Food production not balanced well enough

I totally agree with you River, I don't understand why we have to make a choice. I like to reinforce or defend but need both to do so in my collectivism heros.

I think you are dereailing the discussion :)

Sure, the new design might render some past strategies invalid, but the core idea is to have attackers and defenders prioritize. Some army as reinforcement still better than none.

No I'm not.  I'm just asking questions, lol You answered.  You have told us it's your prerogative to make us consider and adopt changing strategies.  That doesn't mean I have to like it or not question it, lol.  :-)

It may be hard to suggest solution now, as you already suffered significant damage, but the #1 step you have to do is to max out your towers! If you had 20-30 towers all maxed out along with Collectivism bonus, attackers would think twice before touching you. Unfortunately despite the fact that this receipt is simple and straightforward, a lot of people postpone building towers until it is too late.

If you have been attacked by a multiple players (alliance), unfortunately your defences are limited, especially, if they are significantly more developed than you. In this case you can only defend with the help of your own alliance.

If you are in a bad situation with mutliple attacks coming from all sides, you might sacrifice your less important towns and concentrate on the most important one - max out wall and towers in it and concentrate all your army in it. Apply defensive item on that town. Have your allies send all their reinforcements in that town only by the time your truice ends. Members of your alliance who are the most distant from you should send their whole army, and not just a couple of units.

In the rest of the towns don't bother building towers, without army they will be wiped by rams easily. Better build houses/cottages there until your building percentage will reach 50% - the houses are harder to destroy and will help you building towers on the next truce.

Your current short term goal is to survive with minimum damage between truces with the helm of your alliance. Your long term goal is to have maxed wall and towers in all towns and maxed army with catacombs in place. And by saying "maxed out wall and towers" I mean wall or fortified wall level 9 or 10 and 20-30 level 5 towers depends on your research status.

People, NEVER FORGET ABOUT YOUR DEFENSE! No matter how peaceful you are or how good your diplomacy is. Build towers in-between your regular buildings CONSTANTLY. I cannot emphasize that hard enough. Do not complain if you do not do that, because it is not the game's fault then, it is yours!

So, Berserker are you now telling us that your sage advice from on 9 months ago to build lots of towers is completely wrong and we should have an army instead???

Lest there be any question of the context of that advice:  http://www.totemtribe.com/talk/a-suggestion/1/#post_17954

To be honest i don't understand this last update: you both raised towers building requirements and tower pop. I wont enter the defense/offense balance subject, but i cant see why has this been done. Example, i will need Lv 15 garrison/ lv 8 barracks to upgrade a lv 5 arrow tower into an oil tower. I think these are the exact numbers, but let's suppose i have a barrack lv 8, with 28 pop. Add to that the 9 people that there are in a tower without upgrading it and you have 36 food less. Multiply that 9 by the number of towers you think is enough to defend a town and you are probably into low numbers of food in a typical medieval town. I suppose maths with garrison will be similar, correct me if they aren't. All of that if we think the town will be able to hold without an army, if we add to that the consumption of the units of the barracks... 

And most of us are just medieval, renaissance tower brute food per hour requirement must be horrible to accomplish... I really want to know the numbers to have my fears confirmed :P.

I dont see the point of raising both variables. You say we shouldn't be able to both build towers and armies, and i understand that, but you are forcing us to build both in order to protect ourselves... thus increasing the food problem. The huts pop. reduction probably helps in undefended towns, but i bet food numbers havent been up. (and if they have, you probably are undefended, protect yourself more)

Side note, I think you should notice in CC updates concerning buildings pop. increase, it can be very annoying finding out yourself with a rather bigger construction time and rather lower food generation without being able to get ready.

I know that most of my post are "lengthy complaints" but believe me, i don't do it because i'm a hater, i just want you to know all points of view and to understand why are changes done. In fact i'm not especially affected by this change, but i want to know the reason it has been done.But don't expect me to shorten the post. That, never :P.

Now, all my dwelling towns are negative food. Not such a good balance for me.