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Those building slots are always unlocked because every planet has an unremovable city district (to represent the capital), a fact which is explicitly mentioned in that post.
Sure.
Normal empire has a size 16 planet. Build 15 cities, receive 3000 researchers. Build 11 labs in the government/city slots, 6600. Total 9600.
Agrarian Idyll empire has a size 16 planet. Build 15 farms, receive 1500 researchers. Build 11 labs in the government/city slots, 3 labs in the new slots, 8400. Total, 9900.
Both technically get another 200 because of the initial city district.
Though in reality, both with be building the obligatory boosting buildings (3 boosting specializations that give only 200 jobs, and an institute/upkeep reducer/efficiency booster with no jobs), so both really get 3600 jobs less than that. (6200 for the regular empire, 6500 for the Agrarian Idyll empire, all told).
The area where it seems AI does actually lose out is in specialization.
Right now, if I see a large bonus to, say, engineering research, I can specialize engineering and fully take advantage (in my opinion you should actually do this anyway, for 10 more jobs than the general research specialization per district). The buildings don't seem to have a specialized spammable variant, however, so the more of your research comes from buildings the less specialized it can be.
A larger thematic problem for AI is that to maximize researchers you should build exactly one agricultural district to unlock the slots and then spam city districts, as three building slots will exceed one more city district. Because buildings had a cap before, and you could hit the cap either way, you could conceivably never build city districts and never be worse off - but now, you definitely are worse off never building city districts because they are essentially uncapped 3.14 building slots in many situations, such as research.
The area where it seems AI does actually lose out is in specialization.
Right now, if I see a large bonus to, say, engineering research, I can specialize engineering and fully take advantage (in my opinion you should actually do this anyway, for 10 more jobs than the general research specialization per district). The buildings don't seem to have a specialized spammable variant, however, so the more of your research comes from buildings the less specialized it can be.
A larger thematic problem for AI is that to maximize researchers you should build exactly one agricultural district to unlock the slots and then spam city districts, as three building slots will exceed one more city district. Because buildings had a cap before, and you could hit the cap either way, you could conceivably never build city districts and never be worse off - but now, you definitely are worse off never building city districts because they are essentially uncapped 3.14 building slots in many situations, such as research.
The proposed revision (200 farmers/100 e.g. researchers per agri-district) skips this issue, so long as you need farmers somewhere in the empire (addressed a few posts back).
The tl;dr is that rural districts give 100 extra jobs (300), and if those extra jobs are an urban job, you can turn 2 farm-specialized-farms+1 city into 3 urban-specialized-farms to get the same farmers, but 100 extra urban jobs in total.
But if you don't need farmers... then there's nothing Agrarian Idyll can do (pretty much no matter it's design, unless it literally makes farms better than cities, while also being farms) to give you a stronger incentive to build farms over cities. But that was true even in the old version. That's an unreasonable standard to hold it to, since no version of AI has met it.
And the new design currently in the game ("You're supposed to be Agrarian. Cmon. Build at least one.") is a step up over the old version, in that regard.
You could have built empty, unworked farming districts in the old version (just because you like the way it looks), but you could also have built empty, unworked mining districts or generator districts or industrial districts: the incentive was the same (no incentive). "Districts as decoration" has gone away, but I don't think that's what people are talking about (or, at least, I hope not). And even if they did, the post right before this says than an AI empire could do that (with the proposed revision) and still come out ahead over not taking the civic on most planets (though obviously it's not as good as the optimal route, but it never was).
Yup. Though thankfully, it doesn't have "cities bad" as its core identity, so the design space is a little larger. But I suspect that if the devs do address it (which I hope they do), they'll just do the same thing for both anyway.
Those building slots are always unlocked because every planet has an unremovable city district (to represent the capital), a fact which is explicitly mentioned in that post.
Sure.
Normal empire has a size 16 planet. Build 15 cities, receive 3000 researchers. Build 11 labs in the government/city slots, 6600. Total 9600.
Agrarian Idyll empire has a size 16 planet. Build 15 farms, receive 1500 researchers. Build 11 labs in the government/city slots, 3 labs in the new slots, 8400. Total, 9900.
Both technically get another 200 because of the initial city district.
Though in reality, both with be building the obligatory boosting buildings (3 boosting specializations that give only 200 jobs, and an institute/upkeep reducer/efficiency booster with no jobs), so both really get 3600 jobs less than that. (6200 for the regular empire, 6500 for the Agrarian Idyll empire, all told).
