Lets talk about food

[Todie]

Hey.

2.0.2 looks to be great so far!

The new import view makes clear as day the supply and demand of various goods - and how skewed it is.

The first observation i made in the earlygame of my new Rome campaign was that I had 90~ available units of the various food goods...

I was already sceptical about the usefulness of food goods in 2.0.x after the changes to pop growth. seeing this amount of food goods available before there were even many farms and slaves around to produce more, I realised how it would affect my strategising and started thinking about if this was imbalanced and what / how / why it could be addressed.

So I have some thoughts / suggestions in mind already, but I figured I’d start with an open question.

What do you guys think about the current implementation and balance of food in Imperator 2.0.2 ? (Im primarily thinking of provincial food not army food supply)

 

[Battlex]

Hey.

2.0.2 looks to be great so far!

The new import view makes clear as day the supply and demand of various goods - and how skewed it is.

The first observation i made in the earlygame of my new Rome campaign was that I had 90~ available units of the various food goods...

I was already sceptical about the usefulness of food goods in 2.0.x after the changes to pop growth. seeing this amount of food goods available before there were even many farms and slaves around to produce more, I realised how it would affect my strategising and started thinking about if this was imbalanced and what / how / why it could be addressed.

So I have some thoughts / suggestions in mind already, but I figured I’d start with an open question.

What do you guys think about the current implementation and balance of food in Imperator 2.0.2 ? (Im primarily thinking of provincial food not army food supply)

It's the warm period, no surprise food starts in excess, more and more tags will gain extra import slots as well as tags being bumped off, but medittarean trade was really onward and upward during this period so no bad there, also means you can put more slaves into cities to make processed goods

 

[Iosue Yu]

Food is probably in abundance because you don't really need people to grow and harvest. I think in the game, most of the places are not producing anything beyond the initial product: 2 from each City, and 1 from each Settlement. We probably just have a lot of food because we have too many fishing villages with just 1 guy fishing with his rod, but multiplied by some magic so he alone is producing what needs 10 guys to produce.

 

[Battlex]

Food is probably in abundance because you don't really need people to grow and harvest. I think in the game, most of the places are not producing anything beyond the initial product: 2 from each City, and 1 from each Settlement. We probably just have a lot of food because we have too many fishing villages with just 1 guy fishing with his rod, but multiplied by some magic so he alone is producing what needs 10 guys to produce.

2 fish represents a surplus of fish. The inefficiency of fisherman means you need that many fisherman for them to catch more fish than they'll consume as subsistence farmers

 

[IsaacCAT]

2 fish represents a surplus of fish. The inefficiency of fisherman means you need that many fisherman for them to catch more fish than they'll consume as subsistence farmers

Finally! thank you @Battlex , I was starting to think that nobody saw the surplus thing on the game

 

[Iosue Yu]

2 fish represents a surplus of fish. The inefficiency of fisherman means you need that many fisherman for them to catch more fish than they'll consume as subsistence farmers

You don't usually see a Settlement producing a surplus until quite late in game. Most Settlements would just be 1 Slave, or even just 1 Tribesman and no Slaves, for the beginning 50 years or so. After like 100 years, most Settlements still have like 4 Pops if few, 9 to 10 Pops if more, and taking a Ratio so not even having enough 10 Pops to produce a Surplus.

Most Surpluses come from owning 2 Territories producing the same item, or it's a City. It's rather rare to see actually meeting Slave numbers to produce extra goods. If you have extra Pops, you'd send them into Cities, if not also Migration Attraction having a hand as well.

 

[Dayvit78]

2 fish represents a surplus of fish. The inefficiency of fisherman means you need that many fisherman for them to catch more fish than they'll consume as subsistence farmers

I like that explanation, but still don't quite understand how it represents surplus. Because the pops themselves eat food. So, they're not eating some abstract amount of non-surplus fish. They're eating "food" producted by the province irrespective of fish.

 

[Rabid]

I like that explanation, but still don't quite understand how it represents surplus. Because the pops themselves eat food. So, they're not eating some abstract amount of non-surplus fish. They're eating "food" producted by the province irrespective of fish.

Each territory itself produces food so the food trade goods must represent food of such a high quality or abundance that it's noteworthy enough to be used for large scale trade.

 

[Todie]

no surprise food starts in excess,

od is probably in abundance because you don't really need people to grow and harvest.

The surplus of goods represents a production high enough to make a meaningful amount of the resource available fo export. I would interpret this to include basic matters of logistics, storage and conservation.

.. why would people grow food in abundance that they cant make use of, and that there is no demand for trading?

I guess the obvious answer is variance in harvests and food security. However, food supply already has a representation on the provincial level, and the only interaction between this and food resources is that food resources contribute to filling up storage.


The interaction between the representations of production and storage of food that is currently in the game makes food surpluses abundant and "useless", as the only use of extra food production is to fill up storages -- storages that in 98+% of cases are already at capacity.

Do you think food goods should be given a secondary benefit? should they contribute to food storage capacity perhaps? or something else?

 

[Maria Theresa]

Do you think food goods should be given a secondary benefit? should they contribute to food storage capacity perhaps? or something else?

I don't know how good or bad idea it is, but rather than having food storage contribute to population growth, excess food in province should do that instead. So if a province produces/imports a lot more food than it needs the population will grow faster.

