Nilla- testing DS Industrial mining beta

[Discrepancy]

Considering the amount of micro-managing there is during the first few years and the constraints you have on that map, you have built your town up fairly rapidly.. haha a lot more than I can in those same years.
well done.

There are no changes to the tornado in this mod, and you are using the standard Harsh climate which has a chance of tornado every 100yrs from 1 population. It must have been just bad luck to get it that early. But I myself am not a fan of the tornado anyway, and I have been trying to adjust it to be something different... I was going to release something in last update but it isn't working well, my first attempt was to make some kind of forest fire using a flame particle instead of tornado, though the actual moving flame looks okay the destruction of trees does not. A long time ago I tried doing a similar thing while on a project with Yandersen - adding a destruction and fire chance to resources and spawned map trees. Either the modkit is not allowing me, or I am still doing something wrong. I have a few other ideas of what to use the tornado function for... one is perhaps a severe storm, though with less chance of destruction than the tornado (possible to do) and the others I'm not sure if they will work as I intend as they won't be a disaster at all but more just a timed event...

You are indeed correct about the value of tools, I overlooked this and the more durable tools will have better profit margins next update.

Coke I am still not sure of, but looking at your inventory it is too overpowered. In this update it has a value of 8, it is now more costly than Charcoal (value 7), yet charcoal is more heavily used when produced as it will be taken into homes as well as used in smelting. With a Log having a value of 5 and 21 are use to produce 34-55 Charcoal there is total profit of 133-280 or 3.91-5.09 per piece of charcoal. To produce Coke, 21 Coal at 3 value to make 34-55 Coke there is a total profit of 209-377 or 6.15-6.85 per piece of Coke. Both are profitable, yet charcoal requires constant micro-managing, and the use of it as a household fuel ensures it currently isn't likely to be an option for a trade good. Coke though does not have enough uses, so a closer to even parity of input-output is likely to be in the next update.

Thanks.

[Nilla]

These disaster ideas sound interesting. Disasters in Banished are pretty dull. Of course, not the tornado but it is rare and might also hit you in a way that makes it impossible to go on. Fire is no big deal anymore and the infestations are more annoying than disastrous. Some new ideas would brighten up the game.

Yes, I agree coke is too powerful. I just looked; I ran it almost a year, 2000 coke was produced with 1 worker. For 2000 coke you need 763 coal. To mine that in the Coal Bell Pit you need almost 7 miners with no input. (I guess you´ll need less miner but an input of timber and lamp oil in a mine) Anyhow; as average these 8 people make a trade profit of 2000 each and that´s a lot. I don´t think it´s the price of 8 for a coke that´s the main problem. It´s the high production. Many sites in my settlement use coke and I also sell some but I still don´t need to run my only Battery Coke Oven the whole year.

On this map charcoal isn´t an option. There´s simply too little logs and I need what´s there for fuel and timber. I like that it´s an ordering fee on logs. I will need to import logs all the same but it´s good that there is a cost to play on a difficult map like this.

[Nilla]

This is too easy! The iron-tool-chain is much too profitable. I didn´t buy all that food because I need it; I did it because I can and because I wanted to see how much food I can buy for the tools I produce. After I built the small industrial area south, I only sell iron tools for food.

Where is the problem? I will make some calculations later, based on the numbers of this town at the moment but spontaneously, I would say the price for iron and iron tools are too high. The mod is called "industrial mining" so I like to have some "industrial feeling"; a high production with a lot of people at the big sites. It wouldn´t feel right to set the production down here. But I can tell; a blacksmith at the small Smith´s Hearth makes a lot more iron (108 last year) than a blacksmith working at the large "Water Powered Blast Furnace (668/8/=83,5). Maybe the small site is a bit better located but this big furnace can´t be built everywhere and this one is well supplied with ore and a wagon vendor brings coke. It´s no good feeling that it would have been better and cheaper to have built 8 small hearths closer to the houses instead of this one big site. The production at the smaller sites ought to be set down in a similar way that mines work; larger more expensive mines->higher productivity for each worker.

