Mass starvation

[scottdyche]

First off, let me say I really enjoy the game. A good concept with a pretty good implementation.

That being said, I'm not sure if there's a bug in the program or I just really suck at this game. I get a population of around 60 and people start dying of starvation. I kill animals right in the middle of my settlement or just outside the walls (near a gate) and the animals are never butchered. They just lie there until the game dissolves them. I try directing residents to butcher the animals with no luck.

On a different note, and this might be the wrong place, but if a settlement runs low on meat, I should be notified they are low on meat, not just food.

Any assistance to get past the 60 person starvation event would be greatly appreciated.

[Archebald]

Yeah, I don't have this problem per se, but I am definitely finding it much harder to keep people alive. It's almost like the AI forgot to have people eat. I have plenty of food, I don't have any crazy hunting things going on, and yet I have a spate of people just randomly starving to death. I can't seem to get over 15 pop in this game right now. And I definitely have plenty of food.

[buds]

Being new to the game and proceeding roughly and not taking the villagers welfare into consideration most of the time results to this thing.

Don’t overwork them, don’t give them tasks way too much that they haven’t finished what you have given them. If you do this they will keep working and will have no time to eat, drink, rest and pray.

In short dont practice slavery.

[Pimple (LN)]

Make sure you have enough knifes.
Gather lots of flint and automatically produce basic tools.
There's a priority order, i think it's s like this: farming tools, bows, clothes, knifes, fishing tools, weapons, shields.
I'm not sure tho, anyone knows better? Been playing this game for a long time now :)

[Ale82]

Aside from making sure they have the enough of the right tools to butcher the animals ensure that your resource limits are adjusted. When you start off the limits are low on many items so you have to increase them as you go. Me personally anything that is food I end up setting it to unlimited so now I just set it that was right from the start. Go into the manage tab then into limits or hotkey F4. Hope this solves your issues with food.

[Archebald]

Yes, I have plenty of knives, etc. I played to very large pop on the standard maps in 1.4.2. But this latest experimental patch... people just starve in the center of town for no apparent reason. Oh and they're dying of dehydration as well. I have plenty of water. Just drop dead in the center of town. Actually, people are dying of dehydration on the banks of the river. Something in this patch is messed up.

[Ale82]

Make sure that they have enough time to themselves to refit their needs ... in other words make sure your workload is low at some point during the seasons so they can do that. Don't over work them or they will die on you, if you keep it 90% plus or more all year round this will only make things worst as time goes on. Another is keeping them close and keeping a close eye on those going far for hunts and magaliths or to harvest if you have them that far away. For some reason the people don't always go to the nearest house or water source to them and decide to go to the main settlement to refuel. I have seen them go far for water, their hunger level goes down and keeps going down and health follows till death, they drink water and then head back to the nearest outpost or settlement but don't know which because they die halfway due to starvation from the long trip they took for water. Same the other way around with dehydration ... they're not the smartest at times and you need to help them with that by keeping them close and a close eye on them.

[Memtndude]

Originally posted by buds:

Being new to the game and proceeding roughly and not taking the villagers welfare into consideration most of the time results to this thing.

Don’t overwork them, don’t give them tasks way too much that they haven’t finished what you have given them. If you do this they will keep working and will have no time to eat, drink, rest and pray.

In short dont practice slavery.

I don't understand how to do this. When it's time to plant my crops my workload shoots to 150%, the remaining seasons it's around 60%. I don't know how to lower it. I only have them doing the things we need to survive.

[buds]

There are lots of things/task that you might not be aware are queued. Some are very obvious lining up building multiple skins dryer, food dryer, houses etc etc. Also planting two to three 5x5 squares of grains in the beginning with only a handful of workers. At the same time some structures are in need of repair etc etc.

Tasks can be completed at below 150% but much better if it’s 100% and below. Any additional task you want must be dependent on available workers you have. Press #6 whenever you think you want to order new task/s. It doesn’t mean you have very low workload you can easily order another task and thinking it can be done as you wish, that’s not the case in DoM. Task/s will be executed when you have available workers by pressing #6 as well as you have the tools in car it’s needed.

[scottdyche]

I usually keep a stock of 20 knives, 40 or so bows, 30 or so spears, 20 or more axes and 25 or more slings. I try not to put the work percentage more than 60 - 65% and below that for any extended period of time. With a stock of 35+ meat I still have people starving. I find it extremely frustrating.

[buds]

F12 screenshot might be of help for us to try helping you.

[scottdyche]

As to the screen shots - two questions 1. Where are they stored after one is taken and 2. how do I upload it into the discussion?

[buds]

It can be or stored in your steam account once you save it. In my case I’m being prompted to either save it (before) but now it’s on your DoM game and have the option to save and upload it.

[Marstil]

Balancing the workload: Try to load people at the beginning of each season and let the
workload settle back to 60% or less for a while before adding more tasks. If they don't get time
to eat, drink, rest, and pray, things will start to go downhill.

Really try to have tasking down to less than 40% for the last bit of fall is over so that people
are near town and can change to warm clothes quickly, I like to hit the alarm right after winter
starts (wail until temp gets to about 3 C) so people will change clothes then pick a new task.

Wild plant gathering areas can add in a good amount of extra food without having to be
manually managed, it's something the kids can do on their own.

I also don't plant pulses to let people stay in camp during winter.

If you do all this stuff and people are still not eating / drinking / butchering (assuming you have the tools) then it is likely a bug.

[Patchanka]

I'd like to add that i've seen the same thing happen in a few games (after the third one I stopped playing and i'm waiting for it to be patched since it is really game breaking). Basically villagers will not take the time to eat even with food available which leads to starvation and large morale loss and a spiral of heavier workload since people are low morale and starving. Basically just making a slight misadjustement in the workrate (above 100%) when dealing with 100+- villagers can trigger this and it will kill half your population.

I get that heavier workload should be avoided but as it plays now (and to be clear this is 1.5 stuff, before you could go a 200% with 200+ villagers and not suffer the same spiral) it will wreck your game completely. Heavier workload should be a choice with drawbacks and advantages (I still don't get why you can't just queue things to do later, it doesn't make sense).

Right now you have to optimize very carefully to avoid the spiral and its just not fun (and i'm talking about continental dawn here, not one of the challengier scenarios).

[Marstil]

Originally posted by Patchanka:

Heavier workload should be a choice with drawbacks and advantages (I still don't get why you can't just queue things to do later, it doesn't make sense). Right now you have to optimize very carefully to avoid the spiral and its just not fun (and i'm talking about continental dawn here, not one of the challengier scenarios).

The problem is that people will do stuff on the queue first and they end up doing several of those tasks in a row.

Here is an example: Gor just made a spear and sees that it is time to plant seeds, just as he is about to finish that, he is told to go catch a young donkey. He is now pretty pissed off and hasn't eaten or drank in a while. He really needs to pray a bit so that he doesn't pop a cap in someone, has a break from tasking and heads to the totem, finally has some inner peace and is about to get a meal, but it's time to harvest the crops. He ends up napping on the dirt forever more.

It is very easy to fail in giving people the time to take care of themselves. Give them tasks at the beginning of the season and leave them alone. If they are down to 60% tasking by mid season you are on target, but don't give them a bunch of stuff to do until next season.