Starving population

[Kimbo]

Had a large city spread out over multiple tiles. My entire population died over a year + because they couldn't walk fast enough to get food. Food storage locations were placed across the city. Can anyone explain to me why once your town gets to a "size limit" the ENTIRE population becomes hungry and starves to death regardless if you have 1000 food in the bank? Thanks!

[Jambie Lionheart]

If you make your city spread out too far, workers (particularly labourers) will likely starve or freeze to death because they cannot get to food and fuel quickly enough. By default you cannot spread further than 7 provinces away from your city centre but the effective range of your labour force isn't even half of that.

Also We've got no way to gauge as to whether or not 1,000+ food in your stores is enough. Having this much in your stores though, indicates that they probably died trying to get to it.

How much population did you have when they all started starving? Exactly how spread out are you? A screenshot would also be prudent. It's difficult to say exactly what is wrong without. Difficulty level is also a big factor. I assume you're not on easy. It's almost impossible to starve your population to death on that one unless you're trying. Allllmost.

[Electronik]

I had a fisher catching tuna starving to death out in the ocean despite having food supply. Workplace plays a major role in how your population eats, since if they walk to workplace only to find themselves on the brink of death - obviosly they couldn't get to food source fast enough. But yeah, some screenshots would be nice to see what exactly is going on.

[Sagi]

Well that's where markets are for?
Or does this happen despite having them?

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by Sagi:

Well that's where markets are for?
Or does this happen despite having them?

They mostly solve the starving problem. They don't solve the freezing problem. Peeps can only do that at home. They either go for the fuel first, which is at home, and then starve to death on the way back to the food (at a market or storage) or they go for the food first and then freeze to death on the way back home. Markets can actually exacerbate this because once you have markets, the people that are near enough to use the market will only use the market and stop using storage to get food. I'm not sure if peeps will use just any old market or only their local.
The main problem is that you can't localise your labour force inside any one city. So if you spread out far enough, you'll get mass migrations of labourers when you lay down some work for them. Hauler posts and Storage Depots can help this a lot, but they're only half effective.

[Sagi]

Markets only work in their circle (wich to my opinion could have been bigger.)
However they also provide fuel. So if your markets have enough fuel then so have the houses. If you have a stable fuel supply then markets should even on larger (up to a point) have no problem in getting fuel. Maybe you are not stockpiling enough fuel? maybe you could have alarger buffer in both the markets and the warehouses, maybe you are only producing up to a 1000 or you sell off coal over a valua wich is consumed during winter to fast.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by Sagi:

Markets only work in their circle (wich to my opinion could have been bigger.)
However they also provide fuel. So if your markets have enough fuel then so have the houses. If you have a stable fuel supply then markets should even on larger (up to a point) have no problem in getting fuel. Maybe you are not stockpiling enough fuel? maybe you could have alarger buffer in both the markets and the warehouses, maybe you are only producing up to a 1000 or you sell off coal over a valua wich is consumed during winter to fast.

No they don't :D Well sort of. You're half right. They only deliver within their circle but citizens will regularly trip to the market to get stuff if they are out of the visible circles range.
I've seen 'em go through multiple provinces to get stuff from the markets.

Also, markets distribute fuel but citizens won't use the fuel there like they would for food. They take the fuel from the market to the home and then use it. I've never seen 'em use the fuel at the market to warm themselves. They take it home first and then they'll use it. Just stalk your peeps a lil bit and you'll see for yourself.

[Sagi]

hmm interesting. Well i gues i respected the privacy of my peeps a bit to much haha never looked at them in detail.

[BigRockWall]

I've noticed on deity deep sea fishing seems to be the difference between having starvation waves between harvests and not once you get into the hundreds of pop.. What is you guys' preferred method for tuna fishing. Is it best to deep sea fish from the capital (assuming coastal access), and then use storage depots as necessary to send the fish to your main housing center? Or, do you find it more efficient to set up a separate fishing colony that focuses on tuna with just enough housing for the fishermen, then transfer tuna home and send basic necessities to the fishing colony via ports?

