Improvements & civics rebalancing - again

[Opera]

If I know him enough, Ahwaric won't ever change the 3/pop. It's like a foundation of Orbis; and I actually think it gets on Ahwaric's nerves that, each time, people are trying to remove this from Orbis

It has been correctly implemented in Rise of Mankind, with improvements tweaked according to it. I don't see why it couldn't be the same in Orbis.

First sentence, agreed.
I agree that starting civics should have bonuses. They should probably not be that great, and make changing them for bigger empires a priority, but should not be dummy.

Civics shouldn't be 'great' in the first place. A civic that is great in itself is likely to overpowered as civics are supposed to be thought of in combinations rather than individually.

I am not going the total rewrite route.
I thought on the current system a lot and do not think I would make that much better anyway. But big changes are needed.

Whatever. I think total rewrite would be best in term of balancing and such but you're the boss

Regarding cutting techs, can you be more specific?
Like: "Optics - it sucks, so move celestail compass to x, black citadel to y and sight bonus to z" Or propose what to add to such techs...

I'll try to come up with some techs needing cutting...

Also, I like techs granting final upgrades to do just that (in most cases at least)

I don't but, like I said, whatever

 

[Ahwaric]

I think the aforementioned thread illustrates my comment about 3 food p.pop making the "traditional yield relations go haywire"
I don't want to be disrespectful, but if i haven't missed something (like discussing a floodplains world ), for most people the consequences of the 3 food system had't really sunk in. The discussion is based on improvement yields not on total yields, but it is not taken into consideration that the base yield of an unimproved grassland tile is 2food, and consequently effectively -1food. Therefore most calculations presented there are flawed.

Well, I have said a lot of flawed calculations there... And I agree.
As you can see, there is no way to make everyone happy.

Example: +3 food from a maxed out farm are not sufficient to run a specialist, as 1 food gets consumed to reach the breakeven point of 3 food, yielding an effective +2 food surplus.

Agreed again.
In fact, that is why I have initially set farms to 2 , +1 at sanitation. But I was told that it makes farms overpowered.
I should have used food consumption argument better.
Anyway, now that farms no longer have bonus from vassalage maybe it is time to make them +3 with all the techs again?
One to start with, second with some a bit later tech, and finally one with sanitation. Or add the third somewhere later in the tech tree.
Or maybe I should just make farms 2 +1 form sanitation.

Anyway, it will be still 5 max from grassland farm. It is less population than in FfH - 1,66 compared to 2. For plains the difference is 1,33 to 1,5. Also, you need more food as in FfH all grassland improvements can support themselves, while in Orbis they need that extra food.
Also, to compare specialists with cottage economy:
Town - 5 1
Farm - 0,66 extra food, 1
let's assume we put all commerce to science
Scientist: 3 , +1 from scholarship, +1 +1 from guilds = 5 1 (assuming perfect situation... I explained a lot of times why great library is a special case)

So, farm for specialists is 4 (2/3 * 6) + 0,66
At the same time town is 5 1
As you can see, town wins.
Take into account that one farm on grassland is needed to support 2 grassland towns. But also that town gets bigger bonuses from +% buildings in the city science: and from specialist are not influenced), and there are more +% buildings than +% (just one, and provides equal bonus for commerce at the same time). So, even if you have great library and run agrarianism it is not much stronger than cottages (or not at all).

Might I suggest to consider some variant of the "elven citizen" growth limiter to provide the mechanism for slow city growth instead of the 3. In my experience this is working quite well for the stated purpose of avoiding "super city sprawl". This way the tried and tested yield relations can be kept, and you have only one easyly tunable parameter to adjust.

For every civ? No way, too complicated and I do not want to add building for every race.
But I am glad the elven change works as intended.

If I know him enough, Ahwaric won't ever change the 3/pop. It's like a foundation of Orbis; and I actually think it gets on Ahwaric's nerves that, each time, people are trying to remove this from Orbis

How dare you
Just kidding. It is not a foundation of Orbis, actually it is quite recent change.
But it is part of the whole phillosophy to make it reflect actuall medieval economy, or at least what we know of medieval/fantasy economy.
So no, I will not change it. But if someone really hates it, it is a very simple change in globaldefines

It has been correctly implemented in Rise of Mankind, with improvements tweaked according to it. I don't see why it couldn't be the same in Orbis.

What she says.

