Very strange.
Maybe Tom has already coded in a diminishing return? Maybe frequency of investment diminishes returns?
Or maybe it's not about production, but about population? Are the cities where you invest at full population?
Is the tax rate atypical?
Is there a very large militia presence?
Has it suffered any anomalies in the past week that could cause the game to make erroneous predictions if those predictions were made on the previous week's info?
I've personally never made an investment with negative returns that I can remember.
Or
maybe...the estimate given when you make the investment isn't a perfect one, but rather a guesstimate based on current conditions and a basic knowledge of how production changes over time in some particular version of normal conditions.
There are many, many factors that could make the
return estimate more or less than what you actually get back.
