Greetings all! Now that the summer hiatus is over, dev diaries for the Cicero update will be getting back into full swing, starting with the explanation of a few features that we've been tinkering with recently. To start with, well be taking a look at the introduction of the categorization of Territories. Prior to 1.2, all our base level administrative units were known as Cities. As part of the redesign here, our collective noun for these will now be Territories. A Territory can be assigned any one of the following categories:

• Settlement: Representing a sparsely populated area of land, settlements have penalties to output, migration speed, and poptype ratio. Settlements will only support one building, but will have their own unique set of powerful buildings, so you can specialize them accordingly.
• City: Cities have a large bonus to population capacity, and will act as focal urban centers for your empire. Cities will be able to support all the buildings youve grown accustomed to in the Cicero beta thus far, but will feel a lot more unique as a result of their scarcity. Cities will also have a penalty to trade good production - they will tend to consume, rather than create, resources.
• Metropolis: A metropolis can be designated when a city reaches a large number of pops, and are considered the peak of a citys urban evolution. A metropolis will not have access to any unique buildings, but will improve living conditions for certain pop classes.

Settlement Buildings

[spoiler]
• Latifundia: 40% Local Slave Output, 25% Local Population Capacity. Latifundia are limited to territories where Mines are not applicable.
• Mine: -5 Local Slaves Per Good, 25% Local Population Capacity. Requires Marble, Stone, Precious Metals, Base Metals or Iron.
• Farm: +50% Local Food Modifier, -5 Local Slaves Per Good, -10% Freemen Ratio, 25% Local population Capacity. Requires Vegetables, Grain, Fish or Livestock.
• Hill Fort: 20% Local Freemen Happiness, 40% Local Freemen Output, 25% Local Population Capacity.
• Provincial Legation: 75% Migration Speed Modifier, 20% Local Pop Assimilation Speed.[/spoiler]

As is appropriate for the era, cities will be able to be founded from settlements, allowing you to shape the world to your own desire. An important part of this rework is the visual appearance of territories on the world map. Whereas previously, each territory showed buildings appropriate to the population of said territory, only Cities and Metropolises will now do so:
To accompany the cities rework, we are introducing a Food mechanic, to simulate the importance of a constant supply in the ancient world. A modicum of food will be produced by all territories depending on their terrain type. Food itself will be stored on a Province level, and consumed by the pops living within the Province, based on their type. In the beginning of the game, most Provinces will likely be able to sustain their own population, however, as the population of territories increase and more cities are founded, they will start taxing the food supply of a Province greatly. This brings me to the more intriguing aspect of the food supply system. Various trade goods such as Grain, Fish, Livestock, and Vegetables, will now provide a flat increase to monthly food. These will be traded in the same way as before, however, the importance of these goods to large cities should not be understated. As a burgeoning urban area such as Latium begins to grow, more and more food will be needed to sustain the population there.
Of course, food is not solely a negative consideration. Province food storage can be enhanced by constructing granaries in constituent Cities or Metropolises. Bonuses to population growth and local defensiveness within the Province will be applied for every 12 months of stored food present in the Province Food Supply. Empires focusing on wide play will not find the need to interact with this to a large degree, or at most, to focus on the core Provinces within their realm. Naturally, food ties in strongly to warfare, with friendly units who would otherwise take attrition instead consuming a relative amount of food within a Province. Additionally, if a Province Capital falls to an enemy, they will be able to use the food supply to prevent attrition for their own troops. Sieges, blockades, and occupation will reduce the food production of a Territory, which, in the case of Provincial Capitals, will also reduce any imported food, eventually starving a Province of its food supply. If supply reaches 0, a severe penalty will be applied to all cities within the state, rendering them much easier to siege, and increasing the migration speed of pops within the Province.
As a secondary consideration, being over the population capacity in a territory will no longer be quite as severe as it previously was. It will gradually decrease the migration attraction in a territory, and can be considered more of a soft cap than before. You can view the original thread or discuss the diary on our forum thread here! See you next week.