Civics shouldn't be 'great' in the first place. A civic that is great in itself is likely to overpowered as civics are supposed to be thought of in combinations rather than individually.

Great is ok. Overpowered (clearly better than other civics, making other things like improvements yields or building xp not important) are not.
Also, the civics should make a difference. Not big, but still worth the anarchy time to get them.

So, to sum up.
I think farms need another .
Do we agree here?
And if so, where it should be added?

Also, another idea. Malakim will get extra food instead of hammers from desert tiles. And yurts can be build on terrains that provide 1 food. So that are tundra, plains and grassland for all civs, ice for Illians and Doviello and desert for Malakim.
Or maybe malakim should get both hammer & food from desert tiles to make sure they do not spring all of it? There is a problem with floodplains (they will treat all as plains floodplains) and oasis, but standard desert tiles can't be farmed and it will be this way. So they will need that food to use desert tiles.

 

[Bootsiuv]

I completely agree about the 3 /pop system, and wouldn't ask him to change it....I would just like to see farms made a little more useful overall.

Like I said, giving farms an additional +1 , even if it's at a later tech than sanitation, would make them the best way to gain food in the late game.

Why would I tear down a 4/3/5 forest lodge on ancient in the late game? I would end up losing resources, not gaining.

As it stands now, Forest Economy is extremely powerful in Orbis, no matter what civ you choose, much more so than in base.

But, I don't really mind either way, and, yes, Awahric is the boss, so what he wants to do in the end will be ok with me.

 

[readercolin]

To give an example of the current best economy, the forest economy.

Playing as the dovollio, in a team with the elves, on a pangea map. We both ran a FoL economy, and as I was the dovollio, I got stuck in the tundra, with only a little bit in the way of forests, while my partner was stuck in a bunch of grassland forests. We beelined FoL and planted forests everywhere. My partner went around and cottaged the forest squares, with a few farms/lodges etc. on resource tiles. I went and put a foresters lodge on every tile, unless it had a resource on it. By the time the game was over, I had an army of about 50 battlemasters, while my partner had an army of about 20 longbowmen. I was producing a battlemaster ever 1-2 turns from 3 seperate cities, and had to turn off my production of units in my other cities to prevent crashing my economy. Despite this (and with me having 6 cities to my partner's 4), my research was nearly 3 times the elves, while I was running at 50% research and they were running at 80%. I also had 4 cities that were size 20+, (of my 6), while the elves largest city was size 15. The civics that I was running (that I remember) were aristocracy, survival, and GoN, and I can't remember what my partner was running - but the most important part here was that we were both running GoN, but only I was running survival. The game ended shortly after iron working, so we didn't have any of the lategame civics - she went on a slow conquering spree with gilden (who by that point was strength 12, with combat 5, drill 4, heroic attack and defense 2, flaming arrows (gotten from a lair, we didn't have sorcery), and orthus's ax), which conquered her 1/4 of the landmass over the course of 150 turns. I meinwhile conquered a good 1/3 of the map with my stack of battlemasters in 10 turns... then we won domination.

For a different case, the worst possible start for a civ, I got the grigori in plains + plains hills. The only thing that saved this game was the numerous food resources nearby. For the most part though, I was able to get 1-2 cows and 1-2 wheat in each cities BFC. Because I was the grigori, I couldn't run the forest economy, and I was too food starved to really run a yurt economy. However, this turned around completely once I got Serfdom and Markets in my cities, as the +30% food allowed me to work all my tiles. Combining this with running aristocracy for the free specialist, and I was able to manage to win that game, though it took a pretty significant amount of time to get the economy going.

Note, in both these cases, I avoided the corporations, as in their current forms they are simply way to OP, especially since the AI never gets any of them.

Due to the way these games ended up, I have a few proposals.

Firstly, make a change to the the UI, that shows food similar to how production is already shown, so that people can see how much food is coming from tiles, how much from corporations, and how much from percentage bonus's.

Second, allow for more ways to get percentage bonuses. I would propose changing the harbor/grainery/smokehouse so that each provide +5% food per resource type (much like dwarven forges do right now). This will of course lead to coastal cities being larger/more important, but that seemed to be something you were aiming for anyways. More importantly however, it will provide an early way to bonus resources and encourage trading, without adding straight up bonuses to food. I would also consider adding a preserving house, that gives food % bonuses from salt/spices, etc.

