beef vat

[omnibus]

Could someone tell me how exactly beef vat works?

The Library says it always gives you 5+ food surplus. What does that mean? I was experimenting a bit, but I didn't figure it out. I would imagine that even if you allocate no labor to farms and fischeries, you still have enough food to feed the city plus 5 units extra.

[TheBirdMan]

Means you citizens will not starve but always have a little surplus of food.

But it cost some production - and it cost you gold in upkeep every turn.

[J Bytheway]

I'm fairly sure that the beef vat does not in fact give any surplus food. Or if it does, then it's only while the city is celebratng or something. It's very difficult to monitor growth carefuly because of the effects or granaries, aqueducts, celebration and beef vats, all of which are different, but I have watched the food counter in cities with the beef vat and it never seems to change.

[TheBirdMan]

You might be right JB - I never use beefvats, so I'm not sure except that they do prevent starvation.

[faded glory]

Ditto, towards the end of the game I could care less if my citys are growing. i dont want them any bigger than 15-30.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by faded glory
i dont want them any bigger than 15-30.

That's a scary sentiment. What possible reason is there to want small cities over large ones . Even in the worst-case scenario you change each new citizen into an entertainer (or rather the game changes them for you) and so the effective population remains constant, but you can withstand more loss of population from nukes, assaults, bombards, etc.

[SoulFisher]

When I first got CTP I, I played on game to 3000 AD (I tend to be the peacable type). As I remember, the Beef Vats I built did indeed produce extra food for a city to grow.

Now-a-days, Beef Vats only seem to produce just enough food to maintain the current poppulation. Since I usually play my own mod of the game, I wonder if I've somehow changed the Beef Vat. I must find out . . .

[J Bytheway]

Yes, when eiting the file I noticed that the FLAG_FOOD_VAT or whatever it's called had the parameter '1'. I thought that this was pollution produced per food generated, but it might be something else. There's an entry in const.txt for pollution per food as well, so that is evidence against my theory.

[SoulFisher]

I noticed those flags too. ("FOOD_TO_POLLUTION_COEF 1.0" in Const.txt and "IMPROVEMENT_FLAG_FOOD_VAT 1" in Improve.txt) I tried changing them in my previous install of CTP to try and remove the pollution dissadvantage of the Beef Vat. The pollution disappeared, but so did the surplus food I enjoyed getting!