I can't find any topics in this forum related to the food issue. So I started this topic. If there is any though, please direct me to the appropriate topic.

Basically, as I am setting city populations, I realise this is a serious problem. Tokyo, having the largest urban population in the world (~35 million) is equivalent to 42 in city population in civ. I doubt Tokyo can generate 84 food in the most ideal case, not to mention it will overlap with other cities, and there will be significant unhealthy penalty for food. Tokyo is the extreme case, but in general, I do think we need roughly another 100% food production in order for most of the cities to be sustainable.

There are many ways I could think of to handle this problem.

1) Decrease the food cost per population from 2 to 1. This will not increase food production but decrease food required by 50%. This solution is simple but it will make Siberia good for city placement (which is unrealistic).

2) Create new terrain type.

3) Add new food resources, or change current food resource bonus.

4) Increase improvements food bonus.

5) Great person food bonus. In GEM, I've changed Great Merchant to produce +3 food and normal Merchant to produce +1. We can even make new great person type called great farmer for example.

6) Corporation. Use those corporations that can generate more food to help boosting food production.

7) Add new buildings to provide food bonus.

8) Add food bonus technology.

9) Civic

Comments?

1) Too unrealistic as you described and makes city placement a problem (another one..)

2) I dislike the idea of a new terrain type, would it have to be built or would it exist? And in which case, why would it only exist near Tokyo?

3) A good proposal, perhaps some crops can become more productive due to technologies or demand.

4) I think this needs to be considered, as intensive farming methods should make every plot more productive.

5) Definitely. I think this is proably one of the most easy to set up suggestions and the one that will get in the least way of progress.

6) Could be, but wouldn't work for every city.

7) Buildings might be an interesting way to do this. It would mean a bit more work however (I'm sure the buildings are done).

8) This sounds good, a new technology is always appreciated. Of course we can adapt things like Sustainibility and Farm technologies (not Organic because it produces less..) to do this.

9) Where would this civic go exactly? I can't see it fitting into many of the already existing civics but those to do with industry.

I think a combination of 8 and 1 may be the best way to go about it. Maybe a tech could halve the cost, and we could up the penalty for cities on tundra.

Option 5 is interesting, too. Perhaps there could be a new citizen type (farmer wouldn't really make much sense; maybe grocer? - is there one already? - I'm rather forgetful) which ups food production in this way.

Just out of interest, how much food do the Japanese import, roughly? Could that be worked in somehow, as well?

I don't know about currently, but I remember during ww2, Japan's yearly food production is only enough to support their own consumption for about 3-4 months. I think UK was about 10 months.

On first glance I would say a building is the easiest solution, and/or decreasing the food cost.

Let me know what you decide on and I'll make the modifications.

Well, Japan'll need to be importing a lot of food from the start, that's for sure.

On first glance I would say a building is the easiest solution, and/or decreasing the food cost.

Let me know what you decide on and I'll make the modifications.

DVS: I think is your call since you are doing the mod. I just want to make you and any other team mate aware of the problem.

But I agree wth NikNaks that it should probably be a combination of all.

NikNaks: Are we going to have some kind of food import system?

On first glance I would say a building is the easiest solution, and/or decreasing the food cost.

Let me know what you decide on and I'll make the modifications.


Actually that doesn't really work (second glance lol), because then any city will be able to grow huge.

We're trying to have it so only certain cities (Toyko, Mexico city, etc) are able to get to that size, right?

For that I guess we'll have to add a new tile. Or could we add a resource, and give a large food bonus from the improvement?

Or should we do number 5, and have those cities start with a lot of the new great person...

Either way is fine. It comes to down to modibility.

Btw, just to make sure we know the seriousness of the issue, I am not talking about just a few cities. I am talking about probably half of all the cities in the scenario will be staving if we don't give any bonus.

Well then, we'll need a universal solution, plus something extra for the extreme cases.

