Making more food

[Innovan]

To get Food:

1) Farmers are best, their buildings can be bought to higher levels of production easily. Recruiting farmers is the best strategy.
2) Trappers are second best. Increasing a Craftsman to a Fletcher allows Trapper buildings to be bought to higher levels of production as well.
3) Herdsmen are the worst. You can never level their building, they will always produce the same low amount of food per day. The bag of oats and whistle let you increase their food production for a while, but that's it.

Herdsmen, should you find a dragon's egg, can be increased to a dragon herder. They also increase town quality by +1 for having meat. But as of today there is no reason to have more than 1 herdsman in your town for the town quality bonus.

[crossmr]

I find that if you have wild game, trappers are far better. I've seen trappers putting out 7.5 food a day. I've never hit that with a farmer.

[Gerblyn]

Really? I got some hunters yesterday with my Outlaw and he claimed he was only putting out 3.5 food per day. Though to be honest, the Chat to Villager screen doesn't seem to be the most reliable interface in the world for telling you that kind of info...

[Innovan]

The exact numbers vary with the character class you choose for yourself. These characters modify town food production (from the Oct 5 2008 release):

Knight: -0.2
Seneschal: +0.1
Footman: -0.1
Cultivator: +0.1

The wild game is seen on the TAB key map as a deer icon. There's also multiple loot items you can give to hunters to boost their productivity: Spider snare, Steel trap, Compass, Hunting Map.

Farmer loot that boosts is Fertilizer bag, Hoe, Plow.

Herdsman loot that boosts is Whistle, Bag of Oats.

[walkstheplanes]

Originally Posted by Innovan

The exact numbers vary with the character class you choose for yourself. These characters modify town food production (from the Oct 5 2008 release):

Knight: -0.2
Seneschal: +0.1
Footman: -0.1
Cultivator: +0.1

The wild game is seen on the TAB key map as a deer icon. There's also multiple loot items you can give to hunters to boost their productivity: Spider snare, Steel trap, Compass, Hunting Map.

Farmer loot that boosts is Fertilizer bag, Hoe, Plow.

Herdsman loot that boosts is Whistle, Bag of Oats.

...And the Magical Bag of Oats, hehehe. I chuckled when I first found that.

[Gerblyn]

There's also a Green book called an Almanac that boosts both Farmers and Herders.

Oh yeah, and if you take a farmer or a herder out fighting, don't forget to give them their pitchfork back

[Baxder]

Originally Posted by walkstheplanes

...And the Magical Bag of Oats, hehehe. I chuckled when I first found that.

Same here. I couldn't help but think of Santa Clause the Movie. "Reindeer corn flakes", anyone?

[crossmr]

Something else to consider is that Trappers and Herders can get their bonus 0.5 food without a pitchfork. Herders can use daggers (I've seen 6 or 7 attack very fast daggers) and hunters can use bows and daggers (I've seen 9 attack very fast bows). It seems like a small thing, but it does mean you can generate the food while keeping them ready for a quick fight if you need to. If you have some really high level herders (say with a dragon) who you want to put near the edge of your village to protect it, you don't have to gimp their attack and defense (you can give them a shield too)