But their city growth is apparently not hampered by the lack of food, so they don't need to watch it.
But it might consume other resources which get converted to make up for the lack of food. Not sure.
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But their city growth is apparently not hampered by the lack of food, so they don't need to watch it.
But it might consume other resources which get converted to make up for the lack of food. Not sure.
I've tried that. Worked out badly. The problem is that all those food buildings eat up gold as upkeep, meaning your huge food income is significantly balanced by a gold drain (where the 2-1 ratio gets you). On the other hand, gold buildings have no upkeep, and I was forced to start building them in vast amounts to get myself out of the hole that a food-only strategy had got me into.
I could have sworn one of the food spells was +100%, and that there were three of them. Doesn't Agrella also have a food buff?
I've done it in several games and it worked fine for me. If a town has a gold mine I will build the gold buildings, but otherwise it's all food. The main thing about this is that monsters get huge food boosts from so many map resources, and they have two buildings that add large flat amounts of food (pub and fishing village), you have to make sure you are taking advantage of that. With gold on the other hand there aren't any big gold producing buildings that the multiplier can effect (without a gold mine), so you are spamming +3 buildings to try and make any money.
I've done it in several games and it worked fine for me. If a town has a gold mine I will build the gold buildings, but otherwise it's all food. The main thing about this is that monsters get huge food boosts from so many map resources, and they have two buildings that add large flat amounts of food (pub and fishing village), you have to make sure you are taking advantage of that. With gold on the other hand there aren't any big gold producing buildings that the multiplier can effect (without a gold mine), so you are spamming +3 buildings to try and make any money.
Harvesting Blessing (+50%) is the arcane spell, Fertility (+75%) is Argelas (1st?).
If there is a third with +100% I havent seen it yet meaning it has to be either be from another god (there is no 2nd arcane one) or require more than 60 reputation towards Argela to unlock for research. Maybe you confused one + population spells (Prosperity) for a +% food spell since they have the same buff icon (palmleaf/olive branch)?
Even with the additional spell the exchange rate of 2:1 still screws you as long as you dont get the food modifier at least twice as high as the gold one. +325% gold for humans would requires a +650% food to pay off (without 20% perks).
Setting the focus on city level not realm level seems right to me. With 3 gold prducing resorces (gems, silver, gold) you will always go for money since the modifier will never be able to counter the base production. Thats why you place cities so that they get as much access to the same resource (food,gold,mana) as possible.
Helia has a food buff as well, but I'm pretty sure it's 60%. You'd have to take a moderate investment toward Dauros to get the buffs from Helia and Agrela, and depending on how much standing you need with Helia it might not be possible to get both at all.
Suppose you have all the food multiplier buildings, Fertility, and Harvest Blessing. That's +350% food output. Now let's look at the output of a size 10 city. You've got a pub and fishing village at +5 each, +2 from the city itself, and five farms for +15 total. Base food production is 27. With multipliers from buildings plus spells, food output is 121.5, or about 60.75 gold. Now subtract -12 gold for upkeep costs on your food multiplier buildings. There's three mana going into the spells, plus 120 mana for the initial casting cost. You end up getting about 49 gold per turn. Each farm you add on top of this gives you another 13.5 food, or 6.75 gold.
Now compare a gold based approach. A size ten city gets +2 from the city itself, +2 from the ratmen guild, +4 from the market, and +12 from four craftsmen districts, for a base gold production of 20. With multipliers from three buildings (+225%), total output is 65 gold. Each craftsmen district adds another 9.75 gold. You don't have to pay upkeep on any of this, so you end up making about 1/3 more gold by focusing on gold in a monster city compared to focusing on food in a monster city for a size ten city. Even if you've got a city with two pigs, or a Cheese Factory, or a Donkey, you're still not quite breaking even compared to a gold focused approach.
Just for the sake of comparison, a size 10 human city focused on gold produces 72.25 gold, and each craftsmen district brings in another 12.75 gold. Human towns produce ridiculous amounts of gold compared to other races, and as the cities get larger the lead gets proportionately bigger. If you factor in the +20% food or +20% gold mage perks, it gets even more lopsided in favor of producing gold instead of good, because the 20% bonus is additive rather than multiplicative with the other bonuses. Adding 20% more onto a 350% bonus doesn't make as big of a difference as adding 20% more onto a 225% bonus.
Suppose you have all the food multiplier buildings, Fertility, and Harvest Blessing. That's +350% food output. Now let's look at the output of a size 10 city. You've got a pub and fishing village at +5 each, +2 from the city itself, and five farms for +15 total. Base food production is 27. With multipliers from buildings plus spells, food output is 121.5, or about 60.75 gold. Now subtract -12 gold for upkeep costs on your food multiplier buildings. There's three mana going into the spells, plus 120 mana for the initial casting cost. You end up getting about 49 gold per turn. Each farm you add on top of this gives you another 13.5 food, or 6.75 gold.
Now compare a gold based approach. A size ten city gets +2 from the city itself, +2 from the ratmen guild, +4 from the market, and +12 from four craftsmen districts, for a base gold production of 20. With multipliers from three buildings (+225%), total output is 65 gold. Each craftsmen district adds another 9.75 gold. You don't have to pay upkeep on any of this, so you end up making about 1/3 more gold by focusing on gold in a monster city compared to focusing on food in a monster city for a size ten city. Even if you've got a city with two pigs, or a Cheese Factory, or a Donkey, you're still not quite breaking even compared to a gold focused approach.
Just for the sake of comparison, a size 10 human city focused on gold produces 72.25 gold, and each craftsmen district brings in another 12.75 gold. Human towns produce ridiculous amounts of gold compared to other races, and as the cities get larger the lead gets proportionately bigger. If you factor in the +20% food or +20% gold mage perks, it gets even more lopsided in favor of producing gold instead of good, because the 20% bonus is additive rather than multiplicative with the other bonuses. Adding 20% more onto a 350% bonus doesn't make as big of a difference as adding 20% more onto a 225% bonus.
Of course, but most cities with monsters have some sort of monster food growth resource or two. They have so much access to food that it's just natural they mostly focus on it.
Your other numbers are interesting, but I actually almost never build any (extra) farms and I never build craftsmen districts. They aren't worth it to me, I'd rather build towers or unit production buildings. So I'm looking at the one-off flat increase buildings (market, fishing village, pub) and what resources are on hand. I honestly don't need any more income than that. I once built a monster city full of only food production buildings, spammed farms, and cast the food buffs on it, and I basically had far more money than I needed. I think it had 10 farms at the end (it was close to level 20), a cheesecave, a donkey slaughterhouse thing, and two pigs, I don't remember the income but it was something ridiculous for a single city.
Also Helia's food buff only requires 10 approval to cast, so if you go Agrella or Dauros you can easily cast it, and early.