Grain issue on all large maps

Looks like for non-food it might be about 8 hours times the negative rate of the resource is needed to keep from getting resource shortage in province morale calculations.

I just finished a game where I went for "broke" despite all the comments here about ramping back. I was alone against 3 players, two of which were large. I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for the kill by points. I was already - 250 hour when I started this effort. I attacked relentlessly for 7 days before I won. By the last day my moral was down to 40 and I was -550 per hour. What won the game was that I gathered so many other resources and working complexes that I was able to produce huge numbers of troops in Asia (where they were at) and just overwhelm them. I would not necessarily promote this type of resource management, but if you are down to a couple of players even if they have the interior lines and are relatively strong, screw the food and just go for it. Again, I don't recommend this as a typical strat, but it can work if the situation is right.

Interesting you say that - I had this exact scenario in another map I am in and used it exactly the way you do.

Sometimes the morale penalty isnt even that important and as you say 'just go for it'

It can work. You just have to watch your morale closely. If you get close to 25 with falling morale, you could have rebellions all over the place.

This is true, but if you are going to attempt this strat, you avoid taking provinces that give nothing and take food. You use recon units in the rear to take back rebellious provinces. And yes at some point the negative moral will out way your push, but the key is the massive local unit production to strengthen your weakening armies.

something that wasnt said earlier perhaps:

manage your capitals (yes, plural). Its a bit of an exploit, but AI tend to be very generous in rebuilding capitals. So dont take everything at once, but leave some stuff behind with AI.

Sure...it is an exploit. But as long as the grain issue isnt fixed, I have no problem abusing this.

miech wrote:

manage your capitals (yes, plural). Its a bit of an exploit, but AI tend to be very generous in rebuilding capitals. So dont take everything at once, but leave some stuff behind with AI.

Razorwire62 wrote:

just wanting you to clarify this in a bit more detail thx

I want to conquer a capital to boost my morale. (My coalition mate has scooped the last two out from under me, so I need something)

I am going to hit a tiny island nation: Samoa

Samoa has three provinces.

Today I will take Salelologo, the province with the capital. That will get me the 10% morale boost on all of my provinces, plus half of the cash that Samoa has.

I will wait for the AI to rebuild the capital, probably sometime tomorrow. It will be build in one of the other two provinces. Once that is built I will attack that province. Again I get 10% morale and half of the cash on hand.

I then wait for the AI to rebuild the capital in the last remaining province, usually the following day and repeat the process.

To drag that out a bit I can make sure I don't have my armies occupying those provinces at day change, so they might rebel back to Samoa, giving it another place to rebuild a capital.

1) If it is a small AI, it may or may not rebuild the capital. At some point it may not have the resources to rebuild a capital.

2) The AI may not have the resources or a free building spot to build a new capital. So it could take longer than a day for it to rebuild a capital.

3) For each AI that you have captured a capital and the AI still has provinces, you are taking a -5 in the daily morale calculations.

4) Usually the best time to take an AI capital is after you have conquered other provinces and before day change. The immediate plus ten before day change usually keeps them from rebelling

The food situation is way beyond an issue and after reading through the forums over the past two years, it needs to be addressed. While still relativity new, I am on my 7th game, second 100 player map that has gone past 70 days, and at a level 47. Tried all the "tricks" and they simply don't work when you get to a certain point. Just about at 1500 VP's currently and this is what I have seen and suggest:

1. The maps themselves. As we know, the world is round but here it is flat. That said, the distance to capitol is unrealistic the further north and south of the equator. This thus effects morale, as well as speed of units.

Remedy: Create adjustments based on latitude for every 10 degrees north or south of the equator. It takes over eight days to circle the Arctic Circe but just a 8 hours to get from Brazil to Freetown, Africa. Every try playing Australia and the penalty for "distance to capitol?" Say, you get a 10% increase in speed and 10% reduction in morale penalty for every 10 degrees from the equator.

2. The penalty for distance to capitol should be 50% less in the 50-player map and 75% less in the 100-player.

3. Populations of provinces have no rhyme or reason. Two examples:

New York with 20 VP's- 2,793,820

Boston w/ 3,265,390

Mexico City w/ 20 VP's- 1,727,150

Acapulco W/ 5 VP's- 3,408,870

I purposelessly avoid the these out of whack and many other examples of high population areas just because it further adds the food death spiral.

I also agree that non-core provinces producing food at only 25% is a major problem.

I have no issues with any other resource so please let's get this fixed!!!!

So, I have a huge problem with grain and fuel, and I'm playing the Pacific Map. I've managed to unite the entire New World into three superstates under one banner. I'm also fighting a war against a United Asia. Here's my grain statistics:

Net Change: -855/h.

Production: 24,386 a day.

Consumption:

Units: 9,965 a day.

Upgrades: 5,400 a day.

And the kicker:

Population: 29,531 a day.

With a total loss of: 44,896 a day.

Even if I disbanded all 277 units, I wouldn't be able to sustain my food. Fuel is also a large problem, as by attempting to conserve food, I've used fuel on armored units.

My total population is 295,295,060, and morale is edging close to 65%.

It appears the problem is stemming from a fast rate of growth under individual countries who can preserve their food well due to no non-core penalties. This results in cities like Anchorage having nearly 4.1 million souls, where as in real life today, it can barely reach a quarter of a million:

The Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska contain three million people.

Whitehorse has 3.1 million people.

Yellowknife has 3 million.

Prince Rupert, a city with a modern day population of just 12,500; in game, has over two million.

My suggestion is slowing down growth of cities with food surpluses should fix the problem.

IncognitaStructura wrote:

Production: 24,386 a day.

