Population Plumet

10 votes

I've experienced this before in other games so maybe this is normal for this type of game. But I would love an option/science upgrade to prevent a district from mass population death because workers were automatically pulled AWAY from food production buildings to go work on other things. It looks like the population will automatically grow with more housing, which is cool. And it makes sense that the population growth will be unsustainable without proper food supply. But how does a self sustaining colony of 60 drop to 12 because 9 more beds are built and there's not enough food for everyone? Maybe I'm just being punished for not having a large store house but there's no way to "remove" population if it gets too high too soon accidently. It may be that I'm just not great at playing :)

Under consideration Suggested by: Dactrin (04 Oct, '21) • Upvoted: 26 Mar • Comments: 19

Comments: 19

06 Oct, '21
Gin Fuyou Admin
Population for Folktails is very easily controllable, a bit harder for Iron Tooth.
I guess you problem was lack of jobs prioritizing - when some beavers died from old age, no one took over such critical positions as water pumper and farmer. You can avoid id by having spare unemployed workforce or micromanaging pausing building, but I think https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/214911/jobs-and-buildings-priorities is better anyway.
07 Oct, '21
Dactrin
I think that would make sense as long as you're not managing that on a per building basis. But instead you can prioritize Building types.
Click to enlarge

01 Sep, '22
Rolepgeek Merged
I have no idea why but as soon as the day advanced on my Experimental Branch Folktails game after loading it following the most recent update, a massive amount of my beavers immediately died of old age. It's not like I can't recover from this, but I didn't see anything in the update about changing the base lifespan for beavers, and it looks like every beaver 51 days or older died when I searched through while the dead beavers were still in my list. Is the well-being lifespan bonus not working, or did something with the lifespan function reset as a result of the update, maybe?

Enjoying the game immensely, but if if this had happened for Iron Teeth it would have killed my game due to their more linear reproduction and need to accumulate beavers by building up lifespan bonuses.
02 Sep, '22
Gin Fuyou Admin Merged
Should have been fixed by today's patch.
Click to enlarge

13 Sep, '22
Joanna Merged
I play in Experimantal mode. I have a similar problem right now - after every in-game night a number (around 20) of beavers are dying from old age. I checked and they were in different ages, mostly well over 100, but also few before 100.
If it is not a bug (and just my inability to play :P), may I suggest an age display next to every beaver in Population tab? It will be easier to see when your colony has more older beavers than younger ones.
15 Sep, '22
Joanna Merged
UPDATE: After a while death waves disappeared. So it was probably not a bug.
But I still think the age display is a good idea.
02 Oct, '22
Centipede1600 Merged
Can you guys add random number generator for the number of days it takes for a beaver to be born when empty beds are available and randomize the number of days for a beaver to grow up. That way there aren't days where 12 beavers die of old age in a population of less than 100. Also in the beginning of a map when you do your first migration to your first new district, you don't have half the population die off at once from old age. That or randomize the number of days a beaver lives.
03 Oct, '22
Gin Fuyou Admin Merged
I'm pretty sure it's randomized, I'll take it as range can be increased.
22 Nov, '22
Zam! Admin Merged
All default maps are balanced to make sure there is enough resources to survive even in hard mode. This sounds more like a play style issue and resource management. Maybe try easier mode?
23 Nov, '22
GideonDelta Merged
New player here, having done several new starts to get the hang of things, I can understand where OP is coming from. While I agree it's a playstyle and technique issue, there doesn't feel like either a) enough leeway in wood, b) enough in-game cues for what the proper play style should be, or c) both.

Playing easy mode, the game was absurdly easy offering little challenge and became very boring very quickly. However, in normal mode I've repeatedly played myself into corner very early on due to lack of information and guidance from the game. By guidance, I don't mean a guided tutorial, but information from the environment, interface, and most importantly, immediate enough feedback from the game to know what of my choices worked and which didn't.

Instead, while I may know I ran out of food or I may know I ran out of wood, the game's feedback is so delayed or subtle I have little idea what I did wrong or what I should do next time.
23 Nov, '22
Jcheung Admin Merged
folktails breed through having available housing slots in a lodge with 3+ slots... and the higher your well-being, the higher the reproduction rate.
you've already identified you need foresters, now find a way to make that happen.
hint, stairs are friends not food.
23 Nov, '22
Sililos Merged
Stairs require planks. (And they are very VERY slow to produce).
Planks require loads of wood. (To get the industry running especially and time to deliver and build said industry)
Getting loads of wood requires time and for there to actually be trees there.
I was still in the tutorial on this default map when i ran out of wood and time to resolve both. I had made an extra pump and water storage but beyond that was following the tutorial exactly, It makes me wonder if there isnt an issue with trees sometimes not producing logs.
Looking at google and steam reviews shows this is a persistent problem with this game, one of its only problems yet a massively critical one for a large number of players.
Another feedback submission i believe had the right solution.
Instead of every beaver dyeing at exactly the same age, have it so there's an increasing CHANCE of death for every day past to space out population input and output, it would add some variation in ages, settings cant seem to fix.
23 Nov, '22
Zam! Admin Merged
This is a matter of game balance. The game right now requires a lot of caution in the early game, because it is easy to over build and run out of wood. In the next update you will be able to demolish buildings and regain larger part of the resources used, so this situation where new players lock themselves in a dead end situation should be less common.
15 Dec, '22
Thierry3D Merged
Indeed, lifespan should be more random to avoid mass extinctions of beaver.
Also they should born or die anytime during a day, not only during the night or in the morning.
13 Mar, '23
Erin Merged
Sorry to drag this one up again, but can you look at randomising deaths from old age? I keep getting mass die-offs, which then stalls the colony for a few days until the reproduction fills the gap. I'm mid game right now, and even if I stagger building houses, I'm still getting peaks and troughs.
26 Mar
anrui Merged
villagers who born at the same time die at the same time.i creat a village has about 100 villagers.but 60 of them born at same time.so when it comes,they die at the same time even i have enough food and water.so my village,which has 100 villagers,lost more than half of the villagers without any disaster.
so i suggest that villagers need a random age.don't let them die at the same time.
29 Mar
Jcheung Admin Merged
"villagers dies at the same age" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2024-03-26), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
29 Mar
Jcheung Admin Merged
"Randomize gestational period and growing up period or life span." (suggested by <Hidden> on 2022-10-02), including upvotes (5) and comments (4), was merged into this suggestion.
29 Mar
Jcheung Admin
"Something needs to be done about old age!" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2022-11-22), including upvotes (9) and comments (17), was merged into this suggestion.