We need more food

Genghis_Kai

GEM modder
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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.
 
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.
 
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