Food is the most important resource unit in Dawn of Man. Without food your population will die in less than a year. I remember losing a colony with over 100 population to hunger after a bad crop harvest. That’s why you need to diversify your food sources, stack your granaries, and be prepared for worst case scenarios.
Primary food source in the Dawn of Man is farming. You can’t sustain bigger populations without farming grain. There 4 types of grain crop you can grow in the Dawn of Man and barley is the best. I’ll tell you why in a minute.
Farming Guide
Farming in the Dawn of Man can be split into three categories. Crop farming, pulse farming, and fruit farming. Crop farming is the main thing you should focus, rest is just for variety.
Also don’t forget to build 10-15 plows and have livestock (cattle, donkey, and horse) to pull them for very fast crop planting with a very little workload. You’ll need it especially for bigger populations.
Dawn of Man Crops:
- Einkorn: 25% resistance to diseases.
- Emmer: 25% extra grain on harvest.
- Barley: 50% chance of producing extra straw. ***
- Rye: 15% disease resistance and 15% chance of producing extra grain.
(Harvesting season fall, planting season spring.)
Now as you see, all crop types have some kind of unique bonus. But the best one is by far is barley simply because it’s producing lots of extra straw. I literally sow nothing but barley, and maybe some einkorn for disease resistance just in case things go bad.
After farming, second best food source is the meat and milk you get from domestic animals. To feed domestic animals, you need straw. Since barley giving both grain and lots of straw, it’s a win-win crop type.
By the way, always make sure to reduce your workload before fall which is the harvest season of crops. Also have lots of sickles, equal to approximately %50-%75 of your population. Because harvesting is the most important thing. One bad harvest can cause lots of death from hunger.
Dawn of Man Pulses:
- Bitter Vetch, Chickpeas, Lentils, Peas: A nutritious legume.
(Harvesting season summer, planting season winter.)
As you can see, there is no difference between peas and pulses in the Dawn of Man. They all have same yield, same planting season, same harvesting season, and same nutrition value. So, 4 different pulse plants are just there for the name variety. Other than their names, all pulses in this game are identical.
You shouldn’t have more than one or two 5×5 pulse fields for two reasons. Firstly, pulses are not producing enough food unlike cereal crops. One grain equals two bread you know. Secondly, you can’t make your workers farm all the time. Crops work fall and spring, pulse work summer and winter. That’ll get you %100 workload. It’s bad because your people need time to worship for morale, eat to satisfy hunger, drink to satisfy thirst, sleep to rest, and do other work-related stuff in the settlement.
Dawn of Man Fruit Trees:
- Pear Tree, Cherry Tree, Service Tree: Harvesting season summer.
- Chestnut: Harvesting season, fall.
I personally never plant fruit trees because they take a lot of space and yield little fruit. I think they’re just there for the sake of it. Can’t even chop the fruit trees you planted for logs and sticks. They just disappear when you delete them…
Only benefit of having domesticated fruit trees is maybe being able to harvest without sickle. Still, planting orchards does not worth when you can just farm grain.
Food From Husbandry, Fishing, and Hunting
You can get meat and milk from domestic animals, more meat from hunting, and fish from fishing.
Fishing and hunting are two main food sources at the beginning. But once sowing crops and domesticating animals are available, you can stop or minimize hunting and fishing. Because bread, milk, and meat from domestic animals are all the food sources you need to sustain bigger populations.
Domestic Animal Guide & HUNTING GUIDE
Only goats (ibex) produce milk and meat, rest of the animals have other unique bonuses. Sheep (mouflon) produce meat and wool. Pig (boar) only produce meat, but it produces more meat and breed faster. Cattle (aurochs) produces meat, milk, and can plow fields. Donkey and horses produce meat too but they’re there for pulling carts and sowing fields.
Most optimal limits for a settlement with 100 population would be 10 goat, 15 sheep, 10 pig, 10 cattle, and 10 horse for animals. For the food production it’s 150 meat, 20 fish, unlimited fruits, 30 flour, 100 bread, and unlimited milk. You can increase the limits once your population grows up to 125-150.
Dawn of Man Nutrition Values
Each food unit in Dawn of Man has an equal nutrition value. So, 1 meat equals 1 vegetable, and 1 vegetable equals 1 milk. Unfortunately, proteins, carbs, fats, and overall nutrition values are not taken into account in this game.
1 meal refill the hunger bar of a human by half. To fully satisfy the hunger, one must consume two units of food. Villagers consume 5-6 units of food each year. For animals it’s 3-4 straw yearly.
All in all, you don’t need to diversify food production for humans’ health or nutrition. Though it’s still recommended to diversify your food production to reduce workload, and to survive disasters such as crop disease and harvest season raids.
I usually highly focus on bread production as a primary food source. But still produce some fruits, meat, and fish just in case I have a bad harvest. Always have a plan B in colony sims to prevent wipeouts.
