Is growing cities too easy?

[rusbeh]

Like all things it depends. In my capital, and perhaps later on in a few select cities, I can not get enough food. Food isn't in that regard the problem. The happiness system is the problem. That is why you lock pop growth in your later founding cities. They have to much food and can't handle the unhappiness, mileage may vary depending on game difficulty and such. So I do send trade routes with food to my capital if I can. Bulking up my capital is more important then getting some poultry little gold and culture reward from a foreign trade route, that also have a lot more risk involved. I don't tend to lose internal trade route, the same can't be said for the non-internal once -- city-states or foreign lands matter little in that regard as they are both horrid at barbarian control and war declarations -- intentional once or those that they get dragged into.

Is sending trade routes with food creating food out of thin air? In some regard yes but on a conceptual level I am sure it can be explained. As with all things in the game a food produced might not be food eaten. Most people don't go out into the field and eat grain straight from the ground. You do something with it. Processing. Just like you don't go out and just make things out of trees or stone, they are processed for production. We just don't really see the processing in the game, Some buildings and such do give a little bit of food or extra food on resources. I guess those could be considered the processing of food. Otherwise a lot of it is tied to pop growth, as in spill over when a new pop is born.

But over all I would stay this is not a food issue, it's a happiness issue. It takes some time for you to get all the happiness things online in small cities. But this is what you get I guess when it distributes things over all cities. Getting a new city in that regard sucks a bit. Even if you build it with a improved settler such as a colonist etc the basic buildings does help but not enough. The people in those cities will almost instantly require buildings that grant happiness that are out of their reach in some regard.

I guess the main thing I would agree with is that farms are horrible improvements. I rarely build them until late in the game. The yield isn't really needed for growth as much. The second reason is that horrible event that just keeps happening over and over and over again where there is flooding. If you don't build any farms you never get that event triggering. So it's just not worth building them if you constantly need to send workers there to repair things and hope that the flooding doesn't destroy other things. Worst event ever.

It's a happiness issue but it's also a food issue. Vp has added so many components that produce food and citizens still eat the same amount of food than in vanilla so improvements like farms are useless. If you just look at how many buildings from the ancient and classical era produce food in some way you get what I mean. It all adds up and growth outpaces happiness.

 

[Zuizgond]

Agree ITR should only be moving food/prod, not creating them out of thin air.

 

[Zerazar]

Early on the issue is happiness. Even if you have the food, you will rarely have the happiness. Soon enough, though, the problem becomes the exponentially increasing cost of each new pop, and the approaching end of the game. You'll need many hundreds if not thousands of food to create another pop.

Food doesn't do anything until it creates another pop, and then that pop doesn't do anything immediately, it just very slightly increases yields, which will then have to accrue slowly into value. Try looking at a grass farm tile vs a plains hill mine tile. How many turns will you have to work the farm tile before it creates a pop? How long will that pop have to now work the hill tile until it's 'paid itself back', and can start making profit (as compared to just working the hill tile to begin with)? Compare at 10 pop, 20 pop, 30 pop.

Yields now is better than yields later. A food tile is not only an investment in yields later, it's an investment with miserable returns (later in the game).

It's the same problem a lot of late game buildings have. Huge production cost, yet only slightly increase yields, and you're getting close to the game ending.

 

[azum4roll]

If you value food as growth (and thus a new citizen), then yes, it's a bad yield. But you also need food to feed your existing citizens and specialists.

 

[Stalker0]

So we need to focus on what the specific problem is.

Is it a food problem or a farm problem? That is not the same thing.

Is it that cities grow too quickly, or that growth itself isn't strong enough?

 

[rusbeh]

There's so much food sources that food improvements aren't important to focus on. There's somewhat of a limit on how fast cities can grow with the happiness system and they grow fast even without farms. Farms are also bad if they are not made at least triangular but that's not worth it because you need space for great people improvements, villages, forts or 4uc unique improvements.

 

[looorg]

So we need to focus on what the specific problem is.

Is it a food problem or a farm problem? That is not the same thing.

Is it that cities grow too quickly, or that growth itself isn't strong enough?

There isn't really a lack of food. Early growth is possible without making farms. The farms are just not good enough or generate enough food to be worthwhile early on. Almost all other tiles are better tiles then building a farm, building and maintaining the farm just isn't worth it early on. Better to have some animals to pasture etc.

The other issue is the happiness issue in that the system isn't in sync when talking growth and happiness mitigations. New cities founded, after the first couple of cities, practically start deeply unhappy due to how the unhappiness is distributed out across the population and cities.

