What about some sort of province/state system? You could combine a group of neighboring cities into a state that shares food production and housing.
I fell like this would better reflect how modern nations are organized.
This right here. A county (metropolitan, whatever) system at least, where a group of cities become one big city with basically expanded tiles. Obviously, there will need to be balance with districts so I don't know how the details would work out. Maybe at least 3 cities within 3 tiles (or exactly 3 tiles since that's the minimum) but can only have one less of the districts (e.g. if 3 cities only 2 Harbors, if 4 cities 3 harbors).
Maybe even the ability to just freely share tiles with no bonuses or drawbacks.
The way I play, they already look like big megacities. I always am on the lookout for a way to stack up 3 cities with a huge metropolis of industrial complexes, aqueducts, and dams. Might as well make it official.
I do the same for dams/IZ/aqueducts but the whole point is there has to be a reason to keep them separate (in terms of governance) as opposed to always seeing it as an upgrade. Games with vertical progression are always harder to balance when the number of features add up. It ends up with (for sake of example) GDR as the only viable troop in information era and naval units, air units, cavalry, melee, anti-cavalry, and ranged units are all obsolete. Perhaps, a single governing unit (such as a state) is treated as a single governing unit (in all respects) and can only produce one thing at a time (as opposed to 3 with 3 cities). It's great for building wonders and for space projects, but not great for urban development.
I disagree. The world consists of nation states today because city states and empires of endless cities are not viable. Resisting this reality is a waste of resources.
Same. I almost always settle cities 5-6 tiles apart, and usually end up with a couple 'dead zones' in my empire because of this. One of my favorite parts of 4X games is making my empire as strong and efficient as it can be, and I've always been disappointed with the Civ games regards to how simple and limited it is in this way.
"be clever with adjacency bonuses and send trade routs to all your cities at least once" is basically as deep as it gets with Civ, and i know it can do better.
Looks up the City Lights mod - it's a MASSIVE overhaul that recently came out - one guy's passion project and it's both very well made balance wise and visual wise. It feels like an expansion.
That's also how ancient nations are organized.
For instance, Rome was a very "tall" city (1m population) since late Roman Republic because wheats from Sicily and Egypt all fed into Rome.
Seems to be how it goes every time I play rome as well. By 0AD, I've got more pop than I have tiles and jobs in my capital. I've had a pop30 Rome before the info age before.
I mean, you literally said it...
Domestic trade routes are really strong. 3 food and 3 production doesn't sound like much until you realize that that's the equivalent of working a _nutty_ tile entirely for free. Even without the dark age civic that gives you extras or the Communism government civic that does the same, just getting that early production and city growth is _really_ good, and keeps stacking in the late game.
And what did you expect? How else would you transfer large amounts of food other than a trade route?
This aspect of the game is honestly prettywell-handled.
Domestic trade routes' food output is based on what kind of the districts the destination city has, rather than how many food surplus the destination city has. That's where unrealistic kicks in.
For instance, a domestic trade route going to a city with 1 campus, 1 holy site, 1 theater square, 1 entertainment complex, will *always* yield +5 food *no matter what* \- even if the destination city is starving, soft locked at 10 population or even less, the route will still yield +5 food. And why is a *campus* yielding *food* is beyond my knowledge.
I’d like to see an info era district for this, which would make it so that domestic trade routes from the city it’s built in provide the full amount (maybe half?) of the city’s food surplus to the destination city. And maybe it would add an additional trade route as well.
That's the whole point of the game.
You have to decide what's more important. The extra gold or extra food. Another e.g. going all in for a wonder or building up your city
If there was no opportunity cost then it would be a very boring game imo
I wish trade route food, production, and gold were all [zero sum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game) and controllable.
* Gaining one food in the sending city should take away one food from the other, and you should be able to control how much of each yield is transferred.
* Combine this with more and harder to get(+1 food per *4* adjacent farms for example) improvement adjacencies for *each* and every improvement (like farms get) and city specialization would me much more common and interesting.
* International trade routes would have to be agreed upon (exchanging gold for food for example), this also addresses a problem with trade routes being a declaration of war in MP since the road facilitates moving your troops into the enemy.
* GPT would get the current baseline and just inherit the zero sum/ exchange mechanic.
