Food trickle efficiency: Ice House vs Corral + Cows

[ffm2]

I was recently calculating whats a better investment for food trickle, a ice house or a farmstead and cows garrisoned.

 

ICE HOUSE (Limit: 5)

Base building:
  Cost:       100 stone, 100 wood
  Build time: 60 s
  Trickle:    1 food / 2 s   (0.5 food/s)

Aqueduct upgrade:
  Cost:        300 stone, 300 wood
  Research:    40 s
  Trickle:     2 food / 2 s  (1.0 food/s)


5 ICE HOUSES (max):

  5 × (100 stone + 100 wood) = 500 stone, 500 wood
  1 × (300 stone + 300 wood) = 300 stone, 300 wood

  Total resources:  1600
  Total trickle:    5 food/s

  Cost per 1 food/s:
  1600 / 5 = 320 resources


CORRAL + COWS (Limit: 50 cows)

Corral:
  Cost:        100 wood
  Build time:  50 s
  Capacity:    8 cows

Cows:
  Cost:        150 food
  Produce:     60 s
  Trickle:     3 food / 3 s  (1.0 food/s)


7 CORRALS + 50 COWS (max cows):

  7 × 100 wood         =   700 wood
  50 × 150 food        =  7500 food

  Total resources:       8200
  Total trickle:         50 food/s

  Cost per 1 food/s:
  8200 / 50 = 164 resources


Summary:
Ice House:      320 resources per 1 food/s
Corral + Cows:  164 resources per 1 food/s

 

Corrals win by far. I think the ice houses should be better considering they are a civ specialty.

Edited February 13 by ffm2

[chrstgtr]

Interesting but it’s an incomplete picture. 
 

1. Corrals use food as a resource input, which is slower to gather. 
2. Corrals use of food to gather food also means that the food collection chart will have lots scarcity dips caused by capital investment costs. This is pretty dangerous and can bankrupt a player quickly. 
3. Corrals require more micro.

4. Corrals require continual investment/management whereas ice houses just need to be built once. 
5. Ice houses are unique to Persia, which has a higher pop cap/ eco potential, so more it’s easier to collect the input resources 

6. You’re missing the corral training tech

7. Cows can be batch trained 

8. You can build 7 (or more corrals) all at once  

 

all in all, I agree ice houses need a buff but I don’t think it’s as desperate as the above portrays 

Edited February 15 by chrstgtr

[Arup]

320 per 1 food? if you add the house tech into it,it probably become somewhere around 180 (guesstimate, not calculating)

that's not bad for a obscure piece of the biggest civ in game right?

the persians need a lot of balance changes (both buffs and nerfs) perhaps I'll make a thread on its own

[Dakara]

don't buff persians 

plus persians can cumulate theses 2 solutions 

btw corals

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 15/02/2026 at 4:01 PM, chrstgtr said:

3. Corrals require more micro.

This is an important one and the first thing to come to my mind when reading the OP. Passive bonuses, even if not as "lucrative," are generally better because one can use the APM you'd use on a corral for something else. An Ice House is a "build it and forget it" feature. Not so with a Corral. Similar to the difference between a Global aura vs. a Ranged aura for heroes. Global auras should always be weaker than Ranged auras, and vice versa. 

[ffm2]

On 15/02/2026 at 10:01 PM, chrstgtr said:

1. Corrals use food as a resource input, which is slower to gather. 
2. Corrals use of food to gather food also means that the food collection chart will have lots scarcity dips caused by capital investment costs. This is pretty dangerous and can bankrupt a player quickly. 
3. Corrals require more micro.

4. Corrals require continual investment/management whereas ice houses just need to be built once. 
5. Ice houses are unique to Persia, which has a higher pop cap/ eco potential, so more it’s easier to collect the input resources 

6. You’re missing the corral training tech

7. Cows can be batch trained 

8. You can build 7 (or more corrals) all at once  

It's a good thing that it gives the thing it costs. If i trade, I start to set the trade on 100% metal to finance the training of traders until they are enough. So I see 1. more as a pro corral argument.

The corral training tech. It slows the investment down, so one can invest more of the gains the current cows are giving. This is not a important point though.

It is more micro, but not much. You can do it in a non-crusial time of the game. It is also a set and forget thing. Just place a coral at some time, Just activate auto-training, set a way point on the ground next to the corral, set a way point on the corral to garrison. So its something like ~5 clicks. The cow production stops automatically if there are 50 cows.

The value of food varies during the game very hard. Since populating up is a extreme high priority one make >10 fields. Then when you reach pop cap, the value suddenly drops, while you still have the farmers on the field. The best use is to be the first at the market then and converting it. But then when the game drags on it's best invested in the corrals to free up the pop of the woman on the fields.

Persians sure can do both but it's advisable to do the less efficient one later when the efficient method is fully exhausted.

