Farms

to build or not to build...

from GalCiv2 Forums

About building farms or not.

I see a lot of post where people state that it's not worth it. I disagree.

I often go for at least one farm. It depends on the planets class and what i'm gearing it towards(research, economy or production). The cash the extra population brings in really makes a difference, however it does require that you have a high morale. You don't want to spam your planets with morale buildings. But two morale buildings and a farm brings in more taxes than three economy buildings and on top of that you have the extra population for defense and invasion.

In mid/late game i usually have 2 six billion farms on most of my worlds and only one or two morale buildings and taxes at 59%(at least). A population of 20 billion really requires a good morale and i would rather have 18 billion, but if you build older farms to reach this number you have to disable autoupgrade on the planet(if you have researched some of the "better" farms) and that's really a pain in the *** if you have hundreds of planets. So i stick to 20 billion.

You will usually have to build galactic achievements, trade goods(or you can trade for them) and mine morale resources(helps a lot) to have both a high population and high taxes. If you can't keep your taxes up then there really is no point in raising the over all population.

Watch out for the creativity bonus...it is a must have, but in one of my games it kicked in when i was researching the second last tier of farms and it gave me the "best" farms(those 7 billion ones). I had already set most of my planets up with two farms and i had over 70 planets(playing on an immense sized galaxy). 22 billion is just not worth it and if i had to turn off autoupgrade on every single planet and then upgrade the other buildings manually, well that would take forever. I had to manage with one farm on each world and it annoyed me immensely through out the rest of that game.

By the way i always use bonus tiles with 100% or 400% food production. Just put some "old" farms on 'em, saves up tiles. I turn the autoupgrade off on those planets, so one does have to micro a bit more.

It would be nice if the penalty to morale weren't so severe on higher class planets. Then maybe one could actually find a use for those buildings that give a % bonus to food production.

But what are your thoughts on the subject?

 

strategies
14,140 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A %bonus on food production seems useful to me, if it is on planet with a max pop six billion. 1 farm on that helps a lot.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As for the % to food buildings. They are nice for a small tweak in population increase. Place a 7 food farm down then a %food building to tweak it up, but not as much as another 7 farm would. Still costs you 2 tiles as older farms would, but negates the need to disable auto-upgrades.

I normally stick to just 1 farm per planet. It gives me the added protection on invasions, the extra people to fill troop ships and of course the taxes/influence. Having a 18bil planet everywhere is nice, but the micromanaging would be too much. In TA that best farm will take planets to 15bil now due to the 8bil new population cap on normal planets. Having all your normal planets at 15 and your home world at 16 I think is good enough.
Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've never seen a post suggesting not building any farms. Only posts saying not to go over 20 billion.

I build one farms per planet for all planets, regardless of the PQ. My non-home world populations are at 13b. I have toyed with building a lesser farm on a 100% bonus tile for a population of 18b.

I don't like too much management so I like to have every planet with about the same population and generally the same morale. I do not build any morale structures anywhere except my home world, but even that eventually gets replaced. When I take an AI planet i build over all of the morale structures they've built. With morale resource starbases, trade goods and all of the built in bonuses from reserach, I can tax at 80% and still have an approval rating in the 60% range. Out of about 120 planets about 5 are in the 40%'s.



Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've only been building farms on my economy worlds. Maybe I'll try shoving one on all my planets and see how it works out. Does anyone know the formula for how population affects taxes?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've only been building farms on my economy worlds. Maybe I'll try shoving one on all my planets and see how it works out. Does anyone know the formula for how population affects taxes?
End of quote


Keep in mind that more population = more influence = more tourism income. So you really should look at more than just the tax benefits.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
... as well as the population needed for transports and planet defence.

