Discussion Soil mechanic

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Vantha said:

How would the feature be communicated to players? And can we rely solely on the ground's texture to indicate its fertility?

At the moment I think will be represented by  a building 

[Lion.Kanzen]

@Vantha 

You gave me a good idea, how in real life do we know where there is good fertile soil?

2 years ago I traveled to the countryside to my girlfriend's farmland.

My brother-in-law taught him how to get soil for my plants.

He taught me to mix manure waste and soil from the ground ...

The ground/soil ..He taught me that it had to be from fruit trees. 

The land of trees, where fruits die, is fertile.

I have a video of that.

Getting back to the topic: the soil around fruits bushes or fruit trees can be excellent for fields.

Edited October 8, 2024 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

Another idea would be to plant in areas where there were fruit trees and bushes.

Basically you just collect the fruits and then build a farm.

It also works in areas where there are trees.

And again it can work in areas where there is livestock.

In the end, the organic wastes of plants can work.

On the other hand, human waste pollutes and is not good for farming.

This means that the areas where the CC and the houses are are not good for planting.

Edited October 8, 2024 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Another idea would be to plant in areas where there were fruit trees and bushes.

It also works in areas where there are trees.

And again it can work in areas where there is livestock.

In the end, the organic wastes of plants can work.

On the other hand, human waste pollutes and is not good for farming.

This means that the areas where the CC and the houses are are not good for planting.

So as not to make this so long.

Planting in natural areas = good.

Planting in urban areas = bad.

[Grautvornix]

For desert maps (my favourite subject, it seems), good farming area is where there is green patches in the sand. Bad area is where there is no natural green.

This could lead to a situation where you initially hunt animals and cut tress and put farmland where the trees used to be.

[Lion.Kanzen]

51 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

For desert maps (my favourite subject, it seems), good farming area is where there is green patches in the sand. Bad area is where there is no natural green.

This could lead to a situation where you initially hunt animals and cut tress and put farmland where the trees used to be.

Implementing that for now is complicated, that would be ideal, but it would have to be in a later development of the mechanics.

 

This proposal to implement it in the style of The Fertile Crescent (TFC) will take time.

@Stan` should be asked.

[Acanthis]

Virtually all organic waste, including human excrement, is excellent for soil; providing proper handling and processing (composting, fermentation). Human waste is suitable for use in food production. The collection and use of human excrement in agriculture has only ceased in modern times for a variety of reasons, although it is not entirely unheard of even in developed countries. Especially during the time frame of this game- before modern pharmaceuticals and plastics- human waste would not be something people would have neglected to use.

Not that you have to trust me, but I work professionally in agriculture and have used composted human excrement in a variety of contexts.

Back to the main topic, I like the idea of diversifying the primary production in the game a bit more. Personally I think it would be very neat to have a few more layers of complexity involved in the economy, not to say an Anno series level, but somewhere in between. For example, charcoal production could be made explicit rather than implicit in the cost of various upgrades and units.

But even more kinds of farms or a way to, building on Lion's suggestion, adding an agricultural "building" to "claim" berries/vineyards/fruit trees and turn them into orchards & vineyards would be cool. Simply from a variety and enjoyability point of view, the basic fields get boring and don't necessarily reflect the wide range of agricultural practices of the times and places the game depicts.

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Acanthis said:

Virtually all organic waste, including human excrement, is excellent for soil;

Yes, but it depends on the treatment.

https://daily.jstor.org/a-history-of-human-waste-as-fertilizer/

Urine decomposes much more easily in the environment.

The process with feces is more complex.

Apart from that, it is dangerous to contaminate a water source.

 

4 hours ago, Acanthis said:

Back to the main topic, I like the idea of diversifying the primary production in the game a bit more. Personally I think it would be very neat to have a few more layers of complexity involved in the economy, not to say an Anno series level, but somewhere in between. For example, charcoal production could be made explicit rather than implicit in the cost of various upgrades and units.

Something simpler would sometimes be that land is valuable simply for the sake of being able to cultivate it, not just for the extraction of resources.(Minerals).

It adds a layer of handicap but with the resources that the game has, such as animals and plants, it can improve the natural capacity of the soil.

Civilizations developed near water sources and where they had domesticable animals.

These are maps of the origins of crops.

Origins of Agriculture. Vavilov’s original map of the origins of agriculture ( 1 ) Mexico-Guatemala, ( 2 ) Peru-Ecuador-Bolivia, ( 2A ) Southern Chile, ( 2B ) Southern Brazil, ( 3 ) Mediterranean, ( 4 ) Middle East, ( 5 ) Ethiopia, ( 6 ) Central Asia, (7) Indo-Burma, ( 7A ) Siam-Malaya-Java, ( 8 ) China. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Animal Domestication.

 

[Grautvornix]

That's all very valid argumentation - but the original point was less about soil fertility itself that can indeed be improved by appropriate treatment, but more generally the suitability of various types of terrain for farming, i.e. a complex made out of water availablility and soil structure.

Irrigation systems are currently nbot part of the game (e.g. building wells, pipes, aquaeducts or the like) (apologies, you might tell from that that I have played "settlers" a lot in the past).

That would be a future possibility I would be looking forward to. BTW, destroying your opponent's irrigation system could be a strategy to weaken their farming yield, very much an economical impact like attacking their traders/markets.

The whole point is also not about technology within the tech tree but about different parts of a map could be more or less suitable for farming. Agree that this would need to be implemented within the map itself.

