Forest Harvest! Must change on patch?

[Bakunine]

For what i've seen so far it seems a lot of people are abusing of forest harvest to deal with cities that are dominated with curruption.

I think this must be patched ASAP.

My suggestion would be:

You only receive shields for florests that you start with and harvest and not the ones you plant and harvest.

Or a less drastic change: You can harvest and receive shields for florests planted but shields only are collected from 10 to 10 turns and only from a single forest tile.

Anyone agree? Anyone thinks im foolish ?

[yin26]

Well, I see your point, though I personally hate all that micromanagement. It seems that the trees grow back too fast. Maybe they can make the trees only grow back after a much longer time? Or grow back such that a quick harvest gets you almost no shields but waiting longer yields more? That would make sense.

[nato]

I vote for just getting rid of forest shields all togther. I think it was just a little throw-away extra idea they put in, not a style of play. Some people seem to be basing strategy around it ... seems silly to me.

If people are going to go to such extremes, they should just lower corruption in the first place. (I myself am fine with corruption as is, and I don't lumber.)

If they keep it they should automate it, so those poor souls doing it intensively can play more Civ between harvesting and planting trees.

[Bakunine]

If they keep it they should automate it, so those poor souls doing it intensively can play more Civ between harvesting and planting trees.

Yeah! Let's give some life quality to those poor slaver lumberjacks.

[Asharak]

I'm not sure I agree, Bakunine... actually, I'm sure I don't agree, but it's a figure of speech, you know.

It's not a strategy I use myself, but I have no problem with it. After all, isn't that we do today? Plant forests, cut them down, sell them, plant new ones, and then repeat the process? Certainly agruments for the pace of forest regneration can be made, but I have no problem with the general idea.

Honestly, I'd rather see Firaxis patch the corruption issue itself... deal with the disease, not the symptom, IMHO. My biggest gripe with Civ3 is the high corruption, though, so I'm a little biased. I can understand why people who like the corruption as is would want a different solution.

[Monoriu]

I agree its a cheap exploit. But then corruption is too harsh and there are no effective ways to deal with it. Both should be fixed.

[Bakunine]

Well i can deal with curruption althought i think it should be lowered. What i think is wrong with forest harvesting is that AI probably don't use that at all (at least i doubt they plant forests to harvest, and if they were programmed that way then to keep along with them by late game one would be 10 minutes per turn planting and harvesting).

On the other hand curruption must be even more rampant on the AI because they build tons of tundra, desert, two tiles cities. So using harvest forest massive while the AI not is very unbalacing...

But since it can all be edit there's no real problem in leaving it, althought when MP games come probably it will be turn of in the games i play .
Don't wanna to wait 5 extra minutes for a lumberjack moving his workers!

[Venger]

Originally posted by Bakunine
For what i've seen so far it seems a lot of people are abusing of forest harvest to deal with cities that are dominated with curruption.

I think this must be patched ASAP.

Talk about a band aid, lets say we fix the corruption that's the source of the problem?

I like the harvest bonus, it's a nice treat for alot of worker work, it makes a little sense, and can be helpful early in the early game.

Let's be honest, by the time about 1600 rolls around, I'm trolling in about 28 shields a turn in my capital, having a square deforested every 5 turns adds a whopping two shield per turn during that time - I'll get that and more after 5 turns of having the forest stay put.

I like the rule for early game bonuses, it's irrelevant in the late game except as a strategy to fix the broken corruption system.

Venger

[Bakunine]

Originally posted by Venger


Talk about a band aid, lets say we fix the corruption that's the source of the problem?

I like the harvest bonus, it's a nice treat for alot of worker work, it makes a little sense, and can be helpful early in the early game.

Let's be honest, by the time about 1600 rolls around, I'm trolling in about 28 shields a turn in my capital, having a square deforested every 5 turns adds a whopping two shield per turn during that time - I'll get that and more after 5 turns of having the forest stay put.

I like the rule for early game bonuses, it's irrelevant in the late game except as a strategy to fix the broken corruption system.

Venger

Corruption is not broken. It's just rampant.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by Bakunine


Corruption is not broken. It's just rampant.

I agree cuppruption is not broken. I can live with rampant corruption, IF there are effective tools to deal with it. Specialists, science, culture, city improvement, special unit, tile improvement, whatever. As it is, courthouses are too weak and forbidden palaces are inadequate and too difficult to build where it is most needed. There should be a way to build lots of cities and still have reasonable corruption levels (at a certain cost, of course).

[Pyrodrew]

I wouldn't mind just having effective tools to deal with corruption either. The problem with doing that instead of reducing corruption as a whole is the AI isn't smart enough to fight corruption when & where it's needed. We can rush build courthouses, shop down trees for shields, use leaders & other techniques to fight it. The AI can't... it keeps thinking "must build another settler! 1 shield a turn? So what! MUST BUILD ANOTHER SETTLER!". So I wouldn't mind seeing corruption overall lowered simply because it would help the AI more than it would us.

So a combination of the 2 (slightly less corruption & a tad more ways to deal with it) may be best.

[Zurai001]

I object to the forests giving shields mostly because, outside of the ancient and to a lesser extent medieval eras, nothing is made out of wood. Cutting down forests shouldn't speed up production of a modern tank or a spaceship part.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Zurai001
I object to the forests giving shields mostly because, outside of the ancient and to a lesser extent medieval eras, nothing is made out of wood. Cutting down forests shouldn't speed up production of a modern tank or a spaceship part.

