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I am scratching my head here. No matter how hard I try food production seems to be like Russian roulette. The only early game option I had success with was Gatherer's Hut. The Fishing Dock just doesn't produce the volume needed and crops and orchids are long term investments... But the problem I'm having with Gatherer's is placement. I can't put it too far away otherwise I lose productivity but I can't place it super close to town cause then it impedes future development. Worse still I kinda need the synergy between Hunters and Gatherers but I can't seem to find spots with good wildlife density that I can utilize early in the game. One map had a very good forest for Gatherer's and Hunters but my village starved to death in the time needed to bridge the river, make roads, and build the mini village needed to make the producers locally sufficient and I tried to use Fishing Docks to sustain myself for the first year but even with a full crew of workers the Fishing Dock produced almost nothing.

Also does a Hunter's Lodge actually need visible wildlife to produce or will any dense forest do?

Do dense forests draw wildlife to them over time?

Do I have to be able to see herbs and plants on the ground for Herbalists and Gatherer's to produce or can I put them in any dense forest?
Post edited May 07, 2015 by Joey3155
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Joey3155: I am scratching my head here. No matter how hard I try food production seems to be like Russian roulette. The only early game option I had success with was Gatherer's Hut. The Fishing Dock just doesn't produce the volume needed and crops and orchids are long term investments... But the problem I'm having with Gatherer's is placement. I can't put it too far away otherwise I lose productivity but I can't place it super close to town cause then it impedes future development. Worse still I kinda need the synergy between Hunters and Gatherers but I can't seem to find spots with good wildlife density that I can utilize early in the game. One map had a very good forest for Gatherer's and Hunters but my village starved to death in the time needed to bridge the river, make roads, and build the mini village needed to make the producers locally sufficient and I tried to use Fishing Docks to sustain myself for the first year but even with a full crew of workers the Fishing Dock produced almost nothing.

Also does a Hunter's Lodge actually need visible wildlife to produce or will any dense forest do?

Do dense forests draw wildlife to them over time?

Do I have to be able to see herbs and plants on the ground for Herbalists and Gatherer's to produce or can I put them in any dense forest?
As far as I've seen, the three foresting buildings work just fine if placed almost on top of your village, as long as there's a decent amount of trees at least. Visible wildlife is not required for Hunters, visible herbs are as far as I've been able to tell not required but may give a boost to Herbalist production. While a Fishing Dock may not provide food for your entire village, it does provide a decent amount of food that will help sustain you without requiring a forest or much free space.

Yes, the buildings won't produce at maximum possible capacity if you place them in the heart of your village, but doing so will help you get past the early years and stabilize your settlement before you expand. Adding a Forester will keep them producing food for a decent amount of time, and once you need the room you should have the resources to expand elsewhere.

Not that I'm a master at the game, but that's been my experience at least.
Post edited May 07, 2015 by WingedKagouti
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Joey3155: I am scratching my head here. No matter how hard I try food production seems to be like Russian roulette. The only early game option I had success with was Gatherer's Hut. The Fishing Dock just doesn't produce the volume needed and crops and orchids are long term investments... But the problem I'm having with Gatherer's is placement. I can't put it too far away otherwise I lose productivity but I can't place it super close to town cause then it impedes future development. Worse still I kinda need the synergy between Hunters and Gatherers but I can't seem to find spots with good wildlife density that I can utilize early in the game. One map had a very good forest for Gatherer's and Hunters but my village starved to death in the time needed to bridge the river, make roads, and build the mini village needed to make the producers locally sufficient and I tried to use Fishing Docks to sustain myself for the first year but even with a full crew of workers the Fishing Dock produced almost nothing.

Also does a Hunter's Lodge actually need visible wildlife to produce or will any dense forest do?

Do dense forests draw wildlife to them over time?

Do I have to be able to see herbs and plants on the ground for Herbalists and Gatherer's to produce or can I put them in any dense forest?
The herbs and plants ideally need to be visible, but you can put both the Herbalist and Gatherers in a dense forest and they'll manage just as well since the herbs etc will grow back over time. Build, staff and forget, as it were.

As far as I've seen and experimented with, the most sustainable and self-sufficient food production seems to be this:
1) Build a Gatherers Hut before building anything else, and fully staff it. Place it on the outskirts of your town, ideally within a short walk for your workers
2) Build a Fishing Dock, and allocate 3 workers max, again within a short walk
3) In no definitive order, build a Herbalist (fully staffed), Hunters (2 staff max) and Foresters (2 staff max)
4) Build pastures, orchards and crop fields, and fully staff if you have enough laborours spare

In theory, that should keep your food supply stable for the beginning, and once you have more laborours you can use them to top up staff levels. Also, I'd suggest building a school and start making educated workers once you have around 35 people actively working, since the educated (and more productive) people will replace them when they die.

