No, the posts at the beginning are just all MtB's work, not updated at all from the thread. It would take way too much time to update it with all of the suggestions in this thread, and it would probably end up being about the same length anyway.
Civ V Ideas & Suggestions Summary
- Thread starter Camikaze
- Start date
Silv Something
Pi(e) Loving Maniac
Okay. Who's MtB?
Silv Something
Pi(e) Loving Maniac
Oh. He did that? Wow. Sorry, I thought it stood for something, like TMIT.
I agree with you to a point. However no civ is close to realistic. I think what would be acceptable instead of a city, there would be a mining colony or farming colony.
In Civ 3, there were colonies to produce a resource but only a resource. i.e. horses, iron, saltpeter, etc...
If a managable(sic?) colony could be established for mining or food production then the hammers/shields/loaves of bread would be distributeded to no more than 3 cities total. A mining colony could supply hammers/shields to a designated city(s)
Of course each city should have to supply one worker to the mining/farming colony with a total of no more than 5 worker for a size limit on the colony and a limit of three colonies max with one colony per three cities. As for the feeding of the workers, a
city(s) would have to supply the food in order to maintain a balance in the game. A city that produces a lot of food but few hammers/shields could be used to supply the food to the mining colony. Any upgrades to the colony would have to be produced in a city then shipped to the colony. A city with a lot of hammers/shields would be needed for industrial support of a farming colony. Standard feeding rules would be in effect. i.e. 2 food for each worker and so forth.
A farming colony could distribute food wherever. Give a real boost to city growth.
However, a colony could not produce any culture or anything such as a courthouse and what-not. Only hammers/shields would be produced or food depending on the colony type. then distrubuted to designated cities. Nor could any colony grow. All population would have to come from cities supplying the labor.
Look at the real world manhattan project for an example. Of course, this brings up the prospect of a science colony.
Furthermore, any city that is dependent on a farming colony for food would face starvation if such a colony were pillaged or occupied by enemy forces.
There are a lot of details to be worked out, but that is for the developers. They get paid for it with the money we spend on their games.
I think that the aspect military experience is inaccurate. For example, if an axeman destroyes an archer and previously had combat 1, you can upgrade the axeman to either: combat 2, 25% vs archers, 25% vs melee, first medic upgrade, 10% city attack, etc. In reality the unit would of had more experience attacking archers and thus should recieve 25% vs archers. Now I realize this could get really complicated, espicially when you get combinations of terrians and units either attacking or defending. This will also take away freedom from the player in choosing their army's strategy, so adding possibly a military academy will allow the player to train their units.
I also think that a stability factor should be added to civ 5. Have a giggaempire with little or no political stability added in is impractical. Something similar to RFC would be sufficient, but possibly simplified.
I also think that a stability factor should be added to civ 5. Have a giggaempire with little or no political stability added in is impractical. Something similar to RFC would be sufficient, but possibly simplified.
Welcome to the forums, Rahmstein. 
I agree with both of your ideas for the most part, particularly the political stability one (at least in the sense of domestic stability). I think one of the crucial things that needs to be implemented in the next Civ game. How can any thorough empire building game seriously exclude a very important aspect of that?
__________
BTW, I'll be away for the next week on holidays, so if I don't reply before then (which I won't), it's not because I've died.
I agree with both of your ideas for the most part, particularly the political stability one (at least in the sense of domestic stability). I think one of the crucial things that needs to be implemented in the next Civ game. How can any thorough empire building game seriously exclude a very important aspect of that?
__________
BTW, I'll be away for the next week on holidays, so if I don't reply before then (which I won't), it's not because I've died.
Carl5872
Prince
What about adding additional resources?
Cotton, tobacco and saltpeter for early gunpowder units.
Also has anyone heard if theyre even making a civ 5 and if so when its scheduled to be released?
Cotton, tobacco and saltpeter for early gunpowder units.
Also has anyone heard if theyre even making a civ 5 and if so when its scheduled to be released?
viator
Wanderer
Civ 4 is a great game. In the line from Civ Civ2 Civ 3 -Civ4 you can see a typical development. Lets call it a increasing player-democracy. It started with the ability to mod it, some other games also have that in some way, and it now (Civ4) is completely open to (re)program much of it yourself on different levels. That is more than just adding detailed, beautiful or historical graphics, however great, the mods of Civ4 can change the mechanics of the game to almost new games or the rebirth of games.
