I am beginning to figure out a few things, but the main difficulty is that there are SO many factors, whys, wherefores, ifs, ands and buts AND "it depends", that some of the really basic stuff has been totally confused in my thinking. Specialist Economies, Cottage economies, etc. have all become tied together and I can't sort it out.

Just looking at FOOD, how does food work?? [Please correct me if I say anything wrong here.] I'm trying to get REALLY BASIC.

You have a city. Each city has a "fat cross" that is a cities workable area. A tile has to be "worked" in order to be productive. City population determines how many tiles can be worked.

A grassland tile provides 2 food :food:. Other tiles provide more (river, flood plain) or less (desert) food.

There are specialty tiles (livestock, rice, corn, wheat) that provide more, but they must be improved (farm, pasture) and be connected to provide beyond what the unimproved tile would provide.

Adding a farm provides an additional (ONE??) food :food: to any tile that you can build a farm on.

In a hypothetical city (in the middle of nowhere - with no barbs or AIs to worry about), surrounded by grasslands...

City starts as size 1. The population starts to work one of the grassland tiles. Right?

I know that food dertermines the ability of the city to grow. And I know that each population uses 2 food. So, when will the city grow??

Since there is PLENTY of food potential here, the maximum size of the city is the number of tiles in the fat cross - right? And since our hypothetical city does not have a water resource near it, we can't build any farms. So, we'll never have any excess food.

Taking this a step further... let's say there is a river that runs one tile to the west of my city (all the tiles are still grassland). Since grassland next to a river provides an extra :food: those tiles will be worked first - right? Since those tiles provide an extra food, we wil have an excess. What happens to the excess food?? Does it allow for quicker growth (in population)?

Since we have a river, we can build farms. Let's say a worker wanders by from a far-away city. And we have him build a farm by the river. So, that adds another :food:. Now that tile is producing 2 extra :food:. Right?

What I'm trying to understand here is how food is connected to growth.

So, a couple of follow-on questions:

- what causes a cities fat cross to grow?? Is food tied to that directly or is it population or something else??

- what the heck is a granary and what does it do with food?

Ok, I'll bite.

First one, you're a bit off about rivers, they do not produce food in itself, only flood plain terrain has base 3 food apart from resources.

However, those with river adjacent produce +1 commerce as default, and will thus be worked first. Additionally you'll get 2 food from the city square itself.

1 population requires 2 food to be sustained, since there are grassland you get +2 food total. Each level of population requires a different amount of food to increase, depending on game speed (can't remember the normal speed limit... 10 turns?). All excess food is stored until a new citizen is born.

Then the process starts again, and if you have granary half of that food needed to grow is kept, thus the city grows faster. Check out the thread about whipping and granaries in the War tips forum to get the details.

The fat cross starts out small at once, then is grown once you reach sufficient culture (not dependent on food). To get culture you either need to have a cultured leader (+2 culture all cities) or build buildings, wonders, adjust culture rate, spread your religion etc. to get higher culture.

Base culture needed to expand borders and get the fat cross is 10 on normal speed.

Farms add +1 food, +2 with biology if irrigated (near fresh water or other irrigated farm).

The more food you can produce, the faster the city will grow.

some info that might be useful:

a resource gives 3 kinds of bonuses.
first it gives the tile itself a small bonus, either 1f, 1p, or 1g.
second you can build a special resource specific improvement on the tile, usually giving a better bonus than other regular improvements.
third, when connected to your trade system, will give all connected cities either +1happy, +1health, and/or the ability to build some kind of unit that needs it. this bonus does not stack.

a city tile always produces 2food, 1production, 1gold, even on desert.
the city tile does not get the +1 gold river bonus.
the city tile will get the first resource bonus, (IE corn would make a city tile 3f 1p 1g), and will give you access to the third bonus (the happy or health) but you will not be able to build the special improvement.

a forest next to a river will remove the +1 gold river bonus.
a lumbermill built in a forest next to a river will enable the +1 gold river bonus.

also regarding food in a city. if the city is eating more food than it makes, the food supply will decrease turn by turn until it hits zero. when it hits zero, you start losing population every turn. the food supply will not wrap around to full. it will stay empty, and unless there becomes enough food for the remaining pop, you will continue to lose pop per turn.

Adding a farm provides an additional (ONE??) food to any tile that you can build a farm on.

technically there are four types of farm

standard farms, and rice farms give +1 food, (+2 with biology)
corn farms, and wheat farms give +2 food, (+3 with biology)

this is in addition to the base resource bonus from rice, corn, or wheat, which is +1 food.

so for example a corn farm on a grassland tile:
2 base food from grassland tile
+1 food from corn
+2 food from corn farm (+3 with biology)

so a corn farm tile on grassland will have 5 food (6 with biology)

You have a city. Each city has a "fat cross" that is a cities workable area. A tile has to be "worked" in order to be productive. City population determines how many tiles can be worked.
all correct. note that the city tile is worked for free, so a city with size 1 is working the city tile, and one other tile.

