Since most of the numbers in this game are stored as signed ints they can go negative. I'm curious about how the game handles negative vaules for different things so I thought I'd make this thread so people can discuss what they have observed. I'll get it started.

Cities can go nagative. The amount of food requited to grow continues to decrease by 2 per size. So, for example, a -2 size city takes 2 less food to grow to size -1 just like a size 14 city takes two less food to grow to size 15. I guess if city size goes far enough negative you might get a problem when food required to grow dropped below 1.

Culture can go negative. A city with less than 1 culture only has its own square for borders. This can cause starvation really fast if there aren't other cities around to give them access to squares they can work.

Does anyone know what happens when other values go negative? Gold? Research?

Roger Bacon

Culture can go negative. A city with less than 1 culture only has its own square for borders. This can cause starvation really fast if there aren't other cities around to give them access to squares they can work.

Roger Bacon
Surely this should be less than 0? Cities start with 0 culutre and the 9 squares.

Surely this should be less than 0? Cities start with 0 culutre and the 9 squares.

Correct. 0 culture gives a border of 1 square distance. 0 culture or below gives a culture border of 0 square distance. i.e. just hte city itself.

Roger Bacon

-1 addition to movement cost makes the unit move slower if it has more movement. Used on my stalwart promotion.