[Poruku]

My only concern is how new nations would be accounted for

I guess the answer is simply to use bigger numbers. And then the little nations need less food to have "enough" food because I guess there would be a "size" stat. Each big nation is the same, but new ones are small. They would probably get their own resources based on the land they have as well. Like when fairview was made, they got fields and such, so they essentially added food production into the world. But these values would be small and if a bigger nation went to war against them and won they wouldn't gain that much proportionally. And it would imply you're literally murdering people or creating refugees and uh... Generally a terrible idea to abuse that, you're literally killing your own people. Instead, you can just expand and create new farmland and such. No need to create a new faction.

For instance, Fairview being founded would add 20 food units into the world. Fairview needs like 15 units of food to have enough. So they can trade with other places, but they have no other industries so their money isn't very high. Meanwhile Meiaquar has like, 200 food production, and they need 250 in order to feed everyone. So Meiaquar would probably trade with that small faction. Just as an example.

So yes, it would probably create more food if they have farmland, but also more food need.

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It sounded like the goal of this was a bit broader than that.

Yes, the goal here is to kind of introduce the idea. Dev usually does what he wants anyway, and this is mostly to gauge interest.

Though, of course, you guessed right that I had a grander purpose with this. I am currently writing up a larger proposition about war rules, and it would require (or greatly benefit from) a basic system like this. The IC information about nation status is in my opinion a big boon, but it's also the precursor to having proper wars.