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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Azerax on February 28, 2013, 06:09:17 PM
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Unfortunately I could not find any free adaptive polling sites (polls that ask you different questions based on your answers). I found one, but it limited the total number of questions to 10.
There will be another poll based off this poll. Why? The feedback from this poll will allow us to focus our attention on specific areas. Until we know what those areas are, we need to be a bit more general, and the first task is to identify if these issues are island specific, or wide spread. Chances are there will be a third survey based off the second.
If you play on multiple islands, please respond based on the worst food situation as the intention for this is to investigate.
If you disagree with this method, feel free to create your own poll.
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I don't get it... Except for seasons, the system is the same everywhere, right?
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I don't get it... Except for seasons, the system is the same everywhere, right?
The system is the same. The regions are not.
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The system is the same. The regions are not.
But the questions are about the system, not the regions. I'm not sure how the same system can be acceptable on an island and not on another.
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Even if everything was the same everywhere, there is an undeniable sense of extreme frustration for some players, and this can't be ignored. The frustration is the effect, now I'm trying to dig down into the cause.
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As one of the people that loves Food, I believe the auto-sell and auto-buy is an improvement much needed in the system, and will alleviate many problems and headaches. But that feature request is already known by everyone and has been raised multiple times and, for as far as I know, will be implemented in the future. Till then, I'm not sure if we should really be worrying about doing other stuff. Once that system is in, I'd be very interested in seeing how the situation is then. We can always make adjustments after that point, but lets first get the automatic buy/sell system in, once we can, and see where we stand before tweaking further.
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I'm not much frustrated with the food system. It's probably all the Margraves/Dukes who are.
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I'm not much frustrated with the food system. It's probably all the Margraves/Dukes who are.
I would say that is true.
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I'm not much frustrated with the food system. It's probably all the Margraves/Dukes who are.
Atamara City Lord/Duke here. I'm perfectly happy with the food system.
I know it could use improvements but I also don't think it is the most pressing issue. There are plenty of other things which I personally would like to see changed first.
Just my opinion,
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I won't be voting as I don't have enough involvement in the system right now, but shouldn't the vote be able to accommodate multiple characters on multiple islands that may have experience?
That is, shouldn't I be able to tell you if I think the system is working fine on Atamara, but not Beluaterra? (Especially now that the two continents are not even the same shape.)
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Uh, I have a banker on two continents and believe the system sucks on both, how do I answer this...
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Haha, overachiever. :P
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Atamara City Lord/Duke here. I'm perfectly happy with the food system.
I know it could use improvements but I also don't think it is the most pressing issue. There are plenty of other things which I personally would like to see changed first.
Just my opinion,
I am of the same opinion and am in the same position. My city was a day from starving so I put up 4x100 buy offers at 50 and they sold in a few hours.
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400 food won't feed my city for 6 days. And the offers sit for weeks, and expire unfilled. I literally see dozens of buy offers for prices from 40-50/100, every time I look.
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I won't be voting as I don't have enough involvement in the system right now, but shouldn't the vote be able to accommodate multiple characters on multiple islands that may have experience?
That is, shouldn't I be able to tell you if I think the system is working fine on Atamara, but not Beluaterra? (Especially now that the two continents are not even the same shape.)
To be honest, I just noticed now that I could have done multiple votes per person. You can reply with your 2 votes and I'll manually add them to the results when the poll is finished.
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To be honest, I just noticed now that I could have done multiple votes per person. You can reply with your 2 votes and I'll manually add them to the results when the poll is finished.
Can't you just edit the OP to allow it or something like that?
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I don't think that type of editing is allowed after a poll starts.
+ my second vote for food working fine on Beluaterra.
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my second vote is needs work for Far East Island.
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400 food won't feed my city for 6 days. And the offers sit for weeks, and expire unfilled. I literally see dozens of buy offers for prices from 40-50/100, every time I look.
Whats the population fed per 1 unit of food?
My city has a population of 11,300 and requires 23 food per day, or 1 unit of food per 491 people.
Other places are between 394 to 510 people fed per 1 unit of food.
Based on an overall average of 451 people fed per 1 unit of food, 400 food lasting 6 days, your city has a population of around 30,222?
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Whats the population fed per 1 unit of food?
