When would you harvest or chop?

[civtrader6]

Thanks @Victoria for running the tests.
No doubling is a bit of a let down but oh well.

Speaking of pantheons and chops, the new pantheon City Patron Goddess adds 25% for district production (including chops) even if you have two districts placed - as long as the first one is not finished.

 

[Victoria]

No doubling is a bit of a let down but oh well

It's funny, I think quite differently, I am happy because I know now.

The city goddess I played with last night. It's quite noticeable with T70 type district placements by reducing by a chop. Early I just do not feel it enough. I did not look at placement so that's nice to know, I was just playing through a normal game. It's a shame it does not get chop overflow.

 

[Kryxal]

Not to turn this to a discussion on goddess of the harvest, but I've started a half-dozen games since the new patch (mostly playing around), and virtually every time I've been able to get the harvest pantheon just playing normally. So yeah, the time that I spawned a relic a few turns in it makes sense, but I've had games where I literally just went normal, got God King, and founded my pantheon, and still got it. Not sure if the change to have civs value religion less also means they play less aggressively for pantheons too, or if they changed the AI preference to value it less, or if the AI simply likes some of the new pantheons more, but it seems much easier to get it than before, which essentially doubles the value of chops.

I see the Earth Goddess pantheon going very early most of the time now.

 

[Victoria]

I see the Earth Goddess pantheon going very early most of the time now.

Is it that much? Open up the appeal of your cities. Admittedly the AI likes it and takes it, not sure I would but good point, well noticed.

 

[UWHabs]

One more thing I noticed in my current game - it seems chops that go into repairing a district do NOT get overflow. Haven't tested an insane amount, but I know I've repaired a monument with a 100-production chop, and nothing after that seemed to come any cheaper. Chopping for the faith was still probably worth it, but always sucks to waste a nice chop.

 

[Victoria]

and nothing after that seemed to come any cheaper.

The trouble is that you do not visibly see the overflow for an extra torn afterward, then it becomes visible in the amount toward what you are now making. The only clue before that is in the turns it takes.
It's a simplistic test in firetuner, so will check today if Inget a chance.

 

[Softly]

I think that they need to nerf the return on harvesting/chopping in general. In my mind, harvesting/chopping should represent a net loss that you are only willing to take because you absolutely need that production in the here and now (i.e racing for a wonder, need to time a district/building to hit your eureka, AI surprise DOW and you have no military units to defend your cities). As it stands, only reason not to chop at this point is if you plan on going for an appeal based culture victory.

They should either (a) reduce chop production yield (food and gold yields are fine) by 25% or (b) make it so that production modifiers don't affect chop yields. I would much prefer (b) since that would hamper the player more than it would the AI.

 

[Victoria]

only reason not to chop at this point is if you plan on going for an appeal based culture victory.

In fact fircseasides I would chop everything and grow new trees, much better control that way and with chopping you can get to new trees easy enough.
I agree it's an Op strategy that needs a revisit.

 

[UWHabs]

I think that they need to nerf the return on harvesting/chopping in general. In my mind, harvesting/chopping should represent a net loss that you are only willing to take because you absolutely need that production in the here and now (i.e racing for a wonder, need to time a district/building to hit your eureka, AI surprise DOW and you have no military units to defend your cities). As it stands, only reason not to chop at this point is if you plan on going for an appeal based culture victory.

They should either (a) reduce chop production yield (food and gold yields are fine) by 25% or (b) make it so that production modifiers don't affect chop yields. I would much prefer (b) since that would hamper the player more than it would the AI.

I actually think early game chopping is somewhat fairly balanced. 30-40 production now, vs lots of turns with +1 production from a forest is actually a pretty tough tradeoff. But the biggest problem is that the later you get in the game, the more the tradeoff doesn't make sense. Now in the late game you get 150 cogs now, when you might only have 40 turns left in the game or less. There is absolutely no reason to not clearcut everything in the late game, no reason to not harvest every wheat tile to get population boosts, etc... It makes some ridiculous things like the best city to build a spaceport as some random city in the middle of an untouched forest, since you can just chop all the trees to launch your spaceship.

