Many a country depends on one region to produce food the other to produce industry, not so in CIV4, here the cities are totally autonomical, which eliminates many interesting strategies. But this could be very easily remedied i.e. when a city produces more food than its population needs and there is connected to it a city which is starving that superflous food is sent there instead of being used to grow the city.
Sharing food with other cities.
- Thread starter bearro
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Mewtarthio
Emperor
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Not automatically, since if you've got one city starving and other one growing odds are you'd prefer to former to get smaller while the latter gets bigger. Still, I could see some sort of food trading screen that lets you transfer units from one city to another (though I don't think you should be able to transfer a city into starvation, primarily due to realism).
I think for the ease of gameplay it should be done automatically, just in the city screen you could "tick" something like "this city keeps all the food". And of course only superflous food would be sent.
ShadowWarrior
Prince
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Long ago, I advocated that cities can transfer food and resource shields among themselves. So for example, city A can transfer two units of food to city B, while city C can transfer one unit of hammer to city D. Something like that....I don't see how this feature will messup the game play, but for some strange reasons, it never got much support.
searcheagle
Emperor
In Civ 2, you could use a carvan (trade unit) to move food from one city to another. I could see the advantages of it. Keep a resource rich, food poor area alive.
Implementation could be: Click on icon of food, which brings up a pop up window. Then click on a city. These cities would have to be linked. Different eras in the game would have differents maximum ranges, reflecting logistics factors.
Implementation could be: Click on icon of food, which brings up a pop up window. Then click on a city. These cities would have to be linked. Different eras in the game would have differents maximum ranges, reflecting logistics factors.
Alsark
Noble
Perhaps the implementation of "Corporations" in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword will add something like this. I find it unlikely, but maybe when a civilization makes a certain corporation, each city (enemy cities, too) can choose to build that corporation. Some corporations might provide food (McDonalds, for example), and other corporations might provide increased production (any steel companies, for example). It's not exactly "trasnfering surplus from one city to another," but it would at least allow resources to contribute to city size and production. Currently all the cow resource does is provide a slight healthiness bonus - but if your city has hit is population cap at four, then it won't be seeing this bonus. And really, it's not realistic for city population to cap at four when you're bringing in cows, deer, bananas, fish, clams, crabs, rice, wheat, and corn - so corporations, if they go by my suggestion, will aid that a little bit. The downside would be that using a corporation of another civilization will provide them with income - but if your cities are capping at low levels then it might be worth it.
By the way, I do like your idea.
By the way, I do like your idea.
This would reduce the number of strategies which were competitive, and less competitive strategies means less interesting ways to play the game. The dominant strategy would almost certainly be to assign all excess food to a handful of cities; 1 commerce city containing Oxford University and x production cities, 1 containing the Ironworks.
1) The early game would be a rush to find, settle, and control the fat cross with the most production. Regardless of the site's food production, such a city would become the most important military city in the game.
2) Caste system would become a much more popular civic since you'd no longer be using excess food to whip units of population. Two food would be worth more beakers through a scientist specialist in the dominant science city than in their home town.
3) Since so much of the science city's beakers would be generated by specialists (and this city would be responsible for most of your science output), the civilization would be free to adjust the science slider to 0% eradicating most unhappiness.
4) Crossing the health cap simply means that each new unit of population consumes 3 food instead of 2. After the health cap, every 2 new units of population in the science city would eat as much as every 3 new units of population in other, smaller cities but would still produce more beakers.
5) Angkor Wat, already a good wonder, would become one of the most popular wonders in the game since it would provide your main production city with a means of assigning even more production-producing specialists before further excess food had to be diverted to the second production city.
Edit: On the science city expanding beyond its health cap. It will always be better to produce two units of population in the science city than to produce three units of population in a city without an academy. If another city has an academy and at least three of a library, university, observatory, and laboratory, then the three units of population will produce more beakers in that city than the two units of population in the science city. This is independent of whether or not representation is being used.
But this just means that a second science city might be designated when the first one reaches its health cap. It has very little affect on the overall strategy - it doesn't make it any less dominant.
1) The early game would be a rush to find, settle, and control the fat cross with the most production. Regardless of the site's food production, such a city would become the most important military city in the game.
2) Caste system would become a much more popular civic since you'd no longer be using excess food to whip units of population. Two food would be worth more beakers through a scientist specialist in the dominant science city than in their home town.
3) Since so much of the science city's beakers would be generated by specialists (and this city would be responsible for most of your science output), the civilization would be free to adjust the science slider to 0% eradicating most unhappiness.
