What would +1 gold from farms after currency change

[Tomice]

Just theorizing here, but I might create a mod myself at a later point when I understand the game's economy better.

A few assumptions to start with:

- Non-riverside farms are very weak.
- Trading posts spam is very powerful (and ugly).
- The civil service slingshot is very powerful.
- Upkeeps are very high for both buildings and units.
- Maritime CS make farms less attractive than trading posts.

You're welcome to argue these points, they're just my impression.




If we modded farms so they yielded +1 gold after currency, we might achieve this:

- non-riverside farms would start to be viable and would profit from golden ages.
- trading posts would be selective tile improvements you wouldn't want everywhere (but hopefully still sometimes, especially in specialized gold cities)
- the "lower" path of the techtree would be more attractive, civil service wouldn't be the only logical choice.
- More gold would make the upkeeps more affordable. This is especially necessary if we also use a "better production" type mod. It could also generally speed up the game (e.g. tile purchase)

Variations would be to give the added gold yield only to non-riverside farms (not changing riverside farms), and to give this effect to another technology, that might be even further away from civil service (engineering, machinery?).





Other mods that might work well in combination:


- Maritime city states shouldn't increase their food delivery in the renaissance era.
- Forests are buffed with steam power, mines not. +1 production lategame for them? dynamite, perhaps?
- General build times/tech times adjustion.
- Granary buff, Watermill buff (+2 production) and probably a few other building tweaks, too.
- Engineer specialist +2 production instead of 1.



Fears:

I really don't want to make trading posts useless, just more situational.
Maybe we would need to buff them lategame, too, somewhere around fertilizer, steam power and dynamite (if used as mine buff). Refrigeration perhaps?

There is always the question how the AI would react.

 

[Shiggs713]

I like it. I was thinking about doing something similar like adding +1 gold to farms, but at the same time maybe make both of them like cottages were in civ4. After being worked for long enough maybe a farm would give +2 food, +1 gold, and a trading post could give +3 gold and so on. Maybe not so on for very long or it could be a uber populated and rich world. Just something to think about.

 

[Tomice]

Do half or quarter yields work? In civ4, we could have a health boost for every TWO forests, so effectively we had half yields (I believe it was even 0.4 health per forest).

Otherwise, we have the problem of too big numbers, especially with your suggestion.

Overall, I'm ambivalent in regards of self-improving tiles. They have pros and cons.

 

[Shiggs713]

i haven't looked at it enough to know. Yea, its just something to ponder really. I have no immediate plans of working on something like this, but would love to see it.

 

[Tomice]

Yeah, I'm not changing anything yet, too. I WILL make a mod at some point, because I hardly doubt someone will ever have the exact same taste I have.

But I'll wait for one or two more patches, and until I really know the civ 5 vanilla economy well. I'm also keeping a close look on other modders success and experiences.

 

[Spatzimaus]

The biggest problem with this sort of change is in a Golden Age. GAs add +1 to production and/or gold if the tile already produces production and/or gold. So right now, only a small number of tiles produce gold (rivers, trading posts, certain mineral resoures, and of course water), meaning a GA doesn't boost your income THAT much. But if you change it so that almost every tile produces one gold, then a Golden Age adds far more than it used to. Persia starts becoming THE civ to play.

This has actually come up in my future-era mod; I'd actually tweaked things so that EVERY improvement gained +1 to something at various future-era techs; Mines might get +G, while Farms and Trading Posts get +P. Resource-specific improvements (Pastures, Offshore Platforms, Quarries, etc.) tended to gain in two areas since I felt they were undervalued; the Quarry was +P+G in my mod, for instance.
This led directly to the problem I described above; unless the tile already produces that sort of yield (adding more gold to Fishing Boats or more gold to the Quarry) or unless it's a food boost, a Golden Age becomes that much stronger. So I'm still working on the balance.

On a separate note, Farms are one of the LAST things that need boosting. Farms and Trading Posts are already the only improvements that produce more than 1 point of anything in the late game, after all, and the fact that Farms bring you above the 2-food-per-population break line is what allows you to run specialists in the late game (and/or work all those 1-food trading posts). So I'd think about boosting the Pasture, Camp, Quarry, Plantation, etc. long before I looked at Farms.

 

[Optimizer]

I would like to go back to Civ 1-3, where Roads give Gold, instead of costing.

 

[Tomice]

I would like to go back to Civ 1-3, where Roads give Gold, instead of costing.

Well-placed roads pay off very well, easily more than 1 gold per tile later in the game!

@spatzimaus: Yes, I have to think about golden ages!

 

[SerriaFox]

I was thinking of keeping the road cost per tile, but having them increase the yield by 1. so a worked road pays for itself.