Food needs a serious rework

[Stempz]

Perhaps 'food' as a resource (will) ... represent infrastructure that provides 'quality of life'

This, the food debate would be much better if it wasn't thought of as ahh i need food to survive. Instead it should be oh having this consumer product / generic resource would sure help make me be more productive. Whist lessening the degree to which starvation affects planets... still can be a thing but it won't be as bad. This also opens up the way for trading between planets which in of itself isn't a bad thing. People are just worried that if a planet gets blockaded and you are way too reliant on food shipments type of thing. (Than all sieged planets will start starving type of a deal). Also a sector switch saying "try your best to be self sufficient". Or the i don't care just try to be as efficient as possible and use shipments (stack percentage based bonuses for minerals / energy).

 

[Searry]

I would like a system in which you produce slaves from a genetically modified species, after their energy is completely expended, the used slave could then be processed to food to be given to the population. You'd think that in inhuman socities, efficiency could go very very far and every bit of energy could be furthered to better the state.

 

[Kayden_II]

Just think of "more food" not as "two bowls of oat meal instead of one" but as "high quality beef instead of something that tastes like chicken but definitely isn't"

Very paradox Thoughts.

 

[Seomis]

Try this?

 

[Incompetent]

I'd replace 'food' with more general 'consumer goods'. Even with present-day technology, only a small proportion of humanity needs to work as farmers to keep everyone fed. (There are lots of farmers in the poorest countries, but that's because they have inefficient economies - look how much food the USA and EU churn out, relative to how many farmers they have.) We still need a lot of land for food production, but that won't be the case once we master vertical farming. I'd rather imagine a spacefaring civilisation has mastered industrial food production on its home planet at least, otherwise the prospect of settling large numbers of people on an alien world would be a non-starter.

As for the historical correlation between food production and population growth, it was true for most of human history that populations grew rapidly up to their capacity to feed themselves, but it hasn't been true since the 'demographic transition', which has by now affected most of the world. In developed countries, it's expensive to have children and raise them to first world standards, but food is a tiny part of the total cost (including healthcare, education and domestic work by the parents). It's hard to imagine how a successful spacefaring civilization would live, but surely it would be more like present-day Sweden than, say, South Sudan.

 

[tinculin]

excess food can improve pop growth because it can support more people brought to the world, the issue we face on our planet is that food isnt distributed on a "need basis" but on a "can pay basis", obesity (in 99% of cases) is a case of "i love to eat and want to eat, and hey, i can afford it" (i am personally in this 99%), and famine can be solved by just scooping up leftovers of the developed countries and feeding the poor (which will cause a completely new and exotic set of problems in the near future)

also to give you an explanation of excess food=pop growth
in my country we have a serious pop depletion problem (and are expected to lose 50% of our population by 2060) because people tend to have fewer children in order to have better chances of providing for them (food is one of the factors, a big one) because our salaries are crap, and prices are inflated etc
if food were to become more accessible (altho we do have enough of it, it just is expensive, and the food people mostly buy is tasteless crap imported from abroad where the expiration date has long since past) people would be more inclined to have more children and my countries pop situation would at least stabilize, if not even start to grow

so, good sir, i perfectly know what i am talking about and my arguments are valid and confirmed on an empirical basis, not theoretical, or simple hearsay from lands unknown or unvisited

Sorry this is yet again another strawman. You are arguing against a point not made.

Except in cases of famine there is no correlation between population growth and excess food.

Most excess food exists in Europe and North America. None of those countries are in the top 50 pop growth countries, most are African or middle eastern.

The fastest declining population is in Syria and it doesn't take a genius to guess why that is given what is going on there right now.

 

[Stempz]

I'd replace 'food' with more general 'consumer goods'. Even with present-day technology, only a small proportion of humanity needs to work as farmers to keep everyone fed. (There are lots of farmers in the poorest countries, but that's because they have inefficient economies - look how much food the USA and EU churn out, relative to how many farmers they have.) We still need a lot of land for food production, but that won't be the case once we master vertical farming. I'd rather imagine a spacefaring civilisation has mastered industrial food production on its home planet at least, otherwise the prospect of settling large numbers of people on an alien world would be a non-starter.

As for the historical correlation between food production and population growth, it was true for most of human history that populations grew rapidly up to their capacity to feed themselves, but it hasn't been true since the 'demographic transition', which has by now affected most of the world. In developed countries, it's expensive to have children and raise them to first world standards, but food is a tiny part of the total cost (including healthcare, education and domestic work by the parents). It's hard to imagine how a successful spacefaring civilization would live, but surely it would be more like present-day Sweden than, say, South Sudan.

This. pretty much in fact its become such a problem in highly developed nations such as japan that they are actively trying to import Chinese labor to offset it.

The demographic transition will eventually equalize the populations specifically those in South East Asia and Africa like we've seen with south korea, japan, and to a greater extent china in the past 20 - 30 years

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Given that POP can't die from starvation, fooв shortages bear no serious consequences, just a temporary happiness penalty, with reduced production output. Food shortages should cause much much serious threat to the planet, up to riots, pops razing buildings and erecting farms to feed themselves and so on.
Some future addition os Espionage could be used to cause starvation, poisoning and epidemics along with ability to send help to starving neighbooring empires.

