This is an interesting idea, but honestly I would be happy if they just made more terrain specific farms, like the rice paddy you mentioned. Something like grains would be a logical, although I imagine they would want to stick to low growing crops. Cabbages, squash, onions, soybeans, turnips, pineapple, peanuts, etc. realistically any civilization would grow what it can where it is so I would tie it to terrain type. Grass 1-3 could all have their own, and as long as they are all short crops that grow in rows I don't think this would affect gameplay at all.

"Liken... Subscriben" got me Such great content

You know how there's a cracked ground terrain, which makes buildings built on it more vulnerable? I'd like to see a sort of Fertile Ground that would give farmers working on it a workrate boost and make them generate gold, as well as visually changing the farms, with different civ regions having different luxury crops, such as saffron, grapes, or cacao.

Potatoes have 4x the yield of wheat. Make that a regional bonus for American civs. And, YES, Saffron Farms as new alternative for gold income for specific civs 👌

For the Bulgarians it should be rose fields for the rose oil. Also added to the Bulgarian bonuses should be something like generating gold from farms to represent that 80% of Rose oil in the world is produced in Bulgaria.

I agree! We need more types of farms. Vineyards are another thing to add. There is the Burgundian unique tech for this even. And olive groves. Rice paddies which look like the real deal and maize and millet/cotton/sugarcane/flax fields. Also pumpkins/melons and Mango/banana/coconut trees.

So having Saffron farms be built around a market to generate some gold but in lower yields than gold mines or limited number and limited to a few civs. Turks would greatly benefit from this given their high gold dependency.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="173">2:53</a> I missed this haha. Thank you for this creative insight admiral!

I don't know about a new farm type, but I love the idea of regional farms!

I think there is a valid argument to made for many civs to have unique farms or farming bonuses that allow them to farm gold from other sources. Think Ember and Northern europe to allow Teutons, Vikings, and Lithuanians to slowly generate gold at lumbercamps, the british isles and it's famous wool industry to allow celts and Britons to generate gold by garrisoning sheep into mills, wine making for burgundians, french, Sicilians and Italians by having a vineyard or a wine press building etc. And as you mentioned in this video, Saffron farms for Persians and maybe Hindustanis? It ofcs would massively break balance but I still think its a neat concept.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="179">2:59</a> why did you make it 1 tile wider than TC... It could have been a perfect fit uhhhh

Not gonna lie, a very great idea not only for Saffron farm, but also different types of plants on farm. It'll look closer to the Age of Empires 3 Mill and Estate, or even Rice Paddies field.

Oooh look at the fancy man using saffron in his rice! While I'm over here, relegated to using the known carcinogen Red dye no. 40. You've changed Admiral, all that Vipur attention's gone to your head /s

I think farms should be objects sensitive to step on. I mean if military units step on it then it would lose 1 tile of collectable food and as units go further it loses more and more food etc. That’s why I believe fences should be available to build. And with that what also comes to mind is pathfinding. Military units wouldn’t need to find the easiest way to be forced to cross the farms. If player clicked once on a place where he’d want the units to go then they could just go around the farm but if player double clicked instead then they would go the fastest way even across the farm.

Maybe it could be a team bonus for one of the Middle Eastern civs, giving everyone on their team the ability to build saffron farms?

The plantations of AoE3 do this and I think it’s a missed opportunity to not have AoE2 do the same!

I really like this idea!

I think instead of just saffron it should just be called "Cash Crop" and make different graphics depending on the map/civ region

That's a cool idea.

Love the idea of different farm types, but I dislike them being an afterthought as that they only really make sense in the lategame when gold runs dry. My immediate idea is to make them 4x4, like a towncenter, enabling to place normale farmes to the side of the TC, and Saffron in the middle (so enabling another shape for farming). Then give normal farms and saffron farms an adjacency bonus if they are besides at least one of the other time of farm. (Simulating Diversity / Crop Rotation a little bit, helping the health of the crops and the land / less vulnerable to other problems of monocultures). I am thinking like 5-10% boost maybe (So less than slav bonus for sure, and you still have one slightly inefficient villager who could be working a gold mine instead). And the adjacency bonus only is active while the farms are being worked. This way, you can boost your Food eco somewhat while also giving you an incentive to get saffron farms earlier. Make Saffron farms available in Feudal age with a Market (makes sense, how else would generate gold than by selling the spice?) or by castle age, so you cant easily boost like 4-6 farms too early. Naturally as the game progresses they get more efficient anyways with more farm and wheelbarrow techs.

I think there needs to be a source of gold that is infinite to help 1v1 games where gold is of utmost importance late game becomes spamming trash units while I get this would have a lot of implications late game wise and I know there is relics but these generate gold so slow its painful...

Love your content! This is a super interesting idea, and I think all your suggested ways of implementing it sounds reasonable. Not sure if a field of saffron would just appear in the wild like that though? I am curious if you know it if it could even be a new separate type of resource? Say luxuries, which could maybe give access to some upgrades, or be consumable for a temporary morale boost. E.g. a 10% increased movement and attack speed boost for 1 minute. Also, somewhat related, since the farms are terrain, do you know if it's possible to add modifiers such that movement speed or line of sight would be reduced when being on specific tiles? Movement speed being reduced on the water tiles where both land and water units can move would make sense to me. There could also be a swamp tile with movement reduction. Another idea for an interesting tile would be new wood-type, call it "heavy growth", which you could walk slowly through, but with much reduced movement speed and much reduced line of sight. These could then present alternative paths through wood lines for risky back door attacks.

Potatoes? POTATOES IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE?!?!?

What about a special type of terrain where the farms built there are safron automatically? That would be an important place to fight for in post-imperial

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="46">0:46</a> I died

Hello Admiral. I think there is a existing building that can be added in the game to add more eco variety: the trade workshops. Maybe they can serve as worse version of factoria for every civs, and some civs can have bonus like trade workshops 20% cheaper or generate 20% more gold/stone. Another mechanism can be that enemy get resources when they destroy trade workshops and factoria, so there's a risk to build them. How will you design the trade workshops?

I like it!

But, but, but... --but but but but but but but but but but but-- having Saffron fields would imply that those farms can only yield Gold, no Food! No one eats spice alone and spice offers no subtenance. That's no brainer.

how did you get that town center to only have its upper part? <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="163">2:43</a>

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Sorry but the framerate on this video is horrible.