Food production not balanced well enough

I still suggest my Army Logistics Center/Food Management Center idea's. As self-promoting as it might seem (>_>)

Repeating yourself three times in the same thread will not increase the chance of this happening.  Clearly the devs saw your idea, did not comment, so what does that tell you? 

I don't feel worker homes should have population at all. The workers living there are already counted as population at whatever building they're working at for their job.

Alternatively it would make sense for our towns to have outlying villages supplying additional resources. Any major town cannot grow enough food to support all those living there, and we are experiencing that here, too. Perhaps once a town reaches a certain population a village is spawned in a neighboring cell allowing you to build additional resources?

Ah OK no new buildings.

Anyway. to talk about the above post, I like the idea of a really small "expansion" to your town into one of the nearby tiles for a resources (if it has spots) but Its one of those (it would be nice but not likely) ideas though.

Though it would be nice being able to send scouting party's to nearby cells once you get a certain tech or something. Would give your army more to do and could let you find more of those mini puzzles which are rather fun.

It would require generating up to 4 more town maps for each town though and I have no idea how much work that would take to code.

That's the thing, it was not 'working' in alpha 4 either.  If you read the thread that people posted their comments, etc. about that alpha, you'll see that many people commented on the food issue then.  But the difference being, that at least we had fruits last alpha, (if you were lucky enough to have them in your domain) which helped out a bit more than what we have this alpha.  So maybe this is why it was not quite as critical as it is this alpha. 

Alternatively it would make sense for our towns to have outlying villages supplying additional resources. Any major town cannot grow enough food to support all those living there, and we are experiencing that here, too. Perhaps once a town reaches a certain population a village is spawned in a neighboring cell allowing you to build additional resources?

I like this idea of expansion, but I would see it a different way. The same way we can build on natural world resources, we could actually "build" some kind of outpost on the map (only tiles with rez output), that would produce resources on its own and transfer them to the town it is linked to (one outpost per city or even country). The amount of resources produced could be based on total city (or country) population and the resource output of the target tile. The outpost would just be like a world improvement, it cannot be "entered" by the hero, and like other world resources, is destroyed if no longer in the area of influence of the owner.

This way we can target the outpost at the resource we need the most, and demolish it/rebuild it somewhere else if our needs change.

For a city outpost, I would have thought of something like City/50*Food_slots. That way, a city with 500pop building the outpost on a tile with 10 food spots would get a nice +100 food bonus. Figures can be tweaked.

Please do not derail the thread. It was fine during Alpha 4, I've reduced population in towers and huts even more than in Alpha 4, but it's still not like it was before? So what is the problem if it worked before?

I'm going way back to A3.  Why?  Because we were limited to Classical then and had no fruit.  And, yet, food was not as critical as it is during the Classical stages now.  I had armies in excess of 400 units and maxed out classical towns.  I could feed everyone without using multiple plows just by splitting my armies up. 

This stage however, before I even hit medieval and even with maxed out classical food production I'm finding my production has been falling into the mid double digits and my towns are not even maxed out yet.  Only food has maxed in Classical to this point and the situation is even worse for Medieval but I want to compare oranges to oranges, so I will talk about the differences for sustainability up through Classical. 

Clearly, something has changed and I think several factors are contributing to the problem. 

1.  Corruption is too high to compensate for the population explosion.

2.  The army units consume too much food each per hour esp the stone age units like archers.

3.  I agree that the houses should really contain the people who are working in the other buildings and not add people to the mix when you build them or upgrade them, except maybe one per max level per age.

4.  Food added when you upgrade a production facility is too low, primarily because you have now added population to the food buildings.  So, overall, we are netting less food per level upgrade.  As I recall, that is why you removed the population from the food buildings in the first place.  (I am now netting 5 or 6 food units for each Medieval upgrade.  Really?)  But, I digress. 

5.  Almost every single building upgrade through Classical takes a ton of food.  It can be difficult to build, train and army (or retrain in the case of a battle wipe) and feed your town at the same time.  It's a struggle to replenish your food storage when food is the primary unit you need to upgrade and train.  This is also an issue because iron is used to upgrade the farms and fields which, as you know, is also heavily needed to upgrade classical buildings of cultural, scientific and military value, not to mention towers.

6.  One more thing.  Science spending takes a good chunk of our food income but not so much of our other resources.  I think food is to heavily weighted in science spending.

All of these things, I think, are contributing to the food problems and tropical fruit was helpful in A4 but not a cure.

6.  One more thing.  Science spending takes a good chunk of our food income but not so much of our other resources.  I think food is to heavily weighted in science spending.

