Food Shortage

[Rush09]

So on my current campaign (1.3 main branch) I've been given control of two towns to manage, I thought "wow great, I get to experience management of towns!"... oh boy, was I going for a ride.

The food shortage problem is quite an issue, both my towns are nowhere near battlefronts but every time a random noble visits the city, the food supply just tanks.

I think the main issue is connecting the food supply of the town to the tradable food that you can buy or sell. It makes sense for a town to be depleted of food during a lengthy siege or after a successful siege a invading army taking all the food but buying food in the market = less food on supply doesn't make much sense given that a town (or village) probably would only sell food surplus and not the food needed to.. you know... live.

This issue is also open for abuse, for example in order to help the issue of my towns, I just went to towns that belonged to other factions and buy all their food. You do this a few times and after a while, of no food, their towns just start losing militia and garrison which leaves it open for an easier siege.

I think more events could be added to take a toll on food supply like a disease event for example but removing the food supply from the food sold seems like the correct thing to do.

What do you guys think?

 

[Apothnesko]

Normally, when you first get a town most of the attached villages are already raided, which is adversely affecting the food situation in the parent town. There should be some sort of grainary that is unattached to the normal markets to keep you from literally selling the food off your plate.

 

[Rush09]

Yeah true, when you initially get a town is after a conquest and the attached villages to that town are usually in pretty bad shape and that should affect the food supply but the towns I'm managing have been given several in game years ago and the villages haven't been raided since I took control. For example, one of my towns is Charas and the number of nobles and caravans who go through that city makes it really hard to keep the food supply with positive growth.

Maybe dividing the current food supply in a "Food in Granary" and "Food in Market" could be a nice idea, giving the player another layer of management of a city, deciding when the food in the granary is good enough and increase food in market or the other way around in difficult situations.

 

[dphilostrate]

I would like to be able to put food in my stash and allow the town to draw upon it before using the market resources, but I do not think this or using a granary would be implemented.

The food being in the market plays a role in the game’s supply and demand functions so any solution would have to avoid affecting this.

I get that demand for food should grow as prosperity grows (it makes it easier for me to think of prosperity as actually representing population), but the problem arises for towns with minimal sources of food in surrounding villages. Maybe every village should produce about 25 to 30 Grain so their villagers can sell this in the towns more easily. Also I had observed caravans like to sell expensive goods that they may only have 2 or 3 units of, while the transfer of food is not a priority.

 

[kweassa]

I would like to be able to put food in my stash and allow the town to draw upon it before using the market resources, but I do not think this or using a granary would be implemented.

The food being in the market plays a role in the game’s supply and demand functions so any solution would have to avoid affecting this.

I get that demand for food should grow as prosperity grows (it makes it easier for me to think of prosperity as actually representing population), but the problem arises for towns with minimal sources of food in surrounding villages. Maybe every village should produce about 25 to 30 Grain so their villagers can sell this in the towns more easily. Also I had observed caravans like to sell expensive goods that they may only have 2 or 3 units of, while the transfer of food is not a priority.

It's not about the amount of single food source. The town's food stocks requires a variety of food stuff that is consumed in a day, which can be looked up in the town management screen.

No town in the game is entirely self-sufficient. Villages nearby supply at the most maybe 30% of food requirements, and this ratio grows relatively lower as prosperity level rises. With EVERY town in game, around 70% of the food is supplied by caravans. Because, even if a town has grain sources in nearby villages, that does not account for all the rest of stuff like dates, olives, oil, butter, meat, etc..

Therefore, a town in a kingdom that is not in war, has healthy surroundings with minimal amount of bandits, and plenty of production stocks to lure in caravans will bring in more caravans that will sell more different types of food. So, despite temporary food shortages and fluctuations in economy, a healthy town quickly recover back to the food surplus and prosperity gain through caravans.

War, has the absolute WORST impact in economy for a town, since out of 8 kingdoms including your own faction, each war with one kingdom will theoretically diminish 12.5% from the average number of caravans arriving.

 

[dphilostrate]

I have tried to keep up with everything listed under Consumption and so far as I have found the largest negatives in the food stocks come from a lack of grain or a lack of fish. But I did not know that about the caravans bringing in 70% of food.

 

[Rush09]

The food being in the market plays a role in the game’s supply and demand functions so any solution would have to avoid affecting this.

