There are no sustainable means of acquiring food. The game will eventually end, and if you don't reach the end before you exhaust food, you lose. Just because something doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it makes no sense at all.
Ah, that's why I've used the "Is" and "mes" and "personally", to be precise about just being personal opinions. ;)
I really meant "genuinely asking", not trying to be douche or trolling.
You've explained the logic behind the mechanic on a previous post, and now I understand, that's all I needed.
But please consider at least rising a bit the forage income.
I'm not saying something like a multiplier per chaarcter (so food x3, which indeed would be too much), but at least something like 2 units per character. It doesn't breaks the game, but it's a slight help.
Seriously, food it's really an issue, I guess that there's more to come in the future but right now by the time you reach 1/3rd of the map you're out of it. And then it's a lot of save scumming just to advance a little more.
Have in mind that yes, some encounters can be avoided... precisely at the cost of food. Perfectly understandable. But the map now it's huge, and there's some content that can't be reached even with the most careful planning.
For example, you really need to see the witch to defeat the Xiuh "lord". But just reaching the witch it's really hard, you can barely make it. And then save-scumming to move from the witch's cottage. And "If" you make it to Xiuh, then you need to travel back. And again, a butt-ton of save scumming. And I'm not even taking into account the extra tiles avoiding certain encounters, or moving from town to town (which it's a death sentence... and required to complete a quest).
I understand your logic of food=timer. But it's like saying "the game has 3 hours of content, and you have 1 hour to complete it"
It's not that we can choose and plan a path, and then later choose another one (probably the intention of the mechanic)... it's simply not enough to follow any path.
Really, and again I'm not trying to be an asshole, as it is now, it's not balanced (even for a timer style of playing), not even with the hunger charm.
But hey, it's just my opinion ;)
I disagree - I'm able to easily complete all the content without ever foraging, between food caches, use of the carriage and altar and Town Portal when necessary instead of hoofing it, resting at the inn for food, hitting up random food encounters like Dryad and Centaur and Orc, etc, big rewards for the Spider and Quetzal, the new healing pond, etc. That's without getting the Hunger Charm, also. The new Elfblood race has lower food consumption and increased EXP requirements, if that's still an issue, but if you're running out of food because you're resting constantly after combat or avoiding difficult encounters the long way or scouting and sneaking often, you're just losing the game the way the game is meant to be lost.
Right now the greatest straight-shot distance from the bottom left of the map to the top right is around 30+ locations, amounting to 60 food with the base rate... which is how much you start with. Obviously doing the quests requires more backtracking and such, and there will be inevitable losses, but the Food Caches give 10 or 15, Spider encounter alone gives an additional 30, for instance, and resting at the inn gives 25, and you get several free rests at the inn, and plenty of money with which to rest at it.
There's also a no-food cheat mode if you want to just play an infinite file without any time pressure.
Nevermind me
I just realize I never use the Inn, and keep forgetting about the Town Portal scroll *facepalm*.
Nice breakdown, made me realize several things and others I didn't knew (like the Spider encounter. I assume it's the one at the ruins, which I avoid like the plague because it creeps the heck outta me. "birthing" spiders from my mouth is definitely not my thing :P )
Btw, about caches, the most common thing I get is some gold. I don't get food too often (maybe 1 out of 5), and half the time I get something like "You find nothing, are you missing something?" but couldn't figure what is causing it. A low attribute?
Usually I have no food problems, but my last run was a nightmare.
But, I've been using the same save. Basically, I make a character carefully, and save on the very first spot to avoid having to go thru character building whenever I want to restart. Judging by your game breakdown, and my own mistakes, most likely I have a "unlucky" map set up, and all this makes it for my current food troubles (more than once on previous builds I had to restart from zero due a troublesome map).
Anyways, thanks for replying. And being patient :P
Low attribute indeed - Perception. But that just sets your base scouting score (the little eye in the bottom left) - if you use the Scout command, you'll raise that value, and you'll be able to recover more from caches, particularly if your score is so low that you're getting that message.
Also, to avoid having to go through character creation again if you're going to create the exact same character, I just added a feature that if you get a game over, and then hit "Continue", you'll start a new game with a different world and the same character template as the one that got a game over (same class, starting stats, starting skills/perks/magic, customization) so you don't have to redo character creation.