I created a village where I didn't get Level 3 Farming. I completed all of the puzzles except one, and I'm still doing maintenance on the village, I haven't reached the population limit, and a dozen or so have passed away. But I succeeded in that none of those died from starvation! The kids have been busy picking over 1100 mushrooms to help out!

The GC is also useful, since he will add to the food bin, create berries and restore the crops to help my villagers with the foraging and harvesting tasks.

But here's my question, especially to those who have also have a "no fishing allowd" village:

In "normal" maintenance mode, when I open a game, I discover 98 or 99 berries on the bush and some time remaining before the next crop comes in. (Occasionaly there are still crops on the field or a few extra berries, depending on how close to "New Year's" I opened the game.)

But in my "No Fishing" village, there are still hundreds of berries on the bush and many of the villagers* start watering the fields. When the crop comes in, or the GC restores the crops, at that time, the villagers will all flock to the bush and ignore the field. It's all very strange. Does anyone else see something similar?

* Since I haven't bought the tech for L3 Farming, there is an occasional villager at the research table, as well as fixing a hut, studying the cactus, doing laundary, etc. And usually one nursing mother.

When the crop comes up, additional berries also appear on the berry bush, and they'll pick berries until it drops back down to 98 or 99... almost as if that is the reserve figure they work with....

i always wondered why my berries weer at 99 when I came back to my games. learned me something new

Actually, I think that the additional berries appear more often than the crops appear (I'll test that another time...)

But it seems that this village (without fishing) does not pick the berries down to 98 or 99.

sfrose, next time you open up the no-fishing game, see how many berries are on the bush before you close it down. Usually my villages go down to 99 as well (and I don't have any no-fishing villages), but I think one time it still had a few berries on it (after a pollenation event, if I recall). Perhaps the villagers simply haven't managed to pick the bush clean?

As far as crops go, I think they grow in a 2-year cycle. I know berries replenish in that 2-year cycle but have never tried gauging the farms. I have had crops on the farm spoil when the farm wasn't worked enough, and I've had a lot of different times for when the crops are due to grow back. In any event, I've found the farm too complicated to measure scientifically. >.>

They don't pick down to 98/99 straight.. but over a period of time, it gets there. However, if you force them to pick berries below that level, let's say 75, then when the berries replenish, they pick them back down to that 75 again for quite some period. Over an even longer period, the base number climbs back up to the 99 figure (from what I've observed).

I thought the berries were on a one-year cycle, but I could be wrong. I'll start recording how many berries are on the bush before and after shutdown. In my games with fishing, they always seemed to get back to the 98/99 level after an overnight or at-work shutdown, no matter how much the bush built up.

I hadn't noticed them picking down to a level under 98/99. i.e. if the bush is wiped clean, then it'll replenish to 30, 60, 90 without any new picking until it gets to 120.

You can only really test that with out the GC, as the GC will add berries from time to time.

But not while the Village is shutdown... And the GC can be distracted from time-to-time.

But my original question came up because the GC would add berries. In my other villages, the villagers with farming skills would forage (what the GC added) while the game was shutoff, but they seem to be ignoring the bush in my no-fishing village except when there are crops to be harvested!

In my last game I had a scientist who for some reason would wander off on his own to pick berries. He wouldn't do any harvesting or fishing, just foraging. The farmers would ignore the berry bush and either go fishing or water the crops while the field lay fallow.

When I spotted him I would drag him away since the berries were only worth a couple of food points. It seemed more sensible to at least wait until the number of berries made it worthwhile to pick them. However, a glance at the log file showed that he would still go foraging while my back was turned and the game shut off.