Increase food management with food production per type of POP, type of territory and civ level

[IsaacCAT]

Preface: long time ago I made a suggestion to increase food management by increasing food consumption per POP type (1). However, @crownsteler was right to point out that any improvement on food management should incorporate POP production as well, getting rid of the baseline level of food production for territory (2).

Observation: food is a non issue in the game when it was a determinant factor in stability in the ancient times and its production/acquisition was critical to all nations. Food management should be a worry for the player, taking care of the supply and demand from POPs, modified by territories fertility and variable demand from civilization level.

Suggestion: baseline level of food production per territory is replaced by food production per type of POP, type of territory and civ level following the formulae:

Food consumed per POP (*): EDITED: added diminishing returns for food production following @DukeLeto42 commentary:

• Noble: -0.50/month * Level of Civ
• Citizen: -0.30/month * Level of Civ
• Freeman: -0.20/month * Level of Civ +0.20/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.005*number of POPs))
• Tribesman: -0.20/month * Level of Civ +0.20/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.005*number of POPs))
• Slave: -0.10/month * Level of Civ +0.15/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.005*number of POPs))

(*) numbers to be balanced

Objective:

This system wants to accomplish these objectives:

1. Make food more important following your progress
2. To allow the player to settle POPs in fertile lands to produce enough food surplus to maintain your provincial population
3. To give meaning to food trade routes to have enough food to maintain your provincial capitals population

As a bonus objective, this systems makes megacities less easy to achieve and makes food more important than the available population capacity to achieve max city POPs number, as food always should be the determinant factor and not the city infrastructure alone.

Example 1: small city

In the current game (2.0.3) a small city like Vatluna in Italia has 37 POPs (7 nobles, 9 citizens, 13 freemen, 0 tribesmen, 8 slaves), it is on plains, 57 civilization value and its food production is 8.99:

With the suggestion implemented, the resulting food income will be:

Plains: +0.00
Livestock: +3.00
Grain: +5.00
Province Capital: +1.00
Encourage Trade: +6.00%
Warm Climate: +10.00%
Surplus of Grain in Capital: +5.00%
Urban Planning: +5.00%
Civic Advances: +17.00%
Citizen: 9 * -0.30 * 1.57 (civ level) = -4.24
Freeman: 13 * ( -0.20 * 1.57 (civ level) +0.20 * 2 (plains) ) = +1.12
Noble: 7 * -0.50 * 1.57 (civ level) = -5.50
Slave: 8 * ( -0.10 * 1.57 (civ level) +0.15 * 2 (plains) ) = 1.14

Total food income = 12.87 - 4.24 + 1.12 - 5.50 +1.14 = 5.39

As you can see, the implications of this system are more vast as you transform your nation. At the end of the game, you will want to have as much cities as possible with high civilization level and your majority of POPs in them, thus reducing the food surplus from your other territories and increased consumption. Food will gradually become a problem that the player will have to manage or else POPs will migrate away from the most populated cities.

If we take our example and increase the civ level to 80 with the other factors equal, we have the following numbers:

Plains: +0.00
Livestock: +3.00
Grain: +5.00
Province Capital: +1.00
Encourage Trade: +6.00%
Warm Climate: +10.00%
Surplus of Grain in Capital: +5.00%
Urban Planning: +5.00%
Civic Advances: +17.00%
Citizen: 9 * -0.30 * 1.80 (civ level) = -4.86
Freeman: 13 * ( -0.20 * 1.80 (civ level) +0.20 * 2 (plains) ) = +0.52
Noble: 7 * -0.50 * 1.80 (civ level) = -6.30
Slave: 8 * ( -0.10 * 1.80 (civ level) +0.15 * 2 (plains) ) = 0.96

Total food income = 12.87 - 4.86 + 0.52 - 6.30 +0.96 = 3.19

Example 2: Big City

If we take a big city like Rome as an example, with 138 POPs (24, 59, 39, 16) we have the following numbers in the current game with civ level 64%:

With this suggestion this big city would have the following food income:

Farmlands: +0.00
Grain: +5.00
Fish: +3.00
Livestock: +3.00
Province Capital: +1.00
Encourage Trade: +6.00%
Vegetables: +12.00%
Warm Climate: +10.00%
Surplus of Grain in Capital: +5.00%
Urban Planning: +5.00%
Civic Advances: +17.00%
Citizen: 59 * -0.30 * 1.64 (civ level) = -29.03
Freeman: 39 * ( -0.20 * 1.64 (civ level) +0.20 * 2.5 (farmlands) * 0.5 (diminishing returns) = -3.04
Noble: 24 * -0.50 * 1.64 (civ level) = -19.68
Slave: 16 * ( -0.10 * 1.64 (civ level) +0.15 * 2.5 (farmlands)* 0.5 (diminishing returns) = 0.37