Lamp oil is still very profitable and easy to produce. I buy flax, it´s cheap and easy. The merchant brings a lot. I will also make some calculations later on this chain. The text at the Oil Kiln says that you need 7 seeds to make 8 lamp oil but in fact, you´ll need 8 to make 7 together with some firewood.

First picture
Old industrial area with a small scale production.

Second picture
New industrial, large scale production area. I also show a full profession list.

[Nilla]

I´ve made some calculations. I haven´t double-checked it, so there might be some miscalculation here and there. It´s a list for some interesting products containing; product, trade price, trade profit for 1 unit, annual production for 1 worker in this town last year, annual profit for 1 worker. If there´s a ?, I´m not quite sure how many workers I employed the year before. When I have more sites, I use an average value.

log; 5 - 5- 110 - 550
stone; 12 - 8 - 130 -1040 (?)
iron, small site; 34 - 16 - 110 - 1700
iron, big site; 34 -16 - 84 - 1340
iron tool; 28 - 8,5 - 150 - 1275
firewood; 2 - 1,2 - 550 - 660
iron ore, small mine; 4 - 1,3 - 130 - 170
iron ore; big mine; 4 - 3,1 - 220 - 680
sand; 2 - 2 - 300 - 600
timber (large mill and improved small mill); 4 -2 - 550 - 1100 (?)
coal (upgraded coal bell pit) 3 - 1,8 - 110 - 200
coke; 8 - 6,8 - 2000 - 13 600
bricks; 5 - 1,5 - 200 - 300
lime: 5 - 2,5 - 500 - 1250
candle; 5 - 3,4 - 180 - 600
linen; 10 - 8,75 - 160 -1400
glass; 15 - 8,75 - 90 - 800
lamp oil ; 3 - 1,6 - 630 - 1000
fish; 1 - 1 - 500 - 500
pasture, sheep; 3/5/2 - 1800/96/36 -6000
small beehives; 1/2/3 - 370/30/20 - 480
gatherer; 1 - 1 - 740 -740
hunter; 3/10/2 - 600/18/24 - 2000

[Nilla]

I told you in some thread that I´m in stress at the moment and haven´t played Banished for some time. I´m not ill or at least not more than usual. But my husband is and at the moment; "Winter´s coming", so it´s too tough to live here in our house out in the middle of nowhere. So we´ve decided to rent an apartment in town. Not so easy to find fast but now we´ve got one at 1 October and until then, things have calmed down. So a little Banished isn´t bad.

Up to the new beta 5! The changes look interesting.

I left the settings as they were from my last game; "Harsh Mountains" and I looked at the new starting conditions. I wanted to test the hardest of them; " Industry Charcoal Burners" but I soon realized that these harder starts are; if not impossible, at least very hard on smaller maps. There are not enough iron ore on the ground to make even the smaller bloomer smelter, maybe unless you build several bridges. If you want to mine, you need timber. To make timber you need a timber mill or worker construction yard; both need iron. Maybe @Discrepancy you could consider to take away iron as a building material from the worker´s construction yard or at least make it possible to use a small woodcutter to cut some lumber "by hand". The amount of iron ore on the ground is indeed very small, especially on a smaller map. Edit: Forget about it! I just saw that you can use logs in the mine. Stupid not to pay attention.

So I decided to use the next starting condition; "Industry: Ore Smelters"; here we have a small bloomer smelter from each iron and copper. So we can build a school and a Worker´s construction yard.

I´ve played 11 years. The start is indeed tough but manageable. I have the same problems as @MarkAnthony; not much goods to sell, but in a slightly different way; I have no ambitions to farm. I want to start an industry to buy food, but before the industry runs, it´s not so easy to produce something you can sell. I like it very much! At the moment I sell venison and candles. We need food. There´s no room for any more gatherers and hunters, there are no good fishing spots left. So I make so many small beehives, I have people to manage and use the beeswax to make candles. It´s not a very profitable chain but at least it works so far.

But this small mountain map has too many limitations. There´s no room at the river to build any smelter. I want to test the "coin trade". No room for the larger ports, so I´ve decided to leave this map and start over on a more normal map.

