Food Shortage

[drallim33]

tools

If you read what I wrote again I think you will find you actually agree with me. Arbitrarily lowering consumption rates will not solve anything. Expenditure and consumption are not the same thing.

I'd think that increasing food production at the village level would be the best solution. I.e. Villages would make more food if they could sell more food, as they would in a real market economy (and they could sell more food if cities demanded more food via higher in-city consumption + external party sales via the cities).

This will not help. It would just mean the towns grow larger to absorb the extra supply. Which is fine actually, and makes sense, except that they grow to the absolute limit of supply, leaving no buffer.

You need to cap the growth of the town so it does not continue to grow to the very limit of the food supply. So it only grows when there is abundance instead of as soon as there is enough. Because the supply is unstable, villagers only come every few days, and caravans are unpredictable. Villages can be raided, wars can disrupt trade etc.

I think this could be achieved by:

1. not growing unless the granary is full. If the granary is not full then clearly you are not in abundance and growing is a bad idea
2. if there is a shortage, capping growth to that shortage. Is food at -10? Then growth should be no higher than -10.

If this was done it wouldn't matter how OP housing is, or any other broken prosperity modifier that happens in the future, because the town would just not grow unless it had a good surplus, and shrink when it is starving regardless of other prosperity modifiers.

I also think the non-food goods should factor in, but currently they do not as far as I know, except for some small bonuses. Currently any town with lots of food (grain mainly) will grow huge and consume it all. If there is any leftover it is priced high because of the prosperity modifier on the prices. This means almost no food gets exported from towns with high food supply to towns lacking food. Actually the opposite happens, caravans buy food from low prosperity towns to sell to the high prosperity ones, because of the price modifier, causing a feedback loop. Like imagine if it was profitable for you IRL to go to a local market, buy all the apples, and then go and sell them to an apple farmer. Makes no sense.

If growth was also limited by non-food goods as well, then it wouldn't just be the food towns growing and hogging all the food. Salt and wool towns would need to import food to grow, and food towns would need to import salt and wool, or whatever.

The final icing on the cake would be that the town only buys what it needs, then spends whatever it has left on cheap goods, that are in surplus and below base price, and gets a prosperity bonus. This way the towns would maintain a decent stock even with low supply. Right now towns are naiive like a hungry dog, if a town only needs 50 food but can afford 200, it will buy 200, perhaps causing it to starve the next day. Whereas if it just bought what it needed, and then a little extra that was in surplus (below base price), it might go the whole week with enough food.

I could well be missing something; forgive me if so. But isn't 'prosperity' the dev's central method for channeling demand mechanics, basically? Some of the modifiers do complicate / problematize a free market economy for sure. But I think the prosperity based modifiers don't fall into that category - they are supposed to be ways of representing demand in aggregate, considering that it's not feasible to have thousands if individual buyers/sellers per city.

I could have worded that better but the point is that there are two effects from prosperity. First the town spends more/less on goods, based on prosperity, altering demand and prices. Second, in addition, the prices are raised/lowered based on prosperity. So it's a double effect.

This is one of the reasons the towns go to 0 prosperity. Because all the prices drop when prosperity drops, regardless of the actual demand. So you can have a town completely out of stock of an item, but the price is still low compared to the rich town next door. So caravans just buy everything there for cheap, town runs out of money because it is selling everything for cheap, and ends up with nothing.

The trading simulation should result in scarce goods being expensive, but it can get overpowered by the prosperity modifier. The two things are conflicting with each other.

My reply is a bit late, seems like you've already come to some of these conclusions yourself. Similar problems at high prosperity, a town can be starving even with food in stock, because it can't afford to buy it.

 

[TheShermanator]

If you read what I wrote again I think you will find you actually agree with me. Arbitrarily lowering consumption rates will not solve anything. Expenditure and consumption are not the same thing.

....

I could have worded that better but the point is that there are two effects from prosperity. First the town spends more/less on goods, based on prosperity, altering demand and prices. Second, in addition, the prices are raised/lowered based on prosperity. So it's a double effect.

...
My reply is a bit late, seems like you've already come to some of these conclusions yourself. Similar problems at high prosperity, a town can be starving even with food in stock, because it can't afford to buy it.

I think disparate understandings of the problem are emerging largely because of competing sets of facts - not necessarily a fault in anyone's logic. It would help to know for sure which facts are facts. Per Bannerman man's posts, there is no 'expenditure' by the town at all; only 'consumption' simulates demand based on prosperity rules (shown by mexxico). Also, a different fact: If I understand Bannerman's posts, prosperity does not directly modify price. Rather, prosperity simply determines the price at which the town would be willing to 'consume' a commodity (a cash-less event in the game). Indirectly, if the town is not willing to consume things because the price is too high, that should (putting aside the RNG of caravan visits) result in higher supply over time, which in turn would lower the price. But there is no direct prosperity modifier on price, correct? drallim33, however, seems to understand that prosperity does directly modify price. It matters which set of facts is real here.

