Currently there's very little incentive to go heavy-production in the early game even while playing a builder culture such as the Egyptians. Now don't get me wrong, it's not bad as per say to go production but you're better off going for full farmer quarter most of the time and that's because of the existence of "Forced Labour".

At first glance this mechanic might not seem that strong but in reality one sacrificed pop is all it takes to get your first Wonder up and working, not only that but with how easy it is to get in over-population with the Agrarian ability, you have basicaly no reason not to invest into food and use your civilians as an alternative currency for industry. 

Fortunately the problem has a fairly simple fix, sacrificing pop should go hand in hand with a stability hit on the city. Everytime you use Forced Labor you would lose (instantly) x stability per killed civilians, as it's been proposed on the discord this stability hit could increase with eras, ultimately culminating into the Encyclopedia tech which forbid the use of Forced Labor. Civic could also join the party with a choice that'd reduce the stability hit by x% for example. 

Obviously all these parameters don't need to all make it to the game, but it's fair to say that this strategy should come with consequences.

Discussed on the discord with the gracious help of 8houseofelixir, Waper, Alchristi and Invention

I like this idea very much and would like to add my 2 cents: Make empires that forbid Forced labor either gain a grievance on empires who have forced labor or increase the stab hit of using forced labor for other empires. This way the more empires research Labor Charter the more pressured all others empires will be to do it so, or else they'll be the target of more and more grievances or their stab costs for using forced labor will be so high they'll be pressed to not use it too.

Agree very much with this sentiment. There's no logical reason why when I'm apparently killing off thousands of people per turn there shouldn't be some penalty associated with it. Forced labour in its current state just makes agrarian affinity ridiculously op, and all the other affinities are basically irrelevant if you want to build an insanely powerful civ.

Agree, it would help making it less of a replacement for industry.

Yeah, it always struck me as really odd that I am sending a huge chunk of a city's population to certain death just for me to never be punished for it or disincentivised to do so even as time progresses.

Remove the stability bonus every time agrarians get a population and then that stability penalty you get every time you sacrifice one will start to matter.

Roryn411 wrote:

Like Ravenous, I also felt it was really weird that we're able to commit countless attrocities with no disincentive. I proposed making it a civic choice in another thread - similarly to how 'procession' is unlocked. It would help solve the issue of balancing since the other civic choice would also come with a reward, and it would solve the issue of civilisations that lean far towards 'liberty' on the ideological axis being able to work an entire city's population to death. It'd also make playing an actually benevolent civilisation possible without handicapping yourself. Right now, you can try to build a good empire, but as soon as you hit that tempting pop buyout button, you've committed an atrocity. I'm going to copy+paste the solutions I posed in the other thread since people in this thread don't seem to have seen them.

1. The action can have the immoral flavour text (of working people to death) removed or reworked to something more morally neutral (maybe have it explain something like funneling other forms of production to a construction so heavily reduces our the infrastructure needed to support other industries, etc.).

2. The action can be locked for all civilisations except for the ones that have an extreme authoritarian leaning

3. The action can be nerfed so heavily that it's not as often the best option

4. We can change it to be an civic unlock, like the procession action among others.

In my eyes, any of these three issues would solve the issue with roleplaying and immersion, but the fourth one in particularly would be good for balancing it out, and it's my personal favourite choice. This would of course all be accompanied with a nerf, but at least you wouldn't necessarily be committing an atrocity if you're trying to build a 'benevolent' civilisation. In the other thread, people thought it wasn't an issue that egalitarian civilisations can work their people to death which I thought was a bit bizarre, so I'm hoping that this gets some different responses here.

Having it behind a civic wall could be a solution yes, however a stab-hit would still be necessary to balance the mechanic because even in a country that pass law accepting such an act I'm not sure the population would be totaly okay with it :P 

A stab hit seems perfect - one or two shouldn't send you over the edge, but turn 1 rushing a wonder with 16 pops should definitely trigger a rebellion or something. It would have to be balanced around the high stability given by holy sites and wonders (which are the biggest recipients of human sacrifice in my experience), but that shouldn't be too hard.

