Good point Kajoreh, usually the restaurants with the highest quality dishes have the smallest selection of dishes, while the restaurants with the widest amount of options usually have the poorest quality.
I assume that’s similarly the case with brewing and distilling etc. The more you branch out the harder it will be to excel in anything. (Perhaps in any industry).
So the question is then, do you focus on quality of products, or quantity of products? Or somewhere in between?
Count LizenÇace VeLeîjres of Mydra's Crossing, VII of the order of the IX.
The desire for quantity is largely intended to pay the costs associated with developing quality.
Posted By Davepoleon at 04:32 AM - Tue Mar 19 2019
The desire for quantity is largely intended to pay the costs associated with developing quality.
haha produce bulk swill so there's money for producing true masterpieces. i like your business model, where do i invest?
remember that this game is still a game. It's not going to be the farming simulator that some people will want. But it's not going to be so horribly balanced that no one will have an exclusive cash crop.
You'll probably find a way to grow wine or an analogue to wine in most every biome.
Posted By Davepoleon at 4:32 PM - Mon Mar 18 2019
The desire for quantity is largely intended to pay the costs associated with developing quality.
Ahhh...then it is a question of financing.
That sounds familiar. (SBS?)
So what other options could you turn to for the capital if you aren't able to be located in a mass production area due to domain/biome restrictions?
1) Self-capitalization: a) Your own cash...how deep are your pockets? b) Someone else's cash... a rich relative (i.e. selecting a rich family at birth) or finding a patron to front you.
2) Outside funding: a) Guild or School...labor/supplies in exchange for cut of profits or recipes. b) Selling shares...selling stocks or bonds to outside investors.
Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.
I'm sure a lot of other folks can give better advice on this than me, but depending on how you want to go about this you could completely ditch the mass market side if you wanted too and focus just on the Grandmaster Vintner side of the equation if that is where your true passion lies. That would then make you less domain/biome dependent.
And depending on how Grand you actually get, then you may have others coming to you instead of the other way around.
We Are The Many... We Are The One... We Are THE WAERD !!!
Posted By Davepoleon at
I've asked the following question several times over the months and years and never gotten a real answer. Domain selection has put the need for an answer on a time limit.
I've build a lot of my intent and purchases around being a mayor/vintnor and will be pursuing the grandmaster vintner skills.
In earth biomes there are relatively few areas in the world that can grow wine grapes naturally. This appears to be mirrored in the biomes made available for settlement selection. Since Caspian has hinted at soil pH, temperature, moisture levels, and altitudes all being aspects of farming then its likely that K3 (NA-W, Map I) will be the only biomes that can effectively, and without extreme terraforming/earthwork efforts, naturally grow wine grapes.
Oh, I can speak to this! Sorry for not seeing the thread earlier. Elyrian Grapes are a little hardier than most of the wine producing varieties we grow for that purpose on Earth. This is the case specifically so that we can support broader wine growing industry without requiring that we jump-start the soil remediation and environmental regulation technologies you might use on Earth to grow wine grapes in places they aren't really suited for.
While the soil PH will matter, and temperature and altitude do still play a part, the reality is that you can grow wine grapes "natively" in the following biomes:
There are a few caveats though. Elyrian grapes grow best when they can soak up the sun all day long, and while they are hardy enough to handle both high and low temperatures, they prefer things to be a little warm. Not too hot though - when they're growing in a place a little too warm, they survive high heat by pulling a lot of water out of the soil, so the general rule is the hotter the climate you're growing in the more water you'll need to provide.
With domain selection near, I may be forced to leave my kingdom and duchy of 2 years so that I can grow wine grapes. Or risk wasting hundreds of dollars of preparation on hoping that the extreme tip of an adjacent biome will still be a practical solution.
The good news is that while the biomes I listed are places where you can "just grow" Elyrian Red grapes, you can also grow them in neighboring biomes with some work. For example, they'd grow fine in the broadleaf forest if you could provide them with access to the sun all day, and they'd even grow well in the semi-arid desert, if you can keep them in the water they need to deal with the heat. But on the other hand the swamps and wetlands are just too wet and the soil is all wrong, so getting them to grow in those types of biomes will take a lot of effort, so they don't just grow anywhere.