I think they need to do a few things:
-Decrease the chop yields as you move later. So instead of keeping it so that chopping 1 tree = 1/3 of a district, have that ratio drop as you move later. Maybe it starts as 1/3, but by the end a chop is only 1/10 of a district
-Increase forest yields as you get later. Not just lumbermill yields, but forests themselves. Maybe stuff like having a research lab give you 1 science on each forest tile in the city? Or when you get conservation, instead of just +1 appeal for old-growth, you also gain culture or faith from forests? Basically, they need to do more to make you want to keep forests
-And most importantly, they really need some sort of global penalty for chopping. Civ 4 had the great mechanism of forests helping with health. And while it doesn't make sense to have them provide housing, if they could have some sort of late-game "pollution" mechanism, then forests would be a natural anti-pollution mechanism. So late game maybe you can chop the forests for an immediate yield, but that will lead to increased pollution

 

[Victoria]

Now in the late game you get 150 cogs now

For jungle the max is 100, forest 200 and stone 250 cogs but 150 is a fair mid-late game chop.

Chops are the way they keep district cost escalation manageable but the issue is everything else then just gets cheaper when you chop.

While builders increase in expense they don't really keep pace with chopping. You can normally get a builder per chop at the end of the game while it's closer to 2 chops at the beginning... I guess it depends on the amount of builders but even after chopping everything I can see it's around 1 chop.

Certainly as it stands it's a no brainier to chopmid-late game and for the right things, early.

 

[Softly]

I actually think early game chopping is somewhat fairly balanced. 30-40 production now, vs lots of turns with +1 production from a forest is actually a pretty tough tradeoff. But the biggest problem is that the later you get in the game, the more the tradeoff doesn't make sense. Now in the late game you get 150 cogs now, when you might only have 40 turns left in the game or less. There is absolutely no reason to not clearcut everything in the late game, no reason to not harvest every wheat tile to get population boosts, etc... It makes some ridiculous things like the best city to build a spaceport as some random city in the middle of an untouched forest, since you can just chop all the trees to launch your spaceship.

I think they need to do a few things:
-Decrease the chop yields as you move later. So instead of keeping it so that chopping 1 tree = 1/3 of a district, have that ratio drop as you move later. Maybe it starts as 1/3, but by the end a chop is only 1/10 of a district
-Increase forest yields as you get later. Not just lumbermill yields, but forests themselves. Maybe stuff like having a research lab give you 1 science on each forest tile in the city? Or when you get conservation, instead of just +1 appeal for old-growth, you also gain culture or faith from forests? Basically, they need to do more to make you want to keep forests
-And most importantly, they really need some sort of global penalty for chopping. Civ 4 had the great mechanism of forests helping with health. And while it doesn't make sense to have them provide housing, if they could have some sort of late-game "pollution" mechanism, then forests would be a natural anti-pollution mechanism. So late game maybe you can chop the forests for an immediate yield, but that will lead to increased pollution

40 prod now vrs. +1/turn for the rest of the game can be a fair trade-off (since it also costs a builder charge), but only before you take into account production bonus cards. Switch in the +50% settler card for a few turns while you chop 3 forests and you've basically traded 1 builder, +3prod/turn (this is only if you were going to work those forests anyways) and 2 pop (worth very little) for two brand new cities. Can't imagine many circumstances early game where I wouldn't make this trade. IMO it should be designed in such a way chopping is not worth while unless you are willing to pay a steep premium for production now rather than over time.

I'm with you on most of your 2nd paragraph though.

 

[civtrader6]

@Softly and @UWHabs I totally understand your arguments against chopping and chopping does add a tedious (and sometimes overpowered mechanic) but the problem is - if they make any changes to the chops they should make changes to the district costs formula as well. Currently - any city you place (or conquer) after T70 will just take forever to build a district.
There's a similar flaw in the army building: if you don't pre-build your army early the escalating prices simply make mid/late game units too costly.