This problem would just be bad if they grew even faster. That said in the middle-end game they just can't grow fast enough as you have gotten to grips with the unhappiness. Also while somewhat of a fringe case, if you get large enough that your empire have so much population that you can in a meaningful way manipulate the world averages then growth is awesome. But until that time, it's a bit of a pain as the AI doesn't seem to have or care about your type of growth issues.

 

[bigguns]

I think the ideal food situation is you start strong, with a lake or something, but then you pivot to non-food tiles which large other yields, like a plains tea or something. Pretty much the only time I build a farm is early game on plains wheat, because a plains city is slightly short on food.

Other thoughts:
1. Farms are not good
2. Tradition capitals want a ton of food, but they want sources that aren't farms (internal trade routes, hanging gardens)
3. Most other cities want a 'medium' amount, which you usually get without much effort. The best example is probably a food CS ally.

In general I think food CS are a big reason why I don't bother farming

 

[paul_soryu]

That way you dont feel like you miss out on money.

Actually, if you have good Tourism against any other player (someone's vassal is a common example, they have very little culture) in mid-late game, then the +% bonus from international TR easily compensates any possible internal TR, unless you go heavy on bonuses to internal TR (Fielty, Industry and Order). Bonus 15-20% can give you +10-20 in mid game and up to +50 in late game in your largest cities. This makes Food ITR largery useless outside of early game, where they can be very powerful. In the past, I knew about this bonus, but didn't realize how powerful it can be.

I actually like the bonus, but I don't get the idea behind it, like, why if I trade with a less cultured nation, I get increased food generation in my city? I think it was added back in vanilla Civ5 for gameplay reasons, but I don't remember why. I guess to simply buff the Tourism playstyle.

Also, there is Food bonus for excess Happiness (10 = +20%) and a bonus from WLTKD (+10% or +15%, can't remember), which is almost always active, plus monopolies like Salt (and additional +10% from Imperialism monopoly bonus), so in late game you can have up to 70% or even 80% bonus to Food out of thin air, even without Tradition/Rationalism. I achieved it last couple of games with Authority/Artistry/Imperialism. Maybe Rationalism also has some +% bonus, I don't know, I never take it. I think it gives +5% on opener and +2% on each Policy unlocked, so additional +15%.

Toning down these bonuses might be a simple way to balance Food.

 

[msw1]

Actually, if you have good Tourism against any other player (someone's vassal is a common example, they have very little culture) in mid-late game, then the +% bonus from international TR easily compensates any possible internal TR, unless you go heavy on bonuses to internal TR (Fielty, Industry and Order). Bonus 15-20% can give you +10-20 in mid game and up to +50 in late game in your largest cities. This makes Food ITR largery useless outside of early game, where they can be very powerful. In the past, I knew about this bonus, but didn't realize how powerful it can be.

I actually like the bonus, but I don't get the idea behind it, like, why if I trade with a less cultured nation, I get increased food generation in my city? I think it was added back in vanilla Civ5 for gameplay reasons, but I don't remember why. I guess to simply buff the Tourism playstyle.

I can't say what the actual reason is, but I have an idea. It's important to remember that food simultaneously represents literal food and also abstract population growth. So I'm guessing the idea is that sending trade routes to a nation where your culture is influential increases emigration from that nation to yours.

 

[rusbeh]

Food city states could provide golden age points and less overall food. Same for WLTKD.

 

[bigguns]

Actually, if you have good Tourism against any other player (someone's vassal is a common example, they have very little culture) in mid-late game, then the +% bonus from international TR easily compensates any possible internal TR, unless you go heavy on bonuses to internal TR (Fielty, Industry and Order). Bonus 15-20% can give you +10-20 in mid game and up to +50 in late game in your largest cities. This makes Food ITR largery useless outside of early game, where they can be very powerful. In the past, I knew about this bonus, but didn't realize how powerful it can be.

I actually like the bonus, but I don't get the idea behind it, like, why if I trade with a less cultured nation, I get increased food generation in my city? I think it was added back in vanilla Civ5 for gameplay reasons, but I don't remember why. I guess to simply buff the Tourism playstyle.

Also, there is Food bonus for excess Happiness (10 = +20%) and a bonus from WLTKD (+10% or +15%, can't remember), which is almost always active, plus monopolies like Salt (and additional +10% from Imperialism monopoly bonus), so in late game you can have up to 70% or even 80% bonus to Food out of thin air, even without Tradition/Rationalism. I achieved it last couple of games with Authority/Artistry/Imperialism. Maybe Rationalism also has some +% bonus, I don't know, I never take it. I think it gives +5% on opener and +2% on each Policy unlocked, so additional +15%.

