Thing to make the game more realistic

[TomCB]

A new way has to be set up for determining how large a city gets. CIV3 does not allow importing of food and every city can have a huge industrial base.
The Roman empire received over half of it's grain from Egypt for example.
For instance, NYC in no way grows enough food to feed itself and must have imports, which do cost money.
Perhaps it would need to be a available jobs thing.
I know that Detroit's population exploded during WWII because of all the jobs being created and many people left when the auto industry spread out around the world.
Detroit's population is less than 2/3 of what it once was.
Total population should not be determined by available food, but if enough food is not available, it will cause massive discontent.
High unemployment would make war weariness lower while low unemployment would make your population not want to go to war.
Instead of capitalization, a option of "nothing" should be available, that would redirect resources to whatever the population wanted and allow higher moral.
We know that better educated people tend to have less chidren, perhaps higher education would slow population growth.
This would cause wars over land to grow crops on and make food a valuable export in later stages of the game, as well as a foreign policy tool.
Another thing.
Perhaps a switch to allow/not allow trade with a foreign power.
This would allow private owners of luxury/strategic resources to sell them to other powers.
You should be able to stop one item while allowing others or coarse.
This would replace something from the diplomatic screen, except for asking for permission for the selling to commence.
I would like to see wheat to either dissappear or be allowed to be planted in new areas.
Gold should be worth a WHOLE lot more than it is and be far more rare.
Whole civilizations have been built on gold and in the game it is just another minor item that you can either have or not and be ok.
Some items should dissappear if the terrain is altered, like wild game for instance.

Thats all for now, let the comments commence......

[aahz_capone]

That "nothing"build option is pretty much like that caravans in civ2.

[Brizey]

Food caravans are missed. Trickier to implement now that the caravan is gone. I think the omission is a gameplay issue.

Lot's of realism is sacrified (infitely extendible resources?) to make gameplay more streamlined. I think this is a case where it was "over-streamlined".

[TomCB]

I am thinking more along the lines of all (but one) the extra food produced by each connected city going into a general fund.
Then, depending on the ability of each city to provide jobs, or living conditions, or whatever, the population would increase.
People would leave overcrowded cities and complain if there was not enough "open spaces".
National parks could be built to try to keep them happy.
The idea that population increases until there is not enough food doesn't make sense to me.
Populations will increase until they starve or, such as in the case of Russia.
Imigration could become an issue if you do not make measures to assimulate newcomers.

I am thinking more of national policy instead of city policy.
Maybe this sort of thing could only start after a set tech level.

I don't know, just passing on thoughts.

[Ijuin]

I would envision this to work by having a sort of "box" that you could send food and shields to. Basically, there would be a pair of three- position sliders in the city display that at one setting would let you divert one-half of a city's surplus food or shields into a national storage area (maybe your city would have to be connected to your trade network to enable this?).

The other setting on the sliders would allow the city to DRAW food and shields from national storage. Using this setting, a city would draw any food needed to make up a shortfall, and it would draw shields equal to one per population of the city (thus a pop 6 city could draw 6 shields per turn to go into its production box). Great or Small Wonders, of course, could not draw shields to accelerate production in this way, but it would be a great way to build up a city that is newly built/conquered.

[bobbo008]

Each city needing to be self-sufficient bothered me from teh beginning, too.

what I'd really like to see are areas trying to break off, like many minor nationalities. For example, a group of cities is in the jungle, and has been (fairly) isolated for several centuries. I think over time, they should become almost a different people, maybe wanting independence or more autonomy. This meaning you'd have to station more troops in the area.

More civs would really be nice, too. I especially wish they would have opted for the Ottomans (or Turks) instead of maybe, we'll say, the Babylonians.

I'd also like more trade, instead of just luxury and strategic resources. For example, the more the length of the border, and number of connected roads, and the better your relations are with a neighboring civ, I think you should both get maybe some "trade money" or the border cities get extra happiness, or something of that sort. Right now, a Trade Embargo doesn't mean to much except that two countries really don't like you.

Another thing is when civs try and cross my country with their units. I'll request them to leave, and when I finally force them to (when they withdraw automatically), they'll just go right back to it and will continue to attempt it. Eventually worsening our relations.

[TomCB]

I like the slider idea.
As far as part of your empire breaking off, that can make alot of sense if you consider the British empire and the various parts that have gone off on their own.
How that breaking off is handled could mean the difference between friend and foe and total break or part of the commonwealth.
If Britian had handled the American colonies better, the US may have the Queen on our money to this day.
Perhaps alot should matter on your government, economic system, and investment in infrastructure.
Now nation would be able to transport huge amounts of "food" and "shields" around.
I find it hard to believe that shields could be saved up.
Money, of coarse, but how that trranslates back and forth could lead to HUGE losses in the transfering.

I keep thinking about the old Avalon Hill board games, where each nation had "BRP's" or Basic Resource Points.
And each conqured territory added to your total.

So much to think about.........