Donate food

[Chenier]

It'd be really nice if people with caravans could just donate food to whatever region they are in. Sometimes, you are travelling through rogue regions that are starving, or wanting to take them over, and all of your army will starve unless everyone has caravans with them. If someone has a bunch of food, only his unit will be fed, this won't be shared.

Usually, however, these regions won't need much food to feed themselves. As it is, you can't feed them until you both take them over and then appoint a lord. In many realms, you must elect him. That's 5 days of starvation, meaning the army will decay AND the region will hate you.

It'd be nice if people with caravans (traders or not) could just give some of their food away to a region, without any income from it. Would help prevent a whole lot of headaches many people have, and would be a step towards making TOs a bit easier as they used to be.

[Jens Namtrah]

Sounds very Strategic-gaming and not so RP

[Draco Tanos]

I'd say giving food could be similar to civic work.  After all, you're trying to improve how the people view you (in theory).

[vonGenf]

Sounds very Strategic-gaming and not so RP

How so?

[Jens Namtrah]

How so?

I guess I was a bit more focused on the "giving away to rogue regions" part, as just a sort of way of rigging the stats in your favor, but but still:

I find the food situation in most realms to fall directly into the old nationalism, "do it for the good of the realm" silliness.

If these are peasants - and they're not even your peasants - then why do you want to just give away expensive grain? Why do you care if they starve? They are just peasants.

If the King or Duke is giving a new region to a lord, and it isn't you or someone in your power base - why do you care if his peasants starve?

Food wasn't something you bought at the supermarket and was always there. It was valuable and unreliable.

Giving it away as charity is unrealistic, and giving it away to help control is powergaming

[Draco Tanos]

How is it "powergaming"?  From a logistics standpoint, it makes sense.  No, they're not your peasants, but soon they will be (in theory) and you don't want a desolate wasteland devoid of the working classes, even if you do think peasants are just mindless cattle for the nobles.

[Jens Namtrah]

Because as a medieval Lord of a different region, you don't give a flying fart about the desolation, starvation, efficiency, whatever of THIS region.

It's not your problem. Charity wasn't invented back then.

which means, you are doing it only for game stats - which is what I call "powergaming", though you can use whatever name you like.

You're thinking, "If this region is stronger, my realm is stronger, and so my army is stronger, " etc, etc.

That's powergaming. There was very little concept of Nation back then.  You need to learn to think like a complete, selfish bastard.

[Chenier]

I guess I was a bit more focused on the "giving away to rogue regions" part, as just a sort of way of rigging the stats in your favor, but but still:

I find the food situation in most realms to fall directly into the old nationalism, "do it for the good of the realm" silliness.

If these are peasants - and they're not even your peasants - then why do you want to just give away expensive grain? Why do you care if they starve? They are just peasants.

If the King or Duke is giving a new region to a lord, and it isn't you or someone in your power base - why do you care if his peasants starve?

Food wasn't something you bought at the supermarket and was always there. It was valuable and unreliable.

Giving it away as charity is unrealistic, and giving it away to help control is powergaming

Uh...

Because 1) Food is dirt cheap? We had thousands of bushels of it and don't know what to do of them. 2) It's not rigging any stats at all, it's just preventing starvation. 3) Because it's in our interests to have the region our army is in fed, so that our soldiers don't starve themselves? And 4) being inferior doesn't mean they are not human beings or completely worthless. Some wouldn't care, some would pity them, and some wouldn't mind helping them as they'd gain something in return.

The problem isn't once the region has a lord, he can easily set a purchase order of 1 gold per 100 bushels by then. The problem is *before* the lord gets appointed or (especially) elected. Or before the region is even under your control. When you are doing the takeover, there is absolutely no way for someone with a caravan of food to share it with the rest of the army. Starvation can cause big damage to the forces if it continues for too long. Additionally, a region with 100% sympathy can drop to 1% in a day if the region is not fed immediately once the region is taken over. I managed to sell it food because I think the old lord still had some gold left in a purchase order, but otherwise the friendly region would have instantly hated us following the FTO, which is stupid.

We can invest gold in regions we hold no personal interests in, same should apply to food. In some realms, food is worth more than gold. In others, there's just so much of it we couldn't care less about it since no one wants to offer a decent price for it, having enough themselves.

[Chenier]

Because as a medieval Lord of a different region, you don't give a flying fart about the desolation, starvation, efficiency, whatever of THIS region.

