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Month #1: The development advisor says that my people need 62 food each month, and that I have sufficient food.

However, Month #2 I look and see the message that "British ate 34 food." This is weird. Do my people need about 60 or about 30 each month?

I look deeper at month #1:
* My development advisor and my economic advisor agree that I have 30 food stockpiled.
* But how much am I producing? My development advisor says 33, my economic advisor says 71, and summing up the provinces shows 62. This makes no sense to me at all.
Unresolved question #1: Why are these three numbers so different?


I look back at month #2:
* My advisors no longer agree on the size of my stockpile. (assuming that's what those gray boxes mean). One says 24, one says 39.
Unresolved question #2: Even if my advisors are all over the place in their predictions, how can they disagree about the current stockpile. One of them must mean something else, but what?

So I do my own arithmetic:
+30 initial stockpile
+62 sum of food production in the provinces
+9 imported
-3 taxes
-34 or -62 eaten
Looks like I should have 64 or 38 food stockpiled now.

Well, 38 is pretty close to what one advisor said... good news, I guess.

One theory: Maybe "British ate 34 food" refers to the civilian population, while "You need 62 food" refers to civilian plus military population. But how would I know this from the wording of these reports?

However, this explanation is persuasive because I have exactly 14 militia being supplied, and at 2 food each, this would explain the difference neatly.

I really want to know what these advisors mean with their numbers!

Thanks for having asked the question... I have exatly the same problem.

One theory: Maybe "British ate 34 food" refers to the civilian population, while "You need 62 food" refers to civilian plus military population. But how would I know this from the wording of these reports?

Yes, this is definately the case. Adding up the number for my Population and my military generally comes to the right number.

What I cant understand is that I am playing games where I make 101 food, need 112 food (total), am not importing or exporting any and yet my stockpile moves up and down every turn. I would expect it to continue to move down as I am not making enough, but that is not the case.

Of course I'm also not sure if the amount produced includes what is listed under the modifiers (like Developments), so maybe that is accounting for the rest.

IIRC, food consumption varies by 25 percent, plus or minus. Doublecheck the manual, I may be incorrect.

I simply think that there are so many variables and random conditions that we are unaware of that being able to make things come up even is next to impossible.

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I simply think that there are so many variables and random conditions that we are unaware of that being able to make things come up even is next to impossible.

Well, that part of it I like a lot. What I don't like is
1) That the three sources for predicting (economic advisor gray box, development advisor gray box, and summing up the provinces) yields wildly divergent numbers, without any explanation of why.
2) Much more importantly, clarity as to what happened last month and how much is now in the stockpile.

I agree, that is just strange. Maybe a bug. Ericbabe will clear it all up next week.