Is Agriculture too strong?

[onedreamer]

only +1 food would, on the other hand, make all cities without grassland or floodplains unable to run farms as you would trade 1P to 1F, without slavery avaiable (to all) this is a bad tradeoff.

Why is it a bad tradeoff ? And if there is a tradeoff, then it's not true they would be unable to run farms...

 

[Thennorin]

I voted for 1 food but I don't think it's the ideal solution. It used to only give +1 food iirc, back in the Light phase some time. At that time, it was generally deemed here to be underpowered and wasn't used much.

Leaving +2 food and giving agriculture a -15% to -20% global production modifier would make it much more interesting. Sure, you could grow your cities fast and it would still synergise with specialists, but there would actually be a good reason you might want to use another civic. After all, what's the good of having big cities that don't produce much?

 

[Gamestation]

I voted for 1 food but I don't think it's the ideal solution. It used to only give +1 food iirc, back in the Light phase some time. At that time, it was generally deemed here to be underpowered and wasn't used much.

Leaving +2 food and giving agriculture a -15% to -20% global production modifier would make it much more interesting. Sure, you could grow your cities fast and it would still synergise with specialists, but there would actually be a good reason you might want to use another civic. After all, what's the good of having big cities that don't produce much?

It was much worse than you thought, agriculture was just a buffer +1 that was meant to counteract the +1 from the fend for themselves civic that everyone was forced into starting with because there was no basic care.

 

[subanark]

It should be changed to:
+1 health
+1 food per farm
+1 food per hamlet, cottage, ect...
-1 hammer per mine
-1 hammer per workshop

This penalizes those with a lot of mines, but if you end up in an area without many hills, you don't receive a big penalty.

 

[much2much]

Leaving +2 food and giving agriculture a -15% to -20% global production modifier would make it much more interesting. Sure, you could grow your cities fast and it would still synergise with specialists, but there would actually be a good reason you might want to use another civic. After all, what's the good of having big cities that don't produce much?

-20% is not even an issue until a city is producing 20 hammers assuming a mined plains hill tile the extra food allows you to work.

If you think cities are all about hammers try and build warriors only and then upgrade them to your latest unit with commerce only. You will discover that a good economy beats the pants off hammers.

 

[katika]

-20% is not even an issue until a city is producing 20 hammers assuming a mined plains hill tile the extra food allows you to work.

If you think cities are all about hammers try and build warriors only and then upgrade them to your latest unit with commerce only. You will discover that a good economy beats the pants off hammers.

But you can have Agriculture long before Mining, and then you only get (at best) 3 production from forest plains hills. Also, you won't get a "free population" to work an extra tile to compensate the hammers once you reach your happycap.

 

[marioflag]

Actually Agriculture is overpowered, compared to other civics is just too strong.Personally i wouldn't change the +2 food bonus because a +1 food bonus per farm would make this civic underpowered compared to the other Economic civics, well except for Conquest.I would rather see an added penalty to production like -10% production penalty for your civilization or a -1 hammer per mine and quarry

 

[Grey Fox]

Thanks for that. Just been playing the first 150 turns of a game with +1 food agriculture, and WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT! Gameplay is just so much smoother, it's unbelievable. It takes a little bit of time to actually reach happy caps, you need more than just one or two farms to supply the whole city, so much of the tedious micromanagement is gone, you can't just automatically race to huge happy heights when you get a religion, cottages are much more viable vs elder councils, and food resources are actually useful!
Settlers and workers are still very cheap, but they take enough extra time that it detracts from other production, and so REXing is significantly reduced (even by the AI). As a result, there's more unsettled land, barbarians are a bigger threat (and for much longer), and it's not just a race to pop out the most settlers possible.
Right now, I am absolutely loving the difference it makes. I still feel as though I would probably stick to it as the default option (at least until sanitation), but that's something that could be helped by beefing up the other civics. And it would be nice to try moving it back a tech or two (not sure where I'd move it to though), or giving it some associated penalty. But it improves the flow of the early game so much that I'm convinced that the reduction in food bonus is a very good thing.

Ok, I voted "Yes, but I like it that way". But at the same time I realize it is a game breaking thing really. It's really hard not to use Agriculture.

But this post made me want to try this out myself. Once I give myself some time off working on cIVRPG I will try this. Your post really almost convinced me its the right move.

BUT, with a capital B, and lots of shakin'. Please do something about Mercentalism, and Foreign Trade as well. They are Real boring civics to me.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

To summarize:

At this time we have a total of votes: 83 but 6 have n opinion so that gives us 77 votes.

9 ppl say it is not overpowered = 11,6%
66 ppl have voted for the option 'YES,...' = 88.3%

20,8% say it is overpowered but they like it that way.

This gives us:
32,4% of ppl who want it to stay as it is.
67,5% who want the agriculture to change

 

[Sureshot]

actually, over half of the 67% (which is actually 62%) is to balance it some other way, that could involve not touching agriculture but instead improving other civics or even something crazy like increasing the amount of food a city requires to grow.

only 30% of people definitely want agriculture reduced in power if we go by this poll.