You will get different resulting properties on the grapes you grow depending on where you grow them (and those properties can be passed on to the resulting wine, for good or ill). If the soil isn't in the sweet spot PH wise, but not unbearably bad, the grapes might be more sour or sweet than you expect, for example. Or, if they don't get enough water, but otherwise get the nutrients they need, the yields may be lower quality, with smaller grapes that are incredibly sweet, requiring you to use more grapes to make your must and then use some technique or additive in the wine making process to deal with the excess sugars without impacting your alcohol content too strongly.
I don't mind a little added effort if it means I can stay with my Kingdom and Duchy, but if it's going to be a painstaking and boring grind hole to just get the soil and water to maintain a basic quality then I'll be forced to make a really disappointing and heartbreaking choice during domain selection.
There are a few places where growing wine grapes really will take a lot of effort - the extreme northern and southern biomes, and biomes that don't get enough sun or are too cold being stand out examples - but generally speaking you should be able to grow them in pretty much any kingdom, provided your not too picky about where in that kingdom you put down roots.
Our intent isn't to make it so hard to produce wine that it's a grind in anywhere but a single kingdom, though; what we're aiming for, in terms of game balance and world building, is a set of constraints and conditions that mean wine produced in different regions are unique from each other and require slightly different methods of growth and production, so that each region has a distinct "flavor" and hosts the knowledge of crafting techniques and no-how that aren't readily available elsewhere.
This is our aim so that the world naturally works to foster cultural exchange and trade. We never want to make things a grind just for the grind's sake, nor do we generally seek to make something so exclusive that you need to uproot your whole plan just to participate. (there some very specific exceptions to that last point, but they are very specific, such as the legendary taverns, or the flora that was discovered in the lost vault event)
Hope that helps! :)
So what mechanical impact would this have on the wine? would it be different buffs to stats?
Posted By Maulvorn at 12:47 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
So what mechanical impact would this have on the wine? would it be different buffs to stats?
Sort of, but not exactly - we don't precisely have buffs to stats in the classical sense, but we do have condition, quality, and properties, and the three thing together do serve a similar purpose. Condition determines how worn an item is (in comparison to its max condition) as well as "how hardy" an instance of a thing is (by comparing max condition to the average max condition of similar items). Quality determines how closely the thing made matches the ideal version of the thing. But, the real variance on items that are crafted, grown, or otherwise produced are the properties. Properties don't offer you discrete value changes, you won't get a property that is like "sweet + 5" but you might see a property on a fruit that is "over sweet" or the opposite, "extra sour" or something similar. Those properties reflect what happened to the object as it was produced. Good or bad soil will impart properties to the plants grown in them, and those properties will be passed on to the fruits they bear. Likewise, as you take those fruits and process them into other things like wine, the steps you take along the process and how well you performed them will impart properties to the resulting products they produce. And those properties do change how the products bearing them perform mechanically. "oversweet" doesn't just describe the resulting product, for example, it means that there's a lot of extra sugars in that thing and consuming it will affect your body dynamics appropriately.
So short answer: Yeah, the various wines will have different effects. ;)
Hope that helps! :)
Posted By Snipehunter at 1:34 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
what we're aiming for, in terms of game balance and world building, is a set of constraints and conditions that mean wine produced in different regions are unique from each other and require slightly different methods of growth and production, so that each region has a distinct "flavor" and hosts the knowledge of crafting techniques and no-how that aren't readily available elsewhere.
I suppose what I'm wondering is if the game will go into regional preferences. Will Mixed Leaf Neran NPCs prefer dry wines, Semi-Arid Waerd prefer very sweet wine, or something like that?
I know they value items differently based on their abundance, but would they then recognize the difference between a To'resk Woodland Savannah wine and a Neran Mixed Leaf Forest wine, and would the NPCs value it differently based on how they favour it's qualities?
