Tutorials/Tips

You begin with 4 families, so you need 4 or 5 houses before the first winter. Add a gatherer + forester, firewood chopper, storage for wood and stone and a storage barn and you won't die at the start.

It is generally best to place houses close to where jobs are available to minimise walking distance.

Gatherers seem like the best food production at the moment, at up to 3k food per season. They produce 4 types of food, which improves variety and helps keep people healthy and also seem to produce the most food per labourer. While they're the best food source in the game, you want some fishing and hunting for variety anyway.

Hunters produce some leather in addition to meat, which is needed to make clothes and is the only source before you can afford cows and sheep.

Because gatherers and herbalists need a forest to work and deer also like to be in a forest and there seems to be no "ancient forest" restriction on herbalists, a forester makes for a great combo with gatherer, herbalist and hunter. Place a few houses and storage nearby. There are only 2 downsides to this: every building needs some land, so decreases the effectiveness of this setup and it is best to keep houses in range of a marketplaces. There is no concept of "ancient forest", and plants and herbs just grow under mature trees. This means that it is actually more efficient to place herbalists and gatherers close to forester's lodges than in virgin forests, which are sparser.

Firewood is a surprisingly good trade good, considering the amount that's needed anyway and the output of foresters that you need for gatherers anyway. Selling tools or leather clothes may be tempting, but you need those things and firewood is overall easier to get. Some things like food and alcohol have 0 value when selling them.

Once your population goes up, keep a few labourers around. They will replace the losses among specialised workers. Any builders or farmers who aren't working their jobs at the moment, will do the same as labourers: gather resources.

Farming is surprisingly inefficient, at least compared to gathering. One farm plot or hunter or fisherman needs around 4 workers and produces up to 1k food per season.