Growth - Larger cities - population

[AugustusRoman]

Hi! I have an idea how to use food/growth per region in a better way.

We know that food now gives only growth population and your armies are not starving. As for making better and bigger cities we need money (and the technology for level 3 and 4).
Moreover, the technology that allows you to build lvl 3 and 4 cities takes a lot of time and requires a lot of money to build the building + the building itself gives a lot of problems, since the negatives are huge especially in the beginning! In my campaigns I never unlock that technology and I manage to complete my campaign before even I unlock that technology, as I already said the negatives are huge (at least for my style of play). These are the facts.

My suggestion is the following: Instead of technology and money you will need population surplus (and maybe money for balance). For instance, a city will need +5 population surplus for the level 2 city, +8 for the level 3 city and +10 for the level 4 (this is just an example) and as I said maybe money too, for balance. Of course, if only that change take place there will be many problems, like you will not be able to build other buildings or it will take too long for the next surplus. That is why surplus should be easier to happen or less surplus will be required to open a new space in a city.

Other changes that should take place and will make the whole game different!!

1) Since it will take more time for a surplus and it will be more difficult to have larger city/town, these building should give more money (taxes).
2) Occupying and razing should be different. Raze will destroy the city (lets say level 4), which is not a good idea but the -15 instability is too high for occupying!! That would need to be balanced!! So if you raze a city all the population will die, therefore it will take time to build that city again. Raze - sack - looting should give a huge negative population growth!!
3)Bigger cities more recruitment as well!! For instance, +1 for each level.

4)Level 3 and 4 cities will give -public order per turn but no corruption. Also the cities will require more food.
5)Farms should give now more food to cover the above changes, but farms will not give money. You can keep other agriculture buildings as they are. Fishing ports should not give more than -5 public order per turn + fishing ports should give more food. In my opinion the food that these buildings give is too low for the -public order that you get.

6) The technology should change too. Since the technology that unlock the level 3 and 4 does not exist anymore, we need something in their place. That could be:
a) population growth +5 b)higher taxes c)less expensive cities d)+public order when you have cities from level 3 to level 4. e) less instability when you occupying

I do not know if the above can happen. But I am sure it will be much more interesting in this way!!

[SquirrelP0acher]

You mean in order to build the next city level it should require a certain pop surplus and then it should consume that surplus? If so I really like that idea. I'd take it a step further and make all building levels require and consume pop surplus with city lines of course being the greatest.

EDIT: Making buildings require all 3 (money, Pop, and Tech) would seem the most realistic to me.

[AugustusRoman]

Yeah this is what I mean! The point is to avoid the useless technology ;p

[Gunydii]

Imho the lvl 4 techs can be well worth in specific provinces at least. Getting the economic center upgrades up an running is usually the point in my campaigns I go from having a lot of money to swimming in the stuff. If you're fairly happy to turtle I've found the benefits of T4 cities to be huge.

Given the AI tends to be pretty good at getting T 3/4 city upgrades out (it usually beats me to the T3) I'd be a bit worried about changing a system I think can have big benefits that the AI currently seems to do reasonably well at managing.

I'm not saying the system shouldn't be changed, just that there seems to be some merits to the current system.