For yet another time the Firaxians did not succeed in taking care of the food supplying system of Civ games. They kept the well-known, classical civilization food supplying method, that is unrealistic and, to me, annoying.

The world's largest cities do not produce the biggest food amounts. Instead, a nation's cities SHARE FOOD SUPPLIES via trade routes, etc., especially in modern times. If such a feature existed:

would allow a mountain-surrounded city to grow normally and ...become a nation's most important industrial centre. Similarly, little important dessert cities, found in rivers' banks, would become a nation's most important food supplier, if the player wished so.

HISTORICAL EXAMPLES:
::The province of Egypt has been the main grain supplier for the medieval Byzantine Empire.
::Modern Northern France gets all of its crops from the southern part or from the french overseas territories.
::The US southern states play the same role for the industrialized northern states.

ANCIENT TIMES: Grain crops were dried and transported over the cities of empires.
MODERN TIMES: Little needs to be mentioned; there are numerous ways of transporting goods and food without risking of spoiling it.


Hopefully, Civ5 will include such realistic and obstacle-overcoming features, although I doubt...

SimFarm is coming out soon, that should be right up your alley.

The entire economy is essentially based around the fact that terrain determines what a city is capable of and makes it unique from other cities. If you could transport food (or shield) around between cities then terrain no longer really matters. Plus it seems like a lot of micromangement to have things shipped around. People argue that it could be done automatically to prevent cities from starving and things like that, but how often are your cities even starving (not on purpose)?

I agree. This would add a nightmarish level of complexity to Civilization that we're better off avoiding. It would also be extremely open to exploitative play that took advantage of the system.

Ive long wanted a system whereby the total culture determines where excess food gets redirected to. this would ensure that high culture cities grow fast while agricultural backwaters dont.

When it was mentioned that you'd have to 'grow' a wide variety of food for your Empire or your overall health would be mentioned, it seems that food is traded between cities. Remember, now in cIV, HEALTH is what determines how large your cities grow, not in how much surplus food you have.

Sounds like they took care of the food problem to me...

BTW, where is the DECEPTION?

The entire economy is essentially based around the fact that terrain determines what a city is capable of and makes it unique from other cities. If you could transport food (or shield) around between cities then terrain no longer really matters. Plus it seems like a lot of micromangement to have things shipped around. People argue that it could be done automatically to prevent cities from starving and things like that, but how often are your cities even starving (not on purpose)?


I don't think you're right. Firstly, I did not talk about transporting shields; this would be unrealistic. Secondly, the terrain does not determine what a city will be like. We all eat bananas. Are they produced in London, NY, LA or Paris? Nope. They are produced in Columbia, Peru, etc... We all drink coffee. Is it produced...

Do you see my point? And I don't think this would add unneeded complexity. When, for instance, you have a low production city that has no aqueduct and has reached population 6, and nontheless has a food surplus of 5, you would be able to redirect this surplus to your capital, in order to increase productivity or create spec.civs.



By the way, not for you, but the one above you, I am a Civ addict. I'd never quit it for ****ty stuff like SimFarm. The latter is way more simplistic to Civ.

BTW, where is the DECEPTION?


I think he meant "disappointment"

I don't think you're right. Firstly, I did not talk about transporting shields; this would be unrealistic. Secondly, the terrain does not determine what a city will be like. We all eat bananas. Are they produced in London, NY, LA or Paris? Nope. They are produced in Columbia, Peru, etc... We all drink coffee. Is it produced...
Yes, but this is a game. I like the fact that terrain can change things, as long as it's fair for all players.

Do you see my point? And I don't think this would add unneeded complexity. When, for instance, you have a low production city that has no aqueduct and has reached population 6, and nontheless has a food surplus of 5, you would be able to redirect this surplus to your capital, in order to increase productivity or create spec.civs.
What about if you have 20 cities? 50? 100? How long would it take to determine who needs what, who has what and who should send to whom? It's a lot of work.

Hopefully, Civ5 will include such realistic and obstacle-overcoming features, although I doubt...

Let's see what Civ 4 comes out with first. :lol:

I think food could be added to trade. When one city is starving, you divert food from other regions. Also, if one city has high production power, but little growth ability, food could be diverted there so population growth could go up.