Like the rebirth of the great Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri (SMAC) and Alien Crossfire (SMACX) in the MOD Planetfall by Maniac.
There are many sophisticated mods and now even modmods. And the list is still growing!
See Civilization Fanatics' Forums > Civilization4 > Civ4 - Creation & Customization >Civ4 - Modpacks
In my opinion the main cause that Civ4 is still very much alive.
To continue this development in Civ5 it is obvious to make it even more open.
In this way of thinking nowadays modding can be considered as a inside way to change, it may be interesting to look at the outside as well. The idea is to make the game interact with other software outside. Software to be written by the users (also in python?) just like it is written for the mods within the limits of Civ4. Software that is out of limits to create play fields next to the game, but still interacting wit it. Just adding new possibilities.
For instance:
One of the great concepts in SMAC was the workshop in which you could create your own units with those technologies of the tech-tree that were available to you at that moment. The more you advanced in the tech-tree the better troopers or copters etc you could design. The workshop was the great toy of SMAC.
In the discussion around the Planetfall mod we see the boundaries of Civ4:
See Civilization Fanatics' Forums > Civilization4 > Civ4 - Creation & Customization >Civ4 Modpacks > Planetfall , Page 54, Message 1065 and further
If we sadley have to accept that this really is the last frontier of Civ4 itself than I would like to add this for the list of Civ5.
For the sake of the discussion I wil open a thread called "System More Open" in the Ideas & Suggestions Forum.
Best greetings,
Viator
Like the rebirth of the great Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri (SMAC) and Alien Crossfire (SMACX) in the MOD Planetfall by Maniac.
There are many sophisticated mods and now even modmods. And the list is still growing!
See Civilization Fanatics' Forums > Civilization4 > Civ4 - Creation & Customization >Civ4 - Modpacks
In my opinion the main cause that Civ4 is still very much alive.
To continue this development in Civ5 it is obvious to make it even more open.
In this way of thinking nowadays modding can be considered as a inside way to change, it may be interesting to look at the outside as well. The idea is to make the game interact with other software outside. Software to be written by the users (also in python?) just like it is written for the mods within the limits of Civ4. Software that is out of limits to create play fields next to the game, but still interacting wit it. Just adding new possibilities.
For instance:
One of the great concepts in SMAC was the workshop in which you could create your own units with those technologies of the tech-tree that were available to you at that moment. The more you advanced in the tech-tree the better troopers or copters etc you could design. The workshop was the great toy of SMAC.
In the discussion around the Planetfall mod we see the boundaries of Civ4:
See Civilization Fanatics' Forums > Civilization4 > Civ4 - Creation & Customization >Civ4 Modpacks > Planetfall , Page 54, Message 1065 and further
I also miss the workshop as the great toy of SMAC.
From the explanation above (quote) I understand the Civ4 engine wo'nt permit it.
Is that really the last word?
Still I would encourage thinking about the idea of getting outside the boundary's of the playfield. It could upheavel Civ4 as a whole. (to Civ5)
For many MOD's ( and ModMods ) it would be a great help to construct something of general software to (temporarely) get besides the engine and then return with some changed parameters.
I have no knowledge about how tightly closed (impermeable) the engine is, but surely you guys know about the input/output model... It cannot be limited to keystrokes and mousemovements only, I guess.
There must be some Leonardo amongst you to solve this !
Just trying to give it a kick, like an old motorbike ..... sometimes it works, maybe it is too hard and it is broken forever .... and we sadleyhave to accept that this really is the last frontier of Civ4 itself.
Thanks for all great MODs.
Best greetings and good health to you all !
Viator
If we sadley have to accept that this really is the last frontier of Civ4 itself than I would like to add this for the list of Civ5.
For the sake of the discussion I wil open a thread called "System More Open" in the Ideas & Suggestions Forum.
Best greetings,
Viator
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
most of the suggestions will definitely not be in any civ game. this is a game, not an exact copy of reality.
viator
Wanderer
Well, some people may have different opinions ...
