Better food utilization in later ages

[sponge]

Inspired by this topic I put together a few ideas on how to solve food surplus problem in mid/late IA:

1. Biofuel processing plant - similar to vault, converts food to oil, food cannot be stolen, nobody wants fermenting food, right? Oil can be collected after 24h. 300:1 food to oil ratio should work, starting capacity could be 150000 food, generating 500 oil daily. Upgradable to additional levels, 150k more capacity for level 2, 300k more for level 3 etc. Cost gold to upgrade.
2. Market. Trading all resources within market. Exchange rate changes the more you trade. It should probably reset exchange rate at the start of a new season. Players should only be able to trade certain % of resources, perhaps 15% starting in Iron age, increase by 3% each additional age, so 30% in Industrial.
3. Alliance market. Similar to market, but allows trading resources between allies.
4. Clearing forests could cost food instead of gold.
5. Odd or even levels of walls could cost food instead of gold.
6. All wall upgrades should cost food instead of gold - this one is rather unpopular, perhaps just the highest 1 or 2 levels.
7. A choice to pay for each wall upgrade with food or gold - probably not a good idea either.
8. Additional mill and market levels before global age upgrade. I requested this before, this is purely to reduce the wasted food from raids - no longer needed
9. Revert generals upgrades to food for levels 11-20, except Napoleon and MacArthur.

 

[Aitor-NationsLeague]

Nice thread sponge, I'll add it to my signature, so we make campaign and keep this alive, lol. Could you number ideas? So it will be easy to refer to them and discuss.

1st. Seems to be the most popular option, I understand it has some historical sense, and oil is more scarce than food sure, but yet less than gold, so for active players that could still be a bit useless, but an interesting addition still.
2nd. An interesting one imo to balance resources, though I'll rather make it so that players trade between them, not with the system, but won't solve the issue that gold is far more useful than food, food will still be useless as the market will be pretty much flooded with all big guys selling their food...
3. Interesting as well, but could be an option inside the general market: offert for everyone, or only for alliance mates.
4th. A totally must imo, I don't see any reason to not support that, as sounds logical that forest could cost food.
5, 6, 7th - 7th is my preferred option, taken from Clash of Clans and other games, that will solve the nearly-impossible to get walls for legit players, and will perfectly balance food and gold... But seems unpopular, so...
8th Not a very relevant immo, no matter you can hold 7.5 million food or 10, if it's gonna keep being useless, you are still going to waste it...

 

[sponge]

Done, changed to ordered list.
I added it to my signature as well.

 

[Nyah~]

Brilliant idea man

 

[sponge]

8th Not a very relevant immo, no matter you can hold 7.5 million food or 10, if it's gonna keep being useless, you are still going to waste it...

It's something i thought about a few weeks ago, easy to implement, and could be useful right now, when no other solutions are present. Sometimes I get really pissed off when I score 500k+ food, but I don't really get anything.

 

[Lord Commander]

I love this. I literally just made a thread requesting a resource exchange.

 

[GoldDS]

havent ever understood why there isnt a cross-commodity-exchange
it s simple basics for an economical strategy game

 

[sponge]

I've updated market proposal, with % of allowed resources to be traded.

 

[Bobortvogel]

1, 2, 3 and 4 any one would be good and consistent with the games intent.

 

[Aitor-NationsLeague]

I think resources exchange isn't allowed, because it could make shortage of some resources, idk, supply and demand should fix that in long term, but idk how a market would affect the game...

Seems maybe even more risking that what I say: walls levels +4mill gold, being also payable with food...

Since you will always have a minimum of 3 million food in storage, I don't think that will affect that much the food available to be stolen, there will still be...

But a market, depending on the exchange rate, that could drown out all the food storages... I will definitely trade all my food for gold, no matter the ratio... So won't be a long term solution if the main problem isn't fixed: you need 30 times more gold than food...

 

[FroggyKilla]

How about making shipments not an almost unanimously terrible way to obtain resources. I'm not wasting 9 cider or 9 metal to get a measly 5000-15000 food and gold. Worst exchange ever. I would pay 1 cider and metal for that amount.

 

[sponge]

How about making shipments not an almost unanimously terrible way to obtain resources. I'm not wasting 9 cider or 9 metal to get a measly 5000-15000 food and gold. Worst exchange ever. I would pay 1 cider and metal for that amount.

This doesn't really address food imbalance, but it's a nice idea anyway.

 

[FroggyKilla]

Sorry. But maybe you could use some food to hasten construction, by decreasing the build time by a percentage.

 

[peacebreaker vin]

cool thread addressing a very important issue. there's gotta be a way to spend food. in my opinion, #7 or using equal amounts of food or gold to upgrade wall segments makes the most sense to me:

• offensive upgrades cost food, defensive upgrades cost gold. the cost of each is roughly equal.
• you need 2.34 billion gold to upgrade walls from level 9 to level 13.
• there's nothing to do with your food during this period. nearly all players at > lvl 130 are maxed on food at all times.

for those worrying about everyone having max walls:

• 2.34 billion gold & food combined is still an insane amount of resources to obtain.
• consider that there would be much less food to raid if so many players weren't always at max food.

other ideas:
#1: excellent idea
#2 & #3: cool idea but would be a lot of work to balance and implement this
#4: yes. no opposition, very easy to implement
#5 & 6: i don't think these would work
#8: nah

 

[peacebreaker vin]

an idea mentioned by GoldDS in another thread may be viable:

#9: use food for general upgrades beyond level 10.

he also mentions moving general upgrades to the castle which i think makes sense.

 

[sponge]

an idea mentioned by GoldDS in another thread may be viable:

#9: use food for general upgrades beyond level 10.

he also mentions moving general upgrades to the castle which i think makes sense.

I don't know if they would be willing to revert general upgrades to food. Perhaps up to lvl 20. Levels 21-30 should remain oil. I added it to the list.

 

[Old Farmer Bob]

Any of these would get my vote. No 2 Trading resources in the market is very practicable. Seem to remember the old age of empires PC game had this facility. Guess I better go to the barn and dig out my old dell desktop to see if I remember right. Great thread #sponge. Deserves to stay on front page

 

[Brand Marrow]

Old Farmer Bob you got Civ 2 in that barn? What about strategic conquest?

 

[Moussiffer]

Food is actually pretty difficult to come by in earlier ages for players who don't play religiously or aren't very good when it comes to war and such. I think the idea of being able to sponsor or trade with an alliance city would be great. Obviously there would need to be a cap on how much you could give, but being able to give to help lower level alliance members upgrade their civilizations might help get rid of your excess food issue. Maybe they can even buy it from you?

 

[Martine]

I thought you suffered from ADHD .. yet you read this post. my feelings are hurt .. you didn't like my story

sponge nice ideas