how to address food when you cant farm or hunt well?

[MythN7]

So, if your map just wont give you fertile soil, or when it does its like only 6-8 tiles which is a tiny tiny bit of what a farm can cover.
and also, if you just dont have alot of spots to hunt, or have exhosted all those spots, / have non lizzards to work them as well.

how do you even keep up with getting food to feed them, let alone trying to custom pick what food mats you get for quality meals?

I find if i get no fertile ground in starting area / 1st 1 or 2 glades, i have food issues non stop, preventing me from even feeding my guys let alone making provision packs to be able to barter with.

[Narandia]

Publicado originalmente por __MiD:

Publicado originalmente por Kalisa:

I personally dont use greenhouses too often and prefer farm/plantation, not sure the exact math for food produced per citizen required espically when u take in so many other factors like ranches, but im sure they are quite powerful, lots of reliable food sources out there.

there is greenhouse? i am lV9 still didn't see it. it take too many bread to upgrade. i am losing mood to earn bread, "mechism" and "peral"

Yeah the greenhouse unlocks at a certain level. Not a citadel upgrade so you don't need to worry about those resources for upgrading.

On a general level, yes, the Greenhouse is technically a much more efficient source of food per fertile soil tile, especially since it just produces food all year long. However, it is much more manpower-dependant as well. 3 workers per greenhouse and you'll also need sparkdew from a rain collector with two workers.

And you'll still have some fertile soil left over anyways. They are always generated in shapes that will allow you to place at least one greenhouse (or clay pit) at least, and just one greenhouse at full capacity gets you more food per year than a normal farm I think, but even if I get a greenhouse early I'd usually still want to make use of the remaining fertile soil with a regular farm (if potentially only staffed with one farmer).

And I also tend to pick a farm blueprint from embark points as well (unlockable in the citadel), whereas the greenhouse is not an option there. It does get offered from one of the traders pretty often and is even a bit cheaper than the farm blueprints though. Think I might take the opportunity when it comes up sometime, just to test how well the greenhouse works on it's own in an early game.

[Coolguy]

one thing i think the conversation is missing here is the fact that food is not a problem to be solved "indefinitely" like many games. with settlers arriving every year and most of your food sources being non-renewable, food should be considered a buffer against death rather than a basic resource you're going to need to provide forever.

keep a close idea of how much your population eats, and how much time you will need to get to max rep and get out of the map.

under normal circumstances, citizens eat every time they go on break. humans and beavers go on break every 2 minutes, lizards and harpies every 1:40. purely from memory (someone please correct me if i'm wrong here), drizzle last 4 minutes, clearing lasts 3, storm lasts 2. so humans/beavers will require 4.5 food per year, lizards/harpies will require 5.4. for safety and ease, you can round this up to 5 food for humans/beavers, 6 food for lizards/harpies.

so a relatively run of the mill mid-game village with 9 humans, 6 beavers, and 5 lizards will need (9*5) + (6*5) + (5*6) => 45 + 30 + 30 => 105 food per year. again, this might be wrong if i'm off on the season timings, if i'm wrong there please correct me and i'll update this post.

the real talk is that this calculation is worse than reality. citizens will finish whatever task they are on when their break comes up, so they're never running for the hearth exactly at break time. this is especially noticeable during glade events, where you have scouts working on something for 3 minutes solid. but it affects everything; if someone has 7 seconds left before break, and starts a 25 second craft in a workshop, they will finish their craft before going to get food. that will lead to much less food being eaten than you expect.

still, if you are running this quick math and can cover those numbers, you're never going to run out. this can allow you to stop caring about food production for a year in order to chase more glades, more rep, more services staffing, whatever.

FOOD WILL ALWAYS BECOME AN UNTENABLE PROBLEM. it's a guarantee. you are never going to stop getting people in, and farms are not going to be able to feed everyone. solve the food problem "for now", however you need to, and focus on winning the map. optimizations are like greenhouse over farm are extremely, extremely situational.

