Food Market and Spoilage

Your people and your armed forces eat food every turn. They are billed separately, and you are asked about each in turn, so it is possible to feed one and not the other. Agricultural regions grow food, and you can buy more at the Food Market.

The market sells food to you for more than it pays to buy it back. So it is not a place to store extra food for profit.

The price changes a little each day. It is the same for everyone on the planet that day, and it stays the same until the next day. Buy on a cheap day if you can.

Each turn your people eat first, and then part of whatever food is still in store spoils. A small store is safe: nothing rots until you are holding more than a thousand units. Above that the whole store loses a share, so the more you hoard the more you lose. Each turn your people eat first, then your army, and then part of whatever food is still in store spoils. There is no safe amount. Even a small store loses some, and a large one loses more.

Going short is billed twice, because the two needs are counted apart. Whatever your people go without costs Popular Support, and whatever your army goes without costs Military Morale. Nobody leaves your realm over it — but if your people get under about two thirds of what they need, the realm falls into civil war. A civil war halves your Support and destroys a share of your land and of every kind of unit you own, listed ones included.

This turn's harvest arrives at the start of the turn, so you can sell it the same turn. Selling your surplus down each turn, instead of hoarding it, is how you lose nothing to spoilage. Food you have listed on the Trading Market spoils too, so listing it is not a way to store it. A high technology level slows spoilage.