Can't we just make the populations everywhere 50% of what they are in reality? Or do you guys want to see all the real population numbers? Doesn't matter to me either way.

do what you gents feel is necessary to make this work.

I throw my weight behind 5 for this.

Let me just throw a thought into this discussion:

How does this work in the real world? Tokyo does not produce all of the food it needs itself. It is imported. So I think at least in the long run (V2.0) we need to make it possible to trade food.
Maybe the solution could also be the quantitative resource system. So one resource of fish gives +1 food but the more fish you get, the more food you'll have. How's our quantitative resource system doing?

Another thought:
Are we going to have 3 different farm improvements? Conventional, organic and genetically modified? So megacities could have GM farm lands around it to have more food...
I imagine GM farms working like the weapons licenses feature. Few civs can trade away seed licenses. If you have a seed license you can build GM farm improvements. If you lose that license you will have to deal with starvations if all your farmland is GM.

Well, I think the best solution is a nice expensive building (maybe something like a modern day granary) that will have already be built in cities like Mexico City, Seoul, Tokyo etc. But we can't make it so only those cities can build it, because then I will ask the question again, What if I wanted to make the African Union a superpower? Becoming a superpower would require a massive economy (for all those soldiers) and thus massive populations. We want the mod to start out accurately representing 2008 but we also want to let the player be able to mold their own future (i.e. African Union superpower).

Since it is completely impossible to have 41 citizens work in the surroundings of a city and at least the half of them will be specialists, we could also alter their effects. That would for already big cities like Tokio or Mexico-City.

Although I don't entirely understand the problem. We want to display and represent the real world population, right?? First why don't we alter the counting-mechanics of civilization for I never really understood how they really work. It's a little bit strange to have enormous population differences between cities only because of 1 citizen more or less (16, 17, 18 citizens for example). I mean why don't we make for each civ-citizen half a million people or something like that, clear und comprehensible?? We could also improve that by specifying how many inhabitants small towns in comparison to big cities should have, but altogether it would be much more comprehensible and simple that way. Although I must admit that I have no clue of modding and therefore don't know if that is possible at all. It doesn't seem so difficult or sophisticated to me, but please disabuse me if I'm wrong!!

But in general I agree that we may need additional food because we need big cities, regardless of what population they may represent.
So I support some sort of farm-improvement, because also in reality it partly worked (works) like that.
Food-trade would be a great feature, although I fear it would be a little bit too complicated and furthermore I don't think the AI would understand how crucial food (resource) is. It would be quiet ridiculous if half of the population of Japan would starve only because of a half year of food-embargo from some african or asian state. Furthermore the EU and USA and other states desperately try to keep their agricultural sector exactly for avoiding such situations (and because of the voting-farmers and the fine job they do for the environment, but in economic sense the antecedent is the reason).
I don't like the idea of great persons so much, because for underdeveloped countries it would be quiet difficult to gain so many (new) great persons and settle them in their cities. But in reality the cities in those countries are the fastest expanding in the world.
Buildings could be a solution and maybe also a good one, because in fact the farmlands of many poor countries aren't so developed either but the cities are enormous nevertheless, so we could simulate that quite good with buildings. One problem is although, that it would be terrible if that building was destroyed and also unprobable, because it would only be representing the whole modern circumstances of food management and distribution.....

Maybe my thoughts were helpful for some of you. I'm unsure what would be the best solution but can go along with everything that works in the end :).

greetings
Ben

I think I'm with 5. I would like to see real population numbers, but it doesn't matter. Import food definitely for V.2, V. 1 is we could squeeze it in.

We could try to copy the effect of the "City of 1,000 Slums" wonder in Fall From Heaven 2. Since Water tiles generate lots of food, and Tokyo is a seaport city, using that in conjunction with a lighthouse could just do the trick.

We could try to copy the effect of the "City of 1,000 Slums" wonder in Fall From Heaven 2. Since Water tiles generate lots of food, and Tokyo is a seaport city, using that in conjunction with a lighthouse could just do the trick.

