English is not my native language, so you have to bear with me.
Food production is an essential factor during the advancement of humankind. For example, Chinese people are mostly free from the fear of hunger after 1980. Before that, people are constantly in struggle with starvation from time to time. Living under the fear of starvation is a memory long forgotten by modern society, but it is actually a recent reality not that long ago.
And RI has done an incredible work by illustrating the relationship between foods production, city population, technology, labor system by utilizing the game mechanic. Playing the game really makes me at awe how our specie has come so far. In the following paragraph, I will try to relate my understanding.
Firstly, RI makes food production important by increasing the amount of food required for each people in game. You need 3 foods to feed one person instead of 2 in the original game.
Before Bronze Age, due to the low productivity of farming, it is very difficult to have a city population greater than 6-8. Productivity is so low that the only plot worthy of a farm is a plot having access to resource such as Wheat, Rice, etc. It is pointless to build a farm in a plain plot without any farming resource. To farm a plain and featureless plot, you have to work the farm by using one people, which require 3 foods for survival. In return, you only get 3-4 foods, so your net profit is 0-1 food. This is why ancient civilization arises in place with rivers and suitable weather and soil condition for farming.
Food production increases as technology advance. After unlocking bronze working, you can adopt slavery and it is highly recommended too. A slave farm increase the food production of your farm by one and building a slave market in you city further boost this bonus by additional one. Due to increase in food productivity, your city can support a larger population and riverside plain plot becomes profitable when you build farm on them. With population blooming, city has better industry production which leads to improvement in facility and therefore better commerce and industry production. Slavery has several downsides though. From time to time, slave would rise up and rebel against you. As the wheel of time advances, rebellion becomes more frequent. By adopting slavery, your city tends to have a worst sanitation though, because slave doesn’t have access to high living standard.
As technology advances, you will learn Irrigation which makes farm without slave produce one more food. Slave farm is not affected by this tech though. After unlocking Peasant Servitude technology, you would abolish Slavery since it is more profitable to adopt servitude. Peasants will rebel too though, so prepare yourself. In the end, when mechanical farm and fertilizer is available we would have the biggest jump in population. Foods become easily available, and the population of your cities starts skyrocket.
Overall, I think RI capture the change of foods production in human history quite well which improves the immersion in gameplay.
Food production is an essential factor during the advancement of humankind. For example, Chinese people are mostly free from the fear of hunger after 1980. Before that, people are constantly in struggle with starvation from time to time. Living under the fear of starvation is a memory long forgotten by modern society, but it is actually a recent reality not that long ago.
And RI has done an incredible work by illustrating the relationship between foods production, city population, technology, labor system by utilizing the game mechanic. Playing the game really makes me at awe how our specie has come so far. In the following paragraph, I will try to relate my understanding.
Firstly, RI makes food production important by increasing the amount of food required for each people in game. You need 3 foods to feed one person instead of 2 in the original game.
Before Bronze Age, due to the low productivity of farming, it is very difficult to have a city population greater than 6-8. Productivity is so low that the only plot worthy of a farm is a plot having access to resource such as Wheat, Rice, etc. It is pointless to build a farm in a plain plot without any farming resource. To farm a plain and featureless plot, you have to work the farm by using one people, which require 3 foods for survival. In return, you only get 3-4 foods, so your net profit is 0-1 food. This is why ancient civilization arises in place with rivers and suitable weather and soil condition for farming.
Food production increases as technology advance. After unlocking bronze working, you can adopt slavery and it is highly recommended too. A slave farm increase the food production of your farm by one and building a slave market in you city further boost this bonus by additional one. Due to increase in food productivity, your city can support a larger population and riverside plain plot becomes profitable when you build farm on them. With population blooming, city has better industry production which leads to improvement in facility and therefore better commerce and industry production. Slavery has several downsides though. From time to time, slave would rise up and rebel against you. As the wheel of time advances, rebellion becomes more frequent. By adopting slavery, your city tends to have a worst sanitation though, because slave doesn’t have access to high living standard.
As technology advances, you will learn Irrigation which makes farm without slave produce one more food. Slave farm is not affected by this tech though. After unlocking Peasant Servitude technology, you would abolish Slavery since it is more profitable to adopt servitude. Peasants will rebel too though, so prepare yourself. In the end, when mechanical farm and fertilizer is available we would have the biggest jump in population. Foods become easily available, and the population of your cities starts skyrocket.
Overall, I think RI capture the change of foods production in human history quite well which improves the immersion in gameplay.