I actually don't think having a granary system would affect this, let's see, in a scenario with a food granary in game you probably would have 3 different results:
1 - Granary full, big surplus in the market = Big amount available for sale resulting in low prices
2 - Granary full, small surplus in the market = Small amount available for sale resulting in high prices
3 - Granary not full, no surplus in the market = no food for sale.

All these scenarios are already implemented in game without the granary, from someone dumping a bunch of food in the market today leading to big amount for sale with low prices to a army just entering a city and getting all the food, resulting in a town without food to sell.

Therefore, a town in a kingdom that is not in war, has healthy surroundings with minimal amount of bandits, and plenty of production stocks to lure in caravans will bring in more caravans that will sell more different types of food. So, despite temporary food shortages and fluctuations in economy, a healthy town quickly recover back to the food surplus and prosperity gain through caravans.

In theory yes, this is ideal but from the game itself it's not what I've seen in my campaign, my towns have no bandits, I hunt them all and destroy the hideouts near every time yet the fluctuation of the food supply is giant. My villages are all healthy with no issues for the villagers to go to the towns yet every time the random noble goes to the city, just tanks the food supply with a -50 in the next day. Caravans come and go without any issue yet I normally don't see them selling a lot of food to a town.
Just yesterday I bought 400 fish to sell at my town due to 0 food supply and as soon as I sold in my town, a caravan came and bought 100 fish with another caravan after buying another 100 fish and and a noble visiting the town shortly after, completely killed the fish I had bought resulting in barely a change to the food supply.

No to mention the pressure that puts on the garrisons of the towns, making it tough to have a decent garrison. I'm trying to keep 100 garrison soldiers (from a max of 500 possible to that town) and due to the food, it's more likely I end up losing around 10 guys from time to time. Can't even imagine dreaming of getting near the max garrison possible.

 

[Bannerman Man]

The food shortage problem is quite an issue, both my towns are nowhere near battlefronts but every time a random noble visits the city, the food supply just tanks.

This issue is also open for abuse, for example in order to help the issue of my towns, I just went to towns that belonged to other factions and buy all their food. You do this a few times and after a while, of no food, their towns just start losing militia and garrison which leaves it open for an easier siege.

Could you state which two towns you're talking about?

The best thing you can do right now for a town that has trouble feeding itself is to build 'Orchards' and try not to let your prosperity grow to more than ~5000. Max level orchards add a passive +30 to your food balance that is pretty powerful at any point in the game. Unfortunately, I believe you can only build orchards if you started your game after 1.4.0.

The second best thing to do would probably be to use the 'Irrigation' daily default to get all of your bound villages past 500 hearths. This makes your villages produce more goods per trip to the market, and will boost their passive food bonuses to +12. After that, either build other buildings if you want, or keep the daily default on 'Train Militia' to boost militia numbers and reduce the amount of garrison troops you need (garrison consumes food, militia does not).

If there is a brewery workshop in your town I would suggest you switch it to something else. Breweries compete with the market for grain, and grain is the most important resource for feeding your towns.

Unfortunately, some towns don't have good access to grain by way of villages, which there is nothing you can do about at the moment. Caravans also currently do a shoddy job at bringing large volumes of food (mostly meaning grain) to the places that need it most. That's something that will have to be addressed at some point. However, if you create your companion caravans in your own towns it will slightly bump up the amount of trade they will see, as caravans return home roughly every 2 weeks.

No town in the game is entirely self-sufficient. Villages nearby supply at the most maybe 30% of food requirements, and this ratio grows relatively lower as prosperity level rises. With EVERY town in game, around 70% of the food is supplied by caravans. Because, even if a town has grain sources in nearby villages, that does not account for all the rest of stuff like dates, olives, oil, butter, meat, etc..

Where did you come up with those numbers? In my experience it's the exact opposite. Caravans do an 'okay' job of bringing some of the lesser consumed food items to markets, but the food item that matters the most is grain, and caravans do an awful job at spreading grain around. There are also a number of towns that are more or less totally self-sufficient because of the type and number of nearby villages.

Go look at the trade menus of Sanala or Askar. You'll likely see 800-1000 grain. That's because they each have 3 villages supplying them with grain and the caravans can't cart it out of there fast enough. The towns that have 2 or more grain villages nearby are usually mostly self sufficient on food, and those that have little access to grain, only 2 bound villages, and no orchards are almost always struggling for food. Argoron is a good example of one of those towns.