Uummmm, you say you want food trading, but then claim SHIELD trading is UNREALISTIC???? Sorry, but the trade in food AND shields is completely realistic IMO. As for it undermining the importance of cities-that is absolute ROT. If anything, it makes breadbaskets and industrial heart cities all the more important. If you can find good locations for a couple of Breadbasket cities, for instance, then you can send food out from there to your commercial hubs and industrial cities to stop them from suffering famines (just because they happen to be near mountains and/or key luxuries!)
What we have in Civ1-3 are cities with little to no character-every city is a 'jack of all trades', which produces all of its food, all of its culture, all of its production and all of its entertainment. Yet we know that very few-if any-cities are like than in the real world. They may have started that way, but they became more specialised as time progressed-and so it should be in this game (and Soren has certainly indicated that cities WILL be more specialised in Civ4.)
As for it adding MM, I don't see why?? A simple % based vector system would work very well, with all vectored shields and/or food ending up in the main trade screen-where it can be easily dished out to the cities which require it, or traded to other civilizations for cash, resources or the like. It is a system which would require no more (and actually quite less) MM than the existing systems of sending workers out to build terrain improvements, or the allocation of population to working certain squares.
I, for one, hope that they DO incorporate these elements into civ4, and have yet to actually see the proof that they AREN'T in there!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

The entire economy is essentially based around the fact that terrain determines what a city is capable of and makes it unique from other cities. If you could transport food (or shield) around between cities then terrain no longer really matters. Plus it seems like a lot of micromangement to have things shipped around. People argue that it could be done automatically to prevent cities from starving and things like that, but how often are your cities even starving (not on purpose)?
City placement would be at least as important, it's just that cities would be part of a team!

I was hoping you could trade food with your neighbors.

I was hoping you could trade food with your neighbors.

That would add a good element to diplomacy. "If you don't stop waging war against the Zulus, I will cut off your food supply."

I, for one, hope that they DO incorporate these elements into civ4, and have yet to actually see the proof that they AREN'T in there!
You sure do have a lot of expectations from this game. :) I for one do not think Soren would add in a system like this based upon what I've read. Divvying up food and shields like this is quite a bit different from how all Civ games have worked in the past.

By the way, not for you, but the one above you, I am a Civ addict. I'd never quit it for ****ty stuff like SimFarm. The latter is way more simplistic to Civ.

Damn, another sale missed out on. I'll never make my quota now.

That would add a good element to diplomacy. "If you don't stop waging war against the Zulus, I will cut off your food supply."More like: If you don't start waging war against the Zulus, I'll cut your food supply. :D

I think the general principle would be too exploitive. Just transport all your food and production to one city and you could easily get 20k. Of course, AI wouldn't be able to do tht :D

It's a lot of work.[/QUOTE]

Yes. But you forgot about the governor?? You just make a default governor that will take care of such MM stuff. And everything will be OK and everybody happy :) .

this is actually a pretty interesting point - i mean, just look at the news to see how often food is used as a bargaining chip btw nations (iraq, n.korea, sudan, etc.).

Yes. But you forgot about the governor?? You just make a default governor that will take care of such MM stuff. And everything will be OK and everybody happy :) .
You show me someone who uses the city governor and automated Workers and I'll show you someone who won't win over monarch. :p

Automation for tasks that require a large amount of micromanaging will never be as good as a human player. When that is the case you force humans to do all micromanagement when they want to be competitive or even to feel like they're doing a good job.

Interesting and certainly realistic thing. Imo it should be added in, if it can be done without cropping the screen full of numbers. The game should still be playable. On the question, how to do this, I've no idea, but it looks like these ideas are around on the forum, so no problem :)

I also wanted to remind some people in here, that shields no longer exists. Hammertrading needs to be added... :D

mitsho

You know, Vael, saying that a feature shouldn't be in the game because 'it hasn't been in previous Civ Games', has GOT to be one of the worst reasons I have ever heard (right up there with 'its just not civ'!!)
So many changes have occured between each iteration of civ-especially between Civ2 and Civ3, that such an argument can't really stand up to scrutiny. Civ evolves as a franchise-and IMO an ability to shift 'shields' and 'food' between your cities is part of that evolutionary process.
Of course it would need to be balanced to avoid the very abuses pointed out earlier, but I feel that can be done. Perhaps limiting both the % of food/shields you can move, and the maximum distance they can be moved, on the basis of both tech level and connection to the trade route is a good start. What you also need to remember, though, is that city placement will still be just as vital in the Ancient and even Middle Ages of the game-as few cities would be able to provide for themselves AND other cities in their nation. It wouldn't be until the late Medieval period that major city specialisation would occur. Which brings me to the other self-balancing feature. Everything you provide to one city has GOT to have come from another city, a fact which requires you to make certain sacrfices. If you don't have any 'breadbasket' cities, then an ability to shift food between cities is NOT going to stop all your cities from being stagnant, or even starving!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

