Reworking Trade

[Chenier]

Kabrinskia went from a net producer to needing 140 bushels per day.  That is a fairly drastic change.  Population wise Golden Farrow has been at maximum population for a few weeks now.  The biggest change is that townslands seem to be net importers of food.  In the past townslands were about neutral.  I am curious to see what realms like Luria Nova and D'hara look like.

Our townslands were always clear exporters, though not as great as rurals. Don't know now.

I think we'll be mostly indirectly affected, as our food production wasn't all that high to begin with. And I don't think it'll be that bad. Our allies were sitting on thousands of bushels they didn't know what to do with, and seemingly more than happy to get rid of it at 10 gold per 100 bushels. I think it'll just force us to resume trading with them as we used to.

[Duvaille]

The questions I suppose should be made first are:
1) Do people enjoy the food game?
2) Would they enjoy such harsh food game?
3) Can it be made so it is both harsh but not the sole focus of attention, so that the crisis can be manageable without devoting huge attention to the food game? Or would it not be possible to balance such unpredictability with a simple food system?

1) It is not very enjoyable at the moment, but I do hope it could be one day. The scarcity measures and tweaks will probably help. Food has to be important enough to cause at least people to notice if there is a hiccup in the system.

2) Yes, definitely I would enjoy a harsher food game. Granted,  my character is but a lord of a rural region at the moment, producing surplus, so my situation would be better. Others might have different experiences.

3) Food could every now and then cause large scale problems. What I would like to see is a system which most of the time ran smoothly, with perhaps a little bit of competition over food, some scarcity and starvation here and there, but overall not a very big concern. But then from time to time there could be some warning signs that would or would not lead to a major food disaster. A volcano could erupt, cooling the climate, causing failed crops etc. So the effect could be predicted in advance, prepared for... and then you either have the food disaster or not.

Now I do not know how the majority of the players would feel about something like this. Perhaps it is a kin to diseases - while fun to simulate, detrimental to the overall fun factor. I do not know.

[Chenier]

2) Yes, definitely I would enjoy a harsher food game. Granted,  my character is but a lord of a rural region at the moment, producing surplus, so my situation would be better. Others might have different experiences.

Most people I've heard do not enjoy harsh food conditions. They want to fight other humans, not fight the game. Food deficits often make them feel helpless and unable to do anything.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Most people I've heard do not enjoy harsh food conditions. They want to fight other humans, not fight the game. Food deficits often make them feel helpless and unable to do anything.

This.

[Telrunya]

It's also a reason for war! Well, I'll admit I'm one of those people that do enjoy the food game and would love to see it expanded

[Anaris]

Part of the problem with food has always been its all-or-nothing nature. Either you have enough to feed your entire population, or you start spiraling down into total self-destruction.

If we could make hunger and starvation more gradual, that would go a long way toward making people stress less about the food system.

[Indirik]

The problem with looting for food to get you through hard times is that there has to be someone who has food, who is not willing to sell you any, who you are willing to loot, and who won't just kick your ass as soon as possible. A realm at peace with its neighbors who loots a few hundred bushels from one of them during a drought is pretty likely to be torn apart by those neighbors. So looting for food is almost never an option. It makes powerful, long-term enemies.

[Foundation]

All, please keep in mind that it's a 15% reduction on overall production, not on your surplus only.

[D`Este]

So, we have had a 10% decrease, now a 15% decrease and rotting will also be implemented soon.

How will the continent wide production/consumption look like?

[Tom]

So, we have had a 10% decrease, now a 15% decrease and rotting will also be implemented soon.

How will the continent wide production/consumption look like?

It turns out that island-wide doesn't really matter all that much. Distribution is also very important. Basically, the more feedback we get on what the food situation is like everywhere, the easier we can tune it.

[Charles]

It turns out that island-wide doesn't really matter all that much. Distribution is also very important. Basically, the more feedback we get on what the food situation is like everywhere, the easier we can tune it.

I suppose it is also true that we cannot base everything off of a few harvests.  It will be atleast a month before you actually know whether you need to do minor tweaking.  Large adjustments are easier to see the need for.  All the SA realms starving does not mean there is actually a problem with the numbers.  Or the 'moot, or lourians.

[^ban^]

By the way, Tom, you didn't apply a 15% reduction. You added the existing 10% reduction to the new 15% reduction... except the 10% reduction already had effect. The total reduction so far is, in fact, closer to 34%.

[Tom]

Not true. The actual SQL commands were a multiplication by 0.9 and one by 0.85.

[GoldPanda]

Was the multiplication by 0.85 on the original values or on the values after multiplication by 0.9?

[Chenier]

It's also a reason for war! Well, I'll admit I'm one of those people that do enjoy the food game and would love to see it expanded

I also enjoy the food game... in D'Hara. Exclusively.

Food is, imo, as much as a reason for war as TMP is. Fact is, war increases the odds of production in your regions plummeting and your gold reserves available for food purchases dwindling as well. Unless you have a rural neighbor that you know you can shove around, war isn't likely to come up as a great solution to starvation.

It turns out that island-wide doesn't really matter all that much. Distribution is also very important. Basically, the more feedback we get on what the food situation is like everywhere, the easier we can tune it.

Distribution is very important indeed, especially to realms who have a deficit and lack D'Hara's trade network and agents. However, island-wide production does matter to those who overcome regional shortages by developing said networks, because it limits the possibilities for such networks to be created.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, as I can see it causing tensions between D'Hara and other importers, for example. Or, more likely, between the other importers themselves, because I'm pretty sure that the 'moot is self-sufficient and that D'Hara could satisfy itself with Barca's exports. But either way, island-wide production *is* important, it's just that the huge stocks don't make it so apparent for now.