Tile yields and their implications

[Haggbart]

In each civ version tile output is changed. That's nothing more than this, IMHO. Idon't see the problem.

The problem is that a hill is +1H, while stone (which is a bonus resource) is also +1H. What's the point in having bonus resources that basically turns your flatland into hills yield-wise? I can understand that resources on ice/tundra etc won't have great yield, but there is no logic to grassland plain with stone = vanilla grassland hill in basic output. If this is the case, then why have +1H bonus resources at all?

 

[Liex]

I'm not sure what to make of swamps having extra food, of all tiles... As a Finn I'd rather not be stranded without food on a Finnish swamp. You could pick some berries, sure, but not any more than in a forest, and even then, you couldn't really sustain a city-sized population on mere berries.

I don't know much about swamps, but the Pantanal is great for fishing and ranching. The same may be true for other tropical swamps.

 

[kaspergm]

The problem is that a hill is +1H, while stone (which is a bonus resource) is also +1H. What's the point in having bonus resources that basically turns your flatland into hills yield-wise? I can understand that resources on ice/tundra etc won't have great yield, but there is no logic to grassland plain with stone = vanilla grassland hill in basic output. If this is the case, then why have +1H bonus resources at all?

I agree, although one can argue there's always the flavor + improvement aspect of the resource.

On a slightly different note, for me a big problem with the additive yields is that it means there aren't really and food vs. production balance. In Civ5, it was either food or production, which I think was both good in terms of realism and game play. With additive yields, instead you get on one hand food, and on the other hand food AND production. That seems pretty weird both in terms of realism and game play. As far as I know, there are not a lot of historical cases where settling in hills or forests (and particular jungles!) have given short-term benefits compared to settling on flatlands.

There might be a long-term in-game balance with farms possibly only being allowed on flatlands, but it seems still a strange and unrealistic design to me. And the fact that jungle starts become über good is just downright silly.

I don't know much about swamps, but the Pantanal is great for fishing and ranching. The same may be true for other tropical swamps.

Swamps in general are disease ridden and prone to lack suitable water sources, tropical swamps more than anything. It's only since the developement of effective pesticides in the last 60 years that many swamp areas got suitable for larger-scale settling.

 

[Haggbart]

I agree, although one can argue there's always the flavor + improvement aspect of the resource.

On a slightly different note, for me a big problem with the additive yields is that it means there aren't really and food vs. production balance. In Civ5, it was either food or production, which I think was both good in terms of realism and game play. With additive yields, instead you get on one hand food, and on the other hand food AND production. That seems pretty weird both in terms of realism and game play. As far as I know, there are not a lot of historical cases where settling in hills or forests (and particular jungles!) have given short-term benefits compared to settling on flatlands.

Yeah, it is possible that quarries will have better yield than mines, but I guess copper will be improved by mines, so let's hope the bonus yield is better than +1H

Sure, there might be pantheons or social policies that give bonuses to certain resources, but IMHO a map resource should in most cases (except ice/tundra/desert) be better than any "basic" tile - no matter if it's a hill or a forrest. Anything else is just counterintuitive.

I agree that the logical thing would be something like +1H -1F to hill tiles.

 

[kaspergm]

I think Quarry is also +1H from what we've seen, right?

Anyway, let's hope it's just something that's not yet implemented. If jungle tiles are going to have super yields on their own, then Brazil is going to be the most ridiculous snowball-civ in the history of the game.

 

[Lucius_]

Regarding stone yields, it very well could be affected by buildings like in CiV, but maybe to a greater extent. Stone works could provide an even greater yield than it did in CiV, which gives an incentive to get the tech sooner, since the happiness incentive won't be there. I haven't looked over the pantheons, but there may be another pantheon with faith from stone, making it a stronger tile than a regular hill in the long run.

My point is, with some tiles, the tile yield may not be as important as the other improvements possible for the tile type.

 

[Magil]

Regarding stone yields, it very well could be affected by buildings like in CiV, but maybe to a greater extent. Stone works could provide an even greater yield than it did in CiV, which gives an incentive to get the tech sooner, since the happiness incentive won't be there. I haven't looked over the pantheons, but there may be another pantheon with faith from stone, making it a stronger tile than a regular hill in the long run.

My point is, with some tiles, the tile yield may not be as important as the other improvements possible for the tile type.

If there even is a stone works building we have not seen it. I wouldn't expect it, it only exists in V and doesn't make a lot of sense in VI.

The main benefits of stone are the fact that it seems to boost things like Holy Sites and lets you build Stonehenge.

 

[Haggbart]

Regarding stone yields, it very well could be affected by buildings like in CiV, but maybe to a greater extent. Stone works could provide an even greater yield than it did in CiV, which gives an incentive to get the tech sooner, since the happiness incentive won't be there. I haven't looked over the pantheons, but there may be another pantheon with faith from stone, making it a stronger tile than a regular hill in the long run.

My point is, with some tiles, the tile yield may not be as important as the other improvements possible for the tile type.

The pantheons that helps stone/copper in cVI are at the moment one that gives +2 faith for quarries, and one that gives + 1 faith for mines over bonus and luxery resources. This helps somewhat, but IMHO not enough to compensate.