You are joking right? Have you not noticed by now that you have 6 food production buildings and 4 of everything else in a balanced town. That means 50% more food buildings, that means the % science takes away is obviously higher in resource amount than the other resources that have 4 buildings.

6.  One more thing.  Science spending takes a good chunk of our food income but not so much of our other resources.  I think food is to heavily weighted in science spending.

You are joking right? Have you not noticed by now that you have 6 food production buildings and 4 of everything else in a balanced town. That means 50% more food buildings, that means the % science takes away is obviously higher in resource amount than the other resources that have 4 buildings.

No.  I'm not joking.  I recognize that but the ratio does not seem to follow that formula, though I could be wrong.  In any event, if you have a large food town (which you need in this stage) you still have that problem.  You weren't here when iron became available and the key was to upgrade iron production to increase science spending.  I think the balanced has tipped back to food being primary over and above the algorithm.  Besides, I'm comparing classical now to classical in A3 and the food issues are startling in their severity now as compared to classical in A3.

No.  I'm not joking.  I recognize that but the ratio does not seem to follow that formula, though I could be wrong.

It takes 5 seconds to check it. Open a calculator on your computer, go to a city, and compute

(Science spending) / (Basic Production - losses due to ineffiency) * 100

For me it matches the % of research allocated in the research building for food. Of course for cities with more food slots, because food production is higher and science takes a %, then more food production is spent on research.

As for corruption, that mechanism avoids players to settle too many cities on the map. I don't believe the current system is that bad.

I agree with army consumption that I also find a bit high.

I agree with food production. I suggested earlier in chat that food production delta could be of maybe +15 for level of medieval and renaissance (instead of just +10 per level). For a late medieval player, that would give a total of +300 food for a town with 6 food slots, all famrs maxed. Doesn't seem that bad (300 before any bonuses applied. So if you deduct corruption and research spending, that becomes 150 food with 20% corruption and 30% science spending).

In addition to that, today I have halved population from huts.

http://www.totemtribe.com/talk/tt2-update-log/10/#post_25330

The towers population was increased though to make people choose between lot of towers and big army.

By the way, I am still looking where to cut some population.

Well, I've got a suggestion.  Cut the population in the military buildings.  Instead of 62 people in a level 18 forge for example, cut that in half. 

All the military buildings of the more advanced ages have a ton of people in them.  Is that strictly necessary?

Oh, and the houses?  Frankly, since the working townspeople live there, why have people at all? 

Military buildings will affect only warriors, not that good.

But, even coll makes some army.  Sure, they may not need a level 18 forge, but how about the blacksmith to upgrade defensive siege weapons?  I still say military buildings are too high in population. 

You want us to choose between army and towers.  Fine. What if, as a coll player I choose fewer towers but a huge army to defend?  The principle applies.  My military buildings are too high in population.

And, my house statement remains the same, lol.

Since you have me going here, I have another point.  As a collective player I've always been a reinforcer.  This leaves my domain bare of army while I'm helping my allies.  Therefore, I need those towers and an army both.  See where I'm going here?

Collective does not mean powerless and should not have to mean powerless.  It's my responsibility to help defend allies against attack which is why at least one of my heroes is collective. With towers and some army in catacombs I can safely reinforce without losing my towns as easily as if I reinforced as leaderism.  (Which, btw, would also need towers when out of town.)

So, I stick by my original suggestion with regard to reducing the population in the military buildings.

Well I agree with Diana and Bers I don't think that's actually correct with only warriors benefiting. Armies are needed to fight monsters which we all have.I also think that maybe the number of people in other buildings such as windmills and lighthouses should be revisited. I know I've said it before but I do think eliminating a few would help.

Since you have me going here, I have another point.  As a collective player I've always been a reinforcer.  This leaves my domain bare of army while I'm helping my allies.  Therefore, I need those towers and an army both.  See where I'm going here?

This change does not prevent you from having both towers and an army. It prevents you from having large army and a lot of towers at the same time.

Well, let me ask you this:  What good is sending a small army to reinforce, say, a lead hero?  You and I have discussed proper reinforcement and it involves sending more than 40-100 units.  Especially, if the player needing coverage is leaderism. 

Sure, it may not be strictly necessary to send a large army to a collective player, but then you do not get the deterrent value that you would otherwise get by killing off every single attacking unit.  (Remember, make it expensive to attack?)

It is, however, absolutely necessary to have large armies in place to successfully defend and reinforce a leaderism hero, as the towers are only operating at 100% as opposed to 300%.  Wouldn't you agree with this assertion?