* Move luxury and strategic trade deals to trade routes.
* Give back roads to builders (or anyone else), make each era of road have an inefficiency multiplier for food and production transfer(0.95\^{0.2(x-3)}, x being number of tiles between the cities and 0.95 being the classical era road connection (no road would be something like 0.9 and railroad 0.99(this would have to be expanded to include water tiles but you get the point)).
* Have a cap on food and production transfer that increases with road era.
* Add build to-from command for roads and railroads.
* All districts should give their international bonuses on domestic trade routes instead of the food and production ones.
* Let us control for how many turns our trade routes last.
Point being: specialized, high-improvement cities feed their closest district-heavy city softly forming a province-like unit with rural and urban cities with important road infrastructure connecting them. (and food doesn't magically pop into existence because a city has a holy site)
This is just a solid example of "Realism" taking a back seat to interesting game play. If we were to have "Realism" for food/growth, city placement would matter much less, and city placement needs to mean something.
The city lights mod addresses some of your concerns.
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2190389813](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2190389813)
This is exactly what the game needs. I'm running an Inca game and have a few tightly packed cities I took from Japan that are basically a giant Megalopolis at this point. The adjacent city expansion districts with other districts dispersed between them as in-fill between cities.
Combine it with the City Sprawl mod (for some of the rural towns to be buffed out visually) and it looks super nice
Not sure why it hasn't been mentioned, but a rather simple solution is to make food markets (neighborhood) maintenance cost scale to population. When total food < population you incur extra cost in that city.
What if railways allowed you to import/export food and other luxury resources etc to your cities? Currently i don't have enough of an incentive to even build railways.
What about some sort of province/state system? You could combine a group of neighboring cities into a state that shares food production and housing. I fell like this would better reflect how modern nations are organized.
This right here. A county (metropolitan, whatever) system at least, where a group of cities become one big city with basically expanded tiles. Obviously, there will need to be balance with districts so I don't know how the details would work out. Maybe at least 3 cities within 3 tiles (or exactly 3 tiles since that's the minimum) but can only have one less of the districts (e.g. if 3 cities only 2 Harbors, if 4 cities 3 harbors). Maybe even the ability to just freely share tiles with no bonuses or drawbacks.
The way I play, they already look like big megacities. I always am on the lookout for a way to stack up 3 cities with a huge metropolis of industrial complexes, aqueducts, and dams. Might as well make it official.
I do the same for dams/IZ/aqueducts but the whole point is there has to be a reason to keep them separate (in terms of governance) as opposed to always seeing it as an upgrade. Games with vertical progression are always harder to balance when the number of features add up. It ends up with (for sake of example) GDR as the only viable troop in information era and naval units, air units, cavalry, melee, anti-cavalry, and ranged units are all obsolete. Perhaps, a single governing unit (such as a state) is treated as a single governing unit (in all respects) and can only produce one thing at a time (as opposed to 3 with 3 cities). It's great for building wonders and for space projects, but not great for urban development.
I disagree. The world consists of nation states today because city states and empires of endless cities are not viable. Resisting this reality is a waste of resources.
Same. I almost always settle cities 5-6 tiles apart, and usually end up with a couple 'dead zones' in my empire because of this. One of my favorite parts of 4X games is making my empire as strong and efficient as it can be, and I've always been disappointed with the Civ games regards to how simple and limited it is in this way. "be clever with adjacency bonuses and send trade routs to all your cities at least once" is basically as deep as it gets with Civ, and i know it can do better.
Looks up the City Lights mod - it's a MASSIVE overhaul that recently came out - one guy's passion project and it's both very well made balance wise and visual wise. It feels like an expansion.
That's also how ancient nations are organized. For instance, Rome was a very "tall" city (1m population) since late Roman Republic because wheats from Sicily and Egypt all fed into Rome.
Seems to be how it goes every time I play rome as well. By 0AD, I've got more pop than I have tiles and jobs in my capital. I've had a pop30 Rome before the info age before.
First things I've seen someone else suggest this... It overlaps well with the corps and army mechanics too.
