Wheat as a resource

[ExpiredReign]

In this GitHub issue it came to light about a change made last year regarding wheat as a resource.

In vanilla plains give +1, add on the wheat resource and even when unimproved this now yields +2.
It was deemed as excessive and the initial unimproved yield was set to 0 and the improved went to +2.

I think this needs to be reversed to bring back the vanilla values, for this reason.

Grasslands as an unimproved tile yields +2 compared to plains with wheat which only yields +1.

What is the difference? Wheat, or indeed any of the grains, is only a specific type of grass cultivated to yield a better harvest than ordinary grass. All farming does is improve again the output of the already better grass: wheat.

This is the original Civfanatics discussion about wheat.

 

[Ahriman]

....but plains also gives 1 production. There is a big problem in the game where wheat gets the bonuses from techs that farms get (from civil service and fertilizer) but cows, sheep, deer, stone don't get those bonuses.

I'm largely indifferent as to whether the bonus is on the base tile or on the farm, since I'll always farm wheat tiles as soon as possible, but it rather misses the more significant issue where wheat is the best bonus resource by far.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Granted, the reason for changing the yield is because of the +1 and the bonuses at tech changes.

I'm just bemused that the best option we could come up with was to remove the base yield. Was there no other way to redress the imbalance?
It just now seems strange, admittedly after I became aware of it by someone else, that a tile with a resource yields less than a tile with no resource.
What about adding other yields to those lesser resources? I don't believe cows give or stone would adding those make them better?

Lastly wheat has every reason to be a truly valuable resource.
Historically wheat, or all grains for that matter, could be seen as the defining step in the advancement of civilization. The ability to produce a high yield crop and then store your food for long periods enabled mankind to flourish in other fields like art and science, albeit at a rudimentary stage. Perhaps that is why Firaxis made wheat as the uber resource?

At any rate, I am not going to push this wagon. If it doesn't gain traction on its own merit, who am I to say different.

 

[Erikose]

. . .
It just now seems strange, admittedly after I became aware of it by someone else, that a tile with a resource yields less than a tile with no resource.
. . ..

This is something that has been puzzling me as well the last few games. Despite the production bonus, wheat tiles "deserve" special treatment because of the high value of the resource - both in the game and historically.

Any way to make wheat only available on grasslands? This might solve the problem for those who somehow think it creates imbalance. Personally, I have no problem with simply returning it to vanilla values as it is common enough not to give one civ any particular advantage, and makes cities with no luxuries but access to resources more viable.

- Erikose

 

[EricB]

I'm in favor of returning it to the vanilla value, but really it doesn't make much of a difference. In the end it yields the same once the farm is there. It would make more sense if it the yield was on the resource like how it works with bananas and fish. A fish resource on a coast tile yields more than a plain coastal tile without the fish. The work boat just adds more to it. Seems like a wheat resource and a farm should operate in the same way. Other resources work like this too. A grassland tile yields 2 food, while a grassland tile with stone yields 2 food and 1 production. Build a quarry and you get 2 food, and 2 production.

 

[Ahriman]

Lastly wheat has every reason to be a truly valuable resource.
Historically wheat, or all grains for that matter, could be seen as the defining step in the advancement of civilization. The ability to produce a high yield crop and then store your food for long periods enabled mankind to flourish in other fields like art and science, albeit at a rudimentary stage. Perhaps that is why Firaxis made wheat as the uber resource?

I think this is bad game design. Bonus resources are allocated in a similar way in the engine (wheat is added to food-poor plains areas, bananas to jungle areas, sheep and cows to grassland areas, etc.) and should be of generally equal value. Realism judgements don't really have any place here, or else we'd have whales only really be valuable for a brief period in the late Renaissance/early industrial era, spices, silk, and gold would be way more valuable than incense or ivory, deer and bananas would have trivial impact, etc.

If we were using realism, wheat, rice and horses would be almost the only things that mattered. That would be a pretty boring game.

I'm fine with the vanilla approach of wheat giving its bonus to the tile rather than to the farm, but we really need to have freshwater/nonfreshwater tech bonuses for the other resources.

The other thing that favors wheat even more is that it is boosted by the granary, a very early building which is generically useful everywhere, while cows and sheep are only boosted by stables, which are a specialist building that has little value in many cities.

 

[mystikx21]

^what he said.

I'd be fine with wheat being an uber early tile (like fish or horses), so long as pastures, camps, plantations, and quarries can be bumped a bit on the tech.

 

[Delekhan]

Mistikx and Ahriman are onto something. Whenever I see wheat tiles I start drooling, whereas when I get my hands on cows or sheep I merely go "meh" and keep putting off building pastures.

Boosting the pasture with tech makes sense.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I would be much happier with boosting the other tiles rather than nerfing wheat.

Another thing that gets me thinking on this: have you ever set your workers on to 'auto' and seen where they prioritize?

They almost NEVER improve wheat tiles. Why I wonder since as we can see if you do and build a granary it is sensational.
Add to that the AI of the barbarians and it muddies the picture even more. They almost always target wheat above a nearby luxury. I can have a city with 2 luxuries, a strategic and a couple of wheat tiles and if barbarians turn up they usually go for the wheat first!

Why would the AI handle these tiles so differently?

I think we are all in agreement that wheat as it was is an excellent tile.
The question is: is making it a poor early tile a way to fix it or is making the other early tiles better the preferred option?

I like making the other tiles better.

 

[Ahriman]

Another thing that gets me thinking on this: have you ever set your workers on to 'auto' and seen where they prioritize?

They almost NEVER improve wheat tiles.

I wouldn't judge value based on this, the AI is just coded to prioritize luxuries and strategics over bonus, which is usually a decent enough game plan. To say the AI almost never improves wheat tiles seems like an overstatement too; they get to it, once luxuries and strategics are done.

The question is: is making it a poor early tile a way to fix it or is making the other early tiles better the preferred option?

I don't even think this is the right question. The difference between whether the wheat food is on the resource or on the farm is really trivial. It adds up to a few points of food total each game. It's basically a non-issue.

 

[mystikx21]

There are many specific circumstances where luxuries and hooking up iron and horses are far better than wheat (aggressive civ which needs production and elite units rather than growth, lack of happiness/growth space), so yeah, it's probably fine that it doesn't prioritize it over those goals.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I think you missed my point about the wheat tiles not being improved by the AI workers.

Try it and see what I mean.

Your AI workers will bypass wheat tiles and do anything else first, not just strategics.
The reverse is true of the invading AI, they go almost invariably to the wheat.

To me this says they pillage it because they get good quick gold and healing rather than trying to cripple me either by no good units to build (strategics gone) or my cities becoming unhappy (luxuries gone).

Now if the AI sees a benefit on one hand why not on the other. Why destroy it because its good but not build it for the same reason?

At any rate, that is off the topic. Sorry I raised it. Why are we making a tile worse to even the field, we should be going the other way, make the others better. Isn't that what happens with all the other tweaks we do?
e.g. This belief is poor, let's make all the others just as useless to even things up.
or, this policy doesn't really do anything, let's make the others as impotent as it.
or again, my unit can't stand up against similar era units and dies let's make all the others weak too!

The actual topic under question may be a minor one but the underlying process is just wrong, we don't mod like this, at least we shouldn't.

 

[mystikx21]

It sounds like the general problem then would be the AI prioritizes growth too little then? Since it seems that granaries and aqueducts are regarded as awesome by us. That probably is a wider problem than the AI's worker AI.

Fixing how this is addressed with the farm is a separate consideration about balancing yields and start locations essentially, and I think it is best handled by making cows or sheep or deer slightly better (or at least potentially better) tiles.