Lets talk about food

[crownsteler]

I like the idea of pops producing food, but I think each food producing pop should then also decrease the amount of food produced by each pop. There's no way you can have a hundred slave pops in Rome all producing as much food each as if they were only 10. Combine that with pop growth from excess food production and you should have a ruleset that produces nice logistic growth.

Part of the suggestion is that food output is limited by terrain type. For example a farmland province could a maximum food output of 4 food, while a desert province could have a maximum output of 1. Any food produced beyond that number would be 'lost'. This both represent unemployment (slaves get to fill the maximum before freemen, as soon as there is no more 'space' for freemen they get a happiness penalty, and tax revenue derived from freemen is function of the amount of food they produce) and limits endless growth, as your 50 slave no longer produces food (but still consumes food).

Such limits on food production means you can't just push for mega-cities anymore, and can't strive for exclusive citizens and nobles anymore (because who will provide you with food?)

 

[Bovrick]

I know. My point was that as you add more pops to the same land they can't linearly increase the amount of food produced. The amount of land available to farm presents a limit. This should be reflected in by a decreasing marginal food production as more marginal land is brought into cultivation and land usage is switch to more labor intensive forms of agriculture.

This would avoid the situation where a megacity could be self sufficient in food produced by vast numbers of pops.

While it does make sense to have declining returns (best land is used first, then progressively worse land and so on); and probably makes more sense than giving a flat output capacity for a territory (is it even possible to get population sizes that approach arable land limits in this era, even with the pretty poor farming tech?), I suspect it will be a bit easier to implement having a flat output per Pop-type. Especially if Output modifiers and Happiness are applied on top already.

I'd still like to see what the game would play like if you changed the impact of Grain from +5 Food/month to +60 Food in October.

 

[Pro]

You could have a flat modifier to food output rather than a percentage one though. So maybe you have farmland +0.3 food per freeman/tribesman/slave pop and each freeman tribesman slave -0.002 food per freeman/tribesman/slave. At that point freemen in a farmland province with 1 pop produce a 50% surplus while in a territory with 50 famers a freeman pop can only feed itself

 

[master_kong]

The Mediterranean region doesn't consist of productive, fertile lands mostly*. In fact, the reason why the trade was so advanced throughout that region is this. Because not everyone could find enough grain to sustain themselves, not every land was suitable. Therefore, trading advanced because of this necessity. Trading was the main focus and even the main factor for the region.

I was very skeptical when they introduced more food trade goods after introducing the food mechanic. I'd want trade goods to go back in that regard.

*From Wiki:

In spite of its great biodiversity, concentrations of chlorophyll and nutrients in the Mediterranean Sea are very low, making it one of the most oligotrophic ocean regions in the world. The Mediterranean Sea is commonly referred to as an LNLC (Low-Nutrient, Low-Chlorophyll) area. The Mediterranean Sea fits the definition of a desert in which its nutrient contents are low, making it difficult for plants and animals to develop.

Limnologists use the term "oligotrophic" to describe lakes that have low primary productivity due to nutrient deficiency.

 

[Ruck]

The Mediterranean region doesn't consist of productive, fertile lands mostly*. In fact, the reason why the trade was so advanced throughout that region is this. Because not everyone could find enough grain to sustain themselves, not every land was suitable. Therefore, trading advanced because of this necessity. Trading was the main focus and even the main factor for the region.

I was very skeptical when they introduced more food trade goods after introducing the food mechanic. I'd want trade goods to go back in that regard.

*From Wiki:

That wiki article you cited is about the the Mediterranean SEA and not the REGION ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Sea#Biogeochemistry ). Of course they did not farm on the sea ground or used salt water for their fields.... Trading can not be a major factor if no one is producing the trade goods.

For example Mesopotamia, The Nile in Egypt, Sicily, Etruscia Region in Italy and North Africa were absolute major grain production players, which also resulted in the big empires in that regions, because they could produce so much that they traded the surpluses away or made processed products out of them (like Beer in Egypt). Big Rivers played a big role if the technology for a good irrigation system were locally available like f.e. in Egypt or Mesopotamia.

