Make livestock Products a competitive research option in university.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

In reality, there are a vast sum of agricultural and livestock oriented R&D programs at Universities. Why is this not the case in this game? Competitiveness among the livestock industry is actually very intense. I suggest this be an area of quality that can be researched at the universities on a city by city basis.

[Pietro]

I am not sure this is the correct answer, but i think the reason there is no research program for agricultural and livestock is because there is no manufactured product in those class of products.

It also means there will not be any AI with the expertise in the livestock or plant product field.

I have tried to add another category of products from farm in the game, and i couldn't find it in the university either. And there was no AI receiving expertise on the field even if added the possibility in the files

[Maelstrom Vortex]

I am not sure this is the correct answer, but i think the reason there is no research program for agricultural and livestock is because there is no manufactured product in those class of products.

It also means there will not be any AI with the expertise in the livestock or plant product field.

I have tried to add another category of products from farm in the game, and i couldn't find it in the university either. And there was no AI receiving expertise on the field even if added the possibility in the files

There was no AI player receiving that expertise, yet there were AI cities receiving that competitive specialization. In my eyes this means one of two things needs to happen. Either take away city livestock product quality competitiveness that other player operated cities cannot achieve or integrate the category as a normal category like all other categories into the quality and specialization system.

Honestly in RL there are NUMEROUS cities with agriculture and livestock programs so in my opinion removing the specialization instead of just integrating it further as a normal category actually is in defiance of the reality the game wishes to imitate and simulate. It doesn't have to be a manufactured product to have quality variance and expertise associated with production, and if the game wishes to try to send that message.. that Agriculture and Livestock farming are generic operations, that is very.. very wrong-headed. It would have an error in the principles it is trying to teach the public and would make it a flawed teaching tool.

I will give an example of a quality variance in agriculture among similar products:

Gourmet hams.

They come from pigs that have been fed a specialized diet all their lives of certain vegetables and fruits in order to achieve a high nutritional content and a specific flavor objective. This clearly doesn't happen at the slaughter house, it happens on the farm.

[Pietro]

No denial from me that IRL there exists lots of program at university on agricultural fields and not just agronomy. Even Bill Gates, the last boss of the game is investing in agriculture and farm fields in real life from what the online newspaper is telling me

My quick work-around was to dedicate landmarks to livestock product, and another landmark dedicated to the plant category i added this to increase competitiveness above the threshold for exporting.

For the gourmet ham, one can consider you need to increase the quality of ham at the farm with higher budget to represent you feed pigs with a special diet. In this case there could be a product called "HAM" and another one called "GOURMET HAM" where quality is more important relative to price for the later.

Though the problem would be that a new farm would need to start from a low quality, while in real life even the first generation of pigs to make ham would be of that higher quality.

Same for researching new seeds for plants. Say you develop a corn seed resistant to snow, or a super highly productive seed, or a super tasty corn. Those in real life can be achieved through traditionnal seed selection requiring breeding and time for the next generation of plant to come up ( not the snow-resistant that one is a joke.) In this case it is normal to start from a lower quality of corn.

But those can also be researched in labs were GMO or gene analysis are methods used to create seeds than then are from the first generation at the potential of already existing high-quality corn. This is not the same as the farming expertise. Nor it is the same as the farmer training, or the farm budget although the farmers need to be knowledgeable about the specifics of the new seeds, farm buying higher quality seeds must invest more money into them and it requires some farming expertise to select the proper seeds for the proper objective and constraint.

The main difference is that "expertise" or "quality" achieved in 1 farm is not something you can duplicate or scale to other farms in games where in real life there would be some methods and process developed in the 1rst farm that you would use on the 2nd farm.

Also in real life 150 years ago bananas had seeds in them but now around 50% of them traded in the world are genetically similar "Cavendish" bananas. It goes up to 99% when considering the bananas that enter european market for example... Now those bananas without seed you can't use the traditionnal method of breeding to increase quality over time with selection, since they only reproduce by human intervention to clone them. And they are vulnerable to a disease which threatens the industry of big unexpected losses.

