[Vote] (5-42) Rename Lodge To Smokehouse

[Tekamthi]

VP Congress: Session 5, Proposal 42

Current state:

Building name: Lodge
Era: Ancient
Tech required: Trapping
Function: +1 Production from Camps. Gain 5 Food in the City when its borders expand, scaling with Era. +2 Border Growth in this City. Nearby Deer: +1 Food. Nearby Bison: +1 Food.
Historical Info:

"A lodge is a small dwelling set apart from a main dwelling, used for recreation. The term has become associated with recreational hunting, especially in relation to nobility and the recreational sportsmen in modern times. In many cultures, wild preserves were set aside for kings and their entourages to engage in hunting for pleausre."​

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Proposal:

Text-only changes as follows:
Rename building to "Smokehouse", and update text references to reflect this name.
Change Historical Info to the following (excerpt from wikipedia):

"A smokehouse is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more. Even when smoke is not used, such a building—typically a subsidiary building—is sometimes referred to as a "smokehouse". The meat is hung to keep it from the reach of vermin. Traditionally, a smokehouse is a small enclosed outbuilding often with a vent, a single entrance, no windows, and frequently has a gabled or pyramid-style roof. The use of slightly warmed, dry air from a very slow hardwood fire ensures the proper drying of meats."​

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Rationale:

The "Lodge", if it existed in 4000 BC, was not a common feature in ancient communities, or at least we little evidence of such. As per the existing lodge description above, these served "kings and their entourages"; ie the concept only became prevalent in medeival era. Furthermore the "lodge" was not public infrastructure, it did not serve as a distribution point of food to community. The "smokehouse" on the other hand was a vital infrastructure confirmed to have existed in ancient communities via written and archaelogical record, and served the exact in-game function of this building ie improving value of game resources.

 

[pineappledan]

We have depictions and written records of Assyrian and Persian kings who did hunting expeditions. Royal hunting preserves are practically the definition of public infrastructure insofar as such a thing could exist in ancient times. In an absolutist monarchicical state the king is the state, and therefore his property is state property.

Otherwise I don’t really care about the change one way or the other. I just don’t agree with your assertion that the lodge is anachronistic.

 

[Tekamthi]

Let me qualify my assertion then by saying it was mostly anachronistic for people in the stone age, and the function we have assigned to it certainly is. In real history not everyone moved from the "ancient era" to "classical" at the same time; without having cross-referenced the Assyrian and Persian kings' lodges, I'd suggest their societies likely exhibited characteristics more aligned with the "classical" era when they had these facilities. No doubt we can find other individual buildings that housed people on hunting expeditions all throughout history, and likely many lodges included smokehouses -- but the inference that elites with fancy housing somehow improved the community's food supply is a far greater abstraction than a building dedicated to preserving said food supply.

edit: to expand on your point about anachronisms, a "smokehouse" would've commonly been used for fish, and domesticated meat, too... and we don't have that in-game here. Perhaps this influenced the original decision for a "lodge"?

 

[pineappledan]

The ancient era would more definitely be Bronze Age, not Stone Age. The lodge is tied to the invention of an upper class with free time. The creation of class stratification is a hallmark of any civilization, in the classic definition of the term.

When I initially designed the lodge, I was only concerned with something tied to camps, bison and deer. I was unconcerned with the food, though the BGP does feel like it has that tie-in to the ‘leisure’ class.

 

[Tekamthi]

The ancient era would more definitely be Bronze Age, not Stone Age.

In VP the entire ancient era can be completed without bronze working -- in vanilla, all the way to renaissance! I don't think the intention was to have the ancient era represent the bronze age per se, though the option is certainly there for the player to make it such.

Given that you have to complete research just do discover "stone" resource in VP (am I confusing a mod?), I'd argue the start of the ancient era, and the first level techs, are more aligned with stone age period of human advancement. Turn 0 is like the sunset of the neolithic in my mind -- maybe we could say the "copper age" had already started, but not bronze

 

[ma_kuh]

So.. it'll also affect fish resources then? (If not now, in a few sessions of congress, certainly...)

 

[Tekamthi]

So.. it'll also affect fish resources then? (If not now, in a few sessions of congress, certainly...)

I'll leave that proposal for someone else to make -- I don't have a good eye for balancing out yields etc.

 

[Legen]

I sponsor this.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.