Third, I would change agrarian from providing a +1 bonus to food, to giving a +20% bonus to food, but a -20% bonus to hammers, which would lead to it being more useful in some ways, but reducing the benefits of running survival, which is much of the problem with the forest economy. I would also change serfdom to provide +1-2 commerce from farms (to show how farming is the major activity of the serfs), as well as a 10% or 20% food bonus.

This would all combine to producing very large bonuses to food coming in, but this food would all need either development/specific civics/later game techs. This would lead to the early game still being a struggle for food, but later game gives an easier time all around for food. It would do this all without adding bonuses specifically to one thing or another, and since the % bonuses would be additive, it would do so in a manner that running the civics would be great, but not overpowering because significant food bonuses can also be gotten in other manners.

-Colin

 

[Opera]

Firstly, make a change to the the UI, that shows food similar to how production is already shown, so that people can see how much food is coming from tiles, how much from corporations, and how much from percentage bonus's.

I didn't quite get this one.

 

[tokala]

Due to the way these games ended up, I have a few proposals.

Firstly, make a change to the the UI, that shows food similar to how production is already shown, so that people can see how much food is coming from tiles, how much from corporations, and how much from percentage bonus's.

Second, allow for more ways to get percentage bonuses. I would propose changing the harbor/grainery/smokehouse so that each provide +5% food per resource type (much like dwarven forges do right now). This will of course lead to coastal cities being larger/more important, but that seemed to be something you were aiming for anyways. More importantly however, it will provide an early way to bonus resources and encourage trading, without adding straight up bonuses to food. I would also consider adding a preserving house, that gives food % bonuses from salt/spices, etc.

Third, I would change agrarian from providing a +1 bonus to food, to giving a +20% bonus to food, but a -20% bonus to hammers, which would lead to it being more useful in some ways, but reducing the benefits of running survival, which is much of the problem with the forest economy. I would also change serfdom to provide +1-2 commerce from farms (to show how farming is the major activity of the serfs), as well as a 10% or 20% food bonus.

This would all combine to producing very large bonuses to food coming in, but this food would all need either development/specific civics/later game techs. This would lead to the early game still being a struggle for food, but later game gives an easier time all around for food. It would do this all without adding bonuses specifically to one thing or another, and since the % bonuses would be additive, it would do so in a manner that running the civics would be great, but not overpowering because significant food bonuses can also be gotten in other manners.

I second most this. Just waltzed with Eurabates over AI Axes and Archers, basically driven by just one specialist pumped riverside forest super-city. Could not have gotten there nearly as fast with farms.

-Mouseover help for the city screen food bar like for the hammer bar (see attachment)

-Using more percentage bonus for food-enhancing civics and buildings. This makes balancing the food output of different sources much more transparent, as global food modifiers will be applied to forests and farms.

-Forest economy needs a significant nerf

 

[Bootsiuv]

Well, it would appear we can all agree....farms are ever so slightly underpowered (or alternatively, forest economies are ever so slightly overpowered).

I think giving a +1 at another tech would be the best solution.

I'll dwell on it further, but something tells me if you want farms to be more powerful late game, then the additional should come at a tech which is later than sanitation (which is more of a mid-game tech IMO).

 

[civ_king]

If I know him enough, Ahwaric won't ever change the 3/pop. It's like a foundation of Orbis; and I actually think it gets on Ahwaric's nerves that, each time, people are trying to remove this from Orbis

It has been correctly implemented in Rise of Mankind, with improvements tweaked according to it. I don't see why it couldn't be the same in Orbis.

Civics shouldn't be 'great' in the first place. A civic that is great in itself is likely to overpowered as civics are supposed to be thought of in combinations rather than individually.

Whatever. I think total rewrite would be best in term of balancing and such but you're the boss

I'll try to come up with some techs needing cutting...
I don't but, like I said, whatever

In Orbis you don't have improvement that give 18!

 

[Kalina]

Why would I tear down a 4/3/5 forest lodge on ancient in the late game? I would end up losing resources, not gaining.

If survival civic, which is pretty much required for forest economy, had some harsh penalty to maintance (both distance and number of cities) one would be forced swich it of in later game. I don't believe it's possible, but if survival prevented you from using specialists, all this food surplus would be useless.

 

[Bootsiuv]

-Forest economy needs a significant nerf

After further thought, I have to agree here.