Total food income = 18.6 - 29.03 + 3.04 - 19.68 +0.37 = -26.7


References:
(1) https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-implement-squalor-fire-and-diseases.1451428/
(2) https://imperator.paradoxwikis.com/Food

 

[DukeLeto42]

I agree food production should reflect the population, but there's two issues I have with the suggestion:

1. High-civilization and high-population cities should definitely mean almost no food is produced in the territory, but boosting civilization in rural settlements should facilitate food production as it would imply better infrastructure (better local roads, terracing, etc.).
2. This model of food production does not represent the diminishing returns of increased agricultural labor in a region.

I'd counter by suggesting that, instead of having food produced per pop, slaves, tribesmen, and freemen would each extract a portion of a "local food capacity" value (set by terrain type, good type, buildings, innovations, etc.). Boosting local food capacity would increase the number of pops needed to extract all that food (there could even be a formula for diminishing returns as each new pop contributes less and less to food production).

 

[IsaacCAT]

High-civilization and high-population cities should definitely mean almost no food is produced in the territory, but boosting civilization in rural settlements should facilitate food production as it would imply better infrastructure (better local roads, terracing, etc.).

Territory is more than the city, is not all urbanized. Nowadays, you have farmlands next to cities. Civilization is infrastructure, but we have already roads in the game and terracing and other inventions should be in the technology tree.

This model of food production does not represent the diminishing returns of increased agricultural labor in a region.

You are right.

We have to differentiate between settlements and cities. Settlements cannot grow too much because population capacity is limited, thus no overpopulation on the fields. For cities we have the diminishing returns plus the availability of farm land that you pointed out in the first point.

However, we do not know where is the limit for max available farm land in a given territory with a city inside it.

My guess is that even if a city grows tall you will always have land available and diminishing returns for freemen/slaves working the available land will not kick in. Because desired ratios will promote enough citizens and nobles to limit your max growth due to food consumption. Even if you set a city to have the max number of freemen to be a farm city for your province (something that I encourage) the player will find a soft limit before land capacity is exhausted. If I have time today on the plane I will run a simulation to prove this.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Ok, no need for any simulation, megacities are built on the premise of not allowing slave to promote, to hell my hypothesis for desired ratios.

I will correct my suggestion to add a diminishing returns for food production, the formula being:

• Freeman: -0.20/month * Level of Civ +0.20/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.001*(number of freeman/tribesmen/slaves)))
• Tribesman: -0.20/month * Level of Civ +0.20/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.001*(number of freeman/tribesmen/slaves)))
• Slave: -0.10/month * Level of Civ +0.15/month * (2.5 in farmlands, 2.0 in plains, 1,5 in hills/jungle and 1 in desert/forest/marsh/mountains) * (exp(-0.001*(number of freeman/tribesmen/slaves)))

The formula for diminishing returns will decrease the production of food function of the number of people working on the fields.

You can plot it here: https://www.desmos.com/calculator f(x)=exp(-0.001*x) with x the number of freemen + tribesmen + slaves.

For example:

x= 100, f(x) = 0.905
x= 200 f(x) = 0.819
x= 300 f(x) = 0.741
x= 400 f(x) = 0.669
x= 500 f(x) = 0.607
x= 600 f(x) = 0.549
x= 700 f(x) = 0.497
x= 800 f(x) = 0.449
x= 900 f(x) = 0.407
x= 1,000 f(x) = 0.368

 

[IsaacCAT]

Running the numbers for truly big cities the food produced by slaves is too much. The diminishing returns should take into account the availability of land as you have said. If we introduce total population and increase the constant of diminishing returns I think we can achieve it:

(exp(-0.005*(number of POPs)))

With this formula, in my example of Rome with 138 POPs we have 0.5 factor on food production (available land and marginal value) with the effect of total production being almost constant no matter the increase of POPs in the city.

With this formula a metropolis with 80 POPs will have 0.67 factor on food produced.

If you double population the factor will be 0.45. It is not half reduction to keep food production constant, but I guess some of the increase of POPs should be on citizens and nobles than do not produce food. Thus, making food production almost constant once you reach a certain number of POPs.