Look at the difference between Sanala at 7980 prosperity and Argoron at 1970 prosperity here:

Sanala​

Argoron​

Sanala had 893 grain and 227 fish in the trade menu at the time. Argoron had 70 grain and 266 fish in the trade menu. Grain is the most important food resource bar none.

You're right that war can be devastating to both prosperity and food supply though.

 

[Rush09]

Could you state which two towns you're talking about?

The best thing you can do right now for a town that has trouble feeding itself is to build 'Orchards' and try not to let your prosperity grow to more than ~5000. Max level orchards add a passive +30 to your food balance that is pretty powerful at any point in the game. Unfortunately, I believe you can only build orchards if you started your game after 1.4.0.

The second best thing to do would probably be to use the 'Irrigation' daily default to get all of your bound villages past 500 hearths. This makes your villages produce more goods per trip to the market, and will boost their passive food bonuses to +12. After that, either build other buildings if you want, or keep the daily default on 'Train Militia' to boost militia numbers and reduce the amount of garrison troops you need (garrison consumes food, militia does not).

If there is a brewery workshop in your town I would suggest you switch it to something else. Breweries compete with the market for grain, and grain is the most important resource for feeding your towns.

Unfortunately, some towns don't have good access to grain by way of villages, which there is nothing you can do about at the moment. Caravans also currently do a shoddy job at bringing large volumes of food (mostly meaning grain) to the places that need it most. That's something that will have to be addressed at some point. However, if you create your companion caravans in your own towns it will slightly bump up the amount of trade they will see, as caravans return home roughly every 2 weeks.

Charas and Akkalat on both sides of the map. Akkalat doesn't have many issues with food, it has few visitors apart from caravans. I notice that food sometimes dips but bounces back after awhile but Charas is a problem.

Both cities are at late 3000 in prosperity and the bound villages are all between 600 and 2000 so I have the +12 in food from all 4 villages. So I do think they are quite solid there. The Irrigation daily default is quite useful for Castles and I actually use it in Akkalat but Charas has big swings of one day -17 to +4 the next to -8 in the one after that and in this situation the +1 to food doesn't really do much. For example, just got to the town from Akkalat and the food in Charas is currently at 34 with -15 from expected change and I have the granary at max level. Barely any food from the market left.
I also checked and in the 1.3 patch I don't have an option to build an Orchard in any town but nice to know that's incoming!

The militia option is a viable one but they do fall way below the garrison, depending on the quality you have there. For example most 2 hander units are deadly in siege defenses due to not having to worry so much about enemy archers, I've seen Aserai Palace Guards just tear enemy units at the gates swinging that big axe around so I do prefer to have a garrison but I think that even the garrison at Charas is quite small with just 100 guys (of a maximum of 500) they consume 5 of food, a blimp in the overall food supply of a city.

Also checked, no brewery on any town but I do have a oilpresser in Charas that consumes olives (the production of one of the villages) so that could be changed but it's kinda sad to do so because that's a building that actually makes sense to have in Charas, few cities produce oil.

Thanks for the tip on the caravans, didn't know that they return to the original city they departed every two weeks.

Ultimately I think the main problem with Charas is just the amount of nobles who like the go there and buy a bunch of food. The nobles buy food, the caravans sell very few amounts of food and the town doesn't have access to easy grain creating a tough food environment for this town. Overall it's the reason for the idea of separating the food in the market from the food in the granary, I can't really blame the AI nobles from wanting to feed their armies.

 

[Nagthar]

My solution to the food problem in towns is just to keep tabs on them, I have a massive convey of pack animals any where i go and i buy out all the food from factions that arent my own and distrubute it to my towns. Thats currently the only way i am able too keep the towns growing and fed.

 

[Rush09]

My solution to the food problem in towns is just to keep tabs on them, I have a massive convey of pack animals any where i go and i buy out all the food from factions that arent my own and distrubute it to my towns. Thats currently the only way i am able too keep the towns growing and fed.

Yeah it's what I do but this type of micromanagement isn't fun. Just my 2 cents really.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Snip

Oh yeah Charas and Akkalat are especially bad. They both have only 2 bound villages a piece and neither get visited by any grain villages. Charas has 3 villages visiting normally and Akkalat has 4. The amount of extra grain that the villages bring each trip (roughly 10-15 each) every 3 days is collectively less than the towns consume in those 3 days, so they're always at a deficit. It sucks but there's really nothing you can do about it unless you obsessively micromanage it. Maybe quickly bleeding off prosperity to a reasonable level would work I guess.

