Population grow formula makes no sense

In the game each citizen already consumes food. He would die from starvation without food. Bigger population requires more food. This is ok. This makes sense.
The question realy is "Why subsequent population would need more food?" as @Arent11 already noted in his reply.

Think of it as quality of food, not quantity. Producing 1kg of meat requires much more resources than 1kg of bread. It's easier to visualize if you've played an Anno game, with its increasingly complex resource chains when your population grows and become more wealthy.
 
Master of Magic had a slightly more realistic model in which both present population and limiting factors were taken into account.
For me the most realistic and balanced approach to population is in not so old Pandora game.
There you basically have Grow points separated from food. Food is a limiting factor (same as housing, happiness, etc.) and thats all. Grow points accumulate based on number of population: 1 pop = 1 grow point. Then modifiers like happiness, polution, housing kick in. Simply and elegant.
 
I think pops are not the same as number of people living in the city. A pop is a functional group of citizens that have the ability to productively work a tile. The internal socioeconomics of the city can impact how people living there can contribute to working farms and hammers and gold.
 
That is actually true, but I never liked it. It is counterintuitive:










Compare this with master of magic, where each pop is 1000 people:

I do not know if VI uses the same system but in the first three Civs the first pop was 10K the second was + 20K = 30K the third + 40K (irc might have been +30) = 70K (60K) and so on till infinity (you ran out of food)
 
Top Bottom