Farms too far from homes?

[BeAwesomeInstead]

So I'm on my 10th town, with all the settings at easiest ( I know, I'm bad, but people keep dying by year 6 otherwise). I've finally learned to balance my gatherering vs my population growth. I now need to expand some more, and have several crops that I just activated (year 23 with 60 adults 20 kids)

My issue is that it seems my villagers live too far from where I'm building all my farms, I'm running out of food but all 3 crop fields have half their yeild left by the time late autumn hits and I'm positive I'm losing the food that would give me surplus and instead hitting a massive deficit.

How do I rectify this? If I build homes closer it will trigger a baby boom which may screw me, I've heard that destroying homes is a big no no. One possible issue is that the map spawned me on a peninsula, so my crops/pastures are on the other side of a forester/gatherer/hunter cluster from the direction I build my housing/markets.

[Vegex the Dead]

I've found it's good to have a surplus of population, every job spot filled and laborers to keep things moving. You just want to keep a excessive labor force if you can, to replace the deaths. It may also be better to build the houses over months, and not all at once. This may help prevent large portions of the population dieng from old age. (I can have between 3 and 25 people all dieng at once which puts a strain on the economy)

Building homes closer together won't stop a baby boom, it's just the more houses you have the faster the population grows. Keep some houses and storage barns near the farms so they have an easy walk to all there places.

Not sure how others play, but I try to maximize farms/pastures, to maximum workers to get all the crops before winter.

Maybe this will help, but to add I play on Normal or Hard difficulty.. whichever one is a fresh start with no buildings/seeds and such.

[RossenX]

Destroy a house, leave a few people homeless for a few month while you build one closer to the farm and it should be fine. Also make sure you have a barn very close by also. Like right at the bottom or the side of the farm. (Not the top it takes too long for them to walk around the crops when they are harversting) I usually only keep around 2 people working per 15x15 field and they usually collect all the crops just fine.

[BeAwesomeInstead]

I have storage houses very close to the farms, I anticipated that. I have been slowly building houses, 1-3 a year depending on population, and I knew I was safe to expand. I also knew I could expand further if the farms were opperating at full capacity. It just appears that the farms aren't. So as long as I destroy some houses and build others closer it looks like I'll be ok. I'll try it out. 60 adults with 20 kids is well above replacement rate though.

[UglyBird]

If you have enough labourers available to staff your farms or they already are, just build new houses and as soon as they are built mark the houses, where your farmers live presently, for demolition.

60+20 population at year 23 is not a lot.
To feed your villagers at the beginning, up to 200/300, you can rely on gatherers, hunters and fishing only. Start your farming later on when you have a good stock of food in store.
You will usually need to create a new hub with a market and all that goes around it to staff your farmers, try to do this on a large enough piece of flat land so you can create a good working farming community.
It is all a matter of balance

[Spangladesh]

Gatheres are actually the most effecient food source in the game I think, so plop a few of those down and you should be good for a while. I didn't start planting crops until way later. You don't necessarily have to make the starting area your main village hub either. Put roads down to make people walk faster and put houses next to your crop fields so farmers dont have to walk far to get there. Also build another supply building so the farmers don't have far to walk to put the crops in.

So, priorities should be gatherers, then fisherman/hunters, then crops, then orchards, then livestock. Livestock don't really come in handy until you have sheep for wool and cows for leather, other than that they are a terrible source for food.

Also, I build my crops in an 8x7 field because that way one worker can work the field and harvest it all in the perfect amount of time. Don't go any larger than that unless you really want to, but if you do go larger make it twice the area so you can max 2 farmers on it, otherwise you are wasting productivity.

[BeAwesomeInstead]

Well I have 2 farms at 15x15, which according to the wiki gives 52.25 units per worker as opposed to the 8x7 which gives 52, and 3 of the 8x7 just cuz I didn't have the workers and .25 wasn't much to lose. (I think). I do have plenty of roads, and I have 3 gatherer/hunter/forester hubs(all maxed workers), one of which also has an herbalist. Can I put more gatherers within these hubs and maintain productivity till 200/300? Cuz I swapped to farms when around 100 pop, 3 hubs couldnt suppoprt expansion. Or do I just need to build more hubs?

[UglyBird]

Do not put 2 gatherer's huts inside same hub, they would just share the harvest.
Maximize your hubs, forester 1st (plant only) while clearing all stones and iron then alternate with (plant/cut).
Build gatherer opposite forester so coverage area about the same, hunter does not need to be in forested area. house the workers just outside the coverage area with access to market if possible always have a barn just outside cov.area.
This minimizes travel and increase productivity.
Build 1 single road from forester/gatherer to housing/barn.
Do not forget fisheries, well placed and staffed, they produce well.

Get your wool production up as soon as for your coats. Together with leather you can produce the better coats which are good for trading too.
Then cows and chickens.
More leather and plenty of meat.

[kevinshow]

I liked the stockpile idea in Stronghold, but you could only build it near the main building. In this game, you can make multiple stockpiles and barns. I use that so that for new areas that I am populating, I just repeat the same basic structures (wood, hunt, gather, even fishery), and they will all deliver to the new nearby stockpile and barn. This stockpile here is also used as the villagers fill it up with the new resources that are present in this new area that I am working on clearing.

The only ones who might travel further are traders, vendors, and laborers, to get the items they need. Other villagers will go to the nearest stockpile or barn for their food.

After this, if you can place 1-2 marketplaces in such a way that all the resources will be brought to a common place, then the barns and stockpiles have less impact, but for the time they are needed, they support that "section" of development pretty well.

[BeAwesomeInstead]

Ya, my issue isn't proximity of barns/stockpiles/markets, it's their actual residence. They are walking all the way back to town from far away farms. I have a few homes built nearby, but none of the farmers are living in them so they just walk all the way back to town. I didn't know if destroying homes would be ok though, cuz solely building new homes would cause a baby boom that would further strain my resources, which are only strained because I'm not getting full harvests.

Basically, I realized that to fix my problem I would have to put myself in to a bad cycle.

[UglyBird]

Are your farmers living with other adults?
It sounds like you do not have enough houses.