If you're having issues with overpopulation in your Elder Scrolls castle after breeding too many subjects when the game was released on September 10, 2024, you're not alone. Plenty of players over on Reddit are finding themselves in the same boat, so here's a guide on how to manage food consumption in The Elder Scrolls: Castles game.
How to produce more food in The Elder Scrolls: Castles
It should go without saying that excessive food consumption is caused by having too many subjects in your castle for your Kitchen to cope with. If you only have one Kitchen, you should try not to exceed 50 adult subjects in total. As the children in the castle grow up, they'll add to the toll on your food storage, so you'll need to take that into account and prep your castle in advance.
A level 10 Kitchen produces 675 food every cycle - the time a cycle takes depends on which decorations you have in your castle, but it's usually just under four minutes without any decorations affecting it. In a castle with 50 adults, the food consumption is 258 per minute with no decorations.
That means that a level 10 Kitchen will be able to handle feeding all 50 adults without running out of food before the next cycle is finished. However, if you want more adults in your castle - or you have children that are about to age up to adults - you'll need to produce more food.
Here are the best ways to produce more food in The Elder Scrolls: Castles:
- Upgrade your Kitchen. Each upgrade adds 75 more food to every cycle of your Kitchen.
- Build more Kitchens. This option won't apply to free-to-play players without a lot of effort because Kitchens require quartz (which are only available after completing high-level quests). At level 70, I still haven't come across any quartz. Instead, you'll have to buy the Imperial Kitchen from the in-game store, which costs 1000 Gems.
- Use a Blessing of Production. These special items reduce production work station timers by 50% for 15 minutes.
- Put up Green Banners. Green Banners increase your castle's Blessing of Production by 2%.
- Use special tools. There are some tools in the game that have extra production benefits attached to them, but you can't buy these. They sometimes appear as quest rewards. For example, there is a level 3 Steel Spoon that x
- Have a Leader in the Kitchen. Leaders have a special ability where they can occasionally rush the current cycle of whatever work station they're on. It happens randomly, but having one Leader in the Kitchen should be a goal of yours.
How to reduce your food use in The Elder Scrolls: Castles
If producing more food via the methods in the previous section isn't helping enough, there are several ways to reduce how much food is being consumed in your castle.
- Buy a Golden Garden. Golden Gardens reduce food consumption by 2% for all the nobles in your castle. It unlocks at Dynasty Level 64.
- Buy a Garden Nook. Garden Nooks reduce food consumption by 2% for all commoners in your castle. It unlocks at Dynasty Level 134.
- Have fewer children. As fun as it is to try and get the best of the traits available in The Elder Scrolls: Castles, having too many children will raise your food consumption rate as soon as they turn 16.
- Banish subjects with bad traits. Some traits are just a huge headache to have in your castle, and though a few have their benefits, you don't need several subjects with those traits to take advantage of the benefits.
Choosing which subjects to banish
There are several negative traits in The Elder Scrolls: Castles that you really don't want hanging around. Headstrong, for example, often means that you'll have to constantly deal with two arguing castle subjects. Usually, if you put them on the same work station as another subject, that subject will eventually come to see you about butting heads with the headstrong subject.
In the table below, I've written out the undesirable traits in Castles and why they aren't worth keeping around:
| Trait | Description | Why Banish |
|---|---|---|
| Bossy | Bosses coworkers around, making them efficient but miserable. | There are other ways to make subjects efficient that don't also cause their happiness to drop. You can kit them out with clothing and tools that suit their work station, and have a Leader on the same station to boost productivity. Keeping Bossy subjects just means you'll have to spend more time dealing with discourse and trying to raise unhappy subjects' happiness levels. |
| Devious | Prone to assassination. Worryingly skilled with Daggers. | Though having one or two Devious subjects around for combat can be a good idea, keeping several around is just asking for trouble. I prefer banishing Devious subjects to negate the possibility of my subjects or ruler being assassinated randomly. If you want a dagger user, you don't need a Devious subject. Any battle-minded subject is fine, just kit them out with a high level dagger. |
| Envious | Hates it when coworkers are more productive than them. | There is absolutely no reason to keep Envious subjects in your castle. There are no advantages to putting them on any work station, and leaving them to take up space in your castle means they'll reduce your food stores. |
| Headstrong | Best at the Furnace and Workshop. Adept at using Shields. | Be careful having Headstrong subjects in your castle. No matter which station you place them on, they will eventually get into arguments. If you want the benefits that come with placing them on the Furance or Workshop stations, be sure to have the spare cash to bribe both them and the subject they annoy when they inevitably come to complain to you (usually between 50-80 gold). |
| Heartless | Miserable to work with. Skilled with Frost. | Don't banish all of your Heartless subjects because their Frost abilities are useful in combat. Keep between one to three Heartless subjects and have them unemployed/wandering around the castle until you need them. Only when you need them to fight should you attach them to the War Table or Sheogorath's Gauntlet. |
| Pyromaniac | Best at the Kitchen, Furnace and Smithy. Skilled with Fire. Prone to arson. | I've, personally, never experienced a Pyromaniac subject burn anything, but other subjects they work with do occasionally come to the Throne to complain about them. Keep your Pyromaniacs in the Kitchen, Furnace, and Smithy, but don't have too many of them to keep the inevitable Throne visits down to a minimum. One or two per work station, banish the rest or keep them unemployed just for combat. |
| Volatile | Fueled by anger. Skilled with Shock. | Similar to Heartless subjects, keep one to three Volatile subjects around the castle purely for combat reasons. Make sure they're unemployed to avoid the negative effects of any subject working with a Volatile one (arguments, which means they end up at the Throne for a ruling that will likely cost you money). |
Though it's best to avoid banishing family members or friends in Elder Scrolls: Castles, it doesn't affect a subject's happiness too much.
Want to read more about The Elder Scrolls: Castles at Pro Game Guides? Check out How to keep your subjects happy in Elder Scrolls Castles.
Published: Oct 5, 2024 02:29 pm