When it is true what we've heard:

-you can specialize your cities, that means you CAN have food-producing cities helping shield power-houses or Science think-tank-cities out! Why? Because:
- you can trade resources and as far as I understood food as well! At least different types of food which already adds to reality...

And furthermore: health determines your city growth and I think health will be (partly) determined by the VARIETY of food you have in store, not the amount! IMO, they took care of the food system. And we don't know what's true before we know, right?? *doh*

P.S.: I stated it before and I state it again: It has to be balanced. Realism is important, yes! But if it's too realistic the game will just suck! If you want realism go to a bus-stop and watch the people waiting there. THAT'S realism! Good for your REAL life (makes sense, doesn't it?), not necessarily good for the game! :sleep:

You show me someone who uses the city governor and automated Workers and I'll show you someone who won't win over monarch. :p


I know a player who automates 90% of his workers and NEVER zooms a city (runs them all on governor) who wins a fair amount on Deity.

Despite this, I agree with your wider point. Adding layers of complexity only to turn around and automate them all is the worst mistake a game designer can make. This is what turned Master of Orion III into a steaming pile of junk.

If you don't want the player to touch it, you abstract it.


Civ2 had Caravans that could transfer food from one city to another, but it was a load of added micromanagement. I tried it a few times, but it never struck me as anything particularly useful.

Soren said (in that video from E3) that one could trade Wheat. So what does do in the game? It must be something measurable (and simple). I didn't catch that in the video, but maybe I missed it.

Now I didn't see anything in there about trading "food" in the Civ2 caravan style. But if it were in there, I'd want it out. The part of civ that keeps the game fresh for me for longer is the random maps. The fact that cities vary in character according to their terrain is a big part of the fun.


The last thing I would want Firaxis to do is to add micromanagement I'm not supposed to mess with, leaving me to rip out my hair when the automation that is supposed to handle it for me only ends up mismanaging it. Gah! :eek:


- Sirian

@Aussie_Lurker, Stilgar08

shields no longer exist! We have hammers now!
So please, please, use the new term, it just feels more like civIV :D

mitsho

PS: I had to write it that large, cause nobody listened to me before... :)

Wow, how many shields did you need to produce those big letters? :lol:

- Sirian

They kept the well-known, classical civilization food supplying method...

Yes. Mind you, they even kept that outdated, 15 year old name for the game. They even seem to have kept those outdated 'turns'. Oh, and the worst - AFAIK, CIV is supposed to run on a PC, not xbox. :eek:

There will ALWAYS be 1 or 2 things within Civ which will never-and SHOULD never-change, such as its name, its turn based nature and possibly some of the key civs, units and improvements which we have come to know and love. Everything else, though, is well and truly 'up for grabs' IMHO. This time around I really think that it is how your food and hammers get distributed that needs a huge revamp.
As I have pointed out, this CAN be done in a simple way-without tonnes of MM.
In your trade screen, you have an IN and an OUT column. In both columns you have each of your cities listed, with their current Health and Population, and with 2 sets of hammer and bread icons next to them-one followed by their current output, and the other set followed by '% number boxes'. If your city is too far from the capital (according to tech level) or if its not hooked into your trade network, then it WON'T appear in either of the two columns. Im this screen you can tell-at a glance-which cities are doing poorly and lack food/hammers-and those that are VERY healthy and have a food/hammer 'surplus'. You can also adjust the % number next to the hammer/bread icons in both of the IN and OUT columns. In the IN column, it refers to what % of its output goes into the central 'Pool', and in the OUT Column, it refers to what % of the central 'Pool' they are taking out. %'s are easy, IMO, because you don't have to keep going back to the screen every turn to adjust it just because a city is producing a few units more-or less-food each turn. For me, this represents a relatively easy 'set and forget' model which need only be checked every so often if a player feels circumstances have changed sufficiently to warrant altering the incomings and outgoings. It could be automated, but doing so would provide little more advantage than if the player chooses to do it randomly. Also, just to be certain, these % should also be settable within each city screen-as a backup.
Hope that all made sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Soren said (in that video from E3) that one could trade Wheat. So what does do in the game? It must be something measurable (and simple). I didn't catch that in the video, but maybe I missed it.


