Increase grower specialist yield

[FaceUnderMask]

TL; DR:
Increase grower specialist yield to +4

Why it makes sense from the balance point of view?

1. As they are now, they only worth 1 citizen base bonus, which is +1 and +1. Science specialist worth +3, and trader specialist worth +2, which makes growers worst specialist.
2. They are basically worth as much as unimproved grassland. It doesn't seem fair that a specialist that require technology and building investment worth as much as unimproved generic tile.
3. The only use for them is growing your bad cities while tile improvements are still being built.

Why +4 is a good number?

1. It is the same as grassland/riverdesert farms with ectopod.
2. It is the same as grassland/riverdesert purity farms without ectopod.
3. It is the same as grassland/riverdesert biowells.

• If growers were given a yield of +4, they will have a tech-parity with other options, because first 4 growers are obtained with Organics, which is as expensive as Bionics (Mass digester), and other 3 obtained with expensive Social dynamics (civil creche). On a side note - right now Organics is only worth picking if going harmony route, and social dynamics isn't something I pick often at all.
• The main upside of grower specialists will be that they are not terrain-dependant. You can run a small tundra city with them, which is what Mass Digester was originally intended for, I believe.
• The main downside is that they are limited and require quite expensive buildings (255 mass digester, 445 civil creche).
• There's no way they can completely replace other options, but will definitely have their use.

Why it would make sense logically?
Way back in medieval times the majority of people were farmers. Nowadays with development of technologies the amount of people busy in farming was drastically reduced, and still falling. From that point grower specialists doesn't make sense - because they basically feed only themselves right now - that's even worse than it was in medieval, and we're talking about SciFi there.

Discussion is welcomed.

Edit:
Related specialists suggestions:
Specialist upgrades from wonders
Quests from specialists
General discussion on specialists

 

[T Glenhaber]

This is a good idea. However, couldn't you give techs/policies/quests that improve it instead of giving the whole amount at the beginning?
For example, after you build the mass digester, one of the options is take the educated people to work the digester (+1 from growers) or +1 from digesters. This could give the option of using specialists for greater rewards or you can use the generic option and not go into all of the techs which may be out of the way.

 

[Bezurn]

I do agree the grower specialist need an improvement. My thought is to give the +3 food and +2% food output of the city. CivBE lacks the magical "city state" food from maritime CS's so these specialists could help fill the niche and allow a person to play a taller empire easier.

 

[FaceUnderMask]

+3 is also a good number. Probably even better, because I hadn't taken existance of Hands Never Idle virtue into consideration when I wrote the op post.

A quest to buff growers is fine, as long as it's effect is global (all specs, not only building related) and the quest is given by mass digester, not civil creche. Actually, +1 food from growers vs +20% food carried over on growth as mass digester's quest would've made a neat choice to make.
A virtue is less appealing, because it would simply leave growers pretty unusable unless you pick it. And well, Hands Never Idle exists right now.
Same for the tech.

 

[sprang]

+3 is also a good number. Probably even better, because I hadn't taken existance of Hands Never Idle virtue into consideration when I wrote the op post.

A quest to buff growers is fine, as long as it's effect is global (all specs, not only building related) and the quest is given by mass digester, not civil creche. Actually, +1 food from growers vs +20% food carried over on growth as mass digester's quest would've made a neat choice to make.
A virtue is less appealing, because it would simply leave growers pretty unusable unless you pick it. And well, Hands Never Idle exists right now.
Same for the tech.

WIth pre-patch TR, growers let you keep growing your city when you ran out of land. Each pop gets not just the +1S, +1E, but also other bonuses from Virtues: +.25S, +.25C, +.5P, health, etc...

Post-patch, cities grow too slowly to ever reach max pops, so a +3F grower makes more sense. Note that Engineers only give +2P, which is less than a mine, and Traders give +2E, which is worse than a desert generator (other generators also give a food). So a Grower should not give as much as the best farming tile. 3F is a good balance.

