Realism in Food

[Kalden]

From the History:

Over the course of the next few years, a few giants, so tall that their silhouettes are visible for miles, settle in Red Storm East, driving out the farmers and workers who, until then, produced much of Allanak's grain. Famine sweeps through the southern parts of the known world as grain becomes all but unavailable in Allanak and elsewhere.
...
The farming villages, responsible for much of the city's grain production, are attacked at roughly the same time, though the gith hoarde is defeated with a counterattack, led by Lord Templar Samos Rennik.

Some of you may have noticed for a long while now that the Grocer's in Allanak no longer sells much flour; in fact they only sell a few sacks every reboot. They do, however, sell lots of meat at some of the usual prices.

This is terribly unrealistic. There's a couple reasons for this:

1. Trophic Levels

Some of you may be aware of the idea of trophic levels. You may have heard that it is vastly more efficient to feed the world with grains than it is to feed the world with meat. It's a basic physics concept: there is a limited amount of energy in the world at a given time. All of it comes originally from the sun. As this energy moves up and is consumed over and over again, much of it is consumed by the intermediate organisms. Plants and algae are the lowest on the trophic scale, and things which consume them are one level higher, and things which consume the things that consume plants are one level higher. Humans can be either high or fairly low on the trophic level, dependent upon whether  the person in question is a vegetarian or a hunter.

"Approximately 90 percent of the useful energy is lost with each transfer to the next highest trophic level."[1]

A much smaller number of organisms can exist at the higher levels than at the bottom level. And those at the bottom level have to be supported by a vast number of plant material.

2. Storage

There's a handy thing about flour which makes it essential for civilization. It can be stored at room temperature for long periods of time. Can meat be stored like that? No. Without refrigeration, meat decays rapidly -- very rapidly.

The idea that the entire Allanak population is supported with meat stretches even the pretense of realism. Flour needs to be brought back. Also, if this famine is happening, then shouldn't lots of people be dead right now? I'm talking tens of thousands of people? Shouldn't there be riots in the street?

Flour can be made more expensive, but it should always be cheaper than meat, which is a luxury in comparison. Realistically, a shortage of flour should lead to very high flour prices -- so raise the price of flour, but don't eliminate it.

Also, in Arm 2.0 it would be nice if we had granaries, several unique grains, domesticated livestock, and other economically/physically realistic food relationships.

Now, someone should point out that this opens up trade opportunities with the North. Are huge shipments of grain from the North a common occurrence? It'd be nice if that was reflected in the gameworld too. Realistically some virtual or non-virtual people are probably making massive fortunes.

[Only He Stands There]

Allanak also has magickers.

Food for thought, pun not intended.

[Armaddict]

Things are realistic.

Grain is being made where it can be.  But it is short.  That is farmed grain. Grain that is shipped to centers of civilization.

Animals find their food elsewhere, and other animals.  Hunters hunt animals and sell the meat.  Some amount of the grain made in villages is sent to livestock, which are slaughtered.  More meat becomes available.  A large portion of the grain is instantly bought out before the commoners have access to it.  People who buy it out usually have their own access to meat.  Meat becomes more available.

Altogether, I'm not exactly certain what you're getting at with your post.  It's more of a biology rant than anything, talking about trophic levels and stating the fact that grain feeds more people.  That doesn't change its availability in Zalanthas.  It doesn't change anything, actually.  So yeah...what exactly do you find unrealistic about things?  The abundance of meat when grain is less abundant?  As mentioned, animals find their food in a variety of places that aren't 'farmed' by civilization.

[Kalden]

Insert Quote
Allanak also has magickers.

Food for thought, pun not intended.

If that's the case, then maybe there should be some hints. It shouldn't be easy to create vast amounts of grain and cart them off without attracting attention.

Things are realistic.

A famine without mass food riots and starvation? Flour not available for sale? Those are not realistic. Perhaps you could say they are realistic if you disagree, rather than just stating that it's so. Statements are not arguments.

Animals find their food elsewhere, and other animals.