I still think imposing special demand ('consumption') rules for food would make sense (google inelasticity of demand - I am not an economist and thus would explain it badly). Realistically, a poor town might not have a thriving trade in velvet or jewelry or whatever - but people would still be willing to buy food ... because it's food. They wouldn't allow themselves to be outbid by external vendors so easily because, you know, starvation is categorically worse than not having velvet.

More broadly speaking, though, a deeper and better reform (maybe out of scope, given the size of the change) would be to set up 3 parties passively interacting on every potential trade: 1) Any external visiting vendor 2) The town's vendors and 3) The town's consumers. The town's vendors (2) should be interesting in getting the best price at any given time from either (1) or (3). Also, high local prices should indicate high local appetite to consume, not the inverse. (Lots of other things would have to change too - the town would have to have a pool of $ separate from the vendors, that pool of $ would have to make sense in some way despite the fact that the town consumers, vs. the villagers who sell at any price, don't make anything and thus don't sell anything. Etc. etc.) This would be a dramatic overhaul to be sure, so it probably won't happen. But talking about this counter-factual scenario illustrates the limitations of the status quo, where only artificially manipulated consumption rates simulate town demand, and the town vendors are not meaningfully separated from the town's consumers.

 

[Bannerman Man]

If you read what I wrote again I think you will find you actually agree with me. Arbitrarily lowering consumption rates will not solve anything. Expenditure and consumption are not the same thing.

Uh, what? I didn't say lowering consumption rates is the solution to anything; just that it would increase stock. Consumption and expenditure are inextricably linked though. If the town does not have the budget to consume an item, they won't. Prosperity is not the only factor of price, and so quantity is also a driver of consumption. Prices have caps in either direction, so therefore consumption has caps too for a given prosperity. Of course towns outgrow their food supplies eventually; we know this. But I was not suggesting this as a solution to that issue. You will see I've already agreed (not exactly enthusiastically) in the past that your solution to that issue might work, but it also might be clunkier than what we have now.

You're right though, we don't seem to be on the same page for some reason, but you are the one who disagreed with me, so now tell me how lowering the expenditure values won't increase the stock for all non-food items. Most of the commodities in the game do not impact prosperity, and are exclusively used to generate money through trade and workshop production. That's the entire purpose of them. There's no gameplay reason that they need to be tied to prosperity; food does that already.

Basically all I was saying was that if production > consumption then the stock of an item will grow locally, so you can tune that ratio to your taste for more or less item availability. However, if global production outstrips global consumption by too much then all items will eventually accumulate until they are worthless, so the developers need to be careful with those variables. Luckily, the consumption of items scales with quantity as well, so there is a sort of relief valve built into the system already.

Mostly, the largest remaining issue is just how to get a full food stock with a reasonable food surplus while simultaneously leveling out prosperity growth. There have been dozens of proposed solutions to that issue from dozens of different people, of which you and I are two. It's generally not as difficult a problem as people make it out to be, and the devs just need to carefully think it over and select a solution that's simple and elegant (no rush). The system is not fundamentally flawed, and does not need to be totally reworked.

prosperity does not directly modify price.

@TheShermanator No prosperity does influence price in a linear fashion (you can read about it here), but it's not the only factor of price: quantity is an even greater driver of price. Every item also has an intrinsic value that makes some items worth more than others all else being equal (these values can be found in the spitems.xml file). Price has upper and lower bounds though, which is why there is a maximum and minimum consumption rate per item for a given prosperity level.

I agree though, scarcity of food should be a bigger factor of price than it is currently. But it should not immediately apply (I've explained the reason previously).

 

[TheShermanator]

Uh, what? I didn't say lowering consumption rates is the solution to anything; just that it would increase stock. Consumption and expenditure are inextricably linked though. If the town does not have the budget to consume an item, they won't.