 

[Softly]

I don’t find it tedious, I just think that make chopping vrs not chopping should be an interesting choice that the player has to make based on circumstance, and right now it is just too one sided.

They should slightly nerf the +prod cards across the board (except for maybe the wonder ones) and/or make them not affect harvesting/chopping.

I think that the game as a whole need to revamp how quickly colonies and mid/late game cities benefit your empire. The new pantheon (+25% prod on your first district) is a step in the right direction. They need to throw out the awful colony policy cards they have now and create some new ones. One that gives cities +100% production to districts in cities founded in that era. Luxury resources provide +5 gold when worked by a city that was founded in the past 25 turns. Many renaissance/industrial era civs had their entire social and economic wellbeing based upon the founding and exploitation of colonies, and the civic cards should reflect that.

 

[Atlas627]

@Victoria I noticed something in the files about "never improved" harvests being worth extra or something. I have never bothered checking if "doubling down" by improving a resource for most of the game then harvesting later results in a weaker harvest. Any ideas on this?

 

[Victoria]

@Victoria I noticed something in the files about "never improved" harvests being worth extra or something. I have never bothered checking if "doubling down" by improving a resource for most of the game then harvesting later results in a weaker harvest. Any ideas on this?

Interesting. I will happily improve bronze and it's worth what I expect it to be at the end. Maybe they just mean wheat or cows? I guess I can only have a play. It may be a useful addition to good of the harvest. I do know many things in files are not active... like requesting aid is in the files with modifiers but never shows. I'll check it out.

 

[UWHabs]

I don’t find it tedious, I just think that make chopping vrs not chopping should be an interesting choice that the player has to make based on circumstance, and right now it is just too one sided.

They should slightly nerf the +prod cards across the board (except for maybe the wonder ones) and/or make them not affect harvesting/chopping.

I think that the game as a whole need to revamp how quickly colonies and mid/late game cities benefit your empire. The new pantheon (+25% prod on your first district) is a step in the right direction. They need to throw out the awful colony policy cards they have now and create some new ones. One that gives cities +100% production to districts in cities founded in that era. Luxury resources provide +5 gold when worked by a city that was founded in the past 25 turns. Many renaissance/industrial era civs had their entire social and economic wellbeing based upon the founding and exploitation of colonies, and the civic cards should reflect that.

Yeah, a card that was like "+100% production for ancient-era city-centre buildings" (ie. granary/monument/water mill) would be great for helping mid-game cities get online. And I would love to see the district cost changed to be more like:
(base cost + A * # of districts in city + B * # of that district in your empire) * era modifier, so that the first district in a city is cheaper, and the 1st holy site in your empire is cheaper than the 10th campus. If you play around with the various modifiers, it can be balanced for wide vs tall.

But otherwise, there really is absolutely no reason to not chop everything in sight by mid-game. My last game I had the harvest pantheon, and basically once I started invading neighbours, I think I had about 75% of my cities just building builders. Even at 20 turns for a builder, even if it popped without the +2 charges card, the builder would have 4 charges. 2 stones or 3 forests and you could chop yourself a new district, which would have cost more to build than the builder. And I would still have 1-2 charges left afterwards to throw down the occasional mine or farm (or since I was spain, a mission). And with the harvest pantheon, it was almost worth it just for the faith alone, since each builder would cost maybe 200-250 cogs, but would return back 500-600 faith, which worked great since I was both allied with Valleta for a long time, and had Jesuit Education. There really was no reason to ever build anything else in like 75% of my cities.

 

[Spudsie74]

Glad to read this thread...I thought I was overproducing builders, so they could chop everything in sight. I am glad that I'm not the only one. BTW, the way the chopping mechanism fits in with escalating district costs (as opposed to buildings) is one of the game features that could be adjusted, and really improve play and balance. (I'd prefer they give the AI a higher IQ, but I won't hold my breath.