Even if farms recieve a +1 , I will likely still run a forest economy with all things being equal.

In my current game (Amurite, emperor, small erebus), my deer camps are giving me 8/2/2, my hill lodges give 3/4/4, and my grassland lodges yield a respectable 4/3/4 (those are all riverside, but, I expect most major cities will be on rivers; I know I'll move several turns to find one).

If I had chosen to go Calabim Flauros, you could add another +1 to the lodges.

Hell, even Falamar or Kandros Fir would likely be better off leaving the coast and hills and finding a nice forest to settle in.

I can think of several solutions to help rein in the forest economy...

1) Nerf Survival, at least somewhat. In my current game it's giving me 19 free units in addition to the +2 (agrarianism only gives +1 ), +1 to my camps, and +1 to the lodges.

Another side effect of the abundant forests is abundant deer. It very often feeds most of my empire. This isn't a problem in and of itself, and actually adds to the flavor, but this is a problem if survival remains the same and you want late game farms to be important for food.

2) If the River Port stays the same, then consider axing the +1 for lodges at WotF, it's too much.

3) Give farms a break. Let them gain a +1 at some point in the late game, whether it be via building/tech/religion isn't relevant at this point in the discussion.

I don't think it's a bad idea that a forest economy is strong.

However, as it stands now, it is superior to any other economy in almost EVERY facet of the game, from health and happiness, to food and production.

It should only be that strong for the elvish civilizations IMO.

 

[tokala]

After further thought, I have to agree here.
Even if farms recieve a +1 , I will likely still run a forest economy with all things being equal.

Exactly my point, +1 for farms AND -1 for forest lodges should be the starting point of the balancing effort.

If I had chosen to go Calabim Flauros, you could add another +1 to the lodges.
Hell, even Falamar or Kandros Fir would likely be better off leaving the coast and hills and finding a nice forest to settle in.

I think Rhoanna is the only one halfway competetive with an Aul economy, due to the high food resource density of plains.

I don't think it's a bad idea that a forest economy is strong.
However, as it stands now, it is superior to any other economy in almost EVERY facet of the game, from health and happiness, to food and production.
It should only be that strong for the elvish civilizations IMO.

Unfortunately, ATM non-elves do arguably even better in forest than elves, the -20% food penalty is hitting very hard in the early game with a forest start.

After some more pondering, i think the percentage modifiers for food need some very careful balancing, too. Again the underlying reason is the 3 system in combination with a base yields of 2 for the dominant grassland terrain. As your yields with improvements will be only sleightly higher than the sustainability level, the effects of percentage modifiers tends to be larger than apparent by the numbers.

Example: 4 food per tile, as per ancient lodges or agrarianism farms, 1 surplus
Elven Citizens: -20% results in 3.2 food per tile, effectively decreases tile surplus by 80%. In the game its even worse, as the food output gets rounded down to the next integer, so the surplus can get as low as 0
Market: +10% results in 4.4 food per tile, increasing surplus by 40%.

Would there be a way to apply the modifiers only to improvement yields instead of overall yield?

 

[Ahwaric]

I have read the above proposals and think you are making a mistake. I will discuss it on the following post as it is quite compact:

Well, actually, it's a combination of several factors.
2) The relative strength of the lodge when combined with ancient forests, WotF commerce bonus, survival, levees, and river ports, creating a potential 4/4/4 riverside grassland tile. For riverside hills, -1 and +1, and you can add an additional to all of them if you pick one of the financial leaders.

Can we please discuss only foresters?
Financial leaders apply not only to foresters, so it is not relevant.
River tile yields modifiers are the same for all improvements or even without one. While it needs balancing on its own, it is not part of forestry
So, what we keep?
Base 1 1 1 (includes WotF bonus and all techs bonuses)
Compare that with town (5 1 ) or any other improvement except farm. Not so good.
True, it gets bonus 1 from forest tile. First, that requires forest to be there. Second, still not that great. Quarry starts with 2 :hammers, with blasting powder and WotE you get simmilar yields to maxed forester's lodge. And extra hammer from lodge comes from Commune with Nature, a really late tech.