A grassland tile provides 2 food . Other tiles provide more (river, flood plain) or less (desert) food.
base food:
plain 1
grassland 2
tundra 1
desert 0
ice 0
coast 1, 2 with lighthouse
ocean 1

rivers provide +1 gold to nearby tiles, and are a source of fresh water so that you can build farms. farms give +food, rivers dont.

Since there is PLENTY of food potential here, the maximum size of the city is the number of tiles in the fat cross - right?
the max size of a city is directly related to how much food is available. there is no actual limit AFAIK, but the bigger your city gets the more unhealth there will be. once total unhealth is greater than total health, you start losing some food which will slow growth and may cause starvation (less food worked than eaten).

What happens to the excess food?? Does it allow for quicker growth (in population)?
for each level of pop, there is an amount of food you need to accumulate and reach. (you accumulate food by farming more food than the city needs to eat). when you reach the amount you need your city gains +1 pop, and your accumulated food is reset to zero. a granary causes your food to be reset to 50% instead.

Since we have a river, we can build farms. Let's say a worker wanders by from a far-away city. And we have him build a farm by the river. So, that adds another . Now that tile is producing 2 extra . Right?
river doesnt provide food, only the farm does. river does provide a +1 gold bonus to nearby tiles, and also fresh water to be able to build a farm. you can also get fresh water from a 'coast' tile that is inland. (IE a fresh water lake).

what causes a cities fat cross to grow?? Is food tied to that directly or is it population or something else??
only culture causes your 'fat cross' to grow. only the very first culture level limits your ability to work tiles.

hope this helps

[quote=BrantleyL1;5647368]
Since there is PLENTY of food potential here, the maximum size of the city is the number of tiles in the fat cross - right? And since our hypothetical city does not have a water resource near it, we can't build any farms. So, we'll never have any excess food.[/quote=BrantleyL1;5647368]

There is a tech that lets you spread farms. It comes around Civil Engineering times.

I'm still REALLY unclear on this....

I now get that culture is tied to "Fat Cross" expansion.

I know that food is tied into the increase in city size. But I'm unclear as to how that works.

I went into mapbuilder and built a huge grassland and plunked down two settlers. One (city 1) was completely surrounded by grassland (only) and the other (city 2) was also surrounded by grasslands, but had a river one square to the west.

City 1 started working one of the grassland tiles and after a few turns grew to size "2" and did not start working ANY additional tiles.

City 2 started working one of the grassland river tiles and after a few turns grew to size "2", but they started working one of the other grassland river tiles and eventually grew to size "3".

When I added a worker & built cottages near city 1, growth continued - but a little slower than City 2 where I built farms.

This does not make a lot of sense. And I am still completely unclear as to the effect of a granery.

In city 1, the computer decided what your new population unit should be doing (when your city grew to size 2). Working an unimproved grasslands tile give you enough food to feed the worker, but no other benefit - so it's a bit pointless. If you don't work the tile, and instead make the worker into a "citizen specialist", the worker provides no food but gives you one unit of production. So, the city will stop growing, but the computer had worked out that there was no benefit from making it any bigger, which is why it didn't work a second grass tile. Working a second grass tile would let the city grow, but it wouldn't be any more productive than when the city was smaller. After it grew, it could work another grass tile, but once again, this wouldn't provide any benefit. And so on, until the city reached its maximum size. The computer knows that it's pointless to do that when all the city can produce is food, so instead it turned the new population unit into a citizen specialist.

In city 2, it was just about worthwhile working the river tiles, because as well as 2 food, they give you 1 commerce. So, the computer will assign population units to work those tiles, until there are no river tiles left. After that, it will turn excess population into citizen specialists, instead of having them work pointless grass tiles.

*EDIT* This is the same reason that adding the cottages to city 1 meant the tile started being worked. Cottages give them an extra unit of commerce, so it becomes worthwhile working them. When they're unimproved, they only provide 2 units of food, so a person working them only supports themselves, they don't make any actual contribution of hammers, commerce or excess food. That's why unimproved grassland tiles don't get worked by default.

Hi
Check this out :
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/food_growth.php
or this one
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/completeguide1.php

Seriously, have you read the war academy ?

it's worth mentioning that when you found a city, the food in your city square in the middle is "free" ... in other words, your city starts at 1 population, but you actually have 2 circles on your city screen: 1 in the middle always giving you at least 2 food, and 1 more on one of your surrounding squares, working a piece of land.

So to begin, you have 1 population eating 2 food, but you also have another 2 food free. So that means you are growing right away. Those 2 extra food are stored each turn, so 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 (5 turns) = 10 food stored. I don't rememember how much you need to grow the first turn, but if it's 10 food, that means after those 5 turns you will now have 2 population, so 2 circles working the land.

The granary, if you build one in a city, will take 1/2 the food you stored after growth and keep it stored until you grow again.
So let's say you went 5 turns and stored 10 total food. Normally after the 10th turn you now grow to population 2 and would have no food stored and have to start over from 0 storing more food (all that stored food "creates" the new population).
But with the granary, you would grow to size 2 but have 5 food leftover in the granary. So now to grow again to size 3, it will take only half as much food as without a granary.

