Complex Food Needs

Overview
Villagers prefer to eat Complex Food, like, instead of raw food, like. While this need is satisfied, the villager will get a bonus to their Resolve. The bonus to Resolve is higher than satisfying their needs for Housing and Clothing, but not higher than satisfying their need for Services.

Villagers satisfy their need for Complex Food when they rest at the Hearth. When resting, they will eat one of every food item available for every Complex Food Need that they can satisfy, and the Resolve bonuses from every Complex Food Need they satisfy stack.

Consumption and Satisfaction
Species differ in which of the Complex Foods they want, so you will need to supply more than one type of Complex Food to satisfy all three Species in your settlement. In addition, every Species has more than one Complex Food Need, which means they can get more than one Resolve bonus if you provide enough variety.

On the other hand, if your settlement is running low on food, Villagers will eat a Complex Food that they do not need if there is no other food available to them, including raw food.

Like with raw food and Services, access to Complex Food can be disabled through Consumption Control, and denying a food incurs a Resolve penalty to those Villagers who need that particular food.

List of Complex Foods
Each Complex Food can satisfy more than one Species. Correspondingly, each of the five different Species require different combinations of the possible Complex Foods available. The following table shows these relationships.

The Production Building options are shown for convenience. See the next section for a table of Buildings that can help you choose your Blueprints.

List of Production Buildings for Complex Food
This table might help you choose Blueprints based on the Species in your settlement.

For brevity and since they are never Blueprint choices, Flawless versions of production buildings are omitted from this table. Similarly, because it is an Essential Blueprint that your settlement starts out with, the Field Kitchen is omitted.

Strategy and Special Combinations
Based on the Species in your settlement, there are obvious choices and options to avoid when seeking to provide Complex Food. However, most production buildings do not produce only food, but this section cannot also take into account producing goods for Services Needs.


 * The Cookhouse produces both Skewers and Biscuits, which satisfy the Complex Food Needs for mutually exclusive set of Species. It is the only Building that can produce one good that satisfies every Species.


 * Three Buildings produce two Complex Foods that together can satisfy four out of the five Species. The only other Building that makes two Complex Foods is the Butcher, which satisfies only three Species with its products, but has a different advantage.
 * The Bakery produces both Biscuits and Pie; only Foxes are not satisfied by something from the Bakery. In addition, Harpies need both, making this Building a great choice for settlements with Harpies.
 * The Beanery produces both Pickled Goods and Porridge; only Harpies are not satisfied by something from the Beanery. In addition, Foxes need both, making this a great choice for settlements with them.
 * The Cellar produces both Jerky and Pickled Goods; only Humans are not satisfied by something from the Cellar. In addition, Lizards need both, making this a great choice for settlements with them.


 * The Butcher produces both Jerky and Skewers, which can use as an ingredient the Jerky it produces. If you have Lizards in your settlement and either sustain the supply of Jerky or limit the production of Skewers so that you can satisfy both needs, the Butcher can be a great choice.


 * Lizards are the hardest to completely satisfy with Complex Food, since they require four different goods. It is more likely you'll be able to satisfy their Services Needs before you are able to produce all four Complex Foods they need. Plus, the Resolve bonus from Services is bigger then from Complex Food.


 * Beavers, in contrast, need only two Complex Foods. However, no single Building produces both Biscuits and Pickled Goods. This means you will always need at least two Buildings to produce Complex Food if you intend to satisfy all of your Villagers' Complex Food needs.