Farmland Concept Redux.

[wraitii]

I'm opening this up after reading some more discussion about farms and obstruction sizes. It seems like the consensus in the team is that farms should be bigger, so they're harder to defend. We also discussed making farms depend on terrain and have more profitable and less profitable terrain for farming (see this).

I believe the fundamental issue with our farms is that they are large buildings with an obstruction. Making them larger means you will be able to build them in even fewer places, which is annoying. So what's the solution for organic-looking farmlands?

Make farms smaller, and limit them to one worker. If our farms were, say, 2x2 tiles, we could plot many around and it would be able to look pretty good (particularly if the decals extend a bit), the fields would actually look occupied by workers (instead of just going around), and it would still take up a lot more size.

Then we can add fancyness such as irrigation auras or stuffs like that if we want.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I'm opening this up after reading some more discussion about farms and obstruction sizes. It seems like the consensus in the team is that farms should be bigger, so they're harder to defend. We also discussed making farms depend on terrain and have more profitable and less profitable terrain for farming (see this).

I believe the fundamental issue with our farms is that they are large buildings with an obstruction. Making them larger means you will be able to build them in even fewer places, which is annoying. So what's the solution for organic-looking farmlands?

Make farms smaller, and limit them to one worker. If our farms were, say, 2x2 tiles, we could plot many around and it would be able to look pretty good (particularly if the decals extend a bit), the fields would actually look occupied by workers (instead of just going around), and it would still take up a lot more size.

Then we can add fancyness such as irrigation auras or stuffs like that if we want.

Irrigation sounds very interesting. Sourcing water resources? Obviusly not a stockpile resource a bonus for farming.

[av93]

One important point of the discussion was the fact that some people was saying that they don't like farms being worked near CC

[RoekeloosNL]

Would also be nice too have different farm types.

[Lion.Kanzen]

One important point of the discussion was the fact that some people was saying that they don't like farms being worked near CC

yeah is unrealistic. Michael speak about that some time ago before the Alpha 14.

[hollth]

Keeping them the same size and reducing the number of workers seems like a simpler way to achieve the same thing?

[LordGood]

I'd be for unique decals and substructure variations. It'd also be nice if we could citizens would move around the field instead of only farming the corner

[alpha123]

I really like that idea, however, it would mean we couldn’t do diminishing returns the way we currently do (that is, each additional worker on a farm is less efficient). Perhaps we could do diminishing returns globally? That would also make farming as a food source slightly less viable in the late game (where adding more farms would be next to useless), encouraging dependence on multiple food sources.

I actually think 2x2 farms with 1 gatherer would look rather cool; we’d have gatherers everywhere instead of just around the edges like we do currently.

[hollth]

I really like that idea, however, it would mean we couldn’t do diminishing returns the way we currently do (that is, each additional worker on a farm is less efficient). Perhaps we could do diminishing returns globally? That would also make farming as a food source slightly less viable in the late game (where adding more farms would be next to useless), encouraging dependence on multiple food sources.

I actually think 2x2 farms with 1 gatherer would look rather cool; we’d have gatherers everywhere instead of just around the edges like we do currently.

I'm not a huge fan of the diminishing returns. Its not intuitive at all and there isn't really any effective way to communicate that farms are subject to diminishing returns.

Nor do I think farms viability late game needs to be reduced. Other food sources are usually depleted so I would say that its good to have farms not reduced in impact late game. If farms were less effective than there would be less to do late game and larger periods of waiting for resources to amass. Having said that I could envision more alternative food sources such that farms become more of a late game and fall back pattern thing.

Out of curiosity is making them more raid-prone the primary objective?

[Mythos_Ruler]

This is what I want. It's been up on Trac nearly 2 years. All the other ideas out there don't really address some of the core concerns, while this ticket does.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/1318

EDIT: In fact, some of the maps already have farmland terrain on them.

[hollth]

I'm probably missing something (Wratii's link doesn't work for me if theres something that pertains to this there) but if theres a problem with the current system, how does adding a terrain yield bonus change anything? Wont any issue wiith the old translate to the new?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'm probably missing something (Wratii's link doesn't work for me if theres something that pertains to this there) but if theres a problem with the current system, how does adding a terrain yield bonus change anything? Wont any issue wiith the old translate to the new?

The point is the player is encouraged to plant his farms away from the core of his base, instead of snuggled right up to the Civic Center. I like encouragement a lot better than hard limits. Sometimes hard limits are unavoidable, but in most other cases "encouragement" is a lot better.

About their obstruction, I really don't feel their large size is an issue at all. I think though their obstructions could ignore certain numbers of trees to make them easier to plant. But the farmland concept gives ample room for farms, so implementing it would make the obstruction "problem" somewhat moot. Keeping the field size large also makes it more difficult to plant a bunch of them in your base, which is something we want to discourage anyway.

Let us ignore ideas like "multiple types of fields" and things like this. They add nothing to gameplay except just another slow source of food, a niche already taken up by the current farm fields.

[hollth]

The point is the player is encouraged to plant his farms away from the core of his base, instead of snuggled right up to the Civic Center. I like encouragement a lot better than hard limits. Sometimes hard limits are unavoidable, but in most other cases "encouragement" is a lot better.