Right now it is quite sad to produce tons of extra grain as Sicily for example because AI won't buy any of it from you as they all produce enough as is. Considering how hugely important Egyptian grain exports were for example, food should be in much higher demand than it is.

 

[Todie]

I don't know how good or bad idea it is, but rather than having food storage contribute to population growth, excess food in province should do that instead. So if a province produces/imports a lot more food than it needs the population will grow faster.

This would make it more like civ and other games, but I don't necessarily think its a better game design or more realistic.

 

[Maria Theresa]

This would make it more like civ and other games, but I don't necessarily think its a better game design or more realistic.

I feel it makes a lot more sense tho. Because availability of food has always been one of the main factors for population growth historically. Which is why fertile areas tend to be more populous.
Also it makes a lot more sense that just because the Granary is full of grain wouldn't make people want to have huge families they wont be able to feed when something happens to the food and they wont be able to grow more easily.
On the other hand if people know they live in a very fertile area that can easily grow lot of food they might worry less about that.

 

[Pro]

This would make it more like civ and other games, but I don't necessarily think its a better game design or more realistic.

It's absolutely realistic. In premodern times densely populated areas were those that were capable of producing large amounts of food.

 

[Senatus1980]

I don't know how good or bad idea it is, but rather than having food storage contribute to population growth, excess food in province should do that instead. So if a province produces/imports a lot more food than it needs the population will grow faster.

Right now it is quite sad to produce tons of extra grain as Sicily for example because AI won't buy any of it from you as they all produce enough as is. Considering how hugely important Egyptian grain exports were for example, food should be in much higher demand than it is.

Isn't there a population growth benefit from having large food stores relative to population? Though that might mean you need to build granaries to take all that excess, unsold Sicilian grain production...

 

[IsaacCAT]

Do you think food goods should be given a secondary benefit? should they contribute to food storage capacity perhaps? or something else?

No, they already have a bonus for surplus in the capital province.

The interaction between the representations of production and storage of food that is currently in the game makes food surpluses abundant and "useless", as the only use of extra food production is to fill up storages -- storages that in 98+% of cases are already at capacity.

Build more storage. Having more food for winter is paramount for growing population in harsh climates. In warmer climates food is not that important for growing population but diseases. I do not think food in excess is a necessary and sufficient condition for population growth. Other conditions are necessary and none is sufficient.

 

[Pro]

Isn't there a population growth benefit from having large food stores relative to population? Though that might mean you need to build granaries to take all that excess, unsold Sicilian grain production...

Yes, but it only cares about the amount stored, not the amount of surplus produced. So +1 food but 500 granaries will produce a large bonus, but +500 food and 1 granary will not. So as long as you have enough food to survive the only thing that actually matters is how many building slots you use on granaries. It is, essentially, a system that doesn't concern food, it turns building slots into pop growth.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Yes, but it only cares about the amount stored, not the amount of surplus produced. So +1 food but 500 granaries will produce a large bonus, but +500 food and 1 granary will not. So as long as you have enough food to survive the only thing that actually matters is how many building slots you use on granaries. It is, essentially, a system that doesn't concern food, it turns building slots into pop growth.

Not exactly. If you have the buildings but you consume more food than produced, the bonus disappears.

 

[Pro]

That's true. So it matters how many building slots you've used relative to population. But food production still doesn't enter into it. Unless you have an actual deficit.

 

[Todie]

Build more storage

the more pops there are, the less an additional filled granary impacts the growth.

this way of growing population aught to be worthwhile, but with respect to the cost of granaries and alternative means - slave raiding, it's absolutely not a means of population growth that is significant enough to drive demand for food.

if you make a farm and produce surplus food, you're more than likely not ablet o sell it, because even the AI knows it doesn't need to import it. even if there is space in granaries, the use for higher food production is only temporary - until the food storage is filled to the brim once again.

 

[Iosue Yu]

If we want to talk about the stories behind food, then we really need to separate between Grain and the others, mainly because Rome didn't have air conditioning or refrigerators.

1. Grain could be stored in grain silos. It'd also be the military ration.
2. Fish was the second most common food. Fresh caught were sold in markets, imported by cities. Some extra fish would be made into sauce and kept for a short while. Others would be made into salted fish to keep for a longer while.
3. Vegetables were only eaten fresh. I don't think salad (salted vegetables) would be kept more than 1 day.
4. Livestock, I am not sure. All meat was expensive because you could only eat it fresh. But I don't think meat was cut and sold separately. So a large household would be eating an animal for a few days. It usually tasted like rotten meat on the 2nd and 3rd day, so they used fish sauce to cover the tastes. And I think some meat also went to become jerky.
5. Salt was common, but worthed a bit. But I don't think the Romans ate salt directly.
6. Honey was also used to make Mead. Others I'm not sure.
7. No idea why there isn't hunted meat in the game.

Grain was probably the main kind of Food. Fish was only caught and sold in commercial cities. Livestock, Hunted Animals were rare. Vegetables were also rare because they came from the country side and you know they rot quickly.

So I really don't see the relationship between Fish and growth in non-Port locations. Vegetables should probably also not be food. Livestock and Hunted Animals probably couldn't really supply the needs of the general public of any location, since you still need a large Agora / Forum. Probably Hunted Animals were good for bartering economy like Sparta.

I think the biggest difference between filled grain silos had more an effect for being a reliable exporter. All countries during war needed import grain for the soldiers away. Salt was used to pay soldiers. Meat, fish and vegetables were more like luxury items.