Quoting shadowknightx, reply 74
Why even bother with plopping down houses at all? Why not have population growth be based off available food supply (either native or what the trade network brings in), and then have a MoM style build 'housing' which boosts it?
The "why" is that food is a global resource. Any town can access any other town's food without any trade being established. It's just one big pool. Houses serve to direct the flow of food throughout your empire. They are like magical beacons that serve as incoming teleportation pads for the food in your empire. This makes growing cities based on available food difficult, because you wouldn't be able to direct which cities grow and which cities won't....unless you move away from a global food system.
Now whether or not this system is the best system is debatable, so I'm not saying your idea is a bad one, just that the devs are really attached to the "Food as a global resource" idea. So you'd really have to "wow" them to change their mind.
From frogboy:
"Food is global because it's consistent (i.e. other games have "global money") and because it provides greater strategic options to players. The reason every TBS game seems to end in a grind is because each city is a civilization unto itself. There is no real thought in what city you should take first. In Elemental, there is a reason to go after a particular town because resources are global." (https://forums.elementalgame.com/380363/)
I can see what they are getting at, but I'd argue that food is not consistent. Gold can be stored for an indefinite length of time while food goes bad eventually (unless you have refrigeration or I suppose an appropriate magic spell that can extend the shelf life). Then there are bad harvests, locusts, flooding, etc. that can influence how much food is coming in just as the right conditions can yield a bumper crop. Not to mention transporting food long distances often spoils it or becomes a huge issue (case in point look at store bought tomatoes versus locally grown ones).
I don't think they'd have to change their system much as it stands to be honest. They already keep track of local resources (see the resource tab on each city), and at the top they keep track of global surplus. IIRC both MoM and MoO (II) had a global food indicator (MoO then had a system where you had to also build transports to get excess food from one planet to those in need of it). If the total number went negative then you had those places in need of food starve and have negative growth.
Now this is what I would do but yet keep that "there is a reason to go after a particular town because resources are global" feel.
Each town/city's growth is tied to its native total food production, the more there is the greater the city's growth and the potential for larger city sizes. If there is excess food beyond what is required this will trend the rate higher. Also excess food can be exported to other cities which will affect the growth rate of those cities.
Building Housing: Instead of building individual houses the player can select a 'build housing' which increases the growth rate of the city ala MoM.
An example to illustrate:
Kingdom Z has two cities. The first city, which we will call X, is a verifiable cornucopia of bounty. They have three special food resource tiles and after several 'years' the land around the city has turned green (I don't know if this game does this but if this were MoM think of this as desert turning into grassland which increases the food values of the tile) and yields 100 food units. It has a growth rate of 10% (this rate would depend on several factors such as security, food surplus, ruler/governor's abilities, race, spells [local and global], etc.), and has a need of 50 food units (40 for the current population and 10 for the growth rate) leaving 50 surplus. However due to spoilage (which is reduced by having a granary, and a minor 'ice' spell called refrigeration) this surplus is reduced to 35. This 35 food unit surplus can then be sent to other cities or stored in the city's granary for future use.
The other city, called Y, unfortunately has not been blessed with such agricultural bounty, but was placed there because of its access to an iron deposit and a crystal deposit. City Y was just founded and yet to move beyond needing more than 5 food units which it's meager farms produce 10 for a growth rate of 5%. City Y due to its small size can have a much larger growth rate but it is limited by the food surplus unless outside food is brought in.
The ruler (i.e. player) has constructed a caravan between the two cities to move the mined goods from Y to X and in exchange brings back food which increases the growth rate another 10%. This reduces the surplus by 12 (one for each extra growth rate and two for transport spoilage --the spoilage would be higher if not for the spell I mentioned above). The maximum for the caravan would be based upon technology/spells etc., so larger caravans or more of them could theoretically send more food up to the maximum growth rate, but for this example the maximum growth rate for City is 15%. This brings the surplus of X down to 23 which is stored in the X's granary for longer term.
Thus the global food indicator at the top would read 23.
The player maintains this rate for several rounds and the stored food in X goes up (but some is lost to spoilage, etc.). However due to increased tensions with Empire A the player needs more troops so to offset the recruiting of them he begins building 'housing' which increases the growth rate of City X (City Y is still too small to recruit too many troops) by 5%. City X's city level has soft cap 10% for growth because on their own the people of the city just don't build that many houses to incorporate new people, but by building housing this allows the growth rate to increase up to 15%.
A few turns later, and sadly for the player, the much larger Empire A conquers their 'capital', City X, leaving only City Y remaining. However due to the loss of the bountiful harvests of City X City Y can no longer sustain any population growth and in fact it has grown more than it's own agricultural resources can sustain. Moreover with the loss of City X the 'global' food resources have crashed down to zero as it's food supply has been looted by Empire A.
In the above example it retains that reason to go after an enemy's city (in this case its food basket of City X), but removes the tediousness of the player having to place individual houses. It allows natural population growth that can be sustained by a city on its own, and receive help from more 'global' resources. Also it takes in affect that food unlike gold or other mineral resources can't be effectively stockpiled in the same manner.
MoM was elegant in how it abstracted some things, and I think Elemental needs to look at it's self in the mirror and ask is it trying to do too much. Cause of right now just looking at it's direction there are elements of city building games, RTS's (resource collection), and RPGs.
Just my two cents.