4) Crossing the health cap simply means that each new unit of population consumes 3 food instead of 2. After the health cap, every 2 new units of population in the science city would eat as much as every 3 new units of population in other, smaller cities but would still produce more beakers.
5) Angkor Wat, already a good wonder, would become one of the most popular wonders in the game since it would provide your main production city with a means of assigning even more production-producing specialists before further excess food had to be diverted to the second production city.
Edit: On the science city expanding beyond its health cap. It will always be better to produce two units of population in the science city than to produce three units of population in a city without an academy. If another city has an academy and at least three of a library, university, observatory, and laboratory, then the three units of population will produce more beakers in that city than the two units of population in the science city. This is independent of whether or not representation is being used.
But this just means that a second science city might be designated when the first one reaches its health cap. It has very little affect on the overall strategy - it doesn't make it any less dominant.
Personally I'd say it would be too much hassle, esp if a given city could not exist without shipments.
Hmmm. I'd say the opposite, it would increase the number of strategies. Now all your cities have to be self-suffiecient, so there is not that much as far as strategies of building cities go. Ability to tranfer food would be a good alternative but never the only strategy, esp in MP. If you have one city producing food and the other shields and you lose one in the war, you've lost. Autonomic cities will always be safer, so you'll have more strategies not less.
BTW of course there should be some tech enabling this, it should not be a possibility from the very start, maybe it shouldbe enabled together with granary.
I'm not denying that you'll have more strategies. But I am saying that you'll have less competitive strategies - that the idea is unbalanced since it encourages one style of play over others.
Of course, but the same already goes for a civ that practices any form of city specialisation. Losing the best production or beaker city will already be equivalent to losing the game. That doesn't stop people using city specialisation because it is a much more efficient way to play. Allowing food transfer between cities will just dramatically increase the benefits of city specialisation.
If you create a super-production city using food transfer but your opponents don't, they won't be able to produce as much military units as you and your most important cities are safe. Yes, your civ is even more vulnerable to the negative effects of losing a single city but your opponents will only be able to compete by building their own super-production cities.
As an aside, I'll point out that I agree that the number of competitive options for individual cities would increase but that this wouldn't affect the number of competitive options available to the civ as a whole since the selected choice for each city would still be dependent on the selected choices made in each other city.
Of course, but the same already goes for a civ that practices any form of city specialisation. Losing the best production or beaker city will already be equivalent to losing the game. That doesn't stop people using city specialisation because it is a much more efficient way to play. Allowing food transfer between cities will just dramatically increase the benefits of city specialisation.
If you create a super-production city using food transfer but your opponents don't, they won't be able to produce as much military units as you and your most important cities are safe. Yes, your civ is even more vulnerable to the negative effects of losing a single city but your opponents will only be able to compete by building their own super-production cities.
As an aside, I'll point out that I agree that the number of competitive options for individual cities would increase but that this wouldn't affect the number of competitive options available to the civ as a whole since the selected choice for each city would still be dependent on the selected choices made in each other city.
Well, it all depends on the map. In some cases one very specialised shield city using 2 food cities to fuel it may out-produce 3 balanced cities but that would be rare, in most cases balanced cities will have summed up production higher. This option would bring in three things:
a) a bit of realism, current situation is so unrealistic it breaks the game immersion
b) a chance for you do develop citites founded in bad terrain a bit more or stop starvation at the cost of lower growth of other cities.
c) add an interesting albeit challenging strategy.
Well, I've already explained why a single science city will quite often be the best choice over multiple science cities.
As for production, well it's more compicated which is why I didn't specify a single production city originally. For a start using the example of 3 cities is unfair since you'll really only need the extra food from one decent city to use most of the production city's production. Take two cities - one production city and one source [of food] city. The production city contains the Ironworks. Assume both cities contain the same production buildings. Assume that there is no happiness cap (for the same reason that was assumed about the science city).
1) If the production city has an unused 3 production - an unworked grassland hill mine - then it will make more production out of the 2 food than the source city unless the source city has an unused tile worth 6 production or if both cities contain a forge, a factory and power and there is an unused tile worth 5 production.
2) If the production city has an unused 2 production - an available engineer specialist or Angkor Wat-enhanced priest specialist - then it will make more production out of the 2 food than the source city unless the source city has an unused tile worth 4 production.
3) If the production city has an unused 1 production - guaranteed since unused citizens provide 1 production - then it will make more production out of the 2 food than the source city unless the source city has an unused tile worth 3 production or if both cities contain a forge, a factory and power and there is an unused tile worth 2 production.