Okay. Lets actually look at this realistically. You're not going to get 11 Building Slots, because your Capital Zone is almost certainly going to have other buildings that are required for your Planet to function. Whether this be Medical Centers, Robot Factories, Automation Buildings, Geonomic Buildings, Psi-Corps, Clone Vats, ect. So lets take those out of the equation for the moment because I honestly dont' think it's realistic to expect there to be all Research Facilities in here. Some quick math while I'm working:
13 Cities w/ 2 Research Enclaves – 30 Researcher Jobs per Type x 13 = 390 x 2 = 780 Science Jobs per Type
4 Research Complexes x 180 Jobs = 720 Science Jobs per Type
1 Resource District Support Zone – 50 Science Jobs (and 10% Output) per Type
1 Resource District Support Zone Building – 200 Science Jobs (and 15% Efficiency) per Type
Research Institute – 1,750 Science Jobs/100 = 17.5 x 2 = 35 Science per Type
Data Driven Facility – 15% Efficiency
1,750 Workforce x 1.3 (30% Efficiency) = 2,275 Workforce
2,275 per Science Type Workforce w/ 10% Output and 35 Science
1 Cities w/ 2 Research Enclaves – 30 Researchers x 1 = 30 x 2 = 60 Science Jobs per Type
7 Research Complex (Since we're using Agrarian Idyll this means you have the Village and not the Science Support Zone so you can fit 3 extra Research Labs here) x 180 Jobs = 1,260 Science Jobs per Type
1 Resource District Support (Except Society) – 50 Science Jobs (and 10% Output)
1 Resource District Support Building (Except Society) – 200 Science Jobs (and 15% Efficiency)
Research Institute – 1,570 Science Jobs/100 = 15.7 x 2 = 31.4 Physics and Engineering Research
Research Institute – 1,320 Society Science Jobs/100 = 13.2 x 2 = 26.4 Society Research
Data Driven Facility – 15% Efficiency
1,570 Physics and Engineering Workforce x 1.30 (30% Efficience) = 2,041 Workforce
1,320 Society Workforce x 1.15 (15% Efficiency) = 1,518 Workforce
2041 Workforce w/ 10% Output and 31.4 Science for Physics and Engineering
1,518 Workforce and 26.4 Society Research
2,275 - 2,041 = 234 Extra Physics and Engineering Workforce and 3.6 extra Science
2,275 - 1,518 = 757 Extra Society Workforce, 10% Output and 8.6 extra Science
Of course your mileage may vary as you can mess around with the buildings. You can for example take a Research Lab away and put the Biology Support building in, but then you're lowering the Workforce for Physics and Engineering to increase Society. However I'm using this to demonstrate a more realistic Research Planet rather than pretending you're going to stack as many Research Buildings as you can and forgoing everything else that makes your Empire work. The only way for the this hypothetical Agrarian Idyll to beat a City District, is for you to ignore buildings that go into your Capital Zone meaning you're gimping things like Pop Growth, Output, extra Efficiency, ect.
Okay. Lets actually look at this realistically. You're not going to get 11 Building Slots, because your Capital Zone is almost certainly going to have other buildings that are required for your Planet to function. Whether this be Medical Centers, Robot Factories, Automation Buildings, Geonomic Buildings, Psi-Corps, Clone Vats, ect. So lets take those out of the equation for the moment because I honestly dont' think it's realistic to expect there to be all Research Facilities in here.
The only way for the this hypothetical Agrarian Idyll to beat a City District, is for you to ignore buildings that go into your Capital Zone meaning you're gimping things like Pop Growth, Output, extra Efficiency, ect.
If you want a building, you want it on both versions of the planet (the normal one, and the AI one). It's just a constant being added or subtracted from both sides of the equation.
It doesn't change that the AI planet misses out on 100 jobs per district, but covers the loss with 1800 jobs in extra building slots, which puts them ahead or equal until the planet is size 20 (19 farms).
(Cutting the working out from this quote for brevity, but it all looks valid to me. You're not accounting for the extra upkeep from support districts, as the output bonus isn't free, but I don't think it changes things one way or the other, and AI is in a uniquely good position to pay food upkeep)
Edit: also not accounting for researchers from the farming district, and dropped the specialization building, which very much change the outcome.
