Farms and population cap

[ogmius]

So how do I create more airable land to build farms upon?...my capital planet was stuck at a pop of 5 because it said I didnt have enough food for a city, and I coudnt build but one farm. Is there a tech I have to research that allows more food production or the creation of more than 1 farm per planet?
I haven't played for awhile so am not current on all the features since the crusade expantion but I have them all

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

No doubt. But obviously that's long term and given production and research output is more or less tied to pop this makes lack of arrable tiles a massive handicap, possibly an unsurvivable one.

Not even close.

Watch my Intrigue YouTube series... it's totally not a handicap.

You're not going to get everything you want at the beginning of this game. Growing your empire takes time. Cities come with time. It takes time for the Food to build up, time for the research to happen. It's no different (and no more of a handicap) than Hull Size, Logistics, Research Tech, Weapon Tech... you get the point.

It all takes time.

Planets cap out at 3b without a City. But look at the way the first 3rd of the game is structured - you're already fighting to keep Moral high with low-colony Governments and the need to expand with new colonies, so getting a city early isn't even a good idea in many cases (again, my YouTube - you will see me NOT lay down a City until Moral on the colony can handle it).

I don't personally start putting cities down until I have Moral well under control and the planet can handle it. When I have a population of 3b and my Moral says I can handle 6b+, okay, that planet is under consideration for a City. But even then, only my most productive planets (homeworld first, precursors, etc.) are going to get cities first. This is all part of the strategy.

If you're coming from pre-Crusade play, stop thinking of the game in terns of "population = king". It's not. The game has changed. You can win the game without ever putting a city down. Population helps, but it's not the be-all end-all of production that it was pre-Crusade.

It comes with time. Have the Government and Moral to handle it, grow the food, do the research. It will come.

[Gregorovitch]

OK, I've managed to get a city up in this latest game I'm attempting - on my home planet.

Previously cities increased pop by 3. This one seems to have increasaed it by 10, so the cap has gone from 5 to 15. That of course is going to have a big impact on marale, no doubt.

What's going on herm have the rules changed?

But mevertheless, the production problem remains. Buildings just add measly % increases, and even 75% of bugger all is still bugger all.

I am losing touch on the power curve with all the other empires and there is nothing I can do about it. You seem to absolutely need to increase pop as there is no other way to jack up raw production output. Obviously the reason all my cometetors are leaving me behind is becasue they have larger raw production.

[Frogboy]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

OK, I've managed to get a city up in this latest game I'm attempting - on my home planet.

Previously cities increased pop by 3. This one seems to have increasaed it by 10, so the cap has gone from 5 to 15. That of course is going to have a big impact on marale, no doubt.

What's going on herm have the rules changed?

But mevertheless, the production problem remains. Buildings just add measly % increases, and even 75% of bugger all is still bugger all.

I am losing touch on the power curve with all the other empires and there is nothing I can do about it. You seem to absolutely need to increase pop as there is no other way to jack up raw production output. Obviously the reason all my cometetors are leaving me behind is becasue they have larger raw production.

What difficulty level are you playing at?

The key is where you place your buildings. You want them to level up as much as possible.

For example, a city, by default will increase population by 3. But put them in the right spot and it can be much higher than that.

[Uncle_Joe]

There are techs that add Raw Production and definitely you should be using Asteroid Mines (which I believe also function as Raw Production).

In 3.0 (or maybe Intrigue, not sure) there are techs to increase the pop cap on your Colony Bases (one to 4 and another tech to raise it to 5). Those alone allow a 33% and then 66% upgrade in your pop without the need for a single farm.

In 3.0, I look at Farms/Cities as a bonus not a necessity. They are good and bad since they require tiles not only for the Food and City itself, but for approval buildings as well. That takes up a lot of space. So sometimes just going with Mining Bases and the upgraded Colony Bases is even better.

[Kotli]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

OK, I've managed to get a city up in this latest game I'm attempting - on my home planet.

Previously cities increased pop by 3. This one seems to have increasaed it by 10, so the cap has gone from 5 to 15. That of course is going to have a big impact on marale, no doubt.

What's going on herm have the rules changed?

But mevertheless, the production problem remains. Buildings just add measly % increases, and even 75% of bugger all is still bugger all.

I am losing touch on the power curve with all the other empires and there is nothing I can do about it. You seem to absolutely need to increase pop as there is no other way to jack up raw production output. Obviously the reason all my cometetors are leaving me behind is becasue they have larger raw production.

You built your city on a tile that gives level bonuses to the city these level bonuses increase the population the city can support.

[Gregorovitch]

I'm playing Gifted difficulty on medium map with default settings on opponent number, planet frequencies etc.

Reason I'm freaking out about this is one of my colony ships blundered into the Drengen who promptly shot it on sight and declared war on me on turn 22. So I'm less than keen on them snowballing too far ahead of me. But that of course is exactly what they are doing. At this stage being this is a small map I can protect myself with military star bases for now, but.....

I have several asteroids, maybe 10 or 12 overall, they help. I don't know what the effect of this mega city is going to be on my production ranking, I'll have to see. It's set up next to two farms IIRC, so that might be why it's so big.

