Ale consumption is waaay to high, report Manor Lords players

If you've played a Manor Lords game for over an hour or so (which is likely, as it's very hard to put down), you will have run into the "not enough entertainment" issue.

Are you not entertained?! 

The entertainment issue, you ask?

Even if you haven't had the warning or seen the drop in approval rating, I'm sure you've seen it. It means you can't upgrade your Level 2 Burgage plots to Level 3, because there isn't a supply of Tavern.

So basically, it means there is not enough Ale to go round. Which is completely understandable. 

Balance issues

The current balance for Ale consumption is 1 ale per family per month. But so is the production: 1 Barley = 1 Malt = 1 Ale. 

Developer Greg: "Players report that it's "waaay" too much and their towns can't keep up. I guess for a 1000 family city that is 1000 barrels of ale per month which can be a huge burden."

Say you have a village of 30 families (which isn't even that large of a town), you will need a yearly yield of 360 Barley. And that, with the current state of Farming, is difficult to manage. 

For the 1000 family city, you would need 12000 Barley harvested each year. One could easily argue this is impossible to manage.

Possible Solutions

On Discord, 4 solutions were offered by the developer. 

1. Just reduce ale consumption, it's way too high
2. Keep the consumption as is but increase the production rate, for instance by making 1 barley make 2 or more malt (keep in mind it will put more stress on logistics)
3. Make only lv2+ families go to the tavern since lv1 doesn't have it as a residential requirement.
4. You missed a bug dear developer and it's not actually 1/family/month

The solutions revolve around 2 main mechanics: either lower the amount of Ale consumed (A and C) or increase the yield of Ale (B). 

The latter of these two would mean your Innkeepers would be lugging around more and more Ale to keep all their punters happy. You would need more warehouses, more Brewery extensions on your Burgage plots, more of that. 

The other mechanic would be easier for the gameplay. Lowering the consumption to for instance 1 ale per 4 families per month (equaling a Level 3 Burgage plot with extra housing extension), would not change the infrastructure needed for the supply of Ale.

It will however make sure that you don't run out of Ale in March, leaving punters high and dry when the Spring kicks in. 

Community Response

At the time of writing this post, the question over at Discord was posted not even 48 hours ago. Already over 20.000 votes are counted, with the overwhelming majority leaning towards the lowering consumption mechanic. 

Over 90% of all votes were cast for solution A or C, with A taking the top spot with over 10.000 votes. That makes up more than half of all votes. 

A combination of those 2 solutions might also be an option. Only Level 2+ families will go to the tavern AND they'll be put on probation, getting to drink less Ale per family. 

How about more products?

This vote got me thinking. Sure, the consumption is ridiculously high. Especially when you take into account the farming endeavours that are needed to support such a consumption, it just doesn't add up.

As well as lowering consumption in some way or form, how about amping up the production? Instead of the 1-1-1, you could change it to 1-2-4: 1 Barley makes 2 Malt, 1 Malt makes 2 Ale, so 1 Barley makes 4 Ale. Basic math. 

But how about adding other drinks to the mix? The tooltip already mentions more products that could provide the entertainment need. Maybe the game could benefit from a Berry based Liquors or importable Wines?