Please get rid of Arable Land only for farms.

[Airmaster]

I have about stopped playing GalCiv3 because its become incerasingly difficult to sustain a civilization with limited land for farms. Even on bread basket worlds which are supposed to be ideal for farms there is is rarely ever any arable land to build farms.

Please get rid of this and allow us players to build farms on any land tile without penalty.

[Sticky Wicket]

Agree.

There's a similar thread in game feedback.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/226860/discussions/5/1693795812302228239/

[Hawkeye_BF]

Not agree. Not agree!!! Not agree!!!!!! Its great as it it! People who's want to play an easy game should buy Tetris or Stellaris. Why should a great complex game become more and more simplifying because there are people the are not abel to play it?! That's not a fault of the game ;) There are very much really easy games on the marked. Buy someone of this!

[starship_trooper]

Carbon-based is disadvantaged significantly compared to the other three options and should be improved, especially in regard to mulitplayer (e.g. make Kimberly's Refuge a player wonder and only accessible by carbon-based).

Other than that, the arable land thing is fine for me. I played quite a few games with Intrigue and NEVER had a problem to pop-max any planet I wanted later in the game.

[Sticky Wicket]

Arable Land would work better as a special resource that could be upgraded with adjacency bonuses as is, but not as a requisite to building xeno-farms++.

Thw way it is puts too much emphasis on randomness.

[Horemvore]

RNG is the whole point. I do however agree Carbon Based are disadvantaged, for me that is not a down side tbh.

[mrmarzord]

Are there still farmers in the game? I'm still playing my old 2.80 game.

[Airmaster]

Originally posted by Hawkeye_BF:

Not agree. Not agree!!! Not agree!!!!!! Its great as it it! People who's want to play an easy game should buy Tetris or Stellaris. Why should a great complex game become more and more simplifying because there are people the are not abel to play it?! That's not a fault of the game ;) There are very much really easy games on the marked. Buy someone of this!

I have played the game since Alpha 0.2 so I've been playing GC3 for 5 years now. The farm system was fine the way it was before Arable Land only farms was implimented. As it stands now you cannot sustain a large civilization regardless due to the randomness of what planets if any will have arable land tiles to build farms on and a good 98% of the time they dont. This mechanic breaks the game because I have actually seen my food counter go to 0 forcing me to scramble to find another world with an arable land tile to build a farm on. I personally do not enjoy the limitation that has been forced on players who like me enjoys building up a large civilization and its even worse when playing of the smaller maps.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Airmaster:

The farm system was fine the way it was before Arable Land only farms was implimented.

Yes, it worked fine pre 3.0. Still, I too like the additional complexity the new system provides.

Originally posted by Airmaster:

As it stands now you cannot sustain a large civilization regardless due to the randomness of what planets if any will have arable land tiles to build farms on and a good 98% of the time they dont. This mechanic breaks the game because I have actually seen my food counter go to 0 forcing me to scramble to find another world with an arable land tile to build a farm on. I personally do not enjoy the limitation that has been forced on players who like me enjoys building up a large civilization and its even worse when playing of the smaller maps.

98% of planets have no arable land? If you are serious with this number, I wonder if there is something wrong with your game installation. Or maybe you are making mistakes in developing your empire?

In my games, planets have about 0.8 arable tiles per planet on average. Sure, most have none. But occasionally there are planets with multiple arable tiles; so far I encountered up to 5.

Do you make sure to always research Planetary Spec >> Soil Enhancement (gives +1 food to all your worlds)?

Do you build Kimberly's on your best food world (and/or on a nice food-boosting tile)? Or does the AI beat you to it (never happened to me)? Or do you have a general lack of Monsatium in your games?

Do you train farmers and assign them to your Kimberly planet?

Do you surround your cities (and Kimberly's) with Colonial Hospital and Shopping Centres? Because no planet needs more than two cities to pop-max it (most need only one).

I usually even do not need to train farmers in order to pop-max all but the very worst of my planets (e.g. secondary worlds in home systems). Heck, I even raze arable tiles sometimes on my top worlds since I just don't need them and rather use the tiles for something else.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by mrmarzord:

Are there still farmers in the game? I'm still playing my old 2.80 game.

Yes, and now they are actually useful.

[Airmaster]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Airmaster:

The farm system was fine the way it was before Arable Land only farms was implimented.

Yes, it worked fine pre 3.0. Still, I too like the additional complexity the new system provides.

Originally posted by Airmaster:

As it stands now you cannot sustain a large civilization regardless due to the randomness of what planets if any will have arable land tiles to build farms on and a good 98% of the time they dont. This mechanic breaks the game because I have actually seen my food counter go to 0 forcing me to scramble to find another world with an arable land tile to build a farm on. I personally do not enjoy the limitation that has been forced on players who like me enjoys building up a large civilization and its even worse when playing of the smaller maps.

98% of planets have no arable land? If you are serious with this number, I wonder if there is something wrong with your game installation. Or maybe you are making mistakes in developing your empire?

In my games, planets have about 0.8 arable tiles per planet on average. Sure, most have none. But occasionally there are planets with multiple arable tiles; so far I encountered up to 5.

Do you make sure to always research Planetary Spec >> Soil Enhancement (gives +1 food to all your worlds)?

Do you build Kimberly's on your best food world (and/or on a nice food-boosting tile)? Or does the AI beat you to it (never happened to me)? Or do you have a general lack of Monsatium in your games?

Do you train farmers and assign them to your Kimberly planet?