2,275 - 2,041 = 234 Extra Physics and Engineering Workforce and 3.6 extra Science
2,275 - 1,518 = 757 Extra Society Workforce, 10% Output and 8.6 extra Science
Of course your mileage may vary as you can mess around with the buildings. You can for example take a Research Lab away and put the Biology Support building in, but then you're lowering the Workforce for Physics and Engineering to increase Society. However I'm using this to demonstrate a more realistic Research Planet rather than pretending you're going to stack as many Research Buildings as you can and forgoing everything else that makes your Empire work.
Support districts are something that doesn't translate to the alternate urban system, and I've already mentioned that before (briefly), though in the context of this same system for Subterranean, a parallel problem.
I didn't address it there because these posts are already long enough without trying to pre-emptively address every possible issue that can ever exist, even if it's not already presented as a counter argument. But if you want to change tack, I'm game.
For the specialized zones, the answer seems obvious: give Agrarian Idyll 1 (one) new unique specialization, which is an improved version of the research support district with an extra 100 biologists and 100 fewer farmers (total, +150 biologists and -50 farmers per district), and full research zone building capability.
It's just the old research support specialization, with the same effect as the other swap (-100 farmers, +100 biologists, add ability to build all research buildings) layered on top, so it fits with the design.
If you want a building, you want it on both versions of the planet (the normal one, and the AI one). It's just a constant being added or subtracted from both sides of the equation.
It doesn't change that the AI planet misses out on 100 jobs per district, but covers the loss with 1800 jobs in extra building slots, which puts them ahead or equal until the planet is size 20 (19 farms).
I think this is definitely where I'm calling it quits on this argument since you don't seem to actually engage in the argument presented. Where in my logic and math am I incorrect, where it shows even a Size 16 Planet gives more Workforce with City Districts than with the Agrarian Idyll?
I think this is definitely where I'm calling it quits on this argument since you don't seem to actually engage in the argument presented. Where in my logic and math am I incorrect, where it shows even a Size 16 Planet gives more Workforce with City Districts than with the Agrarian Idyll?
If you would read to the end of that comment, you'll find the portion where I talk about the logic and math you presented, and address the topic of support districts (which that math and logic is about).
Edit: But evidently I don't read it closely enough. I missed that you were completely dropping all researchers from the farming district, not even the 50 from research support (which I assumed you were using for your calculation) nor the 100 from the actual improvement to Agrarian Idyll and Subterranean that was proposed on page 1 and has been discussed since.
I knew the numbers would be lower with research support, and the conclusion seemed reasonable enough that I didn't redo the calculations myself, and moved on to addressing the point I thought you'd made.
This is your example for Agrarian Idyll: you've completely dropped all researchers from agridistricts, and hidden it beneath a mountain of multipliers that are symmetric on both sides, and change nothing:
Edit2: not even that was correct. You inexplicably dropped the society support building, even though it can go in any of the building slots in the government, research, or farming-village zones, just so that it looks even worse for Agrarian Idyll. This is absurd. The more I look, the more disingenuous it gets.
1 Cities w/ 2 Research Enclaves – 30 Researchers x 1 = 30 x 2 = 60 Science Jobs per Type
7 Research Complex (Since we're using Agrarian Idyll this means you have the Village and not the Science Support Zone so you can fit 3 extra Research Labs here) x 180 Jobs = 1,260 Science Jobs per Type
1 Resource District Support (Except Society) – 50 Science Jobs (and 10% Output)
1 Resource District Support Building (Except Society) – 200 Science Jobs (and 15% Efficiency)
Research Institute – 1,570 Science Jobs/100 = 15.7 x 2 = 31.4 Physics and Engineering Research
Research Institute – 1,320 Society Science Jobs/100 = 13.2 x 2 = 26.4 Society Research
Data Driven Facility – 15% Efficiency
1,570 Physics and Engineering Workforce x 1.30 (30% Efficience) = 2,041 Workforce
1,320 Society Workforce x 1.15 (15% Efficiency) = 1,518 Workforce
2041 Workforce w/ 10% Output and 31.4 Science for Physics and Engineering
You're ignoring everything I've ever written, throughout this entire thread, and are acting as if I'm arguing for the current crappy version that gives zero researcher jobs per district despite literal pages of text repeating over and over again that what I'm advocating for is "allow building urban specializations in farming districts". And you have, on multiple occasions, directly addressed that and shown that you understand that it's the assumption going in.
