IGN article seems to suggest Global Food?

[dexters]

From the IGN article ;
Could open up interesting playstyles if you have a foodstore that distributes to your empire.

This is speculation at this point, but this paragraph strongly suggests food centralization similar to how gold and gpt works . That too was globalized from a city level in Civ3.

These changes obviously have a big impact not only on production, but on warfare and intelligence-gathering. “Scouting and approaching an enemy is a very very meaningful activity,” says Beach. “You can see if they have Wonders that they’ve started because they’ll be constructing in front of your eyes right there on the map. You can see if you have two or three cities on the border, which one might be his heavy industry city and which is where his science research is going on.” This allows you to make educated tactical decisions on what areas of the enemy you want to cripple first – take down unit production, halt scientific advancement to maintain a technological advantage, cripple food production, etc. On the other side, in the late game you’ll have to decide which districts to defend best against ground or bombing attacks.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Global food was one of the suggestions to replace Civ5 global health system as a limitation for ICS. The advantage is better projection to real life, the disadvantage is - with building farms you could still ICS. However, it's likely the new district system will balance this out. The dedicated science/industry cities will require dedicated food cities to maintain the population of their districts.

But of course, this line could be just a misunderstanding.

 

[m15a]

It's possible, but I don't think the suggestion is so strong. The quote could just mean that you could decide whether to hinder global factors like science or local factors like food production.

 

[Aristos]

No, I don't read it like that, dex... it's clear to me that food will be produced on a per city basis, and it makes all the sense that way. Now, what would be the best of both worlds is real food transfers, not like civ5's food caravans, but real, zero sum trade from one city to another. That way you can realistically simulate growth, add a nice tactical/strategic layer and not create magical yields from nowhere, ala civ5.

 

[dexters]

No, I don't read it like that, dex... it's clear to me that food will be produced on a per city basis, and it makes all the sense that way. Now, what would be the best of both worlds is real food transfers, not like civ5's food caravans, but real, zero sum trade from one city to another. That way you can realistically simulate growth, add a nice tactical/strategic layer and not create magical yields from nowhere, ala civ5.

That is precisely what I'm suggesting. All food is pooled at the empire level and if empire consumes more food than it generates, its in defecit and there are some malus effects. Surplus food is stored, similar to how gold is stored in a treasury. This removes the very uneven growth some cities experience and allows core cities to keep growing so long as the hinterland is producing enough food.

The quote puts production/technology and food on the same 'tactical' level thinking. But it makes less sense unless one of those three hypothetical cities was producing a massive surplus.

It's very speculative at this point and I totally can see it being a misunderstanding. Crippling food could simply mean pillaging farm tiles, but we've been doing that for ages, and I find it strange that warranted a hypothetical.

Still something to chew on

 

[gunnergoz]

I for one can't see food being pooled at the empire level without some tech to justify its introduction. It could be a trade tech or a government tech or some combination of both, but it did evolve historically from limited local trades between adjacent tribes, to later era deliberate food transfers between population centers, whether by government direction or simple market forces of supply and demand.

I'd like to see a more varied food source mechanism in the game where peoples with access to greater food variety had improved health and growth rates. For example, a people with access to grains, fish, meat and greens/fruits would fare better than another people with only grains and greens to live on.

 

[Aristos]

That is precisely what I'm suggesting. All food is pooled at the empire level and if empire consumes more food than it generates, its in defecit and there are some malus effects. Surplus food is stored, similar to how gold is stored in a treasury. This removes the very uneven growth some cities experience and allows core cities to keep growing so long as the hinterland is producing enough food.

The quote puts production/technology and food on the same 'tactical' level thinking. But it makes less sense unless one of those three hypothetical cities was producing a massive surplus.

It's very speculative at this point and I totally can see it being a misunderstanding. Crippling food could simply mean pillaging farm tiles, but we've been doing that for ages, and I find it strange that warranted a hypothetical.

Still something to chew on

No man it's not, you are suggesting an empire wide pool of food, I am pushing for real transfers of food between cities if needed, trade routes like in civ 5 but as zero sum routes (the destination receives what the source gives away).

(if you are into football/soccer, man did you see the goal of the year today? Super-raton Perez scored the goal of his life... Rivero better buys his ticket back to Uruguay after today... go Whitecaps!! sorry couldn't resist)

 

[dexters]

No man it's not, you are suggesting an empire wide pool of food, I am pushing for real transfers of food between cities if needed, trade routes like in civ 5 but as zero sum routes (the destination receives what the source gives away).

(if you are into football/soccer, man did you see the goal of the year today? Super-raton Perez scored the goal of his life... Rivero better buys his ticket back to Uruguay after today... go Whitecaps!! sorry couldn't resist)

Oh gotcha, It's possible, but since they dont show trade routes for gold transfer between cities, or research, I'm just thinking along those lines, hence 'global' food.

What your suggesting still makes sense though since trade routes are likely staying in for Civ6.

Edit: sorry, not big on soccer =[

 

[stealth_nsk]

I for one can't see food being pooled at the empire level without some tech to justify its introduction. It could be a trade tech or a government tech or some combination of both, but it did evolve historically from limited local trades between adjacent tribes, to later era deliberate food transfers between population centers, whether by government direction or simple market forces of supply and demand.

Historically, grain distribution is known from the very ancient times. Corsica et Sardinia were a key war point due to their food production, etc. So, historically global food is ok.

And remember - gameplay first. It's not possible to make fully accurate historical simulator, but it's very easy to ruin gameplay by adding unnecessary details.

