how to survive the winter?

[Blutwurst]

im really enjoing this game thru summertime. but the winter began and all my crops are dead, they are all gone. nothin left, no seeds to plant new plants, just nothin! and isnt it enough there is no spawnrate for bunnys. seems like i hunted them all and now all my people are starving. no rabbits, no crops, no veggetables.
for me the winter means death for all my people -.-

am i doing something wrong or is this just a bad optimization in EA?

[Valcus]

You need to properly prepare for winter. It’s part of the challenge of the game. The F2 menu gives you a clue about it.

Now you must choose to starve, kick members out of your community, and/or resort to cannibalism.

[Blutwurst]

hmm... can they eat zed meat too?

[동네닭집아저씨]

invade other communities.
They have a lot of foods.

[Valcus]

They’ll get infected if they eat meals made from zombie meat.

[Nautixx [GER]]

Originally posted by Blutwurst:

hmm... can they eat zed meat too?

I don't think so.

As Valcus said F2 shows how much food you need for the winter. I'm playing my first year currently and made it within ~30 days or less to have more than double the recommended amount for 7 people. It's not that hard to build a solid stock of veggies and prepared meals once your farms are established and you placed some traps for the rabbits (I only have 2 though).
Things you want to farm are corn, carrots and cabbage. Everything else is okay if you have a solid income of these three.
Let someone prepare meals at the campfire.

I know these tipps might don't help in this sprecific situation but they help to prevent to get in it.
Canibalism, kick members or starting a new game seem to be the most promising options to me.

[Candarian]

Originally posted by Valcus:

They’ll get infected if they eat meals made from zombie meat.

didnt know that
can u sell that food?
or give it away for free?

[Nautixx [GER]]

Originally posted by Valcus:

They’ll get infected if they eat meals made from zombie meat.

That's one nice information

[Valcus]

Originally posted by Candarian:

Originally posted by Valcus:

They’ll get infected if they eat meals made from zombie meat.

didnt know that
can u sell that food?
or give it away for free?

There are ways to use this to infect other communities but it's not something I ever did personally so I don't want to speculate on the specifics.

[Blutwurst]

ok, seems like i did a few mistakes in my playway^^ started game in mid- or latesummer and the winter comes too fast, i wasnt prepered.

anyway, thank you all for the ideas.

[Nautixx [GER]]

Early spring is good to start since you will spend some time gathering equipment and your first recruits.
By that time tempratures get mild and you can start to build and farm :)

[sf]

Will cooking increases the effective food rations?
Current making buckets of meaty curry for everybody until chilli runs out...

[ambi]

do animals regenerate? and is hunting viable?

[ian26uk]

I would start the game with 3 points in archery and go around searching for stuff and while doing that you should find some food and kill some rabbits. Hope to find some books to boost skills like archery(to make it 5) and wear some cloths to boost stealth to 3 this will make bunny rabbits easier to kill.
If you meet a bandit kill um and eat them.
Remember you can take over an camp by killing everyone in it and then use their base as yours. I saw one camp that everyone but 1 were dead so all they had to do was kill that one person to get their base,lol.

[凱風🌟Zephyr]

Take over a camp of looters. They have hundreds of pumpkins.

[Candarian]

3 stars in archery is overkill(u oneshot green zombies)

u dont need 3 from the start
1 star is usefull in one weapon type because u can aim for the legs to cripple them(that realy realy help much)
cooking 2 is usefull too in case u dont get cooking books
and fitness 1 star
leaves u 1 star for other things like building(good was got train fitness)
or stealth(for hunting)