Harvesting resources

[cazaderonus]

Thanks for putting this together! I've seen the 34 food resources but didn't know deer was 47 hammers.

Harvesting food early in the game, or early in a city's life, is probably going to make sense as a growth-kicker. You'll be able to work more hammers sooner as a result of more population, assuming you can get 2 points of population out of the harvest.

I'd only harvest hammers if I was racing for a wonder like stonehenge. I'm on the fence about copper. Obviously, we'll have to see all the final numbers to decide. Cool little mechanic.

Yeah it is indeed. If you check my previou posts you'll see that 34 food wont get you 2 pop. Going from 1 to 3 seems to require 66 foods . Still, it means that with a +3 food city (and more as you get pop 2 quickly), you can reach pop 3 before T10 if you prioritize the builder required to harvest. A goodie hut on top of that might even push you quickly to size 4.

As for the hammers, 47 from a deer (couldnt catch a stone harvest yield but it should be similar) is huge. especially considering that early wonders cost around 140/150ish hammers (hanging garden is 120 on quick) so it's 1/3 of the wonder rushed with that mecanic. Might be a very useful trick to secure a key wonder like stonehenge on deity.

the gold from copper seems a lot less interesting i would agree there. Considering how gold seemed to be largely available in the LPs we've seen so far. Though it s still very possible that many numbers will change till release.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The harvest yields may have been changed upon release of the game but it is obvious that good use of harvesting can put you ahead. While strong in the begining bonus resources are not necessarily important in the mid or late game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Decided to look a few more LP's starts to see if i could grab some more Harvest Yields, here's what i got so far :

- Rice : 29 food
- Wheat : 34 food
- Sheep : 34 food
- Cattle : 34 food
- Copper : 59 gold
- Deer : 47 hammers

Just to note. That's quick speed. I'm not sure whether the output depends on the speed.

 

[Manetheren]

Yes, it seems like it could be a helpful tool. Especially if the location of a city has limited tiles, and sacrificing one bonus resource for a district or wonder is a better choice.
Or if you need to rush a wonder, harvest some stone or something.

No idea, but I don't think you should be able to harvest outside of your borders. Seems extremely too powerful- all you have to do is build a few builders at the start of the game, and pillage the hell out of any land not near you. No other civs can build good cities. Seems way too OP

Yeah, its one thing to pillage a tile of a mine/camp/plantation and temporarily take a resource away from another Civ, but doing it permanently would just encourage "builder armies", which doesn't seem like much fun.

 

[cazaderonus]

Just to note. That's quick speed. I'm not sure whether the output depends on the speed.

i'd assume it scales. otherwise the feature becomes purely useless with longer game speed. I'll add a note about the fact these come from quick games.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

EDIT : some food for thought as i just watched some LPs to grab a few info:

- Harvesting some cattle would grant 34 food (source Quill's LP)
- In Marbozir's LP, at turn 0 his city requires 6 turns to grow with +4 food per turn = 24 food to grow
- Still in Marboz's LP, his city requires 6 turns to grow to pop 3 with +7 food per turn = 42 food to grow.

So it would appear to not be that much interesting to harvest. As for instance, for Marbo (though he has a decent food dirt around his spawn) it would shaved 8 turns of food production or something. not sure i'd waste a resource for that. But i guess if you consider the spot being very interesting for a specific district, it s still something to consider.

Harvesting probably wont be something we'll use often.

I am pretty sure you have this completely wrong. Unlike other yields, food surplus shown in city screen is actually TOTAL food that city gets per turn, not a surplus. So, when a city starts, it shows +4 usually (+2 is city center, +2 is the only worked tile), but surplus is only +2.

So, in reality, food needed for growth to two pop is 12, to three pop 16-18, and to four pop 22-24 - I checked other LPs as well, and the exact numbers are not clear. Yogcast guys need 6, 8 and 11 turns with what seems to be +2 surplus, Marb seems to need 6, 7 and 12, but there are some small things which affect that.

As a result, I really think you only need LESS than 30 food to go from pop 1 to pop 3, so harvesting 34 food is brutal boost.

 

[cazaderonus]

I am pretty sure you have this completely wrong. Unlike other yields, food surplus shown in city screen is actually TOTAL food that city gets per turn, not a surplus. So, when a city starts, it shows +4 usually (+2 is city center, +2 is the only worked tile), but surplus is only +2.

So, in reality, food needed for growth to two pop is 12, to three pop 16-18, and to four pop 24 - I checked other LPs as well, and it is the exact numbers are not clear. Yogcast guys need 6, 8 and 11 turns with what seems to be +2 surplus, Marb seems to need 6, 7 and 12, but there are some small things which affect that.

As a result, I really think you only need LESS than 30 food to go from pop 1 to pop 3, so harvesting 34 food is brutal boost.

TBH, it may completely be what you described. I m at work and grabbed those info in between stuff. i saw +4, saw 6 turns to grow, Blop, did the math.

If your math is correct, then harvesting a food resource early would be extremely beneficial. I guess taking a look at CiV numbers could tell us what numbers are most likely.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's looks like an interesting choice, considering you're also spending a Builder charge.

