Disciples

Certain tasks lend themselves to devoted practitioners, and this is where disciples come in handy. By lifting up villagers and placing them next to a particular object, you can create disciples. When you do so, look for a small yellow icon to appear--this will indicate the kind of disciples you'll create.

It's important to note that villagers who are not assigned to a discipline will still perform the work of farming, woodcutting, building, and other tasks. You're not forced to assign disciples to get the daily work of the village done.

Breeders

Breeder disciples generate children in the usual way. As long as there are spots open in the village's abodes, a breeder will attract mates and give them a big hug (this is how babies are made in Britain).

Breeding isn't always successful, and the age of the participants has some impact. While you'll occasionally see a 70-year-old male impregnate an 80-year-old female, this is a bit uncommon. Thus, if it's a quick population boost you're seeking, choose males and females of typical breeding age (in their 20s and 30s). These villagers have a fairly high success rate.

A pregnant female will carry a baby for nine months (about two minutes of real time) and then drop to the ground and give birth to a 1-year-old child. Understandably, female breeders can't breed while pregnant but will return to this task as soon as they've given birth (so long as there's available housing).

A male breeder won't be ashamed to breed with as many females as housing allows, which means that a single male breeder will raise the population much more quickly than a single female breeder. It's often enough to have a single male breeder in a village to replace the dying elderly.

Female breeders tend to lie down for the duration of their pregnancies, whether in their homes or in the middle of the village. If this isn't acceptable to you, you can pick up the pregnant woman and shake her, releasing her from her discipleship. This doesn't interrupt the pregnancy, and you can then assign her to another task or let her choose her own. When she's ready to give birth, she'll toss aside the fishing pole and do it.

If a village has no breeders, the population will gradually grow older and die out. While it's possible to coax the elderly into giving birth, their success is quite limited. Thus, it's wise to have at least one female villager assigned to the task of providing the village with children (or a male who impregnates the lot).

Farmers

You might think that the task of providing a village with food is equally important as providing it with babies, but this isn't the case. Cranking out babies is beyond your capabilities as a god, but filling the village store with grain, fish, and meat isn't. Your food miracles can accomplish this task with relative ease. (See our chapter on miracles for some important tips.)

You can, in fact, perform the entire task of farming by yourself, although this would be drudgery. Your villagers will take it upon themselves to farm their fields and bring the harvest in to the store, but it's wise to assign a few of them to this task full time so that the populace doesn't grow to depend on your miracles for keeping a steady supply of food in the store.

Use the water miracle to assist in farm growth. Better yet, teach your creature to do it for you. Also, creature poop can facilitate growth. Teach him to go to the bathroom on the fields instead of the crèche, for instance.
 

Foresters

Disciples of forestry will spend their hours chopping down wood from outside the village boundary. They'll cart their prizes to the village store and deposit them for the village's use. While your wood miracle adds far more wood to the village store than a single villager can in a day, it's wise to give a few of your villagers this task, if only to keep them occupied.

Fisherman

The sea surrounding each land provides fish to your villagers. Fish are visible along the shoreline and may even exist in spots where fish aren't visible. While you can certainly scoop up fish and drop the supply into your village store, it's wise to ask a few villagers to perform this task, as it keeps them from becoming dependent and lazy.

Builders

Drop a rock onto an abode, and you'll see several villagers stop their chilling and pick up tools to repair the damage. This is one discipline best saved for important building projects, which you would like completed as quickly as possible.

You can't directly build a structure but can only indicate where you would like one to be built; however, you can assist your builders quite nicely by depositing a pile of wood next to the building site, reducing the amount of time they spend walking back and forth to the store. Don't worry about depositing too much wood, as any excess will be picked up by foresters and resupplied into the village store.

If there are no repairs or building projects, a builder disciple will sit for a time in the village square with the status of "nothing to do." This isn't a permanent state of affairs, even if you don't shake him to release him from his discipleship. A builder disciple with nothing to do will soon turn to other matters, such as farming and fishing, if left alone for a while. This releases you from the burden of keeping close tabs on such disciples.

Builders are essential to using village center drops (explained earlier in this section), which are used to gain new influence elsewhere on the map. Drop down a few villagers after the village center to speed construction. Supply them with wood so that they don't have to search.

Craftsmen

If you drop villagers beside your village workshop, they'll become craftsmen. These villagers occupy themselves with providing the workshop with wood from the nearest supply (usually the village store). They'll stop working if all available spots in the workshop's main area are occupied with scaffolds. The amount of wood taken is low, but it helps release the burden from you. If you aren't pressed for scaffolds but would like to keep the workshop in operation, craftsmen are handy disciples.

Missionaries and Traders

If you're attempting to increase the belief that a neighboring village has in you, missionaries and traders can be of use, occupying themselves with tasks outside their homelands. To create them, pick up a villager and drop him or her in the appropriate spot in a neighboring village (look at the small yellow icon for help in this task).

A missionary can be used to take over a town with no belief. If you're an evil sort, terminate all the villagers in a neutral or enemy town (it's tough--you must get them all)--then the village becomes a ghost town with no belief. Drop in a missionary to convert the town to your cause. The problem is that there's only one resident, so fill the town with breed-ready villagers to populate the town.

Other

If there's a herd of animals near the village--for example, horses, pigs, or cattle--a villager may grab a shepherd's crook and go tend to them. There's no way to force a villager to become a disciple in this way. A shepherd will cull an animal from a herd and bring it to the village store.

Dancing villagers can raise your village's belief supply and imbue artifacts with belief, but you can't request a villager to do this task either. All you can do is provide the village with rocks for artifacts and give them access to your creature if you want to create dancers.