New traits! What will Seafaring and Agricultural do?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Naokaukodem


Too powerfull or too weak?



The sea technologies would be of course pre determinated, it would be i guess Map Making, Astronomy, Navigation, Magnetism, Mass Production?... We could also modify the requiered technologies so that the features of sea ones could be enabled. Sea techs would be "available" but needed to be discovered or exchanged yet. For example Map Maping would be needed to search for Republic, Magnetism to reach the next era... only Navigation would be as if given for free.

Too powerful. I could see some player researching navigation just long enough to upgrade all his galleys, then switching to something more urgent.

[Bamspeedy]

Maybe tiles adjascent to rivers would get one extra food, or maybe tile bonuses will produce one extra food than normal. That would be a good boost in early game, but wouldn't be too overpowering for the whole game.

Do you realize how much extra food that would amount to?

If you want to claim land as quickly as possible (which is obviously the key to a successful game in most cases, because the more land you can claim peacefully, the better/easier time you will have with the rest of the game), then food is the biggest factor. In despotism, food is *extremely* valuable, and the limiting factor in how successful you are. Giving a civ free food very early in the game can really unbalance the game.

Let's look at how much excess food you can produce and see how quickly you can build settlers:

With no granary:
+2 food: 1 settler/20 turns (normal start with no bonuses)
+3 food: 1 settler/14 turns
+4 food: 1 settler/10 turns
+5 food: 1 settler/8 turns
+7 food: 1 settler/6 turns
Note: +6 food won't help at all, still the same pace as +5 food.

With granary:
+2 food: 1 settler/10 turns
+3 food: 1 settler/8 turns
+4 food: 1 settler/6 turns
+5 food: 1 settler/4 turns
Note: +6, +7, +8, +9 won't get you any faster than the +5 food, and +10 food just won't have the shield output to get you a settler every 2 turns until possibly when railroads come into the picture-(too late to really matter).

You need the production to keep those paces, of course, but those are the fastest you could possibly build settlers on average, since that is how long it takes to restore the 2 population points you lost by building a settler.

Giving 1 extra food to a bonus resource means you only need just 1 bonus resource (cow or wheat on grass) to get at that +5 food barrier, when it takes any other civ 2 resources to achieve that. Going from 6 turns to 4 turns/settler may not seem like much, but that means you could continually build 3 settlers to another persons 2 settlers. Imagine: 30 cities compared to 20 cities.

You have to be really careful about giving a civ extra food in the critical early game when expansion is the most important thing.

More food=faster growth (obviously)=more shield output=more commerce=more settlers/cities which also leads to more production and commerce. Free food is a win/win situation, and likely to be too powerful.

[Odin]

I definitely agree the US should be Industious and Agricultural. America is more agressive than expansionist so I would increase the US's Passive-Agressive rating from 3 to 4. I live in a ruralm area so I know this stuff.

[Louis XXIV]

The more I think about it, I think Seafarring should give all coast and sea squares +1 food, and +1 shield (making each one a bonus grassland, but it can't be mined or irrigated, only have harbors built).
In addition, they would get cheap Harbors and other coastal improvements.
The last advantage they would get is a ship (0.0.3, carries 1, costs 20 shields). This ship would be with them from the begining, but will be obsolete as soon as barbarians start patroling the water (and Galleys would be needed).
It also wouldn't be a bad idea to give them +1 movement for all ships to signify the experience of their sailors (the "ship" they got from the start would have 2+1 movement, instead of 3+1), but that might be one too many things to have (the bonuses to food and production on ocean squares might be the only thing that really makes it worthwile, as everything else requires using a navy, which doesn't have many uses in Civ3).

Just a thought.

I'm pretty certain that Agricultural will be +1 food in size 6 cities, +2 in size 12 (gives a sustained food to large cities to keep them growing, but doesn't give them anything early). Also, it would probably have cheap Granaries, Aqueducts, and Hospitals. I can't think of anything better for it.