I don't know the formula but I can tell you that you will be better off with twice the population and one less stock exchange. 13 b is better than 6 b with stock excahnge, so its worth the use of a tile.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A few counterpoints though. Firstly, economic buildings allow you to hit your maximum income much faster; your population only has to get to 8 bil rather than 15-20. Secondly, with 8 bil as the base instead of 6 bil, the relative benefit of a farm to a stock exchange has decreased (i.e. at 6 bil a top-tier farm would increase your pop by 117%, or in other words your tax base would be boosted by 47%, while at 8 bil this decreases to 87.5% and 37% respectively)

That said I still aim to usually get 1 farm on my planets in most cases.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
IIRC from DA tax income was proportional to the squate root of the population, so going from 8b to 15b is about a 37% income boost from taxes. Plus tourism, influence, defense, etc.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was under the impression that poeple won't start leaving the planet until the empire's approval is below (21, or 29%?) so in the late game you could have a giant 24 bil planet with around 40 approval and have it steadily grow.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Below 21% is the point of exodus. However, if you have a 24bil planet @ 40% approval, either it is full of morale buildings or you have little/no taxation. At one point in galciv2 history, you could have immense population planets, but that got chopped down in DA or at least a patch of DA.

Ever since then 20bil is the number to not breach if you can avoid it.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was under the impression that poeple won't start leaving the planet until the empire's approval is below (21, or 29%?) so in the late game you could have a giant 24 bil planet with around 40 approval and have it steadily grow.
End of quote


With approval below 46% your planet's population won't grow but will remain status quo.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe that the population growth number is 41%. I know that the number turns red before you actually get the the point of Zero growth.

Unless at some point you really drop taxes, i don't see how you could even reach 24b without busing them in.

What i was thinking of trying was to actually build a farm on a 300% tile
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I generally build farms on planets with entertainment bonuses I take advantage of to help mitigate the morale problem. There have been a few rare instances when I've gotten both entertainment and farm production bonuses that have made for some very sweet money-making colonies.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i made a 100bill planet with all of my farms modded for 500 percent moral bonus....it took hours for it to get to 100bill....but..NOTHING COULD INVADE ME..MUHAHAHAHA!!

also...it was a modded 36 pq planet...i forgot what the breach was but once you reach a certain amount of farms-stock exchange you only get like...plus 10 bc for replacing a stock with a farm.....BUT SO MANY DRENG. TROOP TRANSPORTS FELL TO THE POWER OF 100BILLION PEOPLE ARMED WITH...NOTHING BUT FARM EQUIP
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting SRSLYWTH, reply 14
i made a 100bill planet with all of my farms modded for 500 percent moral bonus....it took hours for it to get to 100bill....but..NOTHING COULD INVADE ME..MUHAHAHAHA!!

also...it was a modded 36 pq planet...i forgot what the breach was but once you reach a certain amount of farms-stock exchange you only get like...plus 10 bc for replacing a stock with a farm.....BUT SO MANY DRENG. TROOP TRANSPORTS FELL TO THE POWER OF 100BILLION PEOPLE ARMED WITH...NOTHING BUT FARM EQUIP
End of SRSLYWTH's quote

Luckly it doesn't work in metaverse.

 

Also I put 2 - 4 farms depend on PQ. So if people say over 2 farms is not good. But people are good for invasions and tax.

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Odd, I just built a farm and it didn't seem to do anything ... 6 mt of food before, 6 after.  I'd have to say that's pretty useless...

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Actually, I think that planet is bugged ... 4 mt of food is just vanishing!  I upgraded the farm to the 6 mt type, and ended up with 8 mt (12 mt reported by summary).  I then demolished the farm, hoping to reset it, and I'm down to 2 mt of food!  I think I'm going to have to buy that improvement back in a hurry!

Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top

the population is also limited by PQ

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Population Growth is limited by PQ.  You can still ferry people to a low PQ planet to raise them to 6bil (8bil in TA).

Chris, were you looking at current population or max population?  That just sounds really weird.  As for the drop to 2mt...can you post a screen shot of this along with what version your playing?

Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I can't post a screenshot of the drop itself ... but I can probably manage one of the planet as it is (8 mt of food, but summary says 12, and with the farm it SHOULD be 12).

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

@Chris

I see you're on DL (the initial colony gave it away).  What's the version number?

Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The latest update for it ... I lost track of the game for some odd reason, just thought to play it, so I updated it days ago.  It reads as v1.5 on the main menu.

Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

There goes my theory, then.

Depending on how old the savegame in question is, anyway.

Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The glitch happened yesterday (now that it's after midnight, I could have said today about 15 minutes ago...)