Great DECEPTION over food supplying methods

[Commander Bello]

Well, as I said, I like the idea a lot. But the food surplus must have some effect:
- sell it on the market (to other civs)
- more food -> less starving AND -> ability to grow more different luxury foods (that use more input and provide less (nutritial) output (but more econmical) -> more money and/or more health (-> more growth)
correct?

Before I answer those questions, allow me to point out another benefit of my conception:
The AI will be enabled to optimize it's national production!

If there are those 5 food surplus, it would check for the city with the highest production modifiers (forge, blacksmith, factory, whatever) if there is still a "food field" which could be switched to production (in Civ3 terms, switching from a mined grassland to a hill). If after this switch there still is at least no shortage, it would check for the next field or for the second best production city....

And the city governor could easily tell you about the outcome of your latest settings: "Sir, this will cause a national shortage on food. Do you want to proceed?"
Again, less micro-management needed, but optimized output....

 

[Commander Bello]

Ooopps.. pressed the button too early...

Yes, mitsho, you're right...
Surplus food then could easily be sold at the "world market". Your idea about having luxury food could be a great addition to my concept, as well!

 

[N3pomuk]

Why not make hammers and food totaly disposeable, limited by tec and distance.
Say fex. untill development of pottery you may only shift food between cities less than 3 tiles apart after that up to 7 tiles and so forth, mabe adjusted that if you want to move the food further you need to "pay" a penalty for spoiled food so moveing twice as far as allowed forces a 50% spoiling penalty.

btw does anyone know if hammers are terrain dependant or pop dependant? the latter would be mor realistic considering that one worker mining would probably not produce more than 10 workers manufacturing.

one more thing, I think mabe we are getting too hyped up, mabe we are in for a big dissapointment b/c they didn't change nearly enouth and/or were not as inovative as we are.

cheers

 

[warpstorm]

All I can say is that when I play it, if it doesn't feel like a game of Civ, I'll be disappointed.

 

[Commander Bello]

All I can say is that when I play it, if it doesn't feel like a game of Civ, I'll be disappointed.

Beg your pardon?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I am curious about that comment too, Commander Bello. I certainly don't see how an ability to shift food and hammers to cities that truly need them will make the game feel LESS like Civ?! Also, as has been cited before, whether the shift is automatic or player decided, it will actually make city placement in the earlier stages even MORE important-as failure to take advantage of high food and/or high production terrains will place greater restrictions on the players choice of city placements during the industrial and modern age.
This could also have a side-benefit in reducing the direct benefits between city number and success-making it more important to locate fewer cities VERY WELL, than lots of cities in a higgledy-piggledy fashion.
That has GOT to be a good thing!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[warpstorm]

What I meant is that if I am spending all my time managing food distribution (even though that was the major job of early rulers), it won't feel like Civ to me (reality has very little to do with why I like Civ).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, as far as I can see, plenty of models have been put forward here which would allow for food distribution in the game WITHOUT requiring a player to spend all, or even a lot, of his time managing said distribution on a turn by turn basis.
This will be even MORE true if they have a decent governor system this time out !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Commander Bello]

What I meant is that if I am spending all my time managing food distribution (even though that was the major job of early rulers), it won't feel like Civ to me (reality has very little to do with why I like Civ).

I would agree upon the fact that distributing food manually could become a tedious task.
Therefore, in post #37, I tried to suggest a concept which I feel would avoid this manual distribution completely AND would allow to cover all related issues...

 

[NP300]

This idea has potential. The food trade could be automated, just as trade is currently automated in Civ III. Food could be automatically transferred from cities with surplus food, to those with deficits. Perhaps a percentage of the food would be lost over the distance; this loss could decrease with technology and infrastructure. Thus players would have more of an incentive to hook up everything with roads and railroads.

Internationally, you could pay to buy another civ's excess food. This would open up whole new strategies. You could have small countries like Japan, with little land, that increase their population by importing food. Thus, trading food could potentially reduce the importance of size and make smaller civs viable. Big civs would still be better off but small civs could become powerful through trade.

This would also open up the strategy of food as weapon, which has been used in real life. In real life, countries like Britain and Germany imported food and thus needed to keep the sea lanes open. Naval blocakdes would take on a whole lot more importance. In WWI the Allies used food to force the Germans to sign the Versailles treaty. Likewise, Germany's submarine warfare was an attempt to cut off England's food supply.

Then perhaps the same could be done with shields. Or alternatively, shields could be generated by your population, allowing a country like Japan to import food, increase its population, and thus increase its shield output. Then Japan could use its extra shield output to pay for its food imports. Or it could also use gold...it is all the same. Thus Japan and its partner would become interdendent. Japan would depend on the other civ for food. And the other civ would depend on Japan for its shields.

City size could then be limited by space and happiness factors. If a city gets too crowded the citizens get unhappy. There could also be a limit to how many citizens you could have per tile.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Quote from Aussie Lurker, 'As for it adding MM, I don't see why?? A simple % based vector system would work very well, with all vectored shields and/or food ending up in the main trade screen-where it can be easily dished out to the cities which require it, or traded to other civilizations for cash, resources or the like. It is a system which would require no more (and actually quite less) MM than the existing systems of sending workers out to build terrain improvements, or the allocation of population to working certain squares.'

Good point once again Aussie, though the games are clearly different - re-tasking citizens in Empire Earth was one of the few useful things in that game to cut down on MM. This would actually give a point to the population advisor systems in Civ 3. Selective distributing or resources. If some players don't like it, why not put in an automated system.

