How the heck are we meant to produce the food we need?

You need to build a farm, which needs fertile ground and research.

Food is scarce.  If you can't find fertile land you can sacrifice one essence point to create some.

yea i was wondering the same thing, is it just me that has this Garden problem? i go to build a garden and it doesn't show up visually, i can click where i would want it and it makes the sound like i placed it and it produced food but not only is it invisible the fence surrounding it doesn't move; on top of all this i can build on top where i went to build the garden. WEIRD

By fertile ground, Im assuming you mean a special resource on the map? (and not revived land, cos I tried that and couldnt build farms on it)

Ive yet to see any fertile ground in my wanderings, unless its hidden or not marked.

I must say I really dont like the idea of having to find a special resource or spend essence just to grow my cities normally.

Yes, there's a marked tile that you can build farms upon. You could also build a fishery.

There are several food producing resources.  You will need to use some of them to get larger cities, or as was mentioned you can use magic.  

Remember the land was devestated, and now you are trying to revive it, food is the great limiter on population size and therefore city size. 

Personally, I like the scareness of food, provides an additional resource to fight over (a realistic one at that).

it also helps to continue the harvesting/farming  research until getting granaries these add 25% to food production.

I do believe that random maps should have a tech1 food tile (Fertile Land, not Bees/etc) near the starting location. Otherwise roaming around for 20-30 turns before you find one so you can put down your first decent city is not quite as much fun.

But in that first 20-30 (maybe 10-20) you can find some Loot or Gildar's, recruit some hero's or smack down some Bugs to get EXP and get an easy level...

My first and only game thus far, it was late when I got the update, I landed in a Paradise, in game map terms.

Then, stupidly, I pissed off my neighbor, Procipinee(sp) and promptly got my ass handed to me.

I should have heeded buddies advise, I like Buddy, to build some early peasant warriors.

My town went down faster than a Whores drawers on Pay day.  

Brad was not kidding when he noted the AI will be more aggressive. LOL!

That's true, but it's still too much of a variable. May not be a big issue in single player, but in multiplayer it would probably suck a lot more when your opponent gets a sweet spot random start and you get jipped.

"Preset" starting areas don't have to be big, just a 3x3 or 4x4 stamp that has a fertile land somewhere in it and keeps things nice and balanced.

While I was scouting for a good location for a city I encountered some huts and ruins that did absolutely nothing. I guess you need to "unlock" them as an Adventure tech. Finding some adventurous locale and not being able to enter without "research" is just utterly wrong and incredibly frustrating.

The whole Adventure tree is a little shaky because adventure and jumping into the unknown should be about everything but studying and researching.

edit: sorry if that was off topic actually, just had to get it off my chest hehe

yeah thats still a problem with rarities imo

i made a thread some time ago about it too

https://forums.elementalgame.com/385084

i agree and i am very concerned about it as i expressed elsewhere few times

in multi its gamebreaking to have rare resources so powerful (mostly early)

still cant agree on having  1 food every starting

than whats the point of rarity if you always have 1 when you start?

One food resource isn't enough to sustain you all game. You'll need to find more, and they're rare and valuable. But having a starting one does let you drop a city and build it up to a reasonable level without hoping you get lucky.

For a second city to grow to any real size, you'll still need to go hunting for food.

naa  1 resource is ok

that makes you dont need anything soon, find the better spots and all

also in multi i suspect you wont build so many towns, having 1 food is probably enough for whole game

anyone else having the weird Garden bug?

I have played 2 games so far up to learning about 25 techs, and explored the enitre continent, and I have yet to find this "fertile ground" resource people speak of.

In my second game I discovered I could blow 1 essence and cast a restore garden spell, which let me build a "wild garden" which pretty much solved my food problems for my entire empire.

I thought the maps were fixed, but perhaps the resources are random? Shrug. Maybe Ive just been unlucky to find ZERO fertile ground. Perhaps some tweaking of the map generator?

Hey Vladesch, you can also go to my new elemental beta 3 videos http://gorstagg.wordpress.com/ and see if there is anything new there that might help you. 

Food is the limiting factor, and should be.  Your first city doesn't have to be next to a food resource, as gardens can enable you to grow to level 2, but your second city damn well should be if your first is not.  What I do is have my first city be my capital, and then my second city goes down next to a food resource, which I then use to grow my first city to level 5.  In my opinion, it is actually a little too easy to expand after getting a single food resource, because one resource can grow an entire empire.  I would prefer that it be more like one resource grows a city.  Wee bit more realistic.  Or have more city levels which do less per level, making your cities top out at a population of around 5-10 thousand.

My random map generation is haywire since I always start near 2 fertile grounds (and 5 or so other resources). I've never built a garden so far in beta 3.

Yeah, this will be a problem in MP games, and this won't be the only problem with regard to balance. Example: as an Empire faction you can "pump out" bone ogres quite fast if your starting locaction is good enough. Bone ogres in the early game = huge advantage, since these beasts are powerful. This is just one example, but it can be balanced at least. [Raise the recruiting cost of the ogres, lower their stats, etc.] However it won't be possible to "fix" the food related balance problems, since your starting location will be random, so...it's possible that X player will have 2-3 special food resources near his starting location, while Y player won't have a single one.

I just started a third game, and it put me a couple of squares away from a fertile ground.

Also about 5 squares away were a fruit grove, a metal deposit and a clay pit.

Then about 12 squares away there was another clump of resources, namely an old growth forest, a beehive, an oasis and an ogre village, and Ive just founded a second city there.

Im using the fertile ground with an imperial farm, and almost grown the town next to the fruit grove, so its gone from too hard to too easy.

Well the random generation of resources can do that.

But to my eye, I think that's completely of value. I like that idea, that there will be resources out there to acquire. And what may seem to easy, doesn't take into account your enemies out there. They get to find the same resources, and they will very likely focus on slaughtering you, if you show weakness. So building cities to take advantage of important resources is going to be critical down the road.

It will be way too important to find and use the special resource sites, that is the problem. It has its pros and cons as well, but this won't be a good thing in MP games, that is fur sure.

Well here's a couple things, we all need to remember. The numbers, haven't been tweaked yet. We've not seen the full value of long term play. And my guess is we've also not seen all the special resources currently planned or implemented so far.

By the same token, we've also not seen rivers. And they'll be important as well.

Now that all said, the numbers are going to get tweaked. And I'm just saying that at this point, strategic choices for city building may seem obvious, and that having too many resources within a short range can seem crazy. You've got to look at the really big picture. What may seem like a lot now, may in turn really not be all that much. Think about troop construction, (and by the way I REALLY want to see mercenaries with unusual race choices be available to all factions, as some people could care less who they work for, as long as they get paid), and acquiring some really tough troopers. And those all cost a lot over time. Also I would encourage people who are just massing up tons of resources due to great city placement and luck, remember to defend it as they explore the world.

As there are NPC's and monsters out there. And the other enemy factions. And one thing I've seen is the enemy factions often made really large armies, so to counter that you could do something similar, or go for the higher quality vs quantity.

I would say overall, give it some time.. we'll see the tweaks coming down the road, but I do understand your concern. To my eye, Luck is important, but strategy to take those cities away from you will be a key thought as well. Though I'm certain there'll be a more normalization in place for resources, to come down the pipe.