Trade, Production and Population Growth

[Nico92]

The system of tiles was quite good for the first Civ... but in Civilization 4, I would like it a lot if it was improved to get more realistic.

Trade :

The computer should be able to calculate trade routes linking the largest countries. All cities along those routes would get revenues from the trade.

Population :

The idea that the population would grown while collecting food deserves to be improved. Throughout History, the population has mostly raised with the improvements in Medicine and the Economics. The cities with a trade surplus would attract people. As much inside the civilization than outside of it. With time, the power of attraction would increase.

We would still need to collect food to feed people... but that wouldn't have always to be in the city area. For instance, we could begin in the Ancient Time to do at the level of cities, but with time, it would become national, and it should be even possible to trade food with other civilizations even later in case of shortage. Disease should have also more impact than they have currently. One third of European population had been killed by the great plague.

I think it's important to make a system where we don't directly control the growth of population, but where we would have to increase improvements to make of it viable.

In the 18th century, there should be an technology called "Agricultural Revolution" which would boost the population growth. All countries experienced such a boost form the 18th century to the 20th century. We don't feel such a dramatic change in Civilization.

Production and Workers.

I would tend to like better a system where would be either shield workers, trade workers or agricultural workers. I know it would sound more complicate but it would also be a lot more realistic. The first cities had been founded once people was able to live from something else than feeding themselves. There would have never been the Industrial Revolution if we weren't able to feed all those people who were rushing to cities because they had no field to grow to survive.

Well, I guess you won't like all those ideas because that's not "as usual"... however, the "empire" we're building in Civ are not realistic at all. There's no countries with all cities at the same level of population. We have always more important cities than others. And the change of societies should also be taken into account.

 

[Nico92]

Obviously you don't seem to care.

Well, I agree that the current system has as advantage to be simple. However, do you know many people living in large cities and going to the countryside each day to grow some fields ?

You don't think food should be at least determined at a national scale for just the modern era ? That's already too much ?

Thank you if you answer.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Nico92
Obviously you don't seem to care.

Actually, there are several other active threads addressing issues of trade and production. Why not join one of those discussions instead of starting another new thread and being sad that no one notices it?

You don't think food should be at least determined at a national scale for just the modern era ? That's already too much ?

I do agree with you, food should be tradeable between cities and even between civs. It was in Civ 2, and bringing it back for Civ 4 has been suggested many times, by many people. I think its a good idea, although the implementation should be somewhat different than in Civ 2, in which you had to build caravans to do it.

Thank you if you answer.

You're welcome!

 

[Nico92]

Sorry, I didn't know there was already other threads talking about it. I'm still new here.

Well, about the topic, I still think that a city growing only because food is accumulated isn't a good system. Cities should attract migrations, that has always been the case in History, and to attract migrations, the population should grow fastly in cities with a lot of trade than in other cities.

If I care that much on that point, it's because there is always a small number of leading cities in a country. There's a mathematical law about it. You will never see a country with 10 cities with the same population. That's why it would be important to determine the trade level in a country with routes, ressources or production than simply with road tiles or river tiles.

Well, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm really sorry if I've felt this way. And thank you a lot for the answer.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Nico92
Sorry, I didn't know there was already other threads talking about it. I'm still new here.

No problem. There often wind up being multiple threads on similar issues - its hard to keep track of all the threads. You could check out ybbor's thread (at the top of the list) which has a list of all current topics of discussion. I'm not sure how often it's updated, but it looks like the most recent update was light night.

Well, about the topic, I still think that a city growing only because food is accumulated isn't a good system. Cities should attract migrations, that has always been the case in History, and to attract migrations, the population should grow fastly in cities with a lot of trade than in other cities.

Yes, I agree. You may want to check out some of the threads about immigration, refugees, etc. (here's one, for example, although its more about refugees), as well as the ones about transporting food. There was also some discussion about ideas like this in the original "Civ 4 idea" thread (before this sub-forum was created), although that thread is pretty dead now since its 50+ pages long and no one bothers to read it all.

Well, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm really sorry if I've felt this way. And thank you a lot for the answer.

That's okay, no offense taken (and none meant by me...). I like your ideas... I agree that food should be transportable between cities and civs, and all cities should not be essentially identical. As you say, they should vary in size more, but also, I think they should specialize in different industries. For example, in the USA, Detroit is known as the center of the auto industry, Los Angeles (incl. Hollywood) is the center of the movie industry, etc.

Personally, though, I think that where your people move needs to remain controllable. One of the hallmarks of the Civ games is the ability to have complete control of your civilization, and this would be lost if people started migrating where you didn't want them to. I think as long as food was able to be shared among cities (so that the immediate terrain next to a city didn't limit its size) then you should be able to control which cities become very large (because they are centers of industries that you consider important) and which remain small, or even shrink (because you consider the things they produce there less important).