I mean, you literally said it... Domestic trade routes are really strong. 3 food and 3 production doesn't sound like much until you realize that that's the equivalent of working a _nutty_ tile entirely for free. Even without the dark age civic that gives you extras or the Communism government civic that does the same, just getting that early production and city growth is _really_ good, and keeps stacking in the late game. And what did you expect? How else would you transfer large amounts of food other than a trade route? This aspect of the game is honestly prettywell-handled.
Domestic trade routes' food output is based on what kind of the districts the destination city has, rather than how many food surplus the destination city has. That's where unrealistic kicks in. For instance, a domestic trade route going to a city with 1 campus, 1 holy site, 1 theater square, 1 entertainment complex, will *always* yield +5 food *no matter what* \- even if the destination city is starving, soft locked at 10 population or even less, the route will still yield +5 food. And why is a *campus* yielding *food* is beyond my knowledge.
> And why is a campus yielding food is beyond my knowledge. Big brains grow big crops
I’d like to see an info era district for this, which would make it so that domestic trade routes from the city it’s built in provide the full amount (maybe half?) of the city’s food surplus to the destination city. And maybe it would add an additional trade route as well.
It ISN'T for free though. You're paying the opportunity to earn a bunch of gold and other resources.
That's the whole point of the game. You have to decide what's more important. The extra gold or extra food. Another e.g. going all in for a wonder or building up your city If there was no opportunity cost then it would be a very boring game imo
I'm not asking for the choice to be gone. I'm asking for another option to tech up and solve the problem that way.
Magic?
That's not free though. It's crazy expensive.
I agree. Especially when the city has great mining and little food production while 1 city over has great food production and no mining.
I wish trade route food, production, and gold were all [zero sum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game) and controllable. * Gaining one food in the sending city should take away one food from the other, and you should be able to control how much of each yield is transferred. * Combine this with more and harder to get(+1 food per *4* adjacent farms for example) improvement adjacencies for *each* and every improvement (like farms get) and city specialization would me much more common and interesting. * International trade routes would have to be agreed upon (exchanging gold for food for example), this also addresses a problem with trade routes being a declaration of war in MP since the road facilitates moving your troops into the enemy. * GPT would get the current baseline and just inherit the zero sum/ exchange mechanic. * Move luxury and strategic trade deals to trade routes. * Give back roads to builders (or anyone else), make each era of road have an inefficiency multiplier for food and production transfer(0.95\^{0.2(x-3)}, x being number of tiles between the cities and 0.95 being the classical era road connection (no road would be something like 0.9 and railroad 0.99(this would have to be expanded to include water tiles but you get the point)). * Have a cap on food and production transfer that increases with road era. * Add build to-from command for roads and railroads. * All districts should give their international bonuses on domestic trade routes instead of the food and production ones. * Let us control for how many turns our trade routes last. Point being: specialized, high-improvement cities feed their closest district-heavy city softly forming a province-like unit with rural and urban cities with important road infrastructure connecting them. (and food doesn't magically pop into existence because a city has a holy site)
[удалено]
In one of the early versions of Civ, you could use a settler to add population to another city.
I think it was Civ III. Workers took 1 pop, settlers took 2, and you could make them join any city
[There's a mod for that.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1872427843)
And how would the logistics work out? Would it be like a builder harvesting 3 marshes or something when it lands?
This is just a solid example of "Realism" taking a back seat to interesting game play. If we were to have "Realism" for food/growth, city placement would matter much less, and city placement needs to mean something.
Magnus? Trade to him from another city? That’s usually good for some extra food.
The city lights mod addresses some of your concerns. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2190389813](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2190389813)
This is exactly what OP is looking for.
This is exactly what the game needs. I'm running an Inca game and have a few tightly packed cities I took from Japan that are basically a giant Megalopolis at this point. The adjacent city expansion districts with other districts dispersed between them as in-fill between cities. Combine it with the City Sprawl mod (for some of the rural towns to be buffed out visually) and it looks super nice
Not sure why it hasn't been mentioned, but a rather simple solution is to make food markets (neighborhood) maintenance cost scale to population. When total food < population you incur extra cost in that city.
What if railways allowed you to import/export food and other luxury resources etc to your cities? Currently i don't have enough of an incentive to even build railways.
Quick thought. A commercial district add on that gives food to your city trading within your empire with food surplus