Population and Grain

Glory and Argument says:


Population growth. As an incentive to encourage families to have more
children, and thus increase the population, a grain subsidy can be
offered of 1 town per new birth, plus 1 ton per 5% of the entire
population to account for the normal number of babies delivered in the
population.

Anybody done this and can explain how it works?

nope new to me

Deacon wrote:
Glory and Argument says:


Population growth. As an incentive to encourage families to have more
children, and thus increase the population, a grain subsidy can be
offered of 1 town per new birth, plus 1 ton per 5% of the entire
population to account for the normal number of babies delivered in the
population.

Anybody done this and can explain how it works?

Having had a nasty time with a famine early in the game G7 Hapsburg Spain has (when its not bickering with the French, Jacobites & Pirates) put its main effort into farmers and the Spanish Enlightenment.

The fact that the head of the main university in the Spanish Empire is Dutch, the Spanish Army is equipment with Austrain designed weapons and its Shipyards etc need the help of Austrian, Dutch, HWIC, Jesuit and Persian missions probably says something about the state of the Spanish Enlightenment. But Spain is getting the hang of this farming lark.

So with lots of surplus grain I decided to make use of the above rule.......As Spain has already waived tax on non noble families who have 4 or more legitimate children in school it seemed logical to explain that the subsidy represented free school dinners. Basically making it worth while for poor families to send children to (mostly Church) school's for a few hours for a free square meal seems a reasonable move for a "enlightened" Spanish Cardinal ................"Give me the child and I will show you the man".

Sadly Richard acting as the NPC School Governors seems to think that a bowl of Porridge and bread was a bit mean to offer as a school dinner and extra has to be added to the basic subsidy...........Spanish School Dinners has has just caused the poor relief bill to rocket! I am tempted to re-call the order but worry what will happen to my honour score if I snatch food out of poor chidrens mouth's?????? This is going to teach me for trying to get creative with Richards rules!

Helping feed and educate the young seems to have sod all effect on the game........or you will have to play for a very long time since a baby boom in say 1700 will probably effect 1716 recruit numbers. But I like to think that if the central government enables the local Nobility/Clergy to play the proper role in society as School Governors, membership of the local council or Cortez etc this helps the old honour score.

In Richards scales I think I have just about worked outthat if you win a crushing victory over hated historic foe or spend huge sums on good deeds = +1 honour point - But if you insult some demented Jannissary/Jacobite/pirate loving Agema NPC or someone tales lies to the Pope or the Sultan about your Character its -2 honour points.

Yes, Richard is a bear on honour.  Easy to lose, and hard to gain. I lost 3 points because a minister misinterpreted what I said and it "upset" some folks. My immediate clarification that the minister had misread my orders did squat. I used to do RP on my turn because I enjoyed it, but I stopped doing it and now try to strip everything down to minimalist words since I got a fair bit of grief and no benefit for doing it.

Good point on the lag time, I hadn't been thinking about that. So far my grain growing is going swimmingly, so was trying to find ways to exploit it other than Gin (and its social implications) and cattle (which can reduce grain production in the long term as you have more pastures I think)

I think one of my greatest frustrations with the game is the pace.  I'd like to plan for things 15 years out, but they might, in fact, be 15 real years out!

I have a few investments that I made in about year 1 of game 8 that are only now paying off.  It's crazy.

It is maybe a strength/weakness of the Game system, that you don't always get immediate results for the actions you order, it means long term planning is a must, unfortunatly this can lead to frustration, among players. Plus by the time the results kick in you have probably forgotten all about them in the first place. Thinking historically how many of the Communist 5 year plans actually worked?

No kidding on the delayed gratification. I have a couple of things just coming on-line that I started working on the first couple of months of game 8, now in february of 1706...