True, ancient forest tile with forester gets 2 2 and 1 on top of terrain yields. It is more than farm, even after the proposed changes (3 1 ).
But are you sure we should change it?
It requires FoL and late techs. Plus, I think it fits the flavour that FoL nations get a lot of forests.
Elves will be better than now, as they can builds farms in forests and farms will improve

In general, I think in BtS/FfH only good thing about forests is that you can cut them down. No river commerce (why?), low yields... Only exception are elves under FoL, but even other civs can't benefit from forests.
With proposed changes you will have to decide if to keep ancient forests for more hammers or cut them down for a bit more food. I guess you will keep forests, and that is fine for me.
But comparision standard forest/farm is hard and you will probably cut at least some. And I like that too.

1) The relative weakness of farms in comparison with forester's lodge.

This is the only one that stands - and I am going to add 1 to farms in 0.30
The other problematic part is survival. I agree, it is too good now. I want it to be good in early game or for small empires. So it will be nerfed - probably will add big city number maintenance penalties.

Edit:
Forgot one thing. I do not want many buildings with % food bonus. I think it should be quite special, and justified. While I can see some reason to add that for harbour and sea resources, I do not think it should be added for granaries etc.
The main point is, they apply to whale food produced - so even if city gets all food from farms, if it has harbor it will still get % food because there are fish on the other side of the continent. Also, granary would get bonus from wheat from another city even if all food comes from hunting/fishing.
It reflects trade a bit, but not that great. And could be quite hard to balance. Market is different - just one, and you sell a variety of goods there, right?
Maybe a mill building for a city? Avaliable with machinery perhaps or witha synergy with farmer guild...
By the way, guilds are founded in my every game - I am usually able to get one or two only. Falamar just loves Hansa...

 

[Bootsiuv]

You make some interesting points.

I'm getting ready for work, and don't have much time to discuss right now.

However, if you look at my previous suggestions, you'll see the only things I recommended was a slight nerf of survival, the loss of the WotF commerce bonus (which isn't really required), and the ability for farms to gain an additional in addition to agreed upon additional .

Of course, the final decision is yours. I just enjoy discussions like this.

 

[Ahwaric]

However, if you look at my previous suggestions, you'll see the only things I recommended was a slight nerf of survival,

Checked in

the loss of the WotF commerce bonus (which isn't really required),

That would make forester provide just 1 for most of the game. Not much. I think for both balance & falvour reasons bonus from WotF should stay.

and the ability for farms to gain an additional in addition to agreed upon additional .

I think a farm providing 3 and 1 is enough. If I boost it more, it will be overpowered compared with other improvements (towns, quarries)

Of course, the final decision is yours. I just enjoy discussions like this.

And it helps me balancing things. But there is no way everyone thinks it is balanced. I am happy that I get complains claiming that an improvement/civic is overpowered and too weak at the same time...

Regarding specifics, I will add another tech (yes Opera, I know what you think...), called Crop Rotation (should be Three Field crop rotation, but it is too long) that adds extra food to farms and enables farmer's guild. It will require either monasticism or engineering (or both). Maybe I should add mill building that improves food output?

Also, I am not sure why the extra farm yield is provided by sanitation... The only reason I can think of is: less diseases -> longer lifespan -> more people. But sanitation has hardly anything to do with crop yields.
I am thinking of moving the bonus to a fitting tech. Like calendar. But agrarianism is already there, so maybe I should increase cost of the tech or maybe even move it a bit later?
Also, how about moving agrarianism to a classical tech? I can't look at the tech-tree right now so no specific ideas, just general one. This way the civic would come later and increase crops from 2 to 3 instead of doubling the output (1->2). Less of a no-brainer it would be (I hope the sentence makes sense ).
Maybe couple it with lowering the production penalty of agrarianism to -15%?

Also, what maintenece penalty should be added for number of cities at survival? +100%?

 

[tokala]

True, ancient forest tile with forester gets 2 2 and 1 on top of terrain yields. It is more than farm, even after the proposed changes (3 1 ).
But are you sure we should change it?
...
This is the only one that stands - and I am going to add 1 to farms in 0.30
The other problematic part is survival. I agree, it is too good now. I want it to be good in early game or for small empires. So it will be nerfed - probably will add big city number maintenance penalties.

By severely limiting the usefulness of survival for an economically thriving empire, you will effectively deny the second hammer to the forest economy. So in combination with another for farms this should be good for the next round of playtesting
Nerfing Survival via maintenance penalty is maybe not enough, as this still allow for few but large cities. What about my earlier suggestion of dishing out a serious penalty? This will let you keeping afloat moneywise, but for scientific progress you should prefer other civics.