Define elsewhere. The wastes are barren wasteland with very few plants, but plenty of animals. The Tablelands is interesting in that it has tons of animal life but hardly any plant life as well. Hordes of animals are killed every RL week, yet their populations never seem to decline.

It also seems that Allanak is fed with hunted meat alone, as there appears to be no ranches or pastures in the game.

[Only He Stands There]

It also seems that Allanak is fed with hunted meat alone, as there appears to be no ranches or pastures in the game.

Look around; within walking distance of Allanak are two farms and a ranch.

[Armaddict]

A famine without mass food riots and starvation? Flour not available for sale? Those are not realistic. Perhaps you could say they are realistic if you disagree, rather than just stating that it's so. Statements are not arguments.

Would you start a food riot against Tektolnes?  Knowing you'd be rising up against half-giants, magickers, and templars?  Or would you do what they are currently doing, scraping by, begging, and groveling in front of places where those who are not feeling the shortage go?  Hmm.  I wonder why there's an entire crime syndicate in the city that never seems to get wiped out.

Flour is not endless for reasons that I -did- say.  The supply is short, but not nonexistent.  But it is spoken for by those who get priority over the common people.  Ever notice those clan cooks who never need to be given food?  Where does that food come from?  Ever notice that there are certain public establishments that sell products that don't run out, but jack up the cost?  Wonder why that happens.  Do you actually need me to continue throwing more of these logical arguments your way, or can you start to think beyond yet?

Define elsewhere. The wastes are barren wasteland with very few plants, but plenty of animals. The Tablelands is interesting in that it has tons of animal life but hardly any plant life as well. Hordes of animals are killed every RL week, yet their populations never seem to decline.

It also seems that Allanak is fed with hunted meat alone, as there appears to be no ranches or pastures in the game.

No, there are no pastures.  But there are virtual references to farming and livestock in the game.  Do you ever stop in on the -FARMING VILLAGES-?  Do you ever visit the -RANCHES-?  More grain lost to feed livestock at the -RANCHES-?  Do you ever hang out near the -SLAUGHTERHOUSE-?  Do you know what -SCRUB- plains are?  Edible plants to animals are not often edible to humans.  Do you ever pick -FRUITS- out in the desert, and assume that there may be more that just aren't coded in because only players would actually harvest it, making it much easier to survive in the desert than it should be?  Do you have knowledge of the politics of the city and where it gains all its food from?  Do you ever wonder why only rangers can forage for -ROOTS-, and think that maybe they might one day get as good at it as an animal with an enhanced sense of smell, touch, or something that has a different diet entirely?  Come on, dude.

As far as the criticism for me saying it -is- realistic, I still think you called it unrealistic without pointing to any significant point of IC reference to support that things are, IC'ly, as unrealistic as you feel it is.

If you want to start a food riot, start it.  If you want to increase the grain supply...start farming.

Edited to add:  Er...every time I reread my posts, they come across more hostile than I want them to.  Didn't intend it that way    But my point is...I do think there is at least some definite realism to the way things are, particularly in the situation of Zalanthas.  Things mesh beautifully, but they aren't blatantly set up any particular way.  Everyone comes up with their own reasonable arguments to justify the way things are, because it's easily done, but the vagueness is kept so that most people's vision is different details that lead to the same destination...which -is- shown in the game.

[Kalden]

Would you start a food riot against Tektolnes?  Knowing you'd be rising up against half-giants, magickers, and templars?  Or would you do what they are currently doing, scraping by, begging, and groveling in front of places where those who are not feeling the shortage go?

Whether or not the commoners would want to is irrelevant. When they have no food and they're on the edge of starvation, they will be, if not rioting, then extremely loud. Food riots have been extremely common throughout history. There should be MASSIVE, out of the ordinary piles of bodies. The lack of flour should be the defining characteristic of the city, not ho-hum gossip. A famine is a BIG DEAL. What I mainly see in this game is a complete ignorance of the virtual circumstances that would define the world in favor of random magick and petty gossip. The virtual circumstances are rather outstanding, scary, and major.