Ok, definition-of-terms time: When you say "expenditure", you simply mean the price point at which the town is willing to consume a commodity, vis-a-vis mexxico's (incredibly generously provided) sheet? (I.e. no money is really getting spent per prior posts, so no real 'budget', just stock consumed when the local price drops to X because the stock quantity increases?) (If so, the term is a misnomer, but I guess it does meaningfully name a variable that determines town consumption)

 

[Bannerman Man]

Ok, definition-of-terms time: When you say "expenditure", you simply mean the price point at which the town is willing to consume a commodity, vis-a-vis mexxico's (incredibly generously provided) sheet? (I.e. no money is really getting spent per prior posts, so no real 'budget', just stock consumed when the local price drops to X because the stock quantity increases?) (If so, the term is a misnomer, but I guess it does meaningfully name a variable that determines town consumption)

Yes, exactly. I've edited my comment above to address one of your questions, but I didn't get there fast enough haha. There's a rollover of their "expenditure budget" to the next day if they don't consume an item though, so items will always be consumed eventually even if they are way over the price point that towns spend daily.

 

[kweassa]

@TheShermanator No prosperity does influence price in a linear fashion (you can read about it here), but it's not the only factor of price: quantity is an even greater driver of price. Every item also has an intrinsic value that makes some items worth more than others all else being equal (these values can be found in the spitems.xml file). Price has upper and lower bounds though, which is why there is a maximum and minimum consumption rate per item for a given prosperity level.

I agree though, scarcity of food should be a bigger factor of price than it is currently. But it should not immediately apply (I've explained the reason previously).

I think this is observable when you play for trade. This is anecdotal and I don't have any pics on me, but I have seen instances of "inflation" in prices in extremely prosperous towns, with stocks plenty in the market for all items, and yet all of the prices were much higher than average, making it a good town for traders to sell things. If prosperity is not one of the drivers for prices, I don't think you can explain how the prices of items are so higher than average despite abundant stocks.

 

[TheShermanator]

Sorry for 2 posts, but this is an interesting enough point that it deserves it's own quick conversation:

Basically all I was saying was that if production > consumption then the stock of an item will grow locally, so you can tune that ratio to your taste for more or less item availability. However, if global production outstrips global consumption by too much then all items will eventually accumulate until they are worthless, so the developers need to be careful with those variables. Luckily, the consumption of items scales with quantity as well, so there is a sort of relief valve built into the system already.

Really, a Calradia burning with war will always see crimped production of all raw material (raiding) and increased consumption of food at least (armies), so this concern that global production will spiral beyond consumption may not really be a big problem, given that war always happens in the game.

But even if the UN of Calrada ended all war forever: Wouldn't steadily increasing populations (measured by ever rising prosperity) increase food consumption such that it could never outstrip production? Basically, I think your earlier points show a solution in this area: Higher prosperity means every increased willingness to consume stuff, which should result in more consumption that scales with prosperity. Then, limited global food production would limit food available to consume, which would cap prosperity.

Or, is your concern there more for non-food commodities? Because prosperity is tied to food production --> price --> consumption, but not the same cycle for other goods? That would potentially be a real concern if the play-through lasted a really long time and some section of the map didn't see war. If consumption of, say, velvet is limited by prosperity, which itself is not tied to velvet supply or consumption, then conceivably the uninterrupted supply of velvet could flood the market if the production outstripped a hard capped consumption rate. Maybe a town should be more willing to consume stuff proportionate to price? I see you say that the game already scales consumption with stock quantity, which is a less direct way of doing that. But price may be a better way to achieve that. As in, when the price gets really low, they consume a lot of it, which lets the price re-balance upwards ...

Also, theoretically, villages should make less stuff if the town market is already over-saturated, but that may be out of scope of available tweaks given the current framework.

 

[TheShermanator]

I think this is observable when you play for trade. This is anecdotal and I don't have any pics on me, but I have seen instances of "inflation" in prices in extremely prosperous towns, with stocks plenty in the market for all items, and yet all of the prices were much higher than average, making it a good town for traders to sell things. If prosperity is not one of the drivers for prices, I don't think you can explain how the prices of items are so higher than average despite abundant stocks.

Thanks Bannerman man and kweassa, and yeah, that makes sense in terms of what I've observed in the game.

Really, given these extra/artificial price modifiers that are not tied to the cities real demand/consumption, that accumulation of a good at a place with high prosperity is exactly what we would expect to happen, right? If high prosperity city A is always willing to pay a higher price for a commodity regardless of its real need to consume it, whereas low prosperity city B has a lower price simply because of the direct prosperity modifier, then wouldn't you expect all of the caravans across the continent to buy up the commodity and sell it at city A, such that it accumulates there? Conversely, if low prosperity city B has artificially lowered prices simply because of the artificial modifier - despite possibly a need to consume the good that outstrips supply - they won't ever be able to outbid city A, despite the fact that they totally should and would do so.

I wonder if the only thing that often saves low prosperity towns is grain-village placement: The devs, probably seeing all of this, put more villages with grain near cities that started with low prosperity. So even with caravans buying their grain, they still just have a lot of it, which helps their prosperity growth rates as the game progresses.

