I've been buying food for my 1k+ citizen city but seems not enough, dropping from 100k food to 50k
I've planed to buy livestock and kill it rightaway for food, my first impression is:
Cattle gives 200 food, (i don't know how much leather) u can sell this for 3 each, and buy vegetables, means u get 600 for doing it. looks like is not worth it, but i don't know with sheeps and chickens, any help?.
My question is different, because im not willing to make fences to farm livestock, I want to kill livestock as soon as i get em. The question is: Is it worth it? considering ships only trading animals are a "waste" in the sense i can't buy food from them, making food gathering slower.
Best Answer
TLDR: Instead of spending your exports on livestock to process at a loss and resell the meat for produce, just buy the the produce with your exports in the 1st place.
If a Trader comes to you with nothing you need, there is nothing wrong with telling him to pack up & move along. The sooner you end your business with a trader the sooner the next one will be along.
In the end, (surplus) Meat, Firewood, simple Coats, and (non-wheat) Ale are great (renewable) exports. Seeds & Livestock are poor imports for any town that already has that particular species.
According to banishedinfo.com: Slaughtering a cow gets you 6 leather & 200 beef, slaughtering a sheep gets you 200 Mutton, and slaughtering a chicken (animal) gets you 6 chicken (food). Making the purchase of Cattle & Chickens for slaughter a "bad trade" & Sheep an investment of labor for no value gained.
Eggs & Wool are byproducts of keeping a number of your chickens & sheep alive.
Why are we doing this?
A) If you want to process imports for profit:
Warm Coats are great for keeping your people working but worth less in trade. Make Hide/Wool Coats for trade.
Tools can be made from imports at a small profit, but as Iron & Coal are not renewable, there may be more value in stockpiling Steel Tools.
B) If you want a source of protein for your people:
If you want to import your protein, buy nuts or fish.
There are 4 sources of home grown protein in the game: