12-28-2017, 04:41 AM
Good morning,
researching the forums and the wiki a bit, I found out that providing Maple Syrup to my citizens/bannies is rather bad and inefficient:
First off, Maple Syrup, according to the wiki, is flagged as Edible, but not assigned any of the four food groups. As such, my people can eat it in a pinch, but it is not healthy. That alone would not be too much of a problem, but...
Second, producing it is pretty inefficient: When planting Maple trees, it is my experience that the Orchard produces a lot less Maple Sap than an Orchard the same size would produce for another fruit or nut tree (~400 Maple Sap vs ~1200 fruit for a 11x11 dense Orchard). According to the production spreadsheet, a Sugar Boiler then takes 20 Maple Sap and turns that into 13 Maple Syrup (he takes 20 Cane/Beets to produce 14 Sugar, one more, too!). In the end, this is 260 edible unhealthy food vs 1200 edible healthy food for an orchard with the same size. And even accounting for trade value, that's 520 vs 1200.
Third, you can't even process Maple Syrup further except for (inefficiently) turning it into Sugar. No Bakery recipe to produce Maple (Pecan) Cake. No Pub Meal recipe for Maple Pancakes (Flour, Eggs, Maple Syrup). Nothing at all.
Thus, my bannies are sad.
My final gripe with the whole Maple thing lies in the fact that the time of harvest is a bit wrong, probably due to engine limitations? In reality, the Sap gets collected early in spring, after the frost of winter, since the trees store sugars in their roots over the winter and mobilize them in preparation for the upcoming warm seasons. I guess the Banished engine precludes growth over the cold season?
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Suggestions for making Maple Syrup feel better (and my citizens more happy):
Inefficiency: Trade value of Maple Syrup reduced to 1 from 2. Maple Orchards produce the same amounts of Maple Sap as Fruit or Nut Orchards. Educated Sugar Boiler turns 40 Maple Sap into 40 Maple Syrup (up from 20 into 13). Educated Sugar Boiler turns 100 Maple Syrup into 15 Sugar.
Trade value reduced to not result in a hypervaluable good. Maple Syrup is now worth the same amount in food as other orchard food, but still has the drawback of requiring more (educated) work, but not too much as well (conversion per work cycle up). Conversion rate of orchard production to sugar almost untouched.
Healthiness: I'll argue that Maple Syrup could count as Fruit. Honey counts as Fruit, as well. In my understanding, the four Banished food groups represent different parts of a balanced diet as a whole: Protein groups is for both proteins and fats (nuts are classified as Protein, too, as well as Cream and Butter), Vegetables is for vitamins, greens and dietary fiber, Grains is for carbohydrates (polysaccharides) and also fiber, and Fruits is for another group of vitamins as well as shorter sugars (hence the aforementioned honey). And, as far as I can tell, only Maple Syrup and Water are classified as Edible, but without a food group - which makes sense for water, but not (imo) for Maple Syrup.
Processing: As said above: 6 Maple Syrup + 8 Flour + 6 Eggs could be a recipe for Pub Meals (Pancakes with Maple Syrup) in the Pub Kitchen. 10 Flour + 10 Pecan + 10 Maple Syrup could be a recipe for Maple Pecan Cake in the Bakery.
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Bonus idea: Have the Sugar Boiler in general require 2-3 Furnace Fuel per work cycle - since boiling water requires a lot of energy, and most other heat-dependent professions use fuel, too.
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Yes, I am am a huge fan of Maple Syrup. Why are you asking?