This is next-level disingenuous, and the gall to type this kind of "well clearly you aren't engaging with my arguments" nonsense, while doing the same yourself, is unbelievable.
If you would read to the end of that comment, you'll find the portion where I talk about the logic and math you presented, and address the topic of support districts (which that math and logic is about).
The end of your post talks about a hypothetical change to Agrarian Idyll. You said that current Agrarian Idyll has more Research Workforce than City District Zones due to the extra Buildings Agrarian Idyll gets. "It doesn't change that the AI planet misses out on 100 jobs per district, but covers the loss with 1800 jobs in extra building slots, which puts them ahead or equal until the planet is size 20 (19 farms)." That does not seem to be the case, given the math I presented, with shows Agrarian Idyll behind by almost 250 Workforce. Where in my math am I incorrect, that shows clearly Agrarian Idyll in it's current form does not give more Research Workforce?
The end of your post talks about a hypothetical change to Agrarian Idyll. You said that current Agrarian Idyll has more Research Workforce than City District Zones due to the extra Buildings Agrarian Idyll gets. "It doesn't change that the AI planet misses out on 100 jobs per district, but covers the loss with 1800 jobs in extra building slots, which puts them ahead or equal until the planet is size 20 (19 farms)." That does not seem to be the case, given the math I presented, with shows Agrarian Idyll behind by almost 250 Workforce. Where in my math am I incorrect, that shows clearly Agrarian Idyll in it's current form does not give more Research Workforce?
Are you seriously trying to pull this "well, you didn't explicitly say, in this particular sentence, that you were talking about the proposed improvement you've been discussing for multiple posts, so I'm going to assume you're talking about the crappy current version that everyone agreed was in need of revision at the start" strawman nonsense?
1 Cities w/ 2 Research Enclaves – 30 Researchers x 1 = 30 x 2 = 60 Science Jobs per Type
7 Research Complex (Since we're using Agrarian Idyll this means you have the Village and not the Science Support Zone so you can fit 3 extra Research Labs here) x 180 Jobs = 1,260 Science Jobs per Type
1 Resource District Support (Except Society) – 50 Science Jobs (and 10% Output)
1 Resource District Support Building (Except Society) – 200 Science Jobs (and 15% Efficiency)
Research Institute – 1,570 Science Jobs/100 = 15.7 x 2 = 31.4 Physics and Engineering Research
Research Institute – 1,320 Society Science Jobs/100 = 13.2 x 2 = 26.4 Society Research
Data Driven Facility – 15% Efficiency
1,570 Physics and Engineering Workforce x 1.30 (30% Efficience) = 2,041 Workforce
1,320 Society Workforce x 1.15 (15% Efficiency) = 1,518 Workforce
2041 Workforce w/ 10% Output and 31.4 Science for Physics and Engineering
with the proposed 100 researchers per agri-district, and keeping the biology building, you get:
-180 jobs of each type (1 fewer research complex)
+200 biologists (biology lab)
+30*13=390 jobs of each type (13 farming districts, as the above has 13 cities and 1 farm, now 1 city and 13 farms).
+15% efficiency for society
All told, you end up with
1780 Physics and Engineering x 1.3= 2314 workforce
1730 Society x 1.3 = 2249 workforce
Compared to the non-AI example with 2275 workforce of each type: 39 extra engineering/physics workforce, -26 society workforce.
Aka: practically equal, instead of -234 engineering/physics, and -757 society.
Society is still missing +10% output (and -2.5 food upkeep), which is the point I thought you were making.
Are you seriously trying to pull this "well, you didn't explicitly say, in this particular sentence, that you were talking about the proposed improvement you've been discussing for multiple posts, so I'm going to assume you're talking about the crappy current version that everyone agreed was in need of revision at the start" strawman nonsense?
Thank you for clarifying. This wasn't a "Gotcha". Without making things clear the conversation gets muddled. I think it's important that yes, you need to explicitly say what you mean in order for actual discourse to happen, especially when it's a conversation that's carrying on over hours or days.