Just for note there is also a little trick possible, build a house as extension of your territory, build the 5 ice houses as the extension. Delete the house. Let the ice houses go to gaia. Build 5 new ice houses. Capture the old 5 ice houses back. Interesting for the "survival of the fittest" game where the Persians are OP.

[Tapothei]

2 hours ago, ffm2 said:

It is more micro, but not much. You can do it in a non-crusial time of the game. It is also a set and forget thing. Just place a coral at some time, Just activate auto-training, set a way point on the ground next to the corral, set a way point on the corral to garrison. So its something like ~5 clicks. The cow production stops automatically if there are 50 cows.

Can confirm, thats what I do late game from observing players.

2 hours ago, ffm2 said:

Just for note there is also a little trick possible, build a house as extension of your territory, build the 5 ice houses as the extension. Delete the house. Let the ice houses go to gaia. Build 5 new ice houses. Capture the old 5 ice houses back. Interesting for the "survival of the fittest" game where the Persians are OP.

Thats.. quite an exploit, might as well set global limit, having more doesn't benefit the player. Me with 50 cows and on the other side a penguin nirvana about 50(I don't even know what ice house is).

[ffm2]

15 minutes ago, Tapothei said:

I don't even know what ice house is

You know .. the ice house .. the Yakhchal

[guerringuerrin]

4 hours ago, ffm2 said:

Just for note there is also a little trick possible, build a house as extension of your territory, build the 5 ice houses as the extension. Delete the house. Let the ice houses go to gaia. Build 5 new ice houses. Capture the old 5 ice houses back. Interesting for the "survival of the fittest" game where the Persians are OP.

Haha Yeah, similar thing happening with the Britons Kennel. I wonder if there's an Issue in gitea of this one?

Edited February 17 by guerringuerrin

[ffm2]

Personally I am fine with this. It is a bit weird and really benefits only in survival of the fittest. Another one is the wonder swapping if you have a ally with diplomacy on: Let the ally capture your wonder, you build a new, change alliances recapture, enjoy having 2 wonders. Now help your ally doing this.

[guerringuerrin]

18 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

Personally I am fine with this. It is a bit weird and really benefits only in survival of the fittest.

And I guess one could say it's not even worth the effort in a standard game
 

18 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

enjoy having 2 wonders. Now help your ally doing this.

Edited February 17 by guerringuerrin

[chrstgtr]

6 hours ago, ffm2 said:

Just for note there is also a little trick possible, build a house as extension of your territory, build the 5 ice houses as the extension. Delete the house. Let the ice houses go to gaia. Build 5 new ice houses. Capture the old 5 ice houses back. Interesting for the "survival of the fittest" game where the Persians are OP.

This is a real hack. I like it. 

6 hours ago, ffm2 said:

It is more micro, but not much. You can do it in a non-crusial time of the game. It is also a set and forget thing. Just place a coral at some time, Just activate auto-training, set a way point on the ground next to the corral, set a way point on the corral to garrison. So its something like ~5 clicks. The cow production stops automatically if there are 50 cows.

The value of food varies during the game very hard. Since populating up is a extreme high priority one make >10 fields. Then when you reach pop cap, the value suddenly drops, while you still have the farmers on the field. The best use is to be the first at the market then and converting it. But then when the game drags on it's best invested in the corrals to free up the pop of the woman on the fields.

 

My main point is that food is the slowest gathered resource. So you can't value it the same as the others in a 1:1 basis. It's also the resource most likely to hit 0 when a player loses. Additionally, the auto train cows part can get a player into real trouble if their food supply suddenly runs low. 

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, ffm2 said:

Personally I am fine with this. It is a bit weird and really benefits only in survival of the fittest. Another one is the wonder swapping if you have a ally with diplomacy on: Let the ally capture your wonder, you build a new, change alliances recapture, enjoy having 2 wonders. Now help your ally doing this.

Wonders are one of the most useless building in the game. They super expensive in resources and time. I don't know if I've seen a game all alpha where building a wonder helped that team (assuming it isn't a win condition). 

[guerringuerrin]

On 13/02/2026 at 4:51 PM, ffm2 said:

I was recently calculating whats a better investment for food trickle, a ice house or a farmstead and cows garrisoned.