My city has a population of 11,300 and requires 23 food per day, or 1 unit of food per 491 people.
Other places are between 394 to 510 people fed per 1 unit of food.
Based on an overall average of 451 people fed per 1 unit of food, 400 food lasting 6 days, your city has a population of around 30,222?
1 bushel=500 peasants. Also he said 400 bushels won't feed his city for 6 days.
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1 bushel=500 peasants. Also he said 400 bushels won't feed his city for 6 days.
I think he's trying to determine whether that was hyperbole or not. Very few cities aren't fed for 6 days with 400 food. (Mine being one of them) but there are few.
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Libidizedd has a population of 35.5k. I think it uses 69 per day, IIRC. Libidizedd, Mimer, and Eidulb are almost identical.
And yes, 1 bushel feeds 500 peasants for 1 day. Plus extra for militia, and any troops that happen to be in the region.
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I'm just trying to see if the average 1 unit of food feeds is vastly different on Dwilight.
Can you guys do the math for your cities? (population divided by food demand)
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1/500 should be global across all islands. Don't forget to make allowances for militia and troops. They eat substantially more.
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I think he's trying to determine whether that was hyperbole or not. Very few cities aren't fed for 6 days with 400 food. (Mine being one of them) but there are few.
Pretty sure you are a way off on that. Most cities I see are above 30k pop. Azerax was pretty good on his math though as Indirik was being picky, his city is ~31k pop.
P.S. it seems like there is a bug if his city really is 35.5k pop as it is displayed as 30933 to outsiders.
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Currently Golden Farrow requires over 100 bushels each day. Fun... and I still have 15,000 more people to go in order to reach maximum population. <.<
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need more people to answer survey!
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Ah crap... it's 31k. Sorry. It used to be 45k before the rebalance, I think. Anyway, it has a net demand of 62 per day plus troops/militia. So I guess 400 would probably last about 6 days. But it really doesn't matter. 6 or 7 is quibbling over pennies.
Also, the Dwilight food situation seems to be dratically different than other islands. It could be season, or a general shortage of food.
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Pretty sure you are a way off on that. Most cities I see are above 30k pop. Azerax was pretty good on his math though as Indirik was being picky, his city is ~31k pop.
P.S. it seems like there is a bug if his city really is 35.5k pop as it is displayed as 30933 to outsiders.
Yes well, 30k pop is 360 bushels every 6 days. Which is under 400. (excluding militia for simplicity)
Meanwhile, my city consumes at least 115 bushels of food a day.
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Ah crap... it's 31k. Sorry. It used to be 45k before the rebalance, I think. Anyway, it has a net demand of 62 per day plus troops/militia. So I guess 400 would probably last about 6 days. But it really doesn't matter. 6 or 7 is quibbling over pennies.
Also, the Dwilight food situation seems to be dratically different than other islands. It could be season, or a general shortage of food.
Well, can we calculate that? Total island population divided by daily food production?
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That won't tell us the whole story though. Check the I Hate Food thread where I talked about the major differences between Dwilight and Atamara. One problem isn't just food production, it's food distribution.
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Well, can we calculate that? Total island population divided by daily food production?
I feel like I am doing something wrong but its 2200000/37500 or roughly 60 bushels. Also, this is not total island for either but total part of island that is not Zuma or rogue.
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Yes well, 30k pop is 360 bushels every 6 days. Which is under 400. (excluding militia for simplicity)
Meanwhile, my city consumes at least 115 bushels of food a day.
Fine, most cities I see are above 33333 pop.
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That won't tell us the whole story though. Check the I Hate Food thread where I talked about the major differences between Dwilight and Atamara. One problem isn't just food production, it's food distribution.
It's just a systematic approach identifying/isolating/eliminating variables.
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Well, can we calculate that? Total island population divided by daily food production?
Which gives a biased number, as it assumes the absence of seasons and therefore downplays the importance of rot. The production fluctuations means that the warehouses' capacities are met in greatly varying levels through the seasons.
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Which gives a biased number, as it assumes the absence of seasons and therefore downplays the importance of rot. The production fluctuations means that the warehouses' capacities are met in greatly varying levels through the seasons.