Flour is not endless for reasons that I -did- say.

Obviously flour is not endless. The question is whether it should be available for sale at a high price or not for sale at all. Currently, it is not for sale at all, yet there are tons of meat products for sale at sometimes reasonable prices. That's not realistic, because commoners should not be able to afford meat. Look at history.  Peasants did not eat meat. Flour should always be cheaper than meat, and it should always be available for sale, because if it isn't then this famine is very, very bad.

Do you actually need me to continue throwing more of these logical arguments your way, or can you start to think beyond yet?

I'm not seeing the logic, but I'm seeing a lot of rhetorical questions.

No, there are no pastures.  But there are virtual references to farming and livestock in the game.  Do you ever stop in on the -FARMING VILLAGES-?  Do you ever visit the -RANCHES-?

If there are ranches, then there are pastures. I have noticed the farming villages, but I forgot about the ranch.

All the talk about roots/fruits and such is irrelevant because we're talking about grain, which realistically should contribute about 90%+ of the calories for people in civilization. Roots/fruits in the wild don't really contribute a meaningful amount of food when we're talking about large cities, and it can't really be harvested efficiently enough to make it worth it. Same with hunted meat: there's a reason that you can't go to the supermarket and pick up venison.

EDIT: In fact, realistically I imagine that by now the Labyrinth would be wiped out by starvation, as they are the poorest. But everyone should definitely be feeling the impact of rising food prices. PCs feel it currently, but not to the extent that I think they should, because they just buy the strangely cheap meat instead.

If you examine this economically: previously everyone ate a lot of flour and some meat. But when flour is gone, all that demand for flour is transferred to meat. Meat shortages should ensue immediately, and meat should become more expensive. Are you following me?

[Armaddict]

Obviously flour is not endless. The question is whether it should be available for sale at a high price or not for sale at all. Currently, it is not for sale at all, yet there are tons of meat products for sale at sometimes reasonable prices. That's not realistic, because commoners should not be able to afford meat. Look at history.  Peasants did not eat meat. Flour should always be cheaper than meat, and it should always be available for sale, because if it isn't then this famine is very, very bad.

Supply and demand, man.  Grain is NOT the plentiful supply on Zalanthas.  Anyway, I think we're agreeing to disagree, because we're throwing the same arguments with different examples.  I don't want it to turn into a bicker

[Rindan]

I think his point is that if grain is currently rare, it should be expensive, not "rare I can't get that".  Rationing Price fixing causes shortages.  Short supply on the other hand causes massive price jumps, but you still see the stuff on the shelf.  This is just simply supply and demand.  If the grocer gets a bag of grain in and sells it 5 seconds later, it means he isn't charging enough and needs to jack up his prices through the roof.  If on the other hand he gets his grain bag in and is told he will be arrested if he sells it for more than 12 'sid, people just buy out the supply in seconds.

Further, I think his larger point is that if all of a sudden Allanak's staple diet is gone, shouldn't, uh, there be more bodies and rioting and mass hysteria?  Maybe you youngins are too young to remember it, but many RL years back Allanak did indeed have a famine.  When the famine hit there was rioting, piles of bodies in the street, and inflated flour prices.

Either ol' Tek has found a way to feed the population via other means (and hell, he is all powerful, so it isn't like this is far fetched), or there should probably be signs that there is a food shortage in the way of bodies in the street and high prices on food.

[Armaddict]

Yup, I caught the misunderstanding I had.

I wasn't even arguing the actual point of the post, because I got caught up in the side-stuff in the original post.

Sorry, Kalden

[Kalden]

Sorry, Kalden

Same thing happens to me all the time. Thanks for the apology. 

Rindan pretty much hit the nail right on the head. A few comments:

Rationing causes shortages.

I'm not sure this is true. [EDIT: You mean that rationing leads to rare as in "I can't get that". And with that I definitely agree.] Rationing is a common response by the government to shortages . Because rationing doles out a product as some authority deems rather than according to price and ability to pay, it's often rather imperfect and encourages black-market dealing. Depending upon whether the producers of the rationed good (in this case, farmers) are compensated at the fair market value, rationing may not encourage more farming to the extent that the free market does and exacerbate the shortage.

