Ok, hard map experiment two underway. I chose mountains on a large map, harsh weather, disasters, and hard starting conditions. I also decided to use only coal for heating, only steel tools (other than initial stock of iron tools), and only stone houses. I had to get pretty creative with my build order and the timing of my resource gathering, but I managed to survive year 2!
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_16_08_14_7_33_31.jpeg)
That's very nice. I even like the mine! ;)
I'll be interested to see how your plan works, and if I can steal any of your ideas. :D
@RavenSteele btw, how much coal did your mine produce?
he has 2 miners , surely not alot ^^ for the moment :)
@irrelevant , year one the mine produced 24 and year two 76. For most of year one I had only 1 miner, and for most of year two I had 3 :) I have to constantly adjust up and down to control my labor pool. My blacksmith created 36 tools (18 coal). The rest has been used for the houses. Overall I've used 85 firewood and 46 coal for fuel over the first two years. I have had 4 stone houses for little over a year. Interestingly enough, one house still has 15 firewood left and hasn't picked up any coal.
Year 2 I had a bad winter and it really affected my food production. It might be a coincidence but the harsh weather I think its going to require a lot more attention to my food gathering.
Also, I wouldn't normally build a gatherers hut and hunting cabin so close (because I don't want to have to move them later). But to get the town to survive year one I had to put them as close as possible to ensure they were built as soon as possible.
try to get bean seeds if you have have already, they are very good, being harvest during summer
End of Year 4. Got my trading post built, a school, and a fishing dock.
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_17_08_14_1_23_18.jpeg)
I monitored my fuel usage for the last two years. First, firewood and coal are used up at the exact same rate. Second, I noticed that fuel is only consumed if the temp drops below 50. During year 3, the temperature was more consistently below 50 and I used up 18 units of fuel per house. During year 4, the temp wasn't so consistent and I used only 17 units of fuel per house. However, year 4 saw much lower drops in temp, as low as 13 degrees. This didn't seem to affect fuel usage, BUT I did noticed that my gathering was seriously lower than the previous year. On the flip side, my hunters collected almost double what they did the previous year. This seemed to be consistent with years 1 and 2, where milder winter was better for gathering but the harder winter was better for hunting.
Also, its been over a year since I built my tp and a trader has not yet arrived. I really hope I'm not experiencing the "trading post on a lake" glitch :/
@RedKetchup If I can get a trader to show up I'll buy beans as soon as possible :) Hard staring conditions gives you nothing so it may be a while before I get enough in trade to get any seeds or livestock.
try to plan thing to sell for it. usually they take 625 firwood for it, but since you dont make any... i dunno how many coal you need to stack up for this.
It would be around 520 coal (coal sells at 6). I also have a bit of leather and steel tool surplus I can use. I gotta stay away from iron tools for now because they use up way too much iron and logs, which I need for building.
it was a friendly reminder :) keep it up :)
Thanks :) This is definitely a different experience. Things go so much slower on these conditions!
Quote from: RedKetchup on August 17, 2014, 12:09:42 PM
try to get bean seeds if you have have already, they are very good, being harvest during summer
Beans are great, but because they get planted so early they can get zapped by a late frost in the Early Spring. I've lost a half of a field of beans before.
And if traders are being stubborn don't forget the save and reload trick. If you save before the merchant arrives at the dock (not just before, but in sight) you can reload and get a different merchant and/or a different selection. Sometimes you have to do a number of reloads, but eventually corn or beans show up. Is it cheating? I could go into a long abstract discussion of the definition of "cheating," but right now I need bean seeds.
On year 10 now. I've somehow managed not to kill anybody yet :) but I have had two old age deaths. The coal seems to be working just fine and its nice not having firewood suck down all my logs. Food has been a real challenge until recently because of the weather. I've only got 5 educated citizens but they have helped tremendously!
Oh and a trader did finally show up. 3 so far actually. The first one was a food merchant, second was a resource merchant, and the third was a seed and food merchant. He didn't have any seeds on him but I put in an order. I didn't know about the save and reload "feature" lol. I might have to try it out if I get stiffed again.
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_18_08_14_6_58_41.jpeg)
My entire settlement failed by the end if year 11. Can anybody guess why from the image in the previous post? ;)
I went back to a year 7 save and fixed the issue. And I should have known better :)
Did you run out of babies? ;)
Yep that was the reason! I was so focused on food and my layout I wasn't paying attention to my population aging. Itwas actually a pretty easy fix and helped me with my labor shortages.
Have you built anything more? i am really curious how you manage to heat with coal. I failed badly in my no-tradesman-town. (but sure it was a bit bigger)
@Nilla , yes, I did continue my experiment. Sorry I haven't posted, been pretty busy with work and kids.
So, I was able to successfully use only coal to heat my homes and provide steel tools. I managed to make it to year 15 without killing off all my citizens and my settlement stable. What I discovered though, is that the rate at which coal is mined is very inefficient to heat homes. If coal burned longer than firewood (which it should, but they burn at the same rate in Banished), then coal may be worth it to heat homes. While I was successful, it took way too much micromanagement and also caused my settlement to grow very, very slowly. So in conclusion, its possible, but not very fun.
I did get some good data out of this experiment though. First, I redid the experiment using the exact same parameters, except I added firewood production. The efficiency at which firewood is produced is just not something that can be ignored. My town literally grew three times as fast in the first 10 years as with the coal only scenario. Second, stone houses are definitely the way to go. They use so little firewood that nearly all my firewood production goes to my trading posts. My houses use no coal, and I have a huge stockpile of firewood. Third, steel tools are awesome. One blacksmith produces all my steel tools. I haven't needed to mine coal since year 10 because I get so much from the trading posts that I always have a surplus. My workers are more efficient since they make half as many trips to the market for new tools.
All in all, adding firewood production turned a map with hard starting conditions, mountains, and harsh weather into the easiest map I've played. I'm on year 55 (I think) and I have massive surpluses in every resource. All citizens are educated, have steel tools, warm clothes, max happiness, and max health.
I'll post screen shots when I have a chance :)
Oh, and I've a total Tavern > Ale convert on the trading :)
I only trade Ale. Firewood is now solely used for heating homes and I don't produce any wool coats or iron tools. Just doesn't make any sense with how efficient my ale production is.
Quote from: RavenSteele on August 27, 2014, 01:51:16 PM
... I have massive surpluses in every resource. All citizens are educated, have steel tools, warm clothes, max happiness, and max health.
Such a happy feeling! ;)
Ok, so here is year 10 of my settlement while using only coal. The woodcutter you see was just built, as I decided by this time that my town was growing far too slowly and I wanted see the effect firewood and foresters would have on the growth of my town. So firewood hasn't been introduced yet.
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_27_08_14_10_18_32.jpeg)
Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of year 15 because I decided to quit without saving and now my autosave is long gone :)
And here is Parth at year 10 after starting from the beginning using foresters and woodcutters. I used my same basic build order, but changed the layout of some things. Its still a bit slow at first, due to having to split my resources between a mine, a blacksmith, and stone houses in year 1. Stone and iron were an issue for a while, but the other resources I had plenty of for the size of my settlement. Not wanting to build a quarry, my laborers had to spend quite a while scouring the countryside until my trading posts started giving me more stone.
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_27_08_14_10_24_48.jpeg)
And here is after year 50. Ok, so maybe not 100% happiness and education. But close :)
(http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/136_27_08_14_10_21_49.jpeg)