Posted By Ebermensch at 4:02 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
I know they value items differently based on their abundance, but would they then recognize the difference between a To'resk Woodland Savannah wine and a Neran Mixed Leaf Forest wine, and would the NPCs value it differently based on how they favour it's qualities?
That's the idea, though we do also intended variance within populations. So it's not like "Neran Wine" is the only wine that would sell in a heavily Neran-populated town, but at the broad level, there will be regional preferences, and they may change over time depending on the way the world evolves. For example, it might be that the Neran in a town prefer "Neran Wine," but if something forces them to try an alternative, and that alternative tends to offer a positive experience, they could - and depending on their openness will - switch preference. Those switches can create fads, or permanently change tastes depending on what else is going on in the world.
Hope that helps! :)
So to much Sweet Tea (descriptor: overly sweet) can make me fat. Being fat could keep me insulated (a buff) but may also slow me down (a de-buff).
Three aberrations that have plagued gamers from the beginning: The Lag Monster, the Mistell Maven and the Typo-Daemon. Their actions have to led to laughter, anger and tears since the beginning of the Internet.
Posted By Snipehunter at 3:18 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
you won't get a property that is like "sweet + 5" but you >might see a property on a fruit that is "over sweet" or the >opposite, "extra sour" or something similar.
Will NPC (and maybe even PC) characters have "taste"?
Like, may they prefer "over sweet" or "extra sour"? Or maybe not that extreme, but something less extreme?
Or is it always a bad thing to produce extra sweet or extra sour wines?
Nevermind, you already pretty much answered that in the other post.
Count LizenÇace VeLeîjres of Mydra's Crossing, VII of the order of the IX.
Posted By Snipehunter at 12:34 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
Posted By Davepoleon at
I've asked the following question several times over the months and years and never gotten a real answer. Domain selection has put the need for an answer on a time limit.
I've build a lot of my intent and purchases around being a mayor/vintnor and will be pursuing the grandmaster vintner skills.
In earth biomes there are relatively few areas in the world that can grow wine grapes naturally. This appears to be mirrored in the biomes made available for settlement selection. Since Caspian has hinted at soil pH, temperature, moisture levels, and altitudes all being aspects of farming then its likely that K3 (NA-W, Map I) will be the only biomes that can effectively, and without extreme terraforming/earthwork efforts, naturally grow wine grapes.
Oh, I can speak to this! Sorry for not seeing the thread earlier. Elyrian Grapes are a little hardier than most of the wine producing varieties we grow for that purpose on Earth. This is the case specifically so that we can support broader wine growing industry without requiring that we jump-start the soil remediation and environmental regulation technologies you might use on Earth to grow wine grapes in places they aren't really suited for.
While the soil PH will matter, and temperature and altitude do still play a part, the reality is that you can grow wine grapes "natively" in the following biomes:
- Mixed Leaf Forest
- Lower Montane
- Shrublands
- Grasslands
- Shrub steppe
- Woodland Savanna (With access to the sun)
There are a few caveats though. Elyrian grapes grow best when they can soak up the sun all day long, and while they are hardy enough to handle both high and low temperatures, they prefer things to be a little warm. Not too hot though - when they're growing in a place a little too warm, they survive high heat by pulling a lot of water out of the soil, so the general rule is the hotter the climate you're growing in the more water you'll need to provide.
With domain selection near, I may be forced to leave my kingdom and duchy of 2 years so that I can grow wine grapes. Or risk wasting hundreds of dollars of preparation on hoping that the extreme tip of an adjacent biome will still be a practical solution.
The good news is that while the biomes I listed are places where you can "just grow" Elyrian Red grapes, you can also grow them in neighboring biomes with some work. For example, they'd grow fine in the broadleaf forest if you could provide them with access to the sun all day, and they'd even grow well in the semi-arid desert, if you can keep them in the water they need to deal with the heat. But on the other hand the swamps and wetlands are just too wet and the soil is all wrong, so getting them to grow in those types of biomes will take a lot of effort, so they don't just grow anywhere.
