I Hate Food

[Indirik]

I have come to the conclusion that in its current state, food harms the game much more than it helps. I'm sick of it. It should be fixed or removed.

[vonGenf]

I'm sick of it. It should be fixed or removed.

Can I vote for fixed?

I mean, I get where you're coming from, but many, many solutions have been proposed, and many accepted (automatic offers for example), only to be postponed to some later date. The concept behind food is sound.

[Anaris]

Indirik, assuming that the two oft-mentioned changes (auto-sell orders and a checkbox to allow the Banker to control your region's food) are implemented, do you think there will still be serious problems with the system?

[Indirik]

Auto-orders, both sell and buy, are required to make food functional. You can't do just one, as that would only fix half the problem.

A "let the banker deal with this crap" box would be great, and give bankers something to do. But as it is, the food system is a ten-ton anchor around the realm's neck, tying everyone to their realm, afraid to leave because then they won't be able to handle food problems.

[Psyche]

I haven't seen many food problems in my realms, but they are a very small sample of the game's realms.  I still think one of the easiest solutions would be to implement partial order fillings for purchasing/selling along with auto-offers.

From what I see in my Dwilight realm, it's more about finding where the large surplus is and then shuffling it into a central area for sales.  My lord on the outskirts of the Farronite Republic is now seeing little offers being taken up at only 10 gold per 100 bushels, and gradually building a stockpile from neighboring realms and even a neighboring region of my realm.  It is kind of weird, since the margrave of the capital complains about often paying more than 50g/100b....I pay 10/100 without even having to write a word.  Maybe people just want to keep Hvrek passive.

[Kwanstein]

Why don't you allow Lords to buy and sell food from their regions, without requiring them to be in their regions. The trades could be restricted by distance, however the restrictions would apply to the distance of the trades to the Lords' regions, not to the Lords themselves. This function could be done from the command page, always present, and you could still maintain the current system of character-location based trading on top of it, so that market places would still be useful for longer distance trading.

Also, remember that food exists to check cities from being self-sufficient. Cities already provide high amounts of gold, legions of troops and potent fortifications; the only thing stopping them from being all-important is the fact that food is required to maintain them. A realm of only cities, such as D'Hara, could not only exist, but even thrive, if the dependence on food were to be abolished. So it is an important balancing feature.

What food does not exist to do is provide traders with something to do. So, don't go about this thinking in terms of 'what can we do to give traders something to do.' Traders are an addition to the food system, they are meant to support it; they are not a fundamental pillar of it, it does not exist to support them.

[Tom]

What food does not exist to do is provide traders with something to do. So, don't go about this thinking in terms of 'what can we do to give traders something to do.' Traders are an addition to the food system, they are meant to support it; they are not a fundamental pillar of it, it does not exist to support them.

Actually, it's not one-sided in either direction. Traders and food/trade are interconnected. They support each other and at least in part exist for each other.

[Anaris]

I think that part of the problem, though, is that the current food system has been designed so that traders are completely unnecessary.

This was considered a requirement for it to be usable—after all, there weren't enough traders to support a food system that required them, and thus if it had required them, there would have been widespread starvation and the sound of wails and gnashing of teeth from across the game.

This means that traders, at present, feel like a tacked-on afterthought.

[Psyche]

The way I look at it, traders are necessary to the feature of food as priests are to religions.  Does that mean they are a popular class?  Not necessarily, but just like those who encourage friendly religions to preach simply to ward off hostile faiths, traders are needed to handle food.

I remember after the 3rd invasion of Beluaterra it was somewhat more common there to be a trader as everyone was rebuilding.  In fact, I had a trader who was raking in enough money to support the majority of the realm's military, enabling him to more or less command what he sponsored in Plergoth.  I still say that the biggest piece to make the trader class enjoyable was the black market.  Even with the current system, some sort of version of the black market will enhance the gameplay for the class and the other characters involved with the food. 
Not finding enough food on the open market to make profitable trades?  Maybe your black market contacts allow you to sell spoiled food, outright steal the food from a region like it used to, or maybe it just lets you use a trade that was otherwise restricted to complete a broker.
As for other characters who may have troubles rounding up food, an experienced trader can help you in securing food.  Maybe that trader can even swap out rotted food in the region they're stealing from so that it isn't always noticed right away.

The main thing is how would the black market work?  To the region of the knight, bring back a caravan, or do it only when brokering deals so that you benefit from one side getting ripped off?

The food itself is a great commodity, but every discussion I see is about how to balance out the need for food as a mechanic versus the need for food to give something to do for the trader class.  The food itself isn't what used to make the trader class interesting, but instead it was the actions and perks that went with it.  At the same time, food is usually only complained about when people can't find enough of it.  Re-completing the trader class with features more than the little it has now will improve both by giving mischievous opportunities and extra mobility to food.  The current "perk" of the trading class, extra distance, is a joke anyways.  All anyone with trade options has to do is move to a marketplace, which traders rely on already anyways.
I don't mean to be rude, but the revamp of the trade system just seemed kind of half-assed implemented just to accommodate food being shuffled some on a local basis without caravans/ox carts.  It didn't really add much of anything, but it seems like it lost a lot.

[Lorgan]

Now we're on the subject, why does it take more than a week for a region that /has/ food to return to normal?
Maybe it's somewhat realistic but gameplay-wise it is terrible, especially as starving regions are often ones under TO. Keeping a new but starving region from rebelling is already enough of a chore without losing half your army in the process.

[Psyche]

I don't know much about that part.  My understanding is that starvation ending is related to how long starvation took place.  Also, I thought troops got first crack at food, so how can an army starve?  Lastly, I recall hearing that it is much easier to put down a rebellion by force, so masses of troops often involved in TO's should be able to help the region not rebel while courtier work and whatnot is done.  Also, didn't the code not too long ago get a change to curb the effects of starvation/rebellion in newly acquired regions for a short while so you have a chance to get on top of things?  If all of that is true, then it sounds like whatever scenario you describe is an unprepared army.

[Indirik]

This has nothing to do with traders. If you want to talk about/whine about traders, go find/make a trader thread.

This is about how the food system is strangling the life out of people. The need for constant attention, constant micromanagement, and being tethered to marketplaces with a very short leash. About opening the marketplace and seeing a wall of "buy 10/sell 50" orders. (If there are even any sell orders all, and those are probably locked to the realm anyway.) About how your realm can't march to war without starving half your regions, unless you leave half your nobles home to shepherd buy/sell orders.

There is nothing that you can do with traders to fix the system. The only thing that can fix the system is the implementation of automation for both selling *and* buying.

[Psyche]

Traders CAN ease a situation; however, in a circumstance as severe as what you describe it won't help much.  Sounds like you'd have to wait until a good harvest, goad the enemy into coming to you, or acquire more rurals. 
What did you do when Starcraft told you, "We require more vespene gas."  Did you write Blizzard about how their resource structure was stupid? 
es, our system could use some tweaking, that is definitely true.  There are ways to work with it though, just not as good or as interesting as we all like.

[Indirik]

Horrible, and completely unfitting analogy.

[Psyche]

Eh, I was bored.  On vacation and was thinking of a game to play to kill a couple of hours.  I've narrowed it down to Rise of Nations, Civ 5, or try Crusader Kings 2 for the first time.  Loading CK2 now.