i agree too. if we playing unfallen or horatio, after fully populated system, just decaying 900~1700 food for nothing untill late late game. we need spent this food for something.

or just add funtions to spaceport can food transporting not only migration purpose; for outpost and not so improved colony.

The Community Mod changes this a little. The issue is that population growth doesn't provide diminishing returns for your Food- buildings require more and more Industry, Dust costs inflate, Science costs inflate, but Influence and Food costs do not. (Laws do but you only need to hit +4 per Pop to cover most of what you want)

The Community Mod at least makes Food consumption percentage based, which has its own flaws but means you need way more Food to max your populations. Which is nice for Food factions because that's something they do better, and you have extra time and space ti diversify pops.

lototo05 wrote:

i agree too. if we playing unfallen or horatio, after fully populated system, just decaying 900~1700 food for nothing untill late late game. we need spent this food for something.

or just add funtions to spaceport can food transporting not only migration purpose; for outpost and not so improved colony.

Worth remembering that for Horatio, a percentage of food adds to influence after 50 pop. Given their high pop count, influence is something you really need to get hold of in large quantities to maintain those extremely juicy ecologist laws. Not to mention all the other uses for influence with the galactic statecraft update.

For the OP, I feel like you kind of answered your own question. Manpower. If you don't play with a lot of military, then it's going to feel like food higher than 300 per turn is redundant. If you do play with a lot of military, which is often on essential at higher difficulties, then manpower is a precious resource in the mid game (especially since they nerfed it so hard from the minor factions). IIRC, it's not only for invasions (some people just prefer to siege down systems, but this can be really slow, and allows your enemy to react), and defending systems, but also adds a damage buff to well stocked fleets.

The other point to make is that if your systems are going to produce huge amounts of food on their own (like Unfallen systems) then just skip on the food buildings. You might lose a few turns having the extra pop, but you're also gaining turns in science and industry that wasn't spent on making the researching and making the buildings. Likewise for the food skills on heroes.

I feel like food is in a pretty good place right now. Unless you are Horatio or Unfallen (and Cravers - but for them you want to keep food relatively low to manage your population) I find it's pretty rare on normal speed where you reach the 300 food cap before you've got close to getting biofuels, unless you've made a concerted effort to do so, or you are sitting on an incredibly verdant system. If you are playing on fast... *shrugs*... difficult to balance everything for every game speed. The food transfer systems via the starport is a pretty neat idea though. 

Here is a link to the mod and the thread.

WeLoveYou wrote:

For the OP, I feel like you kind of answered your own question. Manpower. 

Well, I said:  "Whats the use, besides manpower?" And you answer: Manpower. :)  Aaaallllright... :)

WeLoveYou wrote:

 If you don't play with a lot of military, then it's going to feel like food higher than 300 per turn is redundant.

Which is exactly what I was talking about :) Yay!  :D

Having a system project that convert food to boost some other production would be neet. Biofuel converter just come way too slow, and you don't need that many food improvement unless every planets in your system is gas giant.

Dreepa wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

For the OP, I feel like you kind of answered your own question. Manpower. 

Well, I said:  "Whats the use, besides manpower?" And you answer: Manpower. :)  Aaaallllright... :)

WeLoveYou wrote:

 If you don't play with a lot of military, then it's going to feel like food higher than 300 per turn is redundant.

Which is exactly what I was talking about :) Yay!  :D

My point was just that saying 'just manpower' devalues its importance. It's a bit like saying - 'What's the point in influence? Just laws and diplomacy? But I don't use those things.' The intention of your post seemed to be that lots of food isn't high value because you don't make use of an important game mechanic. But just because you don't use that mechanic, doesn't mean that the resource connected to that mechanic isn't high value. To put in more clearly - you stated that a resource should maintain relevance throughout the game, and food doesn't do this. But it does do this, it just does it in a way which you admit you don't utilise. 

That is not true :)

I am not connecting food to manpower. I am connecting a must have production to an optional path of progress.

Food -> Must do feature (at least for basic races)

Manpower AKA military -> Might do feature (I ve played games having peace with everbody and they are also quite fun, as you compete on other levels).

So the conlusion of what my point was about is this:

If you play food, you should play military. 

I ciritizised that correlation.  :)

Ah fair enough. Yeh, you're right - food and military are intimately tied. 

Dreepa wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

Ah fair enough. Yeh, you're right - food and military are intimately tied. 

Just had me thinking about the Unfallen. They are a strong food prod race with pacifist game-play style. They kind of get a boost in an area that they (thematically) are supposed to not utilize to its fullest then, right?

Yeh I have this worry about Unfallen as well, but they are generally a defensive race, and the manpower is still needed to defend their worlds. Losing one system as Unfallen can mean losing a whole load of systems if it's a critical system in the vine network, so having lots on manpower on their worlds is fairly important. But generally, I'd say for Unfallen that the real strength of their innate food production lies in being able to skip food techs and buildings. But I will accept that the massive food production doesn't really fit into their playstyle.

Hi Icegremlin! Certain diplomatic treaties do cost influence per turn now, and a lot of it. Plus laws in the late game have a hell of a lot of upkeep. It's always a relevant resource. But back to the topic. I think the only faction that there can really be a case of food wastage for are Unfallen. It's not even really a wastage. Food can be converted to manpower at a rate of ~50% with the right buildings and laws. After those, the food is only going to waste if it's above 300 AND all your systems are full. In which case - expand. This is equivalent to saying industry is wasted because you can't build anything but the infinite science/dust - and that's actually a worse conversion rate, but no one would complain about it because the answer is simple - research more stuff to build.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if Unfallen got a food to science/food to dust tech as part of their quest/pop score/separate tech. But I don't think the problem is pervasive. As for Horatio, food = influence, and for everyone else, reaching food cap is pretty difficult nowadays.