But that would make it so only Tokyo would have the massive population, you have to remember Mexico City, Seoul, New York, etc. I still think the best thing would be a combination of specialists and buildings, so that makes it so we can have multiple massive population centers and makes it so other populations centers will be able to grow bigger and bigger...

Why not decrease the food penalty from 2 to 1, and also create the new terrain I've mentioned from RFC - the marsh/unihabitable area that dominates Siberia, as well as other areas such as Africa, and South America (rain forests) - ala Rhye's map in RFC.

Seems to be a plausible plan of action...

But that would make it so only Tokyo would have the massive population, you have to remember Mexico City, Seoul, New York, etc. I still think the best thing would be a combination of specialists and buildings, so that makes it so we can have multiple massive population centers and makes it so other populations centers will be able to grow bigger and bigger...

Good point, and you could be on to something with the specialists, particularly merchants, as those places are also major economic centers.

I can't find any topics in this forum related to the food issue. So I started this topic. If there is any though, please direct me to the appropriate topic.

Basically, as I am setting city populations, I realise this is a serious problem. Tokyo, having the largest urban population in the world (~35 million) is equivalent to 42 in city population in civ. I doubt Tokyo can generate 84 food in the most ideal case, not to mention it will overlap with other cities, and there will be significant unhealthy penalty for food. Tokyo is the extreme case, but in general, I do think we need roughly another 100% food production in order for most of the cities to be sustainable.

There are many ways I could think of to handle this problem.

1) Decrease the food cost per population from 2 to 1. This will not increase food production but decrease food required by 50%. This solution is simple but it will make Siberia good for city placement (which is unrealistic).

2) Create new terrain type.

3) Add new food resources, or change current food resource bonus.

4) Increase improvements food bonus.

5) Great person food bonus. In GEM, I've changed Great Merchant to produce +3 food and normal Merchant to produce +1. We can even make new great person type called great farmer for example.

6) Corporation. Use those corporations that can generate more food to help boosting food production.

7) Add new buildings to provide food bonus.

8) Add food bonus technology.

9) Civic

Comments?

Commenting in general, agricultural (i.e. this includes food) production has risen over the centuries due to increased agricultural productivity, but especially in the 19-20th centuries due to the industrial revolution. IMO the best way to simulate the latter would be a tech-building combo - perhaps doubling the food generated per farmland square. (Just a thought.)

Commenting in general, agricultural (i.e. this includes food) production has risen over the centuries due to increased agricultural productivity, but especially in the 19-20th centuries due to the industrial revolution. IMO the best way to simulate the latter would be a tech-building combo - perhaps doubling the food generated per farmland square. (Just a thought.)

To tie in with that: I suggest a 4 ary farming system.

1. Conventional farm. Improvement. Standard farming improvement. Food production as in Vanilla civ after discovering biology.
2. Modern farming. Technology. Raises the output of Conventional farms by 1 (or more?).
3. Genetically Modified farming. Feature. Works like weapons licenses via resource trade. Raises the output of Conventional farms by 1 (or more?). Adds +0.5 :yuck: per farm tile.
More detailed info:

I suggest to have 3 civs that are able to trade away licenses for hybrid seeds. These should be USA (representing Monsantoand DuPont), EU (representing Bayer) and Permanent Neutrality (representing Swiss corporations Syngenta). In each civ that imports the hybrid seeds license resource the farm improvement food output is raised by one, connected with the health minus point mentioned above. So a civ that raises its food output by using GMOs becomes dependent from imported hybrid seeds, like it is in reality. When you don't have access to those seeds anymore, your people will starve.
4. Organic Farm. Improvement. You can replace your conventional farm by an organic farm. Those gain the same bonus as conventional farms would without the modern farming tech. Additionally it gives +0.5 :health: (or more?) per organic farm tile in a city's fat cross. Organic farms are not affected by the import of hybrid seeds.

I think these 4 are would not be very hard to implement as they are no completely new concepts but slight alterations of concepts that are already there.

