4th Economics 101

[ArmySGT.]

I LOVE what you guys are trying to do here but...and this is a question on their numbers not your efforts.

Am I reading that between cows and chickens you will need almost 40000 hectares of land Thats like 150 square miles...thats not possible. Is it

That is grazing land..... there are ranches it takes a whole day to drive across out here in the West.

[kalos72]

I get that, but it seem feasible for 36 LE/Military personnel to be able to secure 155 square miles alone

Just seems like an awful lot of land to feed 5000 people. I wonder how that same community would fair with a more advance tech level...

[mmartin798]

The economics rules do not change the amount of land needed based on tech level. Only the number of workers needed to tend them. Plus you have to remember the purpose of the exercise was to build according to the rules, and some of them are broken.

To give an idea, the number of cattle Sommerset has can be calculated. The beef operation generates 50,000 kg of beef for the population. That is only 10% of the total herd. So multiply by 10 and you get 500,000 kg if you slaughtered the entire herd. An average 454 kg steer will yield about 340 kg of meat. Dividing 500,000 by 340 gives around 1465 head of cattle. The USDA recommendations for land per animal is about 0.8 Ha per head. So in the real world you should be able to get away with 1200 Ha. The rules say 2-10 Ha per head, so 3000 Ha on the low end and 15000 Ha on the high end. The rules are a little broken if we try to bend real world absolutes into it. This section of the rules could use an edit to make it better. But for now, it is what we have.

[ArmySGT.]

I get that, but it seem feasible for 36 LE/Military personnel to be able to secure 155 square miles alone

Just seems like an awful lot of land to feed 5000 people. I wonder how that same community would fair with a more advance tech level...

One Riot, One Ranger.

The Texas Rangers comes to mind.

Actually, you only have to secure key points of land. The water, water crossings, the herd itself.

You don't have to be on every part of it all the time.

[ArmySGT.]

The economics rules do not change the amount of land needed based on tech level. Only the number of workers needed to tend them. Plus you have to remember the purpose of the exercise was to build according to the rules, and some of them are broken.

To give an idea, the number of cattle Sommerset has can be calculated. The beef operation generates 50,000 kg of beef for the population. That is only 10% of the total herd. So multiply by 10 and you get 500,000 kg if you slaughtered the entire herd. An average 454 kg steer will yield about 340 kg of meat. Dividing 500,000 by 340 gives around 1465 head of cattle. The USDA recommendations for land per animal is about 0.8 Ha per head. So in the real world you should be able to get away with 1200 Ha. The rules say 2-10 Ha per head, so 3000 Ha on the low end and 15000 Ha on the high end. The rules are a little broken if we try to bend real world absolutes into it. This section of the rules could use an edit to make it better. But for now, it is what we have.

Thinking on this........ Maybe the authors data accounts for rather dry low country like Texas or Australia. If so that raises the land necessary for graze substantially higher.... In a temperate environment or a wetter one like coastal low lands were the foliage is thick and returns faster alot less territory is necessary.

So the hectares section really should have a geographical or environmental modifier associated with it.

Given the wide variable of 2-10 hectares, it is probably meant too.

[mmartin798]

Thinking on this........ Maybe the authors data accounts for rather dry low country like Texas or Australia. If so that raises the land necessary for graze substantially higher.... In a temperate environment or a wetter one like coastal low lands were the foliage is thick and returns faster alot less territory is necessary.

So the hectares section really should have a geographical or environmental modifier associated with it.

Given the wide variable of 2-10 hectares, it is probably meant too.

That would also explain in part the need for additional feed with the low quality foraging available that climate too.

[ArmySGT.]

That would also explain in part the need for additional feed with the low quality foraging available that climate too.

Feed lots are a staple in wet or dry climates.... so I take it that the feed lot.... the last effort to fatten up livestock before slaughter is why corn is prevalent for animals that graze for most of their fodder.

[kalos72]

I completely acknowledge the "gaps" are in the rules not you two and the way you are trying to play those rules out. I LOVE what your doing and was super excited to see it when the new rules came out.

But to your point, the data they use seems to be very outdated or they just tried to simplify it too much. Plus, they used some really poor practices when coming up with their numbers I think.

Have you guys figured out a number of people working a piece of land versus the number of people that land feeds or anything

In the T2K forums there have been numbers like you can feed 3-5 people per acre I think...

[mmartin798]

I completely acknowledge the "gaps" are in the rules not you two and the way you are trying to play those rules out. I LOVE what your doing and was super excited to see it when the new rules came out.

But to your point, the data they use seems to be very outdated or they just tried to simplify it too much. Plus, they used some really poor practices when coming up with their numbers I think.

Have you guys figured out a number of people working a piece of land versus the number of people that land feeds or anything

In the T2K forums there have been numbers like you can feed 3-5 people per acre I think...

Those kind of numbers can be directly read from the table at the bottom p237. The Yield column has 2 numbers separated by a slash. The right hand number is the number of people per hectare that can be fed. It varies greatly by tech level from just a little more than 1 to just over 7 people per hectare. In the Time her Hectare column, there are again 2 numbers. The number in parenthesis is the number of hectares a single worker can manage in a year.

In my workup of Sommerset I did not reference those numbers because it is just easier with an arbitrary population to work from the actual time and yield numbers.

[Giorgio]

I asked Chris Garland through the MP facebook page if an economics tutorial could be made and posted to Youtube. He wrote back that he will speak with the author of that section.

Could everyone else like or comment on that so it shows some interest from the fan base

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

[ArmySGT.]

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

Don't bother. The author of that section has replied to this thread. Whole charts and sections are missing. The economics section is broken and unusable.

[.45cultist]

Don't bother. The author of that section has replied to this thread. Whole charts and sections are missing. The economics section is broken and unusable.

Is there any way the author could rebuild and post the missing material

[nuke11]

Is there any way the author could rebuild and post the missing material

Robert hasn't been on this site for over 2 years, haven't see a post on the mailing lists for a long time now.

Anything that needs to be updated or corrected, we will have to do that ourselves for the time being.

[mmartin798]

ArmySGT;

TMP4E economic section is very confusing to me, especial on how to apply it to existing communities, and how to upgrade them.

I will make a separate post about this.

I personally spent a great deal of time working through the process for one town and the best I can say for the rule as they stand are that they may give you an idea of the scale needed to support a given population engaged in a specific set of tasks. But they are woefully recursive and the end result is ultimately incomplete.

As far as what it takes to advance tech levels, there is even less information, but you could use the construction hours for the next higher tech and add some factor of time to cover the research. What this factor might be is no where to be seen and is something that you, again, get to make an educated guess about.

[.45cultist]

I personally spent a great deal of time working through the process for one town and the best I can say for the rule as they stand are that they may give you an idea of the scale needed to support a given population engaged in a specific set of tasks. But they are woefully recursive and the end result is ultimately incomplete.

As far as what it takes to advance tech levels, there is even less information, but you could use the construction hours for the next higher tech and add some factor of time to cover the research. What this factor might be is no where to be seen and is something that you, again, get to make an educated guess about.

A table with modifiers and a possible bonus if a device or two is available to study/ disassemble.