw1987]

Sugar,citrus,cotton,crab start is instant reroll for me. Weak start and weak monopoly and late improvement.

Cocoa,dye,silk is still okay for me. I can live with that extra yield and the wait worth because monopoly bonus is good, dye plantation is also good(+1p1c)


I might consider reroll on spice,tea,cofee,wine,and ivory start. Cause the yield is not any better than basic forest or jungle tile.

 

[Enginseer]

One more small bonus of forest starts: You can chop them for a production boost once you've researched proper tree cutting.

Personally I'd like to see an option to flatten hills once you research dynamite. But I think I may just have a small fetish for the idea of being able to terraform my empire.

Surprisingly doable, graphically impossible however.(You would have to refresh your game or else you won't see the changes)

 

[CrazyG]

CrazyG, I think it's important to take into consideration not just the tiles themselves, but the lost turns of not being able to have a monopoly on them, trade them, gain faith from them (goddess of festivals and other pantheons where they might directly or indirectly increase faith). And again, what would be the harm of adding chopping/clearing to the Calendar tech? I think it would bring more balance to the force, errrm..., VP.

Well what monopolies appear in jungle? I'm going by memory, but I think Citrus's +3 food is the only option worth rushing the monopoly. You don't need to get Spice's golden ages until you have a golden age, if you miss your first its not that bad. Truffles is a camp. Sugar is a % so while its nice to get early really its a long term booster. Cocoa's culture is per city so it does nothing until you get farther down the tech tree anyways. Gold from Dyes is nice earlier but really the long term gain is what that 10% is about. In general I quite like the jungle luxuries, other than Citrus (which is actually not bad when it appears on forest).

Building that herbalist and having immediate access to a bunch of 3/1 tiles is powerful. Herbalist recently had its maintenance reduced too. I suppose there isn't harm, nothing will burst into flames if a change is made. But IDK if its really a good idea either. Also its okay for festivals to be bad on certain starts, just don't pick it on that start.

If I were to request a change for jungle terrain, it would be bananas. Currently bananas themselves do nothing, they only provide + 1 food after a granary is built, and can benefit from Herbalists. Deer get all the same boosts, but have a base of +1 food, and don't need to be chopped for their improvement, meaning they can be improved and still benefit from university/workshop. I'm often sad when I see bananas appear as it can block better improvements.

 

[peterw1987]

Cant we just chop down the jungle and build village on top of it?

 

[Barak]

I agree about bananas. I feel that they should get some kind of bonus. Too often I find that when I get a jungle start no resources tend to spawn near my capital except maybe a banana, which is not worth much.

 

[Starrynite120]

Sugar,citrus,cotton,crab start is instant reroll for me. Weak start and weak monopoly and late improvement.

Cocoa,dye,silk is still okay for me. I can live with that extra yield and the wait worth because monopoly bonus is good, dye plantation is also good(+1p1c)


I might consider reroll on spice,tea,cofee,wine,and ivory start. Cause the yield is not any better than basic forest or jungle tile.

Those rerolls seem quite excessive.

Why on earth though would you reroll tea and coffee? Those are easily two of the best. Personally I think tea is better, just with an improvement and herbalist its a 3f3p tile, but coffee's monopoly bonus is amazing. They're also both easy to improve, you only need 3 techs, and that third tech unlocks the herbalist which improves them.

Also, Citrus frequently appears on non-jungle tiles, so I don't see a problem with how its implemented, especially considering the tile is going to be amazing on a jungle even without improving, simply because early game jungle is really good.

And like CrazyG said, most of those are long terms bonuses, so its not really a problem if you can't get it early, they'll be late game powerhouses.

I would also like to jump on the help banana train.

As for the OP, I don't think anything really needs to be changed, since the high yields of basic jungle tiles offsets the inability to improve. Seems balanced to me.

 

[tu_79]

Someone will say that not all tiles or resources need to be good.

 

[ElliotS]

Yeah, bananas are my only problem. I think they should allow all adjacent units to heal 5 extra HP per turn. (Potassium is good for you.) Also can the improvement be a camp, so I don't need to chop jungle? Banana camps are a well known practice in real life.

That was a joke. Just add 1 food or 1 gold.

 

[tu_79]

Idea: let 2 adjacent farms add +1 food to bananas. So you chopp that jungle, plow the land, and get extra food.

 

[Chandler]

I may seem like an idiot asking this, but why do we need to investigate iron working before being able to chop jungles? I mean, does it mean that jungle trees are harder to chop than the forest ones or what? Why shouldnt we be able to chop down all of them with the same technology?

I like trees, btw.

 

[tu_79]

I may seem like an idiot asking this, but why do we need to investigate iron working before being able to chop jungles? I mean, does it mean that jungle trees are harder to chop than the forest ones or what? Why shouldnt we be able to chop down all of them with the same technology?

I like trees, btw.

Because jungles were historically more difficult to tame. In fact, it took much longer. Jungles hide all kind of poisonous wild animals. While technically posible to chop jungles with same bronze tools, let's say we need iron weapons to defend against nature.

Clearing a forest, probably was done by burning it down.

 

[Dawnpromise]

Idea: let 2 adjacent farms add +1 food to bananas. So you chopp that jungle, plow the land, and get extra food.

At that rate why not simply let Plantations count towards farming triangles like the Terrace farm does?

 

[CrazyG]

At that rate why not simply let Plantations count towards farming triangles like the Terrace farm does?

I think Gazebo has said its not possible, the idea came up with Terrace Farms. I don't think Bananas need any complicated effect, just a little boost