Initial settlers dying of thirst

[Lord Mango Esq]

I must be missing something because I can't get it so that I don't lose settlers to thirst. On normal, have big well, it's staffed by one (why does a well need to be staffed? can't those lazy gits get their own water if they're thirsty?) and it's still incapable of supplying enough water for my initial population resulting in deaths before I can get any population growth. Do I really need to devote two people to just pulling water out a well 24/7 in order to quench the MIGHTY thirst of 21 people?

[Shamrock2211]

Regardless of the people getting their own water or not, why on earth wouldn't you hire a second water worker if you have zero water and your people are dying of thirst..lol

Actually you fired your 2nd water worker because the game automatically hires 2.

[Lord Mango Esq]

because this is happening before I have any population growth. another on water means the field doesn't get planted this year, or no meat is brought in, or injuries start from delaying the clinic, or my intial tools run etc. I've only got 20 people, how does 10% of my population carrying water make sense?

[Guurt]

This game is all about having surplus. You can easily enter a death spiral if you don't have adequate water or food. It is hardly likely that someone will die from a sprained ankle. Just move the person with an injury to be on water duty. They don't need to move much then and they can nurse their injury and still do some water duty.

The worse thing you can do is not have enough water because it takes a long time to get water back into the houses.

It is far easier to fix a shortage of food than it is to fix a shortage of water.

Just make sure you always have excess water and it will never be a problem.

[Honeywell]

Slow down building your houses.

Stop building as soon as food and water supplies are running low--you want to keep a 100 or 200 on hand. Each new house will take about 50ish food and water to start so don't begin building again until you have a decent supply of water and food to supply the house and keep some in reserve.

You do want to get people housed so two workers producing water so you're able to safely do that without killing anyone is a good use of labor. The water reservoir produces more water than the well so it's worth going for early to reduce the number of people you need to devote to water, IMO.

[Lord Mango Esq]

oh, so the houses store some resources inside them? so i've probably been getting a few houses hoarding the water and some with none?

[Victor]

People stock their houses with essentials; food, water, fuel. If you don't have enough stocked, it can seem like people are hoarding them in their houses :D

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

I've only got 20 people, how does 10% of my population carrying water make sense?

What logic are you using to suggest that 2 out of 20 people spending their workday collecting and stockpiling water is somehow "too much" to spend? Getting water with buckets is a very manual process. It's not unrealistic at all for it to require that much effort to keep 20 people supplied with the water they need (especially when gathered via well without pumps).

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

because this is happening before I have any population growth. another on water means the field doesn't get planted this year, or no meat is brought in, or injuries start from delaying the clinic, or my intial tools run etc.

I don't know exactly how you have your 20 people allocated, but temporarily dropping your builder count can help supplement the workforce when you have significant periods of time where you aren't building anything (because you're primarily gathering resources and not necessarily growing the population quickly).

I would also recommend checking Statistics > Production Overview to look at your production and consumption values for various resources so you can more precisely choose how many people to put on what resources. I found at the start that if you are using farms and pastures you need far less people per resource than if you are using Gathering Stations/Hunting Cabins as your primary food source.

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

oh, so the houses store some resources inside them? so i've probably been getting a few houses hoarding the water and some with none?

Also note, that the resource table in the top left as well as the Data Charts on resources don't include any resources not located in a warehouse (things in houses, inhabitants inventory and production buildings). So you can be in situation where your stockpile says you have 0 of a resource, but there could be up to 50 x (number of houses) of that resource available to your inhabitants.

[Lord Mango Esq]

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

What logic are you using to suggest that 2 out of 20 people spending their workday collecting and stockpiling water is somehow "too much" to spend? Getting water with buckets is a very manual process. It's not unrealistic at all for it to require that much effort to keep 20 people supplied with the water they need (especially when gathered via well without pumps).

Stockpiling water because of a draught period that is coming, it would make sense.

But the problem is people appear to be drinking it faster than it's being drawn. Assume I drink a whole bucket of water per day (massively overestimating), assume a 10hour work day, 20 people, that means it would be taking 1 person a whole 30minutes to draw water for one person, two people would spend an hour per person.

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

But the problem is people appear to be drinking it faster than it's being drawn.

What is your production and consumption of water from the Production Overview table? I ask because I only needed two Big Wells with only 1 person on each until I hit around 75-100 inhabitants and that even included selling some of it and operating one Distillery.

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

Assume I drink a whole bucket of water per day (massively overestimating), assume a 10hour work day, 20 people, that means it would be taking 1 person a whole 30minutes to draw water for one person, two people would spend an hour per person.

I guess it largely depends on the size of the bucket and might seem reasonable by today's standards given all the different beverages people have available to consume. However, within the setting of the game, since water and alcohol are two of the primary early beverages available, it doesn't surprise me at all that a person would consume a whole bucket of water (though I don't think they do consume one unit a day). It is even more plausible given the highly active and long work days of people that lived in that time. All that manual labor outside is going to generate significant thirst.

If you consider the time it takes to walk the water to the storage area, empty it and go back, 30 minutes a bucket also isn't all that much depending on how far away your storage is.

[ElgarL]

Originally posted by Lord Mango Esq:

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

What logic are you using to suggest that 2 out of 20 people spending their workday collecting and stockpiling water is somehow "too much" to spend? Getting water with buckets is a very manual process. It's not unrealistic at all for it to require that much effort to keep 20 people supplied with the water they need (especially when gathered via well without pumps).

Stockpiling water because of a draught period that is coming, it would make sense.

But the problem is people appear to be drinking it faster than it's being drawn. Assume I drink a whole bucket of water per day (massively overestimating), assume a 10hour work day, 20 people, that means it would be taking 1 person a whole 30minutes to draw water for one person, two people would spend an hour per person.

You are going to love it when you come to roasting turkeys then. 5 or 10 (I forget which) Turkeys to get 1 roast!

[Guurt]

Have you ever been camping where you didn't bring water with you? You need to make a LOT of trips to the river/lake. Water is used for drinking, cooking, hygiene, dishes, laundry.... etc, etc.

In the real world if you are bringing water from a well you will need a lot of it each day.

The game is calling it drinking, but really this is a simulation of water use. If you want it to be more realistic then they need to add the water use that you need for all the other things I listed. Water is necessary to live, and if you had to provide water for 20 or 30 people's homes via a well it would be a full time job getting the water out of the well and bottling it for everyday use... you might have to work overtime if someone wanted to take a bath!