A radical solution to the food problem...

[Buffalkill]

Nope. All regions need food to survive, period.

Replace the word 'survive' with the word 'thrive' if it makes you feel better.

Furthermore, removing all gold from rural regions would require both further increasing city gold—quite dramatically, I think—

Try to see the forest and not just the trees, Anaris. It's about balancing the relative bargaining power of the different regions. As I said earlier, it's not necessary to remove all gold from rurals. That would be the most extreme version of this, but you could simply reduce it to a level where the necessity to trade is roughly equal. You could even introduce it gradually by, say, reducing rural regions' tax gold by 5% this week (or some other arbitrary number), another 5% next week until you see parity between buy and sell orders.

and jacking up food prices astronomically from what they've been. That's not something that players would readily accept.

As you pointed earlier, players set the prices. That's what the markets are for.

[Anaris]

Try to see the forest and not just the trees, Anaris.

Try to be more condescending, Buffakill. :P

It's about balancing the relative bargaining power of the different regions. As I said earlier, it's not necessary to remove all gold from rurals. That would be the most extreme version of this, but you could simply reduce it to a level where the necessity to trade is roughly equal.

In order to reduce the amount of gold produced by rural regions enough to make selling their food a necessity, rather than simply helpful, the amount of gold that would have to be removed from their production would have to be (in aggregate) quite significant. In order to keep the amount of gold in the game more or less balanced, a comparable amount would have to be added to the cities' (and other non-rural regions') production. It doesn't matter whether it's all of it or just a lot.

You could even introduce it gradually by, say, reducing rural regions' tax gold by 5% this week (or some other arbitrary number), another 5% next week until you see parity between buy and sell orders.

No...no, we really, really couldn't. The code that governs regional gold production just isn't anywhere near that simple.

The type of changes you're asking for would require one of two things: Either we sit down and calculate exactly what all the gold changes gamewide would need to be, and apply them all at once, or spend months working out a system that could gradually ramp down gold production in rurals and simultaneously ramp it up in cities, with a kill switch so that we could stop it when we saw that it seemed balanced, and then more months testing it to make sure it produced sane numbers.

As you pointed earlier, players set the prices. That's what the markets are for.

Yes, but a) right now, food prices are capped at 50 gold/100 bushels, so the most a region producing 200 bushels a week could possibly hope to make is 100 gold, and b) players' perceptions of what is "fair" don't necessarily change along with changes to the structure of the system, so it could be months or more before city lords were willing to pay more than 30 gold/100 bushels on average.

In general, Buffakill, your analysis of this situation is not completely off the mark, but the solution you propose both overly simplifies the problem, and would not have nearly the panacea effect that you are trying to make out, both due to the nature of the system and due to the nature of our players.

[Buffalkill]

Try to be more condescending, Buffakill. :P

I'm trying! I'm trying! ;)

[Indirik]

And finally, the "problem" of lords withholding food from cities, or demanding prices higher than the city lord is willing to pay, is one that is so uncommon in practice that I really don't think it's worth expending any significant effort on.

That may change once you uncap food prices. Right now, just about any city lord is willing to toss up orders in the 45-50/100 range simply as the price of feeding your city. Once it becomes possible for rural lords to start selling for 1/1, then you may see some ambitious lords realizing that they could make a LOT more money... And that's when we're going to start running into problems.

[Kwanstein]

In order to keep the amount of gold in the game more or less balanced, a comparable amount would have to be added to the cities' (and other non-rural regions') production.

The gold supply isn't balanced. There's way too much of it, so reducing it would be helpful.

[^ban^]

In order to reduce the amount of gold produced by rural regions enough to make selling their food a necessity, rather than simply helpful, the amount of gold that would have to be removed from their production would have to be (in aggregate) quite significant. In order to keep the amount of gold in the game more or less balanced, a comparable amount would have to be added to the cities' (and other non-rural regions') production. It doesn't matter whether it's all of it or just a lot.

Incidentally, this is the theory behind my rebalance.

The gold supply isn't balanced. There's way too much of it, so reducing it would be helpful.

The game currently has too much gold for how available food is.

However, it doesn't have enough gold to fund rural regions if they are to rely on grain. Which is why the rebalance is increasing gold across the game.

[vonGenf]

Incidentally, this is the theory behind my rebalance.

The game currently has too much gold for how available food is.

However, it doesn't have enough gold to fund rural regions if they are to rely on grain. Which is why the rebalance is increasing gold across the game.

So... because there's too much gold, we're going to increase the gold supply? I don't follow.

[^ban^]

So... because there's too much gold, we're going to increase the gold supply? I don't follow.

Read what I said once more and try again. I described a paradigm shift.

[vonGenf]

However, it doesn't have enough gold to fund rural regions if they are to rely on grain.

So, your idea is to shift some gold from the rurals to the city (relatively speaking), so that the rurals will be forced to sell their food to reach a comparable revenue, and the cities will have sufficient gold to buy it. Fair enough.

Which is why the rebalance is increasing gold across the game.

However, you seem to want to do it with an overall increase of available gold. This is ok from the point of view of food, however I think most people will agree that there is already too much gold.

I think the disconnect is that when you say:

The game currently has too much gold for how available food is.

You think of buying food as spending. However, in reality it is not: the gold that one character spends to buy food goes into another character's pockets. If you increase the price and movement of food, that will not affect at all the overall amount of gold available in a realm.

If you increased the price of troop pay, on the other hand, it would create a real gold sink. Food will never sink gold the way it is currently set up. If you add gold in the system, whichever paradigm change occurs the amount of gold available will increase.

[^ban^]

snip

Everything you've said is correct, and is also designed intentionally.

The rebalance is not and will not be a stand-alone thing: it is part of an overarching project taken by the entire dev team to make the game as a whole more enjoyable.

[vonGenf]

The rebalance is not and will not be a stand-alone thing: it is part of an overarching project taken by the entire dev team to make the game as a whole more enjoyable.

Ok, fair enough, I'll wait and see!