Discussing Upgraded Food Exploitations

[TreborTheTall]

In this guide I expand upon a topic that I covered back in march, food sharing. This time I will be focusing on a strategy recommended to me by Sedgehammer by talking about the food exploitation upgrades (buildings) that you can unlock, when and where you want to place each one.

Sedgehammer recommended in a comment on my YouTube Channel that you “Expand three times, each expansion should have one food specialization with food sharing building and one aquatic specialization with algea farms. Capital first gets food specialization with food upkeep reduction building and set food setting to "take" for the remainder of the game, then focus on production and energy. Capital pops work production, energy and happiness with expansion pops working food and happiness. Expansions "share half" food until pop 8 then share all until they get second happiness building. The capital becomes the only unit producing city with all other cities in support, providing food and resources with happiness events. I think this was viable before, but only just discovered this play style the other day and really love it.”

About 3 weeks ago, volodymyrboitchouk asked: "Could you do a video on the value of the different types of exploitation? I have labored under the assumption that food is pretty awful in most cases and should almost never be invested in (except for the starting building). People keep arguing the point on reddit so I'd like someone with more experience testing the game to weigh in. In light of your current playthrough you seem like the best person to do this. "

In that playthrough I was trying out the strategy recommended by Sedgehammer. To illustrate how good focusing on food exploitations, and their upgrades can be, I forbid myself from using research energy and production expectations.




Bioengineered Food Plantations:

You can put this upgrade in your capital in the early game around turn 15, and then in your bigger cities in the late game around turn 45 (so that they can support large populations and to get more out of happiness events).

Agricultural Export Center:

You can put this upgrade in your 2nd and 3rd colony around turn 20. You may want to put in as the colonies secondary food exploitation, if you still want to grow the supplemental colonies, or you can leave that slot for a Community Wellness Center, to get happiness events more often.

Community Wellness Center:

You can put this upgrade in your capital around turn 30 to turn 35. And in your bigger colonies that you conquer around turn 40 to turn 50. After that maybe just have the colonies generate energy (if it is not in your safe space, it can be stolen off you, making long term investments like exploitation upgrades not worth investing in). Placing on colonies with a Stadium Arcadium pays off quickly. On turn 37 I was getting happiness rewards like 500 energy every 2 turns in my capital.


General Notes:
1. Amazons get more food (from killing animals), and can terraform territory to get more food income from exploitations. While some would say that makes food exploitations less valuable, as you have plenty of food, I think it is more reason to lean into food production and food mechanics.
2. One thing you can do, to quickly grow a new colony, is have a nearby colony "prepare" an upgraded food sector, then you transfer the food sector on one turn. You can can consider setting up the new colonies next sector for when it reaches 8 pops.

 

[mbuh]

Good tips there.

I usually put one food sector at capital, and settle new colonies surrounding it if possible. With some planning, i mean whether i dedicate the cities to units producing or economy, i usually swap sectors. I mean for example, i often like to settle my second and third cities near the capital, so after the capital reach 8, its food sector with bioenginered food specialization is given to 2nd cities, whilst the capital get agricultural export, then depends of whether i need my military cities to reach 8 or 12 quikcly (usually my 2nd or 3rd), i set the capital to share all. Then the 3rd or 4th city will inherit it, and the capital agricultural export when it reach 8, this city will be the food support, i often stop them from growing at 8 pop, the food is either fully shared and fully taken by one other city that really need to grow to 8 or 12 or fully sold as energy. The capital will then can focus as energy or research producer or hybrid.

Although sometimes i really need research right from turn 1, if there are research sites or landmark, i set 2nd city to function like above, and the capital as research. But most of the time, for research i usually just use the center building (the labs) in every colony, and use economist doctrine

If i don't do sectors swapping / inheriting, my military cities won't get its necessary infrastructure fast enough (like before turn 25 if possible). I mean i like my military cities to have at least the enginering guild and military lab, because at this point cosmite lab is often not researched, so those two will do, if it reach 12, then i can also have energy efficient assembly. It's not often reach 12 if i'm not amazon who can get food by killing animals though

Another good thing about dedicated food producer colony is that it can also act as energy producing city

I don't really like setting my capital as military city, despite capital almost always if not always start near a landmark sector because at late game there is a cosmite generator that can only generate cosmite if the capital is producing energy/research. I know that i can relocate capital, but ideal spot for capital doesn't always happen in every game. Instead everyone start point is always fixed by certain distance from one another, meaning the original capital is always the safest colony because there is always lots of spots for other cities to surround it. But yeah capital has the best garrison compared to regular cities, at some conditions, it's preferable for the capital to be a fortress at borders or near voidbringer spawners.

 

[Ericridge]

I've once had a continents map with a start that was basically nothing. I was like, wow, this is a whole lot of nothing! Why did i start here? I looked at my location and went wait. Arcadian plains + coastal waters.

So I looked at it and then decided to just have the capital specialize in making food. Capital picked Food reactor then its next two sectors had Bioengineering Food Plantation + Agricultural Export center. As for its two coastal sectors, it built both Algae Food Farms and Maritime Research Facility. Then I never looked back until later which was when it reached Max population and was helping other cities grow bit faster. I was impressed.

Dont' forget about those veil of tranquility on the map. Shiny white holy light, they also boost happiness at expense of the colony's science income.

A celestial can pop those veils of tranquality onto same sectors with stadium arcadium to almost double the happiness output from it.

I don't know if there's a cap or not, i haven't really looked into it.

 

[mbuh]

Happiness event can be great indeed. If you put the community center building, you can get happiness event every turn, disregarding races and secret tech. But yes you need the latest tier happiness building. But a happiness event focused cities are not to be underestimated, actually you can get like 250-600 outputs (or 20-30 ish if cosmite) every turn from each cities (cosmite only comes from cities that has the spatial rift). The downside is it's random which output will be boosted, this force you to balance the city output, i mean if for example your city output per turn is 100 food, 100 energy, 100 production, 30 research, if the happiness event triggers for research you will get much less, the difference is massive (it's a like 30-100 ish compared to 500-600).

If you can have balanced output, just two cities that can do happiness event every turn will easily give you thousands of energy in several turns or catapulted these colonies populations to the max in no time (each food even if your city can produce 100-150 food, the event will produce 500-600 food almost every turn if your city can trigger happiness event every turn, if you are unlucky you still get 500-600 energy or research, which is as good if not better)