These two mods (Busy Laborers is totally included into TreeOfLife by the way) allow you to order your citizens to collect food directly in the wild (ie. outside of the range of any gatherer).

So, if you order your unemployed laborers to collect wild food manually then yes you would be able to collect more food (laborers collect food, they don't produce it).

In addition, with ToL you get access to several new food types whose consumption should raise the happiness of your citizens.

Is it clearer ?

Thanks for the fast reply! Yes, this helps. However, what about the case where people clear the land for a new building?

As stated in the full description of the Busy Laborers mod, any type of wild food located on a construction site will be colleted instead of destructed :)

So, the answer to my original question is 'yes' :) thank you! :)

Originally posted by SeriouslyDave:

So, the answer to my original question is 'yes' :) thank you! :)

You are welcome :)

How balanced is this?
Like on a food per villager ratio compared to orchards and pastures. I think the mod sounds very nice and immersive but I don't want to break the games fine balance.

Because this sounds especially useful in the early game and with mods who alter the villager aging (=slowing it=less growth) when you simply don't have enough people for every little job.

I will let the other users anwser you cause I haven't done any comparison myself ^^

Originally posted by HaTeMe:

How balanced is this?
Like on a food per villager ratio compared to orchards and pastures. I think the mod sounds very nice and immersive but I don't want to break the games fine balance.

Because this sounds especially useful in the early game and with mods who alter the villager aging (=slowing it=less growth) when you simply don't have enough people for every little job.

this mod is neat but it definitely makes the game much easier, you don't need to worry about food for a large population if you have a couple hunting+gathering pairs.