Food

Fabiano79

Prince
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
337
I never liked the way civilization deal with food, with each city needing to produce its own.

In the real world, food its a important commodity and almost every country I can think of has a region that produce food to the others (ex.: corn belt, usa).

What I would like to see its a system where I can have 2 cities next to a good river providing food to a bigger capital and a couple of military cities. Also, that food could be traded with others civs.

This is possible? Theres MODs for that?

I think the game would be more complex and fun. But I dont have idea if it would be possible.
 
i agree that food trading and food exports should be a part of the game so that you can prevent starvation in your cities by moving extra food from one city to the other and if you can't do that you could import food from other civs to boost your economy. it would make food much more important than it already is.
 
yes, there is a mod which adresses parts of your request. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it.
 
Would be interesting. But also removes strategy away from specialising cities. If food can be shifted between then all you have to worry about is production; gold or culture and growth no longer suffers as a result.

Likewise with settling close to resources in deserts etc.
 
Would be interesting. But also removes strategy away from specialising cities. If food can be shifted between then all you have to worry about is production; gold or culture and growth no longer suffers as a result.

Likewise with settling close to resources in deserts etc.

But thats what happen in real life. Every city produce its own food when founded, but later they become more focus in something else (tourism, industry, sea port etc), receiving food from somewhere else.

I see a lot of strategy to be played chosing the best places for each city. And, if you have the bad luck of not having iron, you dont need to start over.
 
But thats what happen in real life. Every city produce its own food when founded, but later they become more focus in something else (tourism, industry, sea port etc), receiving food from somewhere else.

I see a lot of strategy to be played chosing the best places for each city. And, if you have the bad luck of not having iron, you dont need to start over.

But, and I do mean this respectfully here;

Civilization isn't a real life war simulator. It's a strategy game.
 
Sure, but I think the game would be better, just that.

It would be more complex, since you would have to defend every city better. Not only that, probably part of the strategy of this new system would be intercept caravans of food, broke the chain, this kind of thing.
 
Sure, but I think the game would be better, just that.

It would be more complex, since you would have to defend every city better. Not only that, probably part of the strategy of this new system would be intercept caravans of food, broke the chain, this kind of thing.
No, it would be less complex, since you could chuck cities anywhere you wanted after finding a few good food sites. Also, it would force complete city specialization.
 
Sure, but I think the game would be better, just that.

It would be more complex, since you would have to defend every city better. Not only that, probably part of the strategy of this new system would be intercept caravans of food, broke the chain, this kind of thing.

This already happens (albeit on a small scale level) with economy and trade routes though. Break someone's trade route and they suffer for it. Should food be added to or replacing with this system?
 
Added.

I disagree with you aatami.

The way it is now you depend too much of teh good locations. The start locations can be very unfair sometimes and this for multiplayer is a big problem. Even single, some civs just become the best becaus they got lucky on the start location. Too simplistic in my opinion.

And I like city specialization. Who can play on emperor or above without? But dont need to be too rigid, the cities would still be able to feed themselves, but you can choose to become a big food producer for the world if you dont have iron or uranium. Just opens more ways to play the game.
 
No, it would be less complex, since you could chuck cities anywhere you wanted after finding a few good food sites. Also, it would force complete city specialization.

Ataami has a point, for sure. Keep in mind that this mechanic, if it was as historically accurate as you want it, would be largely a post-Renaissance mechanic, and end up being more weird than you would think.

I realize food trading was common even in the BCs, but for more of history prior to the 1500s, food was extremely localized and food trading was almost exclusively wheat or rice.

Therefore, even if it worked well (which I don't think it would), it would be quite strange to have an entirely new food system halfway through the game.

Ultimately, I feel the current system improves strategy by, like already said, encourage city specializations and reducing exploitation. You could have one city feeding so many, who are going 100% production, pumping out mass units/buildings. This would be incredibly difficult to balance.
 
You are right, it was after the industrial revolution (with trains and other transports) that food started to move around for real.

About balance, like I said on my previous post, this already happens. On some games of mine, I discover that the AI started next to a river with 2 cows, gold and iron, and his capital is level 22...meanwhile mine is 8 and I had to build a city on tundra to get iron.

So I dont think balance would be a problem more that already is.

Now its too late to think this kind of thing for ciV, buts for sure is something that sometime has to become a feature. The commerce of food its the biggest on the world. Oil its nothing if you put together all the agricultural commodities.
 
You are right, it was after the industrial revolution (with trains and other transports) that food started to move around for real.

About balance, like I said on my previous post, this already happens. On some games of mine, I discover that the AI started next to a river with 2 cows, gold and iron, and his capital is level 22...meanwhile mine is 8 and I had to build a city on tundra to get iron.

So I dont think balance would be a problem more that already is.

