Food consumption by citizens

[civ-wrecked]

I really like ROM since it allows a very wide range of choices. Some of the choices (like brothels and hemp plantation) give me a good laugh. Hey, that's all we want when playing a game.

One of the very powerful improvements is irrigation canal: one extra food per river tile. That can get a riverside city expanded in no time at all.

But then I noticed that one of those cities don't really grow anywhere as fast as I thought and some of the non-river cities don't seem to grow at all. That's when i counted the food production/consumption and realized that each citizen consumed 3 food. That would definitely starve my non-riverside cities.

So my questions are:

1) what condition (tech progression, civic choice, whatever) triggers the 3 food/citizen consumption ?

2) Is there a way to get non-riverside cities to grow ? A farm gives only food and that's not enough for the cities to grow if I want to produce anything and not just maintain an all-farm city.

 

[NBAfan]

3 food/citizen consumption is a RoM feature. It's like that from the start.

 

[civ-wrecked]

Thanks. Guess I should not build any city away from a river and coast and expect it to grow then. I almost made one of those my Heroic Epic city.
Is Biology still the only tech to increase the food production as in Civ IV ?

 

[BobTheBull]

Go to : <DefineName>FOOD_CONSUMPTION_PER_POPULATION</DefineName>

in: C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Rise of Mankind\Assets\XML

You will find it set to three. Change it to two, or whatever you want. Your riverside cities will grow very fast, unless you limit them by working some low food/high production tiles which is not a bad idea.

Don't know of any way to have different food consumption for different areas, though.

This would be a better feature if there were a simple and easy way to export food from a high food city to a low food city and more like real life. It there is a way and I've missed it please tell.

 

[acivguy55]

Hi, I am new to this particular mod and beg to know how do you deal with poor food availability early in the game? (due to 3food pop)

 

[generalstaff]

Hi, I am new to this particular mod and beg to know how do you deal with poor food availability early in the game? (due to 3food pop)

The biggest tip is in city founding; look for "food" resources. Next, build the Pyramids (IIRC they give a free Irrigation Canal (River Tiles +1 Food) in every city, I forget when than change was made, or if it was changed later). Finally, farms, I know that they do not produce much food at first, but they are useful for building up a population until tech allows farms to more than pay for themselves; farms also have a chance to discover a "food" resource if you are lucky. Also, building granaries helps with farm part of the strategy since storing food after growth helps with city growth, as well as giving a buffer in case a random event destroys a farm or pasture.

With that said, if you have a city in the desert (without floodplains) or tundra, do not expect the city to be big, it is common sense.