You will get different resulting properties on the grapes you grow depending on where you grow them (and those properties can be passed on to the resulting wine, for good or ill). If the soil isn't in the sweet spot PH wise, but not unbearably bad, the grapes might be more sour or sweet than you expect, for example. Or, if they don't get enough water, but otherwise get the nutrients they need, the yields may be lower quality, with smaller grapes that are incredibly sweet, requiring you to use more grapes to make your must and then use some technique or additive in the wine making process to deal with the excess sugars without impacting your alcohol content too strongly.
I don't mind a little added effort if it means I can stay with my Kingdom and Duchy, but if it's going to be a painstaking and boring grind hole to just get the soil and water to maintain a basic quality then I'll be forced to make a really disappointing and heartbreaking choice during domain selection.
There are a few places where growing wine grapes really will take a lot of effort - the extreme northern and southern biomes, and biomes that don't get enough sun or are too cold being stand out examples - but generally speaking you should be able to grow them in pretty much any kingdom, provided your not too picky about where in that kingdom you put down roots.
Our intent isn't to make it so hard to produce wine that it's a grind in anywhere but a single kingdom, though; what we're aiming for, in terms of game balance and world building, is a set of constraints and conditions that mean wine produced in different regions are unique from each other and require slightly different methods of growth and production, so that each region has a distinct "flavor" and hosts the knowledge of crafting techniques and no-how that aren't readily available elsewhere.
This is our aim so that the world naturally works to foster cultural exchange and trade. We never want to make things a grind just for the grind's sake, nor do we generally seek to make something so exclusive that you need to uproot your whole plan just to participate. (there some very specific exceptions to that last point, but they are very specific, such as the legendary taverns, or the flora that was discovered in the lost vault event)
Hope that helps! :)
Do adjacent biomes have to be in the same kingdom? For example would the southern alpine forest plateaus in k1 be adjacent enough to the mixed leaf forests to grow wine? Or are they just too different?
Posted By Davepoleon at 9:05 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
Do adjacent biomes have to be in the same kingdom? For example would the southern alpine forest plateaus in k1 be adjacent enough to the mixed leaf forests to grow wine? Or are they just too different?
It's definitely more about the actual conditions of the biome than any sort of artificial mechanic that says "this biome is next to that one, so this ok for grape vines." It's more that the biomes near each other tend to exist in similar temperature ranges. But that's more true east to west than it is north to south. The starting continent is northish of the equator, so heading north means things get colder while heading south means they get warmer, but often wetter. Soil wise, there are potentially even some benefits for grapes in the alpine forest biome, but the temperature ranges aren't ideal, so growing there might be a bit of a challenge; but I'm talking broadly here, and in some cases microclimates do exist, so there may be exceptions you can find where the work is even actually easier there then somewhere else... I just wouldn't count on it until you find such a place yourself.
Hope that helps! :)
Posted By Snipehunter at 10:06 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
Posted By Davepoleon at 9:05 PM - Wed Mar 20 2019
Do adjacent biomes have to be in the same kingdom? For example would the southern alpine forest plateaus in k1 be adjacent enough to the mixed leaf forests to grow wine? Or are they just too different?
It's definitely more about the actual conditions of the biome any sort of artificial mechanic that says "this biome is next to that one, so this ok for grape vines." It's more that the biomes near each other tend to exist in similar temperature ranges. But that's more true east to west than it is north to south. The starting continent is northish of the equator, so heading north means things get colder while heading south means they get warmer, but often wetter. Soil wise, there are potentially even some benefits for grapes in the alpine forest biome, but the temperature ranges aren't ideal, so growing there might be a bit of a challenge; but I'm talking broadly here, and in come cases microclimates do exist, so there may be exceptions you can find where the work is even actually easier there then somewhere else... I just wouldn't count on it until you find such a place yourself.
Hope that helps! :)
Will such micro-climates be something that's presented during DSS so mayors can know if they are selecting a settlement with the microclimate they want/need?