Do you surround your cities (and Kimberly's) with Colonial Hospital and Shopping Centres? Because no planet needs more than two cities to pop-max it (most need only one).

I usually even do not need to train farmers in order to pop-max all but the very worst of my planets (e.g. secondary worlds in home systems). Heck, I even raze arable tiles sometimes on my top worlds since I just don't need them and rather use the tiles for something else.

As I stated Trooper, I've been playing GC3 for five years. I do not believe I made any mistakes. Its the randomness of arable land tiles that is the problem.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Airmaster:

As I stated Trooper, I've been playing GC3 for five years. I do not believe I made any mistakes. Its the randomness of arable land tiles that is the problem.

But you do not need any arable tiles to build what you call a 'large civilization'. Not a single one. All you need is getting your hands on one Monsatium and building Kimberly's Refuge before the AI does (and I never had the AI build it in my games).

You can then throw as many farmers at that planet as you want, until you have enough food to get the pop of all your planets to planet class. This of course will take a while, but eventually there is nothing stopping you.

The only exception that I can think of is when you are playing a small galaxy that happens to not have any Monsatium. Yes, that would really suck.

[Sticky Wicket]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Airmaster:

As I stated Trooper, I've been playing GC3 for five years. I do not believe I made any mistakes. Its the randomness of arable land tiles that is the problem.

But you do not need any arable tiles to build what you call a 'large civilization'. Not a single one. All you need is getting your hands on one Monsatium and building Kimberly's Refuge before the AI does (and I never had the AI build it in my games).

You can then throw as many farmers at that planet as you want, until you have enough food to get the pop of all your planets to planet class. This of course will take a while, but eventually there is nothing stopping you.

The only exception that I can think of is when you are playing a small galaxy that happens to not have any Monsatium. Yes, that would really suck.

Appologies for cutting into someone elses discussion as it were, but this is exactly the point, it's too much emphasis on randomness for something that is crucial to good civilisation development.

I started some new games recently and in one situation had 3 arable farms on my start planet, another map (with identical galaxy parameters) had none. That is too much of a difference to be determined purely by chance.

I can imagine in MP that must really imbalance the game.

[starship_trooper]

Originally posted by Porg Squadron:

Appologies for cutting into someone elses discussion as it were, but this is exactly the point, it's too much emphasis on randomness for something that is crucial to good civilisation development.

I started some new games recently and in one situation had 3 arable farms on my start planet, another map (with identical galaxy parameters) had none. That is too much of a difference to be determined purely by chance.

I can imagine in MP that must really imbalance the game.

Well, I think we can all agree on the following:

- carbon-based badly needs a reliable food source (that enables them to build a couple of cities) that neither depends on the very random arable tiles nor on a Galactic Wonder which requires a rare resource to build

- the current situation is particularly bad for multiplayer (I don't play MP, but it's easy to see that picking carbon currently would be suicidal)

- the current situation in singleplayer is very bad for players new to the game, who do not have the knowledge on how to get around the food issue (carbon being the default makes it even worse)


This I would absolutely sign.

Nevertheless, the point of my earlier posts is that it's indeed possible to have a large civilization when playing as carbon in the vast majority of cases.

Airmaster stated that he stopped playing GC3 because of this issue. Such statements make me sad, especially when they come from someone who has contributed so much to the community as he did. So I try to convince him that it's not quite that bad in singleplayer.

BTW, if you play your cards right, you only need one or two cities to develop your civ and win any game. But that's a different story.

[Airmaster]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

Originally posted by Porg Squadron:

Appologies for cutting into someone elses discussion as it were, but this is exactly the point, it's too much emphasis on randomness for something that is crucial to good civilisation development.

I started some new games recently and in one situation had 3 arable farms on my start planet, another map (with identical galaxy parameters) had none. That is too much of a difference to be determined purely by chance.

I can imagine in MP that must really imbalance the game.

Well, I think we can all agree on the following:

- carbon-based badly needs a reliable food source (that enables them to build a couple of cities) that neither depends on the very random arable tiles nor on a Galactic Wonder which requires a rare resource to build

- the current situation is particularly bad for multiplayer (I don't play MP, but it's easy to see that picking carbon currently would be suicidal)

- the current situation in singleplayer is very bad for players new to the game, who do not have the knowledge on how to get around the food issue (carbon being the default makes it even worse)


This I would absolutely sign.

Nevertheless, the point of my earlier posts is that it's indeed possible to have a large civilization when playing as carbon in the vast majority of cases.

Airmaster stated that he stopped playing GC3 because of this issue. Such statements make me sad, especially when they come from someone who has contributed so much to the community as he did. So I try to convince him that it's not quite that bad in singleplayer.

BTW, if you play your cards right, you only need one or two cities to develop your civ and win any game. But that's a different story.

Don't get me wrong. While I am not playing the game I will continue to update my factions to Civs and create new custom content. I just wont play until there is a better farming system than what we are forced to play now.

[Sticky Wicket]

Originally posted by starship_trooper:

BTW, if you play your cards right, you only need one or two cities to develop your civ and win any game. But that's a different story.

I can see this might be true.

~

I'm not that much of an experienced player (about 500 hours; and 100+ hours of that is simply messing about with the ship design tool).
I openly admit that if I start a map and no arable land appears within the first 2-4 nearby planets I will simply quit and start a new map. Somehow I don't think the game should *force* you to do that.

I refuse to stop playing altogether, but I can understand Airmaster's decision not to.