Yes, but for most of history, nearly all food consumed by people in a region was produced in that region. Sure, the food was "transported" to the city, but most of that was transported to the city from that city's hinterland; ie in game terms from the tiles that workers are
Civ5 with 3-tile city radius will have food
Hello, Ahriman. Yes. I thought I made that point myself and several times. The point is that I think I have a way to take into account in a simplified model the way both agrarian societies as well as modern ones function. The current system gives you Mega-Iowa and precludes Mega-Los Angeles. In other words, your model would never account for the way modern societies work. Yours just does not. And you continue to evade this point. I think that I have a solution, if tweaked, would allow for modern growth patterns and at the same time address the way agrarian societies grew.
The way I would do it is by giving users growth incentives to build farms in earlier eras and then giving incentives to transition to cottage improvements in later eras. We could do this by capping the trade value of cottage improvements relative to farm improvements in earier eras. This is important because trade value would still determine the growth potential of a city. This still was the case in the past. Not all rural areas ever had the potential to grow very large. Most did not.
But with the obtainment of techs to be decided, a civ would then have that cap removed thereby giving an incentive to users to begin transitioning to a later era. To grow cities that have high growth potential, we would make the potential trade value of cottage improvements far exceed that of farms, which would give users the incentive to replace much of their farm improvements in the vicinity of these potentially high growth cities with cottage improvements.
You still would not turn all your cities into high growth cities because your growth would still depend on food supply. So, in modern eras, you would still have to keep areas surrounded by high quality arable land and crop resources as smaller cities that would continue to work farm improvements. In this way, in modern eras, other areas, such as on coasts, that (1) would have much less arable land in its vicinity because a lot of their area tiles are water tiles and that (2) would also have high potential trade value because of its ability to build seaports and other high valuable city improvements would then have the ability to become metropolises as we see today.
I hate it when people cite this example, because its really the only example of its kind. Yes, Rome imported massive amounts of food from a long way away, and was able to do so because of the huge wealth in Rome from centralized control and exploitation of a massive Empire, and sea trade routes from Egypt and North Africa (and Nile transport to Alexandria).
But Rome is a very rare exception!
What about the ancient Greeks? They had to import too. Centuries later, Constantinople was a major importer of Egyptian grain. That city imported almost as much as Rome did in an earlier era. And many sovereign nations today are also net food importers. My point I keep reiterating is that I think I have a way to account for both agrarian and urban societies. The present system does not.
Most cities were not like this. Most cities were far smaller than Rome. Most cities were not the center of a massive Empire, and did not have reliable military control over long-distance trade routes.
That's right. And my idea would take this into account. But the present model does not take into account other siginicant factors.
Only in very modern times.
The "rules of the game" in the real world change a great deal after the industrial revolution. But that is only a small part of human history. For most of the game, cities there *should* be junk.
That's right. And farm improvements in my model would give cities lower potential growth than cottage improvements of later eras. This seems to me to be a simple solution to show that remarkable and significant moment in history in which industrialization devastes agrarian economies forcing huge migrant workers to flock to cities to find work.
What big cities were there before the 18th century that weren't near good agricultural land or heavy fish resources?
At the same time, I could ask why have not all cities near high quality arable land not grown huge? And why have many farming communities become urban ones?
In my suggestion, any city in an agrarian era would see a huge boost in growth potential by having a food resource in its vicinity--not because of the food supply bonus, but because those food resources would offer large trade bonus in addition to food bonus. It is the trade bonus which would raise the cap of growth potential of the city. But the food bonus would allow more cities across the nation to actually be able to grow.
Sea trade of economic goods, yes. But not of food. Large amounts of food were not being shipped around the world in the 18th century.
That's right. Again, I don't think my model contradicts this point.
Food imports were not the main issue; and again, this is in the modern period, where very different rules apply.
That's right, and the current system does not simulate either agrarian societies well nor modern ones. Consider Mega-Iowa, for instance.
No, it really didn't. Go look at medieval Europe for example. The cities are small, and get food only from the local area.