Unless we are doing some kind of food export/import system (which would be very interesting but difficult to implement), any of the method we suggested here will still be far from realistic anyway. So I would suggest to implement which ever way is easiest.

Please also consider flexibility as well. I think it would be best to implement a combination of global (such as technology or civic bonus that apply to the whole nation) and local methods (such as adding great person or buildings specific to a city).

To tie in with that: I suggest a 4 ary farming system.

1. Conventional farm. Improvement. Standard farming improvement. Food production as in Vanilla civ after discovering biology.
2. Modern farming. Technology. Raises the output of Conventional farms by 1 (or more?).
3. Genetically Modified farming. Feature. Works like weapons licenses via resource trade. Raises the output of Conventional farms by 1 (or more?). Adds +0.5 :yuck: per farm tile.
More detailed info:

I suggest to have 3 civs that are able to trade away licenses for hybrid seeds. These should be USA (representing Monsantoand DuPont), EU (representing Bayer) and Permanent Neutrality (representing Swiss corporations Syngenta). In each civ that imports the hybrid seeds license resource the farm improvement food output is raised by one, connected with the health minus point mentioned above. So a civ that raises its food output by using GMOs becomes dependent from imported hybrid seeds, like it is in reality. When you don't have access to those seeds anymore, your people will starve.
4. Organic Farm. Improvement. You can replace your conventional farm by an organic farm. Those gain the same bonus as conventional farms would without the modern farming tech. Additionally it gives +0.5 :health: (or more?) per organic farm tile in a city's fat cross. Organic farms are not affected by the import of hybrid seeds.

I think these 4 are would not be very hard to implement as they are no completely new concepts but slight alterations of concepts that are already there.


Too complicated, the AI won't know what to do.

Now is the time to think small. Save new big ideas for version 2. ;)

Unless we are doing some kind of food export/import system (which would be very interesting but difficult to implement), any of the method we suggested here will still be far from realistic anyway. So I would suggest to implement which ever way is easiest.

Please also consider flexibility as well. I think it would be best to implement a combination of global (such as technology or civic bonus that apply to the whole nation) and local methods (such as adding great person or buildings specific to a city).


yes, agreed. That and a tile I think are the way to go.


ianinsane, your ideas may work as techs, which will simply give a bonus to existing farms, without changing the farm improvement. But setting up anything more than that is too much work for us right now, we have enough on our plates as it is.

"Genetically Modified farming"- can we keep this out of the game for the simple reason that it makes me sick to my stomach? I do not want to give Monsanto any credit while they are forcing people into poverty and starvation. It is bad enough that they basically own the university I attend. Let's leave suicide seeds out of our mod. Nuclear war on a grand scale I think is bad enough. lol

"Genetically Modified farming"- can we keep this out of the game for the simple reason that it makes me sick to my stomach? I do not want to give Monsanto any credit while they are forcing people into poverty and starvation. It is bad enough that they basically own the university I attend. Let's leave suicide seeds out of our mod. Nuclear war on a grand scale I think is bad enough. lol

lol. I can totally understand you. But on the other hand that is exactly the reason why I'd like to see it included. Even if it is only for V2. We'll have arms trade, ethnic cleansing, genocide, huge nuclear arsenals, global warming and we'll simulate them with all their disastrous effects. So why not those mad scientists that are trying to get the whole food production in the world into their greedy hands? It should be realistic to let unhappiness, unhealthiness, starvation and dependence in big parts of the world pay make small parts of the world rich and powerful.

True enough pal, certainly something to think about for the next version. :-)

I just have to see their logo every day driving in and out of school. After learning how they force poor farmers in the developed world to use seeds that are genetically modified to die after one season for no other reason than their own profit, it makes me angry. (If you haven't seen "The Corporation", watch it!) Anyway, you're right, we are trying to represent the world as it is, not as I wish it were. Plus one of our main rules is; no politics. It's a good idea, we'll see what we can do down the road.

For now though, for the problem Genghis Kai has raised here, we will have to use quicker fixes.