[Narandia]

Publicado originalmente por Coolguy:

FOOD WILL ALWAYS BECOME AN UNTENABLE PROBLEM. it's a guarantee. you are never going to stop getting people in, and farms are not going to be able to feed everyone. solve the food problem "for now", however you need to, and focus on winning the map.

I mean, most of the resources in the game are technically finite. Practically speaking, you'd really have to try and stall hard for a game to last for that long. Food is actually one of the easiest resources to get infinitely, unless you have the barren lands modifier. Marshlands also has much less fertile soil in general, though it can make up for that with the giant food nodes in forbidden glades, and it just seems to have more trapper camp nodes in general.
Food is only a problem if you don't expand, which can also be said for any other resource.

[ulzgoroth]

Publicado originalmente por Coolguy:

one thing i think the conversation is missing here is the fact that food is not a problem to be solved "indefinitely" like many games. with settlers arriving every year and most of your food sources being non-renewable, food should be considered a buffer against death rather than a basic resource you're going to need to provide forever.

keep a close idea of how much your population eats, and how much time you will need to get to max rep and get out of the map.

This approach makes glade events that drain your food supply enormously more dangerous. Like, potentially run-breaking. Whereas if you're aiming to have a stably positive food balance you'll always bounce back after resolving those.

(Of course, that approach does mean that much more focus on whatever else might be endangering your run.)

Publicado originalmente por Coolguy:

FOOD WILL ALWAYS BECOME AN UNTENABLE PROBLEM. it's a guarantee. you are never going to stop getting people in, and farms are not going to be able to feed everyone. solve the food problem "for now", however you need to, and focus on winning the map. optimizations are like greenhouse over farm are extremely, extremely situational.

Did you know you don't have to keep getting people in? Because you don't.

Also I bet certain cornerstones (exponential grain and/or meat growth in particular) would actually let you keep feeding a perpetually growing population indefinitely. If impatience and hostility weren't there to stop you doing that.

[ACS36]

A few reasons food is probably a problem for you.

1. You're over populating. You only need 20-25 people to finish a map, and you don't always need to accept people every year.
2. Choosing the wrong blue prints. Food is always the priority in the early game. You don't need the lumber mill. Trust me, you really don't.
3. At higher difficulties you should always start with food production buildings to begin with when you embark all other strategies become inferior. Even if you can win without doing so, it's not a good choice.

[Coolguy]

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

This approach makes glade events that drain your food supply enormously more dangerous. Like, potentially run-breaking. Whereas if you're aiming to have a stably positive food balance you'll always bounce back after resolving those.

the only difference between having a focus on food production and a focus on goods production is staffing decisions, which you can change easily. you can also scare up more food from traders utterly trivially if you hit a true crisis, even if the current trader incoming doesn't carry food. just force 2 trader visits instead of 1. if you also cannot trade for food well then food isn't really the problem, the abject poverty is because you don't have ANYTHING.

consequently, i don't think this claim is true at all, really, and instead makes it more likely that you will use an undue amount of effort on food, ALLOWING some other problem to come up and endanger your run. that said, i definitely agree that it's a bad idea to tear down all your food infrastructure because 'i'm definitely gonna be done with the map after this next glade' because that absolutely invites the next season's "oh that's living matter".

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

Did you know you don't have to keep getting people in? Because you don't.

I didn't, actually, and I'm at a 52 game win streak! the tutorial made me think that it was a requirement for a year and it would force the issue eventually. what's the deal there, you just ignore the settler interface and delay the decision perpetually?

Publicado originalmente por Narandia:

I mean, most of the resources in the game are technically finite.

i concur, but food in particular is one that a lot of other city builders expect that you're going to solve in the early game and put on auto pilot from then on out. frostpunk is one of this game's closer cousins and 100% plays like that. you set up your hunter blimps or whatever there and stop thinking about food until another event comes in that gives you more people.

i feel it's very important in this game to break that association. the problem of SUSTAINABLE food production is the governor's issue, not the viceroy's.