Best of luck!
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but don't build too many houses early on either, people will move out and then starve as the "richer" houses bogart all the food and firewood.
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doctorfrog: Someone correct me if I am wrong, but don't build too many houses early on either, people will move out and then starve as the "richer" houses bogart all the food and firewood.
I'm not sure there's a rich/poor dynamic in the game, at least not that I've experienced so far, but you're right that it's inadvisable to build too many houses early on as it means the population will expand to fill the houses and put more strain on food and fuel supplies.
Some nice tips in here. Got the game some time ago & finally tried it. The way the tutorial played it looked like "Build a fishers hut, place two guys & no food worries for the moment" while in practice I had 8 fishermen (after several attempts I build 2 fisher huts at the beginning in my desperation) starving to dead slowly one by one.
The tutorials are good for a very basic "this is how you do it" thing, but to get anywhere you've got to think beyond them.

Nothing new here, but I like talking about the game as I've become addicted again.

A good way to not worry about food is to have a fishing dock, hunters, gatherers as soon as possible. Have those, plus an herbalist for a health boost, and it shouldn't take too long for you to not really have to worry about food unless your population really shoots up.
The thing with fisherman huts is that their yield depends on the amount of water in their 'circle'. Finding really good fishing spots is not easy, as typically about 50% of the circle is land. Bends in the river can be good places, or tips sticking into a lake.

Apart from farming, gatherer huts is the best early game option I think. Just make sure there is plenty of forest around, so they will find berries and whatnot.
Fishing is pretty labour in-efficient, and as such not a great option early on. It is by pretty far the most inefficient way to get food per worker, but the most efficient for space, so until you start running out of space or having a labour surplus it's best to ignore it.

More gatherers is the most labour efficient way to solve a food crisis. On normal difficulties farming early is fine. On hard a gatherer->woodcutter->basic housing (4 houses) ->hunter->blacksmith->school->2nd gatherer, more housing, trading post works fine for me.
All food sources that you are going to be able to afford initially depend on one simple thing - Location, Location, Location!

In a very harsh play-trough that I started just recently I have a population of 11 (got only 2 guys at the start - Adam & Eve, and now they have an entire village) currently fed by just a couple of workers - a gatherer and a hunter. We even have some food left at the end of the day. If you put your Hunting Cabin and Gatherers Hut in the middle of a good forest you are going to get a lot better yields. I believe the same is valid for Fishing Docs, but the important part there is the water, as people already mentioned.

Another Location that you have to keep in mind is how close all this is to your storage cart/barn, etc. Keep everything compact, build roads as soon as you have to expand a bit further, and food will never be a concern.

If Adam & Eve can make it, so can you! Can't post a link to my videos at the moment, but I guess that's to be expected. Anyway, let me know if you are interested and I will share :)
for me i build fisherman, crops and hunters , pretty much devoting almost all my manpower to food production, it is seeming to work

the hunter is important also to gather leather to make coats with to survive winters better
and a few workers to gather nearby trees and stone

anyway this is just how i am approaching startup phase, for all i know im completely useless XD
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Mr.Busy: Another Location that you have to keep in mind is how close all this is to your storage cart/barn, etc. Keep everything compact, build roads as soon as you have to expand a bit further, and food will never be a concern.
I've only played a couple of games of Banished so far, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but what Mr.Busy says here seems to be the most important thing to remember.

The first village I started, I tried putting a Forester, a Gatherer, and a Hunting Camp at a distance from the main village in order to give them more forest coverage. Bad idea. For starters it takes way too long for you laborers to clear the land and for your builders to lug all the materials out to the construction sites. Once you get the buildings active it takes way too long for the workers to lug their products back to the Storage Barn.

Settle for less forest coverage and closer to the Storage Barn and build these things at the edge of the village, not far away from it. It probably works best to keep them on one side of town so you can develop in the other direction.

BTW, stone roads are well worth the investment, IMO. Speeding up delivery makes everything run smoother.
SPOILER ALERT: Don't read unless you are really stuck as this method makes it pretty easy.


I'm on about my twelfth town now. I can't really count the first game I started today since a tornado came in year 2 and killed everyone :( But I can use it to demonstrate what your town could be like in year 2 following this method.

Anyways, this seems to have worked for all my towns, even the ones on harsh & mountain settings. I usually don't need all of my supplies even on harsh/mountains. Half the time I end up having to tell the towns people to remove the starting wagon if I'm years in and want the space to build on if they haven't emptied it yet.


Right near your starting wagon, find a place within a screen away that has nice forest and are about the size (80% to 120%) of the radius of the "forest' buildings. The hunting cabin has the largest radius of the forest buildings. I like to find a place meeting these conditions between mountains or mountains & water about this size so I use the space efficiently. If playing on a large map, space efficiency not as important, but I try to be efficient anyways.

In this spot, you will build a hunting cabin, gathers hut, foresters hut, and herbalist. Note that you only want the gathers hut and hunting cabin in the beginning. So wait to build the other two or build the other two and "pause" their construction so you don't use time or resources building them right now. The buildings road access should be turned inward so they can all share a single road and build this road in a straight line toward your settlers.

Along this straight road, build a stock pile right outside the radius of the forest buildings. I then build 2 or 3 houses, a storage barn, then another 2 or 3 houses near the stock pile. The storage barn should be on the main road next to or across from the stock pile so villagers can get there efficiently as the town grows. Next is a wood cutter to provide firewood. Place it near the stockpile for efficiency.

