This is really a question that goes to the heart of complaints about city growth and the AI's willingness to plant cities on the most obnoxious terrain.Clearly, oceans and seas have always been vital sources of food. Yet, by themselves, they have never been sufficient to support large settled urban populations. The game does not recognize this, and allows the oceans and beaches to be too productive for food. The result is thriving size 20 and 30 cities in tundra and deserts. Siberia has a higher population than china!
Solutions:
1. Penalties (negative food values) for some terrain, like deserts and glaciers.
2. Lower food values for unimproved ocean and beach squares.
3. Maybe allow ocean and beach squares to be more productive eventually when you get advanced fisheries and such, to reflect more intensive resource use. I.e. Nets alone on ocean squares are not very useful, or are simply not available early in the game.
4. The trade resources in ocean and beach should offer large food bonuses to reflect prime fisheries like the Grand Banks and such.
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