[ulzgoroth]

Publicado originalmente por Coolguy:

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

This approach makes glade events that drain your food supply enormously more dangerous. Like, potentially run-breaking. Whereas if you're aiming to have a stably positive food balance you'll always bounce back after resolving those.

the only difference between having a focus on food production and a focus on goods production is staffing decisions, which you can change easily. you can also scare up more food from traders utterly trivially if you hit a true crisis, even if the current trader incoming doesn't carry food. just force 2 trader visits instead of 1. if you also cannot trade for food well then food isn't really the problem, the abject poverty is because you don't have ANYTHING.

You don't actually have to have mountains of Amber to win. Though it certainly helps.

I can't say I've ever considered trading for food a serious possibility, between the high cost and the limited volume that traders carry.

[Coolguy]

Publicado originalmente por ulzgoroth:

You don't actually have to have mountains of Amber to win. Though it certainly helps.

I can't say I've ever considered trading for food a serious possibility, between the high cost and the limited volume that traders carry.

oh many traders carry lots, especially saheila! but really, you ideally want the complex food traders. complex food traders will routinely carry like 60-80 units as early as year 3-4, which will carry an entire population. between the food multiplier and the fact that complex foods aren't eaten by some races, you can get them for just as much if not less than simple foods. jerky is especially crazy; only Beavers don't eat it, but because the recipe turns 4 meat into 10 jerky, it's 0.25 amber per unit to the meat's 0.33. not that that matters when Greybone rolls in and has 80 of them! hell yes i will pay you 20 amber for that, i don't even have beavers in this village!

[bluemonkey]

Also turn off consumption of basic food items once you get complex food rolling. Make the population eat jerky or starve rather than eating the uncooked meat & insects!

If you haven't unlocked field kitchen in the citadel, work towards that. It can be a useful tool on maps with bad food production options.

You can delay settlers indefinitely. A recent patch changed the new settlers mechanic: presently a timer resets when you welcome each batch of settlers that counts down before the next batch will become available. For the first few groups, the timer is one year between accepting each group and the arrival of the next group. Later on (year 6ish?) there becomes more and more time in between groups. If the settlers have nothing helpful and you're struggling with food production....maybe don't hit accept until you're in a better position.

Lastly, don't be afraid of a little starvation, the population is much more resilient than you think. Make them happy enough and they will forget a little rumble in the tummy.

[Narandia]

Publicado originalmente por bluemonkey:

Also turn off consumption of basic food items once you get complex food rolling. Make the population eat jerky or starve rather than eating the uncooked meat & insects!

If you haven't unlocked field kitchen in the citadel, work towards that. It can be a useful tool on maps with bad food production options.

You can delay settlers indefinitely. A recent patch changed the new settlers mechanic: presently a timer resets when you welcome each batch of settlers that counts down before the next batch will become available. For the first few groups, the timer is one year between accepting each group and the arrival of the next group. Later on (year 6ish?) there becomes more and more time in between groups. If the settlers have nothing helpful and you're struggling with food production....maybe don't hit accept until you're in a better position.

Lastly, don't be afraid of a little starvation, the population is much more resilient than you think. Make them happy enough and they will forget a little rumble in the tummy.

Villagers won't eat basic food if they can satisfy their complex food needs anyway. That said, its not a bad idea to forbid food consumption for whatever raw food types you don't have the capacity to produce much of.

[bluemonkey]

Publicado originalmente por Narandia:

Publicado originalmente por bluemonkey:

Also turn off consumption of basic food items once you get complex food rolling. Make the population eat jerky or starve rather than eating the uncooked meat & insects!

If you haven't unlocked field kitchen in the citadel, work towards that. It can be a useful tool on maps with bad food production options.

You can delay settlers indefinitely. A recent patch changed the new settlers mechanic: presently a timer resets when you welcome each batch of settlers that counts down before the next batch will become available. For the first few groups, the timer is one year between accepting each group and the arrival of the next group. Later on (year 6ish?) there becomes more and more time in between groups. If the settlers have nothing helpful and you're struggling with food production....maybe don't hit accept until you're in a better position.

Lastly, don't be afraid of a little starvation, the population is much more resilient than you think. Make them happy enough and they will forget a little rumble in the tummy.

Villagers won't eat basic food if they can satisfy their complex food needs anyway. That said, its not a bad idea to forbid food consumption for whatever raw food types you don't have the capacity to produce much of.

