The folwark is such a strong and interesting civ bonus… on paper. It’s got a unique feel and look thanks to the devs paying attention to small details like foundation size and providing population; however it is much to meticulous to use in a heated game. There is only a one tile allowance for misplacement of farms and often times space is at a premium which means that even perfectly placed farms can be thwarted by a stray tree, building or resource patch that’s too close to your folwark. There is only so much time a player can spend planning and placing their farms before they forget they’re supposed to be playing a strategy game.
I don’t think it would hurt to allow 2 spaces of forgiveness for misplaced farms (as opposed to one), to ease the amount of time spent placing perfect farms, so Poles players can spend more time commanding their cav in the heat of battle.
I don’t yet know how the civ is performing so I am hesitant to suggest a stronger usability buff. Yet I cant help but to wonder how the folwark would feel if it had a much higher range, but was somehow limited (through the code) to impact a maximum of 8 farms. If it had say double the area of effect it would be much easier to reliably get 8 buffed farms from each folwark. I realize this is likely to have more of an impact on the power of the folwark than my inital suggestion, and that as a result the civ as a whole would be stronger.
Do you think that making unique Civ benefits feel natural to take advantage of and good to use should be a priority? In the case of the Poles I really like the idea of maximizing the number of mills/folwarks used when farming, as traditionally I try to fit as many farms next to my tc’s as I can efficiently get away get with. The folwark provides the opportunity spice up my play experience without changing up the formula.
I guess is fine the way it is right now
The bonus that Folwark gives you is only food in advance if the farm is within the 4-tile area
If you don’t place the farm within this area, you will still get the food, but not in advance
Not even the T90 could place perfect farms with Falwarks in an RM
I feel like it’s a feudal/castle bonus for the Poles, after that it’s useless because you don’t have time to place perfect farms
There is no need to use the full bonus although ideally yes you would like to.
Learn to let that stray tree be or chop it and immediately place a farm on top if it’s a straggler. If you can get 6/8 farms to get the bonus, that’s also good enough.
If you think about it, should you have to place extra Folwarks to compensate for not being able to use the full 8 spaces of each one, really you only lose 125w. When you divide this wood by # of farms, really it means you pay like 50-60w extra at most for each Folwark that has HIGH inefficiency (i.e. has like only day 5/8 farms with the bonus).
But really, these considerations pale in the face of security of your eco. The #1 priority is the fact that your villagers must be safe from raids, losing vills cuz u have amazing Folwarks but far from TCs is MUCH worse than not getting the full bonus (which you aren’t meant to get anyway on maps besides Arena & similar, it’s not an all-or-nothing deal, it’s meant to be somewhere in between).
I’d prefer the Folwarks’ range indicator to either accurately show its effective range or to allow its current range indicator to be its effective range even if only 1 tile of a distant farm is within its effective radius indicator, I want that farm to be effected.
The best boost from the folwark comes in the early game all the way up to early castle age where you are scrounging around for every bit of food. To have some instant food then is great. And around those points in the game I don’t think it’s too taxing to plan a decent folwark
It’s late game when you’re being raided all over and you’re trying to repair your front castle while spamming units from 12 production buildings is where you dont have time to meticulously plan a folwark farm and you then resort to some t90 farms.
But by then your usually floating alot of food anyway and shouldn’t need the folwark bonus as bad as you did in the early game
I think that you are likely right about 4 buffed farms being enough to take advantage of the bonus.
I also totally agree with the fact that there is a real trade off between placing safe farms beside your TC or out in the relative open with your folwark. I think that it’s because of this trade off that I feel folwark usage should be further rewarded though some simple QOL changes like an extra space of forgiveness and a better range indicator like @HealFortress suggested.
I think that is a very good summary of the folwark’s current state. It’s impact is certainly highest in the early game and becomes less relevant as your economy grows larger. I would argue that it is still a potentially relevant bonus throughout castle age where (especially if you got the unique tech) your knight production is quite limited by the amount of food you produce. this is where the folwark first encounters an issue as it’s in castle age that it feels like there is higher priority tasks than farm placement.
IMO the civ would benefit from continually incentivized to use of the folwark throughout all points in the game via ease of use (easier to benefit from placed farms) or perhaps some garrison mechanic, as this would help to establish the poles identity and add good flavor to the civ.
Keep the current range, just make it so any farm that has even 1 tile in it receives the bonus. Otherwise im seriously having an internal monologue with myself whether its worth it to spend apm and 125 wood extra just to get some food in return.
Now that stats are out it seems that the current sentiment is that the Poles should get a bit of a buff. Do you guys feel like the best approach to buffing this civ is via the unique identity it gains through the folwark, or should the devs lean harder into the knights and or hussar to add power to the civ?
I think this would have the exact opposite effect. If you allow 2 spaces of forgiveness, you can add more farms (I think the maximum is 14) around a Folwark that receive the bonus. It will be a bit of a puzzle to fit as many farms around the Folwark as possible, which means that you would spend more time placing farms, not less.
That’s a good point. I think that the only solution in regards to making farm placement more forgiving would be to increase the area of effect while somehow capping the number of farms that could be effected.