Anyway, if the stock of a commodity is way outstripping consumption, the price the city will pay for it should go down proportionally. (Also, consumption rates should increase when prices are lower than the purchase point - not just based on prosperity.) If prices are artificially high at places with tons of supply vs. demand ... that's bad gents! (see drallim33's point).

I also remember an earlier separate point Bannerman man made about putting a hard floor on prosperity. If they can't remove this artificial linear prosperity-price modifier, then I guess yeah, based on the above problem, there should be a city prosperity floor. I don't like the idea of not being able to, militarily, crush a city into the dust with endless raiding and sieges, but the alternative might be worse.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Really, a Calradia burning with war will always see crimped production of all raw material (raiding) and increased consumption of food at least (armies), so this concern that global production will spiral beyond consumption may not really be a big problem, given that war always happens in the game.

No, not really. But if the devs were to lower the consumption budget of items significantly it might become a problem. That's not the case currently though, just something to consider if they were to start tweaking the values.

But even if the UN of Calrada ended all war forever: Wouldn't steadily increasing populations (measured by ever rising prosperity) increase food consumption such that it could never outstrip production? Basically, I think your earlier points show a solution in this area: Higher prosperity means every increased willingness to consume stuff, which should result in more consumption that scales with prosperity. Then, limited global food production would limit food available to consume, which would cap prosperity.

In the case of food, yes. Prosperity growth is meant to ensure that consumption is always greater than production, even if only slightly; but, prosperity seems to rise exponentially (because prosperity ties into so many mechanisms it compounds with itself), while production rises roughly linearly as the game progresses, so consumption outstrips production in the late game (is how I understand it).

Production does have an ultimate ceiling in this game though; eventually all projects are built, all village passives are maxed, and food item production peaks (it doesn't seem to scale after a certain hearth value). Therefore, prosperity has a form of a soft cap too, because when production can't keep up mass starvations happen and prosperity falls back down in an endlessly oscillating cycle.

The key is to allow prosperity to ease into this "steady state" so you don't get a constant overshoot and undershoot, because that's when people starve. If you can do that, then the consumption/expenditures budget can scale up to handle any excess production, without needing to increase prosperity anymore. Prosperity does need an eventual limit, but hard caps are a lame way to handle that.

Or, is your concern there more for non-food commodities?

When I was responding to drallim with the example of tools, yes, I was mostly speaking about non-food items, because he brought up luxury item consumption.

But price may be a better way to achieve that. As in, when the price gets really low, they consume a lot of it, which lets the price re-balance upwards ...

Yep, the system is already built to work that way. The economy is just not fine tuned at the moment, because they are trying to iron out the kinks and haven't implemented all the features yet. For instance, what does "Level 1" of a workshop mean in the clan menu? That probably implies there will eventually be a level 2 added and so on, so there's not really a pressing need for workshop income to be a viable source of money yet.

 

[TheShermanator]

. The economy is just not fine tuned at the moment, because they are trying to iron out the kinks and haven't implemented all the features yet.

Totally get it, and totally agree. I actually find the EA aspect of this, thus the emerging shape of the economy, to make all of this even more interesting - if you couldn't already tell!

I do think, though, that the flat price-prosperity modifiers might create supply (surplus and deficit) problems, though - and that seems less like something to adjust and more like a building block to the game's economy . Thus my previously stated concern above. If, as we agree, lower prices drive higher consumption (and, as I think we agree, that relationship should be tweaked further to make consumption even more sensitive to price), the straight prosperity-price modifier system still could limit consumption more than it should because it could prevent the price from dropping as much as it should. Thus, supply could spiral upwards in some places - and, by extension, downwards in others. If it's possible to replace that whole concept with a system that lets prices rise and fall simply because of consumption vs. stock, then I'd be in favor of that. But that's more than a tweak, I think.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I do think, though, that the flat price-prosperity modifiers might create supply (surplus and deficit) problems, though - and that seems less like something to adjust and more like a building block to the game's economy . Thus my previously stated concern above. If, as we agree, lower prices drive higher consumption (and, as I think we agree, that relationship should be tweaked further to make consumption even more sensitive to price), the straight prosperity-price modifier system still could limit consumption more than it should because it could prevent the price from dropping as much as it should.

Yep, it does seem to create issues, but I assume it's been added for a reason. Maybe high prosperity towns were having trouble attracting enough supply without it. Now it might be overcorrected too far the other way, creating supply issues for lower prosperity towns. I'm sure they will continue to work on the price model until they strike a proper balance.

