04-14-2019, 04:57 PM
The only way to regulate population is by building or not building houses. If you are playing vanilla Banished, each house can be occupied by up to 5 people: a mom and dad and up to 3 children. When the children become adults, you can build additional houses so the young adults move in together and have more kids. Once the young adults move out, mom and dad will have more kids until the house is full. Or, if you don't build more houses, the adult kids will continue to live at home and mom and dad will stop having more kids as long as an adult child lives there. In Colonial Charter, there are Shacks which only hold a family of 3, which can be upgraded to hold up to 4. The Wooden and Stone Houses hold up to 5 people, and the other houses can hold varying amounts which is listed on the Construction Spreadsheet HERE To prevent having large die-offs, you need to spread out when you build houses - maybe just a few every season. If you want to really limit the number of people, build just 1-2 houses a year. If you build no houses, your town may stop having children and your population may start to die off. It is extremely hard to maintain a stable population with 0 growth - the game just isn't designed to do that.
The only way to keep people from starving is by producing at least 100 food per person per year plus enough food for new people and for new houses. Make sure you look at your Town Hall stats frequently so you know how much you are producing and storing. Keep in mind that some food producers like Gatherers produce food all year long. Others, like farmers have just one big harvest and food on hand often drops low just before harvest as it is used up. It is best to have at least 1-2 year's supply of food on hand. Trading for food can be a lifesaver if food production starts to drop. One reason food production drops is when you accept Nomads. They are uneducated and produce around 25% less or worse than educated workers.
Of course, not having enough tools or firewood can also start a death spiral. Preventing such shortages is all part of learning how to play this survival game well.
If you have any other questions, let us know. Enjoy the game [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />
