Decrease the time a cow needs to spawn (cheese production)

[ByBurton]

Cheese production is pretty bad right now. How about decreasing the time a cow needs to spawn back?

(The same could be interesting with stuff like pitch production. Pitch is not worth a lot, so decreasing the time it takes to produce could be useful.)

[Evrey]

Or increase the cheese output per cow instead. Decreasing the cow spawn time also affects tanners in a possibly unwanted way.

[ByBurton]

Decreasing the cow spawn time also affects tanners in a possibly unwanted way.

I mean, compare it to how fast oxes spawn. Damn female hating developers :D

Or increase the cheese output per cow instead.

Why not both?

[irgendein-alf]

Afaik 10 apple farms == 14 cheese farms (both of them at equal distances from the food store) (without producing any tanner stuff), assuming there' 3/3 cows around at time.start=0 so an decrease of cheese producing-time or an increase of the cheese output would be fair, considering a) cows need to spawn & can be killed b) you will get +1 happiness if you both use apple and "cheese farms". c) cheese farms are 1 tile smaller (lengh, width) compared to apple farms. this would still mean that apple farms are a very small minimum better than cheese farms but this change will give the player the option to utilize both for +1 happiness, which would be great. => either increase cheese output by 40% or decrease production time of cheese by 40% (or change both values by 18,32% (1,1832^2=1,39996...))

[Heroesflorian]

I mean, compare it to how fast oxes spawn. Damn female hating developers :D

Why not both?

Well, cows have nothing to (actively) do beyond eating grass, though. Oxen on the other hand have hard work to do that requires them to move across half of the map... and cannot be used by tanners.

Besides, if cows respawn nearly immediately, then what is the point of having that mechanic at all? I think dairy farms were intended as some sort of in-between between the simplicity and quick-start capabilities of apple orchards, and complex, long-running bread production chains. As such, having them output a fair amount of cheese per cow / milking (on top of being useful for leather armour), but still be a bit more time consuming to get going initially seems like a fair tradeoff.

There is no point in making them "OP" - quick to start, lots of food production per farm, usability for leather production, all in one...

[ByBurton]

Who is talking about near immediately? If you play on speed 60, which is my normal speed, you see that it takes forever. It takes as long as the farmer needs to milk the cow.

[Heroesflorian]

Well, if your cows do not get killed all the time (which, at least for a human player, is relatively easy to prevent, and even the AI have patrols for this), then they only need to spawn once in a looong while. Unless you use large amounts of tanners, which then profits the tanners just as much as the food production.

[ByBurton]

I am talking about a cut of maybe 20% of the respawn time. It would buff catapults as well (throwing cows).

[Heroesflorian]

It would buff catapults as well (throwing cows).

Makes me shiver when thinking of multiplayer, and will not matter for many AI characters who do not use cows (or use cows but not for catapults), and generally speaking catapults might be the most useful siege engine for offense (for AI) already. Thus, I am not sure this is an argument pro faster cow respawning. To be honest though, if we can agree on an increased production after the cows spawned, and considering the suggested buffs for plague clouds, I think a cow spawning rate buff on top of that is something that would require a bit of testing.

Plus, if in the future more siege engines can be used for defense (and more AIVs incorporate those), then the entire siege engine balancing and number of siege engines per attack will have to be modified as well, or else the catapult cow throwing will be useless either way, as the catapult will die before it can throw cows, or at least before there are gaps in the defenses to have proper targets for thrown cows in the first place.

[ByBurton]

If you all think the consequences are too many, or too significant, then can we at least slightly increase the speed a farmer needs to milk a cow?

[Heroesflorian]

Faster milking (i.e. slightly more frequent food deliveries; with decreasing "cheese per second" increase effect % over larger distances) and/or higher cheese amounts per milking session / cheese delivery (i.e. slightly more substantial food deliveries; with constant "cheese per second" increase effect %) is something I personally would not have any issues with.

Those measures would only buff food production rates (which are a bit low currently) once the dairy farm is fully set up, while not really affecting tanners significantly, and without changing the "setup and preparation time/cost" for dairy farms, which is a characteristic difference compared to apple farms imho. In other words, they would have little side effects on other aspects of dairy farms, and focus just on balancing the food production rates.

[ByBurton]

Yes. I think cheese should be just as good as apples, or I'd rather like cheese production to be more effective. They cost double the amount of an apple farm. 'nough said. Also poor Marshall or pig only build dairy farms...