I wonder if you ever played SMAC (Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri) ?
In the great Civ4-MOD Planetfall the goodies of SMAC are brought back to Civ4 BtS. Maniac c.s. did a great job !
One of the best mods for Civ4 BtS !
In my opinion (and of a some more players ...) the workshop added greatly to the gameplay. Only the real workshop is impossible in Civ4 because of technicalities...
The idea of composing new/better units with weapons/tools that come with achieved sience instead of just adding a promotion, is so interesting for the gameplay as a whole.
Impossible in Civ4, so I propose this for Civ5.
More generally I propose to continue the line of openness and make Civ5 even more open for modding.
Best greetings,
Viator
A game can be reasonably realistic. Realism does not necessarily compromise gameplay. Just because ideas are largely aimed at making the game realistic does not mean they do not warrant inclusion. In fact, it means that they should be considered more so. It is a point in their favour.
Turned out to be longer than I intended heh.
Suggestion 1:
Make Civ 5 compatible with gigantic map sizes. You shouldn't need a liquid cooled supercomputer to run a Civ game involving 300+ major cities and thousands of military units; which is what you find in the real world.
Even if the normal game is graphic/processor intensive, there should be an option to cut that all back so the average player can go max map size, with all the thousands of units and cities and resources to go with it.
Suggestion 2:
Have any of you ever played Supreme Ruler 2010? The resource style in that game is superb. It doesn't have nodes, it has densities.
IE: One tile has a density of 2, but right next to it is a density of 1. So if you set your oil well on density 2 you get twice as much per turn as density 1. The numbers could be drastically different but you get the idea.
Basically it makes veins of minerals. Think about regions in the US known for certain industries. Pennsylvania has large coal and iron deposits all over the countryside. Where did the US go for much of it's coal and iron? Pennsylvania.
California has vast veins of gold. Hence the gold rush.
In Civ 4 there is no incentive for goldrush style economics. If you had a vein density style resource procurement, the civs would actually feel the need to rush out and strip mine vast quantities of land to fund their endeavors.
Obviously later civics and technologies would change that somewhat in the modern ages, but it has been an important part of our culture and economy for thousands of years and should be reflected in the game.
Suggestion 2.5:
Using 1 iron resource to build an unlimited supply of tanks and battleships is kind of ridiculous. Instead, that 1 iron should allow you to build X tanks or battleships a turn, in addition to however much iron per turn your civ needs for consumer items. Your civ would be able to tweak it's needs(as seen in the US during WW2, maybe make that tech/civic reliant).
Obviously this would make finding a second iron resource essential to ramping up your war machine. As opposed to the find and forget style that civ 4 currently has.
Wood should be a resource. If you chop down all your forests, you run out. But there would be options selectively cut to keep your supply stable over long periods of time. Wood is renewable afterall. It would give you the ability to cut down the 5 forests of wood you need for all those warships, or to gather the wood over time so you don't run out.
Suggestion 2.5.5:
Stockpiles. You can store excess resources that you don't immediately need. Of course, you might need places to store it, and some items store better than others.(500 million barrel stockpile of oil is a good example)
Suggestion 3:
An entire civilization doesn't grind to a halt for 20 years just so it can produce 1 galley, warrior, or granary. The method of production should tie in heavily with the resources and population to better reflect how the real world works.
In a level 1 village, all you can do is make a granary and gather food. But as cities grow, their production should increase not by the number of hammers randomly found on a hill, but by the number of people multiplied by the amount of available resources(wood, stone, iron, etc).
Civ 5 should have a citizen to resource model that is more about turning resources into products than it is about working land tiles that somehow produce hammers.
In the beginning levels of a city, it will be more about securing a food source and growing the population. As the city grows, more and more of it's population can be devoted to gathering resources and turning them into products.
Items like a forge shouldn't give an arbitrary 15% hammers, but should actually open up whole industries for your citizens to work in.
If you have a forge in your city, the forge should be producing something all by itself(swords, to turn warriors into swordsmen), in addition to the warrior, or granary that you city could already build. The swords could just as well be a tradegood that allows 1 swordsman to be produced every few turns in your city(or civlization), but apply this to the rest of the tech tree. Basically when you build a port, it should allow you to produce a ship(or many ships) at the same time that city is producing an infantry unit or building a shopping mall.
