Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
did someone suggest such?
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
that was at least 5 responses and thus 30 minutes ago
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think people are bitter over the results of the start of the war. Which is honestly a bit confusing, since they really aren't that bad.
that's not long at all on a forum.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
It's been 4 days since an update, and we can't get on with our Kyuukey vendetta. Or castle building. Or Wise wolf tail petting.
...
It's a sad day we live in.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah.
I guess that works as a reason.
It's not one I really understand but I can see it.
Thank you! Didn't check the times.
pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
You thought this was a forum? It's CLEARLY a fast-moving chat channel. Heck, I've known chats that move slower.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
People are upset that things didn't go well because of the war and are known blaming the side.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
okay but irl that's centuries
I have noticeably aged
I've written an entire class for a homework project due in 8 hours
I've seen a bee get crushed under the inattentive heels of a fright of freshmen
every time I look back at this forum and see nothing new to procrastinate w/ a part of my soul dies
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think that attitude is why the thread is so out of control and why it keeps getting locked.
Out of curiosity I tried to estimate how many people the lowlands could feed.
Base assumptions are:
Total area about 600'000 km², which is about Ukraine sized. As AN compared us to Romania before we took the TH and TS, I think thats a reasonable ballpark.
Population per km² of ~11.3, which is about what China had during the Jin Dynasty (265–316 AD) and I think is where our tech level roughly is. Or at least the differences are not that massive as the seed drill wasn't invented yet.
Another reason is that I don't think China imported a lot of food in that period, unlike Rome which would distort the estimate.
The result is that we could maintain a population of about 6.7 million people.
However, this does not factor in Black Soil, which is for all intents and purposes a fertilizer and soil improver in one.
Calculating the effect is a bit difficult as I have no figure as to how much N the stuff contains, nor how much is given to an average field, so I will try for an educated guess.
Modern figures for Wheat in southern germany* are 2.2 kg (pure) per 100 kg corn.
A rough average for dung is 8 kg N per m³ of dry mass, but varies wildly between various animals and what they are fed. But I'll be generous to Terra Preta here.
Next is a guess as to how much is spread over a field. Given the sheer quantities involved, it can't be thick. It will be a lot over time, but this is just looking at it as a fertilizer, not a terraforming tool.
I think 0,25 cm is a high estimate, but doable as all the coal, cattle dung and so on add up. Over a hectare that's 25 m³ if I didn't screw up. So 200 kg pure N per hectare.
Given the previous 2.2 kg figure, that means about 9t of wheat per hectare, which is in line with modern values.
Caveat here is however that unlike modern farms, we don't have seed drills, so we can divide it by 7 to 9 as that is the generally accepted efficiency gain from seed drills.
So we probably get 1 to 1.2 tons per hectare. Counting losses from pests, blights, inefficiencies from harvesting and I think 900 kg sounds reasonable.
Mind, if you think this is an unfair assessment of our farming practices, keep in mind that 25 m³ Black Soil is enough to boost an Iron Age farm to modern, 21. century levels of fertilization. The moment we get seed drills, things become utterly insane. Which is how ancient China maintained such a huge population. They got seed drills fairly early.
So back to a wild assed guess on how big the population could get. In theory.
Back to the Ukraine comparison. Assume 50% of the land is cultivated (rest being either useless or forests in the longterm), that's 300'000 km² is 30'000'000 ha. So conservatively 30 million tons of wheat. To be pessimistic, assume 20 million tons because disasters happen.
An Active adult needs about 3000 calories a day. Makes ~1 million a year.
A ton of wheat has 3.4 million calories.
We can produce 102 trillion calories a year. That feeds a population of 102 million people.
Of course, at that point Black Soil kinda craps out because good god is that a lot of shit to shovel. Nevermind that water will become a big problem. We don't have enough. Not even dams can provide that much water, I think.
Nevermind that disease will fuck us over at that population density.
Or that we need to house all those people.
But in summary: Black Soil is insane bullshit (literally) and the lowlands can feed a truly absurd population if everything aligns perfectly. But a variety of practical reasons will prevent it from being realized until the modern period.
*Because that's the sources I have close at hand. Other regions with different conditions will of course have different requirements.
Addendum: This is an estimate done out of boredom using values that I scrounged together with a few google searches. I take no responsibility for accuracy. But even if you cut the Black Soil N content to a tenth, it still allows for insane yields and I recommend AN to look towards balancing this early on or the seed drill will have us zerg rushing everything when that thing start increasing efficiencies several times over.
Base assumptions are:
Total area about 600'000 km², which is about Ukraine sized. As AN compared us to Romania before we took the TH and TS, I think thats a reasonable ballpark.
Population per km² of ~11.3, which is about what China had during the Jin Dynasty (265–316 AD) and I think is where our tech level roughly is. Or at least the differences are not that massive as the seed drill wasn't invented yet.
