most efficient way of getting food?

[alijons]

I read somewhere that one citizen needs 100 per year(no sure if both for adults and child or if child need less/more?). Right now i have about 1300 people, so, if that information is correct then i need 130000 food per year. From what I can see one 10x10 farm/field/forgotEnglishName produces from 500 to 700 food. That means I need about 200-250 of those :/ but right now i am already running out of place on medium map, i don't have space for much more food production and for now I am constantly selling clothes for food (I pilled up 7000 of clothing for that purpose, but that started to run out too). The question is, what is the most efficient way of getting food? Also, I am playing on colonial charter mod, so i would appreciate some advice from people who use it too.

[zelphiaellerson]

I like to trade for food, because I enjoy the challenge of establishing the differnt production chains.

I'm assuming you have gatherers, pastures and fishing docks. It's always a balancing act!!

[ebrumby]

10x10 is a small crop field unless you are using a harsh climate. In CC, I play using a very Mild climate and one 8 x 18 crop field (with one farmer) produces 1000+ food. Two great food sources in CC are the Rice Planter and the Hunting Blind. Both produce over 1000 food a year with 1 person. The Tinneries increase the quantity of food you have (and the trade value) - 20 food + tin produces 36 food (educated workers). But at some point you need to trade for food (depending on the version of CC, there's a Food Supplier you can build). Statues, furniture, domesticated animals are all great trade items.

[Gregorovitch]

OP, you are correct about 100 food requireed per year per pop.

How to maximise your food output depends on how you measure it: either food productivity per farmer or productivity per farmed tile. Different situation suggest different ways of looking at it.

Since you have many citizens but limited space you goal should probably be productivity per farmed tile, and that implies using the largest fields, pastures and orchards you can make and allocated the maximum number of workers to them.

The reason is that the more farmers you have working a field the earlier crops are planted out maximising chance to ripen and the more certain all of the harvest will be safely in the barns before the frosts hit. Even if using less farmers per field may technically make more food per farmer, it doesn't generally make more food per field.

[alijons]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

maximising chance to ripen and the more certain all of the harvest will be safely in the barns before the frosts hit.

That's the thing that is pissing me of the most at the moment. I have fields that on some years are giving me like 700food and it's great, but on some other years farmers will for some reason abandon them almost completely, only getting like 200-300food before winter and I don't even know why or how to fix it

[Gregorovitch]

Probably becasue they are unhappy about something or they are walking across the map to find something they lack not available locally, like food for instance, maybe a particular category of food tney lack.

What are your typical food stocks at the end of harvest and also just before harvest begins?

Bare in mind 1300 is a big sttlement in Banished and sometimes wierd stuff can just happen at that level, but it's worth tracking down any possible direct reasons. Food looks like a good candidate problem to start with.

[alijons]

General happines is 4,5/5 so that's okay. On the matter of whether they lack something locally, I don't even know how to keep tabs on that with 1300 people. I tried to build barns, stockipes and "production centres" in some kind of efficient way but i feel like by now it's just total mess.

At the end of harvest it sometimes gets to about 40000 and before next one it's 0. But that's if i am not buying food, by now I am buying like 10000 food every season. And still, that 40000 is like, max it gets, but before it gets there, during harvest, it changes up and down between 20000-40000.


And yea... There is so much weird stuff going on. Once i made a new barn and suddenly whole town decided it's going to be *only* barn they will use. There was just constant line going in and out. I demolished it eventually, because everybody were to busy with running to that one barn from the other side of the map, ignoring all the barns on their way xD
Right now every now and then 5-8 people will suddenly decide they are homeless, but I am not even doing anything to houses.
And now I have never ending break out of small pox. It just goes between 20 to 70 sick people all the time, but doesn't want to go away. I am pretty sure at least 100 people died from it so far and i don't even know how to get rid of it.

[jabbywocks]

Your game sounds super glitched...