That changes the calculation to:
1 Cities w/ 2 Research Enclaves – 30 Researchers x 1 = 30 x 2 = 60 Science Jobs per Type
13 Farming Districts w/ 1 Research Enclave – 30 Researchers x13 = 390 Science Jobs per Type
6 Research Complex x 180 Jobs = 1,080 Science Jobs per Type
1 Resource District Support – 50 Science Jobs (and 10% Output)
1 Resource District Support Building– 200 Science Jobs (and 15% Efficiency)
Research Institute – 1,780 Science Jobs/100 = 17.8 x 2 = 35.6
Data Driven Facility – 15% Efficiency
1,780 Workforce x 1.30 (30% Efficience) = 2,314 Workforce
2,314 Workforce w/ 10% Output and 35.6
2,314 – 2,275
39 Extra Workforce and .6 Extra Science in favor of Agrarian Idyll
And this is on a Size 16 Planet. So yes on a mid-sized planet it's nearly the same. On anything larger it will fall behind. You can just use your larger worlds as your Research Worlds. It's not that uncommon to find Size 20 Planets, plus it's important to remember you get Extra Districts throughout the game either in tech, Traditions or an Ascension Perk which means you don't even necessarily need a bigger planet.
EDIT: I did my math wrong as I had one less Farming District than needed and I did not use the Society Buffing Building. The math has been edited to reflect this.
Thank you for clarifying. This wasn't a "Gotcha". Without making things clear the conversation gets muddled. I think it's important that yes, you need to explicitly say what you mean in order for actual discourse to happen, especially when it's a conversation that's carrying on over hours or days.
You are correct. That was originally my mistake and I apologize. I have new math posted that shows why the proposed Agrarian Idyll change is still not really going to compare to a City District, unless you're stuck with Size 16 Planets and under, and never get anything that increases your Max District Size. Please feel free to correct the math if you believe it's wrong.
I have new math posted that shows why the proposed Agrarian Idyll change is still not really going to compare to a City District, unless you're stuck with Size 16 Planets and under, and never get anything that increases your Max District Size. Please feel free to correct the math if you believe it's wrong.
Throwing support districts into the mix reduces Agrarian Idyll's advantage by 1 building slot, since even a non-AI empire can build one building in the support district. The lower max-districts cutoff follows from that: 3x180 fewer jobs, thus 540/90=6 fewer districts before the city districts overtake in terms of job numbers (plus some a bit of wiggle room with the +10% output vs. 2.5 food upkeep difference).
Support districts are something that doesn't translate to the alternate urban system, and I've already mentioned that before (briefly), though in the context of this same system for Subterranean, a parallel problem.
I didn't address it there because these posts are already long enough without trying to pre-emptively address every possible issue that can ever exist, even if it's not already presented as a counter argument. But if you want to change tack, I'm game.
For the specialized zones, the answer seems obvious: give Agrarian Idyll 1 (one) new unique specialization, which is an improved version of the research support district with an extra 100 biologists and 100 fewer farmers (total, +150 biologists and -50 farmers per district), and full research zone building capability.
It's just the old research support specialization, with the same effect as the other swap (-100 farmers, +100 biologists, add ability to build all research buildings) layered on top, so it fits with the design.
In essence, it inches Agrarian Idyll closer to a full urban district (150 jobs vs. 200), but only for the specific use case of research support.
To be clear, such a specialization (in full) would look like: "-30% farmer output. -50 farmers/+150 biologists/+10% biologist output/-2.5 food per 100 biologists".
I think keeping it as a 100 job swap (the same as a normal biology urban district) and removing the -30% farmer output penalty would also be acceptable, but for a different reason (much stronger than the default support district, so Agrarian Idyll has a strong reason to favor it).
Or: "+100 biologists/+10% biologist output/-2.5 food per 100 biologists" as the full effects.
I think it would especially be a shame not to make this portion of Agrarian Idyll not work, in particular. It's one of the few ways that a non-catalytic and non-bioship empire can increase demand for food (letting you get a lot more mileage out of AI).
I think that the most logical way of translating those would be:
Step 1: Create unique zones for agricultural districts (note the plural)
Step 2: Make these zones better than the regular urban zones / agricultural zones
This way, you would want to build as many agrarian districts as possible, while reducing the need for building urban districts. There ain't nothing that a stinking city can do that a farm can do better, you know.
As for subterranean empires, perhaps a better approach would be for powerful, unique city specializations that greatly increase mineral demand, thus playing a balancing act with the whole uncapped mining district bonus.