I just have to see their logo every day driving in and out of school. After learning how they force poor farmers in the developed world to use seeds that are genetically modified to die after one season for no other reason than their own profit, it makes me angry. (If you haven't seen "The Corporation", watch it!)

Whoa...that is more than creepy... But thanks for the tip, I'll watch it.

yeah, and they use my university (which has a huge agricultural dept) to do this kind of research. :(

sucks

On a lighter note, we had a professor spend I think 15-20 years trying to prove that organic farming DOESN'T work as well as standard (chemical) modern farming. He couldn't, and now is an advocate for organic. :-)

Link (http://umanitoba.ca/news/blogs/blog/2008/08/11/research-news-learning-organics-dirty-secrets/) (17 years in fact.)

I think maybe a good question to ask yourself when you try to address these problems is, "Where did the food come from in reality?" So answering these might help you remember that all of our suggestions aren't mutually exclusive; the solution might vary based upon the particular city.

Tokyo gets a great deal of its food from fishing, so you might want to simply add a building called something like "fishing company" to the city, that gives additional food bonuses on top of the lighthouse. In situations like Las Vegas, it's really not as arid as people think; as it's built on an oasis and near to a river, but the extra food can be further aproximated by adding lots of merchants, as commerce is what brought them their major growth. In the case of Mexico city, that does seem to be more of a "City of 1,000 Slums" situation, but since most surrounding tiles would be hills or mountains, that really doesn't provide for all that much food. Going a different route, you could add a "ghetto" building (although the graphic should be a group of buildings) to the city, basically significant of being a mass of immigrants; you could also do that for New York and Los Angeles, as although it's a port city, the economy is less emphasized on fishing. The effect of the ghetto could be to boost food (and population in turn), culture, and production, but increase city upkeep costs and unhealthiness as a trade-off.

Ok, the problem I see possibly arising from that is, if we make a building to do it... we'd have to make it very very expensive right, so every AI city won't become 30 million people right away.

However, with this, won't the AI waste time building this in cities that don't need it? It becomes another AI trap.

Tokyo gets a great deal of its food from fishing, so you might want to simply add a building called something like "fishing company" to the city, that gives additional food bonuses on top of the lighthouse.

I saw a certain Japanese fish market world wonder, I think it was in Total Realism. I can check that but I won't be home until this weekend. So if somebody knows more earlier...
This could be a way for Tokyo.

Going a different route, you could add a "ghetto" building (although the graphic should be a group of buildings) to the city, basically significant of being a mass of immigrants; you could also do that for New York and Los Angeles, as although it's a port city, the economy is less emphasized on fishing. The effect of the ghetto could be to boost food (and population in turn), culture, and production, but increase city upkeep costs and unhealthiness as a trade-off.

That's a nice idea. I like it. Although I think it should be called simply "Slums". But it should also raise unhappiness. This could work for cities like Mexico City, Lagos, Cairo, Calcutta etc.
But looking further into the future I think we need another building that can replace the Slums later in game. Those cities should have a chance to get rid of their slums one day in the 2040s. I suggest a building called "Arcology", unlocked by a certain future tech, having the same effects without the negative trade-offs.

We should figure out exactly what to do here asap, so we can start implementing changes.

Forum search said that it's called "Tsukiji Fish Market". It makes water tiles produce +1 food and it's from Sevomod (with GIR Add-On).
And it is located in Tokyo. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukiji_fish_market)

Good work ianinsane. We can always increase the bonuses to serve our purposes.