The "Fat Cross" is always a 5 by 5 area of the map with a city in the center and the corners cut off. This is the region in which your city can work. However, it does NOT grow. What grows is your cultural borders. In order for a population point to work on a tile, the tile has to be in the "fat cross" AND in your cultural borders. You can't work tiles in the fat cross but outside your borders, and you can't work tiles inside your borders but outside your fat cross.

These are two different concepts, and the cultural border concept is newer to the civ series. However, I do see how one might get them confused. ;)

yup. good point crenor.

It's possibly worth noting as an aside that you can work tiles in your fat cross if they're in your borders regardless of which city's cultural influence owns that tile - new cities founded near or within your borders will often have more tiles available in the first instance (but will still need to grow to make use of more than one of them, of course).

City 1 started working one of the grassland tiles and after a few turns grew to size "2" and did not start working ANY additional tiles.

City 2 started working one of the grassland river tiles and after a few turns grew to size "2", but they started working one of the other grassland river tiles and eventually grew to size "3".

When I added a worker & built cottages near city 1, growth continued - but a little slower than City 2 where I built farms.

with both cities, when they were size 1, they would have required 2 food to support their pop, and were farming 4 (2 from city tile + 2 from grassland tile worked). 4 farmed (per turn) minus 2 consumed (per turn) = 2 surplus (per turn). this 2 surplus would have accumulated over time until the city reached its "surplus food goal". at this point all surplus food is reset to zero, and you gain +1 pop. (there is actually a status bar at the top of the city screen that will show you the 4 - 2 = 2 calculation as well as how close you are to the goal).

a granary will cause your surplus food to reset to half instead of zero.

when city 1 reached size 2, it sounds like the next pop point was not used to work a tile, but as a citizen (which in the early game is +1 production). in this case city 1's total productivity would be 4 food, 2 production, 1 commerce. at pop 2 the city eats 4 food, so you should have had stagnant growth for city 1 until you placed the pop on the map to work a tile.

for city 2, after hitting 2 population, was working 2 grassland river tiles, so its total productivity would have been 6 food, 1 production, 3 commerce. 6 food farmed (per turn) - 4 food eaten (per turn) = 2 food surplus (per turn), so this city would eventually make it to size 3. for every farm you built that got worked at city 2, food farmed (per turn) would go up by 1, and therefore food surplus (per turn) would also go up by 1.

so in summary:
- Surplus Food per turn = Food Farmed per turn minus Food Eaten per turn
- Food Eaten per turn = City Population * 2
- every turn Surplus Food per turn is added to Total Surplus Food.
- once Total Surplus Food reaches X (some number that varies by difficulty, city size, and game speed), you gain +1 population, and Total Surplus Food is reset to zero
- a granary causes Total Surplus Food to be reset to 50% instead of 0% when your population grows
- If Surplus Food per turn is negative, then Total Surplus Food will eventually fall passed zero. when this happens you will lose 1 population per turn until Surplus Food per turn becomes greater than or equal to zero

In city 1, the computer decided what your new population unit should be doing (when your city grew to size 2). Working an unimproved grasslands tile give you enough food to feed the worker, but no other benefit - so it's a bit pointless. If you don't work the tile, and instead make the worker into a "citizen specialist", the worker provides no food but gives you one unit of production. So, the city will stop growing, but the computer had worked out that there was no benefit from making it any bigger, which is why it didn't work a second grass tile. Working a second grass tile would let the city grow, but it wouldn't be any more productive than when the city was smaller. After it grew, it could work another grass tile, but once again, this wouldn't provide any benefit. And so on, until the city reached its maximum size. The computer knows that it's pointless to do that when all the city can produce is food, so instead it turned the new population unit into a citizen specialist.

In city 2, it was just about worthwhile working the river tiles, because as well as 2 food, they give you 1 commerce. So, the computer will assign population units to work those tiles, until there are no river tiles left. After that, it will turn excess population into citizen specialists, instead of having them work pointless grass tiles.

*EDIT* This is the same reason that adding the cottages to city 1 meant the tile started being worked. Cottages give them an extra unit of commerce, so it becomes worthwhile working them. When they're unimproved, they only provide 2 units of food, so a person working them only supports themselves, they don't make any actual contribution of hammers, commerce or excess food. That's why unimproved grassland tiles don't get worked by default.
So, then, why did the city work the first grass tile if it already had two food in the center square to feed the citizen specialist. And, it should have grown to size 20 to fill up the tiles. Why? SCORE FROM POPULATION!!!
I'm not subscribing to this thread, so don't bother to reply to this for my benefit, but for others.

So, then, why did the city work the first grass tile if it already had two food in the center square to feed the citizen specialist. And, it should have grown to size 20 to fill up the tiles. Why? SCORE FROM POPULATION!!!
I'm not subscribing to this thread, so don't bother to reply to this for my benefit, but for others.

not sure. i havent confirmed what that guy said about whether the computer will use a 0f/1p/0g citizen over a 2f/0p/0g square or not. i would think it would take the food. its possible the OP accidentally removed it himself.