 

Sorry, here is a related topic (could not resist):

A more simple system could be based on climate or biome: I always wondered how one can grow e.g. a ricefield in an arctic environment. in those maps we should depend more on fishing or hunting, potentially also on livestock breeding. Could there be a general farming malus based on the biome type? (as an example nubian, sahara, arctic, or savanna biomes could have malus settings).

All these proposed changes, climate/biome dependency as well as terrain type, could add another little strategic dimension to the game - where to put the next farm, and possibly also where to put the next CC without being too complex.

[Lion.Kanzen]

57 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

A more simple system could be based on climate or biome: I always wondered how one can grow e.g. a ricefield in an arctic environment. in those maps we should depend more on fishing or hunting, potentially also on livestock breeding. Could there be a general farming malus based on the biome type? (as an example nubian, sahara, arctic, or savanna biomes could have malus settings).

All these proposed changes, climate/biome dependency as well as terrain type, could add another little strategic dimension to the game - where to put the next farm, and possibly also where to put the next CC without being too complex.

I thought that too.

[Feldfeld]

I like these ideas, if I find the time maybe I'll make a mod for that.

This can open the way for paired (maybe exclusive) technologies, for example whether compensating for low fertility or optimizing high fertility

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

I like these ideas, if I find the time maybe I'll make a mod for that.

This can open the way for paired (maybe exclusive) technologies, for example whether compensating for low fertility or optimizing high fertility

It would be nice to make several mods of mechanics like this, so the concept can be tested.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

A more simple system could be based on climate or biome: I always wondered how one can grow e.g. a ricefield in an arctic environment. in those maps we should depend more on fishing or hunting, potentially also on livestock breeding. Could there be a general farming malus based on the biome type? (as an example nubian, sahara, arctic, or savanna biomes could have malus settings

It is necessary to differentiate a map for hunting and maps for agriculture.

There are maps where there are both, that's why I said that there are symbiosis between livestock and crops.

The other way is fishing, but it is limited.

Arctic map is a map limited by something you can't survive without advanced technology.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

  

9 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

You are right - apologies for misplacing the proposal in the wrong thread! An also, before we add the visualization of such aura we need to implement the feature in the game mechanics.

Just a few more words on the visualization concept: Obviously, this cannot be an "aura marker" like for the temple or towers as the terrain is not a selectable unit. For me it would appear most intuitive if I place the fields in a greener area in the desert, e.g. around an oasis, and not onto pure sand or rock area (same for paved areas around CC and roads of course - or is there a penalty already?).

I am aware that we do have already the prepared farmland terrain feature (looking great and inviting to build a farm) on non-desert maps. On desert maps, this might look strange if an oasis would be surrounded by prepared farmland with trees on it. Could we possibly visualize good farmland by slightly darker sand with a bit of green? I mean basically, the area surrounding the oasis itself should be suitable up to a certain distance.

In addition we would then also need kind of a tooltip for such things (could be part of the tips & tricks page by @Vanthaand @ShadowOfHassen.

8 hours ago, Radiotraining said:

I think the best way would be to "teach" the player about the different areas as a general feature in the game. So when you placea new farm you'll have different shades of green depending on the area and how much 'productive' it would be: a bright green for good areas (maybe green biomes or near a farmstead) and a desaturated value the farther you go. At that point, is already clear that a desaturated green when you build means: "not much productive" 

Continuing this in a more appropriate topic.

I get that placing farms in deserts is unrealistic. However, introducing a soil quality (and water availability, which I have seen suggested) system based on terrain simply doesn't fit with the abstraction level of the game. In multiplayer, it would probably just be annoying to worry about whether or not you can expect the normal amount of food from a farm.

However, rather than penalizing farm placement depending on the terrain (desert, snowy, mountainous) for all maps, it could be made "opt-in": it could be set it up as a neutral feature of certain skirmish maps for which it is the focus of the map.

I.e Add two "well" structures in a valley that cannot be destroyed, but only captured. These provide a 30% farming bonus in a 50 meter radius. Players descend from opposing mountain ranges to take control of the wells.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

20 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I.e Add two "well" structures in a valley that cannot be destroyed, but only captured. These provide a 30% farming bonus in a 50 meter radius. Players descend from opposing mountain ranges to take control of the wells.

Indeed, I've already started to include this level of abstraction in Skirmish maps:

 

Capture these farmsteads/mills to get a farming boost around them (with an aura).

[Radiotraining]

Personal opinion: maybe is because I don't play competitive, so take my opinion for what is worthed, but I find that some little layer of extra difficulty could make also some multiplayer more engaging: so is not only about spamming the best champion unit, but also some strategic considerations to make based on the map.

So I wouldn't discard the idea completely. Of course, I also agree that it must be a simple concept and not too complex, otherwise it would be a city builder or a whole different game. (That's why it was a good suggestion of only one "middle color" to signal unproductive soil and maybe very few rules: desert/rocks or too far from city)

The idea of a structure to capture sounds also like a good compromise. Even tho it doesn't change much the game dynamic, IMHO. But is a nice added touch 

Edited 18 hours ago by Radiotraining

[Grautvornix]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed, I've already started to include this level of abstraction in Skirmish maps:

 

Capture these farmsteads/mills to get a farming boost around them (with an aura).

This is cool indeed! Sounds like a pragmatic way of implementing something that otherwise is too complex to arrange within the game. I like it!