Hmmm, i never knew that i'll give it a try!!

As long as the tribe doesn't grow too large, the villagers can live quite comfortably on the crops alone almost indefinitely. I always treat L3 farming as costing 91500 tech points, and get L2 and L3 together - if I could get L3 without L2 I would.

Oh yes. Except I wouldn't call it mushie hunting. More like Mushie harvesting, because mushrooms (red were as common as brown) kept popping up like every minute. Also, the farm helped. I had 6 scientists (2 Master, 4 Adept).

Thats similar to what i did but i also did it at great risk during the building of the dam.