What is the food theshold for not getting Mants?

[Czariensky / Ryan]

For example, I keep < 1000 food / drink in my stocks to prevent Mants, and leave fruit trees unharvested until winter so i can harvest them for emergency food if needed. I have never had a Mant attack, but it is a pain to keep it below 1000, so I am wondering if it isn't higher, like 2500 or 5000 even.

[The Duck Knight]

I'm not quite sure about that.
According to various sources on the internet it is somewhere between 300 and 30.000.
I tend to have it below 300 early game, so.
By the way: There is an easy way to keep it low: go for a lot of wheat: grain does not count as food but can be used to make bread and beer.
Setting your kitchens to to make a working amount of bread/sandwiches and beer and keeping producing wheat is the best was for that.
Also sandwiches are the best food and prevent your gnomes from having to eat again for a long time.

[Czariensky / Ryan]

I knew about sandwiches, but I am naturally a hoarder of supplies in games so I hate to make beer when i have wine readily available, although it makes sense to use wheat only if grain isn't counted as food. I have played several gameyears with ~850-950 food/drink and NEVER had Mants. I still yet to see a Mant in-game, thankfully.

[Jacques]

Originally posted by ryanedwardschons:

I knew about sandwiches, but I am naturally a hoarder of supplies in games so I hate to make beer when i have wine readily available, although it makes sense to use wheat only if grain isn't counted as food. I have played several gameyears with ~850-950 food/drink and NEVER had Mants. I still yet to see a Mant in-game, thankfully.

Well one things for sure, is that when you have like 5000-6000, you get around 50 mants (happens to me every time they attack i get around that many). Normally to tell when you have enough food for mants is probably when they actually launch their first attack, or when you see the scout.

[Los.Injurus.Bob.Blunderton]

time to build a wall - around the whole map, sans one little spot.
or remove-floor @ the edge

CAUTION, large amounts of mants may make game chug (it's a bit noticable on a new i7 but not near as bad as on my AMD FX machine.... beware!). If you have several thousand or ten-thousand food, and no way for the mants to reach you (walled off) it could turn it into a slideshow.

Either play with mants OFF, or keep the food in check. You can pre-select monster 'attendance' by filling in or un-ticking the appropriate check-boxes in the custom map options when you start a new kingdom (advanced map generator options), amongst many other options.

As per Robobob, if I remember correctly (should be) mant threshold has been lowered to 500 or so food. Not as bad as what you'd get @ 1000 or more though.

[The Duck Knight]

Originally posted by The Derpentine Golem:

time to build a wall - around the whole map, sans one little spot.
or remove-floor @ the edge

walling in is so boring.

[likeawizard]

Slightly off topic but: Have always one dedicated cook and one dedicated brewer. This way all the skill increase from cooking and brewing will be concentrated in one person. This will with time yield more fine/superb and legendary quality food and drink, which is super efficient as one ration will allow your gnome to go without another one for days.

Further more you will want to train them and will make a lot of food continuously- as much as you can. Unless you have a critical shortage of food and are barely surviving you can always sell all the poor food and drink. Since your gnomes will always try to go for better quality anyway and since you continuously make new food & drink, nobody will ever touch that poor quality stuff. So just sell it because all it does is attract more mants and take up storage space.

Also if you keep yaks you will always have a steady supply of milk. Milk is good because you can obtain it all year instead of beer/wine which is exclusive to summer. So if you need drink you can drink the milk if you don't need the extra drink and have beer/wine then you can use the milk to make cheese and improve your cooking skills.

[Czariensky / Ryan]

Personally I have never had Mants and i assumed the threshold was 1000, and I also keep a dedicated cook and tailor (often the same gnome, as tailoring jobs for me are not common enough to warrant having a gnome do it full-time).

[Titania]

At 400 I saw a mants scout I killed it. I am now 500 food and a few mant workers tried to rob me.

[Ishan451]

I am sticking, without problems to a 300 max food limit. That is enough food to get 20 gnomes through a winter.

That 300 food is usually just ingredients too, as my cook has an order to cook whatever he does only up to 1 meal per gnome. Never had any Mants.

[Czariensky / Ryan]

@Ishan451 - That seems like good idea, having the cook only cook when needed, but I have NEVER had any Mants at all and i stick to ~900 food/drink not counting ingredients. Unless you play with max difficulty - I play with default.

[The Duck Knight]

Originally posted by ryanedwardschons:

@Ishan451 - That seems like good idea, having the cook only cook when needed, but I have NEVER had any Mants at all and i stick to ~900 food/drink not counting ingredients. Unless you play with max difficulty - I play with default.

might be luck.
Mants will only attack IF a mantscout (spawning at around 300 food) spotts a gnome and manages to leave the map. So if the mant scouts just wander around the map without seeing your gnomes and leave again, there won't be a mant attack.

[Czariensky / Ryan]

I had a map where I was at 940-960 food all the time due to deft farming practices (harvesting little by little) and my gnomes were everywhere digging and building - I had 26 gnomes and had Mants turned on. I might be extremely lucky but I doubt that - I think its difficulty.

[The Duck Knight]

I had scouts roaming on normal setting at around 400 food and as far as I know 300 is the minimum to spawn mant scouts.

[Czariensky / Ryan]

I never saw even scouts for Mants, although I thought the threshold was 1k food. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling now that it might just be epic luck :P

[The Duck Knight]

Originally posted by ryanedwardschons:

I never saw even scouts for Mants, although I thought the threshold was 1k food. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling now that it might just be epic luck :P

Well. I got round about ten times the playtime in gnomoria that you got, so I had plenty of time to observe stuff like that.