Food system in beta 4 onwards

[SMK-at-work]

Frank wrote and answered thus -

So the idea in beta4 is that the conquest of food hexes will actually produce more initial food than it does now (1:1), to represent the fact the existing food can be looted but that once the hex is "exhausted" that food hex is out of the war.

and

How long were planning on allowing a conquered food resource to contribute to the conquering nation?

There's a 30% chance each turn after food is harvested from the hex that the hex will become exhausted.

Having thought about it some more, IMO this system is wrong from a historical perspective.

Under this when (if) Russia surrenders Germany gets a massive influx of food straight away that will then taper off as time passes.

This is exactly the opposite of what actually happened......they got almost no food straight away and there wasn't enough time for the food from the Ukraine to get to Germany in any significant amount before the armistice.

So I suggest reversing it - captured food produces NOTHING initially....but has a 30% chance of coming "online" each turn - but would then only produce at 1/3rd or perhaps 1/2 IMO.

[06 Maestro]

Yep; I have to agree with you.

[Joel Rauber]

IIRC, Frank said that food sources captured from countries that surrender keep on producing. The food source running out business was for sources captured from a country that hasn't yet surrendered.

Is this correct?

[Szilard]

ORIGINAL: Joel Rauber

IIRC, Frank said that food sources captured from countries that surrender keep on producing. The food source running out business was for sources captured from a country that hasn't yet surrendered.

Is this correct?

What I see is different: if you capture a resource hex & it subsequently runs out, it stays disappeared after you force the country to surrender. Doesn't seem right to me.

[SMK-at-work]

My understanding is the running out bit is for food resources from countries that DO surrender.

[FrankHunter]

Under this when (if) Russia surrenders Germany gets a massive influx of food straight away that will then taper off as time passes.

No, food doesn't "taper" off due to surrender.  The ratio of 1:2 stays that way.

My understanding is the running out bit is for food resources from countries that DO surrender.

Nope, other way around.

The idea of the change to food is that if a farmer wakes up one morning to be told he is no longer part of country A and is instead part of country B I think that is far less disruptive to food production than to wake up and find your farm the subject of a small battle, artillery bombardment and pillaging by enemy troops.

Therefore the idea is that food hexes handed over via surrender keep producing but food hexes taken by storm supply food for a short time (pillaging) and then are exhausted.

[SMK-at-work]

Certainly being part of a battlefield has to be bad for agriculture, so perhaps food resources that are fought in shuold be removed for a while??

However aparently waking up as part of a new country was quite a problem for many, who refused to hand their food over and even hid it....indeed that appears to be what German farmers did even when they woke up still as part of Germany by 1918!!

At 1:2 captured food is effectively a big influx when captured.........and then it tapers off because there's a 30% chance of the resource becoming unavailable each turn?

I'm geting confused....what happens to food resources that are conquered before the country surrenders, and what hapens to those that are annexed when a country surrenders?[&:]

[Joel Rauber]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

. . .

I'm geting confused....what happens to food resources that are conquered before the country surrenders,

presumably its what happens to such a food resource after the country surrenders. Is it still permanently gone or does it come back to life at the 1:2 ratio??

and what hapens to those that are annexed when a country surrenders?[&:]

[FrankHunter]

At 1:2 captured food is effectively a big influx when captured.........and then it tapers off because there's a 30% chance of the resource becoming unavailable each turn?

No, "surrendered" food never tapers off.  Its not subject to the 30% chance that "captured" food is.

I'm geting confused....what happens to food resources that are conquered before the country surrenders,

Those are subject to the 30% chance of removal.

and what hapens to those that are annexed when a country surrenders?

They are not subject to the 30% rule and produce on a 1:2 basis.

However aparently waking up as part of a new country was quite a problem for many, who refused to hand their food over and even hid it....

I'm sure it wouldn't be an entirely smooth process which is why I chose a ratio of 1:2 instead of 1:1.  But, I figured it has to be a lot better than the farmer abandoning his farm and escaping with his family and animals. 

[FrankHunter]

Anyway, its just an idea, give it a whirl and see what you think about it afterwards.

[SMK-at-work]

OK - thanks - I think I understand it now.

I still think that captured food should probably start at 0 tho, and get better....not the other way around

[FrankHunter]

I still think that captured food should probably start at 0 tho, and get better....not the other way around

Why?  "Captured" food is a hex that has been taken.  There's a good chance the farmer and his livestock are dead or have become refugees. 

