To secure the future of your little village the first priority is to keep food supplies high as well as maintaining a sustainable growth.
To start most of your food will be coming from a mix of gathering, hunting, farming, and the small heard of cattle you start with. Putting a lot of workers in into one source of food comes with its own set of risks and rewards. A people who spend most of their time hunting will becomes skilled hunters and in turn would make them strong warriors and pushing forward a more war themed culture. A over hunted location has the risk of reducing the supply of animals and devastate the results of your hunts and could cause famine among your people if you do not have a way to feed your people. Farming and cattle are the most stable sources of food but require plenty of space in order to feed all of your people. Expanding the area around your town can be difficult depending on your current location. A forested town will have to harvest the nearby trees in order to clear space but this will have negative effects on both your hunting and gathering. Crops as well as livestock are vulnerable to many disasters such as disease or wild animals on the search for food.
When the food supply drops too low people will begin to starve and start to look at their situation. As the elder you will have to find a solution before things get too bad and you are forced out of your position. You could allow the butcher of cattle for an immediate supply of food but this hurts the future supply of food from cattle from the drop in numbers. Butchering cattle can be necessary in situations where you receive a temporary drop in supply from a bad harvest or a failed hunt.
People who you do not give a job to either decide to work if they desire it or simply relax and enjoy their time. A relaxed villager is more likely to have children and increase the population which has to be carefully watched. If the population starts growing too fast it could become a problem to feed or house all of the people meaning they could become rebellious or they might leave in mass numbers. Keeping the growth at a slow stable rate allows children to enter the workforce while not having to worry about huge age disparities.
Your source of food is important to grow you population in order for them to fill the many jobs which we will go over next.