1.4.0 makes the daily defaults percentage based rather than a flat rate, and 3 out of 4 of them have very strong effects. In order to be able to build the orchards you'll need a fresh start though, unfortunately. Also, the overarching problem with food is still there, and prosperity spirals out of control even faster.

Here are a couple pictures to demonstrate how strong 2/4 of the daily defaults are:

So there's that to look forward to! The Irrigation DD bonus was reworked so that village hearths will grow by 6 or 7 a day in some cases too!

One of the major problems is the way the commodity prices are calculated, and how caravans determine what the most profitable items are. Prosperity is factored into the prices (higher prosp. = higher prices), and availability of grain is a big factor in how high and how quickly towns' prosperity grows, so eventually the price of grain in towns that produce tons of it gets so high that caravans no longer want to buy much of it, and it just accumulates in those towns. That's what's called a positive feedback loop. Caravans' main motivations don't make spreading grain around high priority enough, so unless you're towns' villages can provide enough grain themselves you just starve once your prosperity hits a certain level.

I don't see a fix for that coming anytime soon, but I'm sure they'll work it out eventually.

 

[kweassa]

Where did you come up with those numbers? In my experience it's the exact opposite. Caravans do an 'okay' job of bringing some of the lesser consumed food items to markets, but the food item that matters the most is grain, and caravans do an awful job at spreading grain around. There are also a number of towns that are more or less totally self-sufficient because of the type and number of nearby villages.

Most of the villages do not have 4 towns like Sanala, and usually at around 3, and some even just 2.

At a decent amount of prosperity of somewhere between 5k~10k, the prosperity can apply a debuff of maybe around -80 ~ -180 a day. Rounding it down -120 for prosperity debuffs to towns decently developed, but still not breaking 10k prosperity yet, 3 villages (usually at around +300~ or higher hearths) will each provide +12 = 36, which is about 30%.

I'm actually counting the villagers as a type of 'caravans,' because they really are. I probably should have made clear the "self-sufficiency" I spoke of was meant as flat, passive contributors to the food stocks. (hence the emphasis in no wars, no bandits)

Go look at the trade menus of Sanala or Askar. You'll likely see 800-1000 grain. That's because they each have 3 villages supplying them with grain and the caravans can't cart it out of there fast enough. The towns that have 2 or more grain villages nearby are usually mostly self sufficient on food, and those that have little access to grain, only 2 bound villages, and no orchards are almost always struggling for food. Argoron is a good example of one of those towns.

Except most towns aren't Sanala, and actually the gross majority of towns have 3 villages that may NOT have grain as any of their main production. A lot of the towns do have at least 1 grain village, yes, but as many towns simply have no grain villages at all. Hence, aside from whatever nominal amount of food production that's from the villages that do not produce grain as a main, the rest of food requirements are met by incoming caravan trade. Of course, it is entirely possible that even if there is no grain village bound, still some form of food village (olives.. fish.. grapes.. etc.) would exist, but I'm just ignoring those for simplification.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I'm actually counting the villagers as a type of 'caravans,' because they really are. I probably should have made clear the "self-sufficiency" I spoke of was meant as flat, passive contributors to the food stocks. (hence the emphasis in no wars, no bandits)

Oh, sorry. I don't consider those two equivalent, simply because trade caravans pick and choose their destinations based on prices, whereas villagers always go to the same towns (except under certain circumstances) and will always sell their goods no matter the price. It's guaranteed production, basically no different than what a bound village's passive provides in my eyes.

Towns are always visited by the same villages unless they are taken by an enemy and separated by an active war. If the two factions become neutral to each other, the villagers will resume visiting their original towns even if they are not owned by the same factions. Bandits can also cause villagers to change course to another town, but this is temporary (one trip).

Bound villages are also != to the villages that visit the town. Villages bound to castles have to deliver their goods somewhere too.

Sanala is visited by 7 villages.
Baltakhand is visited by 8.
Tyal is visited by 6.
Zeonica is visited by 6.
And so on.

Many towns in the world can support high prosperity, even if trade caravans (not villagers) were completely turned off. 1.4.0 makes it even easier with the +30 passive from orchards. 1.4.0 also causes prosperity to balloon out of control with the 'Housing' bonus, so I would have more examples, but some of the towns that usually do great are way past what their villages can supply prosperity wise.