Your entire city will not be tied up by what your forge is doing. This only happens when a wonder is building built. That is the one and only reason your entire city should be consumed with an entire task(unless you are really focusing where your citizens work, like for a major war effort).
When you have not tasked a forge with something specific like swords, axes, plows, or ship plating, then it should provide a commerce and happiness bonus to your population, because they can use it for their own needs.
As a result of all this, farms should be able to feed more citizens, and those citizens should be assigned to specific buildings or sectors of your city that are producing a specific thing like ships, weapons, etc.
This can tie directly into research labratories, where citizens are assigned inside a city to specifically research genetics, nuclear weapons, plastics, or whatever.
Suggestion 4:
The way battles are fought needs to change.
Instead of all my warriors going into battle 1 at a time, or in a long inefficient string of warriors(might as well be a million Persians going against 300 Spartans in a tight mountain pass the way it is currently setup), there should be a battalion/division/army setup.
Basically, the archers should "attach" to your warrior. If your warrior goes into battle, the archers are behind them lobbing death. Catapults could attach a group in a similar manner.
Groups of attached warrior/archer/catapults should also be able to attach to each other. If 6 warriors, 3 archers, and 1 catapult are on the same tile, select them all, and attach them. Now you have an army. Fights as a single unit. Warriors die first unless overrun or flanked.
Your army size should depend on several factors. The first factor is basic. Any civilization can throw together 100 warriors and mass them on a field for a single battle.
Pretty inefficient for 100 random warriors to mass against 1 spartan phalanx led by a general, using bronze shields and spears right? Warriors take heavy losses, though they probably win in the end. Civic choices, the experience of the leading general, as well as tech, equipment, and numbers would play much bigger roles on the battle.
Think: cross between Call to Power and Hearts of Iron 2. That is the kind of army system I think would work best for Civ 5.
Suggestion 5:
Food, resources, and population should be more fluid.
By that I mean they should move where you need them to go. Or rather, where they would really go in real life.
Lets look at a small farming town in america. All the food in the world. So much food, they are practically swimming in it. Do they grow to size 70 city like they could in Civ 4? No.
All the food goes somewhere else. Without direction from the government, it goes to where people need and want it. The cities. Far far away.
Now obviously, transportation and refrigeration has done a lot to allow this in our case. Much of this might be tech dependent. Resouces would also travel great distances to meet the needs, and of course iron can be shipped further, earlier, than food can. You get the idea.
Something else to consider. Do cities grow to size 70 just because they have enough food nearby? No, they don't.
Cities need a reason to grow. And it isn't food, though without food they obviously wouldn't grow.
Cities have jobs, money, and entertainment. That is why cities grow in real life. The jobs dried up in Detroit, so people have fled it by the hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, Phoenix, out in the desert, has been growing like crazy because of the opportunities.
Apply this to Civ 5.
Every city building, and even the tile improvements have extra factors besides the prime traits.
A theater provides happiness to the city, but it also provides jobs and makes the city more attractive to immigrants. If 2 cities are side by side with food supply being equal, the city with more jobs and entertainment will draw citizens from 1 to the other. Even across national borders. Especially across national borders.
All city buildings, wonders, and even factors like war and plague should factor into where and how citizens immigrate.
Suggestion 6:
Localized taxes/incentives. You may laugh, but localized taxes have done much to shape our world today.
Just look at how rich Switzerland is. It isn't because they are great producers of things everyone wants. It is because they positioned themselves relative to their neighbors financial situations.
Look at Hong Kong. Did Hong Kong prosper because of vast amounts of british cash flowing into it?
Or was it the policies behind it's governance that allowed it to position itself in the region as a major financial hub and port of trade?
On a more local level, if you have ever been to Kansas City or St' Louis, you might have noticed which side of the border the majority of those cities reside on. The majority of both are located on the Missouri side of the border. The reasons are many, but it basically boils down to taxes and incentives. The vast majority of development for both cities happened in Missouri because it had better opportunities for the businesses and residents.
Basically, you should be able to tailor your policies locally, as well as nationally to draw immigrants and business from around the region.
