[Suggestion] Food and Intuition

from Elemental Forums

So there are many suggestion threads regarding food and population, but I would like to present a very simple problem related to the two: player intuition and the food mechanic. When I started playing in BETA 2, I discovered that my cities would plateau in population, and advancement would not be possible without additional food. Unfortunately, other than building that initial food producing tile, I had no idea what to do. I now know that it is extremely important to build near a food-rich tile (fertile ground, particularly) as early in the game as possible. I do not consider this mechanic to be intuitive or fun for new users. I feel forced to seek out a specific tile before founding my city, and I know that should I fail to do so, my progress will halt temporarily or indefinitely.

Either make it very clear to new players that they must find food tiles early, or change the mechanic. As it is, I don't find the food/population cap system fun or challenging. It feels too arbitrary: "Find X tile early or fail." For such an open and dynamic game, such hard rules (which are unclear to new users, which compounds the problem) weaken the experience.

6,443 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I Agree! Food and Pop. need work, or risk being mediocre!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

You now always start out near a food tile. I'm not against letting the player know that food is tied to city expansion, perhaps by either putting it in the description for the fertile land, or just a quick check when founding a kingdom, and pop up a window saying "Hey, you're not going to be in range of a food tile so your city won't grow". However, doing a popup like this isn't exactly accurate since food is global and not per-city, so it gives the incorrect impression that each city *needs* a food tile or it can't grow, which isn't always the case.

In short.. there's only so much handholding the game can do. My vote would be to put the description in the food tiles that says that food is required for city growth, and since the player now always starts near one it should be enough.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Eh...even though the constructible gardens made sense people complained about "too much clicking" and they went away leaving us with the blah mechanic we have now. IMHO the gardens were a little OP at the time, but a 4 tile farm that yields 3 food would have still given people "an out" if they couldn't secure a fertile land. At 4 tiles they'd be too large to spam in a city if you wanted to do anything else with it besides produce food.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I think tying a farm to the first city is a good start...the rest...I dunno.  I got here in 3a, so it's hard for me to see food as my limiting factor (for me, Materials are always the problem)... however, the idea that food is scarce and heavily contested just fits the theme of the world.  Just needs to be made more clear, with a few more options (I like how the empire can create its own food in small quantities, for example).