Forest Plantations Starts: Very awkful to play right now.

I was playing today after some weeks of abscence and i got some forest plantations starts. With the new changes you need 6 technologies (Mining - Bronze Working - Pottery - Archery - The Wheel - Calendar) to get a 5 resource monopoly, unless you're doing a pyramid rush or something like that.

Some ideas:

1) Move pottery back (no new code required)
2) Allow to chop forest in calendar, but only for plantations (new code required)
3) Change calendar with trade (weird)
4) Just restart if you got a forest plantation map (new tundra bois)

 

Or settle directly over one of those luxuries for an immediate boost, then pick the forest pantheon and take your time to improve everything.

 

You asume all forest plantations starts are actually heavily forested, or that settling in the luxury will leave your city in a good position.

 

I can relate that forest plantation starts are annoying - I'm playing one now - and that accessing forest planatitions seems somewhat obtuse. I'm not sure what the best solution would be. It feels like the least disruptive would be to move the 'chop forest' somewhere to make it more accessible. Maybe mining for example. I don't know if that makes sense gameplay wise - it would potentionally make mining too strong given it also has the Pyramids. It would reduce the tech requirement though.

 

Settling right on top of a forest luxury can help, but I agree that it can be a difficult starting location. Sometimes you just don't have a good pantheon option, all the luxuries are stuck behind the 5 techs, and you can low-roll the food. I find many of my forest starts more difficult than tundra.

I recommend Pyramids highly, because you get a settler without spending food and the faster workers help a lot with chopping.

I wish forests could be chopped a bit more quickly in general, as the instant production for chopping is generally pretty tough to use.

 

I wish chopping forests were available with the wheel.

 

Calendar is fine.

@BiteInTheMark mentioned the ability to use both techs for both forest types, and having both just would increase the speed of chopping.
Well, we could have the Axe in Calendar, and the Saw in Bronze Working. Axes are slower than saws when it comes to chopping fully grown trees.
We could just let the Axe chopp both the forest and the jungle, but at double cost (8 turns), while the saw would allow to chopp at full speed (4 turns). They don't add up, we use the best tool available, so having both techs means chopping at the speed of the saw (4 turns).

 

Just wanted to say I find forest chopping to be relatively simple to use. It's good for speeding up wonders, and building settlers. What speed do you play on? Not sure how it scales with speed. I play on Epic myself.

 

I dont think its that difficult to implement, set the natural time to chop a forest or jungle to 12.
Allow calender and bronze working to chop forests and jungles and add a 4 turn reduction to both actions.
So, unlocking one of them gives the option to chop both but needs 8 turns, if you research the other, you end with 4 turns, like its now.

Other option, constructing improvements on ressources didnt need the ability to chop forests/jungles, but need double the time, if it lies behind trees. The technologies for choping is now only important for tiles without ressources.

Personally I prefer the first option.

 

I play on standard. I haven't used a forest chop to speed up a settler in years, it comes too late. I suppose on a very specific start it could happen?

Forest chopping comes too late to help with the ancient era wonders, except maybe Statue of Zeus but I have a hard time fitting a worker into authority that early, and if I do I probably want him improving mines or something. Its tech requirement is a disadvantage for most of the classical era wonders as well, like if you want the Great Library you lose more time by researching bronze working than you can possibly gain from the forests. If you try to research writing, then bronze working, you should usually finish the wonder before you get the tech, or even if you do have the tech its another 5 turns until its chopped. I've tried numerous times to use chops to help with Hanging Gardens, and its just extremely rare to actually get it done faster via chopping.

The only wonders which I occasionally use forests on is Colossus or Great Wall. Here you have to plan really far ahead, because my capital normally builds these wonders in 5 or 6 turns, usually 4 with gold investment. So you already need to have started chopping the forests several turns before you start on the wonder.

A big forest is a nice place to start in Vanilla because chopping was super useful, I just never get that feeling in VP. Sometimes I would rather just have an extra 5 turns with my worker instead of the small production bonus. Production in VP scales a lot higher and a lot faster than in vanilla civ, by the medieval era chopping forests saves my cities less than half a turn usually.

 

This idea it's actually bad for Jungle start, imagine a tradition start in jungle without pyramids, the speed of chopping is going to be very slow if you go for Calendar only. (Something quite common if you're rushing hanging gardens / roman forum). What if we allow the chopping only Jungle Tiles and Forest Tiles with Plantation Resources in Calendar?. It's a more specific change for what it's needed (new code though).

 

Hmm. That's very different from my experience. I suppose I usually have a strong early science game so it doesn't bother me as much. I can understand that would be a pain!

 

In general I consider some forest starts reasonably strong and I'd often take it rather than a plains start but it depends on several things.
The calendar resources are usually 3f1h1g or 2f2h1g with no improvement needed, this is very strong but I want them in first or maybe second circle.
If there is enough forest god of renewal is op belief even if nearby cities only have some forests.
Unimproved forest deers tiles are ok early game tiles.
Forests get another spike with workshops.
You have good natural defense with the drawback that you need roads to traverse swift.

The weak parts.
Lack of hammers, no hills/mines until bronze working or half forest/half plains, even worse if no rivers.
Sugar is feels like one of the weakest calendar resources.
Very worker intensive and since the lack of hammers I am unlikely to succed with pyramids.
No improved early lux can make a big difference and even make you struggle with the 35% happiness if you fast expand, there is probably value to settle on top of a lux in these situations.

Possible solutions?
Settle cap on lux with forest heavy start, or on hill with as much lux as possible in first circle.
Try to rush stonehenge for god of renewal.
Dont build/purchase workers since they cant improve stuff anyway, put hammers in infra/units/settlers.
Tech wheel, trapping, pottery.

 

Perhaps there should be the option to clear forests by slash-and-burn, available at turn 0, with either no production or less of it granted than by chopping?

 

I don't mind these luxuries as they are. It is good for some monopolies to take greater investment to unlock. They also offer very good yields before they're improved.

 

Is this possible in Civ5 without new code? It was definitely a deature of Civ4, but every time you issue a worker command in Civ5 it interprets it as a queued chop, then build.

 

Sugar and Spices are both improved by the Market, which has to be taken into account balance-wise.
I guess Dyes might be an issue there?

 

Dyes sort of balance out by providing 2 culture when you do work them. Citrus, Cocoa, and Silk have less powerful yields when worked but do have stronger initial yields and Citrus and Cocoa have strong monopoly bonuses when you get to that.

I guess the main contrast from my perspective is that you're much better off with camp luxuries (truffles, furs) on forest than plantation luxuries because they don't require chopping.

Not that I want my adorable foxes (favourite lux) to get a nerf at all. I guess to some degree the fact that plantation luxes are rarer on forest than in jungle goes some way to making this a niche issue. I think it's still worth discussing though, interested to see what other people think.

 

Luxuries, especially early on, have direct and indirect yields that matter. Improved luxuries bring happiness but more importantly can be sold to other civ for 2 to 5 gp per turn (which also starts you off on good diplo relationships...). And then there's the monopoly bonus.

Even the Market buff doesn't quite make up for that if you end up waiting for tens of turns to be able to improve the lux.