Suggestion 1:
Make Civ 5 compatible with gigantic map sizes. You shouldn't need a liquid cooled supercomputer to run a Civ game involving 300+ major cities and thousands of military units; which is what you find in the real world.
Even if the normal game is graphic/processor intensive, there should be an option to cut that all back so the average player can go max map size, with all the thousands of units and cities and resources to go with it.
Suggestion 2:
Have any of you ever played Supreme Ruler 2010? The resource style in that game is superb. It doesn't have nodes, it has densities.
IE: One tile has a density of 2, but right next to it is a density of 1. So if you set your oil well on density 2 you get twice as much per turn as density 1. The numbers could be drastically different but you get the idea.
Basically it makes veins of minerals. Think about regions in the US known for certain industries. Pennsylvania has large coal and iron deposits all over the countryside. Where did the US go for much of it's coal and iron? Pennsylvania.
California has vast veins of gold. Hence the gold rush.
In Civ 4 there is no incentive for goldrush style economics. If you had a vein density style resource procurement, the civs would actually feel the need to rush out and strip mine vast quantities of land to fund their endeavors.
Obviously later civics and technologies would change that somewhat in the modern ages, but it has been an important part of our culture and economy for thousands of years and should be reflected in the game.
Suggestion 2.5:
Using 1 iron resource to build an unlimited supply of tanks and battleships is kind of ridiculous. Instead, that 1 iron should allow you to build X tanks or battleships a turn, in addition to however much iron per turn your civ needs for consumer items. Your civ would be able to tweak it's needs(as seen in the US during WW2, maybe make that tech/civic reliant).
Obviously this would make finding a second iron resource essential to ramping up your war machine. As opposed to the find and forget style that civ 4 currently has.
Wood should be a resource. If you chop down all your forests, you run out. But there would be options selectively cut to keep your supply stable over long periods of time. Wood is renewable afterall. It would give you the ability to cut down the 5 forests of wood you need for all those warships, or to gather the wood over time so you don't run out.
Suggestion 2.5.5:
Stockpiles. You can store excess resources that you don't immediately need. Of course, you might need places to store it, and some items store better than others.(500 million barrel stockpile of oil is a good example)
Suggestion 3:
An entire civilization doesn't grind to a halt for 20 years just so it can produce 1 galley, warrior, or granary. The method of production should tie in heavily with the resources and population to better reflect how the real world works.
In a level 1 village, all you can do is make a granary and gather food. But as cities grow, their production should increase not by the number of hammers randomly found on a hill, but by the number of people multiplied by the amount of available resources(wood, stone, iron, etc).
Civ 5 should have a citizen to resource model that is more about turning resources into products than it is about working land tiles that somehow produce hammers.
In the beginning levels of a city, it will be more about securing a food source and growing the population. As the city grows, more and more of it's population can be devoted to gathering resources and turning them into products.
Items like a forge shouldn't give an arbitrary 15% hammers, but should actually open up whole industries for your citizens to work in.
If you have a forge in your city, the forge should be producing something all by itself(swords, to turn warriors into swordsmen), in addition to the warrior, or granary that you city could already build. The swords could just as well be a tradegood that allows 1 swordsman to be produced every few turns in your city(or civlization), but apply this to the rest of the tech tree. Basically when you build a port, it should allow you to produce a ship(or many ships) at the same time that city is producing an infantry unit or building a shopping mall.
Your entire city will not be tied up by what your forge is doing. This only happens when a wonder is building built. That is the one and only reason your entire city should be consumed with an entire task(unless you are really focusing where your citizens work, like for a major war effort).
When you have not tasked a forge with something specific like swords, axes, plows, or ship plating, then it should provide a commerce and happiness bonus to your population, because they can use it for their own needs.
As a result of all this, farms should be able to feed more citizens, and those citizens should be assigned to specific buildings or sectors of your city that are producing a specific thing like ships, weapons, etc.
This can tie directly into research labratories, where citizens are assigned inside a city to specifically research genetics, nuclear weapons, plastics, or whatever.
Suggestion 4:
The way battles are fought needs to change.
Instead of all my warriors going into battle 1 at a time, or in a long inefficient string of warriors(might as well be a million Persians going against 300 Spartans in a tight mountain pass the way it is currently setup), there should be a battalion/division/army setup.
