I'm in the process of making a strategy game. I am using the FAO soil classification system for handling soils; the soil in a given tile has four characteristics:
- production limit (how much food you can grow if you meet all the other requirements)
- management requirement (how much active work is needed; this can be irrigation, drainage, difficulty working the soil, etc - it's a bit of an abstraction)
- fertilizer requirement (how much fertilizer is needed in a particular soil; note here that I am not distinguishing between different kinds of fertilizer ie phosphorous vs nitrogen; fertilizer is a single product)
- liming requirement (how much lime is required to manage acidity)
The exact values (0 to 100%) are not listed here, just a broad low/moderate/high/etc. I will fine tune the exact values later, but they'll always be estimates as I am by no means an expert on soil. What I'm looking for is a quick once-over to see if I've grossly mislabelled any of these. Where there is a question mark this means either the resources I was looking at (mainly the pdf collection on isric.org) didn't specify a given category (Solonetz/Solonchaks don't have acidity / amount of liming specified, for example; the chemical properties section just focused on the saltiness, so I had to guess) or because a category was too vague (Regosols are the "misc" category so I left them all on Moderate).
In cases where a soil varies widely in certain characteristics (i.e. Gypsisols can vary a lot in terms of how useful they are depending on how much gypsum they have) rather than trying to represent both ends of the spectrum I'm just going with an average.
Climate is handled separately, as is terrain. The focus here is strictly on agriculture, not livestock grazing (which will be governed mainly by terrain) or on forestry (also terrain). I will not be distinguishing between types of crops, or between say, staple grains vs orchards.
I don't need them to be perfect; at the end of the day, they're just for gameplay, not scientific simulation. But I would like to avoid putting in anything that turns out to be blatantly and jarringly wrong.
| Soil Type | Production Limit | Management Req | Fertilizer Req | Lime Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acrisols | Low | High | High | High |
| Albeluvisols | Very Low | Fairly High | High | High |
| Alisols | Very Low | Fairly High | High | High |
| Andosols | High | Fairly Low | Moderate | Moderate |
| Anthrosols | Very High | Low | Low | Low |
| Arenosols | Low | Very High | High | Very Low |
| Calcisols | Fairly High | Very High | High | None |
| Cambisols | High | Fairly Low | Fairly Low | Fairly Low |
| Chernozems | Very High | Low | Low | Low |
| Cryosols | Low | Moderate | High | Moderate |
| Durisols | Very Low | Extremely High | High | Fairly High? |
| Ferralsols | Moderate | Fairly Low | Extremely High | Moderate |
| Fluvisols | Very High | High | Low | Low |
| Gleysols | High | High | Low | Moderate |
| Gypsisols | Low? | Very High | Fairly High | Moderate? |
| Histosols | Low | Very High | High | High |
| Kastanozems | High | Fairly Low | Low | Low |
| Leptosols | Very Low | Moderate? | Moderate? | Moderate? |
| Lixisols | Moderate | High | High | High |
| Luvisols | High | Fairly Low | Low | Low |
| Nitisols | Fairly High | Low | High | Moderate? |
| Phaeozems | High | Low | Low | Low |
| Planosols | Low | Low | High | High |
| Plinthosols | Low | Very High | High | Fairly High? |
| Podzols | Very Low | High | Very High | Very High |
| Regosols | Moderate? | Moderate? | Moderate? | Moderate? |
| Solonchaks | Fairly Low | High | Moderate | Moderate |
| Solonetz | Moderate | High | Moderate | Moderate |
| Umbrisols | Fairly High | Fairly High | Moderate | Moderate |
| Vertisols | Moderate? | Very High | Moderate | Fairly Low? |
