06-28-2020, 02:39 PM | #281 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
Orc crunch
The village of 500 orcs will require something like 130 tons of food a year, ideally this will include a lot of fatty meat. 100 families. Farming systems Buffalo - meat Buffalo - dairy Pork Water fowl Eels Cattails Flax fiber Area 3 mile radius, 28 square miles of area, 18,000 acres total. Land usage breakdown; Suitable for traditional crops 5% Suitable for traditional grazing 10% More fertile 2% Unsuitable, 25% (lakes and rocks) Suitable for swamp tolerant agriculture 58% About half the land suitable for traditional crops is used for growing plants that are mildly toxic, two or three times a year these areas are grazed by the pastoral animals to reduce internal parasites (or worm burden) and introduce more trace elements into their diet. Grazing techniques combined with the natural conditions produces an average yield of 1.6 stock units per acre. 4.6 stock units are required for each growing or meat producing buffalo, Dairy use water buffalo require 6.3 stock units. The pigs being a secondary animal in this type of system have a decreased area required per animal. 1.1 stock units per animal, (approximately 1800 pigs could be run before this benefit is lost) A herd of 600 cows and their replacements (150) is maintained to produce 50 replacement animals and typically 400 calves destined for the meat system each year. Dairy production, requiring 3000 acres of grazing, results in 175,000 gallons of milk. 130 tonnes of dairy products (cheese, butter, yoghurt) are made from the milk. Meat production Buffalo 154 tonnes off 3000 acres requiring 10 families to run. Pork An average population of 600 animals is maintained. Producing 60 tonnes of pork, requiring 15 families and 410 additional acres. Water fowl 1600 geese (for calculation purposes), producing 7 tonnes of meat as well as a tonne of eggs and requiring 200 additional acres and 8 families. The orcs involved here are likely to be poorer or have other functions in society, unless the tasks related to managing water fowl are subsumed into other roles. Eels 16 tonnes of sustainable harvest per year. Dairy production 130 tonnes requiring 3000 acres and 40 families to run. Crop Flax 15 families, production is 260lbs per acre, 300 acres Managed harvests Cattails No specialised families involved, 400 acres. Timber and forest products 5 families, the workers from these families may also perform other functions Trade and transport 2 families 5 families performing misc functions, likely at least one family supporting a mason. While the yield per acre is lower than a human equivalent system the labour required for the yield is less. A human village specialising in wheat production would likely provide enough surplus grain for 250 people in an average year. 368 tonnes of average total production for the orcs would support a surplus of maybe 900 orcs. The presumed higher energy intake required by a larger orc body is mitigated by the increased energy content of fat rich food. It wouldn't be unreasonable to increase the food required per orc. Similarly this example presumes a high level of specialization with local trade supplying some miscellaneous requirements. A more self sufficient village would produce less food but require fewer imported goods.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn Last edited by (E); 06-28-2020 at 02:43 PM. Reason: Removal of wild asterisk infestation (weird copy paste issue) |
06-28-2020, 08:32 PM | #282 | |
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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AtE Last of the Megacities: As the climate shift gave rise to even more mega farms, those farms eventually develop into megacity-states*, while non fairing megacities specialized towards industry. The farming cities eventually cut off the industrial tech cities (they had the means for self sustenance the tech megas lacked), wars over food. Food cities are all that remain, scattered far and highly defended. They trade at parsimonious rates food for scavenged tech, though they also send out raiding scavenging parties of their own. In this set-up, "Foundation Valley" PC communities would rule little fiefdoms out in the wasteland, they'd 'operate' much like the giant "evil" farm megacities, they'd need scavenged industry from the ruins of the megatechs, and possibly even send trading enclaves to a megafarm to get necessary foodstuff they could convert to crops (if the "evils" of hyper-modified food, ie infertility, requiring specialized nutrients, extra susceptibility to pests, etc, are not being played up). * This of course doesn't quite work with your timeline. For it to work your timeline needs to be stretched a bit, a slower more gradual climb to the collapse, and of course I'm ignoring the absolute inefficiency of specialized megacities. Just an interesting side thought for possible AtE set-ups. I love this idea. I've been noodling around trying to figure out what to do differently with Orcs in my next campaign, and I love the idea of going 'canine' with them. |
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06-29-2020, 06:14 AM | #283 | ||||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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06-29-2020, 08:07 AM | #284 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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They may not have the fuel supply to smelt, but surely they'd have a blacksmith to repair tools and edged weapons?
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06-29-2020, 04:35 PM | #285 | ||||
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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A higher ratio of child equivalents to adults would reduce the production efficiency. A social structure where adolescents are expected to go raiding to earn their place in society would fit in a model like that. Similarly a society that rapidly gains population and supplies a higher status nomadic group with manpower was an idea that I thought could fit. Coming up with a societal structure is a bit outside the remit* I have set myself for this thread and I could see myself making unsupported (or more likely forgetting to write the explanation) assumptions in the process. That's something probably best left up to a world building forum game. Quote:
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I also couldn't get solid numbers on eel harvests so I lowballed the number based on the best info I could find. The justification is that production may have been higher in the past, but either way the presence of eels was enough to settle the area originally. Quote:
That said the orc farm system has that much capacity to support additional people (guards, nobles, priests, smiths etc) that I left the decisions and refinement up to the reader. * and expertise.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn Last edited by (E); 06-29-2020 at 06:01 PM. |
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06-29-2020, 05:36 PM | #286 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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I've been noodling about how productivity interacts with GURPS wealth levels and while I havn't made any broad connections between the two, it looks like arable farmers who typically produce food will be of average income for a farmer when they produce an average surplus of 50%. (Hmm I feel I should qualify that statement some more ;) ) Quote:
Due to what I considered to be a wealthier farming strata in this society I decided to have the group self sufficent in this respect. But it wasn't a highly considered decision. Related to that is that tools are easier to transport than charcoal. Could a charcoal burner and smith be supported (in food and land area), Yes, definately, and there is also surplus food to provide for other occupations that I have glossed over.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
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06-30-2020, 07:14 AM | #287 | ||||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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Oops, just found this nugget: Quote:
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06-30-2020, 09:00 AM | #288 | ||||
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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Each family group could do it's own butchery, leather and wood working, weaving etc. Families could cooperate for collective benefit; building a hall or palisade, maintaining an eel farm, etc. And there's always raiding neighbouring settlements for their buffalo... Quote:
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It's all very well to be told to act my age, but I've never been this old before... Last edited by Luke Bunyip; 06-30-2020 at 09:05 AM. |
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06-30-2020, 07:46 PM | #289 | |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
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Regarding the eels, I was looking up numbers based on various southern hemisphere species, Austrailian and New Zealand species mainly. My biggest issue with tracking down numbers was trying to get estimates on pre-industrial numbers. My opinion is that data from after about WW2 is hard to call accurate. This article (a PDF) suggests at how different fishing was in some areas. https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/sites/def...-26.paulin.pdf Pages 4,5,6 mainly the quoted text. After reading the links you posted I'm even less certain about the numbers I put up. Hmmm, fishing in general has been a tricky issue to quantify. It's a subject for more thought.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn Last edited by (E); 06-30-2020 at 08:25 PM. |
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06-30-2020, 09:09 PM | #290 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [ATE] Farming example
Turns out that "shirasu" means "fry", so that's 15 tons of baby eel or "glass eel", which of course would turn into a much, much larger yield of adult. That was the context I was missing.
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