A good example is the bronze age collapse, where we had great and rich empires before the collaps which all made their income mostly out of grain, similiar like the empires later in the antiquity. Then a harsh climate change happened and lasted for a few years and grain production went down in huge numbers = no production of grain = no grain surplus trade away = no income for the empires = huge political crisis = all empires in the mediteranean got into big trouble and many of them vanished for ever and this only because of the importance of grain and its dependancy on a stable and warm climate.

 

[master_kong]

That wiki article you cited is about the the Mediterranean SEA and not the REGION ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Sea#Biogeochemistry ). Of course they did not farm on the sea ground or used salt water for their fields.... Trading can not be a major factor if no one is producing the trade goods.

For example Mesopotamia, The Nile in Egypt, Sicily, Etruscia Region in Italy and North Africa were absolute major grain production players, which also resulted in the big empires in that regions, because they could produce so much that they traded the surpluses away or made processed products out of them (like Beer in Egypt). Big Rivers played a big role if the technology for a good irrigation system were locally available like f.e. in Egypt or Mesopotamia.

A good example is the bronze age collapse, where we had great and rich empires before the collaps which all made their income mostly out of grain, similiar like the empires later in the antiquity. Then a harsh climate change happened and lasted for a few years and grain production went down in huge numbers = no production of grain = no grain surplus trade away = no income for the empires = huge political crisis = all empires in the mediteranean got into big trouble and many of them vanished for ever and this only because of the importance of grain and its dependancy on a stable and warm climate.

I won't pretend like I'm an expert. My knowledge wasn't coming from Wiki though, but I wanted to both be sure and provide a source if possible before sharing my opinion. If you're saying that information on the link is all about the sea itself and not have any impact on the region, alright. I won't discuss it, you may be right.

However, you completely misunderstood me apparently. I wasn't trying to say the Mediterranean region is a whole desert. I'm saying not every region in the Mediterranean is fertile, in fact, lands that are fertile are in minority. Also the diversity of goods, in general, were not good too due to the climate. For these reasons people looked for trade more in the Mediterranean is what I'm trying to say. Mesopotamia is not in the Mediterranean region actually, but yes there are fertile regions too. Egypt was a bread basket by itself, for instance, I know that. If you are an expert, don't hesitate to enlighten me, my information is mostly from a historian I listened to a while ago.

In short, countries shouldn't be in a food abundance and should need to trade in general.

 

[Baldamundo]

It would be also nice to see how on game start more or less free men would own and work on the grain fields, but later through abundance of slaves and changing laws, nobility buys most grain fields and let slaves work there instead, which lets freemen wander into cities. This could be even done with the current holding system I think, where on game start grain fields could be in "private" freemen holdings, but later noble great families are buying these fields and let their own slaves work there.

The game will not be complete until it models this properly and has it tied in fully to the political system. I can't wait!

On the wider question, yeah, fwiw a couple of times I've had to rely on grain imports but it's very marginal - only when I've massively, massively over-developed my capital province, or weird edge cases where I've inherited a big city in a province where I don't have any other territories. Beyond that you can mostly just ignore food for the entire game.

Also, have people tried out the Realistic Growth & Travel Mod yet? It tried to model some of this stuff already https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2200081489

 

[Ruck]

I won't pretend like I'm an expert. My knowledge wasn't coming from Wiki though, but I wanted to both be sure and provide a source if possible before sharing my opinion. If you're saying that information on the link is all about the sea itself and not have any impact on the region, alright. I won't discuss it, you may be right.

However, you completely misunderstood me apparently. I wasn't trying to say the Mediterranean region is a whole desert. I'm saying not every region in the Mediterranean is fertile, in fact, lands that are fertile are in minority. Also the diversity of goods, in general, were not good too due to the climate. For these reasons people looked for trade more in the Mediterranean is what I'm trying to say. Mesopotamia is not in the Mediterranean region actually, but yes there are fertile regions too. Egypt was a bread basket by itself, for instance, I know that. If you are an expert, don't hesitate to enlighten me, my information is mostly from a historian I listened to a while ago.

