Just bought Civ 4 and Beyond the Sword today and for some reason this odd thing has happened that's making playing the game impossible. All of the food surplus goes to the production, so my city stays at population 1 forever. Since I'm new to Civ 4 I thought at first there must be a tech to start increasing the population, but by the time 3000 BC rolled around without a change in population (or food for that matter) when my citizen was placed on an oasis the whole time I finally realized this must be some bug with my game.

It looks like all of the food I produce is transferred into hammers. Any advice?

For worker and settler food is used besides shields to buikd the unit.
Your population no longer drops when you finish either a worker or settler.
if you build a warrior your population should grow if not it is a bug

Wow, I feel stupid now. Thanks!