Military units should be recruited and trained from the population. So city size should shrink when units are produced and grow when units are disbanded (not necessary to disband them in the city to get the people back. they will just go to the nearest city)

Workers and city production workers could be one in the same. You know how you assign population to work squares? Well what if those were actual units, units that require movement to work on another square. Units that could be assigned to irrigate/mine etc? What if those were units that could be trained and converted to soldieries and turned back into workers during non war time?

For this to be workable city size must not slow down city growth any (which never made sense anyways) Also population head units could be increased so that one population unit doesn't represent so many. Working a particular square might require several units. Or a military unit might consist of a number of population units, depending on what the unit is.

What if city production radius was limited to terrain movement difficulty and road status? like normally maybe a city could work tiles 1 around it, but with roads through that one tile, it could work two, mines/mountains not workable at all without roads. If horses are available then you could work squares even further away. City growth past a certain number could cause that city to expand into more hexes. Perhaps city improvements may be useable by several hexes of a city or only one depending on the improvement (so a large city might need several of a improvement for the whole city to benefit). If you have roads connecting them, you could migrate population to other cities at cost.

Water access could be a important issue in city development. First you would need to build your cities next to fresh water,(fresh not being decided by water size) latter on aqueducts and the like could be built to bring the fresh water to the people.

I completely agree with many of your ideas--in fact, they are uncannily similar to my suggestions in my Urban Sprawl (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78876) and UET II (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=96081) threads.

The general direction I hope to see them adopt, even if they do not use the specific mechanisms you have suggested, would be to work toward a more fluid model that is better integrated with the rest of the game in terms of game mechanics and also interface.

What do you think of population naturally growing, if food is scarce (or you have the city on rations) growth slows down. Otherwise excess food does not add to growth. Which is much different then food directly turning into people.

the system in MoO was not bad - where factors (sufficient food, happiness, health, etc) combined to provide a population growth which would accrue each turn...
If this were adopted, then yes you could have units built/disbanded subtract/add from/to the population of the city...

If the old system is maintained, then why would 1 population point (which could represent millions of people - the first one is 10,000!) be used to create a brigade of only 3,000 soldiers?


Also, if you work population in "real" numbers, you should then be able to shift people around different cities to spread the population out (just like MoO - that game had a lot of drawbacks, but it's method of population was one of the good points).

And of course population growth should be a percentage growth, not a direct quantity growth. (which of course means larger populations = more growth)

Oh, and as a direct function of units being recruited from the population. Their loss in battle would cause war weariness(especially in their home town) no matter what form of government you have, but with much more effect with some. Oh and of course you couldn't recruit units from the slave population(if we do have a slavery in civ4)

We can change the fat x to something else, like the culture levels. every pop point would work one tile, but one tile would represant less. the maps could be bigger, and the mov cost higher. This will also be good for infantry units passing mountains as easy as grassland

One other thing, besides all units taking population, all units require food upkeep (you don't think they could live without food did you?)

TruePurple, I like your idea, but would do it the other way around. The range of workers could depend on your technology level. Farmers will work one square around your city. You develop the wheel, and the farmers build roads. They now work two squares. You develop stockyards, railroads, combustion, refrigeration, etc. and farmers can send food from city A to city B and work X squares from the city. This would be the same for fishing, lumberjacking, mining… They populate the city. They are supposed to be utilizing the surrounding city squares. I want them out there in the fields building roads and irrigating the farmland so I can use a unit of workers for a more strategic purpose.

I know power gamers who have the opening moves down to a science (move worker to cow, mine, road, move worker to wheat, road, irrigate…) will hate this idea.

We could have a combination of the two. Roads, railroads and techs all providing access to squares further from your city. But not as the bird flies if you get what I mean.

I completely agree to the idea of population growth based on a "reproduction rate" being independant from the foodsurplus. Instead, it should be dependant on enough food being available.

Furthermore, units should definetely consume population. But they shouldn't be re-transferable (???)
This would make war-mongering less attractive, as building a big military force would in turn reduce your population and limit your growth.

They're probably goin to do something like this aren't they. It'd be far easier with the new health attribute. Growth rate depends on health (which parallels quite nicely with infant mortality rate). They have said theres going to be some food trading haven't they?

Markus is right. Unlike units cost 1 pop point (which tended to be VERY crude in all the mods it turned up in in Civ3), having units impacting health to a varying degree could be a more subtle way to mimic the effect of war mobilization on your population and economy. So 1 or 2 units from a city may not have a significant impact on city health, but drawing 5-6 from the same city might start to throw population growth into REVERSE!!! This is fine-in the short term-if said troops get back alive (and a great way to simulate post-war 'baby booms') but if they all get killed, then it could REALLY set back your economy, culture and productivity.
I admit, though, that this model I have proposed is based on a 'best case scenario' of the new Health system-one I hope proves to be correct ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Health=growthrate, I fear is one of those things that Firaxis thought would be too alien for most civ-players. In fact, I bet they'll never change the way growth is handled, sadly.

I can imagine a meeting at the office where one Firaxian says to another, "We can't change growth like that, think of the complaints we'll get!"

(imagined complaint)"Do you mean to tell me if I sit here eating food all day long a baby or two won't come flying out my ass?! This is the way it works in RL. I mean, come on Firaxis, put a little reality in Civ!"
:rolleyes: :lol: :sad:

Furthermore, units should definetely consume population. But they shouldn't be re-transferable (???)
What do you mean by "re-transferable" they shouldn't be able to rejoin the population when their works done?

I also think that a city should be able to produce multiple units per turn.... if the year was 1612,, how hard could it be to produce 3 archers instead of just 1?

as long as population is there and sheilds are producing one should be able to get the most for his turn.