Food Seasons

[Meh]

Something that Solfius mentioned in the timewarp thread gave me an idea that may have been mentioned before.

There's been talk that food gathering is too easy in many places.

Maybe implementing seasons is the way to go.

The root of calendars, matmatics, astorology, and astonomy all spreang from the need to figure out what day is the best day to sow and which day to reap and when those juicy deer migrate by...

All wars up until and including WWII started after the harvest. Not only did the armies have to feed there troops but an immideatte goal often was often to take as many towns as possible for there food without a really stong defensible postion. More of a raid kind of thing. Then the battles would commence here and there thoughout the rest of the year. Also many battle"fields" were just that, a field for food that had been harvested usally near a town not some grassy plain.

Assuming that 20 cantr days is a year {even though it says months now}...

A certain type of food should be in season maybe 1 day in 20. On that day you should be able to collect enough in an hour to feed yourself for a year. So if you work the whole day collecting you should be able to feed 8 people for a year.

The challege would be where to put it all until the next harvest and not starve yourselves waiting. All other days would have significatlly less to no output from farming.

This could also vary from town to town even for the same food.

This should proablly be phased in slowly on a percentage baisis.

For notification the harvest "day" for a particular food and area should be given to the populance ONCE. If they collectively forget the information then it should require rediscovery thorugh trial and error. This is fair as even pre-famring gathers knew when the food sprouted in the wild.

Now that food is established in many areas this rebalancing of the food challege could begin.

For those places that are bread based, this give an opprinutiy for the population to harvest for one day and grind and bake the other 19.

[swymir]

The populance based on bread (also known as Shrig-Sri) has no problem with the gathering of rye right now it is the grinding and baking part taking to long.

[Solfius]

I like this idea. the seasons could be based on the 20 day year

[Rob Maule]

I like this idea too. I think it would be dependent on the weather, mostly. Someone start a weather topic, please. I'll forget.

Summer would have less rain, higher temperatures, etc. Those would affect the change in seasons.

What affects gameplay is the real question. I think there should be increased/decreased production of food and perhaps a change in the mating of animals.

Not sure what else would happen. But I do think that the names and dates of seasons should be up to each character/town. They should figure everything out instead of being told.

[Solfius]

yeah, characters would have to work it out on their own definately. Perhaps there could be indication of the seasons though to help?

[Rob Maule]

What more indication would you need other than the weather? Don't you know it's winter when snow is falling?

[Rob Maule]

Well I think a year is still defined as 20 days. Maybe seasons could be done in years. Like, "Year of the Snow" or "The Year of Drought."

And freak storms don't change real life seasons. That's half the fun.

[Solfius]

80 days for a complete cycle? isn't that an awful ong time for one harvest? I think 40 days should be the maximum time. about imdications: i meant weather

[Pirog]

Having just one or two days to harvest food for an entire year will affect small communities and hermits badly.

What if a character lives alone in some place and can't log in for a few days...is he suppose to starve to death then?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have food that will get you thru just the day...that perhaps takes one day to harvest but only lasts for two days.
Then there would be room for more efficient sources of food, that would be a lot more complicated to harvest.

But people must be able to at least survive without being agricultural specialists...

[swymir]

Especially with people who just create a character. Even if you start farming right away when your character is crfeated you still lose a loittle health before the project is done. Now the character has to wait 39 days if he just missed the last harvest. I don't know if he could survive that long.

[swymir]

Maybe keep how much you cna farm a day at how it is right now or even half of what it is. (I.e potatoes (800/400 grams a day)) then on the harvesting day maybe you could finnish an entire days worth in 1 turn. (I.E. potatoes 6400 grams a day) on harvesting day you would harvest 800g of potatoes a turn.

This makes sure that people don't starve when they miss harvesting day.

[Solfius]

If 20 days is a year, that's 5 days per season. Perhaps hunter/gathering should be introduced. We need little wild berries etc to gather, the projects would only give you enough food for 2 days though as with out cultivation you can' gather a lot of wild stuff.

[DYip16]

Well this is startin to border on the concept of over-farming/hunting/harvesting... The animals will be able to migrate, but will we decimate a species by overhunting? Or maybe, if we farm too much in an area, we won't be able to use it for a long while...

As for the berries n stuff... Maybe have a growth period? Like the berries will appear like animals, and will need to be harvested like projects with a max # of berries...

[Solfius]

perhaps, but i think there ought to be some kind of food that is available in quantitties large enough to just see chars through all the time

[Rob Maule]

I like Swymir's idea. Farming during the winter would allow you to barely get by. But in the spring, you'd get a lot of food.