If you’re having overpopulation issues in your Elder Scrolls castle after breeding too many minions when the game launches on September 10, 2024, you’re not alone. Many players on Reddit are in the same boat, so here is a guide on how to control food consumption in The Elder Scrolls: Castles game.
It goes without saying that overconsumption of food is caused by having too many items in your castle for your kitchen to handle. If you only have one kitchen, try not to have more than 50 adult subjects total. As the children in the castle grow up, the strain on your food supply increases. So you need to take this into account and prepare your lock in advance.
A level 10 kitchen produces 675 foods each cycle – the time a cycle takes depends on what decorations you have in your castle, but typically it takes just under four minutes without decorations affecting it. In a castle with 50 adults, food consumption without decorations is 258 per minute.
This means that a level 10 kitchen will be able to feed all 50 adults without running out of food before the next cycle is complete. However, if you want to have more adults in your castle – or have children who are about to grow up – you will 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 foods to each cycle of your kitchen.
- Build more kitchens. This option will not be applicable to free-to-play players without much effort, as kitchens require quartz (which are only available after completing high-level quests). At level 70 I still haven’t encountered quartz. Instead, you need to purchase the Imperial Kitchen from the in-game shop, which costs 1000 gems.
- Use a Blessing of Production. These special items reduce the duration of production jobs by 50% for 15 minutes.
- Hang green banners. Green banners increase your castle’s production blessing by 2%.
- Use special tools. There are some tools in the game that come with additional production benefits, but you cannot purchase them. They sometimes appear as quest rewards. For example, there is a level 3 steel spoon that is x
- Have a leader in the kitchen. Leaders have a special ability that allows them to occasionally overturn the current cycle of the workplace in which they find themselves. It happens randomly, but your goal should be to have a leader in the kitchen.
If producing more food using the methods in the previous section isn’t enough, there are several ways to reduce food consumption in your castle.
- Buy a Golden Garden. Golden Gardens reduce the food consumption of all nobles in your castle by 2%. It unlocks at Dynasty level 64.
- Buy a garden corner. Garden Corners reduce the food consumption of all citizens in your castle by 2%. It unlocks at Dynasty level 134.
- Have fewer children. As much fun as it is to make the most of the traits available in The Elder Scrolls: Castles, having too many children will increase your food consumption once they turn 16.
- Banish people with bad qualities. Some traits are just a huge headache in your castle, and while some have their benefits, you don’t need multiple subjects with those traits to reap the benefits.
Choose which topics to ban
There are several negative traits in The Elder Scrolls: Castles that you really shouldn’t bother with. For example, “stubbornness” often means that you constantly have to deal with two feuding castle subjects. Normally, if you put them in the same workplace as another subject, that subject will eventually come to you to clash with the wayward subject.
In the table below I have listed the undesirable characteristics of castles and explained why they are not worth keeping:
| Characteristic | Description | Why banish? |
|---|---|---|
| Bossy | Bosses colleagues around and makes them efficient but unhappy. | There are other ways to make topics efficient without also reducing their satisfaction. You can outfit them with clothing and tools that match their workplace and have a leader at the same station to increase productivity. “Maintaining dominant themes just means you have to spend more time engaging with the discourse and trying to address dissatisfied topics.” Happiness levels. |
| Devious | Vulnerable to assassination attempts. Worryingly adept with daggers. | Although I do have one or two sneaky topics nearby Battle can be a good idea, having several around just means trouble. I prefer to banish treacherous subjects to eliminate the possibility of my subjects or ruler being arbitrarily murdered. If you want a dagger user, you don’t need a Devious subject. Any combat-minded subject is fine, just equip them with a high-level dagger. |
| Envious | I hate it when colleagues are more productive than her. | There is absolutely no reason to keep jealous subjects in your castle. There are no advantages Placing them at any workplace and letting them take up space in your castle means they are reducing your food supplies. |
| Stubborn | Best in the oven and in the workshop. Skilled with shields. | Be careful if you have wayward subjects in your castle. No matter what station you place them on, they will arrive eventually Arguments. If you want to take advantage of the benefits that come with being placed on the Furance or Workshop stations, make sure you have enough cash to bribe both them and the subject they’re annoying when they inevitably do complain to you (usually between 50 and 80 gold). |
| Heartless | He’s miserable to work with. Experienced in dealing with frost. | Don’t banish all of your heartless subjects, as their freezing abilities are useful in battle. Keep one to three heartless topics and have them unemployed/wander through the castle until you need them. Only when you need them to fight should you attach them to the War Table or Sheogorath Gauntlet. |
| Pyromaniacs | Best in the kitchen, in the oven and in the forge. Skilled in dealing with fire. Vulnerable to arson. | Personally, I’ve never seen a pyromaniac burn anything, but other subjects he works with occasionally come to the throne to complain about them. Keep your pyromaniacs in the kitchen, oven and forge, but don’t keep too many of them to keep the inevitable throne visits to a minimum. One or two per workstationbanish or keep the rest unemployed just to fight. |
| Volatile | Fueled by anger. Experienced in dealing with shock. | Similar to Heartless Subjects, keep one to three fugitive subjects near the castle solely for combat purposes. Make sure they are unemployed to avoid the negative effects of a subject working with a volatile topic (arguments, meaning they end up on the throne to make a decision that will likely cost you money). |
While it’s best to avoid banishing family members or friends in Elder Scrolls: Castles, it doesn’t affect the happiness of those affected to much.
Want to read more about The Elder Scrolls: Castles at Pro Game Guides? Learn how to keep your subjects happy in Elder Scrolls Castles.