Soren stated you can trade food between cities but only for health purposes, not for growth.

So unless something has changed in the past week I dont think this will be happening.

I know a very easy way to implement this idea of food and shield trade with very little MM. Say you have a breadbasket city and a city in the mountains, you have a tool to link the two. That is it. Click trading city, Click recieving city, Done. The food city will just send what it can to any linked city, dividing it appropriately. You could have a button so you could see all the linked cities with colored lines and easily redistribut.

I think its the people that play at the higher levels that dont want this, cause they realize they would have to spend every turn maximizing where the food goes. But I really dont care about this. They play a totally different game then me, which I dont even call civ, but civmath. These are the same people that enjoy moving workers around every turn and dont want a CtP type of work project system, because that is a civ type experience.

Not being harsh, they are free to enjoy they game as they wish, BUT WE SOULD DEFINITLY NOT BE DESIGING THE GAME WITH THAT MINDSET.

They game should not get more difficult at higher levels by requiring more MM, it should require more advanced strategy.

Hey, interesting thread!! I agree with Aussie Lurker - your idea seems pretty close to what I believe would be the best. Just imagine the possibilities!! If you wanted to, you could follow Soviet's example, where Stalin decided to export lots of grain to make money which he could use to industrialize Soviet. Bad thing was, of course, that Soviet starved, and Health went down, but Soviet was industrialized. Or, you could rely on trade relations with your allies so that you could import food, and focus on economy and production. I am very excited about this, and I wonder how Civ4 actually works in this respect. Different types of food also offer a great amount of possibilities....

Why not just sum up all the food produced in your civ and - only in case there´s an undisturbed trade route available, of course - automatically distribute it to where it is needed?

Having a "pool" like that (with "food produced"/"used" per round), trading food with the other civs would be done just like the x gp / round-treaties in civ3.

This pool-concept could be applied to hammers as well, creating the possibility to trade production capacity with other civs.

These options should be available only after getting certain techs (transportation-techniques for both, some economy-tech for the hammers) - and influenced by government style and diplomatic conditions.

I think this deepening of the international trade/economics concept could make especially the late game significantly more interesting. (Just imagine how much more effective a multilateral embargo or, on the other hand, alliance-systems would be, for example.)

I don´t see why these concepts should afford any additional micromanagement, and it would certainly make the terrain you choose to place your cities on even more important.

For yet another time the Firaxians did not succeed in taking care of the food supplying system of Civ games. They kept the well-known, classical civilization food supplying method, that is unrealistic and, to me, annoying.

The world's largest cities do not produce the biggest food amounts. Instead, a nation's cities SHARE FOOD SUPPLIES via trade routes, etc., especially in modern times. If such a feature existed:

would allow a mountain-surrounded city to grow normally and ...become a nation's most important industrial centre. Similarly, little important dessert cities, found in rivers' banks, would become a nation's most important food supplier, if the player wished so.

HISTORICAL EXAMPLES:
::The province of Egypt has been the main grain supplier for the medieval Byzantine Empire.
::Modern Northern France gets all of its crops from the southern part or from the french overseas territories.
::The US southern states play the same role for the industrialized northern states.

ANCIENT TIMES: Grain crops were dried and transported over the cities of empires.
MODERN TIMES: Little needs to be mentioned; there are numerous ways of transporting goods and food without risking of spoiling it.


Hopefully, Civ5 will include such realistic and obstacle-overcoming features, although I doubt...


I think they kind of delt with that issue by haing food resources such as wheat and corn. I doubt tat woill completely solve the problem- but I agree with you, look at las vegas, the fastest growing city in the us, and it's in the middle of a desert!

The reasons why I strongly oppose this one and the CtP style Worker automation isn't that I love MM that much. The reason is game balance:
A breadbasket city... Civ2 had something like that (at least 1fpt export). I seriously doubt a strategic planing of such an extent could be teached to a TBS AI within the next decade.
CtP Worker distribution: The opposite. Either the AI is completely inept like in CtP, or the human won't ever be able to compete with the AI (or The City Governor) here. With the Civ3 type Workers, he can - by long-term planning.

