Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Trying to sleep, realized how to fix the Management Problem, decided to get it written down before I try to sleep again. I have a problem.
@Imperial Fister
SOLVING THE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM
Turn livestock and fields into buildings.
Specifically, instead of "Food" vs "Fodder", break it all down into Goods. Which represents arbitrary access to stuff that's important to live a comfortable life in ye Olde Days.
People require a certain amount of Goods to remain happy and healthy, and fields and animals can produce Goods, but require time and attention to do so. This is handled by giving everything a Maintenance cost, but not requiring active measures to stay ahead of the rat-race.
Instead of tracking every single animal though, turn it into Herds instead, having each one representing--say, ten to twenty producing animals depending on how many you can fit in one place. You can attach stuff like Bulls or Rams or Roosters as equipment to one, and that generates breeding dice that applies to that Herd every turn. When you max out the 'Experience' on a given Herd, you can either improve it's Quality by one (So from Basic to Decent, or Decent to Good, and so forth), or you can split them off into another Herd of one rank lower than the originating one, representing whether you're focusing on improving your stock or increasing your numbers. Every Herd generates a certain amount of Goods every turn (Cows, being the most expensive and prestigious, but a step underneath Sheep in terms of Sheer Value, give you a certain amount of Prestige for having them as well, meaning you want Cows even if spamming sheep is technically the better choice for making money, as Prestige turns into Orthstirr), but has a certain value in Upkeep that needs to be made every turn as well or your Herd starts losing XP instead, and drops in Quality if it falls below 0.
Instead of deciding whether a Field is used to grow Food or Fodder, you designate them as either Meadows or Crops, and assign Management Dice Upkeep to each (Exactly the same as we do for buildings), which is reduced based on the quality of your Tools. Crop Fields generate a certain amount of Goods per turn during the Summer, while Meadow Fields eliminate the upkeep on one Herd (They can feed themselves during the summer, and there's enough fodder generated in the harvest to feed them in the Winter)
Goods are then used to pay for the upkeep on the people living at your settlement, and any excess can be brought to town and converted to Silver, with the value of Goods per any given period of time changing based on market conditions. Or you can store your excess Goods to cover for emergencies or lean times, this is why Storehouses are important--they're places that you can keep Goods in for a long period of time without them going bad or otherwise getting into trouble.
Of course, you need to actually bring your Goods to town to sell, which limits how much you can do in one trip without having a good Cart, but a successful Farm that makes a surplus of Goods inevitably becomes a wealthy one, because you can use those Goods to buy other options.
Your Goods then convert to Silver and Favor, which you can use to upgrade your facilities or possibly improve your herds, which you can use to make more. I'd probably say the cost of extra Herds above and beyond what you can convienently support with Fields probably gets prohibitively high, which imposes a soft cap on how many you can support before you're taking a loss keeping them fed.
Barns can support a certain number of Herds depending on their quality, and in exchange, Houses lose their ability to support animals (Because it's no longer necessary since we're not tracking individual animals anymore). You need enough space to keep your Herds housed, because you can't just leave them exposed to the elements or they get predated on or sick.
In terms of value... I'd say every type of Herd would provide a certain fixed amount of Goods, which is then increased by however many times by their Quality. So we'd go to have a Flock of Chickens (The chicken equivalent of a Herd), a Herd of Sheep, and a Herd of Cows, all at Fine quality, with some experience towards moving up. (Though Fine to Superior is probably a prohibitively high value). Chickens are probably extremely efficient on Upkeep costs (Both in Maintenance and keeping them fed) but generate a relatively poor amount of Goods in absolute terms (Mostly eggs, light meat, and feathers) Sheep meanwhile have the highest rate of return in terms of producing Goods, but require a fair amount of upkeep if not assigned to a Meadow, and Cows provide solid Goods but also a decent pile of Prestige as well, but in exchange their initial buy-in cost is huge and they level up relatively slowly compared to the other livestock options we have.
Anyway, that's my thonks, I think it can work quite nicely, it also finally makes having Vehicles important, as that increases how many Goods you can bring to market on a turn you're headed that way. There's very little rolling involved--one small set of dice per Herd and that's it, while the number of available Management Dice will drop significantly by way of them now being tied up in Upkeep.
