Fallout 1 and 2 are regarded as having great worldbuilding and sensible economics, but what do Ghouls in Necropolis eat? How does Master support the logistics of his super-mutant army? Is New Reno's entire existence is built on drugs, booze, games and women, do they trade food and water for it? I just think, sometimes Classic Fallouts are overpraised and are forgiven for the same flaws that Bethesda Fallouts are bashed for.
Sure that's not true. Indeed, if you take a close lens New Vegas, it's world building doesn't hold up perfectly and can be poked full of holes.
At the end of the days these are games, not economic simulators. But the fact is that Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas gave us a "good enough" sense of worldbuilding. In Fallout 1 the very first settlement we see has a reasonable enough amount of agriculture going on, fairly large herds of cattle. Even better in the Hub, we see agricultural fields stretching off to the horizon as we enter the town, and we even get to visit an otherwise unvisitable farm on the outskirts in the .223 pistol quest. In Adytum, we see farmed fields and underground cultivation. In random encounters out in the Wasteland, you can meet pastoralists herding brahmin.
Is it perfect? Is everything fully justified? No. As you say, we never get any indication of what ghouls eat or how the Master's Army is supplied. To add another example - Junktown has like two brahmin, and it seems a stretch to think that it has enough economic clout to import all of its food, especially since the casino is a fairly recent thing. We don't see how the Brotherhood procure their food. While Shady Sands and the Boneyard do have farmed fields, neither are realistically enough to support the population we see. The point isn't to lay out in exhaustive detail how everyone is supplied, but to give us a
general sense of how people are fed, and a
general sense that this is an economically lively world.
Fallout 2 is even better when it comes to this stuff. We do see agriculture going on in the very first location, Arroyo, and again in Klamath Falls along with an extensive hunting industry. Modoc has absolute tons of brahmin and agriculture. The Den doesn't have any agriculture going, but it's an entrepot for a bustling slave trade so this is perfectly justifiable. Plenty of farming and ranching in Gecko. We see agriculture and ranching in NCR proper, and of course we have the knowledge that this is just one city in a large prosperous country. In Redding we see brahmin ranching and cultivation, and to boot its a major gold exporter. Agriculture and brahmin in Vault City, and to boot it's a massive exporter of medicine. Broken Hills has agriculture and Brahmin, and it's a massive exporter of uranium. And, in random encounters, you can find not just brahmin ranchers but also farmsteads off in the wasteland.
I think, in light of what I laid out above, the criticism of New Reno is largely misplaced: Sure, it doesn't produce food or water itself, but it produces very valuable commodities (chems and booze - and I suppose even porno) and offers plenty of tantalizing services. Given how fleshed out the rest of the world, it's more than believable that New Reno would be able to import food with what it's selling.
Better examples of failings I think would be San Francisco and the Enclave. San Francisco should not be surprising, it's generally the worst-written and least-well-integrated part of the game. Shi-Town has a few brahmin, but not many, and no farming depicted despite the mentions of research into botany. Shi-Town is saved a little bit by the fact that I think fishing is mentioned, though not well depicted or integrated. The Tanker Vagrants and the Hubologists have no explanation for how they make their livelihood. For the Enclave - There's no farming at Navarro, and no allusion to any kind of food generation in the Oil Rig. Obviously they don't trade with anyone, aside I suppose from the Salvatores.
For all of these shortcomings (and indeed for those Fallout 1), we could think of explanations if we wanted to. It's true, these would be exercises in headcanon and fanoneering, but the crucial distinction between these games and Fallout 3 is that 1 and 2 give us a sensible baseline to work from: These are questions and problems nestled in a basically-sensible world. We've got something to work with.
Fallout 3, on the other hand, is just question on top of question.
Absolutely no one farms in the Capital Wasteland, the only active farm we see is the Punga Fruit operation in Point Lookout. There is the Hydroponics Lab in Rivet City, and it is indeed mentioned as exporting in a one-off line in a council meeting minutes transcription, but the lab is quite small, vegetables don't make up a big portion of the diet of Riveters from what we see. There's also the trouble that the Hydroponics Lab is a fairly recent thing in comparison to the lifespan of Rivet City. Hardly any ado is made of it despite the fact that this hydroponics lab would be tasked with supplying the sustenance of the entire Capital Wasteland. And even if we accept that the Hydroponics Lab IS engaged in a large scale export operation, that raises the troubling question of what exactly the rest of the Capital Wasteland produces in terms of commodities and services to induce the Riveters to export. Spoiler alert... not much.
For Brahmin ranching - Megaton, Girdershade, Republic of Dave, other small settlements might have one or two Brahmin, and that's the entirety of it. We don't find Brahmin ranchers out in the wasteland, just feral and emaciated ones on their own. Really the only settlement that has a "good enough" level of Brahmin is Arefu, since it has like 4 and a fairly small population.
Hunting - We do find hunters out in the Wasteland. Putting aside the fact that such a small area should probably not have enough game to support such large sedentary populations as we find in the Capital Wasteland, the problem then becomes that no focus is ever put on this fact. No one in any town is employed as a hunter or mirelurk fisherman, there's no butcher shops, no hunters ever come into town to trade. People don't even eat all that much game meat in the Capital Wasteland - Mostly, when we see people eating, they're eating pre-War food, or noodles (despite their being no source of grain known in or around the Capital Wasteland).
Now, we could think of any number of explanations for how the Capital Wasteland procures food, and how its economy functions. Sometimes, this is a fun exercise. But the fact is, unlike Fallout 1, 2, or New Vegas, Fallout 3 gives us no sensible baseline to work with. We step beyond explanation-engineering and into the territory of outright fanfiction. The fact is Fallout 3's world is a senseless one, where almost nothing in its design or story proceeds from any kind of logical consideration about how societies form or how people make their living. It's shallow as a puddle on the sidewalk, no matter how long we spend fantasizing about drilling into the concrete.
Rats, Fungus and stuff they trade.
Eh, the first two aren't really viable to support a large population, and I don't think Necropolis trades with anyone at all. You can't go there with any of the Caravan companies. Assuming the Necropolis is actually in Bakersfield, caravans would just pass right by it on their way to Lost Hills. Which makes sense, being a spooky scary city of the dead and all.
Given Seth's affect, I think it's more likely that the ghouls procure their food by raiding hapless normies who pass in the vicinity of the Necropolis. Or perhaps the hydroponics wing of the vault is still operational, that doesn't seem out of the question to me given it's water purification is still working.
I would say - While other wastelanders being able to eat pre-War food is retarded, I think I would actually be OK with it for ghouls. Doesn't make the most sense, but then neither do ghouls. I feel like that idea has a certain resonance to it.
It remains one of my seminal experiences gaming.