In short, countries shouldn't be in a food abundance and should need to trade in general.

Yes, not all regions where that fertile, although it has to keep in mind that the climate in mediterranean region was also warmer from bronze age to late antiquity than nowadays and some regions like in North Africa, Carthage region were more fertile than they are today, how much more isn´t that clear and historians are argueing about that up to today, if it was just clearly more fertile land at those times or if they just had better irrigation technology and administration, compared to other regions and if that was, what made these regions so grain rich and exporting at those times.

From Wiki: "Average wheat yields per year in the 3rd decade of the century, sowing 135 kg/ha of seed, were around 1,200 kg/ha in Italy and Sicily, 1,710 kg/ha in Egypt, 269 kg/ha in Cyrenaica, Tunisia at 400 kg/ha, and Algeria at 540 kg/ha, Greece at 620 kg/ha.[39] This makes the Mediterranean very difficult to average over all. "

Anyway, the huge grain producers were the ones which impacted and stimulated the whole economy in the mediterranean region the most. Those rich noble families and/or states got rich through grain and only this wealth made them capable to import luxory goods like wine, iron, gold, silver from other areas. If we take away the rich grain empires, the economy of not rich, but small states or tribe regions like Iberia f.e., their income should also decrease, maybe into poverty, as they have no one anymore to sell their goods too and those states definetly had no other great means of income like grain.

Grain was the engine of international trade at those times and grain was what made most people and states rich, all the other goods were only supplements to the economy, even if they had higher prices and better margins. Speaking from a states view (like we are in IR) or from a noble family owning lots of hectares. You would sell lets say 1000 Tonnes of grain per year and only maybe 80 Tonnes of Wine production. If you own a Mine, maybe 50 Tonnes of Iron per year. Small supplements to the big money maker "Grain".

Romes annual metal production at highest peak in late empire:

Compared to estimation of grain needed to feed only Rome the City, but not the whole empire and also without exports, but should give us a good estimation how many tonnes of grain where traded overall

Wiki:

"Rickman estimated that Rome needed 40 million modii (200,000 tonnes) of grain per year to feed its population.[45] Erdkamp estimated that the amount needed would be at least 150,000 tonnes, calculating that each resident of the city consumed 200 kilograms (440 lb) of grain per year.[46] The total population of Rome assumed in calculating these estimates was between 750,000 and one million people. David Mattingly and Gregory Aldrete [47] estimated the amount of imported grain at 237,000 tonnes for 1 million inhabitants;[48] This amount of grain would provide 2,326 calories daily per person not including other foods such as meats, seafood, fruit, legumes, vegetable and dairy. In the Historia Augusta, it is stated Severus left 27 million modii in storage - considered to be a figure for the canon at the end of the 4th century and enough for 800,000 inhabitants at 500 lbs of bread per person per annum[49]"

 

[Todie]

For every 12 months of total food consumption stored, up to a maximum of 120 months (i.e. 10 times), a province will get the following modifiers:

• +0.05% Local Population Growth

This bonus is a percentage of total POP, increasing total POP growth as more POPs are there. The table below shows that a city with a full storage of 120 months consumption can grow 0,25 POP/year. If you compound this for the Province and for every year is not insignificant. However, slave raiding should always be more important than organic growth.

I have already mentioned the bonus from years of food supply. it's capped at 0.20 in the 2.0x patch by the way.
Maybe I was unclear at first, but my assertion was not intended to be that growth from food is non-existent, Rather, that the overall abundance of food production from all settlements and local production of single food resources is crowded out the demand for food goods on the trade market.


The thread is moving away from the topic that I indeed witch is the gameplay design and balance of food production and production of food resources. I haven't seen any firm disagreements with the assertion of it being imbalanced/abundant.

... now, what to do about it is another question - let's leave that one at the wayside for now.

To begin with, I'm just asking, what you think about this - is there a balance I'm not seeing? are there cases in 2.0.2 where you'd run ideas, omens or laws that increase food production? or build wonders that do? would you actually build granaries for growth purposes? are you able actually able to make farms and sell the surplus goods at a comparable rate as before?