I just did some research concerning slums. The largest slums in the world does have Mexico City. About 4 million people living in slums while the overall population is 19 million.
This means a relation of about 1/5 of the population living in slums. However, in Bogota for example about 1/3 of the population are living in slums. (8 million population, 2.5 million slum inhabitants).
So this would mean the slum building should raise the :food: by 50%. But it should also add quite an amount of :yuck: so the city can't grow by 50% unless you gain a lot of :health: somewhere.
I now reason that it is not necessary to make the slums building itself gain :culture: and :hammers: since the slum inhabitants will all become specialists.
So this is what I come up with:

Slums
+50% :food:
+10 :yuck:
+3 :mad:
+25% maintenance

And for the late game

Arcology (unlocked by Tech "sustainability")
+ 50% :food:
replaces Slums

And for the late game

Arcology (unlocked by Tech "sustainability")
+ 50% :food:
replaces Slums

I love it.

We could model our art for it on...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Try2004.gif

We could model our art for it on...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Try2004.gif

Yeehaw...or the good old one from Sim City 2000...;)
http://hairball.bumba.net/~rwa2/school/enpm643/Arcology_files/image009.gif

About the slums... its a great idea, but we have to think realistically. Yes, slums do exist, but if your the leader of a modern country, if you want your population to grow, do you really think that they would just build a bunch of slums in their biggest cities? I think most leaders ( at least the democratic ones) wouldn't want to shove massive poverty stricken buildings in the center of their great cities just to store new population. I think the more realistic way is to have a building that is more along the lines of a Residential Highrise Project, if you look at Tokyo for example, their running out of room on the ground, so basically their future is moving their populations up. The slums building should exist in some of the larger cities as a penalty, but I don't think they really be a build able city improvement.

I just did some research concerning slums. The largest slums in the world does have Mexico City. About 4 million people living in slums while the overall population is 19 million.
This means a relation of about 1/5 of the population living in slums. However, in Bogota for example about 1/3 of the population are living in slums. (8 million population, 2.5 million slum inhabitants).
So this would mean the slum building should raise the :food: by 50%. But it should also add quite an amount of :yuck: so the city can't grow by 50% unless you gain a lot of :health: somewhere.
I now reason that it is not necessary to make the slums building itself gain :culture: and :hammers: since the slum inhabitants will all become specialists.
So this is what I come up with:

Slums
+50% :food:
+10 :yuck:
+3 :mad:
+25% maintenance

A bit of alternate perspective here; I don't see why we need the building itself to add Unhappiness because population growth already has that effect (the "it's too crowded" message in the city tab). The culture bonus should be left in, as it's not just that a city will have more exceptional citizens if it's got more population, period; the culture I meant had to do with the fact that alternate cultures are present in the city. The production bonus (and this might unfortunately sound politically incorrect) was suggested because immigrants tend to be more willing to do menial labor for low costs. I still agree on decreased health, but ten is a little extreme, especially since, once again, population growth will create even more unhealthiness.

And for the late game

Arcology (unlocked by Tech "sustainability")
+ 50% :food:
replaces Slums

Is it possible for a building to remove a previous one from a city when you build it? If so, I wasn't aware, but that's a good idea if it is.

About the slums... its a great idea, but we have to think realistically. Yes, slums do exist, but if your the leader of a modern country, if you want your population to grow, do you really think that they would just build a bunch of slums in their biggest cities? I think most leaders ( at least the democratic ones) wouldn't want to shove massive poverty stricken buildings in the center of their great cities just to store new population. I think the more realistic way is to have a building that is more along the lines of a Residential Highrise Project, if you look at Tokyo for example, their running out of room on the ground, so basically their future is moving their populations up. The slums building should exist in some of the larger cities as a penalty, but I don't think they really be a build able city improvement.

It's important to remember that buildings don't need to be able to be constructed by players; all you do is set their "bbuildable" tag to 0. The idea here is to start certain cities with slum buildings. Oh, and as to exactly how many leaders in democratic countries encourage a system that leads to slums, speaking as a Californian, believe me when I say it's a lot more than you think!

A bit of alternate perspective here; I don't see why we need the building itself to add Unhappiness because population growth already has that effect (the "it's too crowded" message in the city tab). The culture bonus should be left in, as it's not just that a city will have more exceptional citizens if it's got more population, period; the culture I meant had to do with the fact that alternate cultures are present in the city. The production bonus (and this might unfortunately sound politically incorrect) was suggested because immigrants tend to be more willing to do menial labor for low costs. I still agree on decreased health, but ten is a little extreme, especially since, once again, population growth will create even more unhealthiness.