In 1200 Paris had a population of 80,000.
In 1100 London's population was 15,000, and it grew to 80,000 by 1300.
And these both surrounded by good agricultural land.
Actually, it did. That's what the Greeks and Romans did. They relied on northern Africa and Asia for food. That seems to make my point. They actually did it so I don't know why you say they didn't.
In 1100, the British were in the process of transitioning from being a backwater European state to being the leading European state upon the marriage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, the Saxon were a less developed people than their continental counterparts and had neither knights nor archers. So I don't know if it's quite fair to mention London.
But your point is nonetheless also valid. Most cities on earth were not like that. And I concede the point.
At any rate, this is a moot point because as far as the game is concerned, it is a simple matter to grow huge metropolises in earlier eras anyways.
The 1 million ancient population of Rome is unique. The only other really huge cities in the west were in Egypt, thanks to Nile trade (those high yield floodplains tiles).
[I don't know much about China.]
I don't know Chinese figures either.
The great northern Mediterranean civs--the classic Greeks and Romans--simply were incapable of producing the necessary amount of food on their own soil. The Romans, especially, aggravated their situation by enslaving many more people than they could feed and their economy could handle. Rome did not grow because of their own ability to grow enough food. You say this is an exception. But it is a high profile exception which is not reflectable in the game. I think my suggestion at least can try to account for Rome's growth.
At the beginning of the industrial revolution, only 3% of the world population lived in cities.
http://www.lhup.edu/smarvel/Seminar/FALL_2000/albernaz/albernaz.htm
I think I have adequately addressed this point now.
Yes. What is not right is that you are using the pattern of MODERN cities and the state of the world today, after 200 years of industrialization and modern urban growth, to analyze historic urban population patterns.
California had a small population until the 19th century.
And again you acknowledge and yet insist on ignoring modern growth patterns of the last two centuries. What's the point of that? Civilization poorly models current growth pattern, I think. Today California is by far the most populous state, not the states of the Great Plains.
In a game about human history, that starts in 4000 BC, this would be madness.
For most of human history, population levels were determined by local agricultural productivity (and disease). Most people were farmers who lived at a basic subsistence level. Sustained bad crops meant famine meant death.
I agree, but only to a point. Villages used to mostly grow where there were arable land. But major cities grew not because they had more high quality arable land than others. They grew larger than others because they offered greater commercial opportunities than other farming communities. Otherwise, all large farming areas would have produced massive cities. This is indeed clearly not right. So yes, trade was the important factor for not just growth, but significant growth.
But the point is that my suggestion takes into account the importance of both farms and trade in city growth in all eras in a simple way.
Here's the problem; food was what mattered until ~1800.
Look at the eras in Civ; ancient, classical, medieval, renaissance, industrial, modern.
4/6 of those are before any of the changes you are talking about happened, and one is when those changes happened.
That's right.
Its more important to have a model that works for most of human history and is a bit weird in the late-game than to have a model that works for the modern era but fails for most of history.
Actually, I think I have at least shown that my suggestion may be able to take into account all eras.
And the time sense is off; it shouldnt' take 4 eras for improvements to grow to the point where they're better than farms.
You talk about "early" and "late" without thinking about what that really means in terms of number of game turns and eras.
Actually, some improvements in CivIV works just like that. It takes a while before workshops and windmills become really useful. I never even build windmills in games that have food increasing corporations.
At any rate, I am going to assume you make this point for gameplay concerns and not because you want to contradict your historical point which you have been trying to make up to now. Regarding what trade values should be assigned cottage and farm improvements, I think we can only figure out the right balance with testing. I think it would be impossible to tell otherwise. But I think we are actually agreed that farms should be the leading driver of growth of nearby cities in 4 of the 6 eras.
So I think you should accept my idea.
But farms shouldnt' be supporting trade, they should be supporting food!
Trade doesn't lead to population growth for most of the population. It can cause some migration, but doesn't support growth on its own.