Another reason is that I don't think China imported a lot of food in that period, unlike Rome which would distort the estimate.
The result is that we could maintain a population of about 6.7 million people.
However, this does not factor in Black Soil, which is for all intents and purposes a fertilizer and soil improver in one.
Calculating the effect is a bit difficult as I have no figure as to how much N the stuff contains, nor how much is given to an average field, so I will try for an educated guess.
Modern figures for Wheat in southern germany* are 2.2 kg (pure) per 100 kg corn.
A rough average for dung is 8 kg N per m³ of dry mass, but varies wildly between various animals and what they are fed. But I'll be generous to Terra Preta here.
Next is a guess as to how much is spread over a field. Given the sheer quantities involved, it can't be thick. It will be a lot over time, but this is just looking at it as a fertilizer, not a terraforming tool.
I think 0,25 cm is a high estimate, but doable as all the coal, cattle dung and so on add up. Over a hectare that's 25 m³ if I didn't screw up. So 200 kg pure N per hectare.
Given the previous 2.2 kg figure, that means about 9t of wheat per hectare, which is in line with modern values.
Caveat here is however that unlike modern farms, we don't have seed drills, so we can divide it by 7 to 9 as that is the generally accepted efficiency gain from seed drills.
So we probably get 1 to 1.2 tons per hectare. Counting losses from pests, blights, inefficiencies from harvesting and I think 900 kg sounds reasonable.
Mind, if you think this is an unfair assessment of our farming practices, keep in mind that 25 m³ Black Soil is enough to boost an Iron Age farm to modern, 21. century levels of fertilization. The moment we get seed drills, things become utterly insane. Which is how ancient China maintained such a huge population. They got seed drills fairly early.
So back to a wild assed guess on how big the population could get. In theory.
Back to the Ukraine comparison. Assume 50% of the land is cultivated (rest being either useless or forests in the longterm), that's 300'000 km² is 30'000'000 ha. So conservatively 30 million tons of wheat. To be pessimistic, assume 20 million tons because disasters happen.
An Active adult needs about 3000 calories a day. Makes ~1 million a year.
A ton of wheat has 3.4 million calories.
We can produce 102 trillion calories a year. That feeds a population of 102 million people.
Of course, at that point Black Soil kinda craps out because good god is that a lot of shit to shovel. Nevermind that water will become a big problem. We don't have enough. Not even dams can provide that much water, I think.
Nevermind that disease will fuck us over at that population density.
Or that we need to house all those people.
But in summary: Black Soil is insane bullshit (literally) and the lowlands can feed a truly absurd population if everything aligns perfectly. But a variety of practical reasons will prevent it from being realized until the modern period.
*Because that's the sources I have close at hand. Other regions with different conditions will of course have different requirements.
Addendum: This is an estimate done out of boredom using values that I scrounged together with a few google searches. I take no responsibility for accuracy. But even if you cut the Black Soil N content to a tenth, it still allows for insane yields and I recommend AN to look towards balancing this early on or the seed drill will have us zerg rushing everything when that thing start increasing efficiencies several times over.
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pblur
Reminiscing over the halcyon days of Ymaryn
- Location
- Lawrence's Wagon
It's not an attitude; it's an observation. (Well, and a joke, but we can let that slide I suppose.)
After an update, about 50 people want to talk about it. That inevitably leads to a lot of crosstalk and frustration. And resembling a chat channel...
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
@DakkaMania too much math, but thx.
Technically Black Soil is humanshit tho.
Technically Black Soil is humanshit tho.