That is true. Production of food is currently twice that of its standard production
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Rot is not an issue. Every island experiences it. Unless you.can give me data and calculate how much it affects you it is simply hyperbole to say rot is a significant factor due to seasons.
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Rot is not an issue. Every island experiences it. Unless you.can give me data and calculate how much it affects you it is simply hyperbole to say rot is a significant factor due to seasons.
In islands without seasons it may be sufficient to stockpile only a small safety margin if you can trust politically that your neighbours will keep selling you food.
In islands with seasons you must stockpile more as you know that very little food is available during winter. That's where rot kicks in.
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That is true. Production of food is currently twice that of its standard production
Actually, this is incorrect. With the results of the survey there will be another will more defined questions. As it stands now, it appears that Dwilight has an issue, though I would like votes.
Assuming that Dwilight has an issue and Atamara doesn't, we then begin to look at what's different about these islands. Seasons is one of those.
The conversation outside of the survey (ieL in this thread) provides valuable insight, not specifics.
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How is food production affected by seasons? (for example: -50% to +50%)
And again, this is just conversation. If the island itself generally has a surplus of food, regardless of season, then seasons can be eliminated.
We don't happen to track historic food levels? Not that there would be any reason to, but a comparison of food levels vs food demand over the last 6 months would be interesting.
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winter its 1/4, spring3/4, summer 1, autumn 2. What I said in the other thread is not false, Dwilight does currrently have twice the standard food production atm.
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Autumn high production produces large stockpiles. Winter low production rates demand large stockpiles to make sure you can survive. Large stockpiles rot faster than small stockpiles. Therefore, rot hurts more on islands with seasons.
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Large stockpiles rot faster than small stockpiles.
Only in absolute terms, unless your stockpile is too large for your granaries.
All food that fits in the granaries you have built in your region rots at exactly the same rate.
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With autumn high production, you're producing food that has to sit around for, essentially, three to six weeks before it is consumed. (Some food produced in autumn lasts through late spring to support the cities before higher production kicks in and starts supporting them.) This means the food is subject to anywhere from 20-40 days of rot and shrinkage. On non-season islands, that large stockpile and extended rot cycle doesn't happen. You can manage food on a weekly basis, and generally don't need to stockpile for 6 weeks of consumption. Therefore you don't get hit with all those extra rot cycles.
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With autumn high production, you're producing food that has to sit around for, essentially, three to six weeks before it is consumed. (Some food produced in autumn lasts through late spring to support the cities before higher production kicks in and starts supporting them.) This means the food is subject to anywhere from 20-40 days of rot and shrinkage. On non-season islands, that large stockpile and extended rot cycle doesn't happen. You can manage food on a weekly basis, and generally don't need to stockpile for 6 weeks of consumption. Therefore you don't get hit with all those extra rot cycles.
This is a very interesting point. In essence, rot is higher on Dwilight due to the seasons. Considering technology back then, rot should be reduced during the winter since granaries don't have heat and the food would simply freeze, thus less rot.
Along those lines, should rot mirror the food production cycle?
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If we are going to try and model seasons, that may not be a bad idea. Reduced or no rot in winter, reduced rot in spring.
Although perhaps someone should try and see what the actual effect is. Some spreadsheet work should be quick enough to do.
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give me the food base food production values for Dwilight (and the rot rate if it is not in this thread already, I'm at working so I'm only glancnig here) and I'll make up the spreadsheet
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This is a very interesting point. In essence, rot is higher on Dwilight due to the seasons. Considering technology back then, rot should be reduced during the winter since granaries don't have heat and the food would simply freeze, thus less rot.
Along those lines, should rot mirror the food production cycle?
I'm not entirely sure that's the case. You would need sub-zero temperatures to get a good freeze, while the constant partial freezing and thawing when temperatures hover around zero could cause more damage.
This is probably an interesting topic to research for someone with the interest.
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I'm not entirely sure that's the case. You would need sub-zero temperatures to get a good freeze, while the constant partial freezing and thawing when temperatures hover around zero could cause more damage.
a.k.a. it works in Canada but not in Italy.
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a.k.a. it works in Canada but not in Italy.
And while we have some parts of the continents that look clearly tropical, others that look clearly arctic, and others that appear to be temperate zones, none of this information is actually stored in the database, so we currently have no way of determining whether a given area should freeze during the winter, have a rainy season, or just get chilly and annoying. (Or whatever else.)
