I seem to notice a huge spike in crab catching when my zodiac is off... I don't really see them catching crabs often when I'm playing, except when I initially start often one or two is hauling a crab up. But when its off... They catch a TON! in a two and a half hour span they caught 50 crabs. It seems like a lot to me. Is this normal?

Kosi, have you actually been lucky enough to see your villagers catch the crabs? It took me a while, but I have seen them. I think it depends on the skill of the farmer as to whether they catch crabs or not, and also noticed that onec they started catching the crabs, they do so quite rapidly.

I don't know the stats of catching them with the game on and off though, sorry.....anyway, I wouldn;t complain about the number caught...they bring in a stack of food

I've seen my villagers catch crabs.... that's all they brought in from the ocean for awhile. Then I noticed that they brought in fish too.

same

I really don't see what the big deal is about crabs anyway. If I have 25 villagers hauling fish from the sea, I can easily accumulate 50,000 surplus food overnight.

Crabs aren't anything special.

I don't know- the stats keep track of the crabs, not the fish.

Depending on the game's difficulty setting and how many people are assigned to farming, crabs can help significantly in some stages of the game. A couple of farmers who are good at hauling crabs out of the sea can free up several people to research or perform other tasks. I think crabs help a lot!

crabs are worth 55 food. Fish are worth 7. That's the big difference.

Exactly! If I have a farmer who can pull crabs out of the ocean even half the time (s)he goes fishing, I can free up at least 2 other farmers who only catch fish and put them on research or something!

Yeah, crabs are awesome, its just wierd because I rarely see them pull them out unless its right after I turn it on. I think they just catch crabs when its off then relax for awhile while I'm not looking. They think if the food spikes I must know they are working hard. But I'm onto them....

sneaky little guys aren't they?

Well, they can't get anything over you Kosikutioner, huh?

Nope, I can outsmart a few bytes any day of the week.

You are hilarious kosikutioner!

My little villagers like to show off and bring in crabs for me

do you have to have fishing ability to get crabs or can you get them w/o? I don't have fishing ability but cleared the beach and then went to sleep. when I woke up I had 2000 food, more than I have ever had, but a storm had come and relittered the beach. Could I have gotten 2000 food just from hte field? Or was it crabs on the beach?

You need fishing to be able to catch crabs. As for your food windfall, maybe the farm was just very, productive.

I wouldn't complain though, that was a nice food bonus

Yeah don't complain or they might stop farming out of spite.

How do you get the ability to fish/crab?

I dont see cabs, I see my villagers go into the sea with fishing nets and come out with Fish

To get fish or get crabs you need L3 harvesting (the info screens for this tech seem to be the only one that really details what the different levels do)

Only certain villagers can catch crabs. If you watch them for awhile, you'll see them emerge from the sea carrying a crab (and celebrating their catch).

Actually I never realised but my villagers have found 1082 Crabs, I went to main menu > Puzzles and theres a button Stats

the cool part is that the crabs are worth 55 food points!

One of my villagers caught crabs. But with the help of a technologically gifted monkey, we were able to earn enough tech points to clear up the matter. However, upon now learning that the crabs are worth 55 food points, I will be breeding my infected villagers to better 'spread the wealth', if you will.

what a nice monkey.