Food Issues on the 100 player map

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  • Food Issues on the 100 player map

    I have now conquered the majority of north america. I am sitting at around 600 VPs. I am building only infastructure and industrial complexes on food tiles, and have been for a week. But my net food production is.... well below zero.

    My army constitutes less than 25% of my food consumption.

    My question is this: How is it possible to capture 3300 VPs to win this world map without being -3000 food / hour? It seems to me like the population's food consumption ratios need to be adjusted on this map. I know I am not the only one experiencing this.
  • I have done nothing but kill people all game long. I have the most production out of any country, the largest army by a sizeable margin. That does nothing to counter the fact that every time you conquer a province you go farther into food debt. This deficit has nothing to do with army size. Your core province cant produce enough food to overcome the food deficit each conquered province creates.
  • I have been waiting for this toppic :D .

    I posted something like this a few weeks ago based on the 22-player map on the day the 100-player map went live. I predicted there would be trouble with the food production. Unfortunately noone cared to respond to bring the discussion alive. I know one of the dutch forum moderators send the same post on the dutch forum to Bytro labs, I don't know if they have taken anything in consideration.

    I copied my text in the spoiler, since I still stand with what I said a few weeks ago. Please read it, consider it and take it into consideration along with noblepeasant above made points.

    Display Spoiler


    Text copied from Food income and expenses.


    First off all I want to appologize for my English, since I'm not a native speaker.


    In this toppic I want to discuss the food production en how it's spende,
    since it feels really imbalanced to me. Not only food is imbalanced,
    the whole economy system is imbalanced. Those who doubt me, just go to
    your game and open the market. How many goods are there too buy? How
    many too sell? And how about food, or oil or iron? Only the rare
    materials seem balanced too me.


    Back to the food. A lot has been said about this. Some say make units
    cheaper, increase production. In game people say shut down your
    barracks, stop making infantry, make factories and infrastructure.
    Right... we all know that. I've been playing 3 weeks now and the 3 games
    I continued to play I'm #1 army strenght, victory points and
    production. I gess I do ok.


    Last week I've been noticing that my dear Germany's army is becoming
    weaker and weaker. I'm day 17 now with 346 victory points. I've shut
    down the last of my barracks like 10 days ago and since then relied on
    planes, tanks, subs and the infantry I already had. Still my food
    production kept going more into the negative as I continued to conquer
    territory and continued to increase the infrasturcture level in Hannover
    for more food production and making sure the moraal is 100%. At first I
    didn't understandt how this was possible untill I looked at the details
    of food income and expenses.


    Income 23.213 food/day
    Expenses on army 3.100 food/day
    expenses for civillians 20.592 food/day


    My civillians eat all the food! WHY? Please also check in your games how
    this is divided, it also differs a lot between countries.


    Lets add a little more detail to the above.


    Income of food is 23.213/day.
    I have 1 core province that produces food. 10.085 food/day. 100% moraal
    and 160% production bonus (still increasing it). Without production
    bonusses this would be 6.555/day.
    My non-core provinces produce 23.213 (total)-10.085 (core province) = 13.133 food/day.


    Expenses on civillians is 20.592 food/day in total.
    All my german core provinces combined cost me 3187 food/day (5 minets of excell work).
    So my non-core provinces cost me 20.592-3.187= 16.221food/day.


    16.221 food/day to feed the civillians in all my non-core provinces,
    while those provinces only produce 13.133 food/day (thank god I
    conquered ukraine, or I would produce even less). This is a deficit of
    3.092 food/day. How should I fill this gap. Currently I already have a
    few factories, infrastructure and harbours active in non-core provinces
    to increase my food production. this is an heavy investment for a small
    reward. Who wants to spend 3k iron, 2k oil, 10k dollars and 3k goods to
    see food production go from 800/day too 880/day?