Agreed that specialists in general should get more buffs - they are currently measures of last resort.

 

[FaceUnderMask]

WIth pre-patch TR, growers let you keep growing your city when you ran out of land. Each pop gets not just the +1S, +1E, but also other bonuses from Virtues: +.25S, +.25C, +.5P, health, etc...

Post-patch, cities grow too slowly to ever reach max pops, so a +3F grower makes more sense. Note that Engineers only give +2P, which is less than a mine, and Traders give +2E, which is worse than a desert generator (other generators also give a food). So a Grower should not give as much as the best farming tile. 3F is a good balance.

Agreed that specialists in general should get more buffs - they are currently measures of last resort.

Right, I kinda forgot about these (not so) tiny bonuses to pop from virtues.
I'd like to point out that desert tiles do give food too, with vivariums built.
Otherwise yes, other specialists are not that great either, I just brought up growers because food is a basic yield and they seem to be the least useful among specs, if you don't pick hands never idle. With hands never idle growers are actually pretty decent.

By the way, the other reason why tiles are generally better is the ability to buff them with satellites. It's just not often done because oil is pretty unreliable to get.

 

[Black Whole]

Actually, I think that specialists should be even more diversified than just giving plain "boring" yields. Instead they should have effects which benefits tall cities (hence justifying tall gameplay). Assuming we have 5 specialist slots for each type:

Grower: +5% Food kept after city growth; +2 Food
Engineer: Purchase costs reduced by 5%; +2 Production
Trader: Trade routes give more yield?; +2 Energy
Scientist: +10% science; +2 Science
Artist: Border growth increased by 20%; +2 Culture

Of course, this is just my idea and far from possible ATM.

 

[sprang]

Actually, I think that specialists should be even more diversified than just giving plain "boring" yields. Instead they should have effects which benefits tall cities (hence justifying tall gameplay). Assuming we have 5 specialist slots for each type:

Grower: +5% Food kept after city growth; +2 Food
Engineer: Purchase costs reduced by 5%; +2 Production
Trader: Trade routes give more yield?; +2 Energy
Scientist: +10% science; +2 Science
Artist: Border growth increased by 20%; +2 Culture

Of course, this is just my idea and far from possible ATM.

Gonna disagree. If you want tall, go play CiV. Stop trying to make BE fit your preferred playstyle. It's a wider game.

If you added all these bonuses, what would you gimp? Specialists can only be situationally better, not a dominating strategy. That would unbalance the game and disadvantage the AI. Yes, I see the hit you took on Scientists.

I'd also note that these specialist bonuses fall into the old 1=1=1=1 trap. No way is 2 culture worth 2 energy. At minimum, specialist yields ought to reflect the exchange rates present in the game. +2 Prod = +2 Science = +3 Food (+1 surplus actually, food is wierd) = +1 culture = +4 energy

 

[Black Whole]

Gonna disagree. If you want tall, go play CiV. Stop trying to make BE fit your preferred playstyle. It's a wider game.

If you added all these bonuses, what would you gimp? Specialists can only be situationally better, not a dominating strategy. That would unbalance the game and disadvantage the AI. Yes, I see the hit you took on Scientists.

I'd also note that these specialist bonuses fall into the old 1=1=1=1 trap. No way is 2 culture worth 2 energy. At minimum, specialist yields ought to reflect the exchange rates present in the game. +2 Prod = +2 Science = +3 Food (+1 surplus actually, food is wierd) = +1 culture = +4 energy

I actually never liked playing tall and prefer a wide gameplay. Stop assuming things like this. It was just an idea, which would allow both.

