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First, let me clear out a point. Food is needed throughout the game, especially in the Stone Age. To make many villagers (like 20) and advance to the Tool Age, a player needs about 1000 food. Most people will use berries at the beginning of the game. This is not the best way to collect food in the Stone Age.
Let's set an example in a map that has very few or no water. Fishing is not an option here. The usual default Stone Age villager will collect food in the following manner:
Berries: 10 food in 21.5 seconds
Hunting lions, alligators, or elephants: 10 food in 20 seconds
Hunting deer: 10 food in 19 seconds
Well, now we can see that for the most part, hunting deer is the fastest way to collect food. But, who likes to hunt deer anyways? They keep running away when you start attacking them. So, unless they are kept close to your storage pit, this technique will be a waste of valuable time. To hunt a pack of deer, try to surround it with your villagers (never hunt a pack of deer with only one villager). Then, select each villager and assign them one deer each. The dead deer should be kept very close to your storage pit. In case one ventures off somewhere, make a villager bring him back.
Because berries are so close to your town center, a few villagers should always be foraging even if others are hunting deer. It takes 10 more seconds for villagers to forage 40 food then to hunt 40 food.
Elephants are the next choice of meat after the deer run out. Assign at least 4 or 5 villagers to kill one if you want your population to stay the same. Elephants contain a lot of food- they are worth hunting. Lions and alligators are just there to kill your villagers. They have less food than berry bushes and are harder to hunt. Stay away from them.
On a water map (islands, mediterranean, etc.), there is a better choice for gathering food. Assign some villagers to build a storage pit next to a group of shore fish (about three). Here's why:
Shore fishing: 10 food in 16 seconds
Boat fishing: 15 food in 36 seconds
Shore fishing is an excellent idea for villagers close to a water body. Villagers can fish VERY rapidly. Plus, shore fish have an amount of food comparable to an elephant's. Fish don't attack back. This is the best solution in food gathering.
Boat fishing is very slow, but given that fishing boats only cost wood and are very independent from micro-management, they are a good food-gathering unit. Upgrading them to fishing ships in the Bronze Age makes them faster and more reliable. In the Stone Age, though, they gather 5 food in a slow 12-second margin.
Farming is really the last resort in food gathering. Default farmers gather 10 food every 20.5 seconds, which is about halfway between hunting elephants and foraging bushes. Available in the Tool Age, it should be used when almost all the food supplies (except fish) have been exploited. If you rely a lot on farming, you should upgrade the farming upgrades at the market.
