Importing food

aimeeandbeatles

aimeeandbeatles

watermelon
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
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Perhaps there could also be a way that if one of your cities starts to starve, you can import spare food from your other cities. This would take a certain amount of gold a turn (to pay for the people transporting it).

Also you can either "automate" the transport in which the governor decides which cities can best spare the food or you can pick which cities to import them from.
 
I said this in another area too.
First of all there should be two requirements. One the player must have a granary. Two, they must have a marketplace. Civs should be able to trade food with each other too. The farther food travels the more food should die off along the way. This prevents having one city that could hold like 40 people spread their food out to everyone. Roads,railroads, and supermarkets would make less food die. Certain techs would make less food die. Harbors would allow a see route to trade food and less would die.
 
Importing food, along with migration, are two aspects that would be nice to see in the civ. I think it should be somehow linked to food resources, perhaps most easily if resources were quantified, and that it should be limited, to prevent abuse of the system, or the destruction of the intrinsic self-sufficient city model of civ.
 
I like this idea too and the way Gamemast77 put it. Food distribution would be realistic too as many cities settled in deserts and mountais because of trade or protection. Would hate a caravan unit, though.
 
Yes, the granary is good idea.
 
yared94 said:
/Thread
Click to expand...

Yeah, which has a download on it that will allow you to redistribute food from one city to another (no caravan needed btw, works off of trade routes), unless you just want to discuss hypotheticals in which case don't click the link I posted
 
Okay, so if there is to be a granary based system, should the amount of food available to export from a city be the same as the amount of excess food within the granary? That would make sense. As for food decay over distance, that could be an option, but is probably a bit too complex. It would be better, IMO, to just have an something in the city screen that lets you automatically transfer food from one city to another. And I think an import limit should be 50% of the food that a city is generating on its own. So, if a city is generating 2 food, then it could only import 1 more, whereas if a city was generating 10 food, it could import 5.
 
Camikaze said:
Okay, so if there is to be a granary based system, should the amount of food available to export from a city be the same as the amount of excess food within the granary? That would make sense.
Click to expand...


Well that seems like a great idea at first look. When I think about it though it doesn't seem like a good idea although it probably can be made to allow that. If this is true though it would cause a lot of micro-managing. Going to the city each turn just to transfer food. I have been thinking more along the lines of food automatically going to the city every turn. That could be a good option for a "down payment" on food to other cities.

Camikaze said:
As for food decay over distance, that could be an option, but is probably a bit too complex. It would be better, IMO, to just have an something in the city screen that lets you automatically transfer food from one city to another.
Click to expand...

It would be completely automated. You would click that you want to transfer X amount of food, and then when you mouse over a city it says "Y amount of food will make it.

Camikaze said:
And I think an import limit should be 50% of the food that a city is generating on its own. So, if a city is generating 2 food, then it could only import 1 more, whereas if a city was generating 10 food, it could import 5.
Click to expand...

Great idea:goodjob:
Also you shouldn't be able to transfer food if it causes your citizens to starve.
 
Camikaze said:
And I think an import limit should be 50% of the food that a city is generating on its own. So, if a city is generating 2 food, then it could only import 1 more, whereas if a city was generating 10 food, it could import 5.
Click to expand...

I think the import limit should be able to be raised rather than staying as a fixed 50% limit for the whole game. This makes sense when you think about some modern metropolises like New York or desert cities like Dubai which imports almost all food from outside the region. IMHO the import limit should be quite low in the early game but increase once you research certain techs. By the modern age you should be able to sustain very large cities by mostly importing food. That would also mean they would be very vulnerable to starvation during wars and blockades.

Food decaying over distance is a good idea, although it should cease to have an effect once you research refrigeration.
 
I agree with the second bit, so long as it can be implemented without requiring too much micromanagement.

And perhaps the import limit should start off at 0%, rise to 25% with Agriculture, rise to 50% with Biology and maybe 75% with Refrigeration and 100% with Genetics? This wouldn't really reflect any realistic changes in the capacity to move food, but would give a bonus for those techs that you would think should have a bonus attached to them with regards to food importing (other than what they already have, in the cases of Agriculture and Biology).
 
Camikaze said:
I agree with the second bit, so long as it can be implemented without requiring too much micromanagement.

And perhaps the import limit should start off at 0%, rise to 25% with Agriculture, rise to 50% with Biology and maybe 75% with Refrigeration and 100% with Genetics? This wouldn't really reflect any realistic changes in the capacity to move food, but would give a bonus for those techs that you would think should have a bonus attached to them with regards to food importing (other than what they already have, in the cases of Agriculture and Biology).
Click to expand...

Well, in the late game (after Refrigeration perhaps, but maybe another tech called "Mechanized Agriculture" should be added), IMHO the limit should be done away with altogether. This way, very large metropolises can exist and it adds another strategic dimension to the game as these cities would be very vulnerable to blockades.
 
Assuming, of course, that food imports would be linked to some form of improved trade route system, I would support that. However, if the current trade route system was to be used, it would be very impractical to blockade a city completely. There would always be some way of getting food in, even if a city was almost completely surrounded. But perhaps if a system with automated, customisable and visible trade routes was implemented (such as my ideas for military supply idea I elaborated in this thread and the trade route idea I outline here), then it would be easier to disrupt trade routes for a short period of time (as they wouldn't be able to immediately re-establish), making blockading a city a viable strategy. This viability would allow for the limit to be lifted, given that there would be something to counterbalance the possible benefits of it.
 
Fair enough, though I thought in BtS at least you can use ships to quite easily blockade cities with one ship being able to cover several tiles.

I think food import being part of the trade route system is much better than the caravan system, especially if "food decay" is implemented as well (to model difficulty in transport before the industrial era).
 
My idea, though, is to integrate the caravan and trade route systems. So, you still have the automated trade routes, but they are visually represented by lines of caravans/merchant vessels, which can therefore be easily interrupted. Decay could be exacerbated if a particular route was cut-off, necessitating the use of another, longer route.
 
Camikaze said:
Assuming, of course, that food imports would be linked to some form of improved trade route system, I would support that. However, if the current trade route system was to be used, it would be very impractical to blockade a city completely. There would always be some way of getting food in, even if a city was almost completely surrounded. But perhaps if a system with automated, customisable and visible trade routes was implemented (such as my ideas for military supply idea I elaborated in this thread and the trade route idea I outline here), then it would be easier to disrupt trade routes for a short period of time (as they wouldn't be able to immediately re-establish), making blockading a city a viable strategy. This viability would allow for the limit to be lifted, given that there would be something to counterbalance the possible benefits of it.
Click to expand...

It would be easier to just add a "besiege city" function, where a unit in a tile adjacent to the city blockades all trade and use of city tiles until fought off. (This would also allow units which are bad at city raiding to force strong defenders to give up their fortification and city defense bonuses by meeting the besieging army in the field.)
 
But that would be too easy, and too unrealistic. You could then blockade a city from the sea, for instance, when the majority of their trade comes overland. Sure, it might allow for more out of city combat, but it isn't a realistic idea, and would just be too overpowered.
 
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