Well, specialists would be interesting, for a start. They would be situational enough to make them a choice. A low science city wouldn't need scientist specialists because working academies would be more effective. Growers could help grow cities faster, especially in the later stages of the game.
In which way would they be a dominating strategy? I don't see your point. Most of them make only sense if you have the capacity to support them. Growing cities is already slow in BE, so I don't see why this would unbalance the game. And why would it disadvantage the AI? At higher difficulty levels they have so much bonuses, the difference made by the specialists wouldn't be noticable at all. You could say this for many other game elements too, BTW. Trade routes, Covert Ops, 1UPT, Vitues...

Yes I am aware of the 1=1=1=1 trap. I was just throwing some numbers without thinking too much about equality, since they would need adjustment anyway in order to make the other effect they have not OP/UP.

 

[omniclast]

I would like leaf techs that buff specialists the same way improvements get buffs, so that focusing on improving your specialists rather than improvements was an option.

I'd also like to see a virtue added (probably in late knowledge) that gives 0.5h per population acting as specialist, similar to the Freedom tenet in Civ5. There is actually a table for this in the game code, but it was not implemented.

 

[Gamewizard]

Don't forget that surplus food and base production affect your internal trade routes, so a grower is contributing more than just the +2 food. And obviously their value increases if you have all the food carry-over effects.

They aren't amazing, but they aren't useless either. I would like to see more general specialist enhancements spread out over tech and virtues as well, instead of just the one virtue in Prosperity.

 

[silvertuerk]

CivBE lacks the magical "city state" food from maritime CS's

Omoikane? Hekima?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I actually never liked playing tall and prefer a wide gameplay. Stop assuming things like this. It was just an idea, which would allow both.

I also want both. When I found out a specialist economy was viable in civ 4 it got me excited about the game again. Having more than one way to play.
Civilization five started as a wider game. Very wide. Why should CivBE stay that way and not have a tall option? This isn't like complaining that we like real time games better so this should be real time. THEN you should go play a different game. Asking do adjust some numbers so there are two options like the last game instead of one isn't an unreasonable demand.

Don't forget that surplus food and base production affect your internal trade routes, so a grower is contributing more than just the +2 food. And obviously their value increases if you have all the food carry-over effects.

They aren't amazing, but they aren't useless either. I would like to see more general specialist enhancements spread out over tech and virtues as well, instead of just the one virtue in Prosperity.

That was true before the patch and I was going to mention it here but forget. I checked trade routes before and after assigning specialists and it did make a deference. However I'm not sure how trade works now. I'm not sure it does make a difference worth using them for.

I would like leaf techs that buff specialists the same way improvements get buffs, so that focusing on improving your specialists rather than improvements was an option.

I'd also like to see a virtue added (probably in late knowledge) that gives 0.5h per population acting as specialist, similar to the Freedom tenet in Civ5. There is actually a table for this in the game code, but it was not implemented.

Definitely want more boosts to specialists. Right now they start off below average and stay that way unless you go deep prosperity and even then there are so many tile improvement boosts they fall behind.

One think I thought of recently is to have your colonists choice also improve the corresponding specialists. Why wouldn't having scientist colonists mean I have better scientist specialists?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Actually, I think that specialists should be even more diversified than just giving plain "boring" yields. Instead they should have effects which benefits tall cities (hence justifying tall gameplay). Assuming we have 5 specialist slots for each type:

Grower: +5% Food kept after city growth; +2 Food
Engineer: Purchase costs reduced by 5%; +2 Production
Trader: Trade routes give more yield?; +2 Energy
Scientist: +10% science; +2 Science
Artist: Border growth increased by 20%; +2 Culture

Of course, this is just my idea and far from possible ATM.

I think having percentage increases from specialists is a little overcomplicated for something that should be simple. Although I do think there should be more percentage based increases to make specialization better it doesn't work well for something you can turn on and off at will.
Especially grower which you could use for just the one turn before your city grows and then go back, or engineers where you could fill the slots, buy something, and then empty them again in the same turn.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Sorry for the tripple post but with all the specialist threads around I forget where I'm replying.

