Is the Agricultural trait unbalanced?

[dgfred]

Ag trait is very nasty. the Celts and Iroquois, Celts are religious for
cheap temples and Iroquois are commercial for lower coruption as you grow
quickly . Plus both have great UUs .

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Agr is definitely the strongest trait for me. The agr AIs also always do better than the others in my games. By itself though, I do not feel it is overpowered. When it is combined with the UU of the Iroquois, maybe. My games are far easier when playing those guys.

 

[Dogmeat]

I disable the agricultural trait when im playing. It creates too big gaps between agricultural and non-agricultural AIs.

 

[Jaca]

I think Agr is too strong.

Can't it be made that a trait really starts to pay off when a certain Tech is discovered? I.e. Temples for religious civs only become cheeper after they also discovered Mysticism. The agricultural trait could start to work splendidly after discovering Iron Working (better plows, better fishing tools !) That way, the Agricultural civs have to work just a little bit harder before the benefit starts to work really well and early large expansion is somewhat hindered.

Alternative idea: I already suggested elsewhere that some Techs should give you more direct civil effects apart from the military effect, and that you need to choose (strategy) what way you want to use your resources: more for civil or more for military use. Iron Working is one of them. As said before, it allowed better farming and fishing tools, apart from the swordmen.

In more detail : in the Domestic Advisor's screen you could have a slider indicating your resource consumption. Higher %-es mean higher civil use, so the agricultural bonus is used effectively, but military units would become more expensive to build. So civs trying to benefit both would also need more (iron) resources to keep up growing AND keep the military up to date.

Your reactions?

Jaca

 

[socralynnek]

In more detail : in the Domestic Advisor's screen you could have a slider indicating your resource consumption. Higher %-es mean higher civil use, so the agricultural bonus is used effectively, but military units would become more expensive to build. So civs trying to benefit both would also need more (iron) resources to keep up growing AND keep the military up to date.

Your reactions?

Jaca

Have you already posted it in the Civ4 Ideas forum?

Anyway, I'm in favor of a new ressource model, where each source produces x units per turn and each military unit costs y units of a ressource. Then with your idea, one could also say that some worker actions costs a ressource, e.g. building a mine would cost 1 iron or irrigating gives you more food when you have iron, but costs 1 iron per turn (The sources would have to give a large number of iron per turn, s.t. this wouldn't cost too much)

 

[genghis_khev]

Jaca, I agree it sounds good in principle but when resources "jump" it could leave you in the middle of a war suddenly (and through no fault of your own!) with fewer units or mass starvation. Loosing the city to invasion and suffering that problem is punishment for weak defence!!!! But a random jump? It would be nasty!

And I can see the threads now: Iron Jump ruined my game!!! etc.

Tell you what, give me an editor option (limited / infinite resources?) and I'm on board.

 

[Jaca]

Jaca, I agree it sounds good in principle but when resources "jump" it could leave you in the middle of a war suddenly (and through no fault of your own!) with fewer units or mass starvation. Loosing the city to invasion and suffering that problem is punishment for weak defence!!!! But a random jump? It would be nasty!

And I can see the threads now: Iron Jump ruined my game!!! etc.

Tell you what, give me an editor option (limited / infinite resources?) and I'm on board.

I'll give it another deeper thought and might open a new thread on this issue, as it doesn't really belong in here. Funny thing is, I got two answers in no time in this thread, where in the thread I thought it might be more valuable, no response!?

Jaca