What about moving the extra from sanitation to construction, maybe code of laws? After all, large scale irrigation systems are not something you get done without same basic engineering, and the maintenance of said systems and the fair distribution of water requires usually some sort of central authority. One could also argue that the rule of law is encouraging farm production above subsistence level and "cash crop" production, so it could be used for agrarianism as well.
Maybe let sanitation give food storage building a (very small) food production bonus, or let it enhance the percentage of "food stored after growth"?

Another random idea: maybe somehow making the creation of Ancient forests a deliberate choice by having it some (slight) drawback, instead of something that is always better than normal forest (swapping the extra +1 for -1, reducing the yield of improvements, increased movement cost, ...)

Keep up the good work, all our argueing just shows how much we like your modmod

 

[readercolin]

Edit: Decided to make it pretty, but the forum didn't like it. Therefore, multiple posts.

And why wouldn't a % bonus from having grain/animals be justified, but a % bonus from fish maybe? The addition of food increases the health of the citizens which works just fine in regular BTS/FFH, because a tile can actually feed itself. But between the increased food requirements in orbis, and the plethora of resources that provide +health, the health bonus really makes no difference at all, except to tiny empires.

Sea resources can be salted and traded anywhere, or smoked, and they will keep for a long time. The wider diet gives more variety, but this is already represented by the +health. As said above however, the +health is fairly meaningless in orbis.

Similarly, for a smokehouse. I see no pigs anywhere near where I live right now, but I can go down to the market and buy some ham. Similarly, with smoking/salting, and the fact that you can move animals around (aka, a pasture indicates a large number of the piggies, but if you have them, farmers everywhere will have a few), it provides the +health from a wider variety of food. Again however, due to the number of resources in orbis, that +health is rather meaningless for anything but the smallest of empires.

Lastly, for the Grainery. Again, the +health from a wider diet is already represented, and again, in orbis its fairly meaningless. repeat my arguments from above, and you'll see where I'm going here.

Adding the +% from these buildings might give weight to these buildings in such a manner that they would be actually useful. It might also make them OP. That would be up to testing to determine.

An alternative way for cities to gain food when they really need it would relate to the arguments that I was raising above, but looked at from a different point of view. You could instead make these buildings I was discussing add +% food per resource from trade routes - I'm reffering to what Rise from Erebus has right now in the merchant trait, but tied to buildings instead. This would have the effect of vastly increasing the power/usefulness of trade routes... on the other hand, in orbis at the moment, trade routes are rather lacking. Yes, you can get a few more modifiers from buildings, but these modifiers don't really make up for the lack of the ability to have supercities like you can in regular FFH (especially when running sacrifice the weak), which has a huge impact on trade. This is admittedly harder to balance/control.

-Colin

 

[Ahwaric]

Wow, a lot of text.

But...
The farms will get extra food in 0.30. I have already added this to changelog and game files.
Also, you run survival. It will be worse, and already has certain drawbacks.
Also, you have to run FoL. So you can't run RoK or AV (Sacrifice the Weak anyone?)
So, I am ok with economy that works very good IF you make certain sacrifices.

Also, I think harbor is different as it is a trade commodity. Granary is not.
But I am not going to add +% food to any of these buildings - it is quite complicated this way, and really really hard to balance. I would prefer to remove said buildings rather that add food %.
Granary and smokehouse allow your city to grow faster as these store food after city growth. I think I will do some changes to health to make every bonus count. So far not sure how exactly, but I will.

Regarding survival, I agree that maintenance penalty might be not the best way. I am afraid to add science penalties not to limit civ development too much. It fits thematicaly and would be good nerf, so I am tempted to go this route...

 

[readercolin]

Continued with prettified post.

Now, back to foresters lodge. The problem with your argument, is that you are saying that 1 and 5 from a cottage is better than the 1 , 1 , 1 commerce from a foresters lodge. This quite frankly, isn't looking at enough of the picture. Firstly, the +1 from ancient forests means that everyone tries to go for FoL. Combine this with how early FoL is, and the great effects that GoN has with large cities, and everyone will be going for FoL/GoN for their forest economy. Therefore, you have to consider that most likely, 3/4 of the tiles of a forest economy give +2 , +2 (1 from survival, 1 from the forest, IIRC, the third hammer is lategame) and this is all in place by turn 150 on normal speed. As for not having forests, again, if I run a forest economy, I get FoL. Priesthood, if I beeline it, comes around turn 100, but really won't come later than turn 150.

