Food shortage?

[DiegoLavega]

In my campaigns i sort of had this issue from time to time, but the way i resolved it was by building a large ammount of food producing buildings, however recently it seems that even if i have 24 food production positive some of my settlements that i try to develop end up having food shortages even though my faction overall has a highly positive production?

Can anyone help shed some light on what i might be missing

[RCMidas]

The food production of any given commandery is listed as the total of all its farms/fields etc *minus* the expenditure on the main settlement. Other commanderies may be producing more food than their main settlements are consuming, and so pass that excess onto other places which are in deficit.

For example:

Your faction controls all of two Commanderies, A and B, and the minor settlements of Commandery C.

Commandery A is producing a total of 10 Food through its farms, and has only a Small Town, costing 2 Food. It provides a surplus of 8 Food.

Commandery B is producing no Food, and has a Small Town, also costing 2 Food. This is taken from your existing surplus of 8 Food. Your faction now has a surplus of 6 Food.

On the next turn, you capture the Large Town of Commandery C, which costs 6 Food to maintain. This is taken from your existing surplus of 6 Food, reducing you to none.

If you capture ANOTHER main settlement that is a Small Town or higher, or upgrade any of the main settlements another tier, without increasing your Food surplus to above zero, you will actually enter Food deficit. This will cause the reserves in your settlements to drop, meaning they will firstly not be able to hold out as long in a siege...and once those hit zero, also cause a massive -10 public order debuff.

It's worth noting that, playing as any non-Yellow Turban faction, you can capture everything on the map and upgrade every single settlement to tier 9 (Large Regional City) and several all the way up to tier 10 Imperial Cities without going into a faction Food deficit. Provided you build your cities properly, of course.

Only commanderies that actually have Food-producing minor settlements can be upgraded significantly and still show a net positive Food income. You will want to focus on reforms that boost Food production in order to supply enough of it to your major cities from your farms and fisheries.

[DiegoLavega]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

The food production of any given commandery is listed as the total of all its farms/fields etc *minus* the expenditure on the main settlement. Other commanderies may be producing more food than their main settlements are consuming, and so pass that excess onto other places which are in deficit.

For example:

Your faction controls all of two Commanderies, A and B, and the minor settlements of Commandery C.

Commandery A is producing a total of 10 Food through its farms, and has only a Small Town, costing 2 Food. It provides a surplus of 8 Food.

Commandery B is producing no Food, and has a Small Town, also costing 2 Food. This is taken from your existing surplus of 8 Food. Your faction now has a surplus of 6 Food.

On the next turn, you capture the Large Town of Commandery C, which costs 6 Food to maintain. This is taken from your existing surplus of 6 Food, reducing you to none.

If you capture ANOTHER main settlement that is a Small Town or higher, or upgrade any of the main settlements another tier, without increasing your Food surplus to above zero, you will actually enter Food deficit. This will cause the reserves in your settlements to drop, meaning they will firstly not be able to hold out as long in a siege...and once those hit zero, also cause a massive -10 public order debuff.

It's worth noting that, playing as any non-Yellow Turban faction, you can capture everything on the map and upgrade every single settlement to tier 9 (Large Regional City) and several all the way up to tier 10 Imperial Cities without going into a faction Food deficit. Provided you build your cities properly, of course.

Only commanderies that actually have Food-producing minor settlements can be upgraded significantly and still show a net positive Food income. You will want to focus on reforms that boost Food production in order to supply enough of it to your major cities from your farms and fisheries.

Indeed im playing yellow turban (Zhang kai).

All my minor cities are in excess food production for example +12 on minor settlements,

but it seems that my regional cities are on -4 food production even though my overall surplus is around 13.


Edit: here are 2 pictures that might better describe my issue.

https://imgur.com/a/YbSyvIu

https://imgur.com/a/qCMl2NW


What i didnt understand was why my surplus isnt going into the places with deficit?

[RCMidas]

It is - on a FACTIONWIDE basis. Each individual commandery ONLY shows you how much it is producing and consuming, not where each single unit of Food is getting sent to. Your factionwide surplus is DESPITE those cities being on a deficit.

Same principle behind your actual economy. The money produced by your cities isn't divided up to each individual army or whatever. You don't get an indicator of "Commandery A is producing enough cash to fund Army A and some of Army B, and the rest of Army B is funded by your background income". It's all pooled together.

Taking your second picture as an example: Anding is producing a surplus of 20 Food at the moment. This means that the Food it is producing is enough to feed itself, Chang'an (-2), Hanzhong (-2), Jincheng (-1) and Wudu (-5); and still have 5 Food left over for any other commandery not itself producing enough Food to feed itself.

It is NOT a case of: Anding is producing 20 Food and none of that goes anywhere except straight into your surplus. Your first picture demonstrates that quite clearly. You have a surplus of 42 Food there, but Anding, Baxi and Wuwei make that up, and you have other Contested Commanderies (I can see Ba there) which are also giving you Food.

[DiegoLavega]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

It is - on a FACTIONWIDE basis. Each individual commandery ONLY shows you how much it is producing and consuming, not where each single unit of Food is getting sent to. Your factionwide surplus is DESPITE those cities being on a deficit.

Same principle behind your actual economy. The money produced by your cities isn't divided up to each individual army or whatever. You don't get an indicator of "Commandery A is producing enough cash to fund Army A and some of Army B, and the rest of Army B is funded by your background income". It's all pooled together.

Taking your second picture as an example: Anding is producing a surplus of 20 Food at the moment. This means that the Food it is producing is enough to feed itself, Chang'an (-2), Hanzhong (-2), Jincheng (-1) and Wudu (-5); and still have 5 Food left over for any other commandery not itself producing enough Food to feed itself.

It is NOT a case of: Anding is producing 20 Food and none of that goes anywhere except straight into your surplus. Your first picture demonstrates that quite clearly. You have a surplus of 42 Food there, but Anding, Baxi and Wuwei make that up, and you have other Contested Commanderies (I can see Ba there) which are also giving you Food.

Alright i understand that, so in short i dont have a shortage?

Its just displaying that the food production in each commandery is not self suficient?

Then why is it that those commanderies are the only ones having trouble in terms of population happiness?
Looking at things it seems that the food was the issue?

[RCMidas]

Correct, it's just showing non-self-sufficiency.

Now, Population order issues are something else. Larger towns and cities have room for more people. More people means crowding, crime, and just general discontent. Hence, lower public order.

The only way to counter that is through structures, reforms etc to increase public order. It never goes away over time. As the Population increases, public order decreases.

This basically means that you'll need to balance Food to grow your cities (and give you better options for your buildings) and Public Order to keep the rising population under control as they get bigger. You'll go back and forth for a while until you get it right, and of course, war and gaining/losing territory can throw that balance off for a bit.

Then, as you start to expand still further, you'll notice you're not making as much money as you were before - corruption is setting in due to the lack of direct oversight, and your petty officials are skimming off the top. The more territory you hold, the less you can prevent this sort of thing by yourself.

Now, most Han factions can eventually tech up to eliminating corruption entirely in all but three commanderies (Wuwei, Shuofang, and Yizhou Island) without needing to game the system too much. Some of them, Yuan Shu for instance, share a singular downside with the Yellow Turbans that they cannot do this, and some corruption will always remain.

Since you're playing as a Yellow Turban faction, this means that you will also need to stop expanding at some point and just focusing on increasing your Enlightenment through reforms and skills. Dividing the map with the other Yellow Turbans is highly advised.