It's not your problem. Charity wasn't invented back then.

which means, you are doing it only for game stats - which is what I call "powergaming", though you can use whatever name you like.

You're thinking, "If this region is stronger, my realm is stronger, and so my army is stronger, " etc, etc.

That's powergaming. There was very little concept of Nation back then.  You need to learn to think like a complete, selfish bastard.

No. "Charity" very much did exist back then. Christianity promoted it since its beginnings. That the elite tended to not commit themselves fully to it doesn't mean the concept did not exist.

And it is called mutual aid. For one, the character that had the food was the marshal. If the army decays because he can't share that food, then he just looks really bad. Then you assume that because there's no gold from it (which is a bad argument, since thanks to a latent buy order I "sold" 98 bushels for zero gold right after the TO, as it rounded down the 1 gold per 100 bushels), then there's no reward is also poor logic. There are many other things than gold to gain. A safer passage route to the north will be secured for the marshal's exports. If one of his knights takes the lordship, that means he'll be sharing his income less and becoming richer while having a friend grow stronger. Plus you speak of "nationalism" as if there's no self-interest in it. If we fail in our war, then that character will be the first to lose his region. It's very much in his interests to make sure that his realm has the strongest economy and army possible so that he's on the winning side and not the losing side. There is self-interest in general interest.

And in no way is that power gaming.

[vonGenf]

I would note that traders can sell food on the black market. Therefore what you propose can be done, but you need a trader. It seems to make sense to me; a soldier wouldn't be bothered. There was no such thing as "winning hearts and minds" and PRT's then.

[Chenier]

I would note that traders can sell food on the black market. Therefore what you propose can be done, but you need a trader. It seems to make sense to me; a soldier wouldn't be bothered. There was no such thing as "winning hearts and minds" and PRT's then.

Black market is risky, random, and as you said, requires a trader. I don't think we should require a trader to feed a region, just someone with caravans and food. The trader's advantage would be that he could actually make money off of it, as well as being able to carry much more food should he desire.

If there weren't any such things as "winning the hearts and minds", then there wouldn't be any civil work possible during friendly takeover. And soldiers aren't the ones with the food, nobles are. Nobles of various ranks, from knights to kings. And any of them could have 1000 reasons to do it. Especially since in most places, the sell price doesn't even cover the caravan price.

[vonGenf]

Black market is risky, random, and as you said, requires a trader. I don't think we should require a trader to feed a region, just someone with caravans and food. The trader's advantage would be that he could actually make money off of it, as well as being able to carry much more food should he desire.

As everything, if you get a new action, you won't get it for free. Requiring a trader is not a high cost. You can live without it, or you can use it if you want.

If there weren't any such things as "winning the hearts and minds", then there wouldn't be any civil work possible during friendly takeover. And soldiers aren't the ones with the food, nobles are. Nobles of various ranks, from knights to kings. And any of them could have 1000 reasons to do it. Especially since in most places, the sell price doesn't even cover the caravan price.

By soldiers, I meant "nobles of the warrior class". But I have to agree about your civil work argument.

[egamma]

I would note that traders can sell food on the black market. Therefore what you propose can be done, but you need a trader. It seems to make sense to me; a soldier wouldn't be bothered. There was no such thing as "winning hearts and minds" and PRT's then.

There is no market, black or otherwise, in a rogue region. black market implies that someone is hiding the selling from the government. If there's no government, then there's no black market.

(I play a trader and confirm this)

[Chenier]

Really, this is just to compensate for side-effects of evolving restrictions to make TO difficulty closer to what it used to be.

Before, when you TOed a region, the banker could immediately make sure that it would open up its markets to buy food, so that it wouldn't starve. Now, with that power taken away from him and given to lords, it creates a period of up to 5 days without a lord in realms that elect them, 5 days of starvation where there's nothing you can do and where otherwise perfect sympathy and good post-TO morale and control will instantly drop to the bottom.

Without the ability to feed a region that doesn't have a lord to set a purchase order, FTOs are completely pointless on starving regions because they'll hate you a day after anyways.

And I always did believe that people with caravans should be able to check a box to share the food with their peers. There are sponsors who support repairs and the like financially, why not the food as well if they are willing to pay to bring the food themselves?

[De-Legro]

The new caravan system has the "give food" option that you can set to one region to replicate the old ox cart options. You could use that though it would be fiddly to get it just right. Given that the feature already exists in some form, I think it is reasonable to expand it.