The Asiatic Khanates

[ius_iurandi]

Spoiler :

Not really imo.
Many cities like Castille for example weren't even self-sufficient in food, they became population centres for political reasons.
Of course we can't replicate imports in this manner in CivIV, at least not that I know of. I would be cool to play as British and have London harvest food tiles on the other side of the world at a penalty. Perhaps it could be a Capital only thing... akh, what am I saying.

Even then, political usually either meant "defensible" or "central" - and most likely full of vulnerable rural areas feeding The City In Question from the CIV equivalent of its second ring, if nothing else. While I'm sure there are a couple exceptions, I'd argue this is necessarily true before the advent of Refrigeration.

To be fair, this is less of a problem for RFC/DOC than for RFCE, except maybe in Russia and the US. (Especially Alaska, not that any one but He-Who-Must-Always-Play-On-Marathon would ever care. (a.k.a. This guy))

Spoiler :

own [/U]cities sounds well... a bit funny.
More simply, a later spawned Russia would simply raze independent Novgorod rather than flipping it. Also, though your suggestion makes sense, the current stability mechanics make this unusable.
Stability mechanics should have that liberating or razing your Cities cause no penalty.

Razing own cities/flipped cities is something I feel no compunction against using World Builder for. Because screw you, Jacksonville/Lyon/Ankara! Would be nice for that not to be cheating (if only on the flip, by adding the "has revolted keep/disband" button) but that might be annoying to code?

Il faut agacer les Parisiennes. And while the Moors are ruining my Pamplona-Madrid(1S)-Cadiz Power-I, I still get to build Metz and raze Frankfurt as the French. And this newfangled Polish thinga-ma-bobber being there to clean up the mess makes me happy.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

Not really imo.
Many cities like Castille for example weren't even self-sufficient in food, they became population centres for political reasons.
Of course we can't replicate imports in this manner in CivIV, at least not that I know of. I would be cool to play as British and have London harvest food tiles on the other side of the world at a penalty. Perhaps it could be a Capital only thing... akh, what am I saying.

Actually, about this, there is a suggestion that I have that has no foreseeable place to go, but is still interesting nonetheless, or at least I believe so. In RFCE++, the Lombards have a unique power, the power of Commercial Centers, I believe, that gives them one food for every two commerce that a trade route provides. Or at least something like that. Perhaps Leoreth could take a look at this idea, maybe a national wonder that does much the same thing, but with a higher benefit due to its wonder status?

This would encourage the growth of commercial and trade centers, for at least the human. So, thoughts?

 

[ius_iurandi]

Actually, about this, there is a suggestion that I have that has no foreseeable place to go, but is still interesting nonetheless, or at least I believe so. In RFCE++, the Lombards have a unique power, the power of Commercial Centers, I believe, that gives them one food for every two commerce that a trade route provides. Or at least something like that. Perhaps Leoreth could take a look at this idea, maybe a national wonder that does much the same thing, but with a higher benefit due to its wonder status?

This would encourage the growth of commercial and trade centers, for at least the human. So, thoughts?

I think it's the Aragonese? And that could be an awesome wonder, if maybe a World Wonder. I'm thinking a Bazaar or Souk? Or just call it "NY Harbor"? Actually, no. That would be trade routes = production. (I'm from there. I am a homer. My apologies.)

And since you just said 'thoughts' - didn't the Lizards in FFH: Fall Further have that as a racial power? I can't help but wonder if that's where this idea originally came from.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

I think it's the Aragonese? And that could be an awesome wonder, if maybe a World Wonder. I'm thinking a Bazaar or Souk? Or just call it "NY Harbor"? Actually, no. That would be trade routes = production. (I'm from there. I am a homer. My apologies.)

And since you just said 'thoughts' - didn't the Lizards in FFH: Fall Further have that as a racial power? I can't help but wonder if that's where this idea originally came from.

Actually, I've never played FFH. But the Aragonese UP was the power of the Thalassocracy, I believe, which did something about adding commerce or GPT to the capital for every province that they had a city in. I was thinking national wonder so that each civ could have it's own large and powerful city, but a world wonder would work too. And yeah, it might be OP for a national wonder.

EDIT: Actually, as a generic world wonder, this could make the Moorish UHV a lot easier. Just food for thought.

 

[Mef]

Concerning cities growing without much food in the vicinity, I actually had the idea long ago that as soon as you research a pretty early tech (maybe calendar), a portion of your entire production gets 'shared' throughout your country (the % grows with more technologies, e.g. refrigeration) and centers at cities that a) are the capital b) produce the most culture c) have the highest happiness d) are in a good location, i.e. coastal on a river.

This would allow cities like Rome to grow bigger by getting some of all that wheat from the rest of the Empire, and it would mean that cities in the great plains don't grow bigger than the cities on the US coasts, but instead supply a lot of food to those cities with higher culture and better location.

This was more of an idea for a new Civ version though, since it is a radical change to gameplay and I don't know if it's possible to implement that through a mod.

 

[Zaduzai]

I agree that how food resource makes many ahistorical situation in game. And I think some food resources are there for game balance not for historical reasons. On other hand food resources in city radius as way to grow population is so fundamental part of core game mechanism - as said above - that it could be really hard to change that.

But we have already few game mechanism which could work. There are corporation which give food and help little bit get more accurate historical size of cities in later eras.

How about Grain Line (sorry I can't thing better name now) corporation/trading company for Rome? Which would give extra food to capital. This way too it would encourage Rome to invade Egypt (and one of real historical reason).

Or maybe it could be quest rather than corporation/trading company? I think that would be easier to do.

And maybe US and other civ which have "food problem" for certain cities could have something similar.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I agree that how food resource makes many ahistorical situation in game. And I think some food resources are there for game balance not for historical reasons. On other hand food resources in city radius as way to grow population is so fundamental part of core game mechanism - as said above - that it could be really hard to change that.

But we have already few game mechanism which could work. There are corporation which give food and help little bit get more accurate historical size of cities in later eras.

How about Grain Line (sorry I can't thing better name now) corporation/trading company for Rome? Which would give extra food to capital. This way too it would encourage Rome to invade Egypt (and one of real historical reason).

In the case of Rome, I think a Garum Factory might be more appropriate.
It may have been just a simple condiment, but it was consumed by across the social class spectrum and as well,
many condiments were significantly important in a number of ways, not, least of which being to add flavor to food.
For instance, it is thought that in China, soy sauce may have been developed as a method to stretch salt.
And of course, today in America, ketchup is ubiquitous.

As for straight-up food, well, corn is used in practically everything nowadays.