You should start with more and REAL food

[Spenta of Water]

Farms require fruit/veggie/grain, you only start with grain which isn't edible without bakery.
This makes start of the game hard.

[Flare |UKCS|]

You can also make a ranch, Aurouchs or Antelopes are good (Cow or Pig, Cow gives less meat but gives leather), and forage the map so it not too hard to start, just start slow and make sure you have the basics... warehouse (small at first), well and hearth then made a pasture (best to do Antelope (pig) types), then forage all the fruit and vegetables, plus mushrooms, ignore grain and the rest for now.

[Oog]

Eh, it's not really that hard to get food going. Farms do feel a little bit like a trap foodwise compared to Ranch's though. Haven't looked too hard at the numbers but after I switched to predominantly using Livestock haven't had nearly as much problem with food. Plus you start with Livestock so it's real easy to get a ranch set up and hunt local creatures in the mean time.

[Friends with Benedicts]

It's just a noob trap, you'll soon get the hang of it. Maybe the game could have an easier start for people to get acquainted with it's systems

[Destroi]

Forage

[76561188078797539]

Originally posted by Destroi:

Forage

"This is the way."

You can easily coast through two years simply ensuring your starting population is cleared of any other assignment than foraging as soon as late summer hits. Make sure to prioritize immediately edible sources, won't help your starving settlers if you're bringing in more grain or herbs.

I like to have two warehouses up by the first summer, this helps moving the goods into storage faster. As soon as the edible stuff is in, proceed with work assignment as usual.

Originally posted by Flare |UKCS|:

You can also make a ranch

Depending on climate malus this might backfire, and it's not exactly good investment as primary food source anyway (aside from climate-boosted entelodonts, and even then... just farm).

As far as I'm concerned you SHOULD fast-track getting that farm or two and a bakery going, even with just one or two bakers working in it. Foraging is time-intensive, and highly limited in yield.

Grain is king of food, better get self-reliant with it sooner than later.

[Friends with Benedicts]

Like most things you must know your bonuses and deficits before deciding what food you'll go for first.

Amevians are very good to start with Golbdien very early on. They output more eggs than fish actually.

[robtock216]

And once you stopped your own citizens starving you can sell the surplus food, so as well as production malus/bonus as mentioned above, keep an eye on the export price for different foods with neighbours so you know what to specialise in for production as early on specialising in a few things is much better than trying to diversify production.

I find fish usually sells very well but every game is totally different in that regard.

grain is very good for keeping people alive but the game demands a dedicated bakery for it or ppl just starve to death on sacks of grain, which is quite funny considering all you need to do with grain is

bash it with a rock into flour, mix a little water to make a dough and cook it = bread
boil it in even more water = porridge

ahhhh, the food of peasants

[FlareFluffsune]

There's a mod for that.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158239482

Build Fisheries or hunters at the start. Gives you the most food income for a starting city. Or use this also:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3151428810

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by Spenta of Water:

Farms require fruit/veggie/grain, you only start with grain which isn't edible without bakery.
This makes start of the game hard.

with foraging you can get it started resonably quick

worst case scenario trading exists , trading by itself is one of best tools , why craft clothes if low tech crafting its easier to sell hides and buy clothes (hides sell for more then clothes) , animal cages is another easy trickle recource (im big fan of ranching) who can give you a lot money to sort a lot early on

i also sell surplus of raw food as spoilage on it is big without upgreades and money/inflation is slower

[Catsander]

You should have plenty of fruits and vegetables on the map for 10-50 people which will be ripe for harvest on day 3 of summer the first year. So it is almost from start of the game.

[Fantastic Fwoosh]

Workstations/builders outposts start jobs that are far away, either staffing it permanently or attracting odd jobbers to it. So you should definitely forage whatever is in season, collect some stones whatever if resources are half a map away.

Eventually you can just have slaves manage doing the oddjobber tasks, and its a great tool for directing and encouraging them to build and use their work site without bringing your city to them in their basic hearth, mass sleeping arrangement, eatery, lavatory (self supplying or getting resupplied).