 

[cristofolmc]

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.

Yes but that is ridiculous. The land itself produces food magically without nobody working it, and they conse food from there, and then they also produce a shitload of food from the trade good 1 single pop produces. If you add a building and a few slaves, that will be twice.

Trying to explain the abstraction and make sense of it doesnt make the system less bad. It just doesn't make sense. Territories shouldnt produce a set number of food regardless of whether there is 1 or 200 pops and each province shouldn't produce a whole +1 of food trade good reglardles of whether there is 1 or 10 people living there, just turning into a +2 if you have +1 the arbitrary amount of slaves required.

The food system was a good idea. But the game is past the time in refinement to put it up to date. It was good for when 1.2 came out and the game was still kind of bland. But you cannot just settle for that. Not in this period where it was food and farming that determined the economy and development of a country. Where as here its some side stat you dont really have to worry about. Every 50-100 years or so put some extra slaves, or import some extra grain of which there is always availability and problem solved.

If it had been that ridiculously easy for the people of the ancient period, the industrial revolution would've happened back then and now we would probably be having this conversation from another planet in another Galaxy. Sadly food was the main issue of the time.

 

[cristofolmc]

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.

Again, this attempts to makes sense of such an abstraction dont work. You already have a surplus enough to export from the time you have +30 food in the province and most of it goes to the bin because you just store 1000-3000 max average. So yeah you dont really need to produce +2 most of the time to be able to export. The game just doesnt have a mechanic that allows you. But if your province surplus you could turn it into surpluses of trade goods, you'd easily be able to export around +5 food trade goods without actually having to produce a surplus in any of the province's territories. Thats how little sense the system makes.

 

[Rabid]

Yes but that is ridiculous. The land itself produces food magically without nobody working it, and they conse food from there, and then they also produce a shitload of food from the trade good 1 single pop produces. If you add a building and a few slaves, that will be twice.

Trying to explain the abstraction and make sense of it doesnt make the system less bad. It just doesn't make sense. Territories shouldnt produce a set number of food regardless of whether there is 1 or 200 pops and each province shouldn't produce a whole +1 of food trade good reglardles of whether there is 1 or 10 people living there, just turning into a +2 if you have +1 the arbitrary amount of slaves required.

The food system was a good idea. But the game is past the time in refinement to put it up to date. It was good for when 1.2 came out and the game was still kind of bland. But you cannot just settle for that. Not in this period where it was food and farming that determined the economy and development of a country. Where as here its some side stat you dont really have to worry about. Every 50-100 years or so put some extra slaves, or import some extra grain of which there is always availability and problem solved.

If it had been that ridiculously easy for the people of the ancient period, the industrial revolution would've happened back then and now we would probably be having this conversation from another planet in another Galaxy. Sadly food was the main issue of the time.

Does anyone think that the current state of food is good? It's clearly been set up in a fairly backwards way conceptually, and then tuned such that food is virtually a non issue. However it's something that needs addressing because it has the potential to be interesting and meaningful, rather than something which needs addressing because the current implementation is causing gameplay problems.

 

[cristofolmc]

I am less bothered by the amount of surplus trade goods as I am by the general surplus of food. The overabundance of food leads to food to be less important, and with it so do food trade goods, food buildings and more generally farmland.

One of my top priorities would be to change food production from a flat province output to a pop based output. Where slaves, freemen and tribesmen produce food, but only up to a terrain and climate dependent maximum. This should overal reduce the availability of food, change the desirable POP composition, and allow for interesting effects such as unemployment and food supply issues due to raised levies.

It would be so much more interesting adding a building that allowed to produce X amount of food per X amount of pops. And you can upgreade it the more pops you have. That way food production would depend on the number of pops you have and pop output (or they could introduce a new modifier, farming efficiency, which would apply both to pops and the land itself). That way no more producing the same amount of food 1 pop in a fertile land that 10.