And with all that said, now I must return to slep, I hope this works out well for you!
@Imperial Fister
SOLVING THE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM
Turn livestock and fields into buildings.
Specifically, instead of "Food" vs "Fodder", break it all down into Goods. Which represents arbitrary access to stuff that's important to live a comfortable life in ye Olde Days.
People require a certain amount of Goods to remain happy and healthy, and fields and animals can produce Goods, but require time and attention to do so. This is handled by giving everything a Maintenance cost, but not requiring active measures to stay ahead of the rat-race.
Instead of tracking every single animal though, turn it into Herds instead, having each one representing--say, ten to twenty producing animals depending on how many you can fit in one place. You can attach stuff like Bulls or Rams or Roosters as equipment to one, and that generates breeding dice that applies to that Herd every turn. When you max out the 'Experience' on a given Herd, you can either improve it's Quality by one (So from Basic to Decent, or Decent to Good, and so forth), or you can split them off into another Herd of one rank lower than the originating one, representing whether you're focusing on improving your stock or increasing your numbers. Every Herd generates a certain amount of Goods every turn (Cows, being the most expensive and prestigious, but a step underneath Sheep in terms of Sheer Value, give you a certain amount of Prestige for having them as well, meaning you want Cows even if spamming sheep is technically the better choice for making money, as Prestige turns into Orthstirr), but has a certain value in Upkeep that needs to be made every turn as well or your Herd starts losing XP instead, and drops in Quality if it falls below 0.
Instead of deciding whether a Field is used to grow Food or Fodder, you designate them as either Meadows or Crops, and assign Management Dice Upkeep to each (Exactly the same as we do for buildings), which is reduced based on the quality of your Tools. Crop Fields generate a certain amount of Goods per turn during the Summer, while Meadow Fields eliminate the upkeep on one Herd (They can feed themselves during the summer, and there's enough fodder generated in the harvest to feed them in the Winter)
Goods are then used to pay for the upkeep on the people living at your settlement, and any excess can be brought to town and converted to Silver, with the value of Goods per any given period of time changing based on market conditions. Or you can store your excess Goods to cover for emergencies or lean times, this is why Storehouses are important--they're places that you can keep Goods in for a long period of time without them going bad or otherwise getting into trouble.
Of course, you need to actually bring your Goods to town to sell, which limits how much you can do in one trip without having a good Cart, but a successful Farm that makes a surplus of Goods inevitably becomes a wealthy one, because you can use those Goods to buy other options.
Your Goods then convert to Silver and Favor, which you can use to upgrade your facilities or possibly improve your herds, which you can use to make more. I'd probably say the cost of extra Herds above and beyond what you can convienently support with Fields probably gets prohibitively high, which imposes a soft cap on how many you can support before you're taking a loss keeping them fed.
Barns can support a certain number of Herds depending on their quality, and in exchange, Houses lose their ability to support animals (Because it's no longer necessary since we're not tracking individual animals anymore). You need enough space to keep your Herds housed, because you can't just leave them exposed to the elements or they get predated on or sick.
In terms of value... I'd say every type of Herd would provide a certain fixed amount of Goods, which is then increased by however many times by their Quality. So we'd go to have a Flock of Chickens (The chicken equivalent of a Herd), a Herd of Sheep, and a Herd of Cows, all at Fine quality, with some experience towards moving up. (Though Fine to Superior is probably a prohibitively high value). Chickens are probably extremely efficient on Upkeep costs (Both in Maintenance and keeping them fed) but generate a relatively poor amount of Goods in absolute terms (Mostly eggs, light meat, and feathers) Sheep meanwhile have the highest rate of return in terms of producing Goods, but require a fair amount of upkeep if not assigned to a Meadow, and Cows provide solid Goods but also a decent pile of Prestige as well, but in exchange their initial buy-in cost is huge and they level up relatively slowly compared to the other livestock options we have.
Anyway, that's my thonks, I think it can work quite nicely, it also finally makes having Vehicles important, as that increases how many Goods you can bring to market on a turn you're headed that way. There's very little rolling involved--one small set of dice per Herd and that's it, while the number of available Management Dice will drop significantly by way of them now being tied up in Upkeep.
And with all that said, now I must return to slep, I hope this works out well for you!