It's important to remember that the positive modifier that a food item provides scales with prosperity (because a town consumes more of it at higher prosperity), so even while the negative food modifier from prosperity grows, it will still be somewhat balanced out by the continued growth of positive food item consumption. Put another way, 500 grain might grant +100 for a high prosperity town, but that same 500 grain in a low prosperity town might only grant +30.

Most of these towns still have 500+ grain in their markets. This is at year 8 in this case.

 

[drallim33]

Almost all the food comes from surrounding villages, only a small amount comes from caravans, usually small amounts of the rarer stuff like olives, beer, wine, etc.

Towns get deliveries from all nearby villages, not just linked ones, even ones from different factions as long as they are not at war. For instance Rhesos (cow village) sells cows (meat), grain, butter, and cheese to Diathma.

I'm just guessing but I think the real numbers would be more like 90% from villages and 10% from caravans.

Rush09 It's basically impossible to do anything about it. Selling food to your town will only make things worse in the long run, since they just keep growing and growing until they run out of food. You just have to either accept that the whole economy is broken or install a mod.

Just look at Bannerman's screenshot, even the wealthiest town in the world with the most food, is starving. The rest aren't starving yet but will eventually when prosperity gets high enough. There is nothing that can stop this.

And if a passing army buys all the food, there will be a massive famine and half the garrison will starve, again nothing you can do unless you want to babysit them for the whole game.

 

[kweassa]

Oh, sorry. I don't consider those two equivalent, simply because trade caravans pick and choose their destinations based on prices, whereas villagers always go to the same towns (except under certain circumstances) and will always sell their goods no matter the price. It's guaranteed production, basically no different than what a bound village's passive provides in my eyes.

Towns are always visited by the same villages unless they are taken by an enemy and separated by an active war. If the two factions become neutral to each other, the villagers will resume visiting their original towns even if they are not owned by the same factions. Bandits can also cause villagers to change course to another town, but this is temporary (one trip).

Fair point. Although conceptually I really don't see the difference, except the villagers are sort of "guaranteed caravans" to form a certain basic pool of resources, on top of which other caravans add on to with certain shifting amount of reliability.

Bound villages are also != to the villages that visit the town. Villages bound to castles have to deliver their goods somewhere too.

Sanala is visited by 7 villages.
Baltakhand is visited by 8.
Tyal is visited by 6.
Zeonica is visited by 6.
And so on.

That's a really good point.

Villages tied down to castles would indeed possess duality where it contributes to the base (passive) food stock to the castle, but at the same time villagers themselves contributing to a nearby town.

This would probably necessitate a means to measure the level of contribution the castle-villagers contribute to the towns, to really measure the adequacy of a town's food sources. It also explains a lot in regards to how towns may dwindle in food source, because the bound villages may be fine, but villages bound to castles nearby may have been hit.

 

[Maximuuus]

I also have this problem in nearly all my towns and castle and I play with bannerlord tweak that add a huge bonus in food shortage...

+ I never besieged a town that have food for more than 3-4 days... This seems really broken.

 

[Badcritter]

The food balance that towns/castles can hold is too small for the volume of food that is consumed. Default is 100, you can build and upgrade granaries and still not get to 200.

In my current game on 1.3.1 I have Pravend which is surrounded by friendly territory (and the edge of the map) and very safe. Currently has over 1600 grain sitting in the market, grain is contributing 87 per day to food stores. Let that sink in. The town's storage capacity can be filled to the brim in 2 days by skimming ~5% of the amount sitting in the market each day. Similarly, food consumption from prosperity is 90, meaning the populace will completely empty the towns food reserves in LESS THAN 2 DAYS if all food sources were disrupted.

@Bannerman Man I notice in your screenshots from your 1.4 game some towns have food stores as high as 700. Is that from a mod or a change made in 1.4? Larger food stores relative to food production and trade volume should help to smooth the egregious behaviour of the current food system, though the problem can't be solved by that change alone.

 

[kweassa]

The food balance that towns/castles can hold is too small for the volume of food that is consumed. Default is 100, you can build and upgrade granaries and still not get to 200.

In my current game on 1.3.1 I have Pravend which is surrounded by friendly territory (and the edge of the map) and very safe. Currently has over 1600 grain sitting in the market, grain is contributing 87 per day to food stores. Let that sink in. The town's storage capacity can be filled to the brim in 2 days by skimming ~5% of the amount sitting in the market each day. Similarly, food consumption from prosperity is 90, meaning the populace will completely empty the towns food reserves in LESS THAN 2 DAYS if all food sources were disrupted.