Subterranean unique specializations for urban districts:
Planet core foundry: +150 metallurgist jobs per city district, +2 minerals upkeep per 100 metallurgists
Geode cave: +150 traders per urban district, +10% planet trade output, +2.5 Mineral upkeep per 100 traders
Domed cities: +75 engineers per city district, +15% Engineer output, -10% bombardement damage, +2.5 Minerals upkeep per 100 engineers, +5 Minerals upkeep per city district
Agrarian idyl unique specializations for agricultural districts:
Botanical preserve: +75 biologists per agricultural district, +15% biologists output, +2.5 food upkeep per 100 biologists
Agrarian comune: +25 medical workers +50 farmers per agricultural district, +150 housing per agricultural district, +15% organic pop growth
Planetary garden: +150 [unity producing jobs that are not boring-ass bureucrats] per agricultural district, +20% planet amenities
I think that the developers could come up with better ideas once they get time to translate those types of civics into the new system.
Guys, please stop arguing over details. So far there is a general problem - such a system of buildings and non-equivalence to the previous bonuses +1 layer of buildings. So far, IMHO, the best solution without reworking the system of buildings is to make mining | agricultural district the main one with 2 specializations under the right conditions
Guys, please stop arguing over details. So far there is a general problem - such a system of buildings and non-equivalence to the previous bonuses +1 layer of buildings. So far, IMHO, the best solution without reworking the system of buildings is to make mining | agricultural district the main one with 2 specializations under the right conditions
You're proposing a variant of an idea that has already been discussed, differing only in minor details, while asserting that it's the best solution.
The summary of this thread had been that everyone has roughly the same idea: allow building urban specializations in a district that gives farmer jobs. All the differences are in the details:
One specialization per district or two? (aka primary slot or secondary slot)
What's the name/color of the district (city? renamed green city? farms? green city, but renamed specifically to farms, with old farms removed?)
If these are defined as details (and this is what we're arguing over, so I assume they must be), then there's nothing to argue over except details, because everyone wants basically the same thing, with slight variations.
For this variant (for Agrarian Idyll only):
This is the same idea as earlier (add farmers to city district, rename it to something thematically appropriate) with one important difference*: farms (apart from the renamed city) are deleted, and a sad 1 specialization/0 base job district takes its place (cities, demoted to a secondary slot). That helps cement the idea that the new ones really are farms, at the surface level.
And like before, mechanically it works, but thematically it struggles.
At the surface level, I like it. But it has... problems.
If you give the new-farms 100 base farming jobs: 2/3 of the jobs will be urban. It's not really an "agriculture district" anymore, is it? It's just a city with even higher population density.**
If you give the new-farms 200 base farming jobs: 1/2 the jobs are still farmers, so it's still indisputably a farm. But it's still just a city (with literally everything a city district gives other empires), except with bonus jobs. Aka, higher population density. Aka, even more urbanized than other empires.**
Also, very powerful. For reference: this is roughly equivalent to AI getting a full building slot per farm in 3.14.
Your primary source of e.g. researcher jobs is now capped by deposit capacity.... and you can't build the capacity increasing building without a farming specialization, which would forfeit half your urban jobs on the planet.
This is solvable by letting that building go in the default government zone.
The player has a strong incentive to build farm districts just for the urban jobs, and close the farmers, once they have enough. Which makes them just cities. The net effect of this civic is to make city districts cheaper, and also give farming jobs.
It makes the "cities give +X housing" to "farms give +X housing" technology swap seem even more hollow... since your farms are just upgraded cities. You're no longer doing anything different, you've just changed the name.
You could fix those by doing something like locking one specialization to farming: now it truly is a Super-Farm, rather than City+. But then you get just a worse version of what I've been proposing: the farms can build a single urban designation, but now your real cities are crippled, so you're just worse off once you no longer need extra farmers or just run out of farm deposits.
I would say "good: it gives you efficiency bonuses, encourages you to play a specific way, and leaves your empire better off overall", except I've just been told, repeatedly, that absolutely nothing except a net improvement in urban job density, for the "we shun urbanization" civic, in a mythical situation where every planet in your empire has more farm deposits than district capacity, is remotely acceptable: losing even 100 jobs from the planet out of 6000 is a critical flaw. Better throw the idea out entirely. /s
*This is an assumption, because the details of "make agricultural district the main one" are not specified.