 

[Civbra]

Personally, I quite like this mechanic but I don't feel like it has reached its full potential yet. The way I see it, there should be three options:

1) Harvest, removing the resource from the map and adding it to your empire's resource pool
2) Cultivation, adding food, production or commerce yields to those tiles (build a farm, mine, camp or plantation)
3) Preservation, leaving the resource alone in return for non-vital yields (culture, science, faith, tourism and appeal) by building a national park or a preserve or an observation post.

This would apply to all resources,

e.g. 1: harvesting wheat, should allow that city to build a "brewery", which provides the "beer" luxury resource, which you can trade, while cultivating the wheat by building a farm on top provides an extra +1 food bonus to that city and preserving the wheat by building a park on top of it, increases its appeal and add +1 culture.

Similarly, you can choose to hunt exotic animals on the map for Furs luxuries, build a camp/pasture to domesticate and sell them in your cities (provides +gold on that tile ), or build a preserve where you study the animals, providing science.

Or for instance, when it comes to Iron ore: Do you completely excavate it, so you can build units with it, do you build a mine for extra tool production in the city (= extra production yield) or do you leave the ore alone for extra appeal and the ability to attract extra tourists to these beautiful reddish hills?

Preservation and Cultivation can be made more appealing by founding a pantheon which improves yields of either tile improvements or the flat resource itself. (the usefulness of harvesting seems obvious if that's the only way to obtain and trade resources)

This can also be tied to hidden agenda's (Ecologist could be a valid HA, aka someone who HATES people who harvest or cultivate their civ's natural resources)

AS for the mechanic as it is right now... Harvesting seems occasionally interesting, if you need the food in a pinch, but i feel like it's almost always better to not do so, as the extra tile yields will have a higher longterm benefit.

Finally, slightly OT but... I feel like chopping rainforests and removing marshes should yield food and gold respectively, especially as chopping forests already provides production, so...

sounds cool
And I will go ahead and add one more (probably after industrial era) something that allows you to spawn or recreate new resources - (I meant resources that you actually can do that like wheat, horse, sheep, bananas...not iron or oil...)!

like a mod for Civ V to reforesting!

 

[Stringer1313]

Why don't they just adopt the Endless Legend system, whereby working a luxury adds actual units of that luxury to your pool, which you can then spend for a one-time boost? So like once you've "obtained" 100 units of cattle or whatever you can spend them all for a giant food boost, or whatever. I liked that system.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Why don't they just adopt the Endless Legend system, whereby working a luxury adds actual units of that luxury to your pool, which you can then spend for a one-time boost? So like once you've "obtained" 100 units of cattle or whatever you can spend them all for a giant food boost, or whatever. I liked that system.

Because it's a different game and straight mechanics porting doesn't work.

 

[Werewolflord]

Do we know if harvesting a ressource delete it for the whole game? Maybe we will just be unable to use it for 30 turns or somethings like that and then the ressource spawns again on the same tile? That's different from chopping down forrest but could make harvest more powerful, and that could still require one builder charge( i don't know if it does require a builder charge).

 

[BrokenBokken]

Do we know if harvesting a ressource delete it for the whole game? Maybe we will just be unable to use it for 30 turns or somethings like that and then the ressource spawns again on the same tile? That's different from chopping down forrest but could make harvest more powerful, and that could still require one builder charge( i don't know if it does require a builder charge).

It removes it for the whole game.

 

[cazaderonus]

Do we know if harvesting a ressource delete it for the whole game? Maybe we will just be unable to use it for 30 turns or somethings like that and then the ressource spawns again on the same tile? That's different from chopping down forrest but could make harvest more powerful, and that could still require one builder charge( i don't know if it does require a builder charge).

The warning message specifies it is a permanent thing.

 

[skyclad]

seems like a nice thing to do for tiles where you want to put down districts, but otherwise I think my gut feeling just goes against it too much! That and in conquered late game cities, to get their pop and production back up after you razed half the town and its not that many turns (in civ terms) left anyway.

 

[qadams]

Personally, I quite like this mechanic but I don't feel like it has reached its full potential yet. The way I see it, there should be three options:

1) Harvest, removing the resource from the map and adding it to your empire's resource pool
2) Cultivation, adding food, production or commerce yields to those tiles (build a farm, mine, camp or plantation)
3) Preservation, leaving the resource alone in return for non-vital yields (culture, science, faith, tourism and appeal) by building a national park or a preserve or an observation post.

This would apply to all resources,

e.g. 1: harvesting wheat, should allow that city to build a "brewery", which provides the "beer" luxury resource, which you can trade, while cultivating the wheat by building a farm on top provides an extra +1 food bonus to that city and preserving the wheat by building a park on top of it, increases its appeal and add +1 culture.

Similarly, you can choose to hunt exotic animals on the map for Furs luxuries, build a camp/pasture to domesticate and sell them in your cities (provides +gold on that tile ), or build a preserve where you study the animals, providing science.

Or for instance, when it comes to Iron ore: Do you completely excavate it, so you can build units with it, do you build a mine for extra tool production in the city (= extra production yield) or do you leave the ore alone for extra appeal and the ability to attract extra tourists to these beautiful reddish hills?

Preservation and Cultivation can be made more appealing by founding a pantheon which improves yields of either tile improvements or the flat resource itself.

This can also be tied to hidden agendas (Ecologist could be a valid HA, aka someone who HATES people who harvest or cultivate their civ's natural resources).

Seems like a great idea to me! Although something like this probably will not be in the base game, a skilled modder should be able to do it, right?