Food -- a hypothetical question

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What if food was a critical resource in the game. Or in otherwords, the
world only had enough of it to feed half the sectors up to max_pop. Would
this be fun? Would this add to the game? How would you "old-timers" handle
the situation? Oh, and has this been done before?

Mark

 

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In article <2s57ifF1hltt5U1@uni-berlin.de>,
Mark Stokje <mst_dont_spam_me@yahoo.com> wrote:
>What if food was a critical resource in the game. Or in otherwords, the
>world only had enough of it to feed half the sectors up to max_pop. Would
>this be fun? Would this add to the game? How would you "old-timers" handle
>the situation? Oh, and has this been done before?

It's certainly been discussed. Food used to be a more strategic resource
than it is now. Now, food is very easy to come by which is probably one
of the principle reasons why some people want to get rid of it. What
use is it if it's so easy to get?

In LOTR, we tried to make food more scarce. It was still possible to
feed everyone, but you had to dedicate about 10% of your nation's land
to agricultural production. The players I spoke to about this seemed
to like it.

The normal ratio of other land : aggie land is about 30:1. Thus, a
nation of 200 sectors needs about 7 aggies to support everything.
In LOTR, we used 10:1. I'd be curious to see what the effect would
be with 1:1.5 or 1:2. You'd have to intentionally leave some sectors
unpopulated in order to keep other sectors from starving.

If ROLLOVER_AVAIL was used with this...wow. I'd be in danger of
losing my 2004 Jerkoff of the Year award if I didn't say "I think
this would induce a lot of micromanagement".

-Geoff
aka Mithrilien

 

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"Mark Stokje" <mst_dont_spam_me@yahoo.com> writes:

> What if food was a critical resource in the game. Or in otherwords, the
> world only had enough of it to feed half the sectors up to max_pop. Would
> this be fun? Would this add to the game? How would you "old-timers" handle
> the situation? Oh, and has this been done before?

I'd have to carefully control population to produce the right things
while avoiding starvation. I figure it would drive me crazy real
fast

 

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"Geoff Cashman" <theobviousgcashman@theobviousindiana.edu> wrote in message
news:cjjrbr$vd8$3@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
>
> It's certainly been discussed. Food used to be a more strategic resource
> than it is now. Now, food is very easy to come by which is probably one
> of the principle reasons why some people want to get rid of it. What
> use is it if it's so easy to get?
>
> In LOTR, we tried to make food more scarce. It was still possible to
> feed everyone, but you had to dedicate about 10% of your nation's land
> to agricultural production. The players I spoke to about this seemed
> to like it.
>
> The normal ratio of other land : aggie land is about 30:1. Thus, a
> nation of 200 sectors needs about 7 aggies to support everything.
> In LOTR, we used 10:1. I'd be curious to see what the effect would
> be with 1:1.5 or 1:2. You'd have to intentionally leave some sectors
> unpopulated in order to keep other sectors from starving.
>
> If ROLLOVER_AVAIL was used with this...wow. I'd be in danger of
> losing my 2004 Jerkoff of the Year award if I didn't say "I think
> this would induce a lot of micromanagement".
>
> -Geoff
> aka Mithrilien
>
>

You would also have to be very careful about ocean location and fertility.
In the LOTR games, it was possible to feed yourself from the sea.

Tim

 

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In article <Wdg7d.166874$787.29019@fe2.columbus.rr.com>,
Tim Burnett <tburnett2atcincidotrrdotcom> wrote:
>
>You would also have to be very careful about ocean location and fertility.
>In the LOTR games, it was possible to feed yourself from the sea.
>

Yes, it was. But, the fishies were far enough away from land that other
nations could wipe out your fishing fleet fairly easily. Also, it took
a fair bit of mob to get to and from harbor.

-Geoff
aka Mithrilien

 

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>In LOTR, we tried to make food more scarce.

You shouldn't have equal resources in each sector though.

Better to have 1 sector with 100% fert and a bunch with 0% fert

Why that isn't obvious to everyone is beyond me. Every real life strategic
conflict has had unequal resources scattered around in various places, which is
what most of the fighting is about in the first place. In Iraq for example, the
oil is concentrated in just a few provinces, and those provinces would like to
secede and keep all the oil revenue for themselves. The oil poor provinces
generally would like to hold the country together, so they can get a part of
the oil revenues from the oil rich provinces.