Now its too late to think this kind of thing for ciV, buts for sure is something that sometime has to become a feature. The commerce of food its the biggest on the world. Oil its nothing if you put together all the agricultural commodities.

You do bring up a good point. I feel that they need to significantly increase the amount of food production buildings to accommodate this. Rather than shift mechanics, perhaps new buildings such as Grocers and Supermarkets could increase food production for remote areas?

These buildings could represent the spread of modern food production and operate similar to Granaries or Hospitals?

Currently, the modern building Medical Lab is virtually useless.
 
I've always felt this way. Since the time of the Roman Empire cities have been getting their food from elsewhere. Much of Italy was reliant on imports from Egypt and other territories. If you go to New York you won't see very much farmland around would you? Yet why isn't the city starving to death?
 
Maybe have a system like this?

1) Food producing Cities must have trade routes with food recieving cities. If the trade route is lost for any reason, all food traffic stops.
Rationale: It's incredibly difficult and inefficent to carry food without roads for any actual distance. The need for roads would put an economic limit on where food producing cities can be placed.

2) Food producing cities may export up to 75% of their excess food. However, only 50% of that food will actually get to the recieving city. The rest was lost/went bad along the way. This is improved to 75% with railroads and 90% with refrigeration (note: refrigeration only helps on railroad/harbor connected cities - it stays 50% regardless on road cities).
Rationale: Now for most of the game, it's incredibly inefficent to export food. This puts a practical limit on the mechanic.

Another possibility: Distance affects how much food is lost (with roads only/harbors before refridgeration doubling how much food is lost).
 
I've always felt this way. Since the time of the Roman Empire cities have been getting their food from elsewhere. Much of Italy was reliant on imports from Egypt and other territories. If you go to New York you won't see very much farmland around would you? Yet why isn't the city starving to death?

exactly. fertilizer should unlock the ability to transfer food between cities and to be used in trades with other civs. many modernized nations don't produce enough food to feed all their people (japan is a good example) but they aren't starving to death because of exports and most large cities have no farmland near them and they aren't starving. this addition would make it so that you could have something else to trade for things you need and don't have and another thing you could trade for.
 
Maybe have a system like this?

1) Food producing Cities must have trade routes with food recieving cities. If the trade route is lost for any reason, all food traffic stops.
Rationale: It's incredibly difficult and inefficent to carry food without roads for any actual distance. The need for roads would put an economic limit on where food producing cities can be placed.

2) Food producing cities may export up to 75% of their excess food. However, only 50% of that food will actually get to the recieving city. The rest was lost/went bad along the way. This is improved to 75% with railroads and 90% with refrigeration (note: refrigeration only helps on railroad/harbor connected cities - it stays 50% regardless on road cities).
Rationale: Now for most of the game, it's incredibly inefficent to export food. This puts a practical limit on the mechanic.

Another possibility: Distance affects how much food is lost (with roads only/harbors before refridgeration doubling how much food is lost).

that sounds good but what about international food trade?? it also makes railroads worth more to pay upkeep on.
 
that sounds good but what about international food trade?? it also makes railroads worth more to pay upkeep on.

That gives me an idea.
New civilian unit: Transport Truck
Transport can move food between cities without the need for a road.
Can carry a max of 12 food. Once loaded, it looses 2 food per turn to time, decreased to 1 food per turn with refridgeration. Carrying this unit into another civ's territory and adjacent to a city will allow you to open a special trade system, where you can sell them the food for a certain amount of money. OR you can use the global trade system to set up a food trade which will trigger the transport truck to carry food to them automatically. Once the truck is next to their city, it'll sell the remaining food for a ratio of food to gold that was agreed on in the trade. The truck will then return to your territory and disband.

Transport trucks can be captured like normal civilian units, and have a movement of 3.
Transport trucks are unlocked with The Wheel and their appearance changes depending on era.
 
That gives me an idea.
New civilian unit: Transport Truck
Transport can move food between cities without the need for a road.
Can carry a max of 12 food. Once loaded, it looses 2 food per turn to time, decreased to 1 food per turn with refridgeration. Carrying this unit into another civ's territory and adjacent to a city will allow you to open a special trade system, where you can sell them the food for a certain amount of money. OR you can use the global trade system to set up a food trade which will trigger the transport truck to carry food to them automatically. Once the truck is next to their city, it'll sell the remaining food for a ratio of food to gold that was agreed on in the trade. The truck will then return to your territory and disband.

Transport trucks can be captured like normal civilian units, and have a movement of 3.
Transport trucks are unlocked with The Wheel and their appearance changes depending on era.

the transport truck losing food each turn is kind of unfair considering that things like wine don't go bad or need a transport truck. if it was the same thing for all resources then i could agree with it but if it only affects the food i don't like it that much.
 
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