Villagers starving when there is food available

[Defain]

I cannot figure out why my villagers keep starving while I have more food available than I have population. They just don't seem to eat and starve instead while food is decaying away at the same time.

[Isherwood]

Where are they starving? Most die when they are sent on tasks that are too far away

[Brutalist Ape]

Originally posted by Defain:

I cannot figure out why my villagers keep starving while I have more food available than I have population. They just don't seem to eat and starve instead while food is decaying away at the same time.

This happened to me as well. Despite having hundreds of grain stored in my town centre, I suffered a population crash and about 5 - 10 people starved to death or got ill and died. What made it even more infuriating was that I had an over-abundance of domesticated animals available at the same time - I had over 60 goats, sheep and pigs.

People would not starve to death when there are tons of domesticated farm animals available to eat. I was clicking them to slaughter and eat the animals, but they weren't doing it fast enough. This doesn't make sense - people should definitely eat the animals rather than starve.

What may be a related problem is that I was constantly getting the 'workload too high' notification. But it was difficult to see what I could do about it, because all of the tasks that I had them doing needed to be done, urgently.

I wonder if this game could use a patch, to make the villagers prioritise making sure they had enough to eat (when it is available) before wandering half way across the map.

[Defain]

Originally posted by SonofDHH:

Where are they starving? Most die when they are sent on tasks that are too far away

I noticed this gets them starved sometimes but mostly they seem to drop in my base. Like they give prio for other tasks and don't get to eat soon enough. I don't have too high workload either so it is really strange. It does not ruin my games yet but it is kinda annoying to lose people like this.

[steschm0712]

Check your limits. E.g. flour and bread is per default set to 20 pieces. Increase this to like 50% of your population and it should not happen anymore.

[Revaero]

This is a good idea for when this game's function actually works as intended. I'm running into the same issue as OP, too. Except that it's whenever I enter the iron age, everyone just stops eating and dies. It's as if the hunger requirements are increased 10 fold.

***EDIT*** Found out what was happening... Apparently there's a bug where your villagers forget what roles are needed (example: baking bread) and so they'll just starve, even with the required stuff to perform the action. It is cleared up by sounding the alert on/off again to reset all the roles, and seems like it happens after a raid is finished.

[Denjanjeau]

I have to admit... I lost 15 guys because (I assume) they are overworked and I ordered them to hunt far away.

I do regard this as a bug :)

[requiemfang]

Originally posted by Denjanjeau:

I have to admit... I lost 15 guys because (I assume) they are overworked and I ordered them to hunt far away.

I do regard this as a bug :)

There's sort of a mechanic that needs to be added to the game, hunting parties/hunters in general need to take along a meal/snack. Devs need to get rid of the eat at firepit as it's hindrance towards hunting parties that have to range very, very far in order to find prey.

[VA gamer]

Some of these discussions remind me of a problem in early Banished. Players would send workers to gather resources too far away, leading to their death from starvation or whatever. The AI had no working limiter to prevent them from marching off to their doom.

Eventually, they added something to prevent "death marches" but players also learned not to send the workers too far away.

[KluZz]

Yeah, there's something really weird going on with food consumption in the higher technology tiers. I had a perfectly balanced settlement with vast food stores, and it had been humming along nicely for many seasons, until I flipped into the Bronze Age. Suddenly food stores started dwindling and people were starving to death at a rapid pace. There were no changes to the number of domesticated animals, nor to the population, until people started starving to death.

[jwinter]

I have no problems with anything, population over 200, all techs unlocked. There must be something you have overlooked

[Derper]

Had same issue, had a thriving 200+ pop game going, and noticed food stores started running low, despite an TON of stored grain and livestock well over the slaughter limits I'd set. Villagers seemed to prefer to go run just outside of the main town to gather sticks (in the Iron age mind you) than go feed themselves. Tried removing all gathering/hunting parties that were more than just outside of my walls, and manually queued up/prioritized 100+ bread, villagers promptly ignored orders and fell like flies. went from 200+ to 57 in a matter of minutes. Needless to say at that point, the damage is done, as my remaining 57 can't tend to my 100+ livestock, deal with the 10 large farms, AND provide the normal labors required...

I'd had food scares prior to this, where it'd drop (usually toward end of winter), but villagers always seemed to adapt and make it through to spring, then go slaughter livestock/hunt a bit to restock. In the later ages, they seemed to forget how to do this...

[jwinter]

You mentioned "main town", i feel that could be the source of the problem if you have widespread colony. Ai can handle centralised designs but if you try to build multiple villages then people will be assigned tasks inefficiently and they would spend most of the time on the move crippling your economy and even failing to satisfy their needs

[Revaero]

It's probably a bug. Try sounding alert on/off to reset roles. This fixed it for me (found solution in different thread)

[B1E]

Originally posted by requiemfang:

Originally posted by Denjanjeau:

I have to admit... I lost 15 guys because (I assume) they are overworked and I ordered them to hunt far away.

I do regard this as a bug :)

There's sort of a mechanic that needs to be added to the game, hunting parties/hunters in general need to take along a meal/snack. Devs need to get rid of the eat at firepit as it's hindrance towards hunting parties that have to range very, very far in order to find prey.

I would like to see this taken a step further where a party could pack a teepee on a sledge and actually set up a hunting camp closer to prey. Tent, firepit and meat dryer. Then a villager could transport the meat and skins back to your settlement.

[Arizona3D]

What if you make a large network of firepits and huts throughout the map?