i want to get this, but from what i read they have quite a few bugs to iron out. sounds like they are working real hard cause they know people like the game and they dont want to turn people off.
The only real "bug" I've encountered so far is that your food collectors (farmers, gatherers, hunters) can starve to death, even with tons of food sitting right in front of them. Basically, they'll go to their home to look for the food, won't find any, will go to a market/storehouse, won't find any there, and proceed back to their home, where they won't find any again. Then they die.
Meanwhile, since they aren't working their farm/gather's hut/hunter's cabin, the rest of the population starves because they aren't getting food delivered from those places. It's a vicious cycle.
I put bug in quotations because I think it's more a design flaw than a bug in the actual game.
Im playing on hard and for whatever reason I had a real smooth run going with about 40 people. Had 4000+ food stocked and then that shit just started going so fast and I couldnt keep up with the demand all of a sudden. Shit went down hill real fast and mfers started dying from starvation. Im wondering if you can clean out resources in an area. Like do the gathers gather all the food they can from an area and do hunters find all the game they can find causing you to have to set up sites in other areas. The food drought was way too sudden.
What kind of bugs? I havent experienced any game killing buds unless the shit I posted above is a bug.
The hunters and gatherers will never run out of food to collect. However, they require ample forestry to be most efficient, meaning that if you keep encroaching on their territory and destroying the surrounding forest, the hunters and gatherers will collect less food.
Keep an eye on your food reserves on a year-to-year basis. If you had 5000 food to start year 5, and then you only had 2000 food to start year 6, that means you will run into starvation problems in year 6 unless you remedy the situation quickly. Building a town hall will help with monitoring. I like to keep between half a year and a year's supply of food in reserves. Even if I fuck up terribly, I should have a year to remedy the food situation before my people start starving.
A final tip: don't build any houses until you get the food situation under control. Building more houses leads to more babies, which leads to more food consumption.