Efficiency/Food Production Death Spiral

[MitigatedFever]

My people are living the starvation dream and building more bakeries and other food production buildings seems to make the situation worse vs better.

I think what is going on is that I do not have enough workers so building more bread or fish production facilities just tanks my “operating reserves” on the Ministry of Labor screen even more (-5,000 now), which seems to negatively impact production efficiency(-25% atm), meaning that food production becomes less and less efficient. As a result, food continues not to flow, and stability hovers near 0% pretty constantly, so I am playing whack a mole with rebels all over the map.

My sense is that building more housing and bakeries or other food production buildings will not help, although one of the policies to increase available workers might? Interested if others have encountered this before and any solutions.

Other potentially helpful info is that I have a fairly large empire, this is my first play through, so I just kind of built whatever as I went to see what different buildings did (ie no real planning).

I am still interested in the solution for my next play, through, as there is clearly something at play that I do not understand and thus cannot manage around/fix.

Great game!

[Nomad]

For a possible solution at this time, you can read the discussion about this situation.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1860510/discussions/0/4635986813454910269/

As for possible advice regarding a future campaign. First of all, provide yourself with food. Build 3-4 bakeries in each administrative district. You should have 4 wheat fields for 5 bakeries to avoid grain shortage. At the same time as eating, start worrying about the population and equip residential buildings, only after that start building factories. Try to buy construction resources on the market; To get money at the start, you can sell ore/oil, depending on what mines you have at the start. Try to spend less metals at the start, since the AI ​​usually does not attack for a year or a year and a half, resources will be needed to produce more advanced equipment, in addition, metals appear on the market relatively late. Evaluate which countries should be your priority target in order for you to have your own iron, copper and aluminum mines. Many people advise starting the game on a separate island. This is good for introduction, but if you are already familiar with the game, it is better to start from the main island or capture the main island first, as your passivity on the main island will result in one or two factions remaining on it. which will absorb everyone else and it will be more difficult to cope with such an enemy.

[Captain Jack]

NO ! Nomad, the food consumption in this game is insane !

I hope that the devs reduce it to 20% of the current value.

[Nomad]

Originally posted by Captain Jack:

NO ! Nomad, the food consumption in this game is insane !

I hope that the devs reduce it to 20% of the current value.

I'm currently playing a game based on the concept described above, and there are no problems with food at all. The main island is almost captured, residential buildings in every settlement, food supplies >200 thousand and only increasing. Problems arise only with metals, since at the late stage of the game technologies require very significant volumes of metal supplies. The second problem is the operational reserve. But in general, production efficiency can be maintained at an acceptable level. Another thing is that i have to focus on the production of food and metals and abandon or reduce other industries to a minimum. Although I still have a lot of slots for construction.
I can partially agree with you that accelerating food production is necessary, but not in such serious proportions as to give the player the opportunity to focus on other industries. As well as accelerating the production of metals or ores, so that one mine can supply two factories.
I think that the developers will one way or another make changes to the balance of production.

[MitigatedFever]

Originally posted by Nomad:

For a possible solution at this time, you can read the discussion about this situation.
steam://openurl/https://steamcommunity.com/app/1860510/discussions/0/4635986813454910269/

As for possible advice regarding a future campaign. First of all, provide yourself with food. Build 3-4 bakeries in each administrative district. You should have 4 wheat fields for 5 bakeries to avoid grain shortage. At the same time as eating, start worrying about the population and equip residential buildings, only after that start building factories. Try to buy construction resources on the market; To get money at the start, you can sell ore/oil, depending on what mines you have at the start. Try to spend less metals at the start, since the AI ​​usually does not attack for a year or a year and a half, resources will be needed to produce more advanced equipment, in addition, metals appear on the market relatively late. Evaluate which countries should be your priority target in order for you to have your own iron, copper and aluminum mines. Many people advise starting the game on a separate island. This is good for introduction, but if you are already familiar with the game, it is better to start from the main island or capture the main island first, as your passivity on the main island will result in one or two factions remaining on it. which will absorb everyone else and it will be more difficult to cope with such an enemy.

Thanks for the reply, although the link did not work for me!

[Nomad]

Originally posted by MitigatedFever:

Thanks for the reply, although the link did not work for me!

My mistake. Try this one.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1860510/discussions/0/4635986813454910269/

[Top Cat]

Are their AI naval invasions to even worry about?

[Captain Jack]

Originally posted by Top Cat:

Are their AI naval invasions to even worry about?

Although this question has nothing to do with the thread topic : Yes, the AI will send naval invasion to your ports. The AI is quite clever in doing that, and tries to land its forces in your undefended rear ports,

@NASH , please give us warships to sink these “would-be-operation-overlord-copycats”. Battleship Bismarck is waiting for the Hood to be sent to the oceans ground.

[Nash_Bridges]

Originally posted by Captain Jack:

@NASH , please give us warships to sink these “would-be-operation-overlord-copycats”. Battleship Bismarck is waiting for the Hood to be sent to the oceans ground.

We have some plans for this, but it won't happen anytime soon.

[MitigatedFever]

One way I have found to avoid this issue while still having a lot of land, strong economy, and more resources than I currently know what to do with in my current game, is to conquer up to my operating reserve limit and then just hold the territory while attacking and raiding everyone I am not allied with on the main continent. I can then research policies to increase my operating reserve in big jumps or build housing and wait until I am ready to expand.

This constant looting of the AI also helps turn one of its advantages against them (according to what I have read on here at least) of not having to do much work from an economy perspective because they get resources and equipment on a set schedule, by keeping them weak and allowing you to take all their stuff.

I just started trying this approach and looting in this game may be seems a little OP. You just have to be able to beat the AI down initially and keep them weak.

With the amount of resources I have already gathered this way in the mid-game, I may never have to worry about a shortage later, while my own production keeps humming along at break neck speed….

[General Jack Ripper]

Build a production building.
WAIT FOR THE PRODUCTION TO REACH A GOOD PERCENTAGE.
Then decide whether to build another one.
Temporary shortfalls can be corrected by simply buying food.

[MitigatedFever]

Originally posted by General Jack Ripper:

Build a production building.
WAIT FOR THE PRODUCTION TO REACH A GOOD PERCENTAGE.
Then decide whether to build another one.
Temporary shortfalls can be corrected by simply buying food.

How rapidly are you expanding on the map?

[Nomad]

Originally posted by MitigatedFever:

Originally posted by General Jack Ripper:

Build a production building.
WAIT FOR THE PRODUCTION TO REACH A GOOD PERCENTAGE.
Then decide whether to build another one.
Temporary shortfalls can be corrected by simply buying food.

How rapidly are you expanding on the map?

The first expansion occurs after 1.5-2 years, and then after 1-1.5 years, and each expansion is carried out not by blitzkrieg, but gradually.