SP - Economy Tie prosperity to food supply change rate instead of food supply

[iskar]

Currently prosperity change per day of a settlement is negatively affected by having zero food in the stores and food supply change per day is negatively affected by the current prosperity. This leads to a kind of circular balance where over-the-top prosperity will in time deplete the food stocks, leading to famine, leading to reduction in prosperity, leading to recovering food stocks.

However, this is highly unrealistic and forces towns into a cycle of recurrent famine that is completely unecessary and only damages garrisons.

I like the genral idea that high prosperity (= number and power of merchants, craftsmen, tradesmen that consume food but dont produce any) draws on the food supply. However, no town or community would allow that to lead to famine. People don't move away only when all the food is gone, people already start moving away when daily supply does not balance daily consumption - if you have to go to the city granary to get some food instead of buying it on the market something is very wrong with the economy already.

Hence prosperity should already start to drop when daily food supply change is negative (not only when current food stocks are at zero), creating a much shorter balancing cycle between prosperity and food, without the need to go through a painful famine every couple of weeks.

 

[TheShermanator]

I agree - I like the prosperity/food relationship in general, but the #s need to be tightened up, and I'd be open to the way you've suggested it.

My pet rant: So many issues would be fixed, and in general the game would benefit even in areas without big problems, if they made the market economy (in each city and across all cities) much more adaptable to food supply and demand fluctuations. E.g. When food supplies are low, the city's market should be willing to pay much higher prices for food.* That way, caravans further and further away would be willing to bring lots of food from regions where food is cheaper. Also, conversely, the high prices would scare away food buyers until supply increased and prices came down. (This already happens in the game to some extent, but the effect should be way more pronounced.)

*The money to buy food at higher prices should come from somewhere. Maybe the luxury goods market shrinks? Maybe prosperity takes an even bigger hit to make the town more able to spend more on food? Not sure - they'd need to test this and figure it out.

 

[William7667]

Food shortage is ridiculous
My prosperity is low becuase I am short of food
and I am short of food because my prosperity is low its a vicious circle with no way to break it

I am sitting with an army at a castle with no food in its grannary and I have 500 food and cant give it any

Propserity impact on food is far too high I've had - 58 a day at some points its tottally out of order
Plus theres little I can do to affect prosperity escpecially in a castle

Heres an example

I had
Empire prosperity bonus +1
Loyalty +1
Serfdom -1
Crown duty -1
Food shortage -1

So i get -1 prosperity as i get penalised low prosperity
I get a -23.73 daily penalty ( which is 1% of my prosperity ) to my food a bit excessive for one point of prosperity I might add


So I remove the garrisson and get some food in the granary as the garrison was just pushing me into shortage and have
Empire prosperity bonus +1
Loyalty +1
Serfdom -1
Crown duty -1

No food shortage penalty hurrah
So i get 0 prosperity good you might think as I get penalised for both low and high prosperity no
I still get a -23.73 daily penalty to my food so I'm even penalised for no prosperity utter madness

 

[heu3becteh]

Hence prosperity should already start to drop when daily food supply change is negative (not only when current food stocks are at zero), creating a much shorter balancing cycle between prosperity and food, without the need to go through a painful famine every couple of weeks.

That is something I suggest for quite a long time.
You can check out my mod making that and some other economy-related changes to see how it is working.