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And while we have some parts of the continents that look clearly tropical, others that look clearly arctic, and others that appear to be temperate zones, none of this information is actually stored in the database, so we currently have no way of determining whether a given area should freeze during the winter, have a rainy season, or just get chilly and annoying. (Or whatever else.)
Well, we do have weather zones, although there were not designed for this in mind.
However I agree that we get in complicated territory.
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a.k.a. it works in Canada but not in Italy.
Natural refrigeration (simply dig a hole in the ground) works well in a variety of places. The temperature below ground is relatively constant as long as it is covered. However, a granary is not below ground.
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Well, we do have weather zones, although there were not designed for this in mind.
However I agree that we get in complicated territory.
This is very true as we could easily preserve food through drying/smoking/salting, but then you add rats and other vermin.
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A good margrave will always have stockpiles. Assuming a 10 day margin. Since no one else seems to be doing the math, I'll show you what I mean. Seasons last 21 days. Let us consider rot for 1 year, 84 days. Let's assume that rot is 1% per day, we're a city with 20000 peasants, so a consumption of 40 per day. Each day new food arrives in proportion to the season. Thus with no season we assume 40 bushels arrives every day. With seasons, spring 30 bushels, summer 40 bushels, autumn 80 bushels, and winter, 10 bushels.
Total consumption over a year is 3360 bushels.
Without seasons:
We start with 400 bushels.
Every day we keep 10 * 40 + 40 - 40 = 400 bushels after consumption. 4 bushels rot every day for a total of 4 * 84 = 336 bushels.
With seasons:
We start with 400 bushels.
Spring - For 21 days, first day: 400 * 1% = 4 bushels rotten, 400 + 30 - 40 = 390 left. Similarly, after 21 days 190 bushels remain, and a total of 63 bushels lost to rot.
Summer - For 21 days, 190 bushels left, 40 production 40 consumption, 190 * 1% * 21 = 40 bushels rotten.
Autumn - For 21 days, first day: 190 * 1% = 1.9 bushels rotten, 190 + 80 - 40 = 230 left. Similarly after 21 days, 1030 bushels remain, and a total of 128 bushels lost to rot.
Winter - For 21 days, first day: 1030 * 1% = 10.3 bushels rotten, 1030 + 10 - 40 = 1000 left. Similarly after 21 days, 400 bushels remain, and a total of 150 bushels lost to rot.
63 + 40 + 128 + 150 = 381 bushels lost to rot, 45 bushels more than with seasons, over an entire game year, almost 3 months of real life time. A whopping 13% more rot than without seasons, and 1.3% of the year's consumption.
Please tell me how 1.3% more consumption averaged per day cripples your city.
Note: If you increase the original parameters by any factor, like multiply by 1.5 since your city has 30000 population, you'll get the same result. If you feel more comfortable to start out with a bigger stockpile, be my guest, and multiply that 400 by anything like 2, or 0.5 if you feel you don't need the stockpile, if you prefer 20 days of stockpile, you'll get the same result. It's 1.3% more consumption on average due to rot by seasons however you calculate it, for those interested.
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I honestly haven't had any problems with the food system or marketplaces. I have a character running a city with 18,000 population on Atamara and have no problems at all finding food. I just buy when it's available to create a decent stockpile, or put up long-lasting buy orders if I know I'm going to be away from a market. The city has never even gone hungry.
On EC, I have a character running a rural region and there's always someone looking to buy food. I don't hear of any starvation within the realm.
Far East might be a different story because several cities often seem to be on the verge of starvation. But I think that's more to do with food management through the seasons, or the politics of who sells to who, than it is to do with the nature of the markets. The one big problem was when Osaliel went rogue due to starvation because the Margrave wasn't putting up any buying orders (or in fact acting in any way at all), but seemed to be logging in often enough to avoid the auto-pause. But, again, that wasn't really the fault of the food system or markets.
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63 + 40 + 128 + 150 = 381 bushels lost to rot, 45 bushels more than with seasons, over an entire game year, almost 3 months of real life time. A whopping 13% more rot than without seasons, and 1.3% of the year's consumption.
That's good to know. I'm glad that someone finally got a chance to run the numbers.