Adding some realism to the game is important, and especially if its easy enough to implement.

 

[pooppoop02]

I like the idea of food trading. The whole idea of implementing how far you can transport the food depending on techs. If they can implement it where it's automated well then you will have a truly global economy with specialized metropolises(or is it metropoli?). Hammer trading would also be amazing. Think of it like an outsourcing tech.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

If a feature is supposed to be handed over to the Governor anyway, becuase he can do the job better in any case - you can as well drop it. Just consider it included in the abstraction.

A feature either has to be 'fun', or rewarding work (like quite some MM in Civ3, especially partial rushing).

I'm not at all against a 'Food Resource'; something that gives +1 fpt to cities recieving it (maybe the Health concept works that way?).

But vectors from City A to B, then founding City C to support A .
Did you ever played that Civ2 system (which was exactly like the proposals)? An endless vectoring of Food Caravans. A total mess.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm afraid that you have REALLY misunderstood my system Doc.
The thing which TRULY made caravans boring was that you had to build and physically move said units, and keep an eye on them EVERY turn. With my system, everything is managed from a single screen and-because its a % based system I advocate-its pretty much a 'set and forget' system, where you only have to go in and check it when a new city becomes a 'breadbasket' or if you feel circumstances have changed sufficiently to make alterations.
As for the role of governors, they would only be a major issue in very large nations, and would then only do the 'day to day' food management, with the rest being dealt with by the player.
Personally, I don't see ANYTHING particularly difficult or frustrating or boring in this system.
On a related note, its a real shame that the CtP rations system doesn't seem to have made it into Civ4 either !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

The thing which TRULY made caravans boring was that you had to build and physically move said units, and keep an eye on them EVERY turn.

One 'goto', and that was it.

What made the system painful was that permanent redistribution, checking which city needs food this turn, which one has surplus now (since the Jungle was gone, or the terraforming finally ended); and of course, like almost everything in Civ2, the fact the AI had not the slightest idea of it.

The Food Deliveries were the second most tedious MM in any Civ version ever. Period.
(The most teduious thing was the Settler bug in Civ1; complete any task in 1 turn, by waking up that Settler over and over again...)

If it can be accessed with a F screen for its own...well, why not playing Railroad Tycoon?
More important: That only helps with the interface; the uber-tedious check every city for food situation (and more important, future food stiuation) stays the same.

Compared to that, 'whack-an-orange-blob' is fun.

 

[kafkaesk]

I agree on manually sending caravans or regulating a cities food/ressources supply being nothing but tedious, but I think there are better ways to realise the concept anyway.

A pool-system, as suggested above, would require no additional micromanagement at all, but it would increase interesting strategic gameplay options tremendously (as well as realism, for those who care about it).

 

[dguichar]

i don't know how many times i've referred to Master of Magic...

it has a growth based solely on race reproduction skills... if there's enough food to suport city's population and a square is available, then the population increases by a fixed number... when it reaches a certain milestone, then a new head appears...

the extra food was showed in the main screen just above the extra gold... the extra food, of course, did not accumulate... and it was used to feed the military

 

[N3pomuk]

If it can be accessed with a F screen for its own...well, why not playing Railroad Tycoon?
More important: That only helps with the interface; the uber-tedious check every city for food situation (and more important, future food stiuation) stays the same.

Uhm sorry but I dn't see how that is tedious at all... For example you may tag cities for recieving form the pool and adding to the pool or give enouth so city1 grows only every 8 turns and tag city2 to grow every 1 turn. This would be ueber-helpful as those damn -1 +1 food surplus cities are finaly some use other than for bringing in workers. Then doing something similar to give that +48 shields (or hammers) city the extra two to shave off the extra turns. Remember this is also historicly acurate as people and resources were carted all through empires and foreign Nations to complete Great projects (wood, straw, stone, and farmers from the south for the Monuments in Egypt) and suplement armies (Men are drafted from wide areas to create units within central baracks).
This would be THE reason to build a city in the Floodplain without shields in the area or in the Mountains and hills withoiut access to food. All it needs is some more work. Not like most of you mind moving around all them workers, if you want an advantage.

cheers

 

[RoddyVR]

i hate the idea of sharing hammers or shields or whatever they are, in any fashion. if i have a far flung city, it should not be able to "produce" the production of my whole empire just cause i have a road to it. i know that's an exaduration, but you get my point i hope.

food sharing i like. commanders idea seems perfect to me.
all extra food for cities connected to your capitol gets put in a pool that the "starving" cities draw from. if there's not enough food for your population to grow, then it dont.
population based growth is also a good idea that fits that concept well.
health and/or happiness can influence how many kids your population has every turn.

i think extra food (for the nation) should be just thrown out. but i understand why being able to trade it could be fun. if its a "throw away" system, then if you have extra food in the empire, you just go into a city and switch a tile from grassland to hills or something, and there you go, no unneccessary surpluss.

putting "distance" limits on food will cause problems.
if i have 3 cities, A, B and C.
A makes lots of food (bread basket)
B makes a enough food to feed itself (balanced)
C is a mountain city that makes no food.

if the rules say that because C is far from A, i cant feed it, that sucks. i'd say well, B is between the 2, it'll send all its food to C and A will send food to B.
and those kinds of things will make the system cumbersome.
so it has to be national pool system of some sort. with disconnected cities having to make their own food and not being counted in the pool.

whoever posted that "worker points" system, that's a great idea too. sort of like a national tax on production, right? that gets put towards terrain improvement by the player. i've always hated workers in civ.