Eh & harvest

Hey ho everyone, does EH have an effect on the harvest?

Just wondering if high EH means less labourers to help bring it in and low EH means more people to help.

Economic factors may increase the probability of a good/bad harvest, but I don't think this is down to labour availability/shortages.  The normal economic impact of a poor harvest is for EH to be knocked down by 2 (reflecting the increase in unemployment and drop in economic activity caused by a rise in the price of bread).  Famine therefore increases labour availability, but a good harvest does not decrease labour availability.

The harvest/famine rules seem fairly mechanical based on population size.

We know that normal harvest failure = 100,000 tons of grain per 1M population, therefore normal harvest (grain requirement) = 100,000 tons of grain per 1M population.  The labour can be assumed to be there to gather that scale of harvest in.  Only rapidly expanding area under cultivation would cause meaningful labour shortages, though this can be offset by improved ploughs.

I suggest that weather, various improvements completed during the year, and night soil men are some of the factors that may lead to small gains/losses above/below normal grain requirement which are not significant enough to qualify as good/bad harvest.  As are local shortages due to moving units without grain.

There are no figures in the rules for what qualifies as a severe harvest failure other than noting it is above 100,000 tons per 1M population.  So it is possible that the benefits from land improvement etc are seen more on the upside (result of a good harvest) rather than making a poor harvest worse.

Another factor which may increase the risk of harvest failure is if you invest in livestock farming, most farm animals requiring grain or feed of some kind.  The price of chickens is very closely correlated to the price of grain.  Although most other animals have specialist feed nowadays, in 1700 it was basically grain or hay/fodder, so that correlation will also be high.  If you increase investment in livestock but do not also increase investment in grain production through improved farming, then it would make some sense that it would cause shortages of grain and keep prices high.

So there is likely to be a connection, but nothing to do with labour.  EH is more a measure of the economy (growth) rather than unemployment.  After all, when EH falls I've not noticed a few thousand recruits being added to the pool throughout the year, only perhaps in the annual income round although the best estimate I have calculated for that is based on a moving average.  A rise in EH almost always brings quite a sharp fall in recruits, whereas a fall in EH tends to need to be quite sustained to bring about a rise in recruits.  Again, this is logical when you recall the rules do specify other factors such as labour moving between borders.  Those who run their economy 'hot' and have a few years of EH9-10 can rapidly see their recruit pile halve, whereas an economy in trouble for long periods (EH2-3) certainly does not see the recruit pile double!  

Unrelieved harvest failure causes population shrinkage, but the impact of this on recruit numbers is only marginal in my experience.  It does have an outsized impact on tax revenue from nobles, though since this represents income from land.  The nobles may not be the ones who starve, but it does hit them in the pocket.

Cheers Papa all good points. Was also wondering whether workhouses reduced people available to help bring in the harvest and therefore affect success or failure and EH.

Sounds like not if employment doesn't affect EH and rather other way round.

Maybe it's Richard's way to help nations get people to be priests and physicians.

Marshal Bombast wrote:Hey ho everyone, does EH have an effect on the harvest?

Just wondering if high EH means less labourers to help bring it in and low EH means more people to help.

My experience based on modern and machinery driven farming rather than 18th century style farming is that a good harvest does not need more labour to bring in than a poor one. Indeed if the poor harvest is due to wet conditions and water logged fields or crops knocked flat by high winds it is often harder to harvest and dry out than a good harvest.

Not sure what they would have done in C18 but putting tons of damp corn through a dryer to protect it from mould and then bagging it up is really hard work. The thought of harvesting a wet grain field by hand after it has been knocked flat would seem to be the perfect description of "back breaking work".

Agree with Papa Clementi that the game link between harvest & EH is actually the other way round with a bad havest pushing down economic health and a famine having a really terrible effect on your economic health. Logically, a poor harvest means high food prices and workers with less money to spend on other things. While a poorly nurished and starving population both human and animal will be much less productive.

In theory you would assume a good harvest should improve your ecomomic health but have yet to see this as clearly as the opposite effect. Have also tried out the use of surplus grain as a "subsidy" to investments in livestock farming (Hapsburg goats etc in G7 are really well feed), brewing/distilling and fish farming. Again I can not confirm if this does any good but assume it can not do any harm.

Historically and today, after bread and other food for humans the other main uses for grain was feeding livestock and brewing. In famine situations farmers often have to slaughter animals they were unable too feed..........which has a bad effect long term economic health. While governments would ban the use of grain for brewing to divert grain to bakers. As well as being bad for brewers, distillers and publicans no beer forced the poor to drink water which in C18 towns in particular could be bad for their health.

Another possible game link which may or may not still be in place is that at one stage it was said that if you had a low honour score this increased the chances of a "natural disaster". Not sure is a bad harvest/famine counts as a natural disaster or not? My feeling is no since bad harvests seem to hit some positions a lot more often than others with some positions with high honour getting poor harvests as often or even my often than others with low honour scores.

In particular I have noticed that the British Isles, Iberia and Russia seem to suffer from poor harvests a lot with honour seeming to play little effect. This would seem to offer a major incentive for these powers to develop agricultural improvements and fishing fleets, annex the Crimean Khanate or hang on to Sicily, or plough up large parts of the America's.

Stuart Bailey wrote:
My experience based on modern and machinery driven farming rather than 18th century style farming is that a good harvest does not need more labour to bring in than a poor one.  Indeed if the poor harvest is due to wet conditions and water logged fields or crops knocked flat by high winds it is often harder to harvest and dry out than a good harvest.  