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Your math is off though. Your definition of having a ten day supply is having 10 days worth of of food once, not on a consistent basis, which would also make the size of the supply matter, ie it would be different with a havi g 20 day supply.
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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.
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I honestly haven't had any problems with the food system or marketplaces. I have a character running a city with 18,000 population on Atamara and have no problems at all finding food. I just buy when it's available to create a decent stockpile, or put up long-lasting buy orders if I know I'm going to be away from a market. The city has never even gone hungry.
On EC, I have a character running a rural region and there's always someone looking to buy food. I don't hear of any starvation within the realm.
Far East might be a different story because several cities often seem to be on the verge of starvation. But I think that's more to do with food management through the seasons, or the politics of who sells to who, than it is to do with the nature of the markets. The one big problem was when Osaliel went rogue due to starvation because the Margrave wasn't putting up any buying orders (or in fact acting in any way at all), but seemed to be logging in often enough to avoid the auto-pause. But, again, that wasn't really the fault of the food system or markets.
That's a very small city.l
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FEIs cities are very small, and require significantly smaller food imports than other islands.
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Even if we discount Dwilight, the majority of people who have voted so far feel that the current system needs to be changed.
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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).
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Also, a small minority of the game population uses the forums.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Plus your example has a city that can feed itself during normal production... which in itself is a bad assumption.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
War has never been profitable food-wise as those trying to get food are usually being idiots. The last war I know of that they claimed they needed food, all they ever did was do brutal takeovers and loot the regions to the ground. Don't expect a region to be productive after burning it to the ground. War not being profitable food-wise, I have only ever seen being the one needing the foods fault for it not being profitable. If you have several cities, let one starve and keep the others going. If you have one city, let it starve for 3 days, then bring in the food as if you only one city you can support it somewhat and you will get roughly 5-6 days of starvation reducing the pop to a sustainable amount. If you have been at peace, you should have plenty of gold so max out your entire army to get takeovers done quickly then you have food to keep the city. Be extremely agressive, looting your enemies core regions as much as possible, not the border regions and go for peace. Done.
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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.
Starting with 800 bushels at Spring means you end up with about 2000 bushels at the end of fall. You're misunderstanding the equations. They're summing food production and consumption not in the city, but in the region, assuming that the region is perfectly balanced in terms of total food production and consumption. i.e. it doesn't matter when you buy/sell the surplus food, the changes are negligible, so to make the equations more straightforward I had +40 and -40 as the standard.
Plus your example has a city that can feed itself during normal production... which in itself is a bad assumption.
Again, as stated before, the city consumes 40 bushels every day, and 40 bushels arrive every day for the city at 100% production, i.e. regions around it, trades, whatever. Of course in a normal game they wouldn't be every day, but in chunks of 100, 200 bushels at different times, but for ease of calculation it is spread to a daily incoming food based on season. So it's perfectly balanced during 100% production. Please read more carefully before criticizing.
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But those 40 bushels a day are also subject to rot. By the end of winter they have been rotting in *someone's* warehouse for up to 21 days. (And, to be honest, that also applies through most of spring.) For all intents and purposes, all the food that is consumed by a city, and most of a townsland, is produced by the last day of autumn. It is not a steady-state thing where you have food coming in and out. So that food is subject to 21 to 42 days of rot, at 1% per day.
Maybe I'm just not understanding your equations, but what you've done, while mathematically accurate, does not appear to model what is actually happening.
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But those 40 bushels a day are also subject to rot. By the end of winter they have been rotting in *someone's* warehouse for up to 21 days. (And, to be honest, that also applies through most of spring.) For all intents and purposes, all the food that is consumed by a city, and most of a townsland, is produced by the last day of autumn. It is not a steady-state thing where you have food coming in and out. So that food is subject to 21 to 42 days of rot, at 1% per day.
Maybe I'm just not understanding your equations, but what you've done, while mathematically accurate, does not appear to model what is actually happening.
+1.
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But those 40 bushels a day are also subject to rot. By the end of winter they have been rotting in *someone's* warehouse for up to 21 days. (And, to be honest, that also applies through most of spring.) For all intents and purposes, all the food that is consumed by a city, and most of a townsland, is produced by the last day of autumn. It is not a steady-state thing where you have food coming in and out. So that food is subject to 21 to 42 days of rot, at 1% per day.
