Hi

Im planning a medieval city builder / sim inspired by the stronghold, banished and anno series. For population growth a common mechanics is either you need to maintain positive "happiness" (stronghold series) or you supply more and more goods/services to get higher level inhabitants (anno series). You also need houses but that's basically a given.

An idea i have:

You have a pop cap initially. To raise it you need to add goods/services but you choose what and in what order. Then the % of the population who has access to these goods/services determines your city's increased pop cap, the info screen for it could look something like:

Base pop cap 20
Ale (53 %) +5 cap
Religion (21%) +2 cap
Pottery (100%) +10 cap
Food variety ( 3 types) +6 cap

Total pop cap: 43

What do you think? The idea is to let the player have more freedom in how he/she develops the city depending on the map resources and other factors such as climate.
 

Nope just planning the game for now.

How is it sterile? It strikes me as more flexible than the two major series I mentioned (stronghold and anno), and those games work fine.

The idea is that complexity allows for bigger cities. Other things like access to better roads can also give increased pop cap (and as the other things, the ratio of how many have access to it will determine the pop cap bonus).

Yeah, numbers are just an example. I think they might need to be non-linear as well (100% coverage isnt necessarily giving double bonus compared to 50 % coverage).

It looks nice imo,

i would add an additional increase in pop by letting the player choose to hiring certain organisatory jobs (mayor or doctor) who would do nothing else(except for consuming resources like the other workers)

Rather than measuring population access (where these become additional heatmap resources), what about making these more like achievements/unlocks? So rather than +1 pop per 20% of the population with access to ale, you gain +3 cap for collectively drinking 500 barrels, and +3 cap for having a brewer's guild (with some complicated set of requirements to construct).

I find discontinuities like that tend to create more exciting gameplay moments, and it gives you a more flexible framework where each goal can be distinct.