Basically, the archers should "attach" to your warrior. If your warrior goes into battle, the archers are behind them lobbing death. Catapults could attach a group in a similar manner.
Groups of attached warrior/archer/catapults should also be able to attach to each other. If 6 warriors, 3 archers, and 1 catapult are on the same tile, select them all, and attach them. Now you have an army. Fights as a single unit. Warriors die first unless overrun or flanked.
Your army size should depend on several factors. The first factor is basic. Any civilization can throw together 100 warriors and mass them on a field for a single battle.
Pretty inefficient for 100 random warriors to mass against 1 spartan phalanx led by a general, using bronze shields and spears right? Warriors take heavy losses, though they probably win in the end. Civic choices, the experience of the leading general, as well as tech, equipment, and numbers would play much bigger roles on the battle.
Think: cross between Call to Power and Hearts of Iron 2. That is the kind of army system I think would work best for Civ 5.
Suggestion 5:
Food, resources, and population should be more fluid.
By that I mean they should move where you need them to go. Or rather, where they would really go in real life.
Lets look at a small farming town in america. All the food in the world. So much food, they are practically swimming in it. Do they grow to size 70 city like they could in Civ 4? No.
All the food goes somewhere else. Without direction from the government, it goes to where people need and want it. The cities. Far far away.
Now obviously, transportation and refrigeration has done a lot to allow this in our case. Much of this might be tech dependent. Resouces would also travel great distances to meet the needs, and of course iron can be shipped further, earlier, than food can. You get the idea.
Something else to consider. Do cities grow to size 70 just because they have enough food nearby? No, they don't.
Cities need a reason to grow. And it isn't food, though without food they obviously wouldn't grow.
Cities have jobs, money, and entertainment. That is why cities grow in real life. The jobs dried up in Detroit, so people have fled it by the hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile, Phoenix, out in the desert, has been growing like crazy because of the opportunities.
Apply this to Civ 5.
Every city building, and even the tile improvements have extra factors besides the prime traits.
A theater provides happiness to the city, but it also provides jobs and makes the city more attractive to immigrants. If 2 cities are side by side with food supply being equal, the city with more jobs and entertainment will draw citizens from 1 to the other. Even across national borders. Especially across national borders.
All city buildings, wonders, and even factors like war and plague should factor into where and how citizens immigrate.
Suggestion 6:
Localized taxes/incentives. You may laugh, but localized taxes have done much to shape our world today.
Just look at how rich Switzerland is. It isn't because they are great producers of things everyone wants. It is because they positioned themselves relative to their neighbors financial situations.
Look at Hong Kong. Did Hong Kong prosper because of vast amounts of british cash flowing into it?
Or was it the policies behind it's governance that allowed it to position itself in the region as a major financial hub and port of trade?
On a more local level, if you have ever been to Kansas City or St' Louis, you might have noticed which side of the border the majority of those cities reside on. The majority of both are located on the Missouri side of the border. The reasons are many, but it basically boils down to taxes and incentives. The vast majority of development for both cities happened in Missouri because it had better opportunities for the businesses and residents.
Basically, you should be able to tailor your policies locally, as well as nationally to draw immigrants and business from around the region.
derflensburger
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
- Messages
- 73
I read a lot of interesting things here, which reflect many of my thoughts on CIV-IV and the previous games.
I hope CIV-V will be made and I hope the developers have a look into this exquisite list!
I hope CIV-V will be made and I hope the developers have a look into this exquisite list!
Why can't each unit have infomation on an estimate of its numbers, for example the ancient/medievel units would consist of 5000 to 10,000 footsoldiers but a modern tank unit would be around 100 tanks so about 1000 troops.
in the modern world troop losses have a great effect on public will, and when peace is declared between two nations there can be a summary of the various engagements' losses like a wikipedia page, and a battle near a particlar city/landmark will be named "Battle of xxx"
in the modern world troop losses have a great effect on public will, and when peace is declared between two nations there can be a summary of the various engagements' losses like a wikipedia page, and a battle near a particlar city/landmark will be named "Battle of xxx"
Suggestion
Make food a lot more like commerce, or hammers. IOW, the each city will keep what it needs then distribute the rest to where it's needed. Then, make city growth more dependent on available hammers and commerce, like Decimatus suggests. Then, each city will have "reasons" to grow besides there just being a lot of food around. Note that this would not negate the importance of city placement: resource-rich locations and locations along rivers and coasts would still be premium sites.