I agree concerning unhappiness and culture. I see your point concerning production. However, I wouldn't like to let Slums itself increase production. I now suggest something different. Since those cities with slums probably aren't developed enough to assign unlimited specialists, a lot of the surplus slum inhabitants will be working as simple unassigned citizens, producing 1 :hammers: each. Could we have the slum buildings make those citizens produce one more :hammers:? That would represent the slum inhabitants, working as unskilled workers at low cost.


Is it possible for a building to remove a previous one from a city when you build it? If so, I wasn't aware, but that's a good idea if it is.

That's what happens to Coal Plants when you build a Nuclear Plant, am I wrong?

It's important to remember that buildings don't need to be able to be constructed by players; all you do is set their "bbuildable" tag to 0. The idea here is to start certain cities with slum buildings. Oh, and as to exactly how many leaders in democratic countries encourage a system that leads to slums, speaking as a Californian, believe me when I say it's a lot more than you think!

That's the way I see it, too. It would be cool, though, if we had a random event that built slums in a city.

So the new slums building would be:
+50% :food:
+ 5 :yuck:
+25% maintenance
+1 :hammers: for unassigned citizens

Since those cities with slums probably aren't developed enough to assign unlimited specialists, a lot of the surplus slum inhabitants will be working as simple unassigned citizens, producing 1 :hammers: each. Could we have the slum buildings make those citizens produce one more :hammers:? That would represent the slum inhabitants, working as unskilled workers at low cost.


I'm not sure. If it turns out that unassigned citizens work the same ways as specialists (that is, have some coding in XML) then that can be done, but I don't know if they do.


That's what happens to Coal Plants when you build a Nuclear Plant, am I wrong?


Again, I'm not sure. I think I remember seeing the effects of power plants stack, but I'll need to play another game and look carefully before I know for sure what the situation is there.


That's the way I see it, too. It would be cool, though, if we had a random event that built slums in a city.

So the new slums building would be:
+50% :food:
+ 5 :yuck:
+25% maintenance
+1 :hammers: for unassigned citizens

A good idea, except it shouldn't be random; it should be caused maybe by neighboring Civs or Civs with trade routes to your city being unable to care for their citizens.

A good idea, except it shouldn't be random; it should be caused maybe by neighboring Civs or Civs with trade routes to your city being unable to care for their citizens.

Or by immigrants from our immigration modcomp.

Or by immigrants from our immigration modcomp.


FYI: last I heard, that modcomp does not work. (and therefor will be turned off in our mod until someone gets it working properly)

I could be wrong, I'd have to look into it.

FYI: last I heard, that modcomp does not work. (and therefor will be turned off in our mod until someone gets it working properly)


Aww...that would be sad.

It is sad, but maybe we should focus on getting the core mod working first, since we'd need to make a lot of detours to get the rest of it to work with immigration.

Immigration is built-in to the WoC core, but there are some (serious) balance issues with it (some cities are unable to reach a level higher than 6 because of it in some cases).

Too bad...but that shouldn't stop us to include Slums at least as a non-buildable starting building.

How about more corporations?

Passing idea: Make a national wonder that achieves the same purpose as the slums building, but call it National Housing Projects or something.

Why not decrease the food penalty from 2 to 1, and also create the new terrain I've mentioned from RFC - the marsh/unihabitable area that dominates Siberia, as well as other areas such as Africa, and South America (rain forests) - ala Rhye's map in RFC. That would enable the cities to grow that need to...and then areas of the earth that won't support massive populations (rainforests, Siberia, etc.) would have an uninhabitable marsh/rainforest tile.

Seems to be a plausible plan of action...and the easiest of all to implement.

Decrease the penalty from 2 to 1, and create the same marsh tile that is in RFC that is always uninhabitable to keep cities that shouldn't grow from growing.

