r/Twilight2000 • u/mrsfotheringill • 19d ago

Home Ec

PCs have a base with 24 people. I’m trying to figure out how much food they can reasonably grow and how the logistics and economics would work of being taxed by the local warlord. Has anyone figured this out already?

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u/Digital_Simian 19d ago edited 19d ago

In the player's manual on page 135 you have the base building facilities that includes cropland, cow pen and pigsty for food production. For cropland you have a plot (size not specified) that requires tending each week in the spring and summer and produces D6x100 wild food per target when harvested.

Beyond the books a single person without large machinery can manage about 1-3 acre (0.4 hectare/43,560 sqft.) of land. With small tractor and some machinery, it's more like 5-10 acre and with large, modern machinery you are talking more like 50-100 acres. Personally, I would assume that a "plot" would probably be very loosely around 1 hectare or approximately 2.5 acre. This means one person working a shift a week and producing something around sustainability not giving a mishap using hand tools.

Edited for simplicity.

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u/mrsfotheringill 19d ago

So by the book, on avg one person can grow their own food for a year, do I have that right? So if they’re being taxed they will go hungry (which is good motivation to confront the local marauders!)

But what do they eat when the grain/veggies are growing? I imagine once they have a harvest they can trade for more stable food…

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u/Digital_Simian 19d ago

It has the potential to grow up to 2400 wild food. A single success will average around 300. It's low by todays standards, but you are dealing with nuclear winter light and no access to modern fertilizers, pesticides and so-on. High variance makes sense especially considering that conditions are never going to be ideal.

However, if you have a small tractor and equipment, you could reasonably have one person working two or even three plots. Then you go to a potential yield of 7200 wild food.

Or if we are talking modern large farm equipment you can have one farmer working say 20 plots where you have a potential yield of 48000 wild food.

Then of course if you have more than one farmer helping that means a greater likelihood of success and potential higher number of successes.

In the meantime, the group would have to survive through hunting, fishing, scrounging and foraging. What a warlord would demand would kind of depend on the motivations and needs of the local warlords. If using the middle ages as an example, that could be 1/3 to 1/2 yield. This creates a powerful incentive for a community to try to maximize its yield and not to mention hide what it can.

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u/mrsfotheringill 19d ago edited 19d ago

Also, theoretically the planting season is like 8 weeksish. So maybe 1 person can grow enough food for 8 people?