Starvation question

[Mordraken]

Quick question on Starvation - I am not sure I saw what happened correctly, but here's what I remember:

I had a size 13 city with about 19 food tiles to work (water & grassland) and 5 hills (iirr). I was rushing to get a wonder, so moved 5 of my food producers to the mines, and had 2 artist specialists, and got the "starvation" message. I figured it was fine if my pop dropped by 1 or 2 so I could get that wonder. The problem is, one turn late my city dropped to 8 and all I was left with was my population on food tiles (and the two specialists). All of my workers on the hills/mines died!

...at least - that's what I thought happened. My city may have been smaller than I thought (although I don't think I could have worked all those tiles with a lower pop). What is the effect of starvation? I thought you'd lose one pop per turn until you weren't starving, but it seems that you lose all non-food workers die until you get a +ve food/population ratio.... Does anyone know?

 

[DaveMcW]

I suggest you replay the game and watch more closely.

 

[warpus]

Something similar happened to me once. I had a coastal city that was of size 14 or so. I was at war with.. somebody. In 2 turns, the following happened: two of their destroyers appeared in my city borders, destroying 2 sea improvements. I didn't have much of a navy at the time so I sort of ignored that, knowing I could do nothing about it. But next turn my city dropped down to size 8, just like that.

I was always under the impression that a city could only drop down by 1 size each turn, if it was starving. Ever since half of that city starved I've been really anal about protecting my food-producing tiles.

 

[Karnor]

with about 19 food tiles to work (water & grassland) and 5 hills (iirr).

A city can only have a maximum of 20 tiles to work so you must have miscounted somewhere. Maybe you miscounted on the city size too?

As for the population drop I also was under the impression that a city can only lose 1 pop/turn from starvation but I confess I've never really checked - I just know that those newly acquired culturally engulfed cities seem to take a while to drop to 1 pop (and yet can manage to feed themselves in anarchy no problem).

 

[Mordraken]

A city can only have a maximum of 20 tiles to work so you must have miscounted somewhere. Maybe you miscounted on the city size too?

My bad - I miscounted the tiles. There were 5 hills (for sure), the rest were either water (9) or grassland/forrest (6). It is very possible that I miscounted the city size, but this was my 3rd earliest city in the 1900s, so it should have been very large, and was one of the most cultured in the world (40,000 culture at the time). I doubt it would have got there with a pop of 4-6... I eventually won when it hit the 50,000 culture mark.