Toning down these bonuses might be a simple way to balance Food.

I think its to represent immigration. I think this was part of an attempt to make tourism more useful in general, which was misguided in my opinion. First because it didn't really work, to maximize this bonus you just trade with weak players (especially someone you conquer half of and vassalize).

I agree on WLTKD . It was changed so it sometimes rolls a luxury you already have access to (in vanilla its always a lux you don't have). Now its pretty easy to get basically forever.

 

[azum4roll]

Bonus 15-20% can give you +10-20 in mid game and up to +50 in late game in your largest cities.

It's never going to give +50 in cities unless you have TwoKay Food. Cities usually hover around 100 base food at most. Rest are from various modifiers that don't stack with each other.

You don't want to trade with weak players if you're going for CV either.

 

[andersw]

I tend to have some delay on a few early national wonders because of rapid expansion but its been worse on some earlier versions.
Most notable Circus Maximus, sometimes Heroic Epic and Iron works.
Edit: so I dont feel early food to be that extreme but later on it keeps adding up, not sure if the numbers are wrong or if its just all the different sources of food.

 

[Stalker0]

ok so if the problem is too many non-farm food sources early on, lets look at the general list:

Granaries, Herbalist, Food CS, ITRs, progress policy (remind me did that just get nerfed?), aqueducts (I think), watermill, well.

So take a look at those and suggests some nerfs. I think ITRs are fine since its such a heavy cost to go a food ITR or external or production routes, so its a lot of benefit but you do pay a high price. I could see maybe the well and watermill get a food nerf in favor or just keeping their production (or add a gold if they need something).

You could lower the instant food on the granary, or lower the food maintained by the granary and aqueduct.

So I would start with some discussiosn there.

 

[Blue Ghost]

What if, instead of giving straight food increases, granaries and aqueducts gave additional food to farms? In real life granaries and aqueducts don’t produce food by themselves, they increase the efficiency of agriculture. You still need farms to actually produce the food.

 

[Nightmare Dusk]

I agree with nerfing/ removing the food from well and watermill is a good starting point. It's already the best building in the early game, and even without the food would still be good

 

[andersw]

ok so if the problem is too many non-farm food sources early on, lets look at the general list:

Granaries, Herbalist, Food CS, ITRs, progress policy (remind me did that just get nerfed?), aqueducts (I think), watermill, well.

So take a look at those and suggests some nerfs. I think ITRs are fine since its such a heavy cost to go a food ITR or external or production routes, so its a lot of benefit but you do pay a high price. I could see maybe the well and watermill get a food nerf in favor or just keeping their production (or add a gold if they need something).

You could lower the instant food on the granary, or lower the food maintained by the granary and aqueduct.

So I would start with some discussiosn there.

Another source is food on bordergrowth on ... forget name, building that boosts camps.

 

[Boombar]

This issue bugged me years ago and a simple solution worked out very well for me. Massive buffs to farms and heavy increase to food requirement for growth. im talking BIG numbers here.
I doubled base city growth threshold and the yields farms get from tech.
This change made farms much more desirable to work and a requirement if I wanted to grow a big city. It was also an indirect nerf for all other food sources but they were still relevant so if i wanted a big city i had to carefully choose a fertile spot where i can make plenty of adjacent farms which means no more big cities on tundra and snow. Sadly Definechanges.sql changed few versions ago and my mod broke.
Also food importing from other civs should be a thing that affects diplomacy etc.. and internal trade routes shouldn't make food out of thin air

 

[rusbeh]

Remove the +1 food from granaries and aqueducts also, they already give a bunch of food bonuses. Nerf lighthouse bonus food gained from ITR by -1 (so it's +3). Nerf gurdwara and monastery raw food yields by -1 (so it's +2)

Tradition gives +5 food in every city and +13 in capital. Too much raw food yields. Old tradition gave +7 food in capital and +25% growth in every city. Too much scalers for an early policy. Rework tradition so that it's somewhere in the middle. Opener gives +2 food in every city. Scaler +1 food in capital. Food policy gives +10% food in every city and nerf food from palace gardens to +2. Reworked tradition gives +2 and +10% food in every city and +9 food in capital. Nerf progress food by -1.

Boost farm food by +1 and change two adjacency bonus to three adjancency bonus. Make maritime city states give golden age points and nerf food that they give.