Elemental Forums
This needs a separate topic. I keep mixing food and grain together when reading any description in game. Grain should be renamed something more fitting.
I vote for renaming it Fertility.
EDIT: After discussion below, I change my voit to Soil. Title changed accordingly.
Hm, is it just me or cant I get fertility to fit into the food/grain concept? 
Sincerely
~ Kongdej
Growth would be fertility. Grain is fine in my book. Maybe it should be renamed to food though. And food could be Max Pop.
Ok, maybe it's a language thing. To me fertility means the fertility of the ground and sounds really good. Like "fertile ground". It makes sense when you have a ground icon and a number 3 and say that the tile has 3 fertility, so it has a rating of 3 in terms of growing stuff.
You always are ^^
I was having same ideas about fertility though, didn't know it meant anything about dirt too
Sincerely
~ Kongdej
You guys didn't know that fertility related to how fertile land is> Wow. What did you guys learn in school to not know such a basic thing> (not being sarcastic here)
I agree about a name change to the food/ grain system. "Fertility" works fine in my book. It allows one to possibly imagine alternate crops to feed the populous. But leaving it the same to avoid this fertility confusion may be best.
Are you kidding me? I don't live in an English speaking country, of course I don't know all the meanings to each and every word.
Sincerely
~ Kongdej
I'm a native English speaker and writer, and "fertility" has a number of associations in the language aside from those related to agriculture. I'm also not being sarcastic.
"Food" and "grain" are confusing in the game, I agree. Perhaps "land fertility" for grain?
I know the meaning of fertility. It has many meanings and they depend on the context. Within this context it could have meant either. That possibility escaped me. Probably because GalCiv2 had fertility clinics.
"Arability" might be a more agriculture-specific term but it's more obscure.
"Soil" might be simpler since the other number refers to "materials".
I dislike using "Fertility" for base food output capacity because of how very many different connotations that word has.
Frankly, if the words need to be changed (they could, I personally don't care) then we should look at the function the numbers have.
What is now "Grain" could be called "Food"
What is now "Food" should be called "Surplus Food" so that we know that the remaining number is the number of citizens the city can support under current food output.
You settle in a place because of the "Food" you upgrade your "Food" to get more "Surplus Food"
Clean, Simple, Understandable.
Soil works for me 
Clean simple, and im confused ^^ I think those 2 are way too close to each other to be any good to be honest, might be me who is silly though.
If you really want some options, open a dictionary and find all the alternate words for food, grain, soil-fertility, Big tree's and whatever you think might be suitable for food.
Another word could be Irrigation: The amount of water in the area, because as we know, in medieval times, water = life, life = food.
Sincerely
~ Kongdej
soil sounds good to me as well, but "topsoil" maybe a better choice instead. This is where most crops can be planted, without the topsoil very little life can grow. Soil itself refers to any number levels in the earths crust. The top-soil presents the fertile land.
perrottmath, don't get all semantic on us. Soil is simpler & better, even if the geologic terminology is not 100% accurate.
Soil yourself, FE!
My thinking was that the number is basically a rating, and the soil has to be of a certain quality (presence of topsoi and nutrients, water, lack of salt and rocks, etc) which the number quantifies. The unbuildable tiles essentially have a 0 soil rating so you can't grow crops on them, but there is clearly dirt there.
Put it this way: I will vote for any seriously meant alternative to the current food and grain combination. I guess "soil fertility" is among my top choices, but I'm not picky.
Or fields?
In the vacinity of this city you have X Materials, X Essence and X Fields?
X Soil... doesn't quite work for me. Soil rating sounds naff
So when you find an apiary you get more soil?
Fertility actually makes more sense, but that's confusable with growth. Seriously though it's not a big deal. They just used grain to represent a type of yeild. They could have called it dirtcloddam and it would serve it's purpose.
Why not "Fetile Site". Whether it be for food or for procreation, in the game...that's the same thing.
The problem is that Grain sounds like an end product in of itself to me (and clearly many others). It is very easy to confuse grain with food when reading tooltips and such. It needs to change into *something*, and I don't see what you can confuse Soil with.
CdrRogdan, so when you find an apiary you get more grain? This has nothing to do with being a more realistic name. This has everything to do with two linked resources having such similar names that you can mix them up by accident.
EDIT:
Actually, when you find an apiary you get bees to pollenate so you increase soil quality. So it does even make sense.
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