 

[drallim33]

Totally get it, and totally agree. I actually find the EA aspect of this, thus the emerging shape of the economy, to make all of this even more interesting - if you couldn't already tell!

I do think, though, that the flat price-prosperity modifiers might create supply (surplus and deficit) problems, though - and that seems less like something to adjust and more like a building block to the game's economy . Thus my previously stated concern above. If, as we agree, lower prices drive higher consumption (and, as I think we agree, that relationship should be tweaked further to make consumption even more sensitive to price), the straight prosperity-price modifier system still could limit consumption more than it should because it could prevent the price from dropping as much as it should. Thus, supply could spiral upwards in some places - and, by extension, downwards in others. If it's possible to replace that whole concept with a system that lets prices rise and fall simply because of consumption vs. stock, then I'd be in favor of that. But that's more than a tweak, I think.

You only need to change the shape of the curve, like I posted on page 3.

I think it is correct that big towns should keep higher stock levels than smaller ones. I'm assuming that's what they were going for but it's just a guess. I can't think of any other reason for it. But it doesn't work at the moment because the math is wrong and the towns do not limit their growth.

Think of it as a stock level modifier. In an imaginary test system with enough supply, no transport lag, and without all the current problems, the prices would normalise in all the towns, and only the stock level would be different.

 

[TheShermanator]

You only need to change the shape of the curve, like I posted on page 3.

I think it is correct that big towns should keep higher stock levels than smaller ones. I'm assuming that's what they were going for but it's just a guess. I can't think of any other reason for it. But it doesn't work at the moment because the math is wrong and the towns do not limit their growth.

Think of it as a stock level modifier. In an imaginary test system with enough supply, no transport lag, and without all the current problems, the prices would normalise in all the towns, and only the stock level would be different.

Sure, I did see that. Good stuff! And if removing the straight price-prosperity modifier construct would require too much complex work, then altering the variables to result in better curves (e.g. the sharp exponential curve for price-stock for low prosperity towns) might be the straightest path between point A and point B.

But I think it would, in principle, be more optimal to let demand rates (and thus the willingness of the town to consume at higher prices) fix the potential supply problem on its own. High prosperity would allow high consumption even at higher prices, which would drive the supply back up via caravan sales. The stock levels, then, wouldn't need to be higher categorically in larger, more prosperous towns. There would be temporary fluctuations given the inefficiency of caravans, but that would be interesting, I think.

Unless you / someone just prefers big stocks in big towns that for gameplay vs. economic balance reasons?

 

[drallim33]

Unless you / someone just prefers big stocks in big towns that for gameplay vs. economic balance reasons?

Mainly because they consume more, and since supply is intermittent, they need a larger buffer to avoid disruption.

 

[TheShermanator]

Mainly because they consume more, and since supply is intermittent, they need a larger buffer to avoid disruption.

It's funny that we're having this conversation in a covid-19 world, right? On the one hand, the advanced world's optimized supply chains delivered great value (adequate supply at optimal prices) for a long time. On the other hand, when the supply chain got disrupted ... there was not enough buffer supply in inventory. Thus $5 toilet paper rolls.

Yeah, I could see the argument either way. I think a (fictional) world with fluctuating prices would be more interesting, but there would be downsides too.

 

[drallim33]

If it was just fluctuating prices nobody would care, but it's empty granaries and starving garrisons when the villagers are a day late, or a friendly lord buys some lunch.

 

[Patwick]

Hotfix of tonight resolved the issue regarding Tevea high raiding priority. If one you still got the save at the time were the screenshot were taken and if you're in the mood you can quickly test it <3

It's great when devs listen and react to feedback, feels nice !

 

[mexxico]

Hotfix of tonight resolved the issue regarding Tevea high raiding priority. If one you still got the save at the time were the screenshot were taken and if you're in the mood you can quickly test it <3

It's great when devs listen and react to feedback, feels nice !

Now its time to fix starvation issues mentioned here. Actually there are 4 days holiday here, probably there will not be a new patch until this time ends however will try to fix starvation problem until holiday ends. I will share you new tables / charts during these days so we can examine whats going on.

 

[CryoNomad]

Now its time to fix starvation issues mentioned here. Actually there are 4 days holiday here, probably there will not be a new patch until this time ends however will try to fix starvation problem until holiday ends. I will share you new tables / charts during these days so we can examine whats going on.

Someone at Taleworlds needs to give this man a raise!

 

[drallim33]

Now its time to fix starvation issues mentioned here. Actually there are 4 days holiday here, probably there will not be a new patch until this time ends however will try to fix starvation problem until holiday ends. I will share you new tables / charts during these days so we can examine whats going on.

Take a break man enjoy the holiday, Bannerlord can wait