farm improvement

[gilfan]

I've always thought that Farms suck in comparison to other tile improvements. I finally got tired enough of this that I decided to take the time to figure out how to improve it. I changed it so that Civil Service raises the farm bonus to +2f total, and Biology raises the bonus to +3f total, bringing farms up to par with all other tile improvements.



First, here's my reasoning on why I believe farms need improvement...

When evaluating tile improvements, I count 1 food as 1 point, 1 hammer as 1 point, and 2 commerce 1 point. When you use gold to hurry production, it takes about 2.5g per hammer, but I'm rounding down because commerce is more flexible and because the buildings to increase gold/research generally come along earlier in the tech tree. All totals assume you have all tech upgrades and are using the most advantageous civic.


Watermills.... 4 points: 1 food, 2 hammers, 2 commerce (State Property civic, replacable parts, electricity)
Towns......... 3.5 points: 1 hammer, 7 commerce (universal sufferage, printing press, free speech)
Windmills...... 3 points: 1 food, 1 hammer, 2 commerce (replacable parts, electricity)
Workshops.... 3 points: 0 food, 3 hammers (State Property civic, guilds, chemistry)
Mines.......... 3 points: 3 hammers (railroad)
Lumbermills... 3 points: 3 hammers (railroad, also gives .5 health)
Farms.......... 2 points: 2 food (biology)




Second, how to make the change on your system...

If you'd like to do this to your game as well, you just need to edit the Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\Terrain\CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml file with a text editor. Just press control-f and do a search for TECH_BIOLOGY, then add the bold section. (I've replaced brackets with parenthesis, so it will show up here). The order is important... the civil_service section must be before the biology section. I attached the edited file as a text file, if you want to use it, you can just change the extension to .xml and replace your current file.


(TechYieldChanges)
(TechYieldChange)
(PrereqTech)TECH_CIVIL_SERVICE(/PrereqTech)
(TechYields)
(iYield)1(/iYield)
(iYield)0(/iYield)
(iYield)0(/iYield)
(/TechYields)
(/TechYieldChange)
(TechYieldChange)
(PrereqTech)TECH_BIOLOGY(/PrereqTech)
(TechYields)
(iYield)1(/iYield)
(iYield)0(/iYield)
(iYield)0(/iYield)
(/TechYields)
(/TechYieldChange)


I've also attached it as a text file, if you want to just use the one I've already changed. Just change the file extension to .xml and place it in the appropriate folder.

[Willem]

That's way overpowered IMO, it would throw the game balance way off.

[gilfan]

Any time you change something, you run the risk of it being overpowered. You might be right, you might not, I haven't played enough games with it yet to decide if I think it is.

If I end up feeling like it's too good, I'll probably add commerce to farms instead. Probably +1 commerce from civil service and +1 from refridgeration. As I said, I just feel like farms are farm too weak in comparison to other tile improvements, and the one bonus they get comes with biology, which comes way, way late in the tech tree. I felt it was important they get some kind of upgrade in the early-middle of the tree, and since civil service allowed irrigation and there didn't appear to be any other obvious choices, I upgraded them there.

If you have alternate suggestions, I'm listening.

[Martin the Dane]

Hmm I do agree that farms are to week, but then I can allso se that an extra food with civil-service, is a bit much, after all you get irigation then. Would it be possible to add .5 food/farm from say grocer? and then maybe another .5 food/farm from supermarket?
This would even out the incresed growth and make it a bit more realistic. In my current game the world population anno 1800 is arround 150 million!!!

[gilfan]

I suppose you could try making the (iYield)1(/iYield) a .5 instead of a 1, but I doubt that would work. Never know til you try, I guess. That's for attaching bonuses to techs, however. I don't know if there's a way to attach the same bonuses to buildings. As far as the bonus coming with civil service... it just seemd to make sense. Logically speaking, don't you think irrigation should improve crop yields? If it's a playbalance objection, it's an easy matter to attach the upgrade to another tech.

As far as being overpowered, I freely admit I haven't playtested it much, yet. However, fully upgraded mines lumbermills, and workshops all add 3 hammers, and watermills add 1f 2h 2c. In comparison, letting farms add 3 food seems reasonable to me, at first glance.

[Blake]

Farms are supposed to make marginal land useful, not be power-improvements.

