Your Thoughts on Food and the Marketplace

[Gustav Kuriga]

Even if we discount Dwilight, the majority of people who have voted so far feel that the current system needs to be changed.

[Foundation]

Do keep in mind that it is a lot more likely that someone frustrated with the food system would find this topic than otherwise, so don't take the numbers too literally in comparison. Yes, quite a few are dissatisfied with the way the system works now. I think that means some things should definitely be changed to improve the food system (auto sell, auto buy, post offers outside marketplace).

[Dante Silverfire]

Also, a small minority of the game population uses the forums.

[Indirik]

Also, just because someone thinks the system works OK now doesn't mean they wouldn't appreciate improvements, or be against the addition of auto orders.

[Chenier]

On BT, I'd have voted fine... because of the ridiculous food surplus. Which is how I think the continents should be.

Along with automatic deals, of course.

[Penchant]

I should specify it's 10 days' supply at the start of each year and at the end. Changing that to 20 does not change the result one bit. Notice you must choose 1 spot in the year to fix, otherwise you can't compare with seasons and without seasons in any meaningful way since you can't influence what regions produce (i.e. the daily +40 that comes in which varies per season).

The math is not off. Perhaps the assumptions should be stated more clearly.

I poorly stated what I meant. Your math is not wrong in and of it self, its just that you aren't really going with the assumption that you stated. Having a 10 day supply once basically every 3 months/1 IG year is not what I call prefering to have a 10 day supply/stockpile, its does not actually illustrate the food purchases that would be happening, and you gave the region 0 production of food which I don't think happens for any pop, especially not when its 20k, though I am not sure this last point actually matters.

[Foundation]

Regardless, if you keep your region at 400 food every day of the year, rot doesn't matter. If you want to double just the season rot so you usually have about 20-30 days' worth of food and drop to 10 days during summer, when all production is fine, sure. Go ahead, so if you give that much buffer room (800 bushels to start with) and still want to compare the the measly stock of 400 without seasons, it's still just 2.6% increase due to rot, which is insignificant to say the least.

[Indirik]

800 bushels still isn't enough. Libidizedd needs over 1300 to make it through winter. Other cities require significantly more. I think your calculations are incomplete. You are counting on food coming in to the city every day, I think. But you're not accounting for the fact that the food coming in to the city has also been subject to rot for the entire time it was sitting in the warehouses of whatever region it was in. You have that food just appearing fresh every day.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Plus your example has a city that can feed itself during normal production... which in itself is a bad assumption.

[Azerax]

Even if we discount Dwilight, the majority of people who have voted so far feel that the current system needs to be changed.

I don't think we have enough data to say that the majority want the system changed.  However, I believe there are enough votes for Dwilight specifically to warrant further research.

[Chenier]

I gotta say that the work to set up manual transactions does not frustrate anywhere near as much as the lack of food on the markets.

If I had to continuously put up purchase offers, or accept sell offers, but these would be easily filled, I'd be considerably less frustrated than if it were all automated but there was no transaction to be had anyways. Back during the caravans, I had to continuously send out a ton of caravans. But I did not find it anywhere near as frustrating as I find things now, following the food reductions of Dwilight, and I never really did mind having to manually send caravans all of the time.

Creating (considerably greater) resource scarcity didn't create conflict, it just created frustration. There was already plenty of interactions due to food already.

[Penchant]

I don't think we have enough data to say that the majority want the system changed.  However, I believe there are enough votes for Dwilight specifically to warrant further research.

Personally, I think that Dwilight isn't too far off from what its food situation should be like and that is coming from the banker of D'hara, the realm with the largest deficit (Falkirk has a larger deficit percentage-wise due to war otherwise D'hara is). Food shouldn't be something everyone has tons of. In order for it to be a source of conflict, you actually have to worry about food which won't happen if everyone has tons of it, which is Cheniers suggestion.

[Gustav Kuriga]

It would be a source of conflict, if you could get food reliably by going to war. You can't though. And if you don't have food yourself, you can't support regions, and if you can't support regions, you can't support war.

[Penchant]

It would be a source of conflict, if you could get food reliably by going to war. You can't though. And if you don't have food yourself, you can't support regions, and if you can't support regions, you can't support war.

Conflict does not necessarily mean war. Also, I did say Dwilight isn't too far off, not that its perfect.

[Chenier]

Conflict does not necessarily mean war. Also, I did say Dwilight isn't too far off, not that its perfect.

Pissing off the people with food won't help you get any more of it.

Food shortages were the #1 reason why D'Hara always pursued a policy of "let's try to be friends with as many people as possible", until the lurian betrayal, at least.

Food shortages don't create conflict, they create peace. Interdependence.