Not sure what they would have done in C18 but putting tons of damp corn through a dryer to protect it from mould and then bagging it up is really hard work.  The thought of harvesting a wet grain field by hand after it has been knocked flat would seem to be the perfect description of "back breaking work".

May be "back breaking work", but when the difference is starving I guess that is an incentive to get any kind of harvest in.

I'm fairly sure they didn't have a 'dryer' in C18, but could theoretically have had some variation on natural air drying or even brought it indoors.  They were quite inventive with 'low tech' solutions which we wouldn't necessarily consider today.

Stuart Bailey wrote:Agree with Papa Clementi that the game link between harvest & EH is actually the other way round with a bad harvest pushing down economic health and a famine having a really terrible effect on your economic health.  Logically, a poor harvest means high food prices and workers with less money to spend on other things.  While a poorly nourished and starving population both human and animal will be much less productive.

In theory you would assume a good harvest should improve your economic health but have yet to see this as clearly as the opposite effect.  Have also tried out the use of surplus grain as a "subsidy" to investments in livestock farming (Hapsburg goats etc in G7 are really well feed), brewing/distilling and fish farming.  Again I can not confirm if this does any good but assume it can not do any harm.

Theoretically it probably would, but perhaps it is simply reflected in higher profits from livestock?

Stuart Bailey wrote:Historically and today, after bread and other  food for humans the other main uses for grain was feeding livestock and brewing.  In famine situations farmers often have to slaughter animals they were unable too feed..........which has a bad effect long term economic health.  While governments would ban the use of grain for brewing to divert grain to bakers.  As well as being bad for brewers, distillers and publicans  no beer forced the poor to drink water which in C18 towns in particular could be bad for their health.

Thinking about the longer term effects, a harvest ruined by rain would also impact on winter feed/fodder.  I'm a bit rusty on this, but I think more moisture encourages mould, and feeding mouldy fodder is probably not a good idea since it will likely lead to bacterial infections and worse, especially among pregnant livestock.

Probably going into this in too much detail (as usual), but it might be helpful if we were told why a harvest failed.  If it is rain then possibly improved drainage will help; if it is drought then irrigation; etc - or if grain is being used for other purposes then that would also give players something to work on to mitigate the cause for future years?

Stuart Bailey wrote:Another possible game link which may or may not still be in place is that at one stage it was said that if you had a low honour score this increased the chances of a "natural disaster".  Not sure is a bad harvest/famine counts as a natural disaster or not?  My feeling is no since bad harvests seem to hit some positions a lot more often than others with some positions with high honour getting poor harvests as often or even my often than others with low honour scores.

In particular I have noticed that the British Isles, Iberia and Russia seem to suffer from poor harvests a lot with honour seeming to play little effect.  This would seem to offer a major incentive for these powers to develop agricultural improvements and fishing fleets, annex the Crimean Khanate or hang on to Sicily, or plough up large parts of the America's.  

I don't think honour plays a part.  Again, using a bit of logic, honour reflects what the nobility think of your rule, and the nobility tend to get their income from land.  It would not make much sense if due to their dislike of the ruler, the nobility failed to run their estates efficiently (thereby giving themselves less income), probably the converse is more likely since they would want more money in case they wanted to back a rebellion against you.  As someone who has played with low honour for some time, there were plenty of other factors which would have been likely to prompt a poor harvest (e.g. Spanish-backed troops marching across fields, seizing supplies, etc?)

The rules do say that some nations are more naturally prone to famine (or rather "low yields in comparison to their population size), including: Asia Minor, UDP, Spain, England, Tuscany, Portugal, North/Central Russia, Venice, Rumelia.

Regions which often enjoy bumper harvest:
Egypt (historically supplied grain to Anatolia)
Poland, Prussia, Baltic States (historically supplied grain to UDP, Spain, England, Tuscany, Portugal)
North American Colonies (historically supplied England)
Russian Ukraine (historically supplied central and northern Russia)
Greece (Morea) (historically supplied Ottoman Europe and Venice)
Sicily (historically supplied Tuscany, Venice and Spain).

But the rulebook also said "this information is given just so you know, it has no effect on game play".

It was quoted under the old rules, though, before the new supply rules came in, so I can't be sure it doesn't have some kind of impact now.

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that if you push too far down a particular path, it increases the risk on the random Agema dice that you will get some kind of famine to slow you down.  If you are at war then that's probably enough to drain your grain reserves or disrupt your farming if you are being invaded.  But it also seems to hit nation builder players as well - all that time and effort spent upgrading infrastructure and investing to get +1EH only to find a famine comes along and brings -2EH and you have to spend your money buying grain or plundering fish stocks, etc.  Given time and a lot of effort you can invest heavily in grain production in the colonies (as Stuart has done in G7 very successfully), so when he has a famine it is just an excuse to throw grain parties.  But of course not every country is as fortunate.  Even if you have the grain available, the biggest problem is getting it to where it needs to be in time to avoid the population drop (I think it is up to 4 months), which is just about enough time to ship from America to Europe, but no chance if you are in India or further afield.  Even trying to move quantities of grain by ship to create local supply dumps is not always straight forward, with cargos going off mid-voyage.  Logistics, like many other things we take for granted today, is not so easy in 1700.

One thing I will probably never understand is how (if you are running effectively a global position with worldwide colonies all producing grain), such a country can simultaneously have a famine everywhere to generate a grain shortage.  The same argument probably applies to countries with a huge land area like Russia - I can see how there could be a failure in the area around Moscow, but for it to simultaneously happen in central Asia and/or Crimea and/or Siberia to give a catastrophic harvest failure for Russia as a whole?  Historically one of the reasons for colonization was to secure supply of raw materials or extra land for growing crops, so you would expect this to have a positive benefit?