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When I wrote this post, I confess, I’d never made it to the Iron Age. In some strange self-loathing endeavour, I restarted the game in copper and decided that before I moved on… I absolutely had to defeat Paleolithic Overpopulation. Which sits at about 0.9% of steam holders.

In general, this is an acheivement that has a lot of try and fail elements. There’s a huge portion that’s RNG (who dies of infection/disease, what spawns for food mammoth/rhino). So, this is less a guide, and more a list of ways to help you succeed. The main thing is to make save points every 10 people so that you can go back to a better point in time. I wouldn’t try to hardcore mode this.

Here’s the list:

– It doesn’t matter how spread the houses are so long as you don’t have too many to repair (also, keep them within a good radius. Don’t go too far. You can have 1 or 2 houses and hearths far away to help hunter/gatherers not die from cold/hunger, too)

– Fishing and gathering are reliable, while not a lot of food long-term you can keep gathering to like 30 food for summer months and fish to 30 stores all time

– Make sure your food is over 200 before you get to 70 people. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, PERIOD.

– Flint spears are too resources intensive, and you ALWAYS need it for bifaces. Use bone spears.

– Hunt. Hunt in winter, fall, spring. In summer, let them gather more, but ensure you have your extra people getting knives.

– Don’t bother with leather. It’s useless.

– LOTS OF BONE POLES. They make traders come.

– I followed the advice of others to always make wood and bone harpoons (it’s great as it sells the trader)

– Always have outfits to 150% as they can run out at once and it sucks

– MAKE A LOT OF SAFE SAVES – shit happens A LOT. People will die. A scenario can change with half a second’s decision. So, you go back. I had multiple save points. I name them based on food and population (ie – 70 people 200 food; great save).

– Manually hunt by selecting groups and sending them off. Focus on mammoths, rhinos, bison, aurochs. Kill anything close to your people since that’s free quick food. Have lots of dryers.

– Always make sure food is being stored properly.

– I didn’t overly micromanage the hunters. I’d just select huge groups and send them off then clear cut the animals of an area, then I’d get them to butcher and let the labor do its own thing.

– Winter is a great time to build bone poles (you need A LOT as this brings traders and immigrants and is your only way to get prestige other than funerary)