Food Surplus

[Hucks]

How do I know how many farms I need or how much surplus their is?

[Mandrake]

You can check the Almanac's People tab and click Food Quality to find the number of provided meals and skipped meals. While you can't see exactly what your surplus is, suffice to say if the skipped meals is greater than zero, then either you're not producing enough food or need marketplaces to help distribute it to your people. Furthermore, surplus food tends to be exported, so you can check the Trade tab to see if you're producing more food than your people need.

[Hucks]

ok thank you. Im trying to get into this game but it seems im spending half my time in the almanacs tab and not actually playing the game lol.

[Uzi Master]

One corn farm per 100 people is generally sufficient. 1 per 200 if you have a horticulture GMO station.

Marketplaces allow you to import food if you ever run low, so no need to get too caught up in the ratios.

Early on you can use the foreign aid edict for free to handle food if you like too. (and healthcare)

Also relating to food happiness; simply having food gives 80% satisfaction, the rest is up to variety and 'double rations' edict being active. Variety simply checks how many food types are available, one building of each type is enough to max it even if most people are eating one thing.