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[Hanzoku]

So, is it me or is the game fundementally unbalanced as far as food production goes? I honestly see no way to ever grow a city to 10,000+ inhabitants given cities of 800 in grasslands have trouble feeding themselves and there's no such thing as a surplus of anything in this game.

[Arx]

You'll have to find the ruler in person, wherever he may be.

And then which button?

I have no idea. Hopefully Ehndras or Ratharing know.

[Reelya]

So, is it me or is the game fundementally unbalanced as far as food production goes? I honestly see no way to ever grow a city to 10,000+ inhabitants given cities of 800 in grasslands have trouble feeding themselves and there's no such thing as a surplus of anything in this game.

Well, each "base" farmer makes 10 food. e.g. the first 40 farmers make 400 food, which feeds 400 people. The problem is that the amount of food per farmer tapers off very quickly once you're over the threshold, it quickly reaches a level where each additional farmer makes less than 1 food. And when I say "quickly", i mean that by about farmer #60 each farmer is eating overall more than he produces. These additional farmers do feed more people but it's a diminishing returns, leading to the "800 people can barely feed themselves" issue.

No, the issue is that 40 people can feed 400, but the next 800 people can only feed 400 as well ... clearly, the solution is to stop people from being farmers once each farmer makes less than 1 food each, and export all the excess. That's how you build big cities. It's a small number of farmers on the best land feeding almost everyone, and the rest are basically scrabbling in the dirt wastefully. Farm improvements increase the base amount of farmers before the production amount plummets.

[Arx]

Are you accounting for production bonus buildings? For instance, with a mill I have a village of just over a thousand feeding themselves reasonably handily (insofar as the game tells you anything, but they're only falling slightly), with a solid 15-20% of the population working in construction.

[Muz]

So, is it me or is the game fundementally unbalanced as far as food production goes? I honestly see no way to ever grow a city to 10,000+ inhabitants given cities of 800 in grasslands have trouble feeding themselves and there's no such thing as a surplus of anything in this game.

It's by design. Cities are not supposed to feed themselves. There's supposed to be some rural areas to feed these proper 'cities', and the food just gets exported there.

This is supposed to put some pressure on resource rich locations, as well as pressuring people to do diplomacy, trade, even a little infighting.

[Hanzoku]

That's the thing. You have a village of a thousand who can feed themselves, and that's it. There's nothing left to export to a city that needs 9000 inhabitants just to be able to construct everything, and 'full efficiency' at 18,000.

However, the information about return from farmers here does seem to say that there's really no downside to constructing everything you can construct, as the workers in the building really aren't missed from the overall food production picture. And granted, Hicksburg might have no access to metal, but that won't stop it from very slowly producing swords and other such equipment.

[Arx]

Sort of. They support themselves, and there's a lot to be said for population for its own sake - it keeps buildings running more efficiently and so on. Also, it'll take a while for there to be so many farmers that they're not supporting anyone but themselves.

[Reelya]

Are you accounting for production bonus buildings? For instance, with a mill I have a village of just over a thousand feeding themselves reasonably handily (insofar as the game tells you anything, but they're only falling slightly), with a solid 15-20% of the population working in construction.

Actually what I said holds true. Most farmers are making less than 1 food per person. They're being subsidized by the other farmers. When I say "most" I mean about 700 farmers in your case. You can see this by gradually increasing the number of workers on your building and noting how much food production drops. Say, you add another 50 people to construction, you'll find this reduces food production by maybe 30 or so. Well, that kills 30 people, but you freed up 20 extra people to be construction workers. The maths is pretty clear in the game.

Basically that was the only way that Tom could get the population numbers to plateau out. If each farmer makes at least one food, then you never get a limit: each farmer at least feeds themselves plus more people, leading to infinite growth. Tom didn't want that, he wanted population to stabilize at some level. And to do that, you need to have diminishing returns. e.g. at some point 50 food feeds 50 farmers, and they make 40 food which feeds another 40 farmers. then those 40 farmers make 30 food, feeding another 30 farmers, and so on until you get the last farmer who can't muster enough extra food to add even one person. Sure, you added extra people and they all farmed, but after those 50 guys, each additional guy was actually a net drain on the economy.

But this system is heavily exploitable. Towns which are anywhere near the cap in this system are massively inefficient. it is similar to Zeno's Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles". You can maximize production by working out at which point the farmers hit break-even point, then switching everyone over that to some other job.

[Arx]

I think you're discounting the value of population as a resource in and of itself, though. That 'net drain' has effects on how well other buildings work, even though they're not directly wrking in them.

[Reelya]

The differences in productive labour are huge however. Here is an example for one province:

- total population 888. 802 were farmers. Total labour surplus is therefore 86.

- drop farmers to 186. Food production fell to 591. But I now have a labour surplus of 405. or almost 5 times the free labour.

Also, I could have dropped farmers to about 65, which gave me 500 food production. So 65 farmers would feed a population of 500, giving a labour excess of 435.

I think those numbers really speak for themselves. More food surplus means more workers and soldiers supported. And 500 population shouldn't be so inefficient as to make much of a dent in a 5 times productivity increase. The advantages of running a leaner number of farmers seem pretty clear.

[Revolution]

You'll have to find the ruler in person, wherever he may be.

And then which button?

I have no idea. Hopefully Ehndras or Ratharing know.

Head to Politics -> Relations -> Oath of Fealty -> Chose desired person that is within interaction range.

[Arx]

Ah, I think I've worked out what you've missed. Not everyone farms (although in grassland, it's possible they do). By increasing the size of your construction force, you reduce your supply of wood and, if you're lucky, metal, which reduces construction speed. And construction isn't all there is to the game - a five hundred population village can't even build an armoursmith for making chainmail. Which would put you at a major disadvantage in a game of might.

[Reelya]

about the first point. I did in fact get a market built in less than a day by doing this, while with a "reasonable" 10-20% of workers it would have taken about 1 week. so the slowdowns can't be as much as the extra labour I freed up.

about the second point, any time construction ends the population goes up again since people go back to farming, so it's not a big deal to get something like the armoursmith started when the population goes up then focus workers on other things when needed. I think you only need the required population to actually initiate building actually.

But another question is whether all your provinces need to be producing chainmail or is it something you want to centralize? If so, you're better off feeding excess food into a single city, and focusing only that city on making the armour.

Overall, these considerations don't change the fact that if you have people who are making food and are eating more than they make, you're better off using that food for something else.

[Arx]

If your population falls below the minimum requirement again, the building falls into disrepair and becomes unusable. And it's worth mentioning that in the time it took me to take over my most recent estate and leave (~24 hours, because of shenanigans involving Ascalon being slowpokes ), I got the Market to 80% complete - with 8% labour.

Whilst I don't know if economic security has any direct impact on the game, it's also decreased by a low populaton. Another largely unexplained thing is the curve of the effect of population on prductivity - buildings only reach full productivity at twice the minimum population, but if productivity is quadratic or exponential or whatever then a low population could bite very hard.

I think you're extrapolating from very few data points and factors, and little experience, basically. You're not necessarily wrong, but I'm not going to be basing any policy decisions off that just yet.

[Mookzen]

The core management gameplay revolves around scarcity and economic/demographic equilibrium, nothing is created out of nothing, if someone prospers then it must be on the account of another, great cities can only emerge by force or cooperation. There is an elegance and depth to the system that games involving everyone simply building up constantly from nothing cannot match, resources matter, diplomacy matters, trade matters, army upkeep matters, war is devastating etc.