How do Edicts work?

[Olmsted]

I ask because it seems like most of them are useless or may not be working. For example, in my current game, I set up Africa as a huge food producer. I set it to export food. I don't see that food show up anywhere else. So, I set up Germania Minor to import food. The Edict says it gives +0 food, +0 growth! Why would I want to use this? Then I see that certain buildings seem to have an effect if you use them in conjunction with an edict. So, is there a guide as to how to use them? Or is it possible to make them more useful?

[myarta]

Yes, you've got the right idea. It's designed to activate those effects on those buildings. You can right click on a possible building and see the entire tree (e.g. on a green farm and see all the farm buildings) to see which types are more geared towards food export. You might also investigate the yellow-in-city tree which might have some buildings that do that.

Honestly I don't tend to use those edicts so I don't recall which buildings do what to interact with them.

[The Killer Tofu]

Both edicts are reliant on buildings built in a province, not on the edicts of ther provinces. The Wine Trader capital building for example increases the benefits of the Import Food edict. Provinces exporting and importing have no effct on one another, all edicts affect the province in which it was made alone.