The population panels is very different to other Stronghold games and can take some getting used to, here are some helpful pointers.

Examples of how to deal with low food input are:

Run at half rations for a spell to no great detriment.

You can make up the popularity shortfall more easily this time by using the church or Inn.

Double food production by playing as a bad lord, in other words placing bad things.

Take advantage of good events to lower rations and increase food stocks.

Additionally, we will also be introducing difficulty levels soon if you really struggle. You could also play it on easy

Not enough food my'Lord..

Since the last patch, i see that even if i product 100 food, each day, and my people eats 50, each day, foods decrease a lot, too much. I don't understand why... I must decrease food eating to keep food. It was not like that before the last patch. It s more harder than before, it was already hard.

Thanx for tips but we wanna patch the crashes of the game when loading or saving ... i have reach that mission where u must conquer 3 control points and you are in middle and the game crashes when i load and save after around 30 min of gameplay.

Food seems to be somewhat more balanced in the latest patch, or maybe it's just my wishful thinking? One issue I notice is that 1/4 rations, 1/2 rations, etc. Isn't really 1/4, 1/2, etc. For example.

On 1/4 Rations
Producing 78
Consuming 35

On 1/2 Rations
Producing 78
Consuming 106

Not sure, but the math seems a little bit off here.

Also on the hops farms/brewers this seems a bit off.
Each farm seems to produce enough hops to run 2 brewers, and each brewer produces 4 per day.

In comparison, wheat farms seem to produce enough for 3-4 bakeries.

Again the double rations here (ale) seems to be much more than double.

So placing punishments actually increases food production? I hadn't noticed this, I usually place a few for fun because they're pretty cool looking.

Its always been like that since Sh1

The more punishments the more fear you inflict to the people forcing them to work harder. The more gardens and statues you put the less they work. You'll notice in crusader that workers take a break and rest when you have happy building such as gardens and dancing bears and what not.

Oh ok, thanks for the info. Stronghold 3 is my first and only foray into the series (aside from a few minutes trying out SH1 which came with my preorder of 3). I usually place some rewards as well so that's probably why I didn't notice any increased productivity. They were canceling each other out!

Your missing out the classics are the best.
Yes they tend to get more lazy if you add more happy building like that. I never really add anything I just increase double rations for food, double consumption for Ale, and higher up the mass numbers ov the church to keep them happy and lets not forget to higher up the tax numbers if they're "too" happy

SH1 seemed cool and I felt like I would have loved it at the time it came out.

I've been placing rewards and punishments mainly to decorate my town/castle and make it feel more alive. But I'll be more pragmatic and strategic about their placement from now on.