"Your people starve"

[Mjara]

Ok, I thought I understood what the problem was with this in the game when you felt you had enough food (namely food stuck at the farms, needing better distribution), but I looked more carefully and can't quite figure out what triggers this comment.

In this game I had multiple farms with a variety of foods being produced, each farm with a stockpile of 5-6 at a minimum.  I had a marketplace in each area of housing (4 on this particular map) with 16-23 food stockpiled in each.  I also had a pair of restaurants (not sure if this helps with the food thing for people or just with entertainment value, though I would expect it would increase food happiness).  The game chimed in with the "Your people starve, build more food."

Going into the almanac, I found that the previous year I had produced 46 food, consumed 31.  The current year I had produced 63 food, consumed 31 when the message chimed.

Anyone else have insight into this?

[calm_blue_sea]

This is indeed strange. It is usually (I have found) the result of a 'drought' year. But in your case it might be that your farms are too far from your populous. Remember that your people will go to get food either from a market place or directly from your farms. I suspect that you have a few people (perhaps even one) that cannot access food. If, for example, a mining camp was located way off in the boonies, it might not be possible for the miners to get to food without first getting tired and heading home....just a thought. Of course, check for the obvious - revoke the "food for the people" edict, place more market places etc. Check to see that the farms are providing meals directly (if stuff is piling up and no one is taking it directly, then no one is eating it). Also remember that what gets to your dock it is not being eaten.

[BananaBaron]

I had a similar deal...I was producing gobs of food..my markets had a nice (16+)output..and the farms all were at 3 & 4 output...yet I got the "people starve".

What I figured...and assumed solved, was I had an apartment building and a couple of services down a steep hill from the closest market...with no farms close by  When I built a marketplace by that apartment and its output came up...no more annoucements.

[Mjara]

I suspect that you have a few people (perhaps even one) that cannot access food.

Yes.  This might be the trigger.  Perhaps if one of your citizens food happiness reaches 0 it gives you the message.  I was sure to have food conveniently located (farms and markets near everything) but it is possible someone went for a walk (the terrain is quite mountainous) and took too long to get back.

[Mjara]

Perhaps if one of your citizens food happiness reaches 0 it gives you the message

Maybe not even 0, but some critically low number (who knows what it is).

[Kilgaard]

You can get this message any time one of your peons gets hungry, looks around and cannot find a convient source of food. This can happen:

1) If you have an isolated mine / cash crop / logging camp that is too far from any food.

2) You have one of the above, where the peon is normally close to a single farm, but he gets hungry just after a teamster has collected the output stockpile, so there is nothing left at that instant

3) You have a teamster / construction worker trecking halfway across the map, through an area where there is no food (and presumably nothing else except trees either)

4) Some moron decided to go for a walk to look at the scenery, and walked 5 miles along the coast, or to the top of that nearby volcano, and got hungry before he could get home.

[Dilbert]

It's really a bug.  I had a farmer who was at his farm working and he wouldn't grabe a bite.  If your Tropican has other needs,  he/she may just not have enough time to eat.  The odd thing I have found is I get this more often in a food based economy then I do in any other.

[Mercator]

What about the average meals per day?  Maybe that has something to do with it.  One guy eats 3 meals a day while another eats .4?  I don't know, it just seems silly that in a population of 100, if 1 guy is starving, Richardo thinks its a crisis.

[Mjara]

I'd love to hear the official word on this one.

Poptop Dave?  Brent?  Anyone?

[Dilbert]

Well that is Tropico math for you.  If you have a population of about 500 and 5 are unemployed it is considered high.

[Eddy]

Well, I saw a sig file on Usenet that addressed this.

"Four percent unemployment is low, unless you are one of the four percent."

[Coconut Kid]

Yet another of the threads wherein the posters can not bring themselves to believe that the developer's coders could have been so stupid as to include the cows and goats in the starvation alarm for humans.

Look here:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=9278.0

Cows and Goats eat far too many times per day -- normal grass growth can not satisfy them.