Therefore, by turn 200, every single tile around my cities (unless its a resource tile) is +2 , +2 , +1 . That means that for every 3 tiles in my borders, I have 1 specialist, if I'm on grassland. If I'm on plains, then every tile can feed itself. Due to standard orbis procedure, I will have every city settled somewhere near food resources, which generally can feed a minimum of 2 citizens (one working the tile, 1 doing other stuff). This means that if I manage to get 2 resources near my city, then I will have a minimum of two specialists supported, 3 when I run aristocracy (which I usually do). So now every city gets +2 per citizen, +1 per citizen, and can support 3 specialists at minimum. So a size 23 city, which isn't hard to get with this setup, especially with all the forests to provide health and GoN to provide happy, will be getting base tile hammer/commerce, as well as +36 , +18 , and +whatever from the 3-4 specialists (2 from food resources, 1 from aristocracy (optional), 1 from center tile) which if they are unbuffed scientists, thats +9-12 research. All this, on turn 200 and not even counting any extra food from having grassland tiles, or extra hammers from having plains or hills tiles. If I'm missing any yields, this will only improve the situation here.

-Colin

 

[readercolin]

More prettified post - since when was the little hammer and food symbols considered images?!?!

Now lets compare that to a cottage/farm economy. Again, assuming that there are two tiles that produce 6 , this economy can support a base of 5 pop from those two tiles. Each cottage needs to be on a grasslands or fresh water square, which means that the only spot that you can have an effective cottage economy would be on grassland, or next to a river (though that wouldn't be very effective). A farm provides +1 , +1 more from agrarianism, and +1 last from sanitation. That means that on grassland, each farm square provides +2 after sanitation has been researched, above what is needed to feed that tile, or +1 on a plains tile, and the plains tiles require at least 1 square next to a river/lake to be able to build the farms, which is 1 less tile available for a cottage. So assuming best case for the cottage economy, to get to size 20 with farms on grassland, with 2 squares providing +3 above what is needed to feed themselves, and the center tile providing +3 , requiring 6 tiles with a +2 surplus. That leaves 12 tiles for cottages, which gives 12 and 60 at +1 and +5 . IIRC however, one of those doesn't come till taxation which wouldn't usually come around till after turn 200. That means that by turn 200, this city is going to have +12 , +48 . Given a plains start however, this is drastically reduced (note, I'm not going to compare an aul economy - those ALWAYS suck more, without fail, unless you're the hippus, in which case it comes out about the same as the forest economy, with maybe a little less in the way in hammers and a little more in the way of commerce). In this case, again assuming +6 from food tiles and +3 from the center tile, you would need 8 farms to be able to feed the rest of the tiles, giving you a total of 10 :cottages:, for +10 , +50 - +40 before taxation. Running shadow court (may or may not get before turn 200), the grassland economy would then have +24 , +48 or 60 , and the plains one would end up with +20 , +40 or 50 . Do note however, that this economy would require more in the way of happiness and health to reach these sizes.

-Colin

 

[readercolin]

Not quite the last prettified post...

Now lets compare these two economies. The only civics used are survival, agrairanism, GoN, and Shadow Court. That means that we are comparing the forest economy on grassland, which provides a +18 (food from the food resources already counted towards the research), +36 bonus, +18 , and +9 :research:, which if we say that is , gives us +40 , +27 . A forest economy on plains gives us +36 , +18 , +9 :research: (+27 ). A cottage economy on grassland gives +12/24 , +48 , while a cottage on plains gives +10/20 , +40 . Do note however that this economy will have -20% .

Comparing grassland to grassland, the forest economy still has a surplus of food, which the cottage economy does not, provides 3/2x as many as the cottage running shadow court, or 3x as many as the cottage without shadow court. The Cottage economy gives 2x as much in the way of as the forest economy. However, this may well be partially canceled out by the extra food from the forest economy (18 food means 6 scientists, which is 18 :research:, which would bring the forest economy up to 47 effective , matching the cottage economy).

Comparing Plains to Plains, the forest economy again has 3/2x as many as the cottage when the cottage is running shadow court, 3x as many when it isn't. However now, the cottage economy gives 4/3 as much as the forest economy, though in this case the forest economy wouldn't be able to catch up later.

-Colin