The real problem with TBS AIs is to find the proper 'power': it needs to be strong enough to be challenging; OTOH, the game needs to contain elements were the human can learn to outperform it (and not, outperform it by default) - eitherwise it's no fun to play at all.

I, too, don't want to sound harsh. But, anyone wishing for a game with no need to ever open the city screen, to ever improve the terrain with his 'own' hands - in other words, to not bother with city level choices at all: Play Diplomacy.

I´m not too sure about the AI not capable of handling the concept, it has to manage more specialized cities in Civ4 anyway, as it seems.

Another suggestion concerning my food-pool idea: if you have sufficient means of transport, why shouldn´t it be possible to cultivate land that´s in your civ´s territory, but not in immediate proximity to a city?

As the whole city-system works now, it just doesn´t have much resemblence to the modern world and makes the late-game-mechanics feel quite strange.

Soren stated you can trade food between cities but only for health purposes, not for growth.

What if city population growth and city health were somehow related? Hmmm....

So unless something has changed in the past week I dont think this will be happening.


Considering how fast game programmers sling code, a lot can happen in a week, much less the few months they still have.

The reasons why I strongly oppose this one and the CtP style Worker automation isn't that I love MM that much. The reason is game balance:
A breadbasket city... Civ2 had something like that (at least 1fpt export). I seriously doubt a strategic planing of such an extent could be teached to a TBS AI within the next decade.
CtP Worker distribution: The opposite. Either the AI is completely inept like in CtP, or the human won't ever be able to compete with the AI (or The City Governor) here. With the Civ3 type Workers, he can - by long-term planning.

The real problem with TBS AIs is to find the proper 'power': it needs to be strong enough to be challenging; OTOH, the game needs to contain elements were the human can learn to outperform it (and not, outperform it by default) - eitherwise it's no fun to play at all.

I, too, don't want to sound harsh. But, anyone wishing for a game with no need to ever open the city screen, to ever improve the terrain with his 'own' hands - in other words, to not bother with city level choices at all: Play Diplomacy.

I have to humbly disagree. While I'm already there, I have to disagree completely... :p
Distribution of food could easily been done, given that some concepts would be changed (which would make the whole more realistic, anyway...)

1) Population growth doesn't depend on the absolute food available, anymore. It would depend on the "necessary" food available, though. What does this mean?
Spoken in terms of Civ3, a pophead would reproduce every 10 turns. That means, 10 popheads would reproduce this new pophead every turn - under the assumption, that enough food for 11 pops would be available.
This is realistic, as you don't have more children, just because you have a bigger food store the next block. But more people have more children, causing more population - if both can survive.

2) Any food produced but not consumed in your city, goes to the national "basket" or pool. From there, it will be distributed to cities which lack food. Let's assume you have a surplus of 5 food and 3 cities, which lack it. They would get the food needed due to internal (automatic distribution).
In case you would have 3 surplus and 5 cities running short (which by the way, could then only be caused by military actions or other forms of loosing territory, thus reducing MM further), the cities with the highest impact of having a shortage would get it (under the assumption that starving causes unhappiness - again, this is a concept which currently is missing in the game).
Easy to calculate, and no need for micro-management at all. The pre-requisite for distribution would be a road or ship or air connection, obviously.

3) This would make for more accurate city placing. You could have the farm areas, and the industrial areas as well. Cities like New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin completely are dependant on food coming from outside of their city limits.
There would be less benefit of concepts like OCP as well, thus lowering the "exploitive" factors.
So, this in turn would mean much more realism in the game.

4) It doesn't seem so complicated to make the AI identify bonus ressources. A tile with wheat or any other bonus ressource is easily to identify for both, the human player and the AI. The AI then even could handle modded ressources more easily and wouldn't fail to place the cities in an "optimal" way, anymore.