 

[Xoatl]

Developers said they want to rework how food functions, mostly with food sharing between planets.
Problem:
Food have only single usage in Stellaris - to make POPs grow faster. Which means that in the end once you filled all planet tiles you will inevitably do the same thing - replace all food buildings with power plants or labs, keeping planetary food balance on minimum positive.
And it's a really underdeveloped part of the game. It takes upgraded planetary capital and one-two farms to fed entire planet, depending on size.
Ideas to change it:
1. Make Food affect more than growth.
Obvious stat is happiness. With excessive food resulting in more happiness on a given planet.
2. Make food be shared between planets.
Master of Orion II had this feature. When excessive food would be pooled to a single empire-wide storage, from where it could be used to feed other planets(for example without athmosphere or where farming is not allowed). That was possible until you had transport fleets to deliver this food. Transport acted as convoys in HOIIV - not present on the map but rather as a number. Blockades would stop off-world food supply.
3. Make food generate profits.
Also from Master of Orion II. When you had free transports and covered planetary needs, excessive food would be used as atrade good, generating profits. This way, food was very important resource, and Empires could thrive on agrarian trade. Same could be applied to Stellaris.
4. Trade synergy
Should interplanetary trade or trade edicts be implemented, that could synergize well with food. As excessive food could be either sold to other empires or used to fed yours, maybe depending on some policy.
5. Improvement of Trade Agreements
Sign an agreement and civilian AI controlled ships start coursing between empires, bringing mutual profits upon reaching destination. More sulprus food generates more abstract trade ships\freighters.
6. Make specialized planets possible
Make specialized world possible so we'll have agricultural worlds, factory or scientific worlds. Which in turn will add more strategic layers, so you can hit certain planets to starve enemy empire and protect your farm worlds to keep your empire fed. Supply lanes also could be integrated in some future privateer or piracy mechanics, with pirates raiding your trade routes. Also you can see things like this:

Spoiler

7. Tech synergy
Adding techs that will not only be endless +5% food or Hydroponic farms I II II IV V VI VII VIII etc. but add food-to-energy conversion from excessive food traded. Or maybe adding, for example 0.5 additional minerals per excessive food produed. Or adding other various bonuses.
8. Slaves.
Make slaves more important. Let them work on plantations, process them into food. Buy slaves to process them etc.
9. Food Strategic resources
Add variation of Betharian stones for Food output. Make additional edits for Alien pets(or slaves) produce food.

Anything to make food a important resource, insted of "build-farm-and-forget"

About #9, there should be a special tile resource for everything produce-able. Minerals, food, research, maybe even a rare influence one. Possibly unity too now that's a thing.

The excess food = pop growth thing probably comes from civ, where it makes a certain sense - over civ timescales, food surplus is a necessary factor for both population growth and specialization. If not because it affects birthrate, then on account of migration.

It doesn't make sense in Stellaris timescales, and really doesn't make sense given the modern economies Stellaris starts out with, which can be assumed to have good standards of living, med care, etc.

What makes even less sense, though, is pops taking /longer/ to grow for every existing pop on the planet. If anything, population growth should speed up based on total population, unless reined in by external factors (food shortages, or cultural/political developments that push people away from reproducing).

Or if all the tiles are full already

 

[Tokie]

Excess food is a good thing if you continue to expand to new planets. My 'new' planet gets almost fully populate within 1 year after colonization thanks to migration. Having excess food means I can continue to expand without worrying about developed planets.

 

[Seomis]

This whole problem can be solved with a small semantic shift. Call food "civilian infrastructure," and it makes perfect sense for it to be planet-bound and for surplus to stimulate growth.

 

[JodelDiplom]

This whole problem can be solved with a small semantic shift. Call food "civilian infrastructure," and it makes perfect sense for it to be planet-bound and for surplus to stimulate growth.

No it doesn't... WTH is civilian infrastructure supposed to mean and why do farms produce it?

 

[Seomis]

No it doesn't... WTH is civilian infrastructure supposed to mean and why do farms produce it?

This would obviously mean the planetbound resource in question wouldn't come from farms anymore. Farms would go away and be replaced with, I don't know, cities.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Food is a traditional space strategy resource, hardly there's a need to replace it. It could be blockaded, exported, traded. Lots of use for it.

 

[Melfice_Cyrum]

I'm definitely of the camp that food should be able to be traded and have other uses.

 

[WebShaman]

Stellaris actually gets part of this right with pop growth - any advanced civilization (re: space flight and colonisation capability) will have solved the space-population problem (or would have ended up as a tomb world).

So it makes sense that as pop numbers increase, growth slows when one factors in controlled birth rates.

As for Food - I argued before that it should go but someone uttered the "games need at least 3 resource blah blah" to be balanced/valid. As it currently is, Food really doesn't factor into much. As was said,,make a few farms and forget. And even if starved, pops still increase, just slowed.

Perhaps after a certain amount of time, Starvation should turn into Famine, with some very negative effects. And surplus Food should be good for something! Why can't I trade Food like I can Energy and Minerals? And don't troops and Fleet personel need Food? Make them both require Food as well. Might make having Food worlds a must.

 

[Stempz]

tl;dr Food could be better but it works for now. Mainly just annoying to balance late game.

For all the analogies we could place onto Stellaris, at the end of the day its just a game mechanic. Could there be a better system for acquisition of food or "generic civilian resource" so that there is less micro management? Probably but the problem here is the current food system is just good enough and not enough people think this is a major problem. Although the section of people whom do believe its a problem simply think its just a hassle late game (which it is). Simple solution would be to have late game auto balance food for planets (but do it over time like convoys). Although the idea of lowering the debuff from starvation to consumer goods/ civilian resource would help late game but make it less important early.