This way you also prevent the problem of making pops to give a flat out food output, because not all pops engage in farming/fishing etc. You'd have to have the farms/fisheries, etc so the people there can actually farm. Otherwise people in a city obviously wont produce any food. That way you can choose to have a settleent with slaves for mining or with freemen for farming, and decide that you want a more rural society because you need food for more pop growth, or you want to concentrate more people in the city, at the expense of less people in the country producing food, and conquering other lands to import it from instead.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Does anyone think that the current state of food is good? It's clearly been set up in a fairly backwards way conceptually, and then tuned such that food is virtually a non issue. However it's something that needs addressing because it has the potential to be interesting and meaningful, rather than something which needs addressing because the current implementation is causing gameplay problems.

I will risk being a snob here but food has a lot of potential but is not a gameplay problem.

Only experienced players see food as a problem as it is. Other players enjoy food not beign a headache, they are learning the game and take pleasure of mastering food supply.

More reasons for a better difficulty system with options for food production. Of course, after food is implemented as food produced/POP and not free per territory

 

[cristofolmc]

I try to have all other bonus as well, they are quite good:
View attachment 690815

Interesting thought. Food should be essential for population growth, that finally gives you all other benefits. In game food is granted without much effort. As @crownsteler said, food production should be function of POPs:

• Noble: -0.50/month
• Citizen: -0.30/month
• Freeman: -0.20/month +0.30/month
• Tribesman: -0.20/month +0.28/month
• Slave: -0.10/month +0.15/month

We already proved that this was possible here

I really dont like this and I see it creating a lot of problems. I much prefer my simple solution from my post above (sorry, I dont know how to edit a message and insert a quote. Stupid forum changes ). I just dont think that tribesmen and freeman in a city should produce food. I'd much rather the farm being the one producing food, but the farm requiring X number of pops to produce the food (either that or base the buildig food output on the number of pops, producing more up to a certain number the more pops of the type you have in the territory)

 

[IsaacCAT]

I really dont like this and I see it creating a lot of problems. I much prefer my simple solution from my post above (sorry, I dont know how to edit a message and insert a quote. Stupid forum changes ). I just dont think that tribesmen and freeman in a city should produce food. I'd much rather the farm being the one producing food, but the farm requiring X number of pops to produce the food (either that or base the buildig food output on the number of pops, producing more up to a certain number the more pops of the type you have in the territory)

Cities do not expand the whole land in the territory, even nowadays next to big cities you have patches of farm land. The building as a requirement is a too high constrain for base food production.

 

[cristofolmc]

Does anyone think that the current state of food is good? It's clearly been set up in a fairly backwards way conceptually, and then tuned such that food is virtually a non issue. However it's something that needs addressing because it has the potential to be interesting and meaningful, rather than something which needs addressing because the current implementation is causing gameplay problems.

Well indeed. You cannot have an ancient civilization building game with concept such as food, pop growth, migration, settlements and cities with the cornerstone element of it all (food) not mattering at all. A big oversight by the devs that I hope it gets adressed in the trade/economy overhaul. Food should be the main social factor for change and economy not pop taxes or even trade. That should only be able to come once you have the food guaranteed (which was THE BIG challenge of any society at the time) and capped by the surplus of food you can produce, instead of limitless like now. You cannot have big research and lots of cities with lots of trades if you don't procure massive food surpluses. And as of now the massive food surpluses are the default state of the game that only ever changes if you have several megacities in one province, otherwise you never have to worry about food. Feels more like our modern world rather than the ancient world

 

[cristofolmc]

Cities do not expand the whole land in the territory, even nowadays next to big cities you have patches of farm land. The building as a requirement is a constrain and a too high lower bar for food production.

Yes but you know in the game thats how its represented. Thats why cities don't produce food trade goods. Territories are small enough to represent that that particular territory is mostly the city.

And I dont see why its a constrain at all. You have several building levels like with any cities that allows more and more pops to produce food as population grows, so does the farming infrastructure. Just like with any other building really.

