Just a minor feedback concept. I noticed a lot of commentary about the poor payback and under-utilization of higher tier gather rate eco techs. Especially Cupellation. Awhile back the costs were lowered (e.g 1,000 to 750). But they still have trouble being worthwhile, especially Cupellation. With Cupellation, not only is there a very long payback, but the issue is you are running out of gold on the map, and probably have trading lined up by then.
On the other hand, just lowering the cost or buffing the rate is boring and probably not good. Another value later in the game is having resources last longer. so…
Has the Dev team evaluated the following:
Having an effect like the Abbasid Improved Processing (or Steppe Redoubt or Imperial Official), where the gather rate is the same or similar, but there is a drop-off bonus instead. e.g. if a vill mines 10 gold, when they drop it off, 13 gets deposited.
This would change the payback analysis completely but keep the gather rate improvement essentially the same. e.g. Even if there is only one small gold mine left (4,000), and if Cupellation cost 500 gold and created 15% extra gold at drop-off, this would be 600 extra gold (i.e. 4,600 for the vien). The gather rate improvement would not, in this case, justify the research, but the with the added gold, if could in a sense.
This would actually be fine for Crosscut Saw and Cross-breading as well so it could be the level 3 techs are still all symmetrical to each other. Would be great for wood too since you would not have to refresh lumber camps as much, and on maps like Prairie, wood can get a bit scarce too.
*Note that this effect on farms would be kind of pointless, but it would not hurt, it would just be similar to the current setup or like an imperial official on a granary. Though it would apply to any shore fish or berries still on the map.
The first tier like broad-axe could still be gather rate only and/or you could have a mix, especially in the second tier with some percent gather rate improvement, and some drop-off bonus, kind of like drift nets has a mix of two benefits.
Thanks for considering.