Culture and Population

[lajzar]

(disclaimer: Im posting from an internet cafe in Australia whoile on holiday. I am not in a position to resume my list manger dutuies until I get back on teh 23rd)

The problem: In modern USa, high food areas (the middle region) are low population, low culture, high food. By civ logic, they should have the highest population, but obviously dont.

The solution:

All excess food a city produces is put aside. Depending on a formula (based on culture and transport efficiency), it is redistributed to other cities. the higher the transport technology, the larger teh % that is redistributed. Redistriburted food is assigned to cities throughoput the empire in proportion to the culture of each city and the distance from the city with excess food. Non-redistributed food gets assigned to the city normally.

Thoughts?

[Ijuin]

I would like to see a "storage box" for food and shields, similar to the treasury storing cash. Any city that is connected to your trade network can donate a user-selected number of shields/food to the box, or withdraw them from the box (but can not take more from the box than an amount equal to its local production, to avoid the player pumping hundreds of shields and food into a single mega-city that can build Wonders in a single turn).

To reflect changes in transport technology, food/shields sent to the storage boxes would be penalized by 50% prior to Engineering, and by 25% between Engineering and Steam Power. This is similar to how building Wealth becomes twice as efficient when you learn Economics in Civ3.

[Dauphin]

I would like to see food tend towards being a commodity as travel links improve. Eventually food surplus/shortage will become irrelevant as a city level issue, and be an empire wide issue.

For that to work though, you would have to make sure population growth is not purely a food related issue.

[patcon]

I like the idea of redistributing food from high-producing to low-producing areas. If you ever had a city in a resource-rich, shield-producing hill/mountain region and couldn't grow it past 10 (or worse) and a city in the grasslands with a population of 30 which could produce very few shields, you'd agree. Or if you had a city with an odd-number food production which caused your population to see-saw up and down.

My solution - food processing, food distribution, and supermarkets as city improvements, with appropriate requisite technologies/other improvements.
Level 1 - Electricty allows Food Distribution Center as a city improvement in cities already containing marketplace. FDC's allow that city to contribute up to a set number (maybe 5) of food points to a Central Food Bank or remove a similar number from the Central Food Bank.

Level 2 - Corporation allows Food Processing Plants and Supermarkets as city improvements in cities already containing FDC's. The FPP's double a city's possible contribution to a National Food Distribution System, and possibly give a boost to taxes as more people would be gainfully employed. Supermarkets double a city's possible withdrawal from the National Food Distribution System, and possibly give a boost to taxes as more people would be gainfully employed.

Perhaps make Central Food Bank (level 1) and National Food Distribution System (level 2) Small Wonders which are needed to actually collect and distribute the food and serve as a FDC/FPP/Supermarket in the city building the Small Wonder.

[lajzar]

IHmm, I proposed this system bewcause every other proposed solution so far requires directed player intervention. Not that theres anything wrong with that per se, but it leads to really easy min-maxing and abuses the system. I was trying to find a solution that would mimic the effect of real life (people migrate towards high culture cities), while requiring no direct player intervention. Thus avoiding giving any possible player vs ai advantage and avoiding adding another management layer.

You might well have a city in a hills area crying out for population, but unless people have a reason to *want* to live there (culture), they won't stay there.

I want to be concerned with empire, not seeing to it that my citizens are distributing the food properly.

[MORON]

My solution - food processing, food distribution, and supermarkets as city improvements, with appropriate requisite technologies/other improvements.
Level 1 - Electricty allows Food Distribution Center as a city improvement in cities already containing marketplace. FDC's allow that city to contribute up to a set number (maybe 5) of food points to a Central Food Bank or remove a similar number from the Central Food Bank.

Maybe require a rail/port link to the capital for this to be avaible.

You might well have a city in a hills area crying out for population, but unless people have a reason to *want* to live there (culture), they won't stay there.

Just tie it to the happiness model and tie the happiness model to growth.

Auto migration is kind of iffy and not civilization-ish