irrelevant: Gopher Prairie: extreme tenure, 10,000 years

[irrelevant]

No, that's a fact of life in a 100% uneducated town where no new houses are ever built. Educated would be similar, but with less drastic swings.

I suppose an interesting experiment would be to build a bunch of schools....

[brads3]

i don't think education would matter. it seems to be related to housing and population.  i take it you ran this with vanilla age speed as well. i know it has been attempted but i don't know of anyone that has found a "happy" equilibrium balance. which is why i asked.not trying to be critical at all.what is your housing count? i would guess it is near 500.with 2000 adults it should be 1000.
   the town i am running now,i never get the housing up where i want it.the game expands the population fast enough that it has been consistently 100 houses short of where i think it should be.and this is with a 1:1 propertime mod.

[irrelevant]

@brads3 There are 558 houses. The town is all vanilla.

The reason I think educated would have a flatter sine wave is because education would delay the girls having children until they finish school.

The sine wave is caused by

1) available houses all filling up on the upswing of the pop curve

2) birth rate declines because there are no houses for new families to form in, pop curve levels off

3) normal die-off of oldsters far exceeds new births, pop curve heads down

4) as houses open up for new families, births begin to climb, pop curve starts to level off

5) finally there are houses available for all new families, pop curve turns back up.

Delaying the age at which girls have children should slow the increase some, plus fewer child-bearing years could possibly reduce the number of children that some families have.

[irrelevant]

Well, this should be interesting, the first structures I've built in over 1000 years, 13 schools. Not going to start them up just yet, I'll wait until the pop curve is approaching the bottom. I think that will be the least disruptive time to start, and will have the maximum effect on slowing the pop growth of the next wave.

I also shut down all of the smiths, since I hardly ever make tools any longer. This also will save me from having to buy iron.

I also shut down all of the foresters, as logs are cheap and I get plenty through trade. This freed up 62 workers, which should help mitigate the effects of the professional die-off at the bottom of the pop wave.

One thing I hadn't thought of until now, education will increase my food production; I may need to build more barns @Nilla 

[brads3]

yes,educated workers will increase the production. i think adding schools without housing will delay the curve.not convinced it will totally stop the yoyo wave though.your average house has how many generations in it? 3 or 4? so quite a few have to die off before there is room for new children. i don't want to see you kill such a long map. the schools could delay the child bearing of the recovery and make the whole thing worse even.be careful.

[irrelevant]

yes,educated workers will increase the production. i think adding schools without housing will delay the curve.not convinced it will totally stop the yoyo wave though.your average house has how many generations in it? 3 or 4? so quite a few have to die off before there is room for new children. i don't want to see you kill such a long map. the schools could delay the child bearing of the recovery and make the whole thing worse even.be careful.

I'll make a save before I turn on the schools, don't worry about that.

No, it won't stop the sine wave, but I believe it will flatten it out, which is all I want.

You can have only two generations in one house, two parents and their three children is the max.

[irrelevant]

Year 1273

Activated 14 schools in 1246, near the bottom of the pop wave. The wave is definitely flatter now, and it's cycle time seems to have increased, but who knows what it's going to do as it nears the next trough. Still lost a few professionals (15 or so) when all the laborers died off.

At the top of the wave, 14 schools was not enough, you can see the educated % dip, that's when the schools got full. One thing I didn't consider was that when I turned the schools on, there were more houses than families. This led to students marrying and moving into houses of their own, houses that were no doubt very far from their schools in many cases, resulting in long delays in their graduation.

In retrospect, I should have activated the schools when the number of families exceeded the number of houses, doing so would have alleviated some of that. Oh well.

Town needs rebalancing, got too much wool, too many coats. Going to shut down some farms as all that food production no longer is needed. But no time for Banished just now, and when I do have time I'm going to be testing the revised @RedKetchup crops in my other active town.

[irrelevant]

Year 1289

So I came back from 6 hours of work and errand-running to this.

Introducing education has worked out much as I expected, only better.

Instead of swinging between 2000 and 800, it looks like my work force now will fluctuate between 1400 and 1000. This will take care of the problem of the professionals dying off. I'll even be able to add some traders and vendors.

[brads3]

impressive. glad it worked out.am surprised just the education balanced it that well.

[irrelevant]

Thanks! It's important to remember that lack of education has demographic effects in addition what it does to production.

[RedKetchup]

Thanks! It's important to remember that lack of education has demographic effects in addition what it does to production.

education is a must in every cities no matter what

[irrelevant]

Year 1342

The new pop curve is still seeking its equilibrium.

[RedKetchup]

your sin* and cos* lines are better

[irrelevant]

Year 1403

This is interesting, a deep trough followed by a shallow one, twice in a row exactly the same, looks like it's going to do it again.

I wonder if this has to do with the fact that my schools fill up, there isn't enough room for everyone to become educated? Guessing that it might, I knocked down the chapel and built two more schools....

[brads3]

looks like more bannies have to die off and then the number of students can increase.the schools have space but no bannies that need them.i think in some houses old bannies are dying and the next set can't have children since they are up there in age also.then as more die,the houses are replenished with younger bannies that can have children. that is what i ment by having 4th generation and 3rd in houses. that being said,more schools might delay the population recovering and actually smooth the student line out.