Always Starving?

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

So i'v just started, and it seems no matter what I do my people are always starving to death before spring is over.

I typically have 1 or 2 2nd upgrade farms with 3 to 4 people running it before I reach 20 people, though it feels like the food never grows and the only time anyone eats is if the farmers collect food from the land. I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

I am not sure exactly how many farms are needed but three lv3 farms will cover that population comfortably. And will suffice for quite a while afterwards.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

I am not sure exactly how many farms are needed but three lv3 farms will cover that population comfortably. And will suffice for quite a while afterwards.

Maybe somethings different, but i have 4 established farms, and 10 people running it. Still on the brink of starvation

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by The Heretek:

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

I am not sure exactly how many farms are needed but three lv3 farms will cover that population comfortably. And will suffice for quite a while afterwards.

Maybe somethings different, but i have 4 established farms, and 10 people running it. Still on the brink of starvation

4 Farms with 10 workers can feed at least 50, but so can four farms with four workers. Unless you have lots of animals too.

[rodburns]

I have always had the same problem. I've had as many as 12 farms going with 24 farmers (out of a 110 population) and still people would starve during summer, let alone winter.

Now I just build 4 farms, assign 8 farmers to them and then I find a patch of food somewhere close and just cast "Motivate Land" on it over and over. Build lots of food storage and then every time it rains, motivate it again. Keeps the farmers busy hauling food back and forth to storage, and the Motivate keeps the food respawning quickly.

My current village, I'm approaching Winter with 15 Food Storage buildings full of food and a full patch of food waiting to be harvested

[steelerx]

One reason a villager may starve is if they get trapped. Sometimes building walls can put them in a tile that can't get out of. It's also possible with trees or rocks, especially when using 'Motive Land' Sometimes's there just idiots, I've had people starve when I have had over 1,000 raw veggies available and a couple hundred rations available.

[vikeifiv]

the people will automatically get resources on the ground if it's within range. always have that check.

[SpankyMcFlych]

I second the food patch method. Pick a spot nearby with enough space for a full motivate land area, plant some holy potatoes and mark them for harvest (I mark a checkerboard pattern so there's always some left over, dunno if that helps or anything), and then every time it rains or I have extra mana to burn I motivate the potato patch.

This is of course in addition to farms and animal pens and chicken pens.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

Originally posted by The Heretek:

Maybe somethings different, but i have 4 established farms, and 10 people running it. Still on the brink of starvation

4 Farms with 10 workers can feed at least 50, but so can four farms with four workers. Unless you have lots of animals too.

You'll need to tell me what you do to make the farms work, because this was my full situation.

4 Establish Farms, 30 people, 2 dogs, 10 Farmers.
Food storage was always less the 10 if not 0.
The farmers would not store food, they would leave food they were told to gather to turn into trash around the map even if the food storage was 0.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

I don't do anything special, I have at least one organiser early so I have someone constantly hauling and only hauling. The farms I build close to housing and water sources. I build the farms early and upgrade them early too, and keep an eye on food stocks. After a short while the food situation becomes positive and then I add animal pens if I hadn't already.

[Dreaming Prince]

you have more farms and farmers than i had with alot more people and i had no issues so i dont think thats the problem hmm. u have organizers and storage buildings? yea like others said, just using the food patch and motivate land spells (especiall when raining in spring autumn) can supply enough food

[rodburns]

Originally posted by The Heretek:

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

4 Farms with 10 workers can feed at least 50, but so can four farms with four workers. Unless you have lots of animals too.

You'll need to tell me what you do to make the farms work, because this was my full situation.

4 Establish Farms, 30 people, 2 dogs, 10 Farmers.
Food storage was always less the 10 if not 0.
The farmers would not store food, they would leave food they were told to gather to turn into trash around the map even if the food storage was 0.

If I understand correctly your storage is 0... so you're full? That's probably why they are leaving the food on the ground; they have no place to put it. Build a food storage building and see if they put it in there

[Grey Lavi]

I read many Farmers and Farm, but do you use Dirty Water for the Farms?

[ilsidur_88]

Your problem might be:
- too far from water source
- farm too far from each other
- not enough organizer (they are apparently one of the most important jobs)
- not enough harvest on spring / autumn (food grows far slower and farmers work slower on summer)

Usually On first year, my 3 farms, 6 farmers, 5 organizers can handle 60ish people even without motivate land spell. I spam motivate land spell if it is almost winter but my food supply is not quite good.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

There are several factors that contribute to farming. most of the people who commented here mentioned one or two, but not all.

What other players are missing is that you need to have enough Water Carriers and water sources to run BOTH the farms AND to supply housing.

The other thing to consider is that villagers will first search for food in their houses and houses get restocked with raw vegetables mainly by farmers. If you have too many houses or too few farmers you'll never have "stocked" houses and hungry villagers will only be able to find food on the ground if they're nearby.

So check your housing/farms food and water levels and start from there.

One more thing is that part of the food is also used to re-plant crops in the farms.
So every "cycle" you have:
FOOD LEFT = PRODUCED FOOD - (EATEN FOOD + PLANTED FOOD)

If FOOD LEFT goes in the negative, you'll never be able to recover and if you create more farms you'll just make it worse since you'll make PLANTED FOOD bigger!

That's why the only way to recover from a failing agricolture is to get wild crops OR to cast Motivate Land and Holy Potatoes.

[Veldrin]

It sounds like the farms never actually get started due to harvesting wild food outside village range and not using grab/recall to retrieve such food.

Villagers don't pick up resources outside village range (except when they just finished harvesting and look around nearby for more of what they just harvested to pick up). So ensure harvest areas are in village range or use the grab/recall/harvest spells to relocate the resources into village range.

Initially villagers will swarm over food as they attempt to satiate their hunger and equip some food for later. Once that is done the farmer should be able to seed the farm using the remaining food. Seeding only needs to happen once. One Raw Vegetable is required for each farm tile. The Makeshift Farm has 6 farm tiles, the Farm has 9 and the Established Farm has 13.

Next the farmer needs a supply of water to water the crops. Note there are two types of water - dirty water and just water. It is best to have some dirty water available for farmers to use as they won't use clean water until all non-farm water storage is full. Farmers can collect dirty water from designated water tiles on the map. Once a sufficient amount of dirty water is stored in a farm farmers will begin tending and watering the crops of that farm. Then it is just a waiting game for the crops to mature which varies based on temperature and level of tending and watering. In Spring it is possible to harvest a well tended and watered crop 2-4 times a day.