Poland population and farming model

[atiff]

Thanks guys.

I found a bug in one of the formulae; have fixed, and will post the updated file later (on another computer right now). Basically, it didn't recalculate the numbers properly if you changed the efficiency of the farming from '100'.

My next project is detailing Kepno County (south of Kalisz) using some of these numbers as a baseline. I want to do this for Krakow and environs in the longer run, but want to tackle something smaller first

[kalos72]

Thats some awesome detail! One thought, your assuming that all the area in Poland is free to farm no? I doubt that Soviet Tank Division is going to allow your city to farm and keep the food...

Just trying to add another layer of realism to this FINE FINE WORK!

[atiff]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Thats some awesome detail! One thought, your assuming that all the area in Poland is free to farm no? I doubt that Soviet Tank Division is going to allow your city to farm and keep the food...

Yes, that is part of it too. This "first pass" was just working out the civilian population's ability to feed itself. The second step is working out how troops are supported. E.g., the area around Kalisz has a food shortage, although not a bad one (perhaps 5% short of 'OK'). But then you add in the Polish TD and Soviet MRD that attacked the 5th Division, and you can see why they might end up fighting each other over food that is there (as there isn't enough to go around) once they have reorganized from the attack.

One thing I like about the outcome of this model is that, by and large, it matches the idea that the greater part of Poland is starving. IMO, this helps to create conflict and helps lead to the breakdown of the nation and the military commands. I.e., I think the basic model matches the basic storyline at a large scale. But within this, there are regions and communities that are in very different situations, and this helps create more story ideas at the smaller scale.

[atiff]

Latest file version

Updated a dodgy formula, and added in "number of food producers" column.

Note that "number of food producers" is only the number that are producing and preparing local food. You can see in bigger population centers that not very many people are "producing food". Imported food probably also needs "produced" by people in the location (e.g., grocers, bakers, etc.) unless you assume the "food producers" from the source location are traveling and selling the food themselves. (I.e., this is one point where the model breaks down a bit.)

[Abbott Shaull]

Nice...

[atiff]

Hi,

Updated this again, if anyone is interested. Things changed include:

- Added a "max farming area" column for each location down to gmina level. I built this by hand/eyeball, using Google Maps satellite pics and assuming about 80% of the non-forested land is farmable. There will be things that are "off" in doing this, but it's a reasonable baseline, I think.

- Added an "imported food producers" column, showing a number of people assumed to be working within a city/town to help import and distribute food within a location (in addition to the producers who actually make it at the source).

- Roughly updated all the population figures in the yellow columns to show the "maximum population" needed to farm that location. In many rural places, this is larger than the pre-war population (manual labor replacing machines).

From this, I intend to down-grade these population numbers to reflect the specific setting I am working on. But I thought I would provide this as the "max population" file for others, if they are interested, so they can play with it on their own.

Any comments, let me know!

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by atiff

...the relative lack of children; both the old and the young were the ones least likely to survive the harsh years that have followed the nuclear exchanges. And while a parent can survive beyond the death of a child, the reverse situation has not generally been true.

The above is taken from atiff's rpol game.
Reading it I found it rather depressing if entirely true. A very sad state of affairs and something every last person is likely to have witnessed countless times since the outbreak of the war, particularly since the nukes dropped.

I think we all tend to forget that it's the children who suffer the most, the children who end up doing the majority of the dying in a total war.