I have made some screenshots.

First picture
Dream or nightmare start? Anyhow, I got everyone except the eldest in school. No chance there! But I settled her close to the fishing dock and as I looked; she was fisher or trader. I never saw her messing with iron production or stone collecting.

I´m certainly no big "planner in advance" but when I play "Industrial Mining", I always set the footprints for the stone quarry and the small iron mine. They aren´t easy to set and I don´t want to mess up the good spots with other buildings.

Second picture
5 years, the settlement´s developing just fine.

Third picture
11 years, still developing good enough. I think it´s a good idea to go for more continuous production of iron and industrial fuel as soon as possible. It´s slowly getting annoying to micromanage these early sites. There is always something to demolish, always some blacksmith or coal burner without a job.

Edit2: Forget one small thing about the new log houses; the text says that they are for 4 people but actually they can hold 5. I find it good that way; they are rather large. Maybe it could be a bit higher win in heat efficiency to upgrade, rather than to increase the family size.

Edit3: I should make notes because I forget a lot I wanted to say: I didn´t want to build any vanilla barn instead get along with the smaller storages until I could afford to build the nice looking TS&f barn but I found no small storage for glass. Just wanted a few for the food port and a doctor but they couldn´t be stored anywhere.

[Discrepancy]

I admit I haven't tested on a small mountain map. So thank you for pointing that out, I will look into a slightly different resource spawning for the mountain maps I think (more ores available).

I also find the micromanaging can get annoying with the early sites of charcoal-piles and bloomeries. I did start a model for a building with constant production of charcoal, but put it on hold as I wanted to limit the start with the piles, but as I'm now incorporating this into the future Celtic village mod I will return to this building for next update.

Thank you for spotting that fault with the log homes. And I will update it with the changes you suggest.

I must have missed the exclusion of glass from the storage, I had originally envisioned it to be on the storage yard piles, but this would not be compatible with other mods. I will add another storage option for the glass also in the next update.

thanks

[Nilla]

I decided to give this town a few more years, just to "feel" the small map. It´s hard but possible to survive and develop. And yes, it is indeed very little ore on the ground, but on the other hand; if you chose a small mountain map, you want a real challenge and after I discovered the log-options of the small mine, it is possible to manage the start. So I don´t find it necessary to increase the amount of ore on the ground on small maps especially. However; it´s good to start the iron ore mining soon and change to steel tools as soon as possible. I made bronze tools (like you suggest @Discrepancy) too long and got some other problems. Some buildings need copper or bronze for construction and since I´ve used the little copper ore on the ground for tools, I must wait. Again; use the few resources in the wisest way! What´s best on a larger map mustn´t be best on a small map!

Since I need copper for a blast furnace I had to make do with the small bloomer and it is indeed a bit annoying; even if I have a "strategy" for dealing with it. Only using the largest bloomer, demolish it as soon as it´s depleted and start the construction of the next pile as soon as the demolition is done. It works but I would rather have something without all this micromanagement and something where you can use coke as fuel. Since I have very little forest, I try to use coke everywhere it´s possible but I still need a lot of charcoal and if the surplus of firewood isn´t high enough, people will steal the valuable charcoal and heat their houses. Of course, I need to import logs but they don´t always arrive as I want. It´s an interesting and difficult challenge. I will certainly try a small map sometime again.

I´ve discovered one text that needs to be updated to the new production numbers; the smaller lumber mill.

First picture
Here´s most of the settlement. I usually build dense but here it´s even more dense than usual.

Second picture
Good health and happiness aren´t easy. You can also see that there´s a problem to produce enough clothes. It will soon improve since I managed to buy some sheep.

You can also see all these bloomeries and charcoal piles in different construction modes. And if you look carefully, you may also see another "evil trick" to prevent your population from starving when the conditions are bad. 

[brads3]

i dislike that trick,but do think soe trickery is needed to work the DSIM.much depends on how easy or hard players want to make the game.

