The Agricultural revolution, industrialization, and Urbanization

[CGG1066]

I want my cities to transform with major technologies like they did during the agricultural and industrial revolutions. There's really no interdependence of cities in Civ, no metropolises, no rural farming bread-baskets.

This also means that cities can't specialize in the game. Even if you’re on track with tech, you really can’t get a nuclear weapon before 1960 because even if you get Fission in 1930, you still have a wonder (20 turns, even in a very productive city) and an expensive unit to build (another 15ish turns). I propose two simple enhancements that allow cities to become more specialized:

A. With the development of Fertilizer (or some early industrial tech, like "advanced machines"), a civilization gets the ability to have one citizen work two farm tiles, freeing up citizens to become specialists or focus on production tiles – call this the “agricultural revolution”. (Citizens left unemployed would automatically migrate to cities where there is a tile or specialist slot for them to work, assuming there is enough food).

B. With the development of refrigeration, food becomes a civilization-wide commodity, rather than a city-wide commodity. This will allow cities specialized in production to grow very large, and productive, allowing them to produce late-game units/buildings faster without making them cheaper – call this “urbanization”. (This allows even more concentration in bigger cities, as they are less food limited).

(I realize there is a thread already here about the second prong, but since I think there might be some discussion on the part A, I kept this post separate)​

Big cities might also make good targets too . . .

 

[Camikaze]

Sounds like a pretty good idea. However, it doesn't seem to address the issue of city self-sustainability. That is, how will this help uphold the idea that each city needs to be able to support itself to some extent? There needs to be some sort of limit upon how much cities can rely upon other cities to come up with their gold, food or production. Once this is addressed, it should be quite a good idea.

 

[CGG1066]

That is, how will this help uphold the idea that each city needs to be able to support itself to some extent?

Why? Let's put realism aside (I think this proposal would be more realistic - low populations in bread-baskets, large urban centers), and lets look at the game play aspects. Specializing cities brings up a bit of strategic. It also raises the value of each city independently; because a loss of one city makes it harder to manage others - and different cities would have different strategic values, creating a strategic aspect of warfare.

Furthermore, you can really cripple a civ after taking a few cities, forcing them to capitulate much sooner. This means that the boring period of war, (when the war is over, but you still have to march your armies across the field taking cities just to get a peace treaty) will be shortened.

It also cuts back on waiting forever to build late game units and buildings, (which all come available around the same time). This will make money a less powerful in the late game (because nobody builds these units because they take too long - they just buy).

 

[Pooh]

Specializing cities brings up a bit of strategic. It also raises the value of each city independently; because a loss of one city makes it harder to manage others - and different cities would have different strategic values, creating a strategic aspect of warfare.

Furthermore, you can really cripple a civ after taking a few cities, forcing them to capitulate much sooner. This means that the boring period of war, (when the war is over, but you still have to march your armies across the field taking cities just to get a peace treaty) will be shortened.

Fully agree! This is exactly why I've been supporting the idea of implementing a mechanism to allow trade in food between cities.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=394699

 

[CGG1066]

Yeah - I commented on that thread too early on. But then it took a turn I didn't like with the whole food bank and distance penalties, etc., and I still wanted to talk about my #1 point - which has nothing to do with empire-wide food (even though it has implications for the other).

I would prefer something just simple: food is stored in cities just like it is now. Just have each cities' food revenue be = city population*(civilization food production/civilization population).

 

[Pooh]

Try linking through to my post in that thread (it's some time after yours). I think you might like the mechanics I propose.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9865994&postcount=18

 

[CGG1066]

Yeah - honestly I'm more interested in what people think about the ability of one citizen to work two tiles (I was expecting more uproar on that hehe).

 

[killmeplease]

Yeah - honestly I'm more interested in what people think about the ability of one citizen to work two tiles (I was expecting more uproar on that hehe).

its interesting idea but very unusual to civ. tow the interface of this would be implemented?

i like the idea because farming cities will not big, as IRL. but it makes too drastic change to civ mechanics.

maybe player should be encouraged to build more small sized agricultural cities, instead of that.

 

[killmeplease]

also, citizen migration will lead to exploits, as it s a huge difference between 1 citizen of size 2 city and 1 citizen of sizre 20 city, in terms of food needed to born them.

 

[killmeplease]

maybe just give +1 bonus for each adjacent farm not being worked
and tie this effect to some "crop rotation" tech or whatever. diminishing scale effect takes place also under this mechanics

 

[Naokaukodem]

"crop rotation"

Well you mean "fallow"... (google translation)

As to the OP, I think this is a very good idea! Not because it would allow city specialization, but because it would give a feeling of overwhelming progression of the game, the same feeling i had in Civ2 when in late game i saw my cities growing very big, with irrigation and fertilizer (not sure of the last tech required to improve food output).

Additionnally, this opens new ways of thinking for Civ. For example, this idea makes me think about a satisfying way to represent trade through cities. It is true that nowadays in Civ everything is city-based. I would like to see a lot of trade between cities, that it be food, production, gold or science.