Maybe I'm just not understanding your equations, but what you've done, while mathematically accurate, does not appear to model what is actually happening.
Correct. It's not the 40 or 80 bushels per day that are subject to ~21 days of rot for winter, it's the 10 bushels that are added in my equations for winter. Most rurals cover their own production for spring, summer, and fall, and only experience a minor deficit in winter. The 10 bushels for winter are the only ones that are substantially subject to this necessary regional warehouse rot, which results in their influence of 0.01 * 10 * 21 = 2.1 bushels is negligible, as I've previously stated.
It is also true that in my equations, for most of the year, including most of the dreaded winter, there is 1.5 to 2 times the safety margin than the corresponding seasonless city. This advantage is not expressed at all in the equations.
In general, the equations give a lot of leeway in favour of the season version of city consumption, and model the real effect of rot with much margin for error in favour of season (i.e. actual rot has less of an effect than the calculated rot).
If you want an impossibly generous estimate on how much worse rot is on perceived consumption, it's about 105% of normal consumption, meaning the addition of seasons is less of an effect on food than adding 5% to consumption, much less. This includes adjustments for minimum safety margin same as seasonless and adjustments for food rotting in rural regions plus a lot more buffer room.
Rot is, at its core, not enough of an influence except a small incentive to sell/buy food quicker.
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One could translate this to the way science (at least in astronomy and astrophysics) has turned form an observation-based model to a mathematical model. Every theory is based on the equations, rather than the equations being a way to describe the observations of a theory.
So Foundation, while your equation in itself is sound, it does not match observation. Observation should always trump the equation if it shows something different is happening than what the equation describes.
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Rot is, at its core, not enough of an influence except a small incentive to sell/buy food quicker.
I disagree, completely. I think your method does not address the realities of how food is actually handled on Dwilight. Until you've actually had to manage a city, or possibly a townsland, on Dwilight I don't think you can really know how it works.
I ran some quick numbers myself, based on the following assumptions:
1) A city that consumes 60 food per day. (i.e. it has to remove 60 bushels from the warehouse per day.)
2) All food is stored in warehouses, and subject to 1% rot per day.
3) On the first day of Winter, the city has enough food stored to feed itself through the entire winter period. This is how things usually work. You normally do not manage to buy food during the winter. But even if you do, then due to the low production of all regions, the food you buy was harvested in Autumn, and has been sitting in someone else's warehouse rotting away since then. So it rots one way or the other.
We start with 1200 bushels. After 21 days, we have lost only 111 bushels to rot, or 9.3%. No too bad. But any city lord who only stocks enough food to get him through the Winter is in for a world of hurt when no one will sell him food come spring time. And they won't, because they will need that food themselves.
So let's modify our original assumptions to stipulate that we stockpile enough food to last us through the end of Spring. This is a more realistic scenario, as it takes time for the lightly increased spring harvests to build up enough reserves to let the regions start selling. And you need reserves to make sure that you have enough time to actually buy it, in case someone else gets the first few sell orders.
In order to get through all of winter and spring, the city needs to stockpile 3200 bushels. Of that total, a whopping 648 bushels will rot away or 20.3% of your stockpile.
Stockpiling enough food to last that long is not out of the ordinary. Nor will any city lord think it overly excessive. Nor will any sane city lord routinely maintain a situation where his city has only 6 or 7 days of food in stock, if he can possibly help it. (Note that this is for Dwilight, where it can often be hard to come by food. Other island may vary.) You want at least two weeks of food on hand at all times in case of emergencies.
Also, note that the 20.3% rot only counts food for that half of the year. I haven't tried to deal with the rest of the year. But that will only make the total rot figure go up even higher.
The way in which winter affects the handling and stockpiling of food makes rot much more significant that you're making it out to be. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I don't think that anyone who plays a margrave of a city on Dwilight will find too much fault with my assumptions here.
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My last statement was dubious, my apologies. I meant, as was my original purpose in making these calculations, that rot is, at its core, not enough of an influence except a small incentive to sell/buy food quicker when comparing islands having seasons to islands not having seasons.