Short supply causes massive price jumps, but you still see the stuff on the shelf.  This is just simply supply and demand.  If the grocer gets a bag of grain in and sells it 5 seconds later, it means he isn't charging enough and needs to jack up his prices through the roof.  If on the other hand he gets his grain bag in and is told he will be arrested if he sells it for more than 12 'sid, people just buy out the supply in seconds.

Exactly. I suppose in the current situation we can assume there is some sort of price-fixing going on. Flour is still priced cheap, when the few sacks are available right after reboot. Price-fixing is not very smart, but it's a common governmental response to shortages to keep the masses happy. The US did it with gasoline in the 70s. Price fixing exacerbates shortages and encourages black-market dealing. The grocer is probably going to sell that flour on the sly, and if he doesn't, then the lucky people who get the flour will probably sell it on the sly. The problem is that currently IG meat is still basically the same price, which doesn't make sense if there's a famine. Everyone who was eating flour now has to eat a lot more meat. Flour shortage ---> meat shortage ----> food shortage.  So I'm saying jack up the prices on all food.

To make this famine interesting, you could increase the number of sacks available after a reboot and jack up the prices of all other food. Suddenly all the PCs would be feeling the pinch. After a reboot, which would simulate a harvest or shipment of food, everyone would rush to the Grocer's and buy up all the flour. Then those lucky bastards would begin selling it to their friends at marked up prices. You stimulate some PC to PC commerce.

Either that or play it as if Tek wised up and decided to stop the price-fixing, in which case flour should go up to like 50 coins a sack or something.

This famine is ultimately driven, I guess, by a dearth of good farmland. So I'd imagine there should be some talks about recovering the farmland of finding more...

I'd just like to see more of an awareness that there's a "famine" going on, and that a famine is a major event. Like Rindan said, there was a famine in Arm years ago...

Another side effect of a famine is that people are spending all their money on food and spending much less on other things. So you'd probably see an economic depression.

To really have a dynamic economy, it would be nice to classify objects according to what kind of good they are. All food could be classed as food. So, for something like this, admins could just do "food +30%" and suddenly the price of all foods is up 30%. But then you want the price of flour to be even higher, so you change the base flour price by 20 or something. Since people have less money now, people spend less on spice and "luxury" class items. So the price of these things decreases. The people who make these things now receive less profits and start getting surly. Meanwhile, people who own farmland are suddenly making bank. And so on and so on. It sounds overly ambitious, but I think it could be really cool.\

A dynamic economy can actually facilitate a lot of plotting. People may try to reduce the supply of certain things to get more profits to themselves.

I mean, if a group really wanted to make a lot of money, they could consider taking back Red Storm East and putting up some slaves to farm it for 'em. Could be a fun adventure for the Byn, or House Kurac, of a coalition of some sort.

[X-D]

Alright. I'm just adding this little tidbit. I love the fact that you all are basing this on RL which may be based on grain but really ONLY because for a very long time meat was too difficult to store and transport before going bad.

And where the largest animals normaly eaten were  human size.

While you are applying this to an alian world that you do not know the ecolegy of. Where one of the most common mounts is a lizard the size of a bus. Where preserving meat should be rather easy, since there is a well know set of salt flats and even a noble house devoted to such salt. Where  you don't know how much land it requires to feed that bus sized lizard nor how long it takes to reach full size. Zalanthas cities could VERY easily be based on meat as the staple food.

[Dusky]

Agreed that this is a fantasy world - energy is certainly not limited to what the sun can produce - there are active an intelligent elemental forces, supernatural beings and who knows what else.

The calculation you make is reasonable, I suppose, for earth - certainly not for Zalanthas.

[staggerlee]

All logical arguments aside, I'd love to see the populace start to get restless about the lack of flour and generally abysmal (at the best of times even) conditions since the Gith attack. Disease and famine have been hitting the city hard since, as far as a few people's rp have led me to believe, and I rather like that idea.  It'd be great if it actually caused increase tension, even to the point of the occasional riot.  I'd assume the riot would end in huge piles of bodies, but that's not the point.  Things like that make the world dynamic and colorful.

