The World of Avlis

Alright, since it seems we continually get conflicting views and opinions on the subject, perhaps there can be some level of clarification.

It's been eluded to that M'Chek is supposedly in some sort of constant state of famine, with no food imports etc...

Yet this is a flat contradiction of the first few posts on the subject by Orleron, who suggests A. Mikona itself isn't particularly starving as its a center of commerce, and B. The nobles tend to foot a large bill by buying vast amounts of food from abroad and distributing them to their local constiuencies.

The problem then that the statement seemed to imply was that A. There was MASSIVE amounts of overcrowding particularly near Mikona(think Mexico City?) due to the nature of the city as a port/commerce district and B. That the outskirts therefore starved because food imported tended not to get distributed beyond the keeps/cities.

This seems to go completely in the face of the current(and to be honest long-standing) characterization that M'Chek is constantly on the verge of starvation with vast numbers of villagers dying in the streets because they lack food.

The latter view of mass starvation also flies in the face of having a war in the state it's in now, that is a constant all-out piece of warfare lasting well into the half-century mark. How the heck does a country that can't even feed its commoners maintain an active(and more importantly) combat fit army for well over fifty years and CONTINUE to try to invade a neighboring nation?

Feeding an army is messy, exhausting work, even with local foraging and pillaging (as practiced by Bonaparte) the logistics of which weren't even perfected into the advent of modern warfare well into the 19th century. How the heck does M'Chek, a starving supposedly impovrished overcrowded nation who has farmers constantly starving in the street manage to upkeep an army large enough, mobile enough and fit enough to continue trying to invade T'Nanshi? The foraging/pillaging alone that an army of that size would require along the border would surpass the ability of the populace there to maintain, nevermind the negative effects to the population growth you'd have if you started sending young men in droves into battle.

How is this supposed to be reconciled PARTICULARLY combined with the sheer length of non-stop warfare.

The hundred years war in Europe went on for a hundred years, sure, but in terms of actual warfare it was staggered into something like four periods with less than four or five months of actual warfare each. Why? Because a war of that scale would not only bankrupt a nation, but the army would whither on its vine because it couldn't provide for itself.

So, what exactly is the story here?

Are the famines actually exaggerated and in fact not nearly as bad as portrayed, or has M'Chek essentially been depopulating itself through fighting a war it can't afford to fight to feed itself?

Nob wrote:
Are the famines actually exaggerated and in fact not nearly as bad as portrayed, or has M'Chek essentially been depopulating itself through fighting a war it can't afford to fight to feed itself?

Without going into details, and in short, the answer is Both.

wrt the time scale of the conflict and the results of starvation over that peiod I really think people need to bear in mind the fact that this is a GAME, not a real life agriculture and/or large scale military operation simulator.

Not to mention the fact, if the war has been going for (what, nigh on 100 years now?) then we should also mention the fact that many humans in the game should be either dead or well into senility by now.

Sometimes you just have to suspend your desbelief in the face of everything trying to make you say "Hey! Tha isn't right," just accept it and play the game

Nob wrote:The latter view of mass starvation also flies in the face of having a war in the state it's in now, that is a constant all-out piece of warfare lasting well into the half-century mark. How the heck does a country that can't even feed its commoners maintain an active(and more importantly) combat fit army for well over fifty years and CONTINUE to try to invade a neighboring nation?

The short answer: North Korea.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close. North Korea does not continue to wage an ACTIVE war against South Korea, Japan, or the United States, but it does continue to train and supply its military while its citizens starve. It also, like M'Chek, receives shipments of food from foreign countries (such as Japan, though the North Korean citizens probably aren't aware they are eating Japanese rice - they probably aren't told much of anything about the outside world, but that's neither here nor there).

Just because a nation imports food from another nation or nations does not mean that it imports enough food.

Also do not forget that M'Chek has something that old Europe lacked - magic. Priests of Mikon and other deities can create a small amount of food every day through faith magic (see Create Food and Water in the PHB). This is, like the food shipments, not enough, but it is something.