About their obstruction, I really don't feel their large size is an issue at all. I think though their obstructions could ignore certain numbers of trees to make them easier to plant. But the farmland concept gives ample room for farms, so implementing it would make the obstruction "problem" somewhat moot. Keeping the field size large also makes it more difficult to plant a bunch of them in your base, which is something we want to discourage anyway.

Let us ignore ideas like "multiple types of fields" and things like this. They add nothing to gameplay except just another slow source of food, a niche already taken up by the current farm fields.

Isn't the argument that farming takes too little room? Having one person per smaller field is still an increase in size of farmland needed to produce the same amount of food. That itself makes it more difficult to keep them in your base. Having them stay the same allows for people to do the same as before at their base, which is what people wanted to change. ( I think?)

I think the different types of field was for cosmetic differences only btw.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Isn't the argument that farming takes too little room? Having one person per smaller field is still an increase in size of farmland needed to produce the same amount of food. That itself makes it more difficult to keep them in your base. Having them stay the same allows for people to do the same as before at their base, which is what people wanted to change. ( I think?)

I think the different types of field was for cosmetic differences only btw.

Or just reduce the max number of units per field from 5 to 3, which accomplishes (relatively) the same thing with little effort.

[hollth]

Forgetting my own suggestion was a sign for bed haha Anyway, I agree that way is a relatively simpler way to achieve the same thing (even suggested it myself ). There main advantage to wratiis way of implementing it, in my tired mind last night ,was that it automatically removes diminishing returns, which I disagree with in this instance. I imagine that is is a relatively trivial do change in the current form though.

Back to diminishing returns. It isn't something that I see adding anything to the game, if anything I would argue it takes from it. It becomes a 'noob trap' because it causes sub optimal gameplay with no way to know that it is sub optimal. It has inherent difficulties with communicating in this instance. It doesn't add any depth gameplay wise either. Theres a restriction on the number of workers already so I can't see why it's in place? If it were to reduce the early power of farms there are other ways of achieving that without the nuanced issues that diminishing returns introduces. (requiring a farmstead, increased build time, cost, lower rate + more techs, fewer workers per field (potentially another tech to increase this))

Thought this would be a good time to bring it up since we are talking about farms.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I agree. If we are to have fewer gatherers per field, then a diminishing returns mechanic is pretty pointless and we could probably just strip it out.

[quantumstate]

I agree, I don't see the reason for diminishing returns if we lower the gatherer cap.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

Diminishing returns also requires more micromanagment than gatherer count (which can be done once and forgotten about). I'm not a big fan of micromanagment anyway.

[LordGood]

Could we have a radius around the Civ center where farms cannot be built? I know that bugs a lot of people here

It doesnt have to bee too large, but large enough to make it more efficient to build farmsteads

[sanderd17]

Could we have a radius around the Civ center where farms cannot be built? I know that bugs a lot of people here

Sure, doesn't even need any code. It can work the same as the min distance between CCs, towers, fortresses...

[wraitii]

I'd really like something more organic than a hard limit.

Perhaps add an "Unfertility" aura around buildings in general, except a mill which would work opposite? And you'd have a nice overlay when placing your farms? And then we could have pretend-farmlands by placing invisible static entities with that aura too.

(can auras decrease by distance?)

[feneur]

I'd really like something more organic than a hard limit.

Perhaps add an "Unfertility" aura around buildings in general, except a mill which would work opposite? And you'd have a nice overlay when placing your farms? And then we could have pretend-farmlands by placing invisible static entities with that aura too.

(can auras decrease by distance?)

That actually reminds me about the original plan for the farmstead/food gathering: To have the farmstead come with something like 6 plots of land around it (only those which would fit on the map would actually be placed), and then on that plot of land you would have been able to place either a farm field, an orchard or a corral. And only there. If we'd went with that way we'd not have had to try and do all these things to get around people placing farms wherever etc =) But I guess there are other benefits to doing it the more flexible way (Though the "hierarchy" of fields etc being tied to a farmstead is kind of a nice concept, at least in theory )

[WhiteTreePaladin]

It would make farm placement easier and faster. I never like the way my farms end up.

[blargin3]

Perhaps this "unfertility" could be dubbed a "development aura" represented in the terrain. Low concentration of buildings in an area would have terrain that looks grassy and untouched, high concentration of buildings could have a stone brick terrain that looks like a road.

Perhaps it could have a bonus as well, like highly developed areas could increase unit movement speed.

This would encourage a specific spacing of buildings. Just close enough to get that movement bonus, just far enough to have enough room for units.

Maybe guard towers could "develop" moreso than usual buildings, so one could build them in a path between markets, effectively creating a trade route!

But of course what should happen to this aura when the building is destroyed? Should it stay like that, die with the building, or rot away?

[Sighvatr]

Snowflake rocks map would be difficult to play on with the additional changes of the farms mentioned. I do like the ideas thrown around here. I like the idea to distance farms away from buildings, and I like the idea to reduce the amount of workers per farm. Aesthetically, it would make the farms look more family operated rather than communal.