Food

**Food** is a primary resource players must collect in *Rome at War*.

Players must constantly gather food for creating units, researching technologies, and advancing their empire through the Ages.

There are various ways to gather food, all of which are listed here.

## Foraging

Berry Bushes are typically scattered throughout the map in clumps at the start of the game. They are mostly used early on since they are relatively accessible, allowing a boost for growing civilizations. The advantages of Forage Bushes over hunting is that they are fixed in one location throughout the game, and the food does not decay over time, making food gathering more efficient. Bushes do not usually last very long because they are not very common and do not replenish once consumed. They also fall behind all other food sources in later stages of the game, as technologies improve gather rates.

## Hunting

Other than gathering berries, hunting animals and wild game is the first way that a player can go about gathering food. During the early parts of the game, hunting is by far the best way to acquire food for one's settlement as the gather rates are faster than any other source of food. Most Animals can be found in groups all through the maps, when one is shot, the others will run in the opposite direction.

This can be useful, because with enough patience, the player can use their units to herd them closer to drop-off points. The major downside of animals is that they are non-sustainable and players will do a lot of traveling to get to find them.

On the other hand, stronger animals such as Boars will defend themselves and can pose a threat to single Villagers. However, this, too, can be taken advantage of by having a single Villager attack them and gradually retreating closer to a drop-off point with other hunters ready to kill it. These animals are typically found alone or in pairs, but they also hold much more food than prey animals.

There are animals in the game that cannot be hunted such as birds as well as animals such as Wolves which can be killed but do not provide food. It is important to note that the food content of an animal deteriorates over time; thus, ideally animals should be collected from by more than one Villager to minimize this food loss.

## Farming

Farms provide a steady amount of food that is easy to gather from because its placement is done by the player so the Farms can be placed at a safe and economically beneficial position (close to a drop-off point). Also, the gathering rate of Farms is comparatively high. The amount of food available from each farm is finite, but the amount held can be increased by researching certain technologies.

The major downside is that Farms cost wood which is why, especially in the early game, other food sources should be used as long as they are available. Farms also collect slower in the early game than other food sources, and can only have a single villager working to gather food from them at any given time, thus making them less effective at collecting food quickly with a low number of villagers compared to other early game food sources such as hunt.

## Fish Traps

Fish Traps are essentially aquatic Farms worked by Fishing Ships. They cost more wood, but provide more food. The drop-off point for the Fishing Ships is the Port.

## Resource exchange

At the Market, gold can be traded for food, but for the exchange, trade fees apply.

## Fishing

Fishing Ships and Villagers can usually gather Fish if there is a significant amount of water on the map. Fishing is one of the fastest food sources available, and investing in a fishing economy on maps with sufficient deep fish is a common strategy.

## Herding

Herdable animals can be found anywhere on the map as Gaia units and when they come in contact with a player-controlled unit, they will fall under the control of that player. However, if the herdable animal subsequently gets in contact with another player's unit without a unit of their current owner nearby, they will immediately fall under the other player's control.

When tasking a Villager on a domestic animal, the Villager will herd them to the nearest food drop site and slaughter them one by one and start gathering meat, similar to a hunted animal.

## Other methods

Relics for Nanda and their allies will also create food

Trade Carts for Mauryans will also generate food

Herdables can be garrisoned in the Mill by Picts to slowly generate infinite food

Iberian infantry units generate food whilst fighting