Does increase food production really increase population?

Veteranewbie

Prince
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I mean, if it is only in ancient time, it is understandable when people reproduce faster than they can feed their family, then sure, more food is just higher survival rate
But then, I mean, in nowadays, developed countries can all produce and consume more food than most African nations, yet the population growth in Africa is much higher than the developed countries. I mean we have all this food yet it doesn't make us want to make more babies for sure! (Well though we can keep them alive though)
So do you guys think that the game concept is flawed then?
 
Nope, works like it should. How many people in africa actually help and contribute out of all that population? It's a good game mechanic that has been used in many RTS/Turn based games.
 
I don't think so, and here's why:
You mention 'keeping the babies alive' and that is a critical part of rapid population growth. Compare sub-Saharan African rates of infant mortality from 1806 to today. Worlds apart. (for that matter, European infant mortality rates)
The food which has fueled the massive pop growth in Africa has been either European or (mostly) New World. Wheat, potatos, corn, squashes have all been introduced to African farming, considerably increasing their area/yield ratio.
Without these 'outside' crops, Africa would still have about 100 or 200 million, tops.
So in Civ4 terms, agricultural advances have lead to more food which equals more people. :)

PS: Never mind India and China! Exact same deal there.
 
Well, the demographic development in the industrial nations doesn't depend on the food production. If it would be otherwise, EU and US would have a baby boom now! But the mechanism is still OK, the city symbolizes not only population but also the skills of the population.
 
You could say that europe has reaches its happiness limit, so governments have turned on the 'avoid growth' option.
 
My feeling on this is that Health-and NOT food-should determine the rate of population growth. With Food surplus and happiness both factoring in to the health equation (much as health factors into the Food equation now).
So, for instance, if you had unhealthy=8 and healthy=12, then you would have a +4 Health Surplus, which might make the population grow once every 5 turns, wheras a +2 health bonus may only grow once every 10 turns. A food surplus might add +2 for a small surplus (+1 to +3) or +4 in the case of a 'food glut' (+4 and above).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Surely 'more food gives more population' is simply a game mechanism and, as such, does not (and need not) necessarily represent a real-life situation. But health is already factored in: if you have many green faces in your city, then much food is consumed without contributing to growth. The growth rate is also fairly realistic, in that it takes relatively little food for your city to grow from pop.1 to pop.2, and a lot more to grow from 19 to 20.
 
maybe unhealthy cities shouldn't be able to grow? That way health actualy becomes important.
 
Personally, I think the concept is completely flawed. Even more, since now health has been introduced.
Nobody gets more children because of having a second steak on the plate.

Personally, I would prefer a "normal" reproduction rate, let's say 10% per turn. This would mean that 1 pop reproduces (doubles) in 10 turns, then there are 2 pops. Next 5 turns, and they are 3 pops, and so on.

Soon, they would hit the food limit, and that is, where the whole process stops. Health and unhealthy conditions could work the same way as they do right now, and we would have an easy, understandable concept.

This way, the available food would only limit the size of the population, yet it wouldn't increase the reproduction rate which I always felt as being a strange concept.
As long as enough food is available, cities would just grow - as they do in real life.
 
You must remember that Civ rules are someway abstracts, the growth of a city don't represent only people born, but also people that come to live in the city from outside , even squares outside of a city or even a city radius are supposed to be populated, when a city have a lot of food some people from those squares move into the city and the population grows.
 
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