Resources: How are yall not running out?

[SUP3RM4N]

So Idk if it's something I'm doing, or not doing. But I take my time getting to the 3rd age due to not wanting to rush my population or expansion. I'm now sitting at 15 population and am having to go like half the map to find flint and animals. I now have no clothes because no animals will come even close to the village for years. How am I to keep up??

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2002649211

[buds]

That’s too low population to advance. Try not to be rough on your villagers, don’t create tasks if there’s no idle villagers (#6).

You must establish a good number (around 36-40) of villagers and having transportation, stockpile of resources especially leather, dried skins, logs etc, before advancing to Neolithic.

I have a thread lately and have videos of the gane from Paleolithic to Iron Age, if you are interested. My play through is different from normal youtubers. I did it hoping it will help new players. It’s in hardcore because I hate pressing primal vision and the game pauses.

The thing that I always advise is “keep your villagers welfare” the most important thing in this game. This is very different from a lot of games in the sense that you have to treat your villagers as humans. They have limitations.

[SUP3RM4N]

Might be part of my issue. I didn't want to make too many of them in fear I couldnt feed them all. Now have about 20 and working to hit my cap at 28 soon. Basically I'm around 200% during farming seasons :(

[buds]

My population in Mesolithic is around 30-36 and need to hunt heavily and manually even during winter if necessary if an opportunity arises. Fishing is just the last resort since animals produce are the most important.

You need to hunt heavily and targeting the predators first like wolves, lions and bears will keep the other hunts safer fior you to hunt later.

68 population in Neolithic is my ideal target which produce few raiders.

Just don’t overwork your villagers, 150% workload should be the highest. And let it settle down below 100% from time to time. Don’t be fooled by low workload, check #6 if you want to create tasks.

[SUP3RM4N]

So was looking into what you said. Maybe I'm just so f'd up I'm missing something simple. For me to have that many villagers so early, I have issues finding enough food upkeep to sustain them, that's why I keep my pop low. How are you able to sustain your pop of that size so early?

*Edit* I took a screenshot of my current game. My last goat just died :(

[Shampoo+3]

About the flint: I don't feel like you should be running out of it. With so few villagers you need only few tools. The only necessary flint tools early are some axes and picks. Sickles, knives and spears can be made from bones which you should drown in. Bone tools are a bit less durable but otherwise just as good as flint ones.
About food: Try to make sure to always wipe out herds so new herds can respawn. Also there should be some herds that spawn in spring and despawn in winter. There should always be a few herds spawning in spring quite close to you. Also you can harvest alot of wild fruit and vegetables around your village.
If you could upload that screenshot, maybe a look at some numbers could give us a better understanding at where you "went wrong".

[SUP3RM4N]

Originally posted by Shampoo+3:

If you could upload that screenshot, maybe a look at some numbers could give us a better understanding at where you "went wrong".

I uploaded it and updated the OP. I'll have to take another one now that it's changed, I feel, drastically.

*Edit* Pic updated.

[buds]

Just don’t hold your population up to 68 in Neolithic. You need villagers up to that era.

A lot of players are too excited on walling too early and that makes other important tasks in the backseat. Same as gathering megaliths.

I only wall completely when I’m in Bronze Age. I also gather megaliths once I am in Iron Age.

I think you did well except not having established your domestic animals. Establishing domestic animals is akin to protecting those young mouflon, ibex and boars from getting eaten by predators. This means that you have to continuously kill the adult predators to prevent them from eating those young carnivores for you to tame them later when you need to.

You are over planting flax, and planting from far distances while you have spaces inside your walled base. You can plant inside then you can delete later when you need the space for expansion. Planting just enough is really important, most players like to clear spaces and plant a square field. Plant pulses because it sustain your food when you don’t have meats and fish. Bread isn’t my forte and just make little by little just to augment because they decay faster than pulses.

Also gulag type of settlement seems not really good when it comes to your villagers welfare. They can rest to a house immediately when they really need to because you don’t have houses a bit distant from you city center.

For the raiders, it’s easy when you play normal difficulty as long as your population is controlled. You don’t need to Wall too quickly, just make 2 towers on each gate in the beginning and put platforms too when you establish where the raids are going to come from.

It’s a matter of balancing things and produce what is needed especially for villagers necessities (and not the players ambition).

Your game can still survive imo if you play normal difficulty, just a little grind and btw don’t do too much priority here and there. Just when you think it is needed.

