Why no health?
- Thread starter ukcivfan
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It would be nice to have modded into a mod because I like the idea of having a plague every once in a while.
flyingbunnys
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Health was useless and ultimatly did nothing and no one really payed attention to it. I would not want it to make a return in the form that it was in previusly.
The problem with health was that it was just "happiness 2". It took penalties from city size just like happiness and grew with select map resources and buildings just like happiness. It wasn't an interesting mechanic, just another of the same. Having it reintroduced in an expansion could be interesting, and with happiness global there's now an opportunity for a local city growth regulator, but it would still need to be more than "cap city growth to prevent more unhealthiness" and "build this to add x healthiness".
Health implementation in Civ4 was really weird and I didn't like it, why tie health to food variety ? It was not very realistic.
I prefer the old way: city can't grow past size 6 if it doesn't have an aqueduct, city can't grow past size 12 if it doesn't have an hospital.
I prefer the old way: city can't grow past size 6 if it doesn't have an aqueduct, city can't grow past size 12 if it doesn't have an hospital.
need my speed
Rex Omnium Imperarium
It actually was realistic, along with health providing and detracting buildings, and health detracting terrain.
Yes but isn't adding growth bonusses with those same buildings or more food with certain tiles not enough? The point of many in this thread is that it was a copy of the happiness system.
How is that realistic ? Hey my city has 15 million people, if only I had Deer it could grow to 20 millions
City growth requires services (fresh water, hospitals, police, firefighters), not food variety.
It might have been a copy of the happiness system, but the Social Policy system is a copy of the tech system (including the victories), so by the same standard, these should be ditched.
Health made terrain important. It made wheat, cattle, etc. important. In Civ V, the map does not matter: You have flat land, desert, mountains, hills, sea and rivers. The rest (plains/tundras/sheep...) just don't matter in any significant way anymore. Health made flood plains interesting. Now, they are just a copy-cat of prairies.
The implementation may not have been good, but I think a grranary providing food is silly. It helps store food, it doesn't provide more. It can be used to avoid famine, it doesn't let you grow. I can't even remember building an aqueduct in Civ V. Are they still there? Civ V definitely misses something to manage food and health. I'd be more in favor o a CtP2 like system than a Civ IV system, but Civ V is lacking something here in my opinion.
Health made terrain important. It made wheat, cattle, etc. important. In Civ V, the map does not matter: You have flat land, desert, mountains, hills, sea and rivers. The rest (plains/tundras/sheep...) just don't matter in any significant way anymore. Health made flood plains interesting. Now, they are just a copy-cat of prairies.
The implementation may not have been good, but I think a grranary providing food is silly. It helps store food, it doesn't provide more. It can be used to avoid famine, it doesn't let you grow. I can't even remember building an aqueduct in Civ V. Are they still there? Civ V definitely misses something to manage food and health. I'd be more in favor o a CtP2 like system than a Civ IV system, but Civ V is lacking something here in my opinion.
It might have been a copy of the happiness system, but the Social Policy system is a copy of the tech system (including the victories), so by the same standard, these should be ditched.
Health made terrain important. It made wheat, cattle, etc. important. In Civ V, the map does not matter: You have flat land, desert, mountains, hills, sea and rivers. The rest (plains/tundras/sheep...) just don't matter in any significant way anymore. Health made flood plains interesting. Now, they are just a copy-cat of prairies.
The implementation may not have been good, but I think a grranary providing food is silly. It helps store food, it doesn't provide more. It can be used to avoid famine, it doesn't let you grow. I can't even remember building an aqueduct in Civ V. Are they still there? Civ V definitely misses something to manage food and health. I'd be more in favor o a CtP2 like system than a Civ IV system, but Civ V is lacking something here in my opinion.
I agree with you. I'm currently playing with a terrain balance mod which gives more food/production to non-strategic resources like cattle and sheep, it helps a lot and it makes the difference in city placing.
I don't say you are all wrong by thinking this. You have some good points but the fact is that a city did not become healthier and able to grow larger simply because it was build near rice and wheat in real life. It needed food mostly, any kind of food. This is still true in civ5 where wheat does provide a bonus to basic food. Flood plain is still better then plains when it comes to food and a cow on a grassland is better then just grassland. Even the logic that cows are worse then farms later on is void in my eyes, it provides fast extra food before technologies to improve the land are invented, thats the use of the cow. City placement is still alive and well in my eyes, just not as extreme as in civ4 where the right recources would send your city into the air way too fast.
About the granary providing food, one could think of this as more efficient use of food. Effectively giving you the +2 it does now. Sure it looks a little odd that a building gives you food but use your imagination here, without it you could argue that you would have lost that food due to famine.
At the end the health system was fun and I liked it but it is not needed in my eyes, the current system works just as well.
sketch162000
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This illustrates that there's no way to really argue this objectively...If you are having fun, you will ignore irrational game mechanics or you will invent ways for them to make sense using your imagination.
I could just as easily say that rice/wheat/cows could be transplanted almost anywhere in the world, but the fact that they are worth mentioning on the map means that there are ideal conditions at that location and that the people enjoy a healthy robust surplus...which leads to a greater population. More food sources leads to diversification which is healthier because it provides people with a more varied diet (this is healthy irl) and because only one or two staples makes the population susceptible to things like the Irish Potato Famine.
Health gave you the feeling of managing your city by maintaining it's sanitation. It is not necessary for the pure strategy aspect of the game or the victory conditions. But for the players who enjoy Civilization as an empire management sim, it added a nice level of detail and immersion that made you feel like you were really in charge of your people's welfare. I, for one,would welcome more city management options.
Next time you'll say AI was pretty stupid in ciV, so lets remove it in the next game in the series (no SP).
Seriously why not improving the concept. Health had a lot of potential. They could have made it more complex & interesting instead of removing it completely. I hope they'll bring it back in an expansion or at least someone will add it in a mod. It would also help in adding usefulness to bonus resources.
Guru-Meditation
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Health made terrain important. It made wheat, cattle, etc. important. In Civ V, the map does not matter: You have flat land, desert, mountains, hills, sea and rivers. The rest (plains/tundras/sheep...) just don't matter in any significant way anymore. Health made flood plains interesting. Now, they are just a copy-cat of prairies.
There are 4 kinds of terrain in Civ V: plains, grassland, hills and useless (sea, desert, mountains, tundra).
The nerfing of the food resources and samenessy of the other terrains made cityplacement bland.
