REJECTED: Food rationing

[JPierreD]

Title: Food rationing.
Summary: Give the option to Region Lords to (attempt to) change the rate of food consumption in the region, not unlike the Lords of the Realm series.
Details: The implementation may vary in the rationing options (in the cited game them being Quarter, Half, Normal, Double and Triple rations) and in their effects (possibilities are affecting of the variation in Morale, Loyalty, Control, Production and Migration). Needless to say that lower-than-normal rations would not be viable to maintain for too long but could be employed to temporarily decrease food consumption at the cost of region stats and income (lower tax tolerance).
Benefits: Makes the Region Maintenance and Food games more interesting and dynamic, increasing strategy. Makes starvation less absurdly quickly devastating, allowing a competent manager to have a slight advantage. Makes excess of food more useful, and if the regions' rate of consumption is not completely secret it creates possible attrition between realms (Realm A lacks food but ignores if realm B has extra available or not. Right now there is very little that can be done to figure that out, and uncertainty is not the best war-motivator. If realm B does have it in this proposal it can either abstain from its potential benefits hiding it from their neighbors or consume in excess not caring about making its "treasure" known.). A sense of control in negative situations such as lack of food is, even if relative, is known to increase satisfaction.
Possible Exploits: The more complex a feature is, the more likely the appearing and exploiting of bugs is, and this (the Food game) is no exception.

[Zakilevo]

At double and triple rations,

population recovery speed should go up as well. It takes a Real Life year or more for cities to recover. New colonies need to wait almost a year for them to rebuild their economy...

[JPierreD]

At double and triple rations,

population recovery speed should go up as well. It takes a Real Life year or more for cities to recover. New colonies need to wait almost a year for them to rebuild their economy...

I assume you mean by immigration. If so it's already within the proposal.

Edit: Or you might mean by births, as more food available could diminish child mortality... I suppose that is another possible variable for the Devs to study.

[Tom]

Rejected.

One, you can't tell a peasant how much of his own food to eat - it's not like we had socialistic central food management, the granaries only take in surplus or cover deficits. So the only thing really under the control of the lord would be how much of the deficit he wants to cover with food from the granary.

Two, food supply is already figured into things like emmigration, region stats, etc. - so there is little in game-mechanics we would gain from adding this.

[Forbes Family]

On a similar note, how about allowing a region lord to feed troops before feeding peasants. It would allow armies to not be killed off but more peasants would die. This is only practical as armies would confiscate all food in a region and feed themselves before allowing a peasant food.

[vonGenf]

On a similar note, how about allowing a region lord to feed troops before feeding peasants. It would allow armies to not be killed off but more peasants would die. This is only practical as armies would confiscate all food in a region and feed themselves before allowing a peasant food.

That's basically like looting your own lands? I can see situation where it makes sense to do so, but it is looting.... and you can't loot your own realm.

[egamma]

That's basically like looting your own lands? I can see situation where it makes sense to do so, but it is looting.... and you can't loot your own realm.

I'm pretty sure that has been proposed and rejected already.

[fodder]

you can't loot a region for provision... can you?

[Indirik]

No. It would be nice, though.

[Ehndras]

"You! Hand over the baked beans!"

[Charles]

Rejected.

So the only thing really under the control of the lord would be how much of the deficit he wants to cover with food from the granary.

This is the only part I would want.  You did not explicitly say that this portion was rejected.  Let the peasants eat as much as they want when there is a surplus.