 

[Deadstarre]

a people with access to grains, fish, meat and greens/fruits would fare better than another people with only grains and greens to live on.

Yeah but... vegans live longer

 

[gunnergoz]

Historically, grain distribution is known from the very ancient times. Corsica et Sardinia were a key war point due to their food production, etc. So, historically global food is ok.

And remember - gameplay first. It's not possible to make fully accurate historical simulator, but it's very easy to ruin gameplay by adding unnecessary details.

It is also unappealing to some gamers to simplify games unnecessarily by reducing them into near-meaningless abstractions. One can have complex games that are fun to play. The implementation and integration do have to be done thoughtfully, however. I'm all for a more complex civ game but it would have to be executed artfully. I think Firaxis would be up to designing for it but the industry/consumer market forces probably work against it.

 

[gunnergoz]

Yeah but... vegans live longer

When they are not being crushed underfoot by hulking meat-eaters, sure.

 

[dexters]

@gunnergoz is global food simplifying though or representing historical reality (ie: Rome itself did not produce enough food to feed itself) 'the empire' relied on grain from different regions to feed its populations and collecting and centralizing grain as a key component of taxation in the middle ages.

I mean we've lived with centralized treasuries and unit support since Civ3.

I don't think it's simplifying at all, it allows players to go all out specializing since you could theoretically have a city produce 0 food with a global food system.

 

[kirbdog]

Master of Orion II had global food and is widely regarded as a landmark in solid strategy game design. Just saying it can be done, and people can think it's just great. (It wasn't entirely passive; you needed to build freighters to make sure the quantity of food that needed to flow, did flow. But the freighters did their job without any micro.)

That said, I don't know whether Civ 6 will have it or whether it's the "best" system.

It does raise the question of what drives city population growth in a global food system. (This is something that MoO II resolved by having planet population growth rate as a function, primarily, of alien race ['civ choice'] and stopping whenever a cap is hit [so the caps to population easily became more important than the growth rate].)

 

[gunnergoz]

Global food is not a simple concept when you think of what it takes to know what is needed and then get it to where it is to be consumed. The ability to execute food distribution on a large scale requires either sophisticated government and census systems or an advanced trade system; both need a workable transportation system which may involve infrastructure as well. So I don't think it unrealistic to have a player start at a local food level then evolve to a global one. There are arguments against this, of course, the main one being that gaming trends are for more simplistic games, rather than more in-depth ones.
What I find simplistic, though, is the idea of all food types being interchangeable, i.e. you can use fish or grain or sheep to feed people with no synergistic effect for multiple food sources. This unfortunately overlooks a potential game feature involving food combinations that are salutary to population growth and disease resistance.

In the end, I'm for Civ becoming more of a simulation than an abstraction. I'm also aware that this is unlikely to ever happen given market forces and player preferences overall.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In the end, I'm for Civ becoming more of a simulation than an abstraction. I'm also aware that this is unlikely to ever happen given market forces and player preferences overall.

Chess is pure abstraction, it's one of the most popular games in human history. MoO3 had deep simulation and completely failed. If you want extreme simulation and think it will be interesting to anyone - make a mod. As simple as this. Civ6 team leaders are quite good game designers.

EDIT: Found this quote: "The happiness level will be focused on a city level, rather than on a global basis across your civilization" http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/11/s...i-debuts-this-fall-with-a-new-take-on-cities/
If the happiness is local, global food system is very likely to appear. It will allow limiting ICS.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I don't see them adding fine-grained food distribution control. Even with trade routes in Civ5 they were very careful to avoid having mechanics that "give away" stuff, since that's a big psychological block - it hits the "I might need that!" problem and means newer/casual players never engage with the mechanic.

It's much more likely, I think, that they introduce a hybrid scheme with local production/consumption but global reserves, where starving cities can pull from (at a penalty compared to local consumption) and which might even be useful for other things (e.g. speeding up unit builds or maybe even "rush buying" pop).

That way, there's plenty of space to optimise local vs. global consumption and city growth for veterans while newcomers/casual players don't have to micromanage everything.

 

[The_Reckoning]

From a gameplay perspective it works great in MoO2.

In MoO2, if a system's blockaded (enemy ships undefeated in orbit), it cuts off its food contribution from the rest of the empire, and has to sustain itself. Meaning if your breadbasket system is blocked off, the rest of your empire goes hungry, or has to start allocating its own farmers.

That would translate really well into armies sieging and blockading cities. Cut off their food supply and you're doing long-lasting economic damage while being able to fight on the defense.

If you can block off a connection via sea then it could give a real weight to naval matters, too.

 

[AintNobody]

Regarding food/resource trade (and perhaps global food a la MoO2), maybe they could have merchant/trader specialists contribute towards internal (or even external) trading capacity. Trade between cities would then eat trading capacity depending on how much is traded, modified perhaps by infra and tech level. This would give merchant specialists role other than just trying to fix your gold/cash problems...

 

[cazaderonus]

I also really hope they pushed this district mecanic hard. it could potentially add amazing layers of gameplay on all aspects of the game.

I'd love if instead of trade routes using a caravan, you could have in every city the option to just transfer a specific amount of production\food as soon as you have a road connection. distance of transfer could increase with techs\policies or maybe you could add an attrition system for transfering food too far too early. As it has been said in this thread, it needs to be a real transfer so sending 10 food to your capitol needs to take away 10 food from a granary city.

Cutting those roads when attacking would kill those supply lines. Leaving citizens starving or productions crippled in other shiny cities. It would make for amazing military plays.

This would feel very organic and emphasize actually building an empire that makes sense instead of stockpiling buildings everywhere.