There are some real life programs trying to create new seeds of bananas, and no doubt if they succeed it would be adopted in many many banana plantations but banana grow on trees and young banana trees don't produce fruits, so you need to wait a few years to get the first fruits, and at this point only you may realise the fruits are not tasty or still not disease-resistant and the research is not sucessful. Hence why even in countries where genenome modification of plant is forbidden, gene analysis is still sometimes used to try and cut on time.

At this point this sounds very similar to research and development for a manufactured product. This doesn't happen in farm that produce in large quantities but in labs or experimental farms. And then the results are applied to larger scale if succesful a bit similar to the farming expertise, except it should only apply to a certain type of product.

Adding those to university research seems like it would make sense from a this point of view. I am not sure it is feasible in the game due to the specifity of that kind of product though. When a farming unit increase in level it increase the quality of the good produced, not when a manufacturing unit increase in level here it only increases quantity. The research at the university increases the quality of manufactured product in a city. Which is not double effect with training in a manufacturing unit but would be for farm products. There would therefore be less benefit to receive when investing into livestock or plant at the university when you already have farming expertise. This may not be a problem for players, but could lead to AI having trouble properly evaluating their options and decisions or other things i ignore.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

No denial from me that IRL there exists lots of program at university on agricultural fields and not just agronomy. Even Bill Gates, the last boss of the game is investing in agriculture and farm fields in real life from what the online newspaper is telling me

My quick work-around was to dedicate landmarks to livestock product, and another landmark dedicated to the plant category i added this to increase competitiveness above the threshold for exporting.

Hah, I use this same work around. It does help, but doesn't remedy the fundamental disparity that cities start with this specialization natively which the player can only achieve through the use of landmarks.

For the gourmet ham, one can consider you need to increase the quality of ham at the farm with higher budget to represent you feed pigs with a special diet. In this case there could be a product called "HAM" and another one called "GOURMET HAM" where quality is more important relative to price for the later.

Though the problem would be that a new farm would need to start from a low quality, while in real life even the first generation of pigs to make ham would be of that higher quality.

Same for researching new seeds for plants. Say you develop a corn seed resistant to snow, or a super highly productive seed, or a super tasty corn. Those in real life can be achieved through traditionnal seed selection requiring breeding and time for the next generation of plant to come up ( not the snow-resistant that one is a joke.) In this case it is normal to start from a lower quality of corn.

But those can also be researched in labs were GMO or gene analysis are methods used to create seeds than then are from the first generation at the potential of already existing high-quality corn. This is not the same as the farming expertise. Nor it is the same as the farmer training, or the farm budget although the farmers need to be knowledgeable about the specifics of the new seeds, farm buying higher quality seeds must invest more money into them and it requires some farming expertise to select the proper seeds for the proper objective and constraint.

The main difference is that "expertise" or "quality" achieved in 1 farm is not something you can duplicate or scale to other farms in games where in real life there would be some methods and process developed in the 1rst farm that you would use on the 2nd farm.

I think this approach may unnecessarily overcomplicate things. A whole other sub-product category isn't needed as it is simply a quality variance among an identical product.. pork. My example was purely to provide an analog.. not suggest a whole other product category for the farms.

Also in real life 150 years ago bananas had seeds in them but now around 50% of them traded in the world are genetically similar "Cavendish" bananas. It goes up to 99% when considering the bananas that enter european market for example... Now those bananas without seed you can't use the traditionnal method of breeding to increase quality over time with selection, since they only reproduce by human intervention to clone them. And they are vulnerable to a disease which threatens the industry of big unexpected losses.

There are some real life programs trying to create new seeds of bananas, and no doubt if they succeed it would be adopted in many many banana plantations but banana grow on trees and young banana trees don't produce fruits, so you need to wait a few years to get the first fruits, and at this point only you may realise the fruits are not tasty or still not disease-resistant and the research is not sucessful. Hence why even in countries where genenome modification of plant is forbidden, gene analysis is still sometimes used to try and cut on time.

At this point this sounds very similar to research and development for a manufactured product. This doesn't happen in farm that produce in large quantities but in labs or experimental farms. And then the results are applied to larger scale if succesful a bit similar to the farming expertise, except it should only apply to a certain type of product.

