VBAM Games Forums

After a bit of a delay, #4 has been posted here. n'joi!

Agricultural Output: The total number of foodstuffs created by the colony. It is equal to Agriculture times Biosphere

Agriculture is not defined anywhere. It is mentioned in the Biosphere definition, but that is all.

That's something that's still being figured out. We're not sure yet whether you'll need to invest in Agriculture infrastructure or if it will be the simple product of the level of Census present. Sorry for the confusion.

Commerce Value: This represents the amount of Commerce Income generated for those Empires that have trade links at the Colony. It is equal to an average of Economic Output, Production Output and Agricultural Output, all divided by 10. This allows planets to not be manufacturing centers but still be valuable economically.

I like this concept very much. And the rest all sounds very cool as well.

Interesting. Any plans to require a certain Agricultural Output or somewhere census points will starve?

Rainer wrote:Interesting. Any plans to require a certain Agricultural Output or somewhere census points will starve?

When ag first appeared in some of our test games last year, that's was it's original purpose. However, it was fairly easy to stay ahead of your needs as originally implemented and the only real concern would be during a blockade or if one or more systems were cut off from the rest of the empire. Since 1E doesn't really support anything other than attacking those systems closest to you due to supply considerations, that never really came up either.

Now with 2Es incorporation of Endurance and some related tweaks to trade, our intent is to make is more feasible to launch raiders into an enemy territory to break up trade routes and generally cause havoc. Agricultural output being needed to actually feed all your Census is likely to come back since there's a greater chance of it actually being an issue.

I continue to like what I see here.

Charles Lewis wrote:Now with 2Es incorporation of Endurance and some related tweaks to trade, our intent is to make is more feasible to launch raiders into an enemy territory to break up trade routes and generally cause havoc.

Yes!

Charles Lewis wrote:

Rainer wrote:Interesting. Any plans to require a certain Agricultural Output or somewhere census points will starve?

When ag first appeared in some of our test games last year, that's was it's original purpose. However, it was fairly easy to stay ahead of your needs as originally implemented and the only real concern would be during a blockade or if one or more systems were cut off from the rest of the empire. Since 1E doesn't really support anything other than attacking those systems closest to you due to supply considerations, that never really came up either.

Now with 2Es incorporation of Endurance and some related tweaks to trade, our intent is to make is more feasible to launch raiders into an enemy territory to break up trade routes and generally cause havoc. Agricultural output being needed to actually feed all your Census is likely to come back since there's a greater chance of it actually being an issue.

This will be fascinating, particularly in large campaigns. Also interesting to see if it will be feasible in less than Captain level to allow some more detail without going all the way.

Again, I continue to like what I see.

Rainer wrote:Interesting. Any plans to require a certain Agricultural Output or somewhere census points will starve?

The current thought in relation to Agricultural Output is that an empire must have a total empire-wide Agricultural Output equal to or greater than their total Census (and likely other Infrastructure values, too -- that is still awaiting some extra testing). Should Agricultural Output drop below total Census, then the player (or CM) will be forced to trigger Morale Checks at the empire's colonies. A total number of colonies whose combined Census is greater than or equal to the Agricultural shortfall will be affected by these Morale Checks.

This Morale Check, as with all 2E Morale Checks, will have four possible results (Major Success, Minor Success, Minor Failure, Major Failure), and in the case of "starvation checks" the Difficulty will be equal to the colony's Census. Therefore, high Census colonies are more likely to be negatively affected, but selecting them for the check also prevent a greater number of smaller colonies from being affected.

By addressing agriculture in this manner, players don't have to worry too much about food production, and when shortfalls do occur they are resolved simply as extra Morale Checks and not by any special rules of their own.

Chyll wrote:This will be fascinating, particularly in large campaigns. Also interesting to see if it will be feasible in less than Captain level to allow some more detail without going all the way.

As far as agriculture is concerned, we used my 1E agriculture rules (originally slated for Star Charts) as a starting point, but as we streamlined the rules it became clear that we didn't want an onerous set of agriculture rules to inconvenience the rule system. That's when I came up with the idea of converting food shortages into a form of conditional Morale Checks. So long as an empire (or colony) doesn't have a food shortage, no Morale Checks are necessary.

Disruption of supply lines and colonial blockades will be an effective way to cut off food and force Morale Checks. Players will have to carefully plan their imperial infrastructure on both a system- and empire-wide in order to help prevent an opponent from quickly cutting off its supply routes.

-Tyrel

Will there be an agricultural tech advance to make feeding the population easier? Soylent Green?

MadSeason wrote:Will there be an agricultural tech advance to make feeding the population easier? Soylent Green?

In fact, Tyrel and I had a conversation offline about carnivores and cannibalism...

MadSeason wrote:Will there be an agricultural tech advance to make feeding the population easier? Soylent Green?

As Noel hinted, we might end up with a Cannibalism trait in the Menagerie that would let you sacrifice Census outright in order to cover those pesky food shortages

Soylent Green is people!!!!! (with apologies to Charlton Heston)

I got to say that I am really liking where this 2E is going. The idea of changing the output of a colony to be EP, tech and Intel is a cool one. Will there be a maximum to all of the aspect of a colony (Intel, tech and the like) or will it be based on the census/Capicity of the planet/system in question.

All in all, good things!
-Bren