Resource tile yields are way too low

[Seanner]

By the time a unit has been built, it is already obsolete.

That's not really true..by the time they build the new superior defensive unit, you are present with your attacking force. They of course have to be expecting the attack the moment you start building one so they can research the new one and build it themselves, otherwise they will be too late. Essentially, it takes them just as long to stop an attack as it takes you to start one (minus some inherent defensive bonuses), except the travel distance, which with 2-5 speed units is less than it used to be. All in all, attacking is more dangerous all around (no emergency whip / draft / units are very expensive to mass buy), especially combined with hilarious insta-heal promotion. With fewer and thus more valuable units, insta-heal is like e.g. 5 free Civ 4 units. One replenished companion cavalry is like 37 more cities crushed (not an exaggeration ).

In terms of the OP, the units are more valuable because there are less resources to make them. You don't have stacks of doom because aside from them being illegal, you can't afford > 1 unit. That doesn't prove they are too low, it proves that people will not use 50 companion cavalry simultaneously (thank god).

 

[bernlin2000]

Tile yields are certainly slower, but city-states also have a large role here: maritime can really start to rack up city-tile food bonuses if you invest in them. I've had my capital at 17-18 food on the city tile, or 3.5 of the old wheat improvements . Considering that they no longer have any secondary benefit (health), it seems odd to have also lowered their primary benefit (food).

 

[kaltorak]

I wanted this too, and kind of still do. But I also noticed there are much more resource tiles. Founding cities after your capital with 4-6 resources looks common.

 

[remconius]

Civ 5 is not civ 4... It works in a different way:

-You can get additional food from granary, water mill, maritime states
-You dont work 20 tiles but 36 per city.
-Resources are much more abundant in numbers, less in yield.

We all have to get used to the new balance

 

[Lightzy]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381875

 

[Purpureus]

No I believe you get it. Same thing happened in Civ IV, if you built a city on top of dyes or iron or whatever, it was immediately connected to your trade route

Oh, but that is such a BAD strategic decision. Because an iron resource without a mine on it means no production bonus improvement, lost hammers and all that...
----

Bare tile yield is indeed lower than Civ4, BUT if you work them (the worker armies are realy important here, as you might notice from your advisors recommending worker spams) hard and thorough, this yield increases significantly.
And Civil Service is available ridiculosly early in Civ5...

 

[Iceciro]

Yields are still too low in Civ5, and don't really inspire you to go after luxuries after the first one of that type, because the AIs seem to be rather stingy with their luxuries in my experience, still wanting 3 types of mine in exchange for one of theirs...

It feels really weird there's no incentive to put the right improvement type on the resource. Like, past the first wine resource, it's better to cram a trade post on it than actually produce more wine. That was something I had to fix.

 

[mattpilot]

No. Because then you will have to do it to be competitive and to get the best from your tiles. And then we'll be right back to road spam.

There is a huge difference between roads everywhere, and almost no roads (which is what we have now). I certainly wouldn't mind a few more 'useful' roads within the empire.

You also "wouldn't have to do it to be competitive" as it would be a tradeoff of less gold for more production. A railroad improvement on a mine would cost 2 gold, and would say, for example, give you +1 production. Notice how mine's don't upgrade at all as you tech up. Lumbermills even get +1 production with steampower. Farms get upgrade with civilservice & fertilizer. Why not give mines a +1 with railroads - coincidentally, thats when IRL the infastructure rapidly expanded too.

The 'tradeoff' comes in when you can decide not to spend 2 gold/turn on this 1 production bonus and instead use the accumulated money to 'buy' units you need, or use the flexible currency for something else - but the option remains.

 

[JerichoHill]

Given the game has been out for two days, how do people even know that resource yields are too low?

 

[kaltorak]

Given the game has been out for two days, how do people even know that resource yields are too low?

Well, 2 systems can be balanced and one be more fun the the other. You could balance the system around no resources at all, and it wouldn't make it ok because its balanced.

What I mean is that having few important tiles makes it more interesting than having several allaround tiles.

But then again, I was more sceptic about this before playing the game, I think values are pretty ok now that I tried

 

[cembandit]

Yields are still too low in Civ5, and don't really inspire you to go after luxuries after the first one of that type, because the AIs seem to be rather stingy with their luxuries in my experience, still wanting 3 types of mine in exchange for one of theirs...

It feels really weird there's no incentive to put the right improvement type on the resource. Like, past the first wine resource, it's better to cram a trade post on it than actually produce more wine. That was something I had to fix.

