Can food be destroyed ?

[hjaco]

I have to my horror noted that conquered food hexes in Russia suddenly disappeared. Can they be destroyed now just like factories ?

Furthermore the purple peril took one food resource which I have now liberated but the food resource is now gone ?

This is with 1.2 of course.

In addition its no longer possible to gobble up isolated hexes with lone unactivated corps. Is this intended ?

[boogada]

I think food can now be destroyed. That was one of the changes. 

[justaguy93]

I had a similar question awhile back and the response I got was that there is a % chance each turn that a captured food hex will become depleted and dissapear forever.  So captured food is only a temporary benefit.

[Franck]

This is actually part of my strategy... conquer food hex even if I know I'll be pushed back, in the hope that in the 3-4 turns I'll be there they will disappear on my ennemy. This is espescially useful with the TE since the CP are so low on food anyways.

[Joel Rauber]

This makes me wonder if food hexes should come back to life if you recapture one of your own food hexes? Or have a probability of coming back to life each turn you own the hex after recapture?

[hjaco]

I agree that your own "recaptured" food resources should sooner or later be restored to full capacity. After all this is WW1 where crops may be destroyed but grown again next season.

The Germans destroyed captured French raw materials in Alsace which was one of the various reasons why France enforced such harsh conditions in the Versailles treaty so i can understand a for the war "permanent" destruction.

[SMK-at-work]

IIRC there's a 20% chance each strategic turn that any captured food resource will be destroyed, representing "over looting" or somesuch.

I argued that this was the wrong way around - that it took time to exploit food resources in WW1 (esp the Ukraine in 1918), but Frank decided on this instead.

hjaco - do you have any references to that German action in Alsasce?

[hjaco]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work
hjaco - do you have any references to that German action in Alsasce?

Keynes have made reference to it in his economic works:

http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks ... nsCP4.html
(beginning of section II)

Look also in the section about France in this literature about German occupation policy

http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/E ... ich39.html

In general the Franco-German conflict from Bismarck to WW2 and in fact to the foundation of what later became the European Union should, apart from nationalistic awareness, be seen in the light of the very ore rich region in the area around the Rhine from Liege southwards to the Vosges, where the far majority of various ores in western and central Europe are located. That and the rapid growing needs of industrialization is a not well known major factor in the conflicts between those two countries.

[SMK-at-work]

that 2nd link is excellent - I don't know anything about the veracity of the contents, but it certainly makes good reading on the German occupation of Belgium.
 
From the look of it Frank's system for destroying captured resources was pretty much what was applied to Belgian industry - so maybe it is industry that should be treated like this instead of food?

[hjaco]

Definitely keep destruction of industry infrastructure yes.

I read a couple of years ago about the German destruction in northern France (can't remember the source) that the Germans were so effective, that the majority of French mines were devastated for years to come.

So I can understand a reasoning that votes, that for gaming purposes a raw material hex is gone.

But what should the reasoning be for removing conquered food in the same way ? Sure, that years harvest would definitely be gone if not the next as well and livestock would be requisitioned so productivity would be hurt for years to come. So i guess thats the basic reasoning behind removing the food resources ?

[FrankHunter]

The thinking on food was that an enemy army would do more than take the available crops.  It would also take the livestock (and that doesn't "grow" back next year).  The farmers might have left voluntarily or involuntarily.  The need for wood would probably have meant the destruction of available farm buildings.  Not to mention the effects of shelling the fields as the hex was taken.

All in all, I figured that yes eventually the hex would be restored but would it be restored to the point of producing large surpluses of food within the timeframe of the game?  That I doubted.

[SMK-at-work]

Which did actualy happen - but in Austria Hungary where all the pigs were killed so they wouldn't consume grain, but the subsequent shortage of meat was worse than the shortage of grain would have been, because grain doesn't supply protein in the diet.
 
According to he link hjaco supplied above, Belgians wee starving in a similar manner to Germans..possibly even worse....but the Germans (naturally IMO) were unwilling to let in supplies of food for Belgian civilians supervised by neutrals - having the conquered nation being better fed than the conquerers was unacceptable (possibly short sighted tho - imported food could probably have been substituted for Belgian grown food that could then have been sent to Germany?)
 
the article notes that the German army was pretty much a looting machine in northern France where it ruled, with no thought given to future production, but het occupation Govt in Belgium was more reasonable, so I would expect the German Govt of hte Brest-Litovsk territories to have been less ruthless than the army too.
 

[Shawkhan]

Well of course grain does supply protein; it was the major food source of the Greek and Roman civilizations after all. Ancient grain species, interestingly enough, contained up to 14-15% protein, as contrasted with modern 'high yield' varieties which do contain much less protein than the ancient grains. 
The destruction of food has good arguments both pro and con. I would think that fertile farmland should go back into production providing it wasn't undergoing continuing combat. Even in recent times, French farmers occasionally turn up unexploded munitions left over from WWI while tilling their fields, but it doesn't prevent farming.

[hjaco]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Which did actualy happen - but in Austria Hungary where all the pigs were killed so they wouldn't consume grain, but the subsequent shortage of meat was worse than the shortage of grain would have been, because grain doesn't supply protein in the diet.

According to he link hjaco supplied above, Belgians wee starving in a similar manner to Germans..possibly even worse....but the Germans (naturally IMO) were unwilling to let in supplies of food for Belgian civilians supervised by neutrals - having the conquered nation being better fed than the conquerers was unacceptable (possibly short sighted tho - imported food could probably have been substituted for Belgian grown food that could then have been sent to Germany?)

the article notes that the German army was pretty much a looting machine in northern France where it ruled, with no thought given to future production, but het occupation Govt in Belgium was more reasonable, so I would expect the German Govt of hte Brest-Litovsk territories to have been less ruthless than the army too.

In search of some material regarding requisitioning of grain and livestock in occupied territories I also found some more elaborate descriptions of the vast destruction of mines in northern France.

After reading about the consequences to food, meat and diary production in France i cede any reservations about the current depletion of food resources.

http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/Scott/SChA3.htm

Official summary to the Versailles Treaty:

"The Saar: In compensation for the destruction of coal mines for northern France and as payment on account of reparation, Germany cedes to France full ownership of the coal mines of the Saar basin with their subsidiaries, accessories, and facilities."

http://www.js-ww1.bham.ac.uk/fetch.asp? ... cPhail.pdf

See in particular page 10, 11 & 19:

"In summer of 1921 production of all mines in northern France and Pas-de-Calais area was restored to 1/4 of their prewar levels"

http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/saar.htm

Abstract consideration of Franco-German conflict from an economic and resource point of view.

[SMK-at-work]

After reading about the consequences to food, meat and diary production in France i cede any reservations about the current depletion of food resources.

 
Yeah it's pretty grim all right, and it seems Frank was more on the money thatn I thought too!