More food = quicker growth ?

[Ostam]

Does a city having more (local) food mean it expands quicker, or is does any positive amount lead to the same rate of growth ?
PS. I know global food is not relevant here

[Red Warrior]

You need food yes to sustain the population. But for more growth you need to build Dwellings. Expand quickly and your people will ahve to live without any food.

[Ellye]

Hovering over the tooltip for growth, you can see how it is calculated.

Surplus local food does not seem to affect Growth, only direct modifiers to Growth affects it.

Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3337931838

But I couldn't find the formula for the "Base Value".

Comparing my cities, it doesn't seem like food surplus affect that Base Value - it seems to be mostly based on city size, but not sure if affected by anything else.

[Prometheus]

Food income may not be directly calculated but I see Farms on that screenshot. So farms as well as feast and grain store but those both directly state they increase growth. Basically your food income doesn't determine it but so far almost every source of food income does increase growth.

[ceskymistr]

pop growth is depending on city health and amenities can boost it. Also, if food income in city is negative, there is no pop growth

[Dioskouroi]

Anyone know if there are any buttons to stop growth? I can't make enough farms to feed everyone and cities starve every 3 turns. I'm trying to get fertilizer at the pharmacy and chemist but these two buildings need food and I ain't got any

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Ostam:

Does a city having more (local) food mean it expands quicker, or is does any positive amount lead to the same rate of growth ?
PS. I know global food is not relevant here

Pretty much all sources of food improve growth, so basically yes more food more growth. Food itself is not directly related to growth, but a farm provides 3% growth to the city, most food boosting buildings also boost health which boosts growth, and most consumables which add food like feasts and whatnot also provide growth. If you want a city to grow fast, focus it on farms/food.

[Ellye]

Originally posted by Prometheus:

Food income may not be directly calculated but I see Farms on that screenshot. So farms as well as feast and grain store but those both directly state they increase growth. Basically your food income doesn't determine it but so far almost every source of food income does increase growth.

Yes, Farms have a +3% Growth bonus.

You are correct that almost everything that gives local food gives Growth too.

[turnbasedlife]

One other source of growth is the Health bar for the city's Quality of Life. If you get that to 60 or above, there is a % increase to city growth.

[Red Warrior]

Originally posted by Dioskouroi:

Anyone know if there are any buttons to stop growth? I can't make enough farms to feed everyone and cities starve every 3 turns. I'm trying to get fertilizer at the pharmacy and chemist but these two buildings need food and I ain't got any

Don't build any dwellings or housings until you are ready for the population needs.

[VDmitry]

Directly - no. Indirectly - yes. Food shortage limits your population as an example. Also you can use food for various things which may help growth too.

[Fortuna]

Honestly, early on food seems both very easy to get and fairly useless. I don't even need a single farm making food (except specialized things like grain).

[Red Warrior]

Originally posted by Fortuna:

Honestly, early on food seems both very easy to get and fairly useless. I don't even need a single farm making food (except specialized things like grain).

Wait till your city grows in population and then you go in a spiral of food shortages then you can proudly say that farm isn't required. Have you played the game long enough though?

[universecreep]

From what I've read, food seems to be the most important resource. I'm only on my first playthrough but one reviewer wrote that food is the thing that drives your entire civ. They also said it may be too important as the only way to keep progressing is to have food so ultimately the best strategy is to just spam farms. I don't know if that's entirely correct but in my n of 1, it seems to hold at least some truth.

[Red Warrior]

Originally posted by universecreep:

From what I've read, food seems to be the most important resource. I'm only on my first playthrough but one reviewer wrote that food is the thing that drives your entire civ. They also said it may be too important as the only way to keep progressing is to have food so ultimately the best strategy is to just spam farms. I don't know if that's entirely correct but in my n of 1, it seems to hold at least some truth.

It is very very important. Never neglect it. Had a food shortage of -20 to -67 for like 30 turns but I had a surplus of like 4000+ food so I quickly built and improved my farm and then put all my workshop and chemist to create irrigation tools and fertilisers to boost the production. Now I am making like 400+ food every turn.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by universecreep:

They also said it may be too important as the only way to keep progressing is to have food so ultimately the best strategy is to just spam farms. I don't know if that's entirely correct but in my n of 1, it seems to hold at least some truth.

It's not. Food amenities are better than farms - not only do they usually give more food, they also tend to come with growth or QOL boosts too. Rather than spam farms what you really want is a city in the middle of some nice fertile grasslands which will do little beyond farming (utilising granaries to boost output) and everywhere else using butchers, bakeries etc to convert the food into amenities to fill the bulk of their food requirements.