DudewiththeFood
King
I woke up this morning after a weird dream and somehow linked something from it to civ and now I have an idea for a completely different population system. It's too complex/different to be implemented in Civ 5 but it's a thought for Civ 6.
The shortest explanation is it increases the difference between urban population (specialists in civ 5) and rural population with changes to other things to accomodate.
Tiles and Improvements
Tiles still have a basic output but hold two slots for working. The first is availiable from the beginning while the second is unlocked after researching an appropriate tech. For example, grassland has 2 food. After agriculture you build a farm and it produces +2 food. Then at civil service/fertilizer (not sure which), instead of all farms getting a bonus, the second slot is opened letting you work the tile twice for a total of 6 food (2 base, +2 farm, +2 farm). A second slot can only be opened on tiles with an improvement.
An alternative is instead of tile improvements requiring different techs, all improvements gain 2 slots at Industrialization or upon adopting an ideology.
Rural Population
This represents the people who work the tiles outside cities. When you found a city, the total food from all the base yields of adjacent tiles/2 is the number of rural population points gained. The rural population is then assigned to the tiles with highest total yields (food + production + gold etc) and doesn't move unless you build improvements putting neighbouring tiles higher. In cases of tiles drawing, tiles with higher values of food or gold are ranked higher than production-heavy tiles. If you needed more food for example, you'd need to build farms on tiles on or adjacent to where you had rural population.
Urban Population
This is assigned to work within the city. They are used as either citizens or specialists. Citizens each give 0.5 production and gold while Specialists work as in vanilla.
Population Growth
When a city is founded, it starts with population related to the era and the local rural population. Food generated goes to sustaining the urban population (assuming everything generated is what the rural population doesn't need to survive) so growth in cities is like vanilla.
Rural population increases in the same way cities grow culture-wise. The higher the food generated on a tile, the quicker it specifically generates a new population point either on the same tile (if there's room) or on an adjacent tile with the highest overall yield - for example a wheat farm will grow quicker than an unimproved forest and from the wheat farm, the next point is more likely to appear on Old Faithful (2 science + 3 happiness =5) than the unworked grassland farm (2 food base +2 farm =4) or the other unimproved grasslands (2 food=2). Rural population also grows within civilization but no borders so if you have tiles with high yields on the border with another civ, population increases may spill into your lands and vice versa.
Obviously unhappiness generated by each population point would be decreased to accomodate and also the growth rate of cities/production for units/buildings increased due to more resources being availiable per tile.
This could probably be explained better so please ask if there's anything you don't understand or if you have suggestions to improve this.
This means bigger cities
The shortest explanation is it increases the difference between urban population (specialists in civ 5) and rural population with changes to other things to accomodate.
Tiles and Improvements
Tiles still have a basic output but hold two slots for working. The first is availiable from the beginning while the second is unlocked after researching an appropriate tech. For example, grassland has 2 food. After agriculture you build a farm and it produces +2 food. Then at civil service/fertilizer (not sure which), instead of all farms getting a bonus, the second slot is opened letting you work the tile twice for a total of 6 food (2 base, +2 farm, +2 farm). A second slot can only be opened on tiles with an improvement.
An alternative is instead of tile improvements requiring different techs, all improvements gain 2 slots at Industrialization or upon adopting an ideology.
Rural Population
This represents the people who work the tiles outside cities. When you found a city, the total food from all the base yields of adjacent tiles/2 is the number of rural population points gained. The rural population is then assigned to the tiles with highest total yields (food + production + gold etc) and doesn't move unless you build improvements putting neighbouring tiles higher. In cases of tiles drawing, tiles with higher values of food or gold are ranked higher than production-heavy tiles. If you needed more food for example, you'd need to build farms on tiles on or adjacent to where you had rural population.
Urban Population
This is assigned to work within the city. They are used as either citizens or specialists. Citizens each give 0.5 production and gold while Specialists work as in vanilla.
Population Growth
When a city is founded, it starts with population related to the era and the local rural population. Food generated goes to sustaining the urban population (assuming everything generated is what the rural population doesn't need to survive) so growth in cities is like vanilla.
Rural population increases in the same way cities grow culture-wise. The higher the food generated on a tile, the quicker it specifically generates a new population point either on the same tile (if there's room) or on an adjacent tile with the highest overall yield - for example a wheat farm will grow quicker than an unimproved forest and from the wheat farm, the next point is more likely to appear on Old Faithful (2 science + 3 happiness =5) than the unworked grassland farm (2 food base +2 farm =4) or the other unimproved grasslands (2 food=2). Rural population also grows within civilization but no borders so if you have tiles with high yields on the border with another civ, population increases may spill into your lands and vice versa.
Obviously unhappiness generated by each population point would be decreased to accomodate and also the growth rate of cities/production for units/buildings increased due to more resources being availiable per tile.
This could probably be explained better so please ask if there's anything you don't understand or if you have suggestions to improve this.
This means bigger cities