I have video, though very long but you can get some styles but you know it’s nice to do it yourself despite some obstacles.

Whew too long and little substance, anyhow hope it helps.

[Shampoo+3]

Sorry I'm blind you did upload the screenshot. Indeed you have way to many tools. You don't need 100% bows, children can't equip them. Even if you have one bow per adult, they won't all just equip one. If you have so many bows, why do you need spears? Same goes for all the other tools realy. Why would half of your people need a pick? What do you want to mine in that era anyway? You need 2 stones per mortar and hearth and 3 for a burial mound. And you don't need more flint for more tools. Fishing tools seems low which is good. I usually set it to number of fishing zones +1, so no idiot will pick it up just for carrying it around. Not sure about axes again 1 for 2 villagers is way too much, but they might be pick ups from raiders. Another issue why you won't need material for axes once they raiders attacked once or twice. You also have a massive overproduction in farming. Spring is half done and you still have enoughe grain and flour for 200 breads which could feed more than 100 people until your next harvest. You also have enough linen and linen cloth for about 180 pieces of clothing. Who is supposed to wear these? If you're looking for something valuable to trade with, get a few more sheep. 20 of these can probably produce noughe wool for 200+ people. In general though I wouldn't overdo it with livestock. Your 30 stable spots are too much for 32 people. I'd say 1 animal per two villagers is a good number and that includes carted donkeys or horses later on. I'm not going to preach how I set up my settlement, but 2 food dryers doesn't seem quite enoughe. Each can only hold 6 fish or meats. So when you hunt three medium sized animals your people will already have to store raw meat.
Hope I could help you out and have fun playing.

[SUP3RM4N]

Well when it comes to the farming, I have it like that bc I need straw. So I have Barley set up due to 1.5x straw. The animal pop dropped due to a lot of the animals growing old and I could not find ANY animals even close to me for a time. Now I'm at 15 each animal and just unlocked cows (4) and donkeys (2). I have some pulses to offset the bread. Obviously I get meat/leather now from the animals that die, and do very little fishing so food now isn't a issue. But my huge concern is the tools/flint/ores.

So a tip I was using was just spam bone fish spears to trade. Well, it didn't work for me so well. So I swapped to now using the bone to just make knives, scythes, spears. I'll drop the bows, you are right it's stupid to have it at 100%. The other tools are set to default, I believe, at 50%.

The ores and all is been a big worry. They are just so far away lol.

*Edit* It appears I should just save the copper to make bronze. I have plenty of bone for basic tools, and flint for axe/pick. Do yall agree?

[Shampoo+3]

The default setting for the "tooly" tools is flawed. just put in definite numbers. While that is flawed aswell as you can't hve it at 7 for example, it mostly works fine. Even at 200 pop you don't need 20 picks. You can get enoughe ores from the trader at least to maintain your number of fast breaking tools (sickles and picks) even for hundreds of people. With all the stuff the raiders drop, bones and a bit wool every now and then I never have had an issue of not having enoughe to pay them. If you want to play the "buy all techs from trader and then steamroll from bifaces to steel tools" kind of game your number one trade items are wooden harpoons (values 5 in the first 2 eras, the bone harpoon values 7 which you would get from selling a wooden harpoon and a bone aswell) and for the 3rd and 4th era it's skins outfits. They value 10 and you can craft two out of one dry skin. But I've said it somewhere before, to me this kind of gameplay is boring so I never buy techs. However that's just personal preference, not meta. On that screenshot you seem good on straw though. If you're running short all the time you're too spammy with either livestock or towers.

[SUP3RM4N]

Hmm, does it look like I fixed it? Have just 1 more tech till Bronze Age is maxed. Up to 80 pop can live here so far.

[SUP3RM4N]

Man, I just want to thank everyone who took the time to stop by and give some advice. I have learned TONS this play through and finally got to enjoy the game without failing hard. I updated my OP pic to show my settlement after my final milestone :)

[buds]

That’s pretty good settlement and any problem that arises can be solved by tweaking here and there.

With close to 50 carts logs shouldn’t be problem.

After fixing your sickles you’re villagers can enjoy having more beer and meat to enjoy a party.

With so much straw surplus the domestic animals can be even tripled and will just wait for more immigrants because the traders will shout it out that your settlement is really progressive 😀.

[Planewalker]

Fishing. Fishing is what have allowed populations to flourish since the dawn of man.