Bay 12 Games Forum

if an empire is dependent on farms:
2 work villages
1 claims 0#@&!
1 builds farm 0#@&!

and if an empire is dependent on nature preserves:
1 works village
1 claims 0#@&!
1 builds preserve 0#@&!

represent basic expansion. the two examples have the same value, that is, what they produce is essentially equal in worth if the goal is a stable food supply; however, the second example requires fewer resources. the net value of an unworked nature preserve is the same as that of a worked farm, so for an empire dependent on farms, their population is devalued in comparison with one dependent on preserves.

so yeah, it's a bit imbalanced.

although one thing i have noticed is that, if you take the rate of population growth as constant, it's a lot easier to produce farms than nature preserves: it's not quite as efficient, but its easier to halve the value of your 4 new population by building them 2 farms than to retain their value by building 4 preserves.

I don't like how Fish Domestication allows an empire to easily cross over water to reach basically every landmass on the map. The point of this tech is to fish. That's it. I may replace it with Fishing (like in Game1) and have it so that you can fish on tiles adjacent to your borders, but you need Sailing to actually claim water tiles.

what if you just made more landmasses far apart? i think that would be good

1 builds fishery
8 work farms/fishery
2 work towns
3 claim O-32,33,34
4 build preserves

7 work farms
1 works town
2 claim J-34 M-33
2 build preserves

Praise be to Corai! May the dragon continue to pass over our farms.

1 claims K-32
1 builds farm
7 work farms
1 works town

1 builds farm
6 work farms
1 works town

3 work the farms
1 claims J-30
1 works the town
1 builds farm