500+ population food problems

[Skippy]

I have a population in my town of about 500+ and every year im so low in food I get to zero. I have run out of space to put fishers and the gathers and hunters dont produce a lot. Now i have about 20 farms and that only brings my food to 7000 then it drops right after winter. I have about 5 hunter and gatherer huts. each in dense forest. should i make more farmland or should I do something else.

[SeriouslyDave]

If food is going to zero, then yes, your people are consuming more than they produce and you'll likely need to up production. However, what you do depends on several things. For example:

• Do you have any mods active? If you have the Colonial Charter mod, you can mill grains into flour and bake flour into breads. This is a more productive food source than feeding the grain directly to people. (See the Colonial Charter web site forum for details.)
  
• How big are your farms? "20 farms" doesn't complete the picture. However, for comparison, I checked an old map of mine where I had around 500 people. I had 22 15x15 farms (ha! bet I get some comments on that :p) along with 4-5 pastures (didn't catch the sizes), 8 fishing docks, 4 gatherers huts, and 4 hunting lodges, all fully staffed. I was also milling/baking grain to bread. I had 24,000+ food stored in Late Winter.
  
• Are all your huts, lodges, etc., fully staffed?

[SeriouslyDave]

For more information about Colonial Charter's increase in quantity of food when it's processed, look at the second half of the following thread:

Colonial Charter - Game Mechanics[colonialcharter.com]

[Skippy]

Everything is fully staffed. And the 20 farms are all 12x12. No mods. Its kinda odd because i had almost 40,000 food stored with 350 people. It just started to drop so fast I really have no way to stop it at this point. Its so much harder to support the larger populations. I lost about 50 people my last winter. Yikes :(

[SeriouslyDave]

Actually, it may be a matter of getting used to upping your food production continually, no matter what else your doing.

I know when I first started, I would hit a plateau in population growth (i.e., it would barely increase). Everything felt stable, so I was doing a lot of building not related to food production. Eventually, either the slow population increase reached a tipping point or I got a quick population increase because I'd built a bunch of houses and wasn't planning on the births that would result. Either way my food production would be unable to handle it. Since then, I've gotten used to contiual increases or an occassional burst of building many farms at once.

I've also used auto purchases at the trading post, but I like that less than being self sufficient.

[fayceless]

Yeah, we need more information. (EDIT: I guess we got some while I was typing/afk-ing!) Until then, the best I can do is demonstrate an effecient farming area:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=357279606

This town has almost 1000 people, this is a part of my farming. Lots(Lots!) of barns close to the fields, and some homes for workers. Markets to the north and south, most of the workers don't have to go far to fill their homes. Most of my barns are full, but that's because I over-produce food and people can't eat it all. I might have had to scale back food production if I were still playing this town. You really want to avoid having full barns - by building enough barns - so that the workers have time to harvest and store it before snow kills the crops.

[fayceless]

Oh, and I'll add that a 12x12 farm, while it may seem close to 15x15, is actually less than 2/3 the size of the largest farm. Unless you've got a whole lot of fishing docks, you'll need more farmland.

[Skippy]

Thanks, my town is Kinda beyond repair at this point though I look at yours and its much more organized than mine. Im also playing on a medium map on mild climate but hard difficulty. what are the best crops/food to grow/kill/harvest? So far I have been able to get corn and beans through trading.

[fayceless]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think every crop produces the same amount per square/per year. Some crops grow quickly - beans do! - others survive longer in cold, wheat can be brewed, but fruit is better for that(though less productive overall) Fishing is great if you've got good river/lake spots to place docks, because it doesn't take up much land. How many gatherers and/or hunters I have is always related to how many foresters I have - they make those forests more uesful. Otherwise I prefer using the space for crops. And don't forget about livestock! Lots of space, but more leather and wool - good prodution per worker.

[Skippy]

I guess I was doomed from the start then, the area isnt very flat and it doesnt have a very decent river going through. But thanks for the help this was only my second town anyways so its not to big of a deal.
Also how does education effect how people work? I accidentaly let about 50 nomads in and they are all uneducated.

[johntarmac]

50 nomads will knock your town for 6 if you are not prepared for them.
They're eating 5000 more food and because they are uneducated they produce 25% less.
More coats and tools and again producing less.
Building houses for them also takes time, workers and resources away from keeping your main people alive.

[SeriouslyDave]

Only 50 nomads? Introduced to a population of 500+? Peanuts. Noise. You'll barely notice them :)

I use a mod called Nomad Zero Pop that can increase the number of nomads that arrive. I often get 100-200 nomads with a 400-500 pop. Preparation can help, but I find the best way to accomodate them is to get them all working fast, preferably building new fields, etc..

Example:

264 nomads, 700+ working pop, disease in progress[i.imgur.com]

[Yehoodi]

Originally posted by Skippypal:

I have a population in my town of about 500+ and every year im so low in food I get to zero. I have run out of space to put fishers and the gathers and hunters dont produce a lot. Now i have about 20 farms and that only brings my food to 7000 then it drops right after winter. I have about 5 hunter and gatherer huts. each in dense forest. should i make more farmland or should I do something else.

Glad you are giving the game a try, it is tough game to master and it is one big scissor paper rock situation . . .

Just a quick point is I assume you know that it helps to have the home close to the work place and close to the storage area to drop off the harvest . . . the farther apart they are the less production one will get . . .

one should get 7 units of food per square and if you have 12x12 farm (144 squares) you should get around 7x144 or 1008 food from each 12x12 farm and if you have 20 then you should be getting 20k food from just these farms . . . you might have to put three farmers on the fields but that will only be 60 workers . . .

if the farmers are not educated they will produce less

The gatherers should produce about 2000-2600 with 4 workers and withot much of the land taken away, once the land is taken up by farms and other parts of the town this will drop . . .

but make sure you have your homes and sufficient storage barn space near the farms . . .

when you pop gets to 500 you probably should think about have a markert or two so that folks can get what is needed without spending time walking to different barns

also you can sell some good at the trade station like firewood for food, you can also trade some of your 3 point foods like verizon and herd meats to triple the amount fo food, that is trade 10 venison for 30 wheat and so on . . .

i hope this helps a bit . . .

it take a handful of games to get the hand of it and then you come across another obstacle that requires some thinking

[Gertjan]

for this reason, i try to have at the bare minimum 30% of my population working in the food industry (using the efficient farms mod; all farm/pasture sizes only need 1 guy, w/o it, i'd up to half)

my current save has about 200 population, running on 5 fishers, 3 hunters, 4 gatherers and a total of 400 sqares of trees and almost 1000 squares of farmland, coupled with 300 squares of pasture. (all staffed; hunters 3, fishers/gatherers 4, the farms/trees/animals total 15, with that mod)
this getup currently lets me survive a winter with 3k food left, but i'm currently more working on grabbing more and more woodcutting (mainly for fuel); and in between upgrading homes to stone

[Daniel Piva]

Originally posted by fayceless:

I'm not 100% sure, but I think every crop produces the same amount per square/per year. Some crops grow quickly - beans do! - others survive longer in cold, wheat can be brewed, but fruit is better for that(though less productive overall) Fishing is great if you've got good river/lake spots to place docks, because it doesn't take up much land. How many gatherers and/or hunters I have is always related to how many foresters I have - they make those forests more uesful. Otherwise I prefer using the space for crops. And don't forget about livestock! Lots of space, but more leather and wool - good prodution per worker.

Why is Fruit better for Brewing? Is it more efficiente (X amount of Fruit = 2X Ale, while with Wheat X = 1X?)

[tiltaaa]

happens to the best of us