But it's not that simple. Unlike gold and science, production isn't summed up over your entire civ. So while the source city might be able to make more production out of the 2 food, if it doesn't already have significant production then the extra production it makes won't actually be used for much. Simply put, increasing the production city's base production by one is often more valuable than increasing the source city's base production by two or even three.
What if the Ironworks hasn't been built yet? Well, the main reason to create a production city in the first place is to have a city that produces lots of military units. So the above is largely the same if the production city contains the Heroic Epic. I think it would probably be wasteful to put the Heroic Epic and the Ironworks into the same city under the above game mechanics since it would probably be better spent in a second production city - 2 production cities and two source cities.
There's enough unrealistic aspects in city management that I find it difficult to believe that the lack of food transfer is the element that breaks the game immersion.
For me it is. Currently you're building cities not countries. This makes recreating many historical conflicts impossible, even in a simply form. If Roman cities did not need more grain than Italy could provide the history would look different.
Anyway, if you have such fears about such a feature being unbalancing it can be solved quite simply:
a) Make it optional (like currently city flipping)
b) caps like minimal production time etc.
c) assume there is a cost of transfering food (i.e. the target city gets e.g. 80% of food sent)
Also please remember that such specialised cities would be very vurnelable, enemy cutting the road could very quickly starve such a city.
Well, the game's more of a 'what if' machine than for recreating history but when you go looking for a high level of historical accuracy you eventually start looking for a game that isn't Civ.
Making it optional is a possiblity but it's a much bigger change to the game's dynamics than permanent alliances.
There already is a cap on production times of 1 turn.
A cost on food transfer would probably be inevitable but it still wouldn't be too difficult to set up a good food city or two weaker food cities three tiles away from a potentially strong production city.
I've already said that, while this is true, a large production city generated through food transfer can produce enough military units to make it safe from attack against all civs that don't persue the exact same strategy. That reduction of viable strategies is a game imbalance.
Produce - yes. Support while keeping research on a decent level? Again it all depends on map, lack of silver/gold/diamond tiles might hamper this.
As for the cap - 1 turn cap is not a cap, since this is a basic time unit in the game, and do not mean a "general cap" but a building specific cap, e.g. barracks min 3 turns, aqueducts 5 etc
Research:
I covered science cities in my first post in this thread. The increase in power of city specialisation for science cities is far greater than for production cities when food transfers are introduced. How this translates to game power; building super-production cities allow you to build more units than those who don't, building a super-science city will allow you to build more advanced units than those who don't.
Production cap of 1 turn:
There's no need for a production cap on buildings. A super-production city is designed to build military units, not buildings. The only reason to introduce a cap on the output of super-production cities is to limit the amount of units it produces.
Consider a city (fed by other cities) built on a plains hill and with a fat cross consisting only of railroaded mined plains hills with a forge, factory, power, and the Ironworks. That's [just over] 100 base production. 300 total production. A modern armour costs 240 production. The already existing production cap of 1 turn ensures that in 8 turns only 8 modern armour can be produced instead of 10.
I covered science cities in my first post in this thread. The increase in power of city specialisation for science cities is far greater than for production cities when food transfers are introduced. How this translates to game power; building super-production cities allow you to build more units than those who don't, building a super-science city will allow you to build more advanced units than those who don't.
Production cap of 1 turn:
There's no need for a production cap on buildings. A super-production city is designed to build military units, not buildings. The only reason to introduce a cap on the output of super-production cities is to limit the amount of units it produces.
Consider a city (fed by other cities) built on a plains hill and with a fat cross consisting only of railroaded mined plains hills with a forge, factory, power, and the Ironworks. That's [just over] 100 base production. 300 total production. A modern armour costs 240 production. The already existing production cap of 1 turn ensures that in 8 turns only 8 modern armour can be produced instead of 10.
Not to drag this too far - it is obvious that such specialised (whether research or production) cities would be powerful and they should be. If you decide to pursue a dangerous tactic (at least against a human player) it should have its benefits or you would not do it. At the begining of WW1 England was producing amounts of food enough to feed 50% of its citizens. Cutting their shipping lanes even for a month would be a disaster and the end of the war. This kind of situation is an interesting strategic oppurtunity, and if it worked like that in RL why can't it be so in game?
I'll admit that if you're relying on food imported from overseas then you're more vulnerable to a devastating naval blockade since there is less certainty in naval warfare. But within the rest of CivIV's game mechanics, I just don't believe that a civ that fails to develop super cities - be it AI or human - can compete in production and research with a civ that does. That production and research shortfall ensures that the only civs that can compete militarily - the only civs that can block food transfer - are the ones that rely on food transfer in the first place.
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