Commerce distribution to where it's needed is done automatically in Civ3 and Civ4, without need for micromanagement. Food could be done the same way.
This would reinvent the mechanics of city growth, which would make Civ5 less of a rehash of the previous versions, without completely changing the game.
Also, this would make those high food, low yield grassland cities very important and strategic. Your high-production industrial powerhouse cities will starve without those resource-poor grassland cities.
And, as many people have pointed out, that solves the realism problem of large cities needing to grow all of their own food, which is true of exactly zero real-world metropolises.
Small suggestion
IMHO, making mountains and desert completely worthless in Civ4 was an overcorrection. I think it would add something back to the game to make mountains and desert worth at least a little something in return for developing them.
Make food a lot more like commerce, or hammers. IOW, the each city will keep what it needs then distribute the rest to where it's needed. Then, make city growth more dependent on available hammers and commerce, like Decimatus suggests. Then, each city will have "reasons" to grow besides there just being a lot of food around. Note that this would not negate the importance of city placement: resource-rich locations and locations along rivers and coasts would still be premium sites.
Commerce distribution to where it's needed is done automatically in Civ3 and Civ4, without need for micromanagement. Food could be done the same way.
This would reinvent the mechanics of city growth, which would make Civ5 less of a rehash of the previous versions, without completely changing the game.
Also, this would make those high food, low yield grassland cities very important and strategic. Your high-production industrial powerhouse cities will starve without those resource-poor grassland cities.
And, as many people have pointed out, that solves the realism problem of large cities needing to grow all of their own food, which is true of exactly zero real-world metropolises.
Small suggestion
IMHO, making mountains and desert completely worthless in Civ4 was an overcorrection. I think it would add something back to the game to make mountains and desert worth at least a little something in return for developing them.
When it comes to deserts and mountains, those tiles should become much more useful later in the game.
As the game progresses, the emphasis on land utilization should transfer from fields of crops and mines in the hills, to "where can I put my industries?" and mega mines in the mountains.
Industrial parks and spaceport/airports should be the major tile improvements that increase commerce and production in a city in the later stages.
Your tile improvement options shouldn't boil down to cottage, mine, or farm. A workshop shouldn't take up an entire tile, but an industry would.
Also, industries shouldn't just produce X more hammers, but an actual product that you can sell to your people and trade with other empires(which would be replaced by weapons of war when it came time for that).
Detroit starts as a farm town, but after you build 2-4 auto industry tiles next it, it becomes a major sector of your economy and gives you major trading influence/gold throughout the world.
If another civilization within trading distance builds a city with the same industry focus, you compete on the open market and whoever can gain the edge(franchises, subsidizing by putting gold per turn into efficiency/quality, etc) becomes known as the winner of that capital competition, thus gaining a bonus in various areas related to that industry.
There should be a commerce victory related to this.
Overall I think economy and production could use a major overhaul in civ 5, as well as warfare.
Hammers, gold, and food icons as well as the city state focus of civ 1-4 needs to make way for a better model.
The bandit warrior on warrior model that civ 1-4 has, needs to make way for an army on army model reflecting how that actually works in history.
I know these are a lot of "realism" suggestions that people fear would get in the way of the fun, but I think if implemented properly they do not need to be overbearing or overly complicated.
I believe that Call to Power was really moving in the right direction with production, trade, and warfare, but obviously the game was too buggy and the company didn't give it much support.
I think that workshops are intended to represent industrial areas. Maybe they should evolve and expand like cottages do.
It might be necessary to keep the franchise fresh and alive, or else everything will be been there, done that.
I think that altering the way cities develop can be as automatic and in background as it is currently, just that cities can grow in response to
and 
as well as 
in the city radius. And no reason why distribution between cities can't be as automatic as . Of course, the player should be able make adjustments or let the advisers handle it all, just as now.ceaseragustas
Chieftain
I think Obama should be a leader in Civ 5.
HaHaHa
HaHaHa
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