KurouRingo wrote:

Having it behind a civic wall could be a solution yes, however a stab-hit would still be necessary to balance the mechanic because even in a country that pass law accepting such an act I'm not sure the population would be totaly okay with it :P 

Oh yes, I'm all for the stab hit too. That civic part of the suggestion was just for roleplaying purposes and not allowing liberty-focused or benevolent civs to have free and automatic access to an action like this which is basically an atrocity.

docktorkain wrote:

I like this idea very much and would like to add my 2 cents: Make empires that forbid Forced labor either gain a grievance on empires who have forced labor or increase the stab hit of using forced labor for other empires. This way the more empires research Labor Charter the more pressured all others empires will be to do it so, or else they'll be the target of more and more grievances or their stab costs for using forced labor will be so high they'll be pressed to not use it too.

Fully support this, this would play into roleplay and decision making and would make the game better overall

MetallicGeranium wrote:

Agree very much with this sentiment. There's no logical reason why when I'm apparently killing off thousands of people per turn there shouldn't be some penalty associated with it. Forced labour in its current state just makes agrarian affinity ridiculously op, and all the other affinities are basically irrelevant if you want to build an insanely powerful civ.

I have to say Olmecs are the most ridiculous in my experience. Because you will have control over the whole continent without even fighting, and will have every resource, so incredible money, science, production, food, and a very early world religion. It is very very strong.
Agrarian is also very strong due to the use of population, but it doesn't allow for this crazy early expansion that will probably bottleneck your empire later on.
I mean, with the Olmecs as starter, i can have 35 territories by turn 110, all attached to a town, with control over all harbors / resources available.
While as agrarian, i will be more powerful earlier, but I will eventually struggle to expand that much.

martinovich89 wrote:

MetallicGeranium wrote:

Agree very much with this sentiment. There's no logical reason why when I'm apparently killing off thousands of people per turn there shouldn't be some penalty associated with it. Forced labour in its current state just makes agrarian affinity ridiculously op, and all the other affinities are basically irrelevant if you want to build an insanely powerful civ.

I have to say Olmecs are the most ridiculous in my experience. Because you will have control over the whole continent without even fighting, and will have every resource, so incredible money, science, production, food, and a very early world religion. It is very very strong.
Agrarian is also very strong due to the use of population, but it doesn't allow for this crazy early expansion that will probably bottleneck your empire later on.
I mean, with the Olmecs as starter, i can have 35 territories by turn 110, all attached to a town, with control over all harbors / resources available.
While as agrarian, i will be more powerful earlier, but I will eventually struggle to expand that much.

The difference is that, in reality, assuming human players, Harappans will be stronger than Olmecs, with Olmecs you'll paint the map and your outpost will become free money for your neigbors because you just realisticaly won't have enough ressource to have units guarding them while waitingo attach them or create cities. Meanwhile Harappans will produce a lot of population very fast and will then gain access to both a super strong religion and the ability to spam-build by pop sacrifice too quick to be stopped. 

KurouRingo wrote:

martinovich89 wrote:

MetallicGeranium wrote:

Agree very much with this sentiment. There's no logical reason why when I'm apparently killing off thousands of people per turn there shouldn't be some penalty associated with it. Forced labour in its current state just makes agrarian affinity ridiculously op, and all the other affinities are basically irrelevant if you want to build an insanely powerful civ.

I have to say Olmecs are the most ridiculous in my experience. Because you will have control over the whole continent without even fighting, and will have every resource, so incredible money, science, production, food, and a very early world religion. It is very very strong.
Agrarian is also very strong due to the use of population, but it doesn't allow for this crazy early expansion that will probably bottleneck your empire later on.
I mean, with the Olmecs as starter, i can have 35 territories by turn 110, all attached to a town, with control over all harbors / resources available.
While as agrarian, i will be more powerful earlier, but I will eventually struggle to expand that much.

The difference is that, in reality, assuming human players, Harappans will be stronger than Olmecs, with Olmecs you'll paint the map and your outpost will become free money for your neigbors because you just realisticaly won't have enough ressource to have units guarding them while waitingo attach them or create cities. Meanwhile Harappans will produce a lot of population very fast and will then gain access to both a super strong religion and the ability to spam-build by pop sacrifice too quick to be stopped. 

