Food shortages

[Catilina]

Having rough time keeping food flowing, even with bigger fish ports and farms upgraded my 3 region empire is colapsing at -10 food. Bug? any tips?

[chadwicknight]

Did you check if there is any raiding army in your regions?

Could be a hidden one. Check in the region's detail, mouse over the "public order" bar and look for signs of a raiding enemy.

[KAM 2150]

Also stuff like unit recruting take away your food production

[zombieflanders]

Also, if you're not taxing a province, it won't produce food (or consume it, if it's negative).

[FlashHeart07]

Unless you are having an actual bug I really cant see how you are able to have a negative food production. Recruitting cost 1 food and so does fortified stance, raiding cost -4 food in the specific region and Patrol stance adds 1 food

[Dresden]

Also you can use Import Food edict if you have a province that has markets and ports.

[Stonebonez]

I've experienced something similar for the first time myself playing 0.96f. My Factional food production is around +30 however, for reasons not readily apparent to me I get seemingly random army attrition in certain regions that have negative food production. Regions that are in the food chain and (supposedly) importing from my other provinces. I usually just move my armies into neighboring territory for that turn, friendly or hostile and then back the next. It's strange and I haven't yet figured out what's causing it.

To the OP, a workable strategy is to make sure you've set aside some room to produce farms in every one of your provinces (before starting in on MIC buildings) and always produce the Inn building chain which give big food bonuses. Also, immediately remove newly conquered territories from taxation/food chain particularly if you've sacked/looted before occupying. The AI is pretty bad at food management and often their territories are deep in the red concerning food.

[Disarray]

It might also be seasonal. I was playing as Macedon and received some penalties from "harsh winter" and other negatives. I further compounded these problems by trying to recruit or replenish armies at the same time. At first I thought it was random and was somewhat confused. After a little digging I was able to discern the problem and solved it by ensuring that every province in my burgeoning empire had some food production and making upgrades where I could afford them.

[Dresden]

Also some weather effects (extreme summer/winter) will give attrition as well as certain areas on the map.

[Stonebonez]

It might also be seasonal. I was playing as Macedon and received some penalties from "harsh winter" and other negatives...

Also some weather effects (extreme summer/winter) will give attrition as well as certain areas on the map.

In my particular case it was food related, as hovering my pointer over the skull on my unit cards stated men were abandoning my forces cuz I could no longer feed them. I've had it happen during summer, fall and winter seasons as well. It's as if suddenly, at the start of a turn, one of my regions that's importing food from elsewhere in my empire stops bringing in food, and that any armies that are currently there start suffering attrition from lack of food. It lasts 1 turn, I move my army that turn to another region (whichever, even starving enemy territory) and the attrition stops, then move them back to the region the problem started in and all is well.

[Kirsch27]

Attrition happens when you have Harsh Winter, Scorching Hot Summer, certain sabotage outcomes or low food. You also lose food in bad weather conditions, during winter, if you are being raided, if you have a lot of high tier buildings for entertainment/religion or commerce with no agriculture. Be sure to reduce the level of your buildings to II on most lines to avoid paying food costs. Be sure to garrison troops outside the city, use patrol stance if you do not have any nearby enemies. Conquer land if you need to, tear down buildings and build only farms and fisheries etc. You can also build a food temple in most regions, or stop taxing the -food producing regions. This will reduce income but also increase food.