I had accidentally whittled the population down to a sustainable solo farmer, with enough food to go around. I thought I was finally going to win a game...then, random illness death.
Next game, I semi-intentionally whittled the population down to a couple of farmers and a kid. The farmers died of illness and violence, the kid starved.
Shot every non-farmer day 1. All but one of the farmers died of illness. One of the children came back to life, then died of illness. Amazingly, the last farmer survived (even though it was boring to keep him alive).
Frustrating. The only way you have any chance of survival is killing the non-farmers (or letting them die), and even then you can be screwed over by random deaths.