    To answer the previous question, where do we get the food to fill up the
    deficit that's present in our non-core provinces? Well we shut down our
    barracks after 1 week of playing. After that we tend to lean to a small
    negative production of food that doesn't hurt the moraal of our
    provinces yet and buy some on the market if we have too. The next step
    is too cut down in upkeep costs of our army and that is only possible if
    we reduce the number of troops (less infantry, less tanks, less planes,
    less ships... less is better).


    Basicly it is a punishment to conquer enemy territory. You gain more
    production of iron, rare material, oil, more money, more menpower, but
    the thing that matters the most is food. The netto food production will
    decline as calculated above and you army size will shrink as you
    continue your conquest. Meaning that that small neighbour of yours with
    40 victory points can maintain a bigger army than you. Purely because he
    will have more food left to spend on his army.


    On the 22-player map some countries really struglle with this problem.
    Like Germany in my example. I also play as Ukraine and I don't have any
    food problem at all as Ukraine, simply because my core provinces produce
    a rediculous amount of food. I spend 9k a day on barrack upkeep and I'm
    ok with that, while fighting 2 countries at once and production is
    continually running in like 15 city's. This also creates a really
    imbalanced situation between countries that produce a lot of food and
    those that produce only a little food. You can't make up for it by
    buying food in the market, since your moraal will go down if your
    production of food is too low (it's not like buying iron or rare
    materials that don't have any influence on moraal). Overall I like the
    differences between the countries, it makes you approach them
    differently.


    Now inmagine how things will work out on the 100-player map. Since your
    netto food production decreases as you continue too conquer countries,
    there will be a point that you will not be able too maintain an army at
    all since all the food will have to be spend on civillian units. This
    map will be a huge faillure with the current balance of food.


    I think it's nessecairy to make some adjustments.


    I prefer a reduction of food consumption of the civillians. I think a
    good balance would be the following. Total food consumpiontion of
    civillians in all provinces = total food production of all provinces as
    non-core province with 50% moraal.


    Back to the game. On the 22-player map the total food consumption of
    all civillians in all provinces (so every province you can find on the
    whole map) should be equall to the food production of all provinces (all
    provinces you can find on the map). These provinces must be considered
    as non-core province and with 50% moral penalty.


    Why non-core? If you conquer something it's a non-core province. And
    those non-core provinces should be able to break even with the food
    costs in these provinces. Leaving the bonus you get from your core
    provinces (and any buildings) you made to spend on upgrades, upkeep and
    whatever.


    Why 50% moraal, why not 25% or 100%? I think 50% is nice. These
    provinces will have to be held several days before the moraal is risen
    to 50%, asking for some effort of the conqueror before they pay off. Why
    not 100%? Who has 100% moraal in all his non-core provinces? Nobody.
    This will still lead to a deficit of food production if you implement it
    with 100% moraal. With 50% moraal players will break even (most of the
    time non-core provinces have moraal going from 25% too 100%) or make
    even a small profit of food without disturbing the power of the armies
    it and it's enemies can field.


    There will be some complications of this change.


    1) People will have more food to spend on army and builing upkeep, it
    should be considered to elevate all upkeep costs too keep army size in
    check.


    2) Food will become cheaper on the market. In other words everything
    else will become a little more expensive, which is good since oil and
    iron is pretty much for free after several days of playing and don't get
    me started on goods (the civil population use very little goods, it
    also needs balancing and its production is messed up too, but that's
    another discussion).


    Let me know whta you guys think. And please do the math in your games
    yourself if you have any doubts or see mistakes/ weird numbers in my
    post.

    The post was edited 2 times, last by Azkazan ().

  • Pro Tip: When you attack AI countries (including inactive player countries), they start to sell off all of their resources at EXTREMELY low prices (like 3 monies per unit). Team up with players and use this to your advantage to buy food, then immediately spend that food on more infantry. Having 0 food and negative production has no negative effect other than the fact that you cannot build infantry or barracks. You can also barter with countries that have food in order to buy more to spend immediately. Remember, while you will have very little food as a large empire, you will have ridiculous amounts of money, iron, goods, and sometimes rares. Use this to your advantage. Finally, keep in mind that you can still build other units if you have no food, so the only problem with running out of food is a lack of infantry.
  • I currently have nearly 600 VPs.