I'm not sure how to make it work though. Maybe just trade tile output? For example, there's one tile that produces 4 food, 1 gold, and this could entirely go to another city. Or centralize it to cities first, like it is done nowadays, and then redistribute it? I guess, one or the other could be ok.

Now, still to determine what determines what goes where. Of course in ancient times, food output can't go farer than one or the other city around. It changes in modern times though, and for production, gold, and science also (even in ancient times, although it takes times to take effect according to the distance) PRobably the simplest way to manage this would be to allow the player to re-allocate himself the outputs.

Or, automatically within a system of offer and demand, like there is one little in Civ5 ("citizens of X city want silver", for example). For example, for food, we could imagine that farms would be specialized. For example, if the player finds a natural crop of Corn, he could replicate it infinitely. The more diversificated crop he has, the more happy are his citizens. In early age, you have to build the crop needed near the city, but in modern age with cars, trains and refrigiration, you can build them anywhere.

 

[killmeplease]

Of course in ancient times, food output can't go farer than one or the other city around.

that is absolutely wrong idea being repeated constantly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_trade
http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/topic_id/25/id/8/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_ancient_Greece

 

[Naokaukodem]

that is absolutely wrong idea being repeated constantly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_trade
http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/topic_id/25/id/8/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_ancient_Greece

No that's not a wrong idea. In ancient times, you just can't trade final food production too faar away of its origine, or it rots.

Grain trade does not enter into consideration as in my example, if you have for example corn in your capital and wheat in a far away land, your workers could build wheat in your capital and corn in your faraway land.

 

[killmeplease]

grain/cereals were the core of common people diet until late 20th century

 

[Naokaukodem]

Ah. I guess you are right then.

 

[Camikaze]

Perhaps I'm attaching too much importance to city self-sustainability. The points raised do seem to make sense.

As for one citizen working two tiles, I have to say, it does appear a rather random suggestion. I guess it would work (although it may be unbalanced; testing would tell), but it seems to be out of left field a bit, and kinda messes with the idea of citizens a little too much for my taste.

 

[Johan de Witt]

Having two citizens work one hex in the end will make it less historicly. During the industrial revolution crop yields did not go up dramaticly because more people worked the land.

Industrial revolution in a nutshell:
Agricultural techniques increase the crop yield and reduce the amount of people needed in farming. Unemployed rural people move to the cities in search of jobs. Industrial owners suddenly have a huge amount of cheap labourers available, further increasing the potential for industrial growth (demand at this time was still much higher than supply).

 

[DaveGold]

With the development of Fertilizer (or some early industrial tech, like "advanced machines"), a civilization gets the ability to have one citizen work two farm tiles, freeing up citizens to become specialists or focus on production tiles

The game does already free up citizens through bureaucracy and fertilizer. If you were working three farms for 6 food you can afterwards work just two farms for 6 food, leaving you the extra citizen to assign as a specialist. This is the same as in previous versions of CIV and although your method might be more realistic I don't think this feature of the game is working badly (compared to others).

 

[CGG1066]

Naokaukodem really hit on the point of this (in addition to specialization): "because it would give a feeling of overwhelming progression of the game, the same feeling i had in Civ2 when in late game i saw my cities growing very big, with irrigation and fertilizer (not sure of the last tech required to improve food output)."

I really want to see my cities change and evolve! Fertilizer and bureaucracy don't do this - cities just grow faster. Your ag cities are still the largest.

Camilkaz: I don't think it's random. I think JdW's post explains why it's historically accurate (even if he appears to think the suggestion was 2 people per tile, rather than 1 person for 2 tiles). But even if it models history, I think it has game play benefits.

Killmeplease: Really good point about the exploits. I can think of some mechanisms to over-come them off the bat, but none are really that simple and clean. I'll give it a bit more thought.

About the ancient grain trade - yes I know it happened, trade was very important to ancient people and when I was in school I actually did a lot of research on ancient trading systems. However, it doesn't some worth it to cram in a model of it. Food trade did greatly increase with the railroads. These systems grew more complex over time especially around the time of the agricultural and industrial revolutions; so if you really want to capture that era of progress in the game (and I do), I think it's better that the period of play before that is rather simple.

 

[CGG1066]

also, citizen migration will lead to exploits, as it s a huge difference between 1 citizen of size 2 city and 1 citizen of sizre 20 city, in terms of food needed to born them.

One radical, but simple way to deal with this is simply use a set function to increase population based on time (exponentially, would be realistic - but maybe too powerful), regardless of how much food it produces, so long as there is enough food. So cities grow more quickly, but stop when they hit a ceiling.

Excess food can simply be converted to commerce (as in my econ thread), which represents the ability for farmers to do something else with their time, or trade excess supply on the market (I believe this is something you want; though this idea only simulates the seller side, and not the buyer side).

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Since growth is mainly constrained by the ceiling based on how much food you produce, it doesn't matter where the growth occurs - and no city has a "cheaper" cost of producing another citizen in terms of food. Not only does this deal with your concerns, but it also enables colonies to grow faster (because the don't have to store food to grow, and better ag tech would raise the population ceiling).

Not only would this bring added realism (which I consider a side-benefit), but it won't make colonization the major investment/headache it is now.