My problem is that I now have a population of 17 because I kept needing kids to find the mushrooms. How do you keep a population of 10 while researching if no-one can collect the mushrooms that are needed to have food?

I have Tech 2 of everything, and only 20,000 points toward my Nature level 2. I keep doing rain dances to get more mushrooms, but they don't go far. My trees grew more fruit twice, but haven't lately.

The reason that Arthur suggested a population of 10 is that the honey and fruit trees will fully support a tribe that size, with a little food to spare (without mushroom hunting).

That makes sense.

That works!!

I kept my population down to 9 and set one to farmer and the rest to researching..

I woke up this morning and not only were my little guys still alive (for the first time LOL) they are thriving!!

Thanks everyone for the help!

Don't forget to get as many collectibles as you can because they help you get more tech points.

I always pause my game when I leave and only play it in fast mode when I am present. I monitor my workers very closely at first to be sure they stay on task. Hunting mushrooms is a great help to keep the food pantry within reasonable levels. I didn't go above 12 tribe members until I got fishing this way I was able to stretch my food sources longer.

It is a slower way to play I would imagine but I enjoy playing with my villagers. I search for collectibles and mushrooms while my techs are researching so it doesn't get boring for me.

this could be a spoiler so highlight here: when you use your chief to create food every day, pause your game till the next day and let the food supply build up end

its slow but effective

If you pause the game before you have over 2000 food points, your villagers will die if you don't get to play as much. I put them on slow with better results.

If you pause the game, your villagers won't die because nothing will be happening to them. I've had one tribe on pause for one week now and they are still fine and still paused. I think you mean if you let the game run on Normal or Fast, then the villagers might die if you don't check in on them often enough.

I haven't had any fatalities yet. My game play may be quite different from yours in that I play the game very slowly and just enjoy chasing after mushrooms, collectibles and training my workers. I find it a very relaxing game for me to play in this manner.