[SMK-at-work]

Exactly - there's a good chance the hex is worthless right when you capture it, but you can bring in colonists, the farmer might be hiding in the woods and come out with his cows when the fighting goes by, etc.

So when you capture (or even recapture if you owned it orriginally) it it is worth 0 to you....with a chance that it will start producing as time goes by - if a hex keeps getting fought over it may produce nothing at all for the whole war....

[FrankHunter]

Let's throw this one out to the floor and see what others think.

[James Ward]

I think food has to be designed for effect. It is highly abstract to begin with, with one hex 'feeding' millions of people for a 2 month period. So I think it should reflect what happened rather than worry about if this one runs out or that one has a bumper crop.
The CP did face food problems even after Russia surrendered. As long as the game portrays this I think any system works.
It would be nice if food morale loss could be regained to a degree because you can have temporary food losses that don't have long term effects on a nations overall morale like a failed harvest. A record harvest the next year would certainly boost morale a little bit.

[SMK-at-work]

Good points...my concern with the Russian food after surrender is that it becomes available immediately - whereas in "real life" it didn't...as you say.  Hence I'd look for some sort of seasonal production (Russia surrenders march 1918, harvest isn't for a few months after so no food immediately available) or "activation" as I mention above.

[hjaco]

I think the main issue is not production in itself of food but the logistics and administration wasteland which would occur after a transition of 4 years warfare with internal political turmoil followed by occupation by a different culture.

The Ukraine as most of that time Russia still had a largely medieval infrastructure. Setting up a system to collect food and transport it through earth roads to assembly areas for mostly river transport would probably not have been an easy transition.

Remember that through the Soviet period the problem was never production on food at the farms itself (well maybe except through the collectivisation of its agriculture) but exactly to distribute the food timely.

I have no idea how many metric tons a food resource in GOA represents but to collect, transport and distribute it should go through a transition of lessened food gain IMHO.

[Szilard]

ORIGINAL: hjaco

I think the main issue is not production in itself of food but the logistics and administration wasteland which would occur after a transition of 4 years warfare with internal political turmoil followed by occupation by a different culture.

The Ukraine as most of that time Russia still had a largely medieval infrastructure. Setting up a system to collect food and transport it through earth roads to assembly areas for mostly river transport would probably not have been an easy transition.

Remember that through the Soviet period the problem was never production on food at the farms itself (well maybe except through the collectivisation of its agriculture) but exactly to distribute the food timely.

I have no idea how many metric tons a food resource in GOA represents but to collect, transport and distribute it should go through a transition of lessened food gain IMHO.

]

I agree with this (I also recall reading that Russian food problems during WW1 were also mainly due to transportation difficulties, as well as hording effects due to inflation).

If you take transportation, rather than fleeing farmers etc etc as the main constraint, I think it leads you to sensible modelling. Resources (note: including raw materials) can be degraded but not eliminated by capture, and don't "run out". They should build back over time, with a degree of randomness. In the West, the recovery should be relatively fast; in Poland, less so; in the Ukraine, very slow. I don't think there's much room for an initial "looting" boost.

[SMK-at-work]

Transport can't have been too much of a problem, because the Ukraine exported grain every year (harvest permitting) - indeed one of the reasons for trying ot force the Dardanelles was to re-establish russian grain exports from the Black Sea.
 
In this thread - http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1587373 I link to a NY times article from 1922 that notes that the area under cultivation in the Ukraine in 1921 was only about 55% of that in 1916 - transportation wasn't the only problem - the sheer disruption of war driving peasants off their land was a major part of it too. 
 
Various factors are noted - the lack of horses to actually work the land, the lack of transport to get seed grain to the farms, and the lack of meat animals that would have to be replaced in the diet by grain.

[Joel Rauber]

The lesson of history:

We don't really get a definitive lesson from history, we just know that if Russia surrenders late in the war there isn't enough time to export well to Germany. But what about two years after the surrender? Any answer we make would only be conjecture, but I'd bet that as the logistic infrastructure got sorted out it wouldn't be as bad. So perhaps I'm partially agreeing with SMK.

So I'll throw this out for discussion:

Perhaps there should be a small one time shot when you capture a food resource (plundering) and the then a gradual improvement of to some fractional level. This would be simple (at the expense of "needless" detail, and would remove the need to distinguish between conquered sources from offensive action versus food sources taken upon surrender of the country.