After creating the map - it is OBVIOUS that we are REALLY going to need more food. LOTS more.

So, what are the actual suggestions to be done.

I know we've said increase the lighthouse, granary, corporations, grocer, etc.

But - what exact numbers should these be increased by so that it works realistically and well.

More Money -> More Food.

I just found this thread, it might be something worth looking into...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333270

I just found this thread, it might be something worth looking into...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333270

Not using any mods that aren't standard of RevDCM for merging purposes of future updates.

Not using any mods that aren't standard of RevDCM for merging purposes of future updates.

Still something worth looking into. It'd make crappy cities in the middle of nowhere more useful...

I don't disagree with the idea.

But, the creator of the modcomp himself said:

#1: The food import/export deals cannot be canceled once started.
#2: The AI has not been programmed to be able to use the function correctly.

So, until that gets worked out and is working 100% correctly on top of it, it will have to wait.

I don't disagree with the idea.
So, until that gets worked out and is working 100% correctly on top of it, it will have to wait.

Exactly.

Hi all, long time player and lurker, first time poster here!

First of all, can I say congrats on the work being done on the mod! To my mind, a Civ based at the current time looking into the future is one of the two directions that Civ should go, whether by mod or official new version. (For the record, I think the other is a 3D combat engine, but we’re now off topic.)

Re: the food issue, whilst not wishing to criticise those who thought of the idea of incorporating slums as a new building (we’re all here trying to improve the mod after all), I have to say that I’m not sure that suggesting slums increase food production by themselves is the way forward. (That said, I do agree with the notion that they increase unhealthiness.)

With that in mind, I’ve done a little thinking and believe that I’ve had a lightbulb moment (pun fully intended!) in the form of a simple six step plan which I hope will alleviate this issue in the mod. (Note though that I say “simple” with much naivety since I’m not a computer programmer!):

Step (a); Create a new building called the greenhouse, the property of which is to add either a specific amount or percentage of food (eg. 2/3/4/5 food or +25% food etc) to the city in which it’s built. (For the record, I’d suggest using a fixed number of extra food to avoid rounding issues that may arise with a percentage.) I’d suggest that these can be built with either (a) the discovery of biology, or (b) the discovery of electricity (which I understand enables heat to be kept in a greenhouse), or (c) the discovery of a newly created technology, botany (if you want to limit the power of biology as a tech.)

Step (b): Add to either the discovery of (i) chemistry or (ii) industrialisation the automatic ability for any civ to use fertilisers. Analogously to biology, fertiliser use should add one food to every farm in a city’s BFC.

Step (c): Increase the number of extra food (which is currently one) provided by the supermarket. I notice having followed a number of games on the forums over the last year or two that far fewer supermarkets get built than actually exist in real life - and this is an easy way to make the supermarket more attractive and help solve the mod’s food shortage.

Step (d): Create a new technology called aquaculture (which arrives on the tech tree around the same time as ecology), which allows coastal cities to build fish farms. Fish farms should add a set number of food (eg. 1 or 2 food) to all seafood resources in a city’s BFC. A simpler solution is to make fish farms available with the discovery of ecology.

Step (e): If allowing the creation of the greenhouse at biology (see step a), allow the discovery of electricity to increase the amount of food this building provides (by 1,2,3 etc extra food). After all, this technology enables greenhouses to regulate temperature to increase production.

Step (f): If (a) – (e) don’t provide sufficient food, how about adding a few new resources such as tea, citrus fruit and nuts? Of course, these resources could also provide additional health and / or happiness benefits – and in some regions of the world are in fact a major food resource for export.

OK that’s it. I hope this helps – for the record, my suggestion would be to simply use as many or as few of these steps as is necessary to alleviate the food shortage referred to. My only advice is of course to avoid providing too much food to each city with these steps – after all, feeding our planet looks set to be the biggest challenge (alongside climate change of course) facing world leaders in the next 50 years. All the best with the mod!