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Dennis-Dem
My Radical Idea-Proposal:
  1. Lower-tier food should yield fewer calories than higher-tier foods, creating a clear calorie gradient across food tiers.
  2. Crop growth and food-production should take noticeably longer.
  3. Incorperate Pollution deeper into Gameplay (Level-Up, Housing-Value, Crop-Yield)
Why ? (Expected results)
  • Introduces a tangible labor cost (not just time/material) for producing food and higher-tier goods.
  • Makes process efficiency, research and upgrades significantly more valuable.
  • Higher-tier foods become attractive for their greater calorie yield and longer saturation effects.
For Public Servers:
  • Reduces the ability to “grind” large wealth with low-tier tools alone; Evens out playing field between strategic 'buisiness-decisions and trade' and Players having a lot of time and 'grinding away'.
  • Strengthens Political gameplay: higher land use for farming and farmers needing more of it requiring Zoning-Laws - AND with
  • higher gameplay-effects of pollution: management of 'pollutable Zones' (industrial Areas) will gain importance as well as inter-City Cooperation when pollution can 'travel'.
  • If pollution persisted longer (even if it accumulated more slowly) and food-growth and yield are set sstricter: zoning, political decisions and allocation of land for 'industry vs. housing' would become a highly-more meaningful gameplay mechanic.
Important: I want the possibility to customise Values easily for Server-Owners
So Servers can have and improve their Gameplay-mechanics based on the playing-style and so they can adjust the gameplay in different directions.
Maybe the Community can then find different styles and challanges for even more Replay-Value!
Expected Gameplay / Flow Impact
General
  • Early game would emphasize self-sufficient-farming for longer periods as well as allocating more time, calories and land-use for it -> extending early-stage gameplay and making achivements harder and more rewarding.
  • Small upgrades (e.g., basic housing, simple tools) would be more impactful; minor achievements would reward sustained effort rather than instant grind.
  • Scarcity of high-calorie food early on would drive innovation (Upgrades), reward high levels even more and grow demand for higher-tier production methods.
Early-Game
  • Food is important, (Like in human history) players would need to make a lot of it and feed themselves - allocate much land and calories for basic survival.
  • Slow food-growth and Yield would demand a ton of land.
  • Building and Crafting would require strategic tought (what is needed, how much of it and how can i cooperate with to no build stuff twice)
  • Even basic buildings and upgrades will improve calorie-ussage, making it more important.
Mid-Game
  • Cities are needed to administrate and protect huge amount of lands for Farmers, to protect the plots for farming from foreigners stealing.
As well as making sure food is secured in advance since it takes so long to grow and a shortage might put the people in an disadvantage to other communities.
  • Fertilizers for higher yield will be required and farming will become more than just 'mindlessly grinding', especially since:
  • optimal Crop location will make a more important difference and some crops just can't really be economically brought to the local food-shops.
  • Butchers and Cooks will be importand since they can salvage more calories from food.
Maybe they can make higher tier foods (higher XP) as well as lower tier foods (food scraps salvages) for cheap calories? and higher XP might bring more high-quality foods from scraps (like Goulash and PulledPork was invented for)?
  • If more land is needed for Crops and (bigger) animals might only spawn in deep forests while more small animals spawn in farmland only might be a good reason to preserve forrests and make sustainable forrestry more important for loggers.
Late-Game
  • Protection of farms from pollution is needed by making industrial areas far away or crop-yield will stagnate and even worsen as well as bad air might lower housing-value, make higher need for calories if worked in smog etc.
a wider reach of pollutants would make the need of a city to actually place pollutants (no only generators, but also workbenches who will 'lose' pieces of metal or minerals) far away from the farmland and their living-spaces as well as make a need for multiple plots of land, and coorperation between cities to no cross-pollute.
  • wind having an effect on pollutants by having differend wind-directions and diffusion effects by higher chimneys might be a valueable effect for smart decisions.
Risks & Mitigation + Conclusion
in my comment because of Character-Limitations