I think its better than the massive abtraction of having every freeman in the world produce food regardless of whether it lives in a city, is unemployed, is a soldier in a legion, an artisian, a trader, etc etc etc. You might as well have the pop not consuming food and just producing +0.10 food since thats the net food output regardless of anything else at all

 

[crownsteler]

It would be so much more interesting adding a building that allowed to produce X amount of food per X amount of pops. And you can upgreade it the more pops you have. That way food production would depend on the number of pops you have and pop output (or they could introduce a new modifier, farming efficiency, which would apply both to pops and the land itself). That way no more producing the same amount of food 1 pop in a fertile land that 10.

This way you also prevent the problem of making pops to give a flat out food output, because not all pops engage in farming/fishing etc. You'd have to have the farms/fisheries, etc so the people there can actually farm. Otherwise people in a city obviously wont produce any food. That way you can choose to have a settleent with slaves for mining or with freemen for farming, and decide that you want a more rural society because you need food for more pop growth, or you want to concentrate more people in the city, at the expense of less people in the country producing food, and conquering other lands to import it from instead.

The advantage of giving a flat output per freemen/tribesmen/slave POP is its simplicity; you don't have to micromanage buildings in your provinces to produce food, which is something you'd have to do if you tie it to building certain buildings.

Back then the vast majority of people were employed in farming, especially outside of the cities. The small percentage doing other stuff can, IMO, be safely ignored. Food production is also tied to 'lower class' POPs, which leaves citizen POPs to produce other, more advanced, goods (for the next economy update ).

Of course both food output per POP, as well as maximum food output per province, should be changable by innovations and province buildings. An innovation such as the (Carthaginian) Plostellum punicum would increase food output per POP, while a farming settlement building would increase the maximum food production per province (increase the amount of available farmland). You could go further by having trade good also influence this, with food trade goods increase the amount of food production/farm space, while trade goods such as base metals would decrease it (to represent what the POPs are employed in).

I am not sure how this proposal would not fulfil your last point? By tying food production to POP types (and terrain), it will become far harder to feed mega cities and mono-POP types regions. You'll need significant amounts of freemen to actually feed your cities, and you can't realisticly afford more than one city in a territory. In the end the only way to truly feed your cities would, as you say, be trade and conquest; you'll need those juicy food trade goods to fuel your cities.

You mention forseeing a lot of problems with this system? Could you elaborate?

I think its better than the massive abtraction of having every freeman in the world produce food regardless of whether it lives in a city, is unemployed, is a soldier in a legion, an artisian, a trader, etc etc etc. You might as well have the pop not consuming food and just producing +0.10 food since thats the net food output regardless of anything else at all

The beauty here is that it automatically takes all of that into account: there is a maximum limit of food production per province, any POP producing above that is, in effect, unemployed! They don't add anything at all to your nation. Levied and mobilised troops will automatically no longer produce food, thus representing the logistical problem of having your food producing population out on campaign. Cities could have modified food production limits (for example -2 maximum), to represent that more land is being taken up by cities.

The food production and food consumption modifier is exactly there to represent unemployed POPs. As soon as all farmland is 'occupied' in your territory, additional freemen can't produce food anymore, but do still eat. So you can't just push the population upward, as your POPs become unproductive after a certain point. you could further give 'unemployed' POPs a negative happiness and migration push modifier so they move to the cities and territories where there is still farmland.

If I may say so myself, it is a very elegant way to represent the social development happening during the later Roman republic:
-People are pushed from their lands by latifunda (slaves, which take presidence in food production 'space')
-They move to cities
-They don't actually add anything to your country, but drain resources
- You can freely draft them into the army as you don't need them for food anymore.

 

[Arthrodira]

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.

There's not a lot of family planning going on here. That's the rosy 21st century view of things. The reality is population increases more in areas with more food because fewer people starve to death or are malnourished and so die of disease. Increased agricultural production increases the population by decreasing the amount of death. Nobody is going, you know this land is so rich and produces so much food - let's have another kid. Reduced death and migration from areas where people are starving is why the population grows in fertile regions (because it's the premodern world and there's not a lot of family planning in the desert either - nobody is going, hey we can only grow so much wheat here, maybe we shouldn't have another kid).

So actually stored food is a good model. There's food stored so people don't starve. There's food stored so people who are starving move to where the food is.