Biology isn't THAT deep in the tech tree. It requires Scientific Method and Chemistry. You could easily pick up one of those techs with Liberalism.

If anything Biology should enhance plantations so that certain plantations remain on par with Farms, Sugar plantation in particular (+1 food, +1 commerce) is inferior to a biology farm. If biology added +1 commerce to plantations and wineries it would largely preserve the natural balance of things. (after all, in modern times it's not wineries getting paved over by farms, there is a definite trend towards cash crop in favor of food).

[Nacht]

Re: farm improvement

Originally posted by gilfan
When evaluating tile improvements, I count 1 food as 1 point, 1 hammer as 1 point, and 2 commerce 1 point.

What you really want your city to produce is hammers and commerce. Food is mere a means to an end. A high food tile means I can work more low food/high hammer/high commerce tiles. I don't know what level you are playing at but at least at monarch such high production farms would mean that you would only need a few of them to hit your happy/healthy cap.

Comparing food and hammers/commerce as points seems silly to me. You just need enough food to be able to keep those mines and towns running.

[Willem]

Re: Re: farm improvement

Originally posted by Nacht
Comparing food and hammers/commerce as points seems silly to me. You just need enough food to be able to keep those mines and towns running.

Exactly. You can't compare the relative values of each improvement and consider one weak because of less output. You have to look at it in the context of gameplay. Having a high yield farm would max out your city population in no time and throw the whole game dynamic out the window. Even adding commerce is going to mess with things. There won't be any challenge in trying to expand in the face of high city maintenance costs since you'll be rolling in dough. There's a reason why Farms only produce what they do.

[gilfan]

Equating food to hammers for comparison's sake is very valid. For instance, say you have a city that is at it's max population, and has 4 farms. Then you learn biology, and now have 4 surplus food. Now you can afford to destroy two farms and in their place build 2 workshops (assuming you're running state property). You just gained 6 hammers.

It's just a means of comparing the relative strength of tile improvements. No one's saying hammer and commerce are the same things, either, but clearly a tile improvement that gave 8 hammers would be superior to one that gave 2 commerce.


And not that it matters, but I typically play on Monarch.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by gilfan
Equating food to hammers for comparison's sake is very valid.. For instance, say you have a city that is at it's max population, and has 4 farms. Then you learn biology, and now have 4 surplus food. Now you can afford to destroy two farms and in their place build 2 workshops (assuming you're running state property). You just gained 6 hammers.

Yes thats the point of biology and means you've entered modern times. To have that surplus in ancient times seems unbalancing to me.

[Martin the Dane]

I was thinking of something more like

			<FoodModifiers>
				<iFood>25</iFood>
			</FoodModifiers>

But I don't know if that's possible, will try it later.

[Senethro]

What about if we increased the value of farms by going in by the back door? Farms allow you to work tiles with less than 2 food on them. I don't think anyone would dispute the utility of a plains/hill/mine, so what if we increased the yield of specialists? Or upgraded specialists as you progress up the tech tree? By the time you start getting towns (And especially by U.Suff/Free Speech) 3 lab points for a scientist starts looking very anaemic. Would Scientist/Great Scientist yield +1 at Education and Scientific Method be ridiculous?

[Rook]

All I know is I had a size 12 city in my last game that outproduced a size 25 city. I dont think you can equate food/hammers and commerce equally there's more to it.

The wierd thing about the size 12 city is I built it where I thought made sense the computer suggested a more coastal location. Turned out to be one of my better producing cities.

[gilfan]

Originally posted by Senethro
What about if we increased the value of farms by going in by the back door? Farms allow you to work tiles with less than 2 food on them. I don't think anyone would dispute the utility of a plains/hill/mine, so what if we increased the yield of specialists? Or upgraded specialists as you progress up the tech tree? By the time you start getting towns (And especially by U.Suff/Free Speech) 3 lab points for a scientist starts looking very anaemic. Would Scientist/Great Scientist yield +1 at Education and Scientific Method be ridiculous?

I like that idea. As you said, none of the specialists would convince me to give up a 1 hammer/7 commerce town.

[Senethro]

Gilfan: It often takes a Pacifist/Parthenon/Philosophical/National Epic city to convince me to run lots of specialists.

An alternate idea would be to link specialist yield with buildings. Merchants upgraded with Bank, Scientists with University, Priests with first Cathedral, Artists with theatre...? Engineers with factory.