Terra preta soils also show higher quantities of nutrients, and a better retention of these nutrients, than the surrounding infertile soils.[32] The proportion of P reaches 200–400 mg/kg.[50] The quantity of N is also higher in anthrosol, but that nutrient is immobilized because of the high proportion of C over N in the soil.[21]
The anthrosol's availability of P, Ca, Mn, and Zn is clearly higher than the neighboring Ferrasol. The absorption of P, K, Ca, Zn, and Cu by the plants increases when the quantity of available charcoal increases. The production of biomass for two crops (rice and Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) increased by 38–45% without fertilization (P < 0.05), compared to crops on fertilized Ferralsol.[21]
Amending with pieces of charcoal approximately 20 millimeters (0.79 in) in diameter, instead of ground charcoal, did not change the results except for manganese (Mn), for which absorption considerably increased.[21]
Nutrient leeching is minimal in this anthrosol, despite their abundance, resulting in high fertility. When inorganic nutrients are applied to the soil, however, the nutrients' drainage in anthrosol exceeds that in fertilized Ferralsol.[21]
As potential sources of nutrients, only C (via photosynthesis) and N (from biological fixation) can be produced in situ. All the other elements (P, K, Ca, Mg, etc.) must be present in the soil. In Amazonia, the provisioning of nutrients from the decomposition of naturally available organic matter fails as the heavy rainfalls wash away the released nutrients and the natural soils (ferralsols, acrisols, lixisols, arenosols, uxisols, etc.) do not contain the mineral matter to provide those nutrients. The clay matter that exists in those soils is incapable of holding but a small fraction of the nutrients made available from decomposition. In the case of terra preta, the only possible nutrient sources are primary and secondary. The following components have been found:[32]
The anthrosol's availability of P, Ca, Mn, and Zn is clearly higher than the neighboring Ferrasol. The absorption of P, K, Ca, Zn, and Cu by the plants increases when the quantity of available charcoal increases. The production of biomass for two crops (rice and Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) increased by 38–45% without fertilization (P < 0.05), compared to crops on fertilized Ferralsol.[21]
Amending with pieces of charcoal approximately 20 millimeters (0.79 in) in diameter, instead of ground charcoal, did not change the results except for manganese (Mn), for which absorption considerably increased.[21]
Nutrient leeching is minimal in this anthrosol, despite their abundance, resulting in high fertility. When inorganic nutrients are applied to the soil, however, the nutrients' drainage in anthrosol exceeds that in fertilized Ferralsol.[21]
As potential sources of nutrients, only C (via photosynthesis) and N (from biological fixation) can be produced in situ. All the other elements (P, K, Ca, Mg, etc.) must be present in the soil. In Amazonia, the provisioning of nutrients from the decomposition of naturally available organic matter fails as the heavy rainfalls wash away the released nutrients and the natural soils (ferralsols, acrisols, lixisols, arenosols, uxisols, etc.) do not contain the mineral matter to provide those nutrients. The clay matter that exists in those soils is incapable of holding but a small fraction of the nutrients made available from decomposition. In the case of terra preta, the only possible nutrient sources are primary and secondary. The following components have been found:[32]
- Human and animal excrements (rich in P and N);
- Kitchen refuse, such as animal bones and tortoise shells (rich in P and Ca);
- Ash residue from incomplete combustion (rich in Ca, Mg, K, P and charcoal);
- Biomass of terrestrial plants (e.g. compost); and
- Biomass of aquatic plants (e.g. algae).
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keenscythe
No longer NEET
- Location
- WA, USA
We fought a Civil War over our slaves, which I think was and is still unique during the annals of slavery. Don't quote me on this as I only really know about the American and British abolitionist movements.
Mechanically if successfully it causes stab damage to the Trelli, which would undermine their ability to fight back.
Narratively it should (assuming the Dice don't hate us this roll) explain Why we are fighting them as we list their crimes and our intended punishments if they continue to resist.
Thats because I started at 'lets see how many we can feed by comparing us to a known state in that period' and then got curious.
Then I rushed because this was just for fun and not an academic paper, damnit.
I don't think the joke translates well into english, but I count humans under upright walking bovines.
I am not upset, but I am peeved about our blindspots. We just don't know a lot about our neighbors and forgot to ask questions and discuss things.
Anyway, I do want to take the strait, but I hope it doesn't take too long, because we have faction quests to worry about.
Something I noted from wiki.
wiki said:
We are that marginal hill tribes.
While we may not be nomads, we fought them enough to be good at engaging in that style of warfare too.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Personally starting a war over slavery was a foolish thing to do.
After all now that were no longer compatible with the value we stolen from the Highlanders their is clearly no longer a reason to keep them around.
After all now that were no longer compatible with the value we stolen from the Highlanders their is clearly no longer a reason to keep them around.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And we took the beating heart of the Lowlands with a Nomad too!I am not upset, but I am peeved about our blindspots. We just don't know a lot about our neighbors and forgot to ask questions and discuss things.
Anyway, I do want to take the strait, but I hope it doesn't take too long, because we have faction quests to worry about.
Something I noted from wiki.
We are that marginal hill tribes.
While we may not be nomads, we fought them enough to be good at engaging in that style of warfare too.
As to the blindspot thing in particular, same here.
I think AN said that that Terrify worked reasonably well as long as we don't lose in the field.
Dunno how stalling counts, though.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From what I recall it's separate rolls, but is really helped by having an army to back it up.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Probably not, the worst seems to be stalling out. Stalemate as it were.
I'm actually a bit curious why the thread never really expressed much interest in Trade Missions. I think the reason I never did till recently was that I mostly forgot about them or pushed them far enough down the list of things to do I didn't consider/think about them.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Because the thread wants war despite preaching peace.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
*shrug* I have regularly prompted us to do them, as have others, like ctulhuslp and iirc pblur, citino, candesce, maybe siv, etc.
They never really took root except for immediate gain, buy-off-trouble situations, though, because we as a thread are oriented toward solid, short-term gains. TM's aren't considered to provide that until we hear rumors of war or tech gains.
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