You should mark all the stone to be removed from your "forest" area as well as some area near your stockpile to clear all resources that include a good amount of trees, but not within your forest buildings radius. Once your resources build up, build/enable construction of the foresters hut. The main resource of concern is not depriving the woodcutter of logs.

Once you have the foresters hut built, you are probably at the point of needing more houses, so build some more so you have about 7 or 8. You are probably sometime in year 2. Next is to build the herbalist, tailor, then blacksmith.


Playing on harsh? You will probably need a fishery or find a location for an additional gathers hut/hunting cabin combo. You want to work toward a traders post so you can purchase livestock and seeds.

Not playing on harsh, you can build 2 farms or a farm (first) & orchard (last) depending on your starting seeds. Orchards take several seasons before they yield food. Build toward a trader to acquire livestock and eventually more seeds.

You can create additional forest building clusters as needed. You only need 1 herbalist building with a single herbalist employed in the beginning and even later in the game, 2 or 3 herbalist buildings support hundreds of population so you don't need them in every forest building cluster.

Controlling the population:
Every time a child becomes an adult, they will try to move out of the house if housing is available. If you want to grow the population, make sure you have empty houses for these young adults to move into. Once a male and female move in with each other, they usually have a child in about a year (sometimes right away, sometimes it talks a while; 2 or 3 years). If you are struggling on food or firewood, DON'T BUILD HOUSES! Without empty houses, young adults are forced to live at home with their parents were they will not get married or have children. This pretty much stunts population growth


I provided screen shots from my town leveled in year 2 by the tornado. I was building my 7th house and blacksmith when the twister struck. I have an image of each forest building so you can see it's radius. The images were too big to upload to this post, so I put them on Google Drive at:
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2RSwzfZ4mwsUll5UGRNLWxoVVU&usp=sharing

Hope this helps anyone having difficulties get started.
Here's what I reckon. I've only recently understood fishing.

Hunters can only kill deer that are there to be seen. Gatherers can only gather plants that are there to be seen. Mushrooms and onions are easily recognised, so learn to distinguish berry bushes and roots from sapling trees and from herbs. (Never mind that it can be hard to see what's there in dense woods when trees are in full leaf.) If few plants are there to be seen at the start, some will soon grow.

Each deer killed gives 200 food (venison) and 6 leather. Each person even a child needs about a hundred food a year, a dozen or more each time they eat. Kills are limited by how few deer come within reach.

Each plant gathered is 22 food (berries, mushrooms, onions or roots). Gathering is limited by the number of plants that grow around huts each year. They grow only near trees but quite small trees are sufficient. Un-gathered plants do disappear after a while. If much of the land around a hut is unwooded then allocate fewer gatherers to it.

(By contrast, only 3 herbs from each of those plants, which grow only near full size trees.)

Water never runs out of fish and the number of catches per fisherman per year is limited solely by how much time each spends actually on the dock. Distance to storage is crucial - with a barn right next to the dock look for over 60 catches per worker per year, maybe even 75 with houses right there too. What the amount of water around the dock determines is the size of each catch. 7 food (fish) is good; the best dock I've ever managed to place gave 9. (9x75x4=2700!)

Uneducated hunters get only 160 venison - comparatively good - and 4 leather per animal killed, uneducated gatherers only 16 food per plant gathered. I don't know how much uneducated fishermen cost you. On a hard start the four families need four houses - even if none of the founding children becomes an adult early enough to grab one first - which means that whether the map seed gives few children or many, you must budget for the population growing to 20, needing 2000 food a year, which a single gatherers hut well wooded (and kept so by foresters) all around can easily produce on its own when the gatherers are all educated, but will fall short of if they are not.

Many early players have said the deer you see are purely eye candy. Maybe this had been patched by the 1.0.4 level or maybe players were deceived because hunters don't know where deer are but wander around looking for them, and even when hunters do meet deer they often fail to kill them. Every time that I have seen a kill it has been one of the actual animals visible. Deer come in herds which move about each strictly within its own range. A small map has 16 (4x4) herd territories, a medium size map 36 and a large one 64. Deer graze equally well on open grassland and in dense woods, just not in buildings, on mountains or under water. The most deer there can be in a herd is 10 but a territory seriously limited in grazing supports less, to the point where some potential herds may not exist at all (especially on mountainous maps).

Place a cabin right in the middle of a herd's range and the animals will nearly always be within reach but the hunters will only have one herd to work - beware over-hunting. By the way, the circle around the cabin marks the hunting grounds that hunters head for but they are allowed to kill deer they meet before getting there. Not only between town and hunting grounds but also between a bridge and the part of the hunting ground on the other side of the river. Place a cabin where the corners of ranges meet and several herds will come within reach, but often all will be somewhere else.

If a herd is wiped out - note that individual deer can disappear from natural causes as well as from hunting - then it will be restarted but only with a couple of fawns. To eliminate herds permanently, take away their habitat. So in the short term hunting is limited by how few deer are in reach, in the medium term it is limited by how few baby deer are born in each herd each early spring, and in the long term by how much grazing land is left.
Post edited July 25, 2016 by RSimpkinuk57