[MarkAnthony]

For those of us (me) who seem to be trick-impaired can you enlighten us? I don't see anything. I see you have a lot of honey so you use the beehives, I don't see how that is a trick so what am I missing? Thanks.

You're good at this game Nilla, I didn't think I was that bad a player but for some darn reason I am just having a hard time in DSIM Beta v.05. This last game I started last night I chose a medium start so I had crops and orchards and I'm still getting starvation deaths. I don't know what my problem is yet you somehow manage to get to 18 years on a small mountain map which I have never even tried before. I once looked at a small mountain map and geesh, there's hardly no room anywhere to do anything so again - you're pretty darn good at this. /hat tip

[brads3]

MARK check her water count in the intventory. bannies can'tin RL,live on water alone.

[brads3]

10x10 fields,1 food worker per 5 bannies< that is a rough guideline> and send workers to gather food and herbs in mid to late fall and winter. remember to check them before spring planting.

    for " tricks" you can use TOM's quick hunters and fishermen. these are handy at game starts to build food reserves without building workplaces. the quick hunter is easy to move around the map and trurn on and off.be careful to not overhunt.

[MarkAnthony]

How does the water count help her? Isn't water non-nutritional? We can't send them to gather food in DSIM, there is no gather wild foods option; I wish there was because in other games that has occasionally saved my butt. I'm using 11x11 fields so 868 per field.

I'm trying to stick as close to DSIM as possible, by this I mean no other mods to help "cheat" with food or resource production, storage, school, specialized trading posts and so on; basically it's just DSIM and Vanilla builds that I am doing. Even though I showed a screenshot of my ModMan profile for this game that showed me having "food preservation" mods loaded... they may as well not be there because I haven't even had a chance to try and build them - I have other "issues (crap)" to deal with - never found the time, besides some of them were for use with Vanilla so they want iron to build them. Hell NO!  You can't have my iron! 

Here's my ModMan profile again that I have been "trying" to use with my last 3 (soon to be 4) DSIM games. The mods in the blue boxes are what I am using in game, the mods in the orange boxes are the food preservation mods I loaded but as I said they want iron to build and nay, nay -- I refuse to give them that - so I am not even using those. Well, except for Tom's Campfire but I don't even have a Hunter going this last gamer or Kid's MarketFood because I don't have a Gatherer in the last game either. This last game I have been trying to just start off with Pepper and Pumpkin farms. Anyhow.. I'm rambling due to frustration.    I'm not using any food preservation mods.
               

[brads3]

so you made the game very hard on purpose.with just the DSIM trading would be hard too.you should still have the basic gathering hut. do you have a clear all tool? i would have used that in year 1 to clear a huge patch of land. that would allow food to grow. and then the next year, you could use the clear tool to clear the food since there wouldn't be many trees. could do the same thing with the crop field if you didn't have a clear land tool. set a large field then delete it.next fall replow the field.

    NILLA accidently found out that the bannies can survuve on water. then she tested the theory back a ways.i do think her health will suffer but they won't starve.

[Nilla]

Yes, Brad knows my tricks. Water counts as food but belongs to no category, so theoretically you are right Brad; health would suffer but not when you play DSIM and are at the beginning. When just one food category is missing, health will drop to 0 hearts anyway. So here water makes no further harm.

And Mark; don´t feel bad. This is a difficult mod. I survived these 18 years because I bought all the food I could get, together with the honey. Water didn´t contribute much, I just saw that there was a water well that you need if you want to produce alcohol.

Your trick Brad doesn´t help here either. Like in a vanilla game; wild food cleared with "clear all tool" will simply disappear without any use. The only thing is to produce as much food as you can. I know it´s tempting in a mod like this, where it´s so hard to get the resources you need (especially iron and other metals) to use a little too few food workers. You want to get forwards fast. But as you see, Mark; it doesn´t bring you forward, it only brings starvation. Focus on the basic, essential things and it will work.

I´ve just started a new game. I will tell you a bit more in detail, how I manage the start tomorrow. This time I can use no tricks, no water, not even my beloved honey because I took away the ale/mead mods.

[brads3]

i see, so NECORA's smart laborers have me spoiled.