Trading port 'stealing' water from fishery?

[Pangaea]

Figured we could probably use 2nd trading port, as population is around 150 now and the one merchant never seems to bring all that much useful. But have a gander at the blow picture. The trading port happens to be perfect there. One notch to the left, and it can't be placed, so it's perfect with where the road happens to be. However, on the opposite bank there is a fishery. Will placing the trading port there effectively give less water to the fishery, or is this based on the initial distribution of water? Is the game complex enough to take the TP into account, and thus lower the efficiency of the fishermen?

[A Nonny Moose]

Generally speaking, I have noticed no such effect.  I have had situations with the TP next to the fishery, across from it, and in completely unrelated spots and noticed nothing deleterious.

[Paeng]

Well, I have monitored my fishing lodges quite extensively, but it is hard to put any figure on this question because of the constant movement of the peeps - eating, herbalist, idling and so on... I collected data over several years, with obstructions and without obstructions - my opinion is that any obstruction within the lodge circle reduces the yield. However - rather marginally so... it is not a matter of starving or not 

In my mind it is much more important to find the "sweet" spots - to me, any 4-man-lodge that brings in less than 1.600/year is no good. For that you also need to have a barn and the housing as close as possible to the lodge - close meaning really in the immediate vicinity, not 10 or 20 tiles away... plus solid support from your traders or vendors, to empty the barn regularly...

Catching as much open water as possible -




Just for the record, to get an idea what to aim for    - a perfect sweet spot can net you a maximum of ~3.200...
Usually I aim for all my lodges combined to net around 2.000 each (so individually something between 1.600 and 2.400).

[Pangaea]

Sounds good. I've placed it there now, but can't say I've noticed much of a difference. But will keep an eye on it. Fishing yield seems to vary a fair bit. It's kind of hard to justify having four people there getting 1500 food a year when you can stick two of them as farmers and get the same, at least in good years.

Re: farming btw, do you guys really get by with only 1 farmer on what I see are the popular size of 15x8?

I've used a fair bit of those farms, and unless it's a really good year, usually they can't get it all before cold sets in and kills the crops.

Edit: this got cross-posted with Paeng.

[Paeng]

It's kind of hard to justify having four people there getting 1500 food a year when you can stick two of them as farmers and get the same, at least in good years.

That's the point - in good years... fishing is pretty solid all year round... also consider the small footprint (even including a barn and two houses)... well set up, 1 fisherman brings in as much food as 1 farmer - looking at it over several years.

[rkelly17]

That's the point - in good years... fishing is pretty solid all year round... also consider the small footprint (even including a barn and two houses)... well set up, 1 fisherman brings in as much food as 1 farmer - looking at it over several years.

I'm with @Paeng on this one. In a well-placed fishing dock (@Paeng has given a fine demonstration of what that means) each fisher performs as well as a farmer in a 9X9 field in an ideal year and the fishing dock takes otherwise unusable space on a river bend where you often cannot build a trading post. In a good spot it is not unusual to have 2500 fish per year--pretty much what 4 farmers can do on 4 9X9 fields. The difference is in which food categories are filled: protein (meat, fish, eggs, nuts) vs. vegetables or grains.

As to whether or not bridges and TPs impede fishing I am agnostic. Somewhere I read that they do, but I've never checked it out myself.

[slink]

I went to read the rsc files involved, and discovered that we are missing one, and perhaps two, of the files that we may need to understand how fishing works.  I posted the one missing file as a bug in Beta 1.04 Modding Kit, on SRS forum.  The missing file is Template\PopulationFish.rsc.

[Pangaea]

Interested stats @Paeng. With numbers like that, I can agree it's well worth it. Fishing is also sort of a safety against a poor farming year, when you sometimes lose up to 50%. However, with farming at full tilt, it's possible to get 840 from a single farmer tending a 15x8. Unfortunately it doesn't take much for those numbers to go awry, especially with anything other than those pesky beans.

Think I've had ~2800 from a fishing dock before, but those kind of numbers are rare. 1000-1500 is much less impressive, and almost feels like a waste.

[rkelly17]

Think I've had ~2800 from a fishing dock before, but those kind of numbers are rare. 1000-1500 is much less impressive, and almost feels like a waste.

Unless I was desperate for food I'd move a dock that was bringing less than 1500. Of course, not every map is full of good spots.

I just thought of another place to use fishing docks in otherwise unusable space: landlocked lakes where merchants can't go.

[Pangaea]

I'm not one for Trading post spamming, so that's not an issue for me, so could put them just about anywhere really. Did find a pretty sweet spot, thankfully, that is much better than the one that is only brining in aroudn 1500 despite having houses and a barn nearby. This is the first year with the infrastructure nearby, and it brought in ~2500

Spots like that are hard to come by on this map, though.

Of course, it could be that the TP does indeed cut into the fishing for that dock that only yields 1500 now. I didn't pay close attention before, and at times cut down on fishermen due to needs elsewhere, but I think it was at least sometimes pulling in 1800 before (in fairness, it did get 1674 this last year, which isn't great, but not 1000-bad either).

[RedKetchup]

euh... 3100 fish for 1 dock... you use the +50% cheating fish mod ?

[Pangaea]

In the map I just posted there was an enticing fishing location...

Not going to play the map, at least not now, but I wonder what that would fetch.

e: Oi! I found another one, which is probably even better

[Paeng]

euh... 3100 fish for 1 dock... you use the +50% cheating fish mod?

No! I don't use any of these type of cheat mods... Can't stand them - I like to play my way out of trouble.

Oi! I found another one, which is probably even better

  You'll see - you develop an eye for those spots... sooner or later you'll find that every map has many of them... even if they don't look like it at first sight...

[Paeng]

Oi! I found another one, which is probably even better

One other thing I'd like to mention - when you find (or expect) a hut to give lousy yield, it is often worth it to just reduce the number of workers... if 4 men bring in barely 1000 fish, you'll often find that 2 (or at most 3) men bring in almost as much... it's seldom worth to keep up all 4.

[Pangaea]

Oi! I found another one, which is probably even better

One other thing I'd like to mention - when you find (or expect) a hut to give lousy yield, it is often worth it to just reduce the number of workers... if 4 men bring in barely 1000 fish, you'll often find that 2 (or at most 3) men bring in almost as much... it's seldom worth to keep up all 4.

Interesting, I'll keep that in mind

I've done the numbers on the 2-3 fishing docks in my game over quite a few years now.

Across 9 years, the good one that I posted about earlier (that got 2500 one year, later a top of 2646) has an average of 2129. A horror 1398 year drags it down a bit, perhaps due to heavy building. The initial dock that was across from the TP now has an average of 1613. A new one that looks pretty good has disappointed me with only 1609 average over 5 years. But that is partly explained by the impossibility of having a barn right by, so they have to walk more back and forth.

2100 on average is pretty decent though, so I'm fairly pleased with that. It's really difficult to find spots like that though, unless the map is very special.

Code Select Expand

Year    One    Two    Three
-----------------------------
24    1797    ~1500
25    1902    1668
26    2529    1674
27    1398    1452
28    1992    1488    1485
29    2457    1530    1764
30    2646    1770    1593
31    2283    1656    1440
32    2160    1782    1764
----------------------------
Avg   2129    1613    1609