We need more food

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!
 
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