@Bannerman Man I notice in your screenshots from your 1.4 game some towns have food stores as high as 700. Is that from a mod or a change made in 1.4? Larger food stores relative to food production and trade volume should help to smooth the egregious behaviour of the current food system, though the problem can't be solved by that change alone.

It's best to not understand these figures in the literal sense.

Like, for example, if we say "A family, having four units of food will be satisfied in this world. We will use the number '4' to express 'adequate amount of food'" that number "4" may have originated from the initial "4 units of food," in the example used, but it still can be used to describe something like "this city of 1 million people is at level '4' in food situation." This won't necessarily mean a city with 1 million people only have 4 units of food.

Much the same, I view the food stocks parameter as an indicator, and not necessarily literal. Yeah, the numbers come from actual amount of food in the market, but when used as a measure to guage the food situation, no need to take it literally. I mean, obviously, in the process of depicting the process of certain nymber of people requiring certain amount of food, a lot of things fall into abstract, and therefore, cannot be taken literally. Obviously, you can't expect the system to depict actual amount of grain and all other food stuff in individual stocks.. and therefore, if you buy all the stuff from the market and the food stocks go down to "0", I wouldn't necessarily take it literally and think that means literally no food. I'd take it as a depiction of how certain amount of food represented as numbers in the market is now gone, and therefore the "level" of food stocks is represented with the number "0."

In this sense, the complaints about how "it's not realistic" or "it doesn't make sense" usually miss the point.

Frankly, the only thing I feel is a real "problem" with the food in the game, is the immediate effect it has on garrisons. If the food situation depicted in numbers is not to be taken literally (which clearly makes more sense, and is useful for analyses and discussions) (like... -50 to food shortage doesn't mean actually 50 people are suddenly disappearing from the town), then the effects of food on the garrison should also not be so literal and direct.

Barring the extreme and abnormal cases, the towns in game almost always find a balance after initial changes in the situation. If bad things happen, the town's food stocks will suffer, and the economy will fall until it finds a new point of equilibrium, and then will start a new pattern of growth with it's own temporary plus and minus fluctuations. The problem is that garrison numbers change too quickly along with those fluctuations, and make it very difficult for players to manage garrisons.

I feel, that it is not how food is handled itself, that must be changed, but rather, the system that handles how the GARRISON CHANGES WITH FOOD SHORTAGE, that needs a change.

Unless a quite prolonged, sustained food shortage is happening (ie. sieges), the garrison numbers itself should not change. Instead, something else.. .maybe like... having the food shortage act as a debuff on the garrison morale, or if such state is prolonged, cuts down on the mass of garrison troop HP down by a set percentage, would make more sense.

Like, for example... hummm...

* ~5 days of shortage: 3% morale drop per consecutive days of shortage*
* 6 ~ 10 days of shortage: on top of morale drop, 2% of max HP drop consecutive days of food shortage after day 5
* 10~ days of shortage: actual troop number drop

...because, unless there is something seriously wrong with the situation surrounding the town, 10 days is usually enough to see repeating plus and minus fluctuations which would break the food shortage cycle... during which time the garrison numbers will still be maintained.

So, if the garrison numbers are way too high, or the settlement is under siege, then it will cause a long run of consecutive days of food shortages, and when it goes over 10 days THEN it will start dropping off garrison troops.

I think this would help players feel less penalized with managing garrisons, since the effects of temporary food shortages within 10 days would not directly impact the garrison numbers.

 

[Badcritter]

Or you could just scale the sacrosanct food storage to last 10 days in typical circumstances, instead of 2

You are right that the main thing of interest to the player is effect on garrison. The player shouldn't need to be annoyed by losing troops with everyday fluctuations, but it should be possible for a garrison to be starved out or depleted before an attack over an appropriate period of time.

The player doesn't need to care what the abstraction of a unit of food means in most respects, but they do need to care how many days of food their town has if its supply is cut off by a siege. I look at my town that has a daily surplus that fills its storage in less than 2 days, something which should take an entire season, and I know that's wrong without needing to consider what the unit of food represents. Similarly, when I see that my storage will deplete to zero in 2 days if my food supplies are cut off (including someone buying out the market), I also know that is wrong. The storage supply should be something greater than a week and possibly approaching an entire season. The fact that a "season" is currently less than 4 weeks long makes the specifics a bit hazy. On current time scaling we're talking 7-20 days as what makes sense for food storage depletion that would result in serious consequences for a garrison.