AU mod: The Agricultural trait

[alexman]

Just as humans use ships very, very effectively in a way in which AIs are programmed not to use them at all, the same is true for the extra food from the agricultural trait: Extra food gets converted to production by the agricultural AI, whereas the human uses the extra food to get extra population, and worse for the AI, Settler pumps.

Yes, agricultural AI civs tend to do better than non-agricultural civs, but human agricultural civs do much better than AI agricultural civs. Therefore, weakening the agricultural trait will hurt the agricultural human more than the agricultural AI, just as weakening curraghs hurts the seafaring human more than the seafaring AI.

Increasing the cost of agricultural settlers forces the human to sometimes sacrifice the extra food to get extra production, leveling the playing field, because that is what the AI does.

[nbarclay]

When I don't have the production for a settler pump in a city that could otherwise be a good one, my usual course of action is to make it a worker pump instead. Or, with the capital, the higher shield cost of settlers could usually be overcome by letting the city grow one bigger and adjusting the luxury slider accordingly if necessary. (And the same technique can often work in other cities, although the cost in commerce tends to be a lot higher.) In cities that don't have four-turn pump potential, the higher cost of settlers would tend to manifest itself in building less in between settlers rather than in sacrificing growth for shields, or in letting a city grow a pop point bigger if shields become the main constraint.

In other words, if my own techniques are any indication (and granted, I'm not entirely typical), humans would generally not react to the change by shifting a laborer in a way that costs them a point of food the way you seem to intend them to. The real effects would tend to be a lot more subtle.

[player1]

Hmm...
Why not hadicap the UUs of Agricultural civs?

Aztec and Incas (with original C3C stats) come to my mind as more balanced Agr civs.

While Celts and Irqoues as most unbalanced (Agr + supreme UU).

Dutch and Sumerians are in the middle (since defensive UUs don't help drasticly in exapnsion, more in preserving what you already have).

While Mayan are hit or miss. Wihout barbarians to enslave their UU is mediocre, if not weak. And god help you if AI attack your early, what can you do with 30 shields archer.

[joncnunn]

On the Agricultural traight:
Ideal solution would indeed be removing the despotism bonsus on the food tile, but not possible to do using the editor.

Prior to reading this thread I thought that removing all half priced structures would be the best allowed by the editor, but now I like the agr vs of the settler only I'd have the Agr version of the settler cost 40 shields [less shield micromangement than 35] but only 1 citizen used.

This would greatly help the agr AI building of Settlers at high difficulty levels.

Humans would need to redirect the extra food into shield producation during REX.

[player1]

40shields, one pop settler?
Wouldn't that make Agr even more powerful?

[joncnunn]

To the AI at high difficulty levels (or if they get an ultra early GA) yes, they'd be helped because of them currently wasting shields waiting for cities building the settler waiting to grow.
AI isn't taking full advantage of the Agr traight.

Originally posted by player1
40shields, one pop settler?
Wouldn't that make Agr even more powerful?