 

[xanaqui42]

How about changing it to +1 food/farm, +1 health per farm? This would be a somewhat weaker effect, without going all the way down to +1 food/farm.

 

[Sureshot]

How about changing it to +1 food/farm, +1 health per farm? This would be a somewhat weaker effect, without going all the way down to +1 food/farm.

ya thats the thing i suggested a while ago, but not sure if its possible

 

[Thennorin]

-20% is not even an issue until a city is producing 20 hammers assuming a mined plains hill tile the extra food allows you to work.

If you think cities are all about hammers try and build warriors only and then upgrade them to your latest unit with commerce only. You will discover that a good economy beats the pants off hammers.

Good point, though perhaps it comes down to different play styles. I'm a builder and like to create big cities, hence the best idea that comes to mind for me is for agriculture to give less food and also have a production penalty of some sort.

Agriculture by itself isn't a source of massive commerce. It's only because the food bonus is too high that other civics can be combined without peer to make a big commerce synergy, or extra cottages can be worked. I figure that dropping the food bonus & giving a production penalty would even out any commerce vs hammers argument for this civic.

@Gamestation: Oops, my mistake. Light seems so long ago now...

 

[felwar]

Perhaps if mercantilism and foreign trade weren't so bad or had no draw-backs, they might be more appealing. Conquest I use depending on the map type or if I'm playing the Lanun. Guardian of Nature goes well with its religion. But the last two are the primary problem with the tree more than agriculture itself. Give us a reason to switch... boost the bad instead of crippling the good.

Bottom line, if you are going to change agriculture to +1 food instead of +2, you'll still need to improve the other options. That choice was missing from this poll.

 

[uberfish]

I picked "Yes, but I like it that way" because it makes the specialist route more viable, before these changes cottages were the optimal improvement.

Not really, specialist econ is very strong in FFH because specialists get bonuses from civics and cottages do not. The main reason to use some cottages is to keep under the happiness cap and because you're limited in how many specialists you can hire early game.


Late game at +2 food:

grass farm + aristocracy 4/0/2 with the excess food running 1 specialist that's giving the equivalent of 3 commerce + civic bonuses

with scholarship and caste system this gives 7 commerce 2 culture, or you can run Altar-boosted priests instead under religious discipline for 4 commerce + 2 production

AND you get GPP which although having diminishing returns clearly still have some value.

The alternative is a lategame cottage which just gives you 5 commerce and no gpp, which is clearly weaker.


At +1 food, let's say you drop aristocracy (keep caste) for a 4/0/0 farm and a scientist/merchant still gives 4-5 commerce 2 culture, or 2-3 commerce 2 culture 2 production for Altar priest so it's still better especially because you can switch the cities between commerce and production at will, and get GPP. (the tradeoff is having to maintain the city at 1 higher happiness cap)


I forgot to count sanitation here so it's actually even better for the specialists so long as you have enough happiness/health.

 

[Grey Fox]

Late game at +2 food:

grass farm + aristocracy 4/0/2 with the excess food running 1 specialist that's giving the equivalent of 3 commerce + civic bonuses

with scholarship and caste system this gives 7 commerce 2 culture, or you can run Altar-boosted priests instead under religious discipline for 4 commerce + 2 production

AND you get GPP which although having diminishing returns clearly still have some value.

The alternative is a lategame cottage which just gives you 5 commerce and no gpp, which is clearly weaker.

Then consider it with Sacrifice the Weak instead.

Grass Farm = 6 food with sanitation and agriculture, 1 Pop supporting 6 population including itself, and excluding health.

5 Specialists, thats +5 Beakers * 5 = +25 Beakers (and about +34 GPP, with a Philosophical civilization)

 

[EugeneStyles]

Yeah, I was one of the ones that voted to fix it some other way. I prefer a minor penalty added to Ag (-25% GPP would be a good start, I think), and bonuses to the other Econ civics. Mercantilism and Foreign Trade need to have less penalties and more bonuses. Even Conquest could use some help. I tried going the Agriculture->Ag/Aristocracy->Sanitation/turn off Ag & Aristocracy route in a recent game, and used Conquest to fuel my wars, but it just wasn't worth it. I would have rather had Ag/Aris turned on and used the extra food to let me work more of my mines, and use the extra gold to complete production. Conquest should definitely have a War Weariness or Happiness bonus, and maybe a bigger bonus to your military, either a +% military production or more XP. Using food for production is cool, but it's not that useful when you're not using Agriculture anymore.

 

[Mutineer]

Every one who want to add GPP penalties to agreeculture just want to shift balance future in favor of neitral/evil civs.
GPP penalty will hurt mostly ure specialists economies, whith out touching whip economies.

Again, How good civ suppous to get it's hammers?

 

[onedreamer]

I'll keep writing until I tire everyone, but modifiers on improvements need to be applied to that improvement only. If you want both a bonus and a malus, then keep them on the improvement or the use of it, otherwise you get malus for something you're not using, which is just silly.

 

[Grey Fox]

the bad thing with the Agricultural negatives, is that it can be bypassed. If that -1 Hammer was applied to give you negative yield even if the base hammer yield was 0, I think it would work as originally intended.