[jonnin]

The AI will now declare a stupid, pointless war just to kill 1 colony ship. I have had it happen 3 times now. This has merits if your own government can't declare war, just send a colony ship up the middle of the guy you don't like to see if you can provoke it. In all 3 cases it was early game and the AI did not have transports or anything interesting, so I took all their stuff at a ratio of about 1 planet for each person on my colony ship :)

Citys are still good as a hub with surround bonus to some types of planets. A cash cow planet (all markets etc) ... the stupid markets now give influence instead of money as adjacency (is this a bug????) so you hub them around a city. I dunno about you guys but I am having to have a dedicated cash planet now, whereas before a couple of econ bases did the trick. I think you do want to build a city in strategic areas for the +2 bonus ring on some choice planets, but be sure to handle the morale. I boosted my faction to +2 morale ticks for now until I get the new ruleset totally figured out.

[Dray Prescot]

Also look for buildings that give bonuses to Population on adjacent tiles, that should improve Food production in Farm type Buildings in those tiles, as well as increase the gain in population capacity on that World, if those adjacent buildings increase the population, i.e. Cities. Buildings like Hospitals and Fertility Clinics and any upgrades can often incease Food Production on adjaecent Farms and Population Limits in Cities. Also look for Wonders (one per Galaxy) and Achievements ( one per Civ (Player)) that give direct gains to Food and Population, as well as gains to adjacent tiles. The Anti Matter (Power) Plant is a major prize since it gives many levels to most types of production in adjacent buildings, make sure you get it and place it carefully. Placement of Cities is important, since they give bonuses to many types of buildings on adjacent tiles.

Pay attention to the levels of all your Buildings. Gal Civ 3 is based around having very few buildings that give direct points of production of any kind (Raw Production, Construction, Ship Construction, Food, Research, Morale, Influence, etc.). Most Buildings only give % gains to some of the World's productions, and give level gains to buildings on adjacent tiles that have certain types of production. In particular, try to raise the levels of any of the few buildings that do give direct points such as the Space Elevator, Deep Core Mine, Star Port, Computer Core, etc, by surrounding them with buildings that raise their levels, i.e. Factories aound around Space Elevator, Deep Core Mine, Star Port (which should be grouped in a triangle together if possible), Labs next to Computer Core, Farms next to Cities and Cities next to Farms. Also take advantage of any special tiles on your world to affect their own tile and buildings on adjacent tiles.

Becoming a better GC3 Player means learning how to take use this when building up your Colonies. Your most consistent source of production points (in a general sense) is population points which is why Cities and Food production are so important (and Morale). Another good source, when available is Asteroid Mines, but you have to extend your zone of Influence control to those Asteroids to build those Mines, however, they are very vulnerable to being destroyed in Wars with nearby neighbors.

[ogmius]

Originally posted by Ryat:

Silly meatbags. Just go synthetic. It is your destiny.

Earther for LIFE here!

[Pathogenic]

Do farms benefit from adjacency bonuses? I ask because in my current game, I have a farm with a level 6 adjacency bonus (City + Antimater Power Plant), yet the farm does not seem to be producing any extra food.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

Also look for buildings that give bonuses to Population on adjacent tiles, that should improve Food production in Farm type Buildings in those tiles, as well as increase the gain in population capacity on that World, if those adjacent buildings increase the population, i.e. Cities. Buildings like Hospitals and Fertility Clinics and any upgrades can often incease Food Production on adjaecent Farms and Population Limits in Cities. Also look for Wonders (one per Galaxy) and Achievements ( one per Civ (Player)) that give direct gains to Food and Population, as well as gains to adjacent tiles. The Anti Matter (Power) Plant is a major prize since it gives many levels to most types of production in adjacent buildings, make sure you get it and place it carefully. Placement of Cities is important, since they give bonuses to many types of buildings on adjacent tiles.

Pay attention to the levels of all your Buildings. Gal Civ 3 is based around having very few buildings that give direct points of production of any kind (Raw Production, Construction, Ship Construction, Food, Research, Morale, Influence, etc.). Most Buildings only give % gains to some of the World's productions, and give level gains to buildings on adjacent tiles that have certain types of production. In particular, try to raise the levels of any of the few buildings that do give direct points such as the Space Elevator, Deep Core Mine, Star Port, Computer Core, etc, by surrounding them with buildings that raise their levels, i.e. Factories aound around Space Elevator, Deep Core Mine, Star Port (which should be grouped in a triangle together if possible), Labs next to Computer Core, Farms next to Cities and Cities next to Farms. Also take advantage of any special tiles on your world to affect their own tile and buildings on adjacent tiles.

Becoming a better GC3 Player means learning how to take use this when building up your Colonies. Your most consistent source of production points (in a general sense) is population points which is why Cities and Food production are so important (and Morale). Another good source, when available is Asteroid Mines, but you have to extend your zone of Influence control to those Asteroids to build those Mines, however, they are very vulnerable to being destroyed in Wars with nearby neighbors.

Good post, man.

I'm sorta getting most of what you say already but it's still useful to me. The thing about cities bext to farms and farms next to cities is an important issue I hadn't really twigged yet, but this huge jump in pop cap I just got, from 5 to 15 on my home world as a result of putting a city next to two farms kinda illuistrates that in flashing neon. What I had been doing in previous attempts was putting cities in the middle of production building or research rings, Seems if a planet got farms this is an error.

The system is somewhat counter-intuitive for a long term 4X player. Very confising. However I'm not going to whine about that (much) 'cos I can see that once you get to understand what's going on, you are then left with intersting puzzles and decisions on how to build out individual planets optimally based on individual planet tile layout, tile bonuses and empire requirements.

Which is probably going to lead to additional long term interst and variety in gameplay. If the objective was to remove the typical one-size-fits-all planet build out grindfest (spam factories here, labs there and farms over yonder) it looks like Stardock may have succeded with this. Props may be due.

Have to wait to see if I get it worked out, but unfortunately the bloody Drengen might have something to say about that.