A quest to buff growers is fine, as long as it's effect is global (all specs, not only building related) and the quest is given by mass digester, not civil creche. Actually, +1 food from growers vs +20% food carried over on growth as mass digester's quest would've made a neat choice to make.

I suggested having themselves specialists give quests:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=539733
The obvious quests to give would be specialist enhancing quests. Also makes be wonder if the great people counter is still there under the hood and could be re-purposed to function as exp. points to 'level up' your specialists.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I think having percentage increases from specialists is a little overcomplicated for something that should be simple. Although I do think there should be more percentage based increases to make specialization better it doesn't work well for something you can turn on and off at will.
Especially grower which you could use for just the one turn before your city grows and then go back, or engineers where you could fill the slots, buy something, and then empty them again in the same turn.

That's not how "save x% of food" works. It's actually a gruesome abuse of language that it's written like that. Suffice it to say, Aqueducts, and Civ IV Granaries, are stateful buildings that keep a ticker of food going into the city in secret. YOu'd think that food amount would get times X% and put into the next bucket, but no, actually that entire stack is put into the next bucket, but only up to X% of the -next- bucket's size.

Absolutely abysmal language. Complete word fail. English loss of command control. But there is no exploit for this mechanic.

Your aversion to more dynamic multipliers is understandable, but I think just subjective. There is no technical limitation in play, and as you admit, multipliers work out better than modifiers.

 

[Laurwin]

I agree that specialists should be buffed.

What's the point of running specialist when specialist is worse than normal tile being worked?

What's the purpose of spending expensive hammers to build specialist buildings, when specialists being employed are worse than normal tile being worked?

In Civ5, sure, there were better and worse specialists e.g. merchants, and scientists. But you still got value sometimes out of the merchants because you couldn't spam gold tile improvements in early game in that earlier civ. If you needed gold early game, you run merchants and build markets etc.

Scientists were useful in that they got the GSs up and running so you got more tech boost that way. GMs were useful for unit upgrades back in the day for quick cash boost before war etc...

 

[Laurwin]

Gonna disagree. If you want tall, go play CiV. Stop trying to make BE fit your preferred playstyle. It's a wider game.

If you added all these bonuses, what would you gimp? Specialists can only be situationally better, not a dominating strategy. That would unbalance the game and disadvantage the AI. Yes, I see the hit you took on Scientists.

I'd also note that these specialist bonuses fall into the old 1=1=1=1 trap. No way is 2 culture worth 2 energy. At minimum, specialist yields ought to reflect the exchange rates present in the game. +2 Prod = +2 Science = +3 Food (+1 surplus actually, food is wierd) = +1 culture = +4 energy

Well, last time I checked the name of the game in steam library is called "Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth."

Specialists are hardly useful at all it seems. Especially growers, traders, engineers. ARtists and scientists seem to be more useful ones, because those values are more scarce in the game anyway, so it makes more sense to employ them as opposed to working tiles, or other specialists.

What is needed is buffs that make it useful to actually build some of these specialist-using buildings. And logically one reason to build specialist-buildings would be to actually employ specialists in the cities, so there should definitely be gameplay incentive to actually employ specialists which give good bonuses.

 

[LORD ORION]

Hard to say if they need a buff, even if every other specialist was higher that doesn't mean the food game mechanics are broken. (health certainly is broken, so don't confuse growth versus too much growth)

They serve 3 purposes
1) Rapidly increase the population of small and medium cities when you have health (sure you're working tiles inefficiently and sacrificing +output to maximize food, but adding 4-5 pop in a few turns makes up for it when you go back to normal operations)
2) Increase growth for large cities when your tiles can support some more population, but it's going to take too long (at which point every piece of food matters)
3) Emergency food backup when your tiles are blocked by an enemy.

I don't see a case made in this thread for the need to increase population more rapidly or a case that points out an imbalance in growth.
You can already outgrow someone by a massive difference if you want.