Discussion: food costs

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
No, but rushing a unit means taking a worker out of the fields to put them in the workshop, so the amount of food coming in goes down. Makes perfect sense to me.

And that's how it works in the game - if you poprush, you lose some pop (duh) and so you produce less.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

Originally posted by wrylachlan
No, but rushing a unit means taking a worker out of the fields to put them in the workshop, so the amount of food coming in goes down. Makes perfect sense to me.

And that's how it works in the game - if you poprush, you lose some pop (duh) and so you produce less.

Yes, but as it is now, you permanently loose pop... to me that doesn't make as much sense as loosing food. Why don't those workers go back to the fields after they're done building that temple? Also, since the pop is integral, in the early game you can loose half a cities pop to build one temple... what he's proposing is that instead of automatically loosing pop, you take them off the fields, and into the workshop. If that puts you in negative pop growth, then you loose a pop just like now, but its much more granular.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker

Originally posted by hexagonian
Sure, you don't need food to create the rifles, but you sure need it to feed the people pointing those rifles.

Yeah, duh - that's why I suggested UPKEEP. You aren't feeding them just once, are you?

No, but you are suggesting that upkeep only happens after the unit is finished. I'm making the suggestion that upkeep is also part of the creation/training process, as well as when the unit is ready to take the field. (Try telling raw recruits that the US Army is not going to feed/pay them until they are ready to take the field...)

Reread my post - I want both elements to be part of the equation.

Originally posted by skywalker
And that's how it works in the game - if you poprush, you lose some pop (duh) and so you produce less.

I think everyone can agree that poprushing takes away production/food/commerce - the argument is for making the loss of population (or food useage, since food translates into population) to be a regular cost of unit creation.

It adds a level of realism to the system without adding undue layers of micromanagement.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Yes, but as it is now, you permanently loose pop... to me that doesn't make as much sense as loosing food. Why don't those workers go back to the fields after they're done building that temple? Also, since the pop is integral, in the early game you can loose half a cities pop to build one temple... what he's proposing is that instead of automatically loosing pop, you take them off the fields, and into the workshop. If that puts you in negative pop growth, then you loose a pop just like now, but its much more granular.

They are always building the temple, but this time you forced them into hard labor and they died.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by hexagonian
No, but you are suggesting that upkeep only happens after the unit is finished. I'm making the suggestion that upkeep is also part of the creation/training process, as well as when the unit is ready to take the field. (Try telling raw recruits that the US Army is not going to feed/pay them until they are ready to take the field...)

Reread my post - I want both elements to be part of the equation.

Should they also require gold to build?

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker
Should they also require gold to build?

That can be part of the consideration.

Look at it this way - if the civ model takes ALL economic elements of the game (shield production, food production, commerce production, as well as production cost, unit upkeep, etc.) and multiplies it by 2, 3, or 5, suddenly, you have a little more flexibility in your model. So a normal grassland tile may produce 10 food/5 shields instead of 2 food/1 shield if multipled by 5. At the same time you can multiply the requirements for city growth/unit and building production etc. by 5.

You may ask, 'What's the purpose of this?' You are not actually changing anything. After all, a spearman will still take 5 turns to complete.' But by adding a greater range of numbers to work with (1-10 Food/1-5 Shields, as opposed to 2 Food/1 Shield), then elements such as food requirements for unit production can be used because these requirements can incrementally take up your resources - as it stands now with the current civ3 system, it probably would be hard to balance the system because you have such a small margin to play with.

Your basic resources (shields/food/gold) end up playing a greater role in this setup because they can potentially be needed for everything. Sure it would have to be balanced, but it is definitely workable - and more realistic.

[MrBaggins]

I've already suggested a food/production/gold upkeep model for the CtP2 source project, and suggested the same for Tile Improvements.

Also... there has been unit updating in CTP2 for a long while... the Updater & Updater2 mods...

I've also suggested that there be Gold AND/OR PW costs for unit upgrading. PW had an unforseen benefit in its implementation... storage of production, that could be spent for more than just tile improvements.

These are all really easy to implement in that system, since food, production and commerce are highly granular values.

[hexagonian]

(Gasp) But that would mean that civ4 would start resembling CTP...

...and we wouldn't want that! There are no good ideas in CTP

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
They are always building the temple, but this time you forced them into hard labor and they died.

Allright, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the ones who are working on the temple die, why does the guy out in the fields go away? Obviously in the current system of pop rushing, you have pulled a worker out of the fields to build the temple, and then worked him to death. What he is suggesting is an in-between step. You can build it at normal speed. Or you can add some workers to the job, taking away from your food production, or you can take those workers away from food production, and work them till they die.

[MrBaggins]

FWIW, regarding the discussion, I think that shields alone should build a unit, Food AND/OR Shields AND/OR Gold be required to maintain/support it, and Shields AND/OR Gold be required to upgrade it. (Possibly quantities of specific strategic resources too, in all cases)


Essentially, it doesn't make sense that there NOT be significant gold requirements maintaining modern technological units... and nuclear units, or some kind of food requirement for provisioning and reinforcing early manpower intensive units.

[DarkCloud]

Hmm... I agree with Baggins-

Shields to build... and Food/Gold for support makes more sens- beceause shields represents production wehreas Food represents feeding the unit and gold represents supplying it in the field since supply costs money.

although an argument can be made for Gold+Shields for Productions and Gold+Food for maintenance.

That would add realism and strategy without taking away too much from the game, I believe!

[LzPrst]

I made a big post on having not population points and having a number of people like fosse. since this can easily be implemented I'd rather see the death of population points since it adds far more realism to the game to actually draft 1000 people out of the total when making a spearman, than drafting "bread"...
Just my opinon...

[LzPrst]

maybe bread would be subtracted for maintenance...
maybe there should be a national or citybased "food pool" supplying your troops with food...