Growth - should it be related to food

[skycommando]

i'm a big fan of mooii's food system. i think it could be both modified and made more complex for civiv. very little of the food i eat is grown in maryland. a state like iowa produces far more food than its citizens consume. iowa's population is not skyrocketing through the roof due to food surplus, instead they are exporting to food to other states to keep the entire empire (we're gonna drop the pretense and start calling ourselves an empire, right?) well-fed.

[Martin the Dane]

we're gonna drop the pretense and start calling ourselves an empire, right?

Of cause you are an empire?

Well back to the topic:
Yes, redistributing and trading food, should be an integrated part of civ4. But not only food, resources as well, as the tech and transportation capacity of an empire grows, the production level should be less and less dependant on local resources. Japan is a good rl example of a resource poor nation with a huge production. They import most of their raw material, while exporting finished goods.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Just have a couple of points to make regarding some prior comments.

Firstly, does anyone at all remember 'Birth of the Federation' by Microprose? Its an excellent game, BTW, and one that I still have a copy of!
Anyway, in that game each planet would have multiple copies of different kinds of improvements-so a well developed planet would have maybe 10 farms, 20 'factories', 10 power plants, 8 intelligence agenices, and 6 universities. Each 1 million people could staff a single one of these improvements (remember, this is planetary scale here), and you would have to maintainance on these improvements regardless of whether they were staffed or not.
Obviously I'm not advocating an identical approach for Civ4, but it might be worth looking into this game as a starting point.
So you might have cities with multiple factories, and or multiple banks etc. The max. number of these improvements that you could build would be determined by the city's physical size (as determined by its infrastructure), and the no. of total improvements which could be manned would be determined by the city's population. Like 'BotF', any unmanned improvements would still carry a maintainance cost, which would be a drain on resources, but having too few improvements for the population would cause unemployment and, therefore, crime and unhappiness.
On the second point, by Martin the Dane, I've actually put forward the possibility of a city converting its 'raw' shields and food into 'finished' goods. These materials would increase the wealth and happiness of the city that has them, but would leave fewer shields/food for the city's more basic needs. 'finished' and 'raw' goods could, and should, be tradeable between cities and civs.
Anyway, just some ideas to consider.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Xorbon]

I was wondering, would it be too complex to separate rural from urban population? The rural pop. would be the one which farms, fishes, and hunts for food; collects mineral resources; and collects lumber. The urban pop. would consist of specialists, artisans, merchants, labourers, and other urban-type occupations. Urban labourers would be the ones who convert resources into 'shields' or production. The other occupations would have their own uses.

Early city growth would come from rural-to-urban migration (urbanization), triggered by food surpluses. Both (urban and rural) populations would also grow with births minus deaths.

Certain advances and city improvements could increase the rates of urbanization. Advances which increase the rate of food production, such as crop rotation or the heavy horse plow, would increase urbanization as would industrialization. Improvements, such as factories, would also increase urbanization on a local scale.

Improvements in nutrition, medicine, sanitation, etc. would decrease death rates (while things such as pollution could increase death rates). Birth control and education would decrease births.

As far as larger-scale migration goes, people should be drawn to cities along trade routes (including major ports), cities near certain resources (like gold), capital cities, etc.

Blah, blah, blah. I feel like I've written this before...

[Tassadar500]

What would be the point of that?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Howdy Xorbon.

Here is an idea that deals with your concerns, and also consolidates several of the matters that have been discussed previously.

1) Assume that population goes up as a 'decimal-like' system, rather than a direct integer (as per my earlier post).

2) Each terrain improvement will have a 'maintainance' cost and a 'population' (read staffing) cost. Also production, education and resource city improvements will have a set 'staffing cost' as well.

3) A city will be able to build multiple libraries, factories, banks etc. Though multiple copies of an improvement will be subject to the 'law of diminishing returns'.

4) Each city will have both a city SIZE (which determines if a city is overpopulated or not) and a city population no.

5) When a city is first built, the vast bulk of your population will be required to forage for food, fish and resources (i.e., working the hexes in your city radius)-this population requirement will increase as you build farms, mines and fisheries on these hexes.

6) As you build more improvements in your city, though, more of your population will be needed to man these instead. At the same time, as you upgrade your mines, fisheries and farms through the ages, the population costs for these terrain improvements will decline.

7) The combination of effects described in (6) can very adequately represent the movement of population from rural to urban centres. A time might even come where a city recieves almost ALL of its food and shields from outside sources, and can therefore focus ALL of its population on commerce and/or education.

8) Of course, due to monetary or resource constraints, you may have too much population for the total number of terrain/city improvements. If this happens, then unemployment will result-which will make the people in that city unhappy.

9) Another problem is that your population could potentially get larger than your current city size, which will lead to crime and pollution (both of which will lead to unhappiness!)

10) Migration should occur along trade routes, from high population to low population areas. The rate and direction of these movements, however, would be influenced by some of the factors mentioned by Xorbon-such as happiness, bonus resources, crime/pollution levels/unemployment levels and the like.

Hope you like all of these ideas ! I, too, feel like I've said much of this before !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Xorbon]

Well, that was a good summary of what you've said before.

I like all of these ideas, although I'm not sure that 3) would really add anything to the game.

With regards to 4) and 9) (city size and population), how would city size increase? With city improvements?