About the public working system as of CtP2:
You (and the AI) would determine, where to improve a given tile. But, you don't send a worker to it, it will be improved by the "PW-quantity" available per turn.
Let's assume that each improvement would require 10 virtual PW-"hammers" per turn, which are provided by the percentual rate of your cities' productions being allocated to the national pool.
Now, we assume that the national pool will be filled by 120 "PW-hammers" per turn. Then you just could improve 12 tiles, simultenaously. You couldn't allocate a 13th tile, then. What is realistic, once more. And what doesn't differ that much from the worker concept, except for having to manouvre them manually around.
The respective improvement could require different totals, though. Maybe a "standard irrigation" would "cost" 60 "PW-hammers", so it would take 6 turns to get it. A "standard road" would require let's say 40 "hammers", a railroad 100 and so on (all numbers just for display).

This would be very easy to understand, it would definetely require less micro-management and I don't see a major difficulty for the programming.

Voila! :goodjob:

@commander bello Some questions to your food system (I actually would really really like to have a such): what happens if you have say 3 surplus food and no city needs it? Are they stored, where? Is there any way to influence where the food goes to? (ex. The player can block a city of sending its food somewhere or blocking a city of recieving it, he can place x-y priorities (where the food goes to first)). Your system above leads to Sir-we-have-food-surplus-but-no-use-for-it.

mitsho

@commander bello Some questions to your food system (I actually would really really like to have a such): what happens if you have say 3 surplus food and no city needs it? Are they stored, where? Is there any way to influence where the food goes to? (ex. The player can block a city of sending its food somewhere or blocking a city of recieving it, he can place x-y priorities (where the food goes to first)). Your system above leads to Sir-we-have-food-surplus-but-no-use-for-it.

mitsho

In case surplus is not needed, it would just go to the garbage. As it does in the European Union very often.
My basic idea is just that the size of the population determines the growth of it. Food has to be available, but more food doesn't make for more children.

About how to determine where the food goes to:
Always to the city in which it is most needed = where a shortage would cause the most unrest.
As already mentioned, in principle you just couldn't have shortages, just as a consequence of lost terrain. BUT, missing food can hold your growth.

As far as I see it, this is a balanced concept, dealing with quite some problems as of Civ3, it is understandable, requires no micro-management and shouldn't be very hard to be programmed.

Well, as I said, I like the idea a lot. But the food surplus must have some effect:
- sell it on the market (to other civs)
- more food -> less starving AND -> ability to grow more different luxury foods (that use more input and provide less (nutritial) output (but more econmical) -> more money and/or more health (-> more growth)
correct?

Well, as I said, I like the idea a lot. But the food surplus must have some effect:
- sell it on the market (to other civs)
- more food -> less starving AND -> ability to grow more different luxury foods (that use more input and provide less (nutritial) output (but more econmical) -> more money and/or more health (-> more growth)
correct?

Before I answer those questions, allow me to point out another benefit of my conception:
The AI will be enabled to optimize it's national production!

If there are those 5 food surplus, it would check for the city with the highest production modifiers (forge, blacksmith, factory, whatever) if there is still a "food field" which could be switched to production (in Civ3 terms, switching from a mined grassland to a hill). If after this switch there still is at least no shortage, it would check for the next field or for the second best production city....

And the city governor could easily tell you about the outcome of your latest settings: "Sir, this will cause a national shortage on food. Do you want to proceed?"
Again, less micro-management needed, but optimized output....

Ooopps.. pressed the button too early...

Yes, mitsho, you're right...
Surplus food then could easily be sold at the "world market". Your idea about having luxury food could be a great addition to my concept, as well! :goodjob:

Why not make hammers and food totaly disposeable, limited by tec and distance.
Say fex. untill development of pottery you may only shift food between cities less than 3 tiles apart after that up to 7 tiles and so forth, mabe adjusted that if you want to move the food further you need to "pay" a penalty for spoiled food so moveing twice as far as allowed forces a 50% spoiling penalty.

btw does anyone know if hammers are terrain dependant or pop dependant? the latter would be mor realistic considering that one worker mining would probably not produce more than 10 workers manufacturing.

one more thing, I think mabe we are getting too hyped up, mabe we are in for a big dissapointment b/c they didn't change nearly enouth and/or were not as inovative as we are.

cheers

All I can say is that when I play it, if it doesn't feel like a game of Civ, I'll be disappointed.

All I can say is that when I play it, if it doesn't feel like a game of Civ, I'll be disappointed.

