Currently, when producing a settler, the game automatically adds a negative modifier to your food income equal to your current surplus (such that your surplus always becomes 0). This means every single time you produce a settler, you need to remember to switch all population *off* of your food production, because they will useless for the entire time the settler is being produced. After the settler is done, you then need to move your population back onto food. This is really stupid and tedious.



Just use the Civ solution of adding surplus food into production, or have all farmers automatically change to production whenever a settler is being produced, and then back when it's done.

- I agree. I guessed it was just a bug, but you surely have right. In the same category of "bug", we loose entire production when our city production list is empty. Or we loose science if the science list is empty.



- Another anormal thing it's the fact that any settler cost one population point. It's normal if the required food is identitic beetwen each new population point. But on Endless Legend the cost beetween population level increase strangely, as a geometric progression.



- This make that it's really more interesting to produce settlers in small cities than in big city because loosing one population in a small city does not matter, but it represent far more food growth in a big city. I don't know any game where the cost of an unit have such variation.



It could be changed like that : A settler remove -X food (+ era cost progression, if neded) per city where it is produced, and not a brute -1 population unit.

I'll go on record to say this is bad mechanic anyway. The "zero surplus" is a variable cost that (as you point out) is confusing and pretty easy to manipulate. I'm sure the thinking was to restrict growth during Settler production, but since there is a Population cost, this is there already.



If there is a cost for settlers, just have a cost...

This has been bothering me for a while as well. If I can find some time, I might be back with a mod to fix it in a day or two. The fixed food cost shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Totattly agree. Also, there should be a pop up that an indle settler is sitting in the garrision or make him into an army when created. It is very common to let settlers sit in the garrission when created because you are not promptet to move it and you will want it out of the garisson 90% of the time.

Some of the problem could be addressed with a suggestion I just posted here.



However I agree that there could be some automated way of moving workers so that they are not being useless. I suggest a tickbox somewhere (perhaps that pops up in a dialog the first time you build a settler) that enables automatically moving all workers currently producing food to industry instead when a settler starts building.

It sure is annoyance because it adds some tedious micromanagement and extra attention.



Regarding the -1 pop cost your more developed cities usually have more industry as well so you can produce the settler faster, which means you can settle another town faster as opposed to waiting one of your newly founded towns to produce a settler. Sometimes the higher food cost for that 1 pop lost is worth it allowing your new city a few turns head start. That can be very crucial if you find an awesome region that could be taken by another player.

Also, more advanced cities create bigger amounts of food and a loss of a worker in a 20w-city is not as bad as losing a worker in a 2 or 3w-city. Yes, those cities can compensate faster, but not necessarily easier.



But moving the food surplus from food to industry would be a wonderful improvement.

Yep. +1 on that...