You should be able to produce 6,000 tons of food per day on each of your core single food provinces, or 12,000 tons if you have a double food province in your core. In order to meet those production rates you need to have a level 3 infrastructure and a level 5 industrial complex in each core food province, which is something you need to start planning on in the first 14 days of the game if not sooner.

Then for each double food province that you capture you need to build that up with IC's and infrastructure as rapidly as possible. A captured double food province can produce 3,000 tons of food when fully upgraded.

I usually upgrade some other captured food provinces when the above are all upgraded, to try and get them up over 1,000 tons of food a day, with preference going to the more defensible ones over the battle zone ones.

IncognitaStructura wrote:

Population: 29,531 a day.

So when I sort my province menu by resources, this is what I see in the food production area:

I am sure nobody wants me to continue on and screenshot every food province. Let me summarize. I have some sort of building being constructed in each one of my top 18 food provinces. When those are finished there is another one in the build Queue. As those provinces complete upgrading I have 40 more food producing provinces to upgrade.

My rough plan is that I can capture 10% more provinces per day as long as I can increase my food production by 10% per day also. If I dip into the negative on food per hour I slow down for a day or two and build more in my food provinces.

I also have a cushion of food reserves at this point, having learned here on the forums of late game food shortages, and experiencing them even after I thought I was prepared in my first 100 player map. Here at day 30 i have 500,000 food on hand, so I can last 20 days at -1000 per hour. Yes I expect that day will come in this game when I will be at -1000 or more per hour, but I intend to stay in positive territory as long as possible.

There are more than enough resources on the Pacific Map to feed the population and great armies.

For those players who are not able to do so, the big maps may be (still) too heavy, and they should first continue to gain more experience on smaller maps.

If, instead and again, also here the game will made easier, it loses more and more the originally strategic challenge, and tends more and more to a dull and brainless click-and-jump...

It is like it is: If it’s too strong.. – then you are too.. >>

@Restrisiko : In your example game above, I note that you have accumulated over $114 million in cash, so obviously this is not particularly early in that game. What numbered day of the game is it?

IncognitaStructura wrote:

...

It appears the problem is stemming from a fast rate of growth under individual countries who can preserve their food well due to no non-core penalties. This results in cities like Anchorage having nearly 4.1 million souls, where as in real life today, it can barely reach a quarter of a million:

The Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska contain three million people.

Whitehorse has 3.1 million people.

Yellowknife has 3 million.

Prince Rupert, a city with a modern day population of just 12,500; in game, has over two million.

My suggestion is slowing down growth of cities with food surpluses should fix the problem.

And since own provinces influence one another in morals, the construction of fortifications is also important in non-productive provinces.

Morale influences of provinces to their own neighbours, depending on their own morale.

100 morale --> +2

90-99 morale --> +1

70-89 morale --> 0

60-69 morale --> -1

50-59 morale --> -2

40-49 morale --> -3

30-39 morale --> -4

20-29 morale --> -5

10-19 morale --> -6

0-9 morale --> -7

MontanaBB wrote:

@Restrisiko : In your example game above, I note that you have accumulated over $114 million in cash, so obviously this is not particularly early in that game. What numbered day of the game is it?

But what is irrelevant with regard to the basic statement that there are resources in the abundance on the Pacific map.

Money, by the way (as I know you know it ), doesn't play any role from the beginning, since from the very first days money comes in by the continuous sale of food surpluses, which in turn allows the early and ample purchase of other materials.

Ok...

First of all, Im happy to see my topic gaining momentum in the community.

Yet...I fail to see any reaction from Bytro. And I know they are out there reacting to certain topics

@freezy Care to give any insight what we can, or cannot expect? As much as this popular topic strokes my ego, I rather see an answer...or better, a solution.

If the answer is: Well, it sucks/made harder/give any decent marcom answer. Sure, fine. We will deal with it. But if the answer is: 'what a shocker, we will fix it, and here is how'. Even better

@Miech: I have been gathering data for a more comprehensive discussion thread regarding this topic. Are you currently playing any active games on the 50- or 100-player maps? If so, please ping me.

My opinion:

There are enough resources on all maps and the problem should be regulated by the morale.

The system with the province-morale / -productivity and production-malus in conquered territory is important to the functioning of the game as a mmop-browsergame. (to slow down the speed what is important for a tournament where the players the most time are not at the same time on the court)

So there should not be more resources on a map, and in no case should the 25% malus of the non-core provinces be dropped, because then not only rushing brings an unassailable advantage after a short time, but the whole game trends more and more away from a strategic challenge to a monotonous action-clicking...

(It was already reduced the (slowdown-) system of the uprisings; previously an army strength of 30 was needed to prevent uprisings, now a strength of 7 is enough to completely suppress a rebellion; okay so far, but at the same time the frequency of actual uprisings in unprotected provinces should have been drastically increased; and if I imagine now that only two more from the often requested innovations will be added, e.g. remove of the non-core malus and at the same time give ability to dissolve units (and possibly even resource reimbursement), then the gaming experience will soon not be far away from Pac-Man ... )

I think, a simple solution to the whole chaos would be to allow one capital-building on every continent where one have provinces, from where the distance penalty of that continent is calculated.

And if they simply declare this building as a continental administration, even the reality freaks should be reasonably satisfied.

Restrisiko wrote:

100 morale --> +2

90-99 morale --> +1

70-89 morale --> 0

60-69 morale --> -1

50-59 morale --> -2

40-49 morale --> -3

30-39 morale --> -4

20-29 morale --> -5

10-19 morale --> -6

0-9 morale --> -7

Interesting, where did you get this information?