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

I've noticed on deity deep sea fishing seems to be the difference between having starvation waves between harvests and not once you get into the hundreds of pop.. What is you guys' preferred method for tuna fishing. Is it best to deep sea fish from the capital (assuming coastal access), and then use storage depots as necessary to send the fish to your main housing center? Or, do you find it more efficient to set up a separate fishing colony that focuses on tuna with just enough housing for the fishermen, then transfer tuna home and send basic necessities to the fishing colony via ports?

I ain't tried deity in a while but I tend to stay away from DS fishing. They don't bring back enough fish to make it worth it. you're better off with fishing lodge if you can fit one in. The only time DS fishing is worth it is if the Tuna are located reallly close to a shore that you happen to have access to.

[Kimbo]

Okay so I believe that the issues i was having was probably my own fault. Make sure you don't expand like mad and make sure you have food generators with housing spread evenly and all the food issues stop. I think that with all the building games that are out there and each dealing with starvation/weather differently there is now a learning curve. For example you can spread out your city as much as you want in Anno 1800 but in others you need to make sure placement is smart.

[Schabracke]

the issue imho is that deep sea fishing has such long cycles that they actually STARVE TO DEATH before returning from their ship expedition... ironically sitting on around 700-800 units of delicious tuna... despite fully upgraded lvl 2 deepsea-fisher buildings... PLUS +5% workspeed. It's STILL not enough to ensure they stay alive and don't lose the full load occasionally. you will see them stuck with low efficiency and then disappear, I'm pretty sure... at starving to death and 100% work/load completed but out in the sea.

Therefore requiring to be babysitting and boosting an uphill battle even at extremely close fishing grounds.

devs should seriously just disabled hunger while on the sea or ensure they consume from their load or something. it's really annoying and basically makes deepsea fishing close to useless or at least, extremely inefficient and unsatisfying.

:/

[Sabaithal]

Markets alleviate the logistics issues. The workers assigned to them proactively transport materials might be needed nearby from other storage's, food included.

Just put them near areas without storage nearby, they'll do their jobs just fine.

Use them as a faux-town-center when making a settlement further away from your main town.

[Labtop 215]

The problem is that villagers don't optimise filling their needs correctly before going to work. Before, if a need fell low enough to trigger the villager to go fill it, they would just go to their workplace, do 1% of the job, and then leave. Now if they are prevented from leaving, they may very well arrive in what ever state they are in, and just work themselves to death. This wouldn't be such a big problem if they just went and filled their needs in the proper order (food being last so that it is the highest), before going to work.

[Jambie Lionheart]

Originally posted by Labtop 215:

The problem is that villagers don't optimise filling their needs correctly before going to work. Before, if a need fell low enough to trigger the villager to go fill it, they would just go to their workplace, do 1% of the job, and then leave. Now if they are prevented from leaving, they may very well arrive in what ever state they are in, and just work themselves to death. This wouldn't be such a big problem if they just went and filled their needs in the proper order (food being last so that it is the highest), before going to work.

That one's a you problem. You're too spread out. At a certain point in the game you HAVE to centralize your goods and food distribution places using markets and local area storage. This is also a thing with entertainment and other needs.

[Labtop 215]

Originally posted by CtMurphy:

Originally posted by Labtop 215:

The problem is that villagers don't optimise filling their needs correctly before going to work. Before, if a need fell low enough to trigger the villager to go fill it, they would just go to their workplace, do 1% of the job, and then leave. Now if they are prevented from leaving, they may very well arrive in what ever state they are in, and just work themselves to death. This wouldn't be such a big problem if they just went and filled their needs in the proper order (food being last so that it is the highest), before going to work.

That one's a you problem. You're too spread out. At a certain point in the game you HAVE to centralize your goods and food distribution places using markets and local area storage. This is also a thing with entertainment and other needs.

No, it really is a villager A.I. problem. I'm well aware of how to use markets to my advantage and have done testing at length. If you check my history, I've actually sped run this game on Deity difficulty in a previous build.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1307890/discussions/0/5855270367469871060/

Again, I will re-iterate. The major problem is villager A.I. priority and random tasking. The higher difficulties are the result of villager needs dropping at an increased rate, and because villager A.I. doesn't compensate for that correctly by filling their needs to full when given the chance. Even with stocked markets in play, villagers will chose a random market, that isn't necessarily near them or their house.