Have you considered that having such a great amount of surplus while ignoring all production during winter and spring creates dubious numbers at best? If you do not produce enough surplus to cover the majority of your food needs in spring at 75% production, you will not produce enough to stockpile for winter and spring. Thus this is an impossible scenario. Even in this impossible scenario, it is only 20% that is lost due to rot, and in a similar scenario without seasons at least 12-18% of the food will be lost due to rot anyways.
I agree. Stockpiling great amounts of food will cause a sizeable portion to be lost due to rot. Keeping an extra 1000 bushels all year round on top of the X days' worth of buffer will of course produce a ridiculous amount of waste, losing ~10 bushels every day. That's fairly obvious. The formulae are available to all. The theory is sound. If the observations do not match the theory, it simply due to differences in assumptions.
As I have demonstrated, if all lords and margraves are willing to work together to simulate what I described, satisfying my assumptions, the result is clear. Rot does not play a key part in differentiating the food system on islands with season and islands without season. What does differentiate the two is the willingness to part with food as appropriate on the part of the lords and the ability to resist anxiety and gather surpluses as appropriate on the part of the margraves.
I maintain that when base production meets consumption, these formulae hold, and it is human behaviour that is different.
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The wrench in your assertion is that base production is subject to weather.
The stocks of cities and townslands must buffer for potential droughts, and that has been considered in none of these scenarios. Failure to have a drought buffer will result in the devastation of not only cities, but any region that loses food in a drought, which includes many rurals.
What Indirik meant when he said that food is not being immediately sold in the spring is that the rural regions will themselves build up a buffer -- to protect themselves against droughts. They wont sell food until they feel safe, which is entirely reasonable.
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Especially since the Farronite Republic went through two droughts in a row. That's kind of a major drag on the entire realm.
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The wrench in your assertion is that base production is subject to weather.
The stocks of cities and townslands must buffer for potential droughts, and that has been considered in none of these scenarios. Failure to have a drought buffer will result in the devastation of not only cities, but any region that loses food in a drought, which includes many rurals.
What Indirik meant when he said that food is not being immediately sold in the spring is that the rural regions will themselves build up a buffer -- to protect themselves against droughts. They wont sell food until they feel safe, which is entirely reasonable.
Why? Why MUST they do this?
Why MUST the rural lords build up a buffer for themselves, yet allow their cities to starve? Why would they not freely give what surplus they have to avoid starvation when they can even if it means that they too may starve later due to unforeseen drought?
If a realm truly is one's "team" then these lords wouldn't be self-serving to build a buffer for themselves, but work to make it such that their entire realm gains from the benefits which they have as well. Just as a knight trusts that his lord will continue to provide him with gold from his estates on a regular basis, and thus recruits a unit on the knowledge that his estates will serve him more gold to pay the unit later, so too should the lords of the rural regions trust that should drought come, that their realm will suffer together, instead of prioritizing themselves over the city lords. Even this knight cannot be certain that his estate will provide him with gold down the line, his lord can always raise taxes on it, lower its size, or revoke it altogether. But, the lord and his knight work together towards common cause.
What you say is a MUST is not a MUST. If a drought comes, then someone will suffer. If all lords are only self-serving than the realm will suffer greatly due to the lack of cooperation ahead of time. But, if all lords serve the needs of the realm then the realm need not store up such large buffers. The realm will suffer less food rot, and be able to feed more of its regions. The realm will then have more food available in the case of droughts, and ALL lords are better off as the realm as a whole is better.
You make assumptions as to what must be done, yet you ignore the fact that these assumptions are based upon sand which can so easily be changed towards a better method. Cooperation yields better results across the board. All else equal, selfishness will always be worse for both the lord and his realm as they are invariably connected.
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The wrench in your assertion is that base production is subject to weather.
The stocks of cities and townslands must buffer for potential droughts, and that has been considered in none of these scenarios. Failure to have a drought buffer will result in the devastation of not only cities, but any region that loses food in a drought, which includes many rurals.
What Indirik meant when he said that food is not being immediately sold in the spring is that the rural regions will themselves build up a buffer -- to protect themselves against droughts. They wont sell food until they feel safe, which is entirely reasonable.
You're forgetting that weather is not a factor as it exists on all islands. Thus is not a consideration at all. Of course regions keep buffers, so do regions on islands without seasons.