**Equating job density with urbanization wouldn't be fair: cities naturally have lower job density than rural districts. But I think when a district is literally just a city with extra jobs, it becomes fair game. Personally, I think it's weird that cities evidently have lower density than rural districts.
For Subterranean:
It works exactly the same way, except without the "anti-urbanization identity" issue, all these things aren't really issues. It just works fine. Underground miner-super-cities work thematically fine for Subterranean, doubly so since they're uncapped.
A few minor quibbles:
The urban district is even more vestigial (existing only for building slots), but that's just the mirror of the current Subterranean implementation.
The urban housing techs do nothing anymore (along with other modifiers that affect cities, like Prosperity).
But it's fine.
Nothing will be perfect. So ultimately, I think this solution would be fine for Agrarian Idyll.
But I'm just saying... if this is fine, the other is also fine (or better).
You could fix those by doing something like locking one specialization to farming: now it truly is a Super-Farm, rather than City+. But then you get just a worse version of what I've been proposing: the farms can build a single urban designation, but now your real cities are crippled, so you're just worse off once you no longer need extra farmers or just run out of farm deposits.
Part of the issue with Agrarian in 4.0 is, I think, that the most distinctive thing about your standard 3.14 Agrarian empire was that you built a few farms everywhere instead of just making one massive farm planet. With 4.0 building a few farms everywhere is kind of encouraged anyway so you need to ramp up the farm numbers even harder to stand out - but unless you're running a second civic that eats food there's a pretty hard cap on how many farmers you want per planet and it's the same number as everyone else.
So I think part of the solution is to reduce farmer food output and replace it with a bigger boost to amenities, or even something more exotic like a workforce boost. E.g. if Agrarian ideal farmers gave 4 food, 3 amenities, and 0.25 unity then at the start of the game 3 Agrarian farmers would give the same output as a regular empire gets from two farmers and ~80% of an entertainer, but with no CG cost. This is, effectively, trading farm slots for building slots (because fewer entertainers), empire level urban districts (because less cg for entertainers) and empire level mineral upkeep/districts (for the cg for the entertainers).
This does mean an empire that wants excess food, like catalytics, could run into food cap issues. Soo... make it an agricultural specialisation. Base idyll farmers give 6 food 2 amenities, and you can select the Farmer Larp Zone which counts as an agricultural district and swaps some food production for additional bonuses. You can choose not to use it and just stick with the base +2 if you need the food or get a better specialization from a planet feature, and regular empires could get a taste of it by e.g. getting access to the FLZ on Wenkwort or something.
instead of +50 miner, +50 trader, it should be more like +100 miner, +75 trader. that makes it strictly better than the default specialisation
a "subterran" specialisation of the city district could mimic "mining support" specialisation, but could also unlock additional building slots in the city district
Everyone in this thread is over-focusing on the jobs provided by the Agrarian Idyll/Subterranean specializations, and they're also over-focusing on the extra building slots from building Agri and Mining districts. All of these arguments miss the point for these reasons:
1) In 3.14, Subterranean was a *terrible* Origin. The idea that the Origin was good because of these extra building slots and is now bad because it doesn't have them is patently ridiculous. It also overlooks the fact that the Origin is now *significantly better* in pretty much every other way.
2) Both of these civics give building bonuses in a slightly less straightforward way: at the start of the game they give you the ability to specialize a basic resource district without researching a technology, causing them to provide more jobs and 3 building slots. At the end of the game they allow you to move core Urban buildings out of your multi-purpose building slots and build them in your basic resource district building slots, instead, which will generally allow each of your planets to have 3 more Research or Alloy buildings than normal per planet. Some of you have argued that getting 11 specialized buildings for a planet is unrealistic, but with either Agrarian Idyll or Subterranean, it's actually *very* realistic.
3) Agrarian Idyll specialized districts are persistent. After you build Agrarian Villages on your planets you can reform your government out of Agrarian Idyll and still have your core colony buildings on your Agri districts. Between this and the quality of Forge and Research buildings relative to Districts, I think this feature actually makes it viable to not even take Arcology Project in 4.0.
It is unquestionably true that Agrarian Idyll and Subterranean are mechanically a bit different compared to what they were, before, and it's also unquestionably true that they are both just better than they were in 3.14. Everything else is just flavor and opinion.
