Best source of skin

[Radio Russ]

Hey guys, sorry if this already exists somewhere.

What's the best source of leather? I've already got my people spread super thin with work load. I was trying to get a huge animal farm going but my stupid ass animals barely reproduce. I'm limited on hunting because it shoots my workload way over the top lol.

[buds]

Only when you have very good numbers of domestic animals (20 each in Neolithic at least as base) then you can have tremendous amount of raw skins every year. Then you can just tweak the limits as your population grows, this will ensure ample leather and wool for trade later in the end (Iron Age).

I do this simply but my main objective is to establish my meat supplies (at least 2.5 x my population), raw skins (fof leather) are just secondary objective. So I have to establish the number of goats, sheep and pigs before advancing to copper age. Therefore my 1st snd 2nd technology acquisition in Neolithic are thatching and goat domestication so I can immediately build stables. At the same time prior to having stables (on the way to build) I have to start taming ibex and with proper season timing at least 6 young goats (if possible ) must be tamed on the first year immediately once goat domestication tech is acquired. I normally do this in hardcore by having enough knowledge points for 2 extra techs while I’m still on Mesolithic, so at least 40-45 knowledge points I guess. It’s easier done in normal difficulty because you can pile up more knowledge points in Mesolithic without worrying about raiders.

3rd technology in Neolithic that I get is for sheep domestication. For as long as you have tamed more dogs the raiders can easily be neutralized, then you can get defense fortification as next technology.

The domestic animals might take 1.5 to 2 years to multiply so constant taming (and finishing all herd members) must be done as well as hunting (manually) while the numbers of domestic animals are still not on the target numbers (limit, for slaughter) to augment food, raw skins, and bone acquisition.

Keeping the animals fed and hydrated during winter are also important, and good placement of stables (near grains plants), haystacks, wells and granaries has to be decided properly to assure their stable numbers and growth.

But domesticating animals must be implemented in such a manner that settlers population growth must be controlled. I normally stabilize everything in Neolithic with 68 population the most to avoid also raiders numbers as well as less tightness on on all needed resources.

I used this same strategy everytime I play hardcore and so far I’m always successful. In fact I just finished a tough modded scenario (Hard Reality Scotland) hardcore with 500 population. My domestic animals are 50, 50, 50, 25%, 25%,25% on between 450-500 population and having stables occupancy at 405.

[Zanarkand]

I use sheep, you get so much out of sheep in this game. You get the wool/meat/skin/bone. Late game I have ~50 dried skin just to trade and ~100 wool textiles to trade as well. My most recent settlement I have nearly 300 population and 40 sheep still gets me a large excess of material.