It is a bit complicated. So rural populations can generally forage for their own food for some amount of time depending on environmental circumstances. Eventually if you have too much population for the natural foraging capacity of an area and/or their are problems with agriculture then starvation and famine can set in.
In fact most pre-modern societies involved populations engaged primarily in agricultural or foraging activities where the food was not distributed to them but taken away from them by states as surplus. Problems mostly arose when the state wanted more than the surplus but also the part of the harvest farmers themselves need to stay fed. Depending on the legal structure of the society the ruling classes wouldn't provide food to the subservient classes at all. Food management is much more decentralized and dynamic than in Civilization or a traditional city builder.
Your also sort of cut off the part about Goods and Amenities which are less necessary than food.
> Well require is the wrong word. Even if you don’t provide food that will just stop growth.
What does this mean? Doesn't the Pop in the game require food? No famine?
It is a bit complicated. So rural populations can generally forage for their own food for some amount of time depending on environmental circumstances. Eventually if you have too much population for the natural foraging capacity of an area and/or their are problems with agriculture then starvation and famine can set in.
In fact most pre-modern societies involved populations engaged primarily in agricultural or foraging activities where the food was not distributed to them but taken away from them by states as surplus. Problems mostly arose when the state wanted more than the surplus but also the part of the harvest farmers themselves need to stay fed. Depending on the legal structure of the society the ruling classes wouldn't provide food to the subservient classes at all. Food management is much more decentralized and dynamic than in Civilization or a traditional city builder.
Your also sort of cut off the part about Goods and Amenities which are less necessary than food.