Hmm, maybe in pvp idk.
But i don't have to wait anything to attach any territory. I can have 2 town and 3 attached territories very early, and just that is a really strong bonus. Population comes really quickly if you choose wisely the spots to plant your outposts on (preferring food to grow pop in a few turns). In 10 turns, you got 2 pop in every outpost, and attach them quickly. You don't need to paint all the map. All you need is to take coastal regions and wonders, then develop enough to rush island regions, and make harbors everywhere before anyone can. Not to mention that as every territory you claim can be almost instantly attached, opponents must declare war to pass through.
I think agrarians have a great early development advantage, while olmecs lead to 1st wonder, 1st attached outposts, 1st second city. And this is huge (if you survive the early game of course, which idk).

martinovich89 wrote:

KurouRingo wrote:

martinovich89 wrote:

MetallicGeranium wrote:

Agree very much with this sentiment. There's no logical reason why when I'm apparently killing off thousands of people per turn there shouldn't be some penalty associated with it. Forced labour in its current state just makes agrarian affinity ridiculously op, and all the other affinities are basically irrelevant if you want to build an insanely powerful civ.

I have to say Olmecs are the most ridiculous in my experience. Because you will have control over the whole continent without even fighting, and will have every resource, so incredible money, science, production, food, and a very early world religion. It is very very strong.
Agrarian is also very strong due to the use of population, but it doesn't allow for this crazy early expansion that will probably bottleneck your empire later on.
I mean, with the Olmecs as starter, i can have 35 territories by turn 110, all attached to a town, with control over all harbors / resources available.
While as agrarian, i will be more powerful earlier, but I will eventually struggle to expand that much.

The difference is that, in reality, assuming human players, Harappans will be stronger than Olmecs, with Olmecs you'll paint the map and your outpost will become free money for your neigbors because you just realisticaly won't have enough ressource to have units guarding them while waitingo attach them or create cities. Meanwhile Harappans will produce a lot of population very fast and will then gain access to both a super strong religion and the ability to spam-build by pop sacrifice too quick to be stopped. 

Hmm, maybe in pvp idk.
But i don't have to wait anything to attach any territory. I can have 2 town and 3 attached territories very early, and just that is a really strong bonus. Population comes really quickly if you choose wisely the spots to plant your outposts on (preferring food to grow pop in a few turns). In 10 turns, you got 2 pop in every outpost, and attach them quickly. You don't need to paint all the map. All you need is to take coastal regions and wonders, then develop enough to rush island regions, and make harbors everywhere before anyone can. Not to mention that as every territory you claim can be almost instantly attached, opponents must declare war to pass through.
I think agrarians have a great early development advantage, while olmecs lead to 1st wonder, 1st attached outposts, 1st second city. And this is huge (if you survive the early game of course, which idk).

Obviously Olmecs and Harappans are for me at the same tier, I don't mean to say Olmecs aren't good because they help you grabt he most important thing in all 4x, land ! But yeah I do think they're not as broken as I've seen some people say, most def strong tho. 

Laliloluhla wrote:

Also I heavily disagree with early agriculture being weak quite the contrary even, Olmecs are strong but that doesn't make the Harappans any worse. They're both massively powerful cultures for the ancient era, olmecs can create more outposts and cities, Harappan outposts create more people and they can construct more buildings with forced labour. Harappans can also rush Olmecs down with runners before they research carpentry. A final point is the harrappan's legacy bonus scales better than the olmec's, though it is true that the influence generation is more useful at the start of the ancient era. Both could use a nerf, the Olmec's javalin thrower is too strong, I'd lower the ambush bonus to +2, maybe lower their base CS to 19, maybe. The Harappans just need forced labour to be tweaked and they should be fine.

The problem with agrarians is that their affinity ability of adding pop if the bar fills up is not really useful in the ancient era. I have senns too many games where the bar never filled up at all and if it fills up it gives you maybe one or two pop. That's not much of a difference. Also the additional food from their district does not actually help them expand. In the ancient era having more building or districts won't help you win the game as much as having more territory. If there would be a building that gives you influence earlier, then this would balance them because it means they have this building earlier than Olmecs or some other civs. But just having infrastructure doesn't mean much and science, production, and merchants also have infrastructure.
Their legacy bonus is actually not that useful as well because at some point (which does happen earlier than in other 4X games) more food becomes useless because of diminishing return and the limit that you can only grow one pop per turn. So agriculture civs might be second tier in the early game with Olmecs being first tier and most other being third tie, but in the long term their abilities are just not that good compared to the others. So I think they need a long-term buff since they won't be able to compete in 300 turn games. In 150 turns maybe but not in 300 turn games as the game is designed at the moment. After turn 100 food becomes very much useless, which is something we discussed here: https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/169-game-design/threads/40182-any-idea-to-solve-food-production-being-irrelevant-past-a-certain-amount?page=1#post-316766. Making food more useful in the late game would balance agrarian civs better I think.