    I produce 35.5k food per day.

    My military consumes 10k.
    My population consumed 34.3k per day.
    That's a total of 44.3k food consumed per day.

    Yes, thats right. Civilians consume 3.5x as much food as my army.

    I have ICs on my core food provinces. I have infrastructure maxed on many, and building on all other food provinces on my continent. And i am still losing roughly 9k food per day.

    What happens when I have 1200 VP? -20k per day?

    My understanding is that when you go into negative food, you get a negative moral modifier, which leads to province rebellion.

    How is it mathematically possible to control 3300 VPs without being something like -3k food/hour?

    The game mechanics cannot possibly be designed to remove the option of building infantry units. If that is the case, why even have Motorized or Mechanized infantry? Nobody will even be able to build them.

    This CANNOT be an intended game mechanic. It has to be an oversight in the game mechanics when they scaled from the 10 and 22 player maps to the 100 man map.

    I would love to see a hotfix to adjust the consumption level of provinces. Because right now it's not just out of control. It is game breaking.






















  • salbalkus wrote:

    Pro Tip: When you attack AI countries (including inactive player countries), they start to sell off all of their resources at EXTREMELY low prices (like 3 monies per unit). Team up with players and use this to your advantage to buy food, then immediately spend that food on more infantry. Having 0 food and negative production has no negative effect other than the fact that you cannot build infantry or barracks. You can also barter with countries that have food in order to buy more to spend immediately. Remember, while you will have very little food as a large empire, you will have ridiculous amounts of money, iron, goods, and sometimes rares. Use this to your advantage. Finally, keep in mind that you can still build other units if you have no food, so the only problem with running out of food is a lack of infantry.
    You are missing one vital thing. Having a negative food production means the moral in your provinces will drop, regardless of how much food you have in stock. A result of moral drop is less production (of food). Your suggested solution doesn't cover this problem.

    And Noblepeasant is totally right. The economy has to be balanced. Now it seems like Bytro just took some random numbers for food production and food expenses. But it has to become mathematically balanced. In my opionion it's also imbalanced on the 10- and 22-player maps, but less noticable since you won't have to conquer so many provinces as in the 100-player map.
  • forget food production

    does anybody in this game even have over 500 rare materials on the world map right now?


    jezz in the markets, food is for sale, never ever see rare materials



    If Socialists understood Economics, they wouldn't be socialists
    -Friedrich von Haye


  • @ oceanhawk.

    You are totally missing the points made in above posts, you probably didn't read any of them. Your implicite suggestion of buying foor in the market proves it and it also proves you don't understand the impact of a deficit food production in the game.

    Rare materials on the other hand are perfectly fine. I produce 6k a day. Players have to choose wisely between research, making factories and creating secret units. It's perfectly fine. They are called "rare" for a reason.

    The above mentioned food problem on the other hand is a real problem and it makes this map unplayable. It will be impossible for any country to reach the requested amount of victory points. Before you get there, you will have run out of food to be able to maintain even 1 army unit or keep any barrack active. 100% of your food income will be spend on upkeep for the civillians and you will probably still be in debt. Morale will drop and your food production will be even lower and you will lose your provinces to rebellions. Now... having a low production of rares won't make your morale drop, will it? Nor will it have any consequences comaprable with the food problem we adressed right?
  • Azkazan wrote:

    salbalkus wrote:

    Pro Tip: When you attack AI countries (including inactive player countries), they start to sell off all of their resources at EXTREMELY low prices (like 3 monies per unit). Team up with players and use this to your advantage to buy food, then immediately spend that food on more infantry. Having 0 food and negative production has no negative effect other than the fact that you cannot build infantry or barracks. You can also barter with countries that have food in order to buy more to spend immediately. Remember, while you will have very little food as a large empire, you will have ridiculous amounts of money, iron, goods, and sometimes rares. Use this to your advantage. Finally, keep in mind that you can still build other units if you have no food, so the only problem with running out of food is a lack of infantry.
    You are missing one vital thing. Having a negative food production means the moral in your provinces will drop, regardless of how much food you have in stock. A result of moral drop is less production (of food).
    Unless they entirely changed how food works in the past month, this is entirely untrue. I've gone for weeks at a time with negative food production and zero food, and the morale in my provinces didn't drop at all.
  • Salbalkus you are the first person I have spoken to who has said anything other than the fact that NEGATIVE food = moral loss.

