1) 3 Anglers is not 4 Farmers + 1 Technician. The Technician benefits from labor bonuses which are far more plentiful than Trade bonuses in the early game, and therefore yields significantly more engergy -- to say nothing of a mid-game empire with all the Technician-boosting techs and buildings on top of Capacity Subsidies. Furthermore, districts have energy upkeep, which means having more districts = spending more energy, and planets have limits on how many districts they can build (and in this case, no, the limit isn't the planet size: the limit is about 4 lower than that because you want to build some City districts to unlock your building slots). 4 Farmers + 1 Technician is *decidedly better* than 3 Anglers.
- The numbers I gave were for right at the start of the game. Yes, you can get bonuses to energy production quite early, but a trade build can start with +50-60% trade (including Thrifty). Which is better varies based on what you invest in.
- You do need more districts, yes. You need 3 to get the output of 2.5, which is going to cost you a whopping... 0.5 extra energy per 30 food and energy produced.
- A size 16 ocean planet with 12 anglers makes the same food as 16 farmers.
- Even if they're only 33% better (three anglers doing the work of 3.5 farmers and .5 technicians. Those "excess minerals" that you spend on districts are, in total, 150 per 3 anglers (750 vs. 600). Would you not buy a pop for 150 minerals?
- For the planet size vs. pops thing: do you play exclusively on .25 habitables? Until the late game, the crunch is always pops, not space, and by the late game, farmers/anglers are so individually productive that they're not the problem. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where the fact that I could "only" make 96 food (12 districts) on a habitable was an issue in the early game, or "only" ~150 food (with modifiers) in the mid game.
2) If you are playing a trade empire -- and if you're taking the Anglers civic then you're playing a trade empire -- then you are *NEVER* getting 100% Trade to Energy. You're either getting CG's (if you need them), Unity (if you don't), or both (if you manage to actually get a Federation going). Taking 100% Trade as Energy is wrong pretty much 99% of the time, and the last 1% of the time includes both the time before you've gotten 643 Unity to buy the tradition that gives you Unity from Trade and the time where you've screwed up your economy somewhere else.
I'm using energy as the minimum possible value that you can get from TV. Trade builds switch to CG because it's *better* than energy.
I'm very confused by you using this argument. I agree with everything you're saying, but you're acting like this is an argument against my point (that Anglers are valuable despite the increased district cost). But what you're saying is that Anglers are even stronger than the case I've been making for them. Which I know, since I've been giving them the absolute bare minimum of support, assuming no Thrifty, assuming no trade modifiers, and assuming no trade policy.
I even made explicit mention of this point in the post that you refused to read. If you use the Trade League policy, each point of trade value is effectively worth 1.8x more.
So, I agree, but you're arguing *for* Anglers rather than against.
3) Maximizing food production per pop is fundamentally wrong. By 2250, the limiting factor on your potential food production isn't pops, it's planets. In many cases you could potentially argue that a modest early-game bonus can snowball you into a strong mid-game position in a standard economy, except in this case you can't do anything with excess food and the excess up-front mineral cost is detracting from your construction of Industrial districts.
I never said anything about maximizing food production. As I said, again, and again, and again, I'm responding to:
Anglers doesn't make your empire better at producing food.
That is my main disagreement. That's the one thing it does, really well, and indisputably. With the same number of pops (even including miners, for district construction), you can produce more food. Everything else is me responding to other points that you've brought up along the way.
"Anglers isn't an overwhelmingly powerful civic" isn't the same things as "Anglers doesn't make your empire better at producing food". I think you keep arguing for the former, but what you say you're claiming (and what I explicitly say I'm responding to) is the latter.
I don't understand the insistence on planets always being the chokepoint. Unless you have very bad luck with tiny planets or you have fantastic luck with a Lush planet with 20 food districts every game, you're going to be making roughly the same amount of food per planet. And besides that, for a large empire, you'll be skipping either at least one generator planet and/or factory planet (with the extra energy/CG from trade, and Pearl Divers). That will fix any planet crunch you have.
Have you actually played a game with Anglers?