 

ICE HOUSE (Limit: 5)

Base building:
  Cost:       100 stone, 100 wood
  Build time: 60 s
  Trickle:    1 food / 2 s   (0.5 food/s)

Aqueduct upgrade:
  Cost:        300 stone, 300 wood
  Research:    40 s
  Trickle:     2 food / 2 s  (1.0 food/s)


5 ICE HOUSES (max):

  5 × (100 stone + 100 wood) = 500 stone, 500 wood
  1 × (300 stone + 300 wood) = 300 stone, 300 wood

  Total resources:  1600
  Total trickle:    5 food/s

  Cost per 1 food/s:
  1600 / 5 = 320 resources


CORRAL + COWS (Limit: 50 cows)

Corral:
  Cost:        100 wood
  Build time:  50 s
  Capacity:    8 cows

Cows:
  Cost:        150 food
  Produce:     60 s
  Trickle:     3 food / 3 s  (1.0 food/s)


7 CORRALS + 50 COWS (max cows):

  7 × 100 wood         =   700 wood
  50 × 150 food        =  7500 food

  Total resources:       8200
  Total trickle:         50 food/s

  Cost per 1 food/s:
  8200 / 50 = 164 resources


Summary:
Ice House:      320 resources per 1 food/s
Corral + Cows:  164 resources per 1 food/s

 

Corrals win by far. I think the ice houses should be better considering they are a civ specialty.

To use as trickle I think that Goats have the best ROI as they cost 35 and trickle 1 food per second. That represent the 2,85% of the investment while cows give 3 food but cost 150 food, which is only 2% of the total cost of the cow. Also they train faster so they start "trickling" before the cow so the total benefit should be a bit more.

Edited February 17 by guerringuerrin

[Perzival12]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Wonders are one of the most useless building in the game. They super expensive in resources and time. I don't know if I've seen a game all alpha where building a wonder helped that team (assuming it isn't a win condition). 

Especially since even when you build a wonder, you STILL have to research the Glorious Expansion technology to get any benefit from it. The Glorious Expansion technology should be removed and just made part of the Wonder, to give it any use.

[Obelix]

28 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

to give it any use

You know Wonders give you a food trickle (1 of each res/2 s) as well? But I think we should discuss the usefullness of Wonders with their own technologies further in another thread.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

Especially since even when you build a wonder, you STILL have to research the Glorious Expansion technology to get any benefit from it. The Glorious Expansion technology should be removed and just made part of the Wonder, to give it any use.

Strong agree.
 

It used to automatically give  a small pop bonus with the tech to get even more. Then our former glorious leader @Nescio said this was unnecessary and that the wonder was still useful as a temple. Such a brilliant understand of the game he had

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, Obelix said:

You know Wonders give you a food trickle (1 of each res/2 s) as well? But I think we should discuss the usefullness of Wonders with their own technologies further in another thread.

That means you might recoup your resource costs 15 minutes after the game is over because all your allies resigned while you were spending all your time building a really expensive building with no other use. 

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

the wonder was still useful

I objected the changes and think the wonder is utterly useless; would never build it in a serious game. (With the RCs I'm like "press every button", so I built a few; e.g. the "interesting" German one.)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Wonders are one of the most useless building in the game.

I realized this years ago, so integrated the Wonder into leveling to the final phase in muh mod.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

IMO i think the primary purpose of wonders should be wonder victory and eye candy. If they were meta and part of the core gameplay loop, you would run into stuff like the annoyance of finding space for them all the time.

Also if they were used every other game, I think they would lose their novelty.

[chrstgtr]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

IMO i think the primary purpose of wonders should be wonder victory and eye candy. If they were meta and part of the core gameplay loop, you would run into stuff like the annoyance of finding space for them all the time.

Also if they were used every other game, I think they would lose their novelty.

Boo.

In a23 there was a real decision between going for WTF, wonder (for extra pop), or champs. That’s is an objectively better setup that what exists now, which is only a choice between champs and WTF 

Novelty is also silly. You could say that about any unit, building, and/or tech 

Edited February 18 by chrstgtr

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I realized this years ago, so integrated the Wonder into leveling to the final phase in muh mod.

I also liked the idea you posted awhile ago about it housing super strong techs like eco super boost, military super boost, and pop boost  

 

5 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

I objected the changes

everyone did but some random person no one had heard of before or since. It didn’t matter, @Nescio was just awful and forced his awful vision for the game forward and lost many players in the process. I honestly don’t think the game has recovered since, which is a real shame because the game had just expanded a bunch during covid 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

If they were meta and part of the core gameplay loop, you would run into stuff like the annoyance of finding space for them all the time.

Nah. Adopt DE's straggler trees/groves. You'll never lack space for anything then. 

 

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Also if they were used every other game, I think they would lose their novelty.

Seeing them once every 200 games seems a bit too novel, don't you think? Better to make them super expensive, but useful in a standard match. Make them super expensive and they unlock a 4th phase with super techs. You can win a match in phase III, but in a team stalemate situation or who knows, a strategy could develop where one boosts to phase IV with the Wonder to help overwhelm their opponent. Maybe see them every other game or every 3rd game. Make a dramatic show of it by having the UI notify the other players when a Wonder has started construction (maybe even flare its position on the minimap). 

[chrstgtr]

30 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

in a team stalemate situation

This was when they were built in a23 (back when they were still useful). Usually to break a stalemate in a 3 (plus one very useless player) v 4 situation. The 3 would be outplaying the 4 in basically every way but couldn’t win because of pop cap limits.