Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I'd say, start with the basics, and then use them as your baseline when you start to look at magic, at some point in the future.

Likewise. I've found that modifying the productivity achievable without magic is a comfortable abstraction.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

Which brings me around to "Does anyone want any notes on magic?"

I mean sure, those would always be awesome to read... but not if it's going to interfere with GURPS: Subsistence Farming: Extreme Conditions getting to print in a timely fashion.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by (E)

Which brings me around to "Does anyone want any notes on magic?"

I'd make it a section of a chapter at most, or at the least a sidebox. It's not going to be part of basic AtE, most historical settings, or even most sci-fi settings, but if you're putting in a bit of fantasy farming an acknowledgement of the effects of hedge magic - and here I'd go not only with spells-as-skills magic but also Path/Book, RPM, Syntactic, and Powers-based (ala Divine Favor) magic as well.

[Refplace]

For me I would want the following.

• Base yield of several (maybe 10) crops by TL
• Either do that for each environment or ------
• A modifer for each environment by crop type(some require more or less water for example)
• Basic crop concepts like rotation, possibly refereing to another book but I would prefer standalone
• Info on the use or value of a crop type
• Modfers for seasons,including weather control options for optimial growing
• Basic effects of certain enhancements from higher TL or magic and powers

Maybe toss in a few prebuilt spells but you could just explain the effects of certain existing spells, powers and limited technologies (tractors, fertilizer) could have if they covered enough area or man days.
Some of this is in Urban Magics.

[Polydamas]

I think that something like that original thread would make a very useful book! I find an explanation of the issues in general terms more useful than trying too hard to create a detailed game model. Knowing that the weak spot in a given system is salinization, or the motors powering pumps for the canals, or a dietary deficiency is useful: trying too hard to get precise numbers and game mechanics out of ambiguous data does not add as much. Knowing that a given system can support on the order of a thousand people is useful, trying to decide whether the actual limit is 830 or 2400 is folly.

Originally Posted by (E)

I am rediscovering the head ache inducing amount of politics and interest groups that saturate the information on this topic.

A couple of bits of information.
Automotive waste oil can be used to treat external parasites in pigs.
Also the absolute best wheat production today is something like 30 times more productive than early TL 3, which out performs "essential earth" by an order of magnitude.

Which brings me around to "Does anyone want any notes on magic?"

For even more fun, those estimates of early medieval grain yields of 2 to 4 to 1 are much lower than had been achieved in antiquity and classical times. The tech level system is just not how historians of ancient and medieval technology think about change and cultural difference :(

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by (E)

- How interrelated to make farming with managing a Settlement?

I'd really like a system that were you can input the size of your group, and the environment and then tells you what's nessissery for that group to sustain itself by farming. Once those essentials are obtained the GM can make appropriate rolls adjusted by a list of modifiers. Things like "has tractor, +2" or " irradiated soil, -4" if the roll succeds the settlement is fed for a length of time.

If it fails you"d apply the margin of failure to anther table and figure out what's gone wrong. Maybe there just isn't enough to go around and people die, maybe the crop was tainted and everyone is alive, but ill.


I'm thinking back to fallout 2 were you leave the village to obtain the McGuffen that'll solve the crop issues. Instead of just setting an arbitrary peroid of time, the GM could use the above system for a more organic decline. It could also make it easier for the PCs to find mitigating factors that while not solving the issue give bonuses to the settlements rolls and give the PCs more time.

[(E)]

Ok, progress has been made, it's not a fast project whatever form it ends up in. I did three hours on wheat (TL8) research last night for example.
I looked at extending the crop table from Low tech 3 but there are just too many variables to make it meaningful. I think I have a solid formula to use instead, now I have to research the numbers that will be plugged into it.

The big thing so far is balancing detail with abstraction.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

The big thing so far is balancing detail with abstraction.

That sounds unpossible. Good luck!

We'll just be over here salivating at the prospect of the final product...

[(E)]

Another question that has come to mind, What not to include?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by (E)

Another question that has come to mind, What not to include?

I'd recommend you leave off trade, and don't spend much time on cash crops, just yet. Stick to subsistence, for your first effort. Also, probably take a bye on exotic husbandry; I 'd focus on traditional livestock -- yer basic chickens, pigs, sheep and goats; beef cattle, dairy cows, and oxen breeds; donkeys, mules, draft horses and riding horses.

About the only "utility" crops I'd look at are hemp and flax. They're just too useful, for all sorts of purposes. Cotton and tobacco strip the soil, but flax seems okay.

eiha.org/media/2014/10/Ecological-benefits-of-hemp-and-flax-cultivation-and-products-2011.pdf