Topic: The Barbarian Food Sector

This may well get quite controversial, since we all have gotten quite used to it, but I feel we should talk about it all the same: I just want to say, that you should please take my word, that I don't mean to sound disrespectful towards anybody's artwork, idea, concept -- what ever.

When I installed Widelands for the first time, starting with the Barbarian tribe, it gave me quite a good laugh:
"Man, these guys are funny --- "los wochos" in Germania, huh :D" I thought to myself.

But the weeks past, and so did the months and years, and still we are feeding our barbaric, supposedly indo-european miners with "new world" hamburgers, extra sized and double layered.
Now, come on, the joke is getting a bit old. Is this really the final word? Do we continue to feed them on fast food in full ernest?
But there is more.
Pitta bread: I know this kind of bread from Israel, and in one form or the other you'll find it almost all around the mediterranean. Tasty stuff - but can you imagine that made from rye?
Yep, that is what they mostly had north of the alps, because wheat did not grow well in the colder climates. Even "baking bread" is a bit doubtful. Most likely our ancestors have been thriving on a sort of "porridge". Bread would have been something like crispbread or the tyrolean "Schüttelbrot", because ovens for baking bread in the usual loaf form came late to Germania.
Source (http://www.asentr.eu/leben.htm) and others.

No, I am not speaking in favor of true "realism" here, not really. But must we deliberately falsify those few facts that we know?

Ideas:

• Modify the fields of either Barbarians or Empire to look different from each other.
• Change the name from "Wheat" to "Rye" for Barbarians including adjusting the icon.
• Let the bakery produce a darker sort of bread in a flat form, replace and rename the pittabread icon to flatbread.
• create rations, snacks, meals as graphics showing the components singled out on a plate maybe; avoid the hamburger look.

Alternatively

• Modify the fields of either Barbarians or Empire to look different from each other.
• Change the name from "Wheat" to "Rye" for Barbarians including adjusting the icon.
• Rename the bakery to "cook shop" (Garküche, Breiküche) modify the graphic for it, and let it produce porridge (Grütze).
• create rations, snacks, meals as graphics showing the components singled out on a plate maybe or in a bowl; avoid the hamburger look.

Worth a try, or am I alone in thinking that a Big Mac is not quite your typical Germanic meal at 50 AD?

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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Good moring Nasenbaer!
Nice to have you hang around here a bit more again!
You really never thought of Burgers before?
Funny, - that is like the "Bunny" discussion with the quarry stones.
There, I was the one, who never saw it before somebody mentioned it
Yes, I understand, it's not 1:1, Barbarian and Germanics.
You can see this quite clearly in the names of the protagonists; they are clearly not of indogermanic origin.
But, like with the Empire, you really have a raw model in mind - (and that is why I am having trouble with the Atlanteans, because there, I' dont!)
So I would not deliberately alienate this "rough idea", if I we can help it easily.
You could well argue, that there are still a lot more important things to do, and I would agree

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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If you look closely it's a green thingy and a red thingy (tomato) Royal TS, maybe?

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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@Astuur: I always guessed that the red thing is the meat. Didn't tomatoes originally come from South America, together with potatoes?

@Sadchant: Good point about the beer. The problem is, how to portray a meal consisting of bread, fish/meat and beer properly in a small graphic which has to range in size to symbolize rations, snacks and meals?

My idea with the fish instead of the salad looks pretty crappy. My poor graphic skills are obvious but I think even with a good graphician working on it the blue would not work. The fastfood industry is ahead of us, green simply looks healthier.

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Astuur wrote: Have been thinking more in this direction: (not yet optimzed)
)

Very nice picture, would be nice to implement such grafiks and names!

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