I do see the point about providing limited rations to the army through clerical creation spells, though from what I can gather the main problem with M'Chek's food problem isn't so much the quantity but rather how it gets distributed. Food being a major commodity, the only port city being Mikona, and the fact that there isn't nearly the same type of food preservation techniques we have now (hmm magic ice crystal fridges anyone?) seems problematic when it comes more to distribution than actual quantity. Lack of rail/major method of hauling vast amounts across land would probably be a bottleneck both for civilians and the army.

North Korea for example is starving(obviously) but part of that fact is the army itself. They go as far as to purposefully starve their people in order to maintain a fighting army. They can afford to do this A. Because their armed forces exert totalitarian control over every aspect of life, B. They have a semi-modern transportation infrastructure that'll let them crate around said food. On the other hand their currency is worthless and no country in its right mind actually bothers to trade with them. Almost the entirety of North Korea's foreign shipments of food are donations made to keep them from attacking anyone outright.

I can see "create food" being used by the army to help sustain (at most) a small contingent of their forces but the limitations of said spell(3 humans or 1 horse/level, the fact that it's third level which would probably be more than your average cleric on Avlis can cast) seem to make it unlikely that it could be sustainble for as long as listed.

I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative, and I concede that my attention(or I suppose even obsession) for detail is far beyond what would reasonably be expected of to be fleshed out. I do not for example, expect an Avlissian version of the CIA World Factbook. (Though now that I think about it, that might be kinda neat...)

That raises a separate point that I have always disliked about world's with even moderate amounts of magic.

Chances are that most mages would actually be fairly average people in regular jobs. I think you'd see a world more similar to modern Europe than medieval Europe as magic simply replaced technology. Magically powered coaches, magically flattened roads, magical media centres pumping entertainment into all homes, magicians going up into the air to draw accurate maps, magic used to cleanse the water supply, magical portals to send m-mail instead of regular letters, magical lights in all homes turned on and off at the flick of a switch, magical high speed printing presses to make mass-distribution books, music stored on magical circular discs so you don;t have to use the instruments yourself, magical "farspeak" communication devices (rather like the Vasharan's have actually) etc etc

I think the point is....

...there was a need to go to war....an excuse was needed.......the rest well....it keeps it going nicely doesnt it

Fifty wrote: Not to mention the fact, if the war has been going for (what, nigh on 100 years now?) then we should also mention the fact that many humans in the game should be either dead or well into senility by now.

Whoa, you got a point there buddy!!

It is also entirely likely that the Government, while it imports foods and such divert the majority of that food to the Army to keep it fed and in fighting condition. What doesnt go to them goes to the nobles,their friends and their croneys, whats left is sadly incapable of feeding the masses of civilians who never hear about these imports, let alone see any of them.

And hence the general opinion of those masses that the rest of the world doesnt give a flying @#$^ about them, when in fact it is their own leaders.....

Vichan Lyonsen wrote:It is also entirely likely that the Government, while it imports foods and such divert the majority of that food to the Army to keep it fed and in fighting condition. What doesnt go to them goes to the nobles,their friends and their croneys, whats left is sadly incapable of feeding the masses of civilians who never hear about these imports, let alone see any of them.

And hence the general opinion of those masses that the rest of the world doesnt give a flying @#$^ about them, when in fact it is their own leaders.....

The trouble with this is, as has been stated before, that starving people dont produce very healthy children. Since men are dying in the war, and it is going on for generations, there needs to be replacements. A soldier with rickets or other undernorished diseases would not be very effective especially in the setting of Avlis which is based on strength of arm.

The analogy of North Korea doesnt work here either because the ability to ship massive amounts of food to the surrounding country doesnt exist. Starvation would quickly equal death and a crashing of the population...coupled with a war and MChek would quickly run out of soldiers.

Then you put on a fantasy hat and say well it's PFM so it doesnt count here.