That's right. I think you still haven't quite understood what my idea is. I'll repeat what my suggestion actually does. (1) The trade value of a city would only determine the maximum potential growth of the city. (2) Trade value would not actually grow the city. (3) Food supply would not limit the potential growth of a city. (4) Food supply would be the resource that would allow cities to actually grow at all.
What this mechanism does is allow for civilizations to grow in a more fluid way by taking into account the value of culture and trade regardless of the terrain in its vicinity. My idea can allow for both the typical city growth of Paris and Des Moines as well as the atypical kind of classic Rome and modern Los Angeles while at the same time discouraging Mega-Iowa.
At least that is the aim.
So what? Los Angeles was small for most of human history.
And Iowa could easily be seen as a grassland farm tile feeding the city of Chicago (3-tile range is a long way).
Except that Cook County did not become the third most populous area in America because of Iowa. It became so thanks to government subsidized infrastructure. Furthermore, Chicago is the consequence of the industrialization age and not because America was mostly agrarian, which it was. Chicago did not grow because food produced in Iowa led to greater births in Chicago; Chicago grew because new infrastructure gave the city a surge in commercial opportunities. [EDIT]People from outside Chicago looking for work grew the city into a major urban center, not natives of Chicago.
And yes, a city completely surrounded by corn resources in Civ could become the most populous city in the game. I don't think that that mechanic makes for interesting or realistic civs.
Your model says that trade is dependent on agricultural output. You have "Crop and livestock resources could be given trade bonuses". So you're moving to something where you're shipping around actual commodities, or where farms effectively produce trade goods.
No, I wouldn't characterize my model like that. And yet, that is excatly what the game does now anyway. I guess what I would say "trade value" would mean here is potential increased commerical opportunity of a city, not necessarily actual commercial activity. And the value of gold income from commercial opportunity could be figured out through testing. So, if you have a horse resource nearby, your city would have increased commercial opportunity because of this resource. And yes, farmers have historicaly packed their carts with their produce and livestock to sell elsewhere. Alternately, produce and livestock merchants may travel to farming regions with an empty cart to buy rural commodities which they then can sell at a higher price in urban areas. I think I am making sense.
^^;
I mean; the only time where I am trading a cow resource for a grain resource or a gem resource for a silk resource should be on the diplomacy screen; these bonus resources should be entirely separate from the trade system, but you want to tie bonus resources into trade yields directly.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. No, I think you have misunderstood. Yes, a region with abundant cows will have commercial opportunities. But by this, I only mean in domestic trade. What you are referring to is international trade. We need not make domestic and international trade mutually exclusive.
It makes no sense to me that the number of tiles worked shouldn't be based on population, or that population shouldn't be based on food.
As I have said, population is indeed based on food. But city growth potential should be tied to trade value.
Well, regarding the first part, it seems you have not read my suggestion in the other thread in which I argue that Civ should adopt a Simcity style little tile format. In that suggestion, I argue that cities should be allowed to sprawl over several tiles, for instance. I am actually arguing for complete and radical changes to the game.
The way I think tile improvement work should be handled in a new Civ is by giving more tiles to become workable depending on the size of the city and the nature of tile improvments. For instance, say a city with population of one could be allowed to improve two nearby tiles for farming or one for mining. Only when you have city growth should you be allowed to improve more tiles. It makes no sense to be able to build farms and yet have no one working it. But this is the way the system works now.
What do the people in the towns eat?
As you have already noted, modern urban citizens do not grow their own food. They ship food to neighborhood stores. In fact, today, we ship food all over the world.
The reason you are confused is because Civ has confused you with its strange city growth mechanism.
You can do this now; work fewer farm tiles, allocate specialist.
And you can also do this under my suggestion. But you get all the other benefits in design as well.
What do these people eat? Where does the food come from?
I get my food from the local markets. But the food I eat originate from Japan, China, Korea, Mexico, from other 49 states (I live around Los Angeles), South America, the Caribbeans, central California, and even Europe. Where do you get your food? What do you eat?