Beg your pardon? :confused:

I am curious about that comment too, Commander Bello. I certainly don't see how an ability to shift food and hammers to cities that truly need them will make the game feel LESS like Civ?! Also, as has been cited before, whether the shift is automatic or player decided, it will actually make city placement in the earlier stages even MORE important-as failure to take advantage of high food and/or high production terrains will place greater restrictions on the players choice of city placements during the industrial and modern age.
This could also have a side-benefit in reducing the direct benefits between city number and success-making it more important to locate fewer cities VERY WELL, than lots of cities in a higgledy-piggledy fashion.
That has GOT to be a good thing!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

What I meant is that if I am spending all my time managing food distribution (even though that was the major job of early rulers), it won't feel like Civ to me (reality has very little to do with why I like Civ).

Well, as far as I can see, plenty of models have been put forward here which would allow for food distribution in the game WITHOUT requiring a player to spend all, or even a lot, of his time managing said distribution on a turn by turn basis.
This will be even MORE true if they have a decent governor system this time out ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

What I meant is that if I am spending all my time managing food distribution (even though that was the major job of early rulers), it won't feel like Civ to me (reality has very little to do with why I like Civ).

I would agree upon the fact that distributing food manually could become a tedious task.
Therefore, in post #37, I tried to suggest a concept which I feel would avoid this manual distribution completely AND would allow to cover all related issues...

This idea has potential. The food trade could be automated, just as trade is currently automated in Civ III. Food could be automatically transferred from cities with surplus food, to those with deficits. Perhaps a percentage of the food would be lost over the distance; this loss could decrease with technology and infrastructure. Thus players would have more of an incentive to hook up everything with roads and railroads.

Internationally, you could pay to buy another civ's excess food. This would open up whole new strategies. You could have small countries like Japan, with little land, that increase their population by importing food. Thus, trading food could potentially reduce the importance of size and make smaller civs viable. Big civs would still be better off but small civs could become powerful through trade.

This would also open up the strategy of food as weapon, which has been used in real life. In real life, countries like Britain and Germany imported food and thus needed to keep the sea lanes open. Naval blocakdes would take on a whole lot more importance. In WWI the Allies used food to force the Germans to sign the Versailles treaty. Likewise, Germany's submarine warfare was an attempt to cut off England's food supply.

Then perhaps the same could be done with shields. Or alternatively, shields could be generated by your population, allowing a country like Japan to import food, increase its population, and thus increase its shield output. Then Japan could use its extra shield output to pay for its food imports. Or it could also use gold...it is all the same. Thus Japan and its partner would become interdendent. Japan would depend on the other civ for food. And the other civ would depend on Japan for its shields.

City size could then be limited by space and happiness factors. If a city gets too crowded the citizens get unhappy. There could also be a limit to how many citizens you could have per tile.

Quote from Aussie Lurker, 'As for it adding MM, I don't see why?? A simple % based vector system would work very well, with all vectored shields and/or food ending up in the main trade screen-where it can be easily dished out to the cities which require it, or traded to other civilizations for cash, resources or the like. It is a system which would require no more (and actually quite less) MM than the existing systems of sending workers out to build terrain improvements, or the allocation of population to working certain squares.'

Good point once again Aussie, though the games are clearly different - re-tasking citizens in Empire Earth was one of the few useful things in that game to cut down on MM. This would actually give a point to the population advisor systems in Civ 3. Selective distributing or resources. If some players don't like it, why not put in an automated system.

Adding some realism to the game is important, and especially if its easy enough to implement.

I like the idea of food trading. The whole idea of implementing how far you can transport the food depending on techs. If they can implement it where it's automated well then you will have a truly global economy with specialized metropolises(or is it metropoli?). Hammer trading would also be amazing. Think of it like an outsourcing tech.

If a feature is supposed to be handed over to the Governor anyway, becuase he can do the job better in any case - you can as well drop it. Just consider it included in the abstraction.

A feature either has to be 'fun', or rewarding work (like quite some MM in Civ3, especially partial rushing).

I'm not at all against a 'Food Resource'; something that gives +1 fpt to cities recieving it (maybe the Health concept works that way?).

But vectors from City A to B, then founding City C to support A :vomit:.
Did you ever played that Civ2 system (which was exactly like the proposals)? An endless vectoring of Food Caravans. A total mess.