Your relationship directly affects this. They trade 1 for 1 on king unless annoyed, then it's 2 for 1, 3 for 1 if hostile, or more.

 

[Fabien]

I disagree with the OP, I think the yields are okay with the new system. I don't understand why people try to compare tile yields from mines from Civ V to Civ 4 when it's cristal clear that the undelying economic model is not the same.

So far the lower overall yields seem to act as some sort of balancing mechanism between cities in general. In Civ 4 cities varied greatly and in some of the "better" cities with good production it was very easy to build every building anyway (since production itself was nearly the jack of all trades in Civ 4) even if your city did have a special focus. Now you really have to decide which buildings to errect (especially since they cost upkeep now) and make some hard choices.

Also since the standard yields are much lower, strategic/luxury resources are just as useful as in Civ 4. It's only their absolut value that's lower in comparison to Civ 4, not the relative number.

 

[kaltorak]

I don't understand why people try to compare tile yields from mines from Civ V to Civ 4 when it's cristal clear that the undelying economic model is not the same.

I can understand you disagree, but saying you don't even understand why players think so, when I explained it 2 posts above yours, makes no sense.

 

[Fabien]

I can understand you disagree, but saying you don't even understand why players think so, when I explained it 2 posts above yours, makes no sense.

Mainly because the relative values of the resources are pretty much the same as in Civ 4, only halved ? Don't get me wrong, I understand what you want to say, but since a mine only offers + 1 production and iron another one, this doesn't really make it less desirable than an iron mine in Civ 4. The problem starts when you have to consider taht you could build a trade post instead and have to compare the benefits of the "new" gold against regular production. I don't think the relative value of resources has changed that much, especially since strategic resources are worth so much more in the new system.

Also, are there really more resources around in Civ 5? They were so natural in Civ 4, that I can't really remember .

 

[Zaimejs]

Building a trading post on wine doesn't necessarily make sense. Remember that you can trade extra goods with other countries and gain goods that way... so there is always that advantage.

I think that the game has a big focus on gold to simplify production and growth through $$$$. Therefore the resource tiles aren't as important.

 

[Gre_Magus]

More than bonus-resources, I think production is a little low compared to building cost. I'll have to play a few more games to make up my mind for sure, but I feel like buildings come out pretty slowly. I may try making buildings cheaper but increasing their maintenance. Right now you have to choose between one building or another because you don't have time to build them both; I might prefer playing where you have time to build them both, but you may not be able to maintain them.

 

[Iceciro]

Production is low compared to the hammer cost of pretty much anything. It takes AGES to build anywhere but the capital, and this is due to the palace's 2 hammer bonus, while technology is lumped together from the population of multiple cities and so increases exponentially, while production stays the same, and quite low.

This results in things like I mentioned, where it takes a decent 2nd-line city 22 turns to produce a Samurai, but you're getting Artillery in 20 turns.

Upping the production in various ways, be it tweaking the yields of the tile or decreasing the percentage in the Gamespeeds, really does yield a more enjoyable game. - Also, the loss of the Workshop improvement sucks and causes me to build Trade Posts EVERYYYYWHERRRE

 

[Ahriman]

I think the problem is not that production is too low, but that tech is too fast.

I think its a problem when the time to build a unit is barely as long as it takes to research the next better unit in line.

First thing I'll probably mod is increasing all the tech costs by ~50%.

 

[duxup]

I think the reason they did this was to make the different areas of the map more balanced. In Civ IV if you started on a floodplains river with a bunch of corn and pigs nearby, and your rivals started in tundra, you pretty much won the game. In Civ V, you still have an advantage, but it's not overpowered.

I also like the more balanced approach to resources.

While it does balance things strategic resources are in some ways more important but not unbalancing either. At least not that I've found yet.

 

[Tomice]

I can't understand how you guys want to mod the game's balance already.

We know so little about synergies and advanced strategies. I don't think the balance now is necessarily perfect, but at least the devs had a plan they developed over many years. While also a team of specialists can fail after years of work and thought, they had a reason to change the yields.

I can only warn people to install such crude, early mods before we have a mature understanding of economic strategies. Maybe we'll produce at three times the current speed when we learn how to use some less obvious combinations!



I don't think people knew about the awesomeness of communist caste system workshops 2 days after the release of civ4...


Also, double production could screw up with other parts of the game. The AI might not be able to handle it, or the much higher unit count could destroy your economy with high upkeeps. You could be forced to build more ressource-less units because you didn't increase the number of strat. ress., which could destroy the combat balance. There's a ton of stuff that could go wrong with makeshift balance mods!