When food is short and villagers are on break, they will eat anything available. Better they starve than eat the basic food destined for a complex food. The kitchen should be cooking rather than pacing outside the warehouse every time a meager load lands there.

[goodolarchie™]

My most powerful "food engine" games have been gathering/hunting based. Like when you get the +3 meat drizzle modifier, and lizards, and additional +meat perks. Then you turn those into Jerky and Skewers... just insane production.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Publicado originalmente por goodolarchie™:

My most powerful "food engine" games have been gathering/hunting based. Like when you get the +3 meat drizzle modifier, and lizards, and additional +meat perks. Then you turn those into Jerky and Skewers... just insane production.

Once on marshlands my VERY first cornerstone was the meat snowball cornerstone.
For every 25 meat produced i get +1.
By year 6 or so i had +9 to meat. I kept selling them in 500 bunches.
A Ranch was like producing 19*2 meat every 1 minute or so. A trapper camp was producing with two guys, 10 meat every 10 seconds. The forbidden glade was also the huge whale thingie, so i was set for life.

In another game i got fungal guide as first. As second i got the +1 herb +1 root for every 75 biscuits. I also managed to get the +1 insect for every 2 mushroom.
This meant that my greenhouse alone was able to sustain my population especially once i got just by pure luck +2 to my mushroom prod before even the cornerstone hit the first 25 produced;)

In one of my games with small farm, i managed to get the 25% bonus from the order...increase the wheat production by 3...and finally the 50% bonus from the cornertsone, and the +100% to all fertile fields using buildings prod....My folks were preoducing so much grain and vegetables i could not harvest all of it and it was right next to a hearth and a warehouse. (Basicly something like 24 wheat, and 18 vegetables per tile.) I actually built a second farm and still was not enough:D

The worst of these combos was with plantation though. I got a full bonus +4 to berries...was not bad because i had the +2 dew for every 10 berries, however feeding the population it was not just that good...until i got the ranch;)

[-VG- Napster]

(pioneer difficulty)
completed all orders except one and had to rely on resolve to win. (year 10)
Feeding people seems in general extrem harsh

i had 53 people
Humans, harpies, beavers

i could not feed them with 3 plantation farms.(all producing berries)
+
a few other raw food nodes

sadly did not had luck getting a normal farm to produce (grain) biscuit. (only with a few re-rolls at the end) wich was way to late

it feels like when you cannot get a farm with grain going foodwise youre pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

i had 3 hearts at the end and only 1 wodcutter running and was afraid to push into more glades as i may could not have made the win otherwise because of resolve.

i opened 3 (dangerous glades)
and 10 (regular glades)
-----
iam not sure wich alternate food ressource i could have used that would last longer or would be better besides going always for grain-flour-buiscit

[ulzgoroth]

Publicado originalmente por -VG- Napster:

(pioneer difficulty)
completed all orders except one and had to rely on resolve to win. (year 10)
Feeding people seems in general extrem harsh

i had 53 people
Humans, harpies, beavers

i could not feed them with 3 plantation farms.(all producing berries)
+
a few other raw food nodes

sadly did not had luck getting a normal farm to produce (grain) biscuit. (only with a few re-rolls at the end) wich was way to late

it feels like when you cannot get a farm with grain going foodwise youre pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

i had 3 hearts at the end and only 1 wodcutter running and was afraid to push into more glades as i may could not have made the win otherwise because of resolve.

i opened 3 (dangerous glades)
and 10 (regular glades)
-----
iam not sure wich alternate food ressource i could have used that would last longer or would be better besides going always for grain-flour-buiscit

So a bunch of things you don't mention that might have been possible:

Don't have 53 people! You don't need that!

Make pickles out of your berries.

Finish sooner so you don't run out of node foods, make jerky.

Some events or cornerstones give you side sources of raw food. Often seems to be insects. Which is great, because insects make jerky. (And jerky can make skewers, if applicable.)

Also remember you can make flour out of roots. And mushrooms I think. You probably didn't have a supply of either of those, but if you did that could avoid needing grain.