I'm afraid that you have REALLY misunderstood my system Doc.
The thing which TRULY made caravans boring was that you had to build and physically move said units, and keep an eye on them EVERY turn. With my system, everything is managed from a single screen and-because its a % based system I advocate-its pretty much a 'set and forget' system, where you only have to go in and check it when a new city becomes a 'breadbasket' or if you feel circumstances have changed sufficiently to make alterations.
As for the role of governors, they would only be a major issue in very large nations, and would then only do the 'day to day' food management, with the rest being dealt with by the player.
Personally, I don't see ANYTHING particularly difficult or frustrating or boring in this system.
On a related note, its a real shame that the CtP rations system doesn't seem to have made it into Civ4 either :(!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

The thing which TRULY made caravans boring was that you had to build and physically move said units, and keep an eye on them EVERY turn. One 'goto', and that was it.

What made the system painful was that permanent redistribution, checking which city needs food this turn, which one has surplus now (since the Jungle was gone, or the terraforming finally ended); and of course, like almost everything in Civ2, the fact the AI had not the slightest idea of it.

The Food Deliveries were the second most tedious MM in any Civ version ever. Period.
(The most teduious thing was the Settler bug in Civ1; complete any task in 1 turn, by waking up that Settler over and over again...)

If it can be accessed with a F screen for its own...well, why not playing Railroad Tycoon?
More important: That only helps with the interface; the uber-tedious check every city for food situation (and more important, future food stiuation) stays the same.

Compared to that, 'whack-an-orange-blob' is fun.

I agree on manually sending caravans or regulating a cities food/ressources supply being nothing but tedious, but I think there are better ways to realise the concept anyway.

A pool-system, as suggested above, would require no additional micromanagement at all, but it would increase interesting strategic gameplay options tremendously (as well as realism, for those who care about it).

i don't know how many times i've referred to Master of Magic...

it has a growth based solely on race reproduction skills... if there's enough food to suport city's population and a square is available, then the population increases by a fixed number... when it reaches a certain milestone, then a new head appears...

the extra food was showed in the main screen just above the extra gold... the extra food, of course, did not accumulate... and it was used to feed the military

If it can be accessed with a F screen for its own...well, why not playing Railroad Tycoon?
More important: That only helps with the interface; the uber-tedious check every city for food situation (and more important, future food stiuation) stays the same.

Uhm sorry but I dn't see how that is tedious at all... For example you may tag cities for recieving form the pool and adding to the pool or give enouth so city1 grows only every 8 turns and tag city2 to grow every 1 turn. This would be ueber-helpful as those damn -1 +1 food surplus cities are finaly some use other than for bringing in workers. Then doing something similar to give that +48 shields (or hammers) city the extra two to shave off the extra turns. Remember this is also historicly acurate as people and resources were carted all through empires and foreign Nations to complete Great projects (wood, straw, stone, and farmers from the south for the Monuments in Egypt) and suplement armies (Men are drafted from wide areas to create units within central baracks).
This would be THE reason to build a city in the Floodplain without shields in the area or in the Mountains and hills withoiut access to food. All it needs is some more work. Not like most of you mind moving around all them workers, if you want an advantage.

cheers

i hate the idea of sharing hammers or shields or whatever they are, in any fashion. if i have a far flung city, it should not be able to "produce" the production of my whole empire just cause i have a road to it. i know that's an exaduration, but you get my point i hope.

food sharing i like. commanders idea seems perfect to me.
all extra food for cities connected to your capitol gets put in a pool that the "starving" cities draw from. if there's not enough food for your population to grow, then it dont.
population based growth is also a good idea that fits that concept well.
health and/or happiness can influence how many kids your population has every turn.

i think extra food (for the nation) should be just thrown out. but i understand why being able to trade it could be fun. if its a "throw away" system, then if you have extra food in the empire, you just go into a city and switch a tile from grassland to hills or something, and there you go, no unneccessary surpluss.

putting "distance" limits on food will cause problems.
if i have 3 cities, A, B and C.
A makes lots of food (bread basket)
B makes a enough food to feed itself (balanced)
C is a mountain city that makes no food.

if the rules say that because C is far from A, i cant feed it, that sucks. i'd say well, B is between the 2, it'll send all its food to C and A will send food to B.
and those kinds of things will make the system cumbersome.
so it has to be national pool system of some sort. with disconnected cities having to make their own food and not being counted in the pool.

whoever posted that "worker points" system, that's a great idea too. sort of like a national tax on production, right? that gets put towards terrain improvement by the player. i've always hated workers in civ.