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....