Where do you think they get the paper to write all the reports and design details on??

Note: This was on a tiny map.
Seriously though, i used lumberjacking extensively in my first game. I had four cities, and not too much corruption, so no lumberjacking then. But after i took over the Russian cities (right next to mine, on the same continent, the new cities were producing 1 shield per turn. Moscow was producing more, so there i built the Forbidden Palace.
My other cities would have taken forever to even build a temple, so lumberjacking was the only way to go. Once the FP was built, i was getting a decent shield output in the cities, so i didnt need to lumberjack anymore.

[Auk]

Paper? Furniture?

[Tolls]

"Paper? Furniture?"

...and housing...

[GodSpawn]

Originally posted by Bakunine
Corruption is not broken. It's just rampant.

Firaxis seem to think that it's broken. From the Soren chat (talking about the patch):

[Soren_Johnson_Firaxis] Corruption levels are one thing we have looked at...
[Soren_Johnson_Firaxis] and I'll give you a hint: we are NOT increasing corruption.

[Grumbold]

Leaving aside the (BIG) issue of corruption, we are left with the question of whether it is fun and/or necessary to lumber trees. That boils down to whether the cost of a worker and a tile devoted to forest is offset by the improved output over a normal tile. If it is, then lumbering is going to become a big part of any multiplayer game even if it is not needed against the AI. If that is the case then it would seem to make more sense to be able to issue a "lumber" command to a worker that just allows it to permanently feed 1-2 shields a turn to the nearest city. This could replace the concept of colonies that almost no-one seems to need

I use colonies, although not early game like Firaxis led us to believe would be neccessary. I use them latter when I don't want to expand my border's due to corruption, but I want a specific luxury or resource. Granted the 'colonies' concept isn't what they made it out to be, but it is still nice to have and I think it's an alternative to high corruption.

[Grumbold]

You're right, that was a last little sarcastic dig at the end of a fairly sensible thread. Really what I'd like to see is a similar scheme. You tell your worker to convert into a logging camp. The tile permanently produces more shields, you get a nice little tile enhancing graphic and never need worry about issuing orders ever again. Its a little less efficient because the worker could run from trouble or switch to more important tasks but it gets the job done with less micromanagement.

More gameplay, less micromanagement. This is what Firaxis promised us, yet I've not seen too much evidence of it. Units don't move in stacks! That's almost unforgivable. How about the workers 'automation'; they go into other civ's territory sometimes, for what seems like no reason???

[The Eliminator]

Shield bonus from cutting down forests is a(nother) blatant rip off from Age Of Empires. I don't like it; no sir, I don't like it at all.

[WarKing]

On corruption: I agree and disagree...

Lower it a tad and give us more ways to deal with it, sure. Make it so I can rule the world easily, spreading from one conquered city to the next, with the newly conquered cities easily pumping out more and more military units....hmmmm....negative, don't like the idea. I mean, sure the game would be easier...but I don't want an easier game, I want a more realistic and fairly challenging game. Granted a city ten tiles from mycapital should be producing better than it is...but it should suffer some ill effect.


On lumbering...

I would never subject myself to that kind of masochistic micromanaging sheme. It obviously wasn't meant to happen, therefore, it shouldn't be part of the game. However, building a lumberjack colony would be interesting and worth looking into, like improving a forest, rather than simply slearing it. (similar to mining)

[Ingtar]

Perhaps a compromise is in order? A cut down forest should yield cash, not shields after a point in time.

[Boney]

having a square deforested every 5 turns adds a whopping two shield per turn during that time - I'll get that and more after 5 turns of having the forest stay put.

Am I missing something here. Couldn't you put a few workers on the job and use two forest squares to deforest and reforest every other turn so that you could get 10 shields per turn?

just a thought

[Grunthex]

Even better, if you have 5 or so workers, you can chop down the forest, get the shields, plant it back by then end of turn, and STILL get the 2 production. (Which you'll promptly lose to corruption)

[Dr Spin]

If you feel it's a cheat then don't do it.

You cannot really 'cheat' at solitaire.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Boney

Am I missing something here. Couldn't you put a few workers on the job and use two forest squares to deforest and reforest every other turn so that you could get 10 shields per turn?

just a thought

It's more than a few - in fact I'd say in order to get 10 shields in 6 turns (3 to plant, 3 to harvest) it'd take what, 6 workers? That's six workers made with 6 population points, not bulding anything else, getting me a whopping less than 2 shield per turn average. No thanks.

However, it does help in the early game, when 10 shields is like 5 years of the cities output...

Venger

[Venger]

Originally posted by Grunthex
Even better, if you have 5 or so workers, you can chop down the forest, get the shields, plant it back by then end of turn, and STILL get the 2 production. (Which you'll promptly lose to corruption)

It'd take more than 5 - probably like 20 to pull that off.

Venger

[Yolky]

Why are you guys complaining about foresting? How does it affect you? Are you playing multiplayer? I am not trying to flame but who cares if people use this. If you dont like it dont play that way.

I just want to know why does it bother you so much, unless you are playing multiplayer.

Davor

[Tolls]

Eliminator:
"Shield bonus from cutting down forests is a(nother) blatant rip off from Age Of Empires. I don't like it; no sir, I don't like it at all.
"

It reminds me more of Sid's Colonisation, where clearing a forest gave you a big wood bonus...and Col was pre-AoE.