For food; I find a mix of farms, fishing, gatherers, herders, and hunters are what keeps food stores up. No one food source is ever enough.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that having market places is the best way to keep resources gathered locally. Everything they need will be in one place, close to their homes (make sure you put homes close to markets), so they wont feel the need to run far across the map to find it.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by alijons:

General happines is 4,5/5 so that's okay. On the matter of whether they lack something locally, I don't even know how to keep tabs on that with 1300 people. I tried to build barns, stockipes and "production centres" in some kind of efficient way but i feel like by now it's just total mess.

I don't think the game was really designed with settlements of 1000+ in mind. If you look at the achievements the largest pop size quoted in 900 for Twon. The hard ones of having pop 300 after 100 years and 500 after 200 years are IMO indicative of the sort of size the dev had in mind for extended playthroughs. The 900 one looks like an invitation for a one-off short term spurt growth attempt to me.

I beleive there are a few algorithms in the main game loop that occasionally mangle pops behaviour somewhat to give the game a more "organic" feel, less spreadsheet like. I think it may be that these algoreithms, when applied to very large populations, can cause wild swings in outcomes that the game lacks effective player tools to deal with really - which seems pretty much your experience.

Originally posted by alijons:

At the end of harvest it sometimes gets to about 40000 and before next one it's 0. But that's if i am not buying food, by now I am buying like 10000 food every season. And still, that 40000 is like, max it gets, but before it gets there, during harvest, it changes up and down between 20000-40000.

OK, I think that is your main issue with food. 20-40,000 food stocks is nothing like enough for a 1300 population IMO. My rule of thumb on food stocks is you need two years supply in storage at the end of each harvest, implying your stocks never go below one years supply, and if ever they do you freak out about it and add more food production asap.

This means that at the end of harvest you should have about 250k food in store.

The reason is that when people are walking they are not working, and with that little food for 1300 people they are going to have to scour the map to find food - which is almost certainly what your farmers are doing.

Remember that pops want at least one item of each food category (fish/meat, grain, veg, fruit) to be happy and healthy and if one is missing locally then they will walk across the map and back if necessary to get some wherever it's avaiable, even if it means leaving the harvest to rot in the fields. Remember also you need a lot of market vendors to distribute all the required food around such a large settlement.

At the moment your pops are probably living literally hand to mouth and the only thing saving your arse is your trading efforts.

I am reasonably confident that if you can get your food stocks to somewhere in the 200-250k range your problems with farmers productivity will evaporate.

Originally posted by alijons:

And now I have never ending break out of small pox. It just goes between 20 to 70 sick people all the time, but doesn't want to go away. I am pretty sure at least 100 people died from it so far and i don't even know how to get rid of it.

That will probably be becasue you either haven't got enough hospitals or they are unevenly distributed such that they cannot get on top of the infection.

How many have you got? I used to know exactly how many you need for a given population, but I forget. I think it's somewhere in the resgion of one per 50-100 population evenly distributed.

[mbutton15]

The big question is - Are you making enough food per year anyway ? A 1300 pop will need 130,000 food just to survive (yep, children eat the same amount as adults). I agree with Gregorovitch that a 40,000 reserve is just not enough. It suggests that there just isn't enough food spread evenly around the map and workers are starting to neglect their jobs to hunt for food instead. Check your Town Hall stats and that should show your trends for the last 5, 10 years. Maybe also look in the houses and see how much food they are storing. Actually, the Town Hall can provide a quick summary on the 'Inventory' page.

I think you are right to focus on crops as they give the biggest return per square. You don't say how many farmers you have per field, but I also use 10x10 fields. I use 2 farmers as I play on Harsh weather and even with 2 workers they won't always reach the 700 maximum. But I never come close to filling a map so have enough other food sources to cover the losses. Crop fields give out a max of 7 food per square so I don't think crop size matters too much as long as you are able to max out the production.

I'm guessing you have as many (non-overlapping) fishing docks as you can so you can maximise the water space. They really work best when supported by houses and barn right next to them.

Something to consider with orchards is their size. The best food/square output will be with 15x4 size (not 4x15). As soon as you go bigger then you reduce food/square output due to the position the trees are planted. But I wouldn't use orchard's in big quantities anyway as they are just not as reliable as crop fields. Only have them for food variety.