No stone works spotted in the early game videos or tech tree (AFAIK), and no natural place for it either (the early game industrial zone building is workshop). The industrial zone gives adjecency bonuses to mines and quarries, but the same bonus if there is an improved resource or not (+1H). Most likely stone works will not be in the game.

However, stone DOES have one mayor draw: you need it adjecent to build Stonehenge.

 

[Haggbart]

The main benefits of stone are the fact that it seems to boost things like Holy Sites

Are you sure? According to Well of Souls, holy sites are boosted by natural wonders, mountains, unimproved forrests and other adjecent districts.

 

[Magil]

Are you sure? According to Well of Souls, holy sites are boosted by natural wonders, mountains, unimproved forrests and other adjecent districts.

No, I'm not sure, I thought I remember it from a very early video but I could either be mistaken or it's been changed. I do know it's necessary for Stonehenge at least.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Housing seems much more about the rate of growth than the actual cap of growth. In terms of growth rate, housing looks like it will definitely be something that needs to be managed well.

As far as we know, it does work as hard cap - if your population reach something like Housing+2 (don't remember the actual number), the growth stops completely.

 

[King Jason]

As far as we know, it does work as hard cap - if your population reach something like Housing+2 (don't remember the actual number), the growth stops completely.

It's 5 pop and you missed the point entirely - I did not say it wasn't a hard cap.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's 5 pop and you missed the point entirely - I did not say it wasn't a hard cap.

Oops, sorry

 

[MadDjinn]

As far as we know, it does work as hard cap - if your population reach something like Housing+2 (don't remember the actual number), the growth stops completely.

It's 5 pop and you missed the point entirely - I did not say it wasn't a hard cap.

definition of a hard cap is when it stops at that point.

in this case, it's more of a soft cap (or semi-hard if you want) because you can go past it, even though it'll get slower to the point of being an 'effective' hard cap.

 

[King Jason]

You can go passed the housing limit, but the housing mechanic itself still ends up being a hard cap because you can only go passed the limit by 5 population. So the Hard cap is the housing limit +5. So housing has a hard cap, it's just not the actual housing limit itself.

Whatever terms we feel like using though it's pretty clear that it's more of a limiter of growth than meant to be strictly a cap. Starting at 1 pop under the housing limit your city is growing at 50%. At the housing limit and up to the cap beyond it you'll be growing at less than 100% as well (Civilopedia says 75%, it could have meant 25%)

So this means in a newly settles city on a river with no additional housing, you have until pop 10 to "worry" about housing if your concern is halted population growth - which was what I was initially responding to I guess because the concern with this mechanic doesn't appear to be halted growth, but the rate of growth itself.

Sure, you can grow to pop 10, but for over half of that growth (starting at pop 4) you'll be wasting food growing suboptimally. So the concern of housing mostly seems to revolve around growth efficiency more than anything. Because I'm sure any city will find away to increase it's housing between pop 1 and pop 10 to ensure they don't hit a hard cap any time soon.

The real issue is whether the player will manage their housing properly such that they're optimizing their growth in that period. In that light, you have until pop 4 to find additional housing. Managing the cap is the easy part.

 

[Big J Money]

There might be a long-term in-game balance with farms possibly only being allowed on flatlands, but it seems still a strange and unrealistic design to me. And the fact that jungle starts become über good is just downright silly.

You beat me to it AFAIK we haven't seen any hill farms and I was going to make a bet that farms will be restricted to flatlands to balance having hills in your city. It makes sense because hilly regions did have major bonuses in ancient times but then became less useful in comparison to the swathes of farmland that came later.

Yes, jungles being so good early on seems a bit unusual, but perhaps not when you think of successful jungle cultures. Those cultures didn't become great because they chopped down all the jungle to make farms. Their was technology was underdeveloped compared to European states when they were conquered, but that's because they didn't have thousands of years of competitive warfare to drive it forward. I don't know of any evidence that they were stymied by their terrain. Natives of North America faced the same defeat to conquerors even though they possessed land that was very similar (some say more fruitful) than European agrarian land.

 

[Magil]

Farms being restricted to flatlands at least has precedent--you couldn't build hill farms in IV.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other, except to say if the hill bonus of +1H is really just a flat bonus with no drawback, then it'd make sense if certain improvements could not be built on hills.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There are so many districts, wonders and buildings which depend on plains / hills, what it doesn't look necessary to have other balance. But yes, farms look realistic.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Farms can maybe get as much as +6 food just from adjacency but you must have feudalism before farms get their adjacency bonus. This mean that farms pre feudalism are not particualrly good as their tiles will not be any better then stuff such as rainforest or marsh but post feudalism farms beat everything else at food production and food go from a rather rare resource to a very common one.

 

[Big J Money]

I don't expect to see any +6 bonuses from farms because that seems wasteful, but after you've built 2 adjacent farms, each farm you add to the cluster will give you +5* food (including the bonuses from existing), which is nice.

I'm not sure I'll like that to manage growth I'll have to micromanage both food and population, but I guess it's no more work than food and happiness.

*Corrected since I forgot the base of 1 food