Population Growth Changes and Disease

[Orange1861]

In Civilization 6, two things many affect population growth, food and housing. That doesn't make all that much sense since pop growth is basically killed when there is only one housing left. The people must go, "Man, my grand children won't have any room left, better halve my reproducing." It is also super hard to get housing before neighborhoods even though historically, the reason why populations didn't explode upward before the modern age wasn't that there was no room, it was disease.

Disease should be a semi-random event that gives a bunch a serious modifiers. There should be two types, local and epidemic. Both are very similar except that epidemic will spread from city to city, while local just stays in the original city. When a city gets a disease, the following should happen, firstly, the city gets a -50% production (kind of hard to build things when you're dying). Secondly, the city gets a massive food reduction and start losing food and thus citizens. (yes, more food will reduce causalities) Lastly, any units within one tile of a diseased city takes -20 damage per turn. If this a local disease, then after a few turns of this, the disease will run out and this nightmare will end, but not if it is a epidemic.

An epidemic disease spreads from city to city by using traders, roads and open borders. After it wreaks havoc on every city it passes and can't spread anymore, it will run out and disappear. This makes it so that disease will be a major destroyer in Civ 6.

What makes a disease spawn mainly involves buildings, housing and access to other cities.

Buildings: As tech goes forward, one can build hospitals and other buildings to reduce the likely hood of disease and reduce its loss of citizens.

Housing: Housing should be a major contributor to disease due to if large populations live in squalor, a disease is much more likely. Therefore, being over the limit of housing will greatly increase chances of disease. However, to buff population, housing should be a much smaller factor in population increase. (Yes, this will lead to disease to start happening a lot naturally, that's the point)

Access to other cities: This mainly spreads epidemics but can also increase the chances of a disease.

Write what you think below.

 

[Jujubeets]

Rather than a chance event, I think disease should be represented by a value that is local to each city. It would go up with each population, and exponentially increase with trade routes. Like you said though, it should stop growth and production as disease increases. Also, it could be stopped through buildings, policies, religious beliefs, and modernization.

By making disease a semi-static value instead of an event, it would be less random and therefore easier to plan around and more fun to play against. There could still be an element of randomness through "epidemic events," though; these would pop up if disease reached a critical point and it would kill citizens each turn until it stopped (like razing in civ 5). Disease, like you said, as a whole would work to decrease growth, and probably help balance domestic trade too.

 

[Phrozen]

Civ doesn't do a very good job of historically modeling population. Population went up and down basically based on warm times vs. cool times. Warm times sees spikes in population as the longer growing seasons and larger amount of land able to support agriculture meant more food. Cold times saw declines in population as shorter growing seasons and less amount of land able to support agriculture meant less food. There is also the compounding factor of famine leading to disease. As the less healthy you are due to less food means you are more susceptible to disease. Even a epidemic sweeping through a healthy population wouldn't make such a dent where the population couldn't recover pretty quickly.

The only real exception is when Eurasian-African diseases were introduced into the Americas.

 

[Orange1861]

There is also the compounding factor of famine leading to disease. As the less healthy you are due to less food means you are more susceptible to disease. Even a epidemic sweeping through a healthy population wouldn't make such a dent where the population couldn't recover pretty quickly.

The only real exception is when Eurasian-African diseases were introduced into the Americas.

I would disagree with this since Justinian's Plague and the Black Death both happened during times of decent food production. The main point of disease is to reduce population and temporally cripple your nation. In terms of Justinian's Plague, it is considered the main reason why Justinian wasn't able to reconquer more of the Western Roman Empire. Also, disease does tend to reduce food production which kills many others.

 

[Phrozen]

I would disagree with this since Justinian's Plague and the Black Death both happened during times of decent food production. The main point of disease is to reduce population and temporally cripple your nation. In terms of Justinian's Plague, it is considered the main reason why Justinian wasn't able to reconquer more of the Western Roman Empire. Also, disease does tend to reduce food production which kills many others.

Justinian's Plague was near the end of the cold period after the Roman Warm period. The black death started just into the little ice age.

 

[Orange1861]

Justinian's Plague was near the end of the cold period after the Roman Warm period. The black death started just into the little ice age.

The Little Ice Age didn't start to greatly affect Europe until the mid-1400's when the Norwegians pulled out of Greenland and Iceland. As well, the Byzantine Empire had great food production when everyone else had weaker harvests even though the Byzantines were hit the hardest. And even still, Civ 6 doesn't have any form of climate change as well.

And your idea is somewhat represented in that disease doesn't negatively affect population as bad if they have a massive food surplus.

Rather than a chance event, I think disease should be represented by a value that is local to each city. It would go up with each population, and exponentially increase with trade routes. Like you said though, it should stop growth and production as disease increases. Also, it could be stopped through buildings, policies, religious beliefs, and modernization.

By making disease a semi-static value instead of an event, it would be less random and therefore easier to plan around and more fun to play against. There could still be an element of randomness through "epidemic events," though; these would pop up if disease reached a critical point and it would kill citizens each turn until it stopped (like razing in civ 5). Disease, like you said, as a whole would work to decrease growth, and probably help balance domestic trade too.

I like this better than my implementation, I'll edit the post to reflect this.

 

[darkace77450]

It's not a stretch to think of housing as a disease mechanic by another name. Fresh water, sewers, etc are all going to reduce disease and let your population grow. That said, if they want to officially make disease a thing I wouldn't mind a Medical District with an Apothecary, Hospital, and Medical Lab to add to city growth.

 

[Orange1861]

It's not a stretch to think of housing as a disease mechanic by another name. Fresh water, sewers, etc are all going to reduce disease and let your population grow. That said, if they want to officially make disease a thing I wouldn't mind a Medical District with an Apothecary, Hospital, and Medical Lab to add to city growth.

True, but at the moment, reaching the housing cap freezes your growth. In the past and now, the population would continue to grow at a slightly smaller rate until a disease comes and wipes out a large section of the population (and epidemic disease doesn't have to happen, there still can be a massive population that is in poverty, look at India).