The thing is we don't actually need the Staff to make any changes in Allanak for it to seem like the flour shortage matters.  All we need is a few more players to start gossiping in the bar about how they heard so and so can't afford to feed their family anymore or that they hear half the Rinth has died of plague in the last six months.  Even one or two players can effect a huge change in the atmosphere if they're good, and it's funny how quickly other people pick up on stuff like that sometimes.

[Janna]

Yeah, for what can be said without IC info, it is realistic with what's going on IG for the most part. Allanak has a populace of 500,000 people. Lets high-ball it and say that a shortage means the amount of grain coming into the city (daily, by the way. Stand on Caravan road and watch room echos) can only feed half. As was stated in the thread already, food can be created. I won't say how, by what or anything like it, but it would be proper to say that if the Templarate came down on those who could to double production, chances are you'd see another 100,000 people fed.

150,000 hungry beggars in Allanak. I'd say at -least-, imo, half of that number has -always- been in Allanak. Look outside a certain Noble hang out or two. 'vast' amounts of beggars sitting about, begging, screaming, pulling at you, then theres those ICly dying from starvation on a daily basis in Allanak because its a harsh world. Just because you live in a city, doesn't mean you go down to the local food bank to get food if you can't afford or find it.

So, lets say 75,000 beggars are 'new' in Allanak based on the shortage. Do you -really- know that the staff or certain portions of the PB hasn't seen this change take place or act to keep it under control? Maybe some or most of those beggars left the city in hopes of finding food elsewhere instead of being slaughtered for riots by his Militia and that's why you don't see them? Maybe people are feeding them through IC means? Heck, maybe the beggars are eating each other after one of them dies until the supply comes back up. Find out IC. The answers are there.

Outside of the populace number, all the numbers I'm using are just random for the point that just because you don't -instantly- see an impact where your character is, doesn't mean it hasn't occured. Hope that helps some. 

[My 2 sids]

Just because Giants don't want to trade with the major cities doesn't mean there is a ecosystem meltdown. 

We have roots, mosses, etc...  all which can easily be made into an alternitive to grain flour.  Create a cook, have said cook exparement with different alternitives, set off a new food trend, become rich and powerful...

[Troicha]

Staff, I want government rationing stations and grain riots please.

[Maybe42or54]

There are also bands of allanaki beggers in other cities, oddly enough.

[Gimfalisette]

There were bands of beggars in Nak in response to the food shortage. But in Nak, these things are handled differently than in Tuluk. So the extra beggars were "handled" very quickly.

[brytta.leofa]

What Gim is saying is that, for a brief period, we did have too many beggars and not enough meat. 

But now it's all...balanced out.

[Gimfalisette]

Travel cakes are people!!!

[Ghost]

There used to be food/water riots in Allanak.  Am I the only one to remember what it was like in 2004?  There happened to be two major food riots with thousands of commoners ending up as corpses on the streets.

I think Meleth's started to have that "pile of corpse" after those riots.

[Rindan]

I think the issue is that if there is supposed to be a famine of some sort going on, there should be signs of it.  If the Templerate is getting food from "other sources" there should almost be rumors of it.  You really can't hide where food comes from.  Right now, there are no obvious clues about where it is coming from or if there is even a famine going on at all.  I guess my point is that if "something" is going on, there should be cues to let players know that it is going on.  Without any sort of prompting people just assume it is business as normal. 

During the first Allanaki famines back a few years ago, food wasn't actually harder to come by.  I think they knocked the price of flour up all of 3 'sid.  Despite that, people knew to RP that even this small price pump was causing mass famine because there were clues that it was going on... in the form of mountains of corpses in the streets.

[Troicha]

Rindan, please find out IC.

[staggerlee]

Rindan, please find out IC.

Or make something up.
Either way tell everyone in the Gaj.  And the problem is (somewhat) solved.