    It is exacerbated by the fact that moral is already relatively low from long travel distances because of the world map. I'm not even sure what will happen if you have a capital in say, Asia, but have conquered cities in western Europe, or Africa.
  • noblepeasant wrote:

    Salbalkus you are the first person I have spoken to who has said anything other than the fact that NEGATIVE food = moral loss.

    It is exacerbated by the fact that moral is already relatively low from long travel distances because of the world map. I'm not even sure what will happen if you have a capital in say, Asia, but have conquered cities in western Europe, or Africa.
    Perhaps because everyone assumes it will happen, and having negative food production isn't incentivized anyways, so they don't actually just play with negative food production and see what happens.
  • The people who told me this arent just spring chickens. Czar is the person I typically go to for information on game mecahnics, and he has told me repeatedly that going negative in food results in moral loss. Not just negative production, but 0 food and negative production.

    On a small map you can work around this by building forts. But it is unreasonable to expect someone to literally build thousands of forts, and have 0 access to an entire tech tree simply because a game mechanic isnt balanced, or wasnt thought through.

    Basic math dictates that it will be essentially impossible to hold 3000 VPs.
  • Regarding food deficit and negative moral. A small deficit in production doesn't hurt your moral, but a bigger one will.

    You can't always prevent a big negative food production. If you take over a large oponent who barely manages to put up any resistance you will find the next morening/evening that you food production may have dropped like -50 food an hour compared to when you last checked. If you were -40 food/hour before the war (you prepared with a big army, so you decided to go a little in food production deficit), it means you will be -90 food/hour half a day later (you barely had any casualties, but you conquered a lot of land that don't grow anough food to feed itself). Than it will have effect on you moral. The moral in your food producing provinces will drop, meaning more food defecit and it all starts snowballing untill you lose/sell some troops quickly. Continuing your conquest is not an option because you will be in more deficit.

    Bytro labs has to fix the economy system and they will only do if they understand it's broken. So far we can only assume they don't understand it and therefor we need this discussion to progress further than the basic things (build infrastructure, stop making infantery. All that is not the problem/solution) and also keep it based on true facts (not personal Salbalkus) about the game. Hopefully more people will read all above posts, understand them and make hopefully the same conclusion as me and Noblepeasant. If they do it would help if they respond.

    Salbalkus please read the text in my spoiler (some posts up) and it mathematicly explains the food problem for the 22-player map which is also/even more relevant for the 100-player maps.
  • noblepeasant wrote:

    The people who told me this arent just spring chickens. Czar is the person I typically go to for information on game mecahnics, and he has told me repeatedly that going negative in food results in moral loss. Not just negative production, but 0 food and negative production.

    On a small map you can work around this by building forts. But it is unreasonable to expect someone to literally build thousands of forts, and have 0 access to an entire tech tree simply because a game mechanic isnt balanced, or wasnt thought through.

    Basic math dictates that it will be essentially impossible to hold 3000 VPs.
    That's because the manual says that failure to fill basic consumption will result in a loss of morale, which Czar is likely quoting. Now, they've either changed that for balancing purposes, or it was simply a bug that may or may not have been fixed since I tested it. The changelogs make no mention of fixing it, but they do mention making infantry cost food. This simple fix would be a solution to correct the problems that have been brought up in this exact thread, while still giving punishment to those with negative food production - they cannot produce food.

    In addition, technically you could build hundreds or even thousands of forts. But that's not fun, and one of the reasons that the game takes too much time for me to play anymore - too much silly management of provinces.