By the way, to answer Nuclear Master's question: to make the game unnecessarily complex and unplayable, of course!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

The importance of point 3), for me at least, is that it allows cities to diversify and specialise in certain roles-especially in the later game. This will be of particular importance in determining a city's 'Demography', a vital element of my 'Social Interaction' and 'Absolutity' Models.
Basically, as a city's needs for food and/or shields can be adequately provided from outside its own city radius, then said city can start specialising in producing science, wealth or shields.
In addition, though, multiple improvements could be a way for civs who miss out in the initial 'Land Grab' portion of the game to remain competitive in the later game-i.e., to reduce the 'Snowballing Factor'.
Anyway, hope this better explains my position.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, here is a 'working example' to better explain my ideas.

Its 6000BC (say). You have just founded the city of Athens, which has a size of 1, and a population of .4 (with 1 inbuilt worker-at a cost of .2 population-in your 'worker pool'). In the first part of the game, you decide to forage from a nearby forest (at a cost of .1 population), hunt and forage in the grasslands (at a cost of .1 population), and go hunting for stone and minerals in the nearby mountains (at a cost of .2 population).
The food from the forest and grasslands helps your population to grow from .4 to over 1.4 very quickly. In the meantime, the shields garnered from the forest and hills generate enough PW points to let your worker build a farm on the grasslands, and a mine in the forest and the hills (the 'mine' in the forest is, in fact, a logging operation). These improvements cost an additional .3, .4 and .4 respectively-swallowing up the remainder of your larger population-but providing greater 'resource security' in the process. In order for these improved hexes to be worked, the computer would probably end up shifting around the current 'tile-working' priorities. If you should build a 'staffed' improvement in your city, then the population needed to work these city improvements will need to be diverted from working your hexes. Also, as your city begins to approach population 2.0, you will need to build an aqueduct in order to expand your city SIZE to size 2. Otherwise, you will face a problem of overcrowding, a situation which will affect happiness, health and crime rates in this city.
As your game progresses, Athens will grow to population 3.0 and 4.0, and you will be able to 'staff' more and more city improvements. Also, as you gain the relevent techs, then you will upgrade your terrain improvements. This will mean that the population needed to work your farm, for instance, will drop from .4 to .3, then later to .2 and, finally to .1-whilst all the time slightly increasing the amount of food that the farm produces. The overall effect of this will be to require fewer people 'working the land' whilst having more people working in your Guilds, Banks and Mills (and later Factories, Universities and Stock Exchanges!)
Anyway, I hope this has helped people to better understand the kind of model I'm hoping to see in Civ4!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Martin the Dane
Why not?

After all Peral Harbour isn't all that big, and it is still the home of one of USAs fleets, with quite a lot of sailors.
How many of those sailors comes from Hawaii?
How many of those ships was built there?
How many of them are actually funded from there?

In real life having a large military base/beeing home of an army, is an economical benefit to the city. They generate a lot of jobs, all paied for by the government, while all those workers spend most of their money locally.

By my comment I meant the military production center-sorry for the error.

[Martin the Dane]

Well that's a valid point, but still cities and towns have been known to specialize in say ship production, without having a huge population.

[GePap]

well, that would be simulated by some small town having a shipyard and then making ships-though they could not be staffed by the people of that town.

[Odin]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
OK, here is a 'working example' to better explain my ideas.

Its 6000BC (say). You have just founded the city of Athens, which has a size of 1, and a population of .4 (with 1 inbuilt worker-at a cost of .2 population-in your 'worker pool'). In the first part of the game, you decide to forage from a nearby forest (at a cost of .1 population), hunt and forage in the grasslands (at a cost of .1 population), and go hunting for stone and minerals in the nearby mountains (at a cost of .2 population).
The food from the forest and grasslands helps your population to grow from .4 to over 1.4 very quickly. In the meantime, the shields garnered from the forest and hills generate enough PW points to let your worker build a farm on the grasslands, and a mine in the forest and the hills (the 'mine' in the forest is, in fact, a logging operation). These improvements cost an additional .3, .4 and .4 respectively-swallowing up the remainder of your larger population-but providing greater 'resource security' in the process. In order for these improved hexes to be worked, the computer would probably end up shifting around the current 'tile-working' priorities. If you should build a 'staffed' improvement in your city, then the population needed to work these city improvements will need to be diverted from working your hexes. Also, as your city begins to approach population 2.0, you will need to build an aqueduct in order to expand your city SIZE to size 2. Otherwise, you will face a problem of overcrowding, a situation which will affect happiness, health and crime rates in this city.
As your game progresses, Athens will grow to population 3.0 and 4.0, and you will be able to 'staff' more and more city improvements. Also, as you gain the relevent techs, then you will upgrade your terrain improvements. This will mean that the population needed to work your farm, for instance, will drop from .4 to .3, then later to .2 and, finally to .1-whilst all the time slightly increasing the amount of food that the farm produces. The overall effect of this will be to require fewer people 'working the land' whilst having more people working in your Guilds, Banks and Mills (and later Factories, Universities and Stock Exchanges!)
Anyway, I hope this has helped people to better understand the kind of model I'm hoping to see in Civ4!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Too much micromanagement for me!

But the concept of seperating urban and rural population is interesting.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

What micromanagement, Odin? Everything that I describe in the example happens AUTOMATICALLY as a result of your choices regarding what hexes to work and/or what improvements to build. The only differences involved between this version and all prior versions is that there will now be a DIRECT LINK between population and the 'staffing' of tiles and city improvements! Oh, and the fact that the populations involved would be more 'finely gradiated' with the use of 'decimalisation'.
At the end of the day, though, if the 'micromanagement' gets too much, then you just hand control over to an AI governer!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GePap]

So much complexity would just swallow up processing power.

Mass market games simply can't be that complicated.

For example, Colonization had good population management while retaining simplicity. For one, drop the decimal system-units should always be integers if possible.