Villagers, Water and Dying of Thirst

[Pacifica Solaria]

I have no idea if this is a bug or something we did wrong, any ideas would be wonderful.

Okay, so a bit of context. We have currently have 16 villagers, formerly 17. On day 73 one of our villagers died of thirst.

The villager that died was in a guard tower at the time of his death. My first thought was maybe guards don't leave their post to get water and that's how he died. However, I remembered all villagers come with water skins. So do guards not drink from their skins in the tower either?

Giving the AI the benefit of the doubt, I wondered if his skin was empty too? Perhaps he simply didn't get water from the well. The idea the well would be empty never crossed my mind. See the odd thing is the well closest to where he died, literally a stone's throw from his Tower was full at 50/50 water.

So after some NPC watching, I noticed the next morning all the NPCs in my longhouse wake up, run past the well nearest to them and go to one at the top of the hill. In fact all 16 villagers head to the same well and proceed to make a line and wait their turn to use this one well. Soon the well goes from 50 to 14.

Later in the day I see the cooks also grabbing water from the same well and it being at 4/50. I didn't see it, but I assume my farmers might be using the same well too as the well near the farms is always full when I run past it.

Long story short, is intended behavior? Are villagers just coded to use one well til it's empty then seek out another one? Do guards not drink in their towers?

[Hisaco]

I observed the same behavior, but to make it worth, they IGNORE the other wells completely. They only go to one well and if it's empty, they shrug and die cause they dehydrate...
My small village has 4 wells - 3 always on 50/50 and 1 always empty - 8 rain collectors (10/10) and a water tank (50/50).

[Crazydonkey]

The same problem. But my like to drink from rain collectors.

[ZeroHealz]

Mine all go to the same well even though I have 5 wells , rain collectors and water canisters just lost one of my best fighters due to this and I have an invasion in 6 days !! knowing its likely i will fail and have to start over ... we need saves so we can just rollback to before the proverbial hits the fan :)

[CapCordeiro]

Same problem here...

[Addamz]

You need to add more leisure time to the daily schedule, I use a 7 hour sleep, 1 hour Leisure, 6 hour work, 1 hour leisure, 6 hour work and 4 hour leisure. using this pattern I have them work without getting unhappy, and they all have plenty of time to eat and drink, which they only do in the leisure time.

For high volume of villagers also, make sure the workday is staggered in chunks, like some work from 4am, while others start at 12pm and 8pm. That way they're not all clammering for the same water resource which is used 1 villager at a time.

It also should be noted that when they enter leisure time and feel thirsty they will head to the nearest water source. So placing the rainwater collecters near each building can help. Also make sure the cook station and farms have wells or multiple rainwater collectors as they use water constantly while working.

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Adahmz:

You need to add more leisure time to the daily schedule, I use a 7 hour sleep, 1 hour Leisure, 6 hour work, 1 hour leisure, 6 hour work and 4 hour leisure. using this pattern I have them work without getting unhappy, and they all have plenty of time to eat and drink, which they only do in the leisure time.

Makes sense, but does not concern the problem that is discussed here. Even if you give them 12h of leisure time, they will still only use that one well and die if it gets empty.
I have seen the same behavior (all using the same well), but do not have so much villagers yet that it is a problem.

[Addamz]

Originally posted by Kryten:

Originally posted by Adahmz:

You need to add more leisure time to the daily schedule, I use a 7 hour sleep, 1 hour Leisure, 6 hour work, 1 hour leisure, 6 hour work and 4 hour leisure. using this pattern I have them work without getting unhappy, and they all have plenty of time to eat and drink, which they only do in the leisure time.

Makes sense, but does not concern the problem that is discussed here. Even if you give them 12h of leisure time, they will still only that one well and die if it gets empty.

I just added an edit while you was posting sorry. added that in.

[Kryten]

Ah I see, no worries....I will do some testing later to see if placing more raincollectors close to buildings will make any difference (I already have one which seems to be ignored so far).

Regarding the shedule: Good advice, I also tend to do that as I learned that from Rimworld an Co ^^ Problem here is the UI: it needs some improvements to manage this more comfortable.
To the devs: Please add some window for an overview of work shedules and make the custom shedules (which are a very good thing) selectable via a dropdown menu or something

[Meih]

same problem, it must be a bugg or oversight by the developers villagers all go to same well, i have 5 wells in my village and people are litteraly dying right next to the empty one.

[Adi]

Will investigate this. The villagers should eat and drink even in work hours if they are very thirsty. Also, they should not make a lemming train to only one well.

[Addamz]

Originally posted by Adi:

Will investigate this. The villagers should eat and drink even in work hours if they are very thirsty. Also, they should not make a lemming train to only one well.

Glad to know we're not crazy, and you guys are not crazy and this is actually a bug. Thanks for looking in to it Adi.

[Draker86]

Originally posted by Adi:

Will investigate this. The villagers should eat and drink even in work hours if they are very thirsty. Also, they should not make a lemming train to only one well.

I have been having the same Problem. however i have watched a villager run out of water go to a water source both well and natraule spring and atempt to drink but never fill the water meter and die.

[pxmonkee]

Originally posted by Adi:

Will investigate this. The villagers should eat and drink even in work hours if they are very thirsty. Also, they should not make a lemming train to only one well.

Love the game, love the constant feedback from you fine folks here on Steam and on Discord.

Ideally, worksites that need water (cookhouse, farms, metalworker, etc.) should use the well closest to them - unless it is out of water, then they should move to the next closest water source. The same should be done for the villagers re: where they're doing recreation/where they live/when they're thirsty. Also, if there's a queue to get water, after the line gets, say, 4 villagers deep they should move on to a different water source. My co-op village has like 7 wells and we do notice that there is one or two instances where one or two wells will get slammed by folks who should be using a well closer to where they work.

[Aurelius]

FYI in the patch notes I believe the devs have tried to address the issue with them not eating \ drinking while assigned to guard tower.

[Recken]

A big issue is that they only use a single well 0/50 or 1/50 while the others at 50/50