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My last statement was dubious, my apologies. I meant, as was my original purpose in making these calculations, that rot is, at its core, not enough of an influence except a small incentive to sell/buy food quicker when comparing islands having seasons to islands not having seasons.
Have you considered that having such a great amount of surplus while ignoring all production during winter and spring creates dubious numbers at best? If you do not produce enough surplus to cover the majority of your food needs in spring at 75% production, you will not produce enough to stockpile for winter and spring. Thus this is an impossible scenario. Even in this impossible scenario, it is only 20% that is lost due to rot, and in a similar scenario without seasons at least 12-18% of the food will be lost due to rot anyways.
I agree. Stockpiling great amounts of food will cause a sizeable portion to be lost due to rot. Keeping an extra 1000 bushels all year round on top of the X days' worth of buffer will of course produce a ridiculous amount of waste, losing ~10 bushels every day. That's fairly obvious. The formulae are available to all. The theory is sound. If the observations do not match the theory, it simply due to differences in assumptions.
As I have demonstrated, if all lords and margraves are willing to work together to simulate what I described, satisfying my assumptions, the result is clear. Rot does not play a key part in differentiating the food system on islands with season and islands without season. What does differentiate the two is the willingness to part with food as appropriate on the part of the lords and the ability to resist anxiety and gather surpluses as appropriate on the part of the margraves.
I maintain that when base production meets consumption, these formulae hold, and it is human behaviour that is different.
It's not a dubious scenario. That's how we deal with food in D'Hara. Heck, our goal was to stockpile enough food throughout the realm to be able to last a whole IG year by the time winter arrived. We massively invested in granaries in all of our regions (back when they were super expensive), trying to get at least 2000 in cities, 1500 in townslands, and 1000 in rurals. We did always have as large as stockpiles as possible. Because we relied on exporters. And exporters one years were not always able to export on the following year. Offer was extremely variable. And finding new trading partners often had to wait until summer when everyone's granaries were overloaded and they felt like they could spare a bit more. And because warehouses were so expensive, food was often stocked beyond their capacities, because not doing so would often mean starvation.
Things have changed since, but rot remains a considerable issue.
Why? Why MUST they do this?
Why MUST the rural lords build up a buffer for themselves, yet allow their cities to starve? Why would they not freely give what surplus they have to avoid starvation when they can even if it means that they too may starve later due to unforeseen drought?
If a realm truly is one's "team" then these lords wouldn't be self-serving to build a buffer for themselves, but work to make it such that their entire realm gains from the benefits which they have as well. Just as a knight trusts that his lord will continue to provide him with gold from his estates on a regular basis, and thus recruits a unit on the knowledge that his estates will serve him more gold to pay the unit later, so too should the lords of the rural regions trust that should drought come, that their realm will suffer together, instead of prioritizing themselves over the city lords. Even this knight cannot be certain that his estate will provide him with gold down the line, his lord can always raise taxes on it, lower its size, or revoke it altogether. But, the lord and his knight work together towards common cause.
What you say is a MUST is not a MUST. If a drought comes, then someone will suffer. If all lords are only self-serving than the realm will suffer greatly due to the lack of cooperation ahead of time. But, if all lords serve the needs of the realm then the realm need not store up such large buffers. The realm will suffer less food rot, and be able to feed more of its regions. The realm will then have more food available in the case of droughts, and ALL lords are better off as the realm as a whole is better.
You make assumptions as to what must be done, yet you ignore the fact that these assumptions are based upon sand which can so easily be changed towards a better method. Cooperation yields better results across the board. All else equal, selfishness will always be worse for both the lord and his realm as they are invariably connected.
Because you want the realm to survive. Feeding cities at all costs is the best way to kill your realm. We've learned this the hard way: in some of our first starvations, the whole realm pretty neared revolted, leaving us with nothing but a really battered capital and unproductive regions come summer. Feeding the rurals should be the number one priority, because otherwise, you are royally screwed come next winter, because none of your rurals will have produced the food you'll have needed to survive it. Sacrificing the cities reduces overall consumption and therefore helps you return your food consumption ratio to an acceptable level. The rurals can survive on their own, cities cannot. It's not worth ruining your entire economy and risking total realm implosion to slow down your cities' starvation.