Plant yourself

[The Lamb]

A few things I noticed. I have a proportion of acres that I use on different buildings compared to working fields. The stars on my buildings decrease slowly with the increase of population (or at least it seems), so I am forced to reinvest when stars drop. I guess i could stop transporting and see if stars just decrease over time. Like grimrock, I focused on happiness first, got that to 100, then the rest started falling in place.

I am by no means a master at this plantation thing, but so far so good for the one I am running, but I have nothing to compare it to.
2000 acres total with less than 1500 for fields
2 mil workers
100% health
97% happiness
9 hours a day
6 meals a day
67 ppa

For comparison, I have a similar plantation - 2,000 acres with 1460 acres in fields.
2.4 million workers
0% health and happiness
8 hr per day
4 meals per day
63 production per acre

You didn't say what you have for stars, but from what you said, and your happy/healthy rates, I'm guessing you have 4 or 5 stars on everything. I have 3, 1.5, 0, 0, 1, 0 stars. I purposely quit investing in utility buildings because more stars means improvements go faster, which means spending more on gold bars. I continue to spend gold bars on improvements, but at a slow enough rate that it isn't eating me alive. I wonder how much more you've spent on gold bars than me for that 4 per acre improvement?

This is my least developed plantation, and comparing it to my others I don't see much sense in worrying about improving them. If you've got nothing else to spend your money on, go for it. You'll eventually make a lot of money. But you may have to play the game for 20 years to get your investment back.

I have no stars on Security, 1 star on baths, and 2.5 on everything else.

[Bomont]

I have no stars on Security, 1 star on baths, and 2.5 on everything else.

Interesting. One of my plantations has 2.5, 2x 3 and 2x 3.5 stars (security=0), and only has 45% health, 0% happy.

[DezNutz]

I have 1 star House, 1 Star Utility, 0 stars for all others. 0% health and 0% happy.

[The Lamb]

I have no stars on Security, 1 star on baths, and 2.5 on everything else.

Interesting. One of my plantations has 2.5, 2x 3 and 2x 3.5 stars (security=0), and only has 45% health, 0% happy.

I think it then comes down to how many acres you have set aside for each building and then the upgrades. I mean, if you had 2 mil people sharing 5 acres for food, it may not work well.

[Bomont]

I have no stars on Security, 1 star on baths, and 2.5 on everything else.

Interesting. One of my plantations has 2.5, 2x 3 and 2x 3.5 stars (security=0), and only has 45% health, 0% happy.

I think it then comes down to how many acres you have set aside for each building and then the upgrades. I mean, if you had 2 mil people sharing 5 acres for food, it may not work well.

1/3 of my acreage is devoted to infrastructure on this plantation. Currently producing 86 per acre.

Was producing over 100 per acre then seemingly spontaneously dropped down to low 80's. Has inched back up to 86 since then.

[Stan Rogers]

If you can keep yourself at 85 ppa or better, you are in the ball park of building acreage allotment.
I treat all my plants the same and I too get unexplained drops in production at some ports and not in the others but usually the adviser will give me a hint as to why.
I think I read the best one can do CONSISTENTLY is around 105 ppa. I have seen numbers up to 140 ppa but that I think is working the crew way beyond their normal 6-10 hours and will only sustain for a day or two and then drop way back.

I also think to get a 100+ ppa is going to take some fine adjustments on the service bldg acreage to fine tune to proper allotment of service acreage but that is also hard to do as adjustments seem to take days to show their effects.

Of course I could also be all wet when it comes to my observations and theories on how to run a plant.

[Most Lee Harmless]

The gold sinks get bigger and longer and the gold makers get nerfed and ringed with restrictions... question becomes how long can most sustain heavy gold sinkage before coin and/ or patience runs out.

[Grimrock Litless]

I feel like the point is not to make it perfect if you are looking to make money, me and Lodswe have cracked plantation a long time ago.

[Most Lee Harmless]

It gets sillier : check my bug report just posted : over 1.3 million rent due on 207 acres that expire in 9hrs.

The rent was 199 per acre so... thats nearly 32 days rent still outstanding... ? Actually it works out at 699gc per hour per acre... thats.. lucrative for some-one!

Something seems to be broken.

[Stan Rogers]

It gets sillier : check my bug report just posted : over 1.3 million rent due on 207 acres that expire in 9hrs.

The rent was 199 per acre so... thats nearly 32 days rent still outstanding... ? Actually it works out at 699gc per hour per acre... thats.. lucrative for some-one!

Some A few things seems to be broken.

Fixed it for you. It is very difficult sorting out the bugs from the features.
I opened a channel on Slack to talk about issues we encounter as it seems to work very well in real time and keeps the topic available without searching through the forums on said topic here.