Productivity to me is how much work each person is doing in a given sqaure. There are three things that a sqaure can give you - trade, food and shields.

Depending on the type of sqaure (terrain, specials...) you'll get a combination of these three items, or maybe just one if it's crappy terrain.

Government type also has a play in what a sqaure produces (extra shields, trade...). Same with some improvments (mines, farmland). Factories, manufacturing plants, banks and such are not a factor in productivity. Some improvements do increase productivity. Harbors, offshore rigs/platform and supermarket (with farmland) increase food and shields a ocean sqaure produce. Another increase would be from rails on certain terrain. The Colossos will up your productivity. Basicly anything that adds a graphic icon (trade arrow, shield or food) to the land in the city window.

A great sqaure would be a whale in a city with a harbor, offshore rig with a good government type. This sqaure will produce many food, shields and trade. So this one sqaure is high productivity. A nasty sqaure is an mountain sqaure with no specials and no improvments. You get only 1 shield. this is very low productivity. The procuctivity in demographics is an average of all your sqaures currently being worked.

So, when looking at demographics - productivity, you can get an idea of the following. What kind of terrain you have compared to others. If someone has real high procuctivity they probably have good terrain. If your not watching what your people are doing your productivity might start to fall. It's basicly how productive your people are being.

As far as specials that produce a load of one kind of resource, like gold (you get a ton of trade and not much else). I'm not sure if this is considered average, low or high productivity (but it's still a nice sqaure to work!).

At least this is the way I look at productivity.

Even if your not the #1 civ you can do the same. Just place all your workers on sqaures to produce food until your #1 in average family size (or whatever that slot is called). Or produce nothing but sheilds or trade arrows until your #1 in demographics (if you can) to see how everyone else is doing. You may not be able to really tell how each civ is doing but you can kinda tell how your civ is doing compared to everyone elses as a whole.

I would think I'd always play as purple, but that's not the case. The Icelandic are white, but they start in Mongolia... I then have either the Sioux or Indians against me (I always play with 7 civs). Needless to say, the purples dominate the Demographics.

Fixed in MGE? Let's have it