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.

If disciples have nothing to do, you can often find them worshipping at the village center.

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.

Breeders in their 20s will have the greatest success in achieving pregnancy.

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.)

Plenty of villagers will help you farm, even if they aren't farmer disciples.

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.
 

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