Shortage of Food

[HarryLee]

So the year is 1886 and I'm a united Germany with almost all of Africa under my control. All of my food stockpiles are messed up. For example F4 says I'm producing 463 tropical fruits a turn. It doesn't matter what percentage i put it on for national sales my stockpile only goes up by 10-15 ea turn. Right now I have it set at 5% (lowest setting) and it shows my stockpile as having 36 and my use is 2, I'm projected to purchase 20(my projected selling and purchasing setting is at 50%), my production 463, and my expected stockpile after my turn to be 517. I even have food preservation turned off. I've now ended my turn and my actual stockpile is only 53 and it now shows my national market sales to 3, still producing 463, and my projected stockpile after this turn is 533. Where is all my unused tropical fruit going? I have the same issue with cereals, coffee and others. It doesn't matter how low I place my percentage to be sold on the national market, my stockpiles barely grow. The max my market can buy is 1227 food stuffs and I'm selling them 1028. If I add all of my food production together it comes to roughly 1800. At that production rate I can set all my food stuffs to sell 80% of food item to national market and my stockpile still grows at them same slow rate. Even my assets ballance sheet (B) shows the same production and growth. What am I missing? Oh i should add my national pop sat is 99%. My gold production is at 122 but it shows I'm only supplying 3 to national market and I have it maxed at 80% when I bring it down to 5% its 1 to the national market but I'm not seeing any growth in my stockpile once again.

[Jim-NC]

You probably are having a coal shortage issue. May I recommend Loki100's informative AAR on the subject (he had a similar problem)? Basically, the game no longer tells you that your factories shut down due to a lack of some raw material. If you look at your coal levels, you need to have stored more coal than what your factories/farms need to produce everything at the start of the turn. So if you coal usage is 500 per turn, you need to have over 500 on hand when you process the turn, or some industry will shut down. The game seems to prioritize production, but doesn't tell you the issue, and it's not perfect.

[HarryLee]

I was thinking that, thank you for the info. Very helpful. I'll look into it more because I do have an issue keeping coal right now.

[HarryLee]

So, yes I was short of coal. I turned almost all of my industry off for one turn and have a good stockpile now. Now I'm going back in and turning my industry on as needed making sure I don't go over my coal. Once again thanks.

[Kensai]

It's a nasty, almost without warning issue. Make sure you create your industry in a way that doesn't consume your coal reserves more than the coal mines you can create. Make sure you have the write techs as well. Btw, sometimes it is worth it NOT to have the latest tech factory cause it consumes a lot of coal, albeit at a better efficiency.