200 rice wont go as far as 200 potatoes, though i like rice too. Mealmaking goes by nutrition, not stack sizes, so one meal will take a lot more r8ce than potato.
Unless you're using a mod, this is false. All raw food has the same amount of nutrition per piece. Rice, corn, potatoes, and all kinds of meat are equal and interchangeable (except that some recipes specify meat or veggie).
Even if you're talking about the yield, all the crops are basically equal (something like 10% difference). Rice is far less susceptible to blight/cold snap/etc while corn is slightly less work, and potatoes grow better in poor (less than 100%) soil.
Feeding pawns can be a real bitch. On average soil four squares of rice will take six days to provide one pawn with one days worth of food presuming no blight, fire, or fuckups by harvesters. Without hydroponics you need big farms, compulsive hunting, and the kindness of raiders to get by. Tribal is especially hard because you lose out on a lot of research and because your enemies will very quickly outclass you. I'd really recommend cutting your teeth on crashlanded first, get the hang of managing food, mood, and resources before you jump into the deep end.
Tribal start is not any harder than crashlanded. Enemies don't "quickly outclass you" - it's based on your wealth level. There's a 40 day "grace period" (for every start) where raids are artificially weakened, and after 40 days the only thing that really matters is wealth and number of colonists (and wealth is far more important and easier to control).
The only reason tribal is "harder" is that pemmican is a newbie trap. The value is out of proportion with other food sources, so if you churn out pemmican it skyrockets your wealth and you get too strong raids. Stick with simple meals and only make as many as you can eat before they spoil.