Adding those to university research seems like it would make sense from a this point of view. I am not sure it is feasible in the game due to the specifity of that kind of product though. When a farming unit increase in level it increase the quality of the good produced, not when a manufacturing unit increase in level here it only increases quantity. The research at the university increases the quality of manufactured product in a city. Which is not double effect with training in a manufacturing unit but would be for farm products. There would therefore be less benefit to receive when investing into livestock or plant at the university when you already have farming expertise. This may not be a problem for players, but could lead to AI having trouble properly evaluating their options and decisions or other things i ignore.

I feel this is a bit over thinking it. We have to think in the context of the capitalism game system itself and its levels of abstraction of the process it represents, what the player is able to do, what the ai is able to do.. how ai cities start, how player cities start or their state when an ai becomes a player city. This needs to mesh with existing mechanics in a manner sane to that system. The player operated city should be able to emulate anything the AI cities might be able to do. It's actually not difficult I would imagine to get the livestock products to benefit from the university without breaking the system or the mind of the AI. For one thing, the AI already has to deal with product categories and quality enhancements at the universities for every other product category. Thus it already has to take into account quality variances to function competitively. Literally all that needs to be done to resolve the issue as I describe it, is add the Livestock Products category to the university drop down menu and the AI's consideration list, you see the category already exists.. it's just not researchable by universities in the cities. It is like the only category that is not able to be supported/increase this way.

[Pietro]

Hah, I use this same work around. It does help, but doesn't remedy the fundamental disparity that cities start with this specialization natively which the player can only achieve through the use of landmarks.

Well no for that you'd need to take control of the AI rival city and relocate all farms as far away as you can as where their products are sold or transformed and at the same time flood that city with cheap livestock you import from your other city to make sure their competitiveness plummit but that's a weird thing to teach people to do eh ?

I think this approach may unnecessarily overcomplicate things. A whole other sub-product category isn't needed as it is simply a quality variance among an identical product.. pork. My example was purely to provide an analog.. not suggest a whole other product category for the farms.

I agree my point was to illustrate that the suggestions would simplify that. i am in favour of the suggestion because the existing work-around i attempted are not fully satisfying. ( Product customization maybe could help simulate to some degree but i haven't used it extensively).

I feel this is a bit over thinking it. We have to think in the context of the capitalism game system itself and its levels of abstraction of the process it represents, what the player is able to do, what the ai is able to do.. how ai cities start, how player cities start or their state when an ai becomes a player city. This needs to mesh with existing mechanics in a manner sane to that system. The player operated city should be able to emulate anything the AI cities might be able to do. It's actually not difficult I would imagine to get the livestock products to benefit from the university without breaking the system or the mind of the AI. For one thing, the AI already has to deal with product categories and quality enhancements at the universities for every other product category. Thus it already has to take into account quality variances to function competitively. Literally all that needs to be done to resolve the issue as I describe it, is add the Livestock Products category to the university drop down menu and the AI's consideration list, you see the category already exists.. it's just not researchable by universities in the cities. It is like the only category that is not able to be supported/increase this way.

It is over thinking somewhat i agree haha, it's because i'm working a mod that aims at focusing on Hemp and Cannabis and i'm trying to evaluate to which extend/degree of complex i can try to represent the interesting things i discover during documentation. It's when i added a category of plant called "illegal plants" that i realized there was now 2 category not represented in the university list ; some of my plant are using the livestock mechanism in game. I have tried several versions with different classification to try and have the university doing research on illegal plants to no avail.

So far i think the game has no way to introduce livestock but more generally non-manufactured product in the university research list. Maybe because of things like the university can only have programs on things that exist in R&D center or other internal logic.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

So far i think the game has no way to introduce livestock but more generally non-manufactured product in the university research list. Maybe because of things like the university can only have programs on things that exist in R&D center or other internal logic.

And that is something we cannot work around so I am hoping the dev can.. *crossing fingers*. It should be doable just require a couple programming tweaks. Not like this is an architecture related inhibition, this is just a "how do we want this to work" query.