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There was epic battle with AI, a slog fest of moving frontline towards AI city. Then I got idea, what if I would take his last and only source of water? His whole army should collapse due hunger - since it will not have enough water to water all the domes he got. I plunged my forces towards his ice mining thing, took it and holding it now for 5 turns or so... but his army is still strong and not hungry? at all. If AI would take just one of my water sources I would be in HUGE troubles. Is AI playing by same rules?

tldr: I took one and only water supply of AI with hope, that water shortage would affect his farming domes and hunger, but it does not seem to take an effect - 5 turns so far. Am I missing something?

Is there a way to check what is going on on his side? I'm kinda confused

Nevermind, it took 10 turns or so to take full effect

The AI might have had big stockpiles. In fact the AI has a small advantages in stockpiling rules compared to humans.

best wishes,
Vic

When cutting of water source, you need to be aware of the free water everyone gets from Rain, Rivers, lakes and the Ocean. See Manual, "5.5.3.2. free water InCome"
Also be aware that the private farms do not need water to run (making a starving population unlikely) and do provide some public food.

However this planet seems to have been dry enough so he felt it.

Private farms need no water? Is that not massively exploitable on arid/desert worlds?

ORIGINAL: bvoid

Private farms need no water? Is that not massively exploitable on arid/desert worlds?

Nope.
Private Farms produce Private Food as primary yield. Private food is for the non-worker population to consume. For the private economy to buy and sell. Short of income tax and lower Trader prices for food, you get nothing from Private Food.

You get maybe 1/10th of the overall production in Public Food. You need a lot more to feed a decent workforce and army.
And the private economy will not overbuild, so not like you have a way to realy get more of them.

No... this IS a problem. Since the human player can utilize emergency food to feed 'private sector' population - and this food IS produced using water - there is an internal inconsistency going on. It isn't like the private sector doesn't have access to the massively overdeveloped 'trader' mechanic. The private sector can purchase water if it doesn't have access to it within its own borders.

A 'quick fix' (without massive realignment of the software engine), would be to require private sector farms to require some amount of credits as part of the production requirement - to account for purchasing some form of water from the mysterious 'traders'. Two years ago during the Beta testing, I did a MASSIVE write up detailing the problems with the credit economy - many of those problems have been corrected, some have not. At the very least, it should be mentioned within the description for the assets (private food production), that water purchases OUTSIDE the normal water accounting system are being made - and the final 'productivity' of the asset has this issue 'built in' - possibly some form of behind the scenes 'trade' of a portion of the crop in return for a quantity of water to grow the entire crop. Just mentioning something like this would account for 'the problem'.

No... this IS a problem. Since the human player can utilize emergency food to feed 'private sector' population - and this food IS produced using water - there is an internal inconsistency going on.

The only scenario where Emergency food is nessesary or possible, is if the Private Farms do not produce enough Private Food.
That point where it literally is between "use public food" and "starve".
And the point where the next farming asset is the next building to make.

In 95% of all turns, 0 Emergency Food is distributed. And in the remaining cases, you choose to allow it to flow. So I fail to see the issue you are trying to argue into existence here.