Please demonstrate to me how Laborers significantly increase production.

[theonlywanderer]

@smurphys7     I think you just described the main difference very well when it comes to how things are queued.   This is why there is a priority function where you can change it up and make something else a priority.

As an example...  a land clearing gets set with 100 items to clear and you have 10 laborers.   Each laborer will clear an item and get reassigned until the entire land is cleared, so these 10 laborers will be tied up that entire time unless the priority function is used to reassign more priority to something else.   As you said, when a fish basket is ready to be picked up, it's at the bottom of that 100 queue.    Since part of a workers job is to deliver their products to the nearest storage, they will take care of that themselves before the laborers will.     I can't imagine anyone having the time to micromanage at that level to set priority every time production building has a supply to deliver, that would be madness.    So, yeah, the only time laborers can make a real difference is if you have an extreme abundance and that takes a very established village running at peak capacity in order to support that many dependents and that's usually not the scenario most of the time.   A player really onlys needs just enough laborers to handle the speed at which they play.

[smurphys7]

@smurphys7     So, yeah, the only time laborers can make a real difference is if you have an extreme abundance and that takes a very established village running at peak capacity in order to support that many dependents and that's usually not the scenario most of the time.

Even in this described scenario, Laborers don't make a significant difference in production. 

I happen to have a town that has 68 Laborers and 202 total citizens.  There are 54 employed citizens.  I haven't clicked anything in 5,000 game years.

Let's watch a Forester and see how often a Laborer helps carry the goods.  I picked a random Forester.  Over 5 minutes I watched her cut down 10 Trees.  Three she picked up the wood immediately, 4 she left the wood and picked it up later, and three times Laborers came and picked up the wood.

Video

Perhaps no stockpile nearby was a factor?  Perhaps if there is another fully grown tree immediately ready to cut down she leaves the logs for someone else and gets another tree?

I don't know.  You can download the save HERE if you want to stare at random Foresters, Gatherers or whatever

I would be VERY pleased is someone could demonstrate a test like this that showed me that Laborers were effective at hauling goods.  Laborers didn't increase this Forester's production by 30%.  Nearly all of this Foresters time is spent running around in circles and only a fraction of their time spent is on the extra long trip to the stockpile.  Only that fraction of time is helped 30% of the time.

When the stockpile/barns are available and close by that time saved by Laborers, which doesn't happen often, is insignificant.

[theonlywanderer]

@smurphys7     I was thinking more like 500 citizens with 200 of them being laborers.   I feel like if you get enough people running around, there will likely be one close enough to be assigned quickly to something.   I have no data to back this up, don't scrutinize the game at this level.   Logically speaking, it just seems to make sense that if workers don't have to leave to be laborers, they would make more progress.    But Banished isn't exactly the most ironed out game either is it?  I don't have the patience to monitor a game for that long, especially on something that ultimately hasn't affected or concerned me in all the rounds I've played over the years.

[smurphys7]

Laborers don't run around.  They idle and idle locations.

When the game assigns jobs Builder and Laborer jobs are given a high priority (I think), then employed workers, and then "leftovers" are made Laborers wherever homes are furthest from jobs. 

So the town I linked had 70 of 200 Adults as Laborers.  If I order the bottom right Forest to be removed, 70 Adults in the bottom right-most part of my town will become Laborers.  Home-Work-Storage all being close together will be devastated because, inevitably, many Gatherer setups in the bottom right will have all Laborers living nearby.  Those Gathering Huts will have to "ship in" the workers from far away.

What may have happened is players tested Laborers long ago and missed this concept.  You can do it in the save of Permanence.  Load the game, run it for 10 years.  You will get a baseline with TONS of Laborers.  Then load the game again, order the entire forest in a corner removed, and run it for another 10 years.  Production will DRASTICALLY be reduced.  You might think "See, this proves Laborers are effective, when I made the Laborers not help with production then production dropped drastically."  Technically, yes, production dropped drastically.

What really happened is half the town didn't live close to their jobs.  We all know when you hit the pathing tool and see a Yellow Line that wanders off the screen productive will be terrible.

When I tested Permanence with Laborers I intentionally moved ~30 of the houses to a corner of the map.  Then, when I ordered the removal of the Forest in that corner, I preserved "Home - Work - Storage" everywhere else.

The original, untouched version of Permanence has additional houses EVERYWHERE.  There are Laborers living next to each and every Gathering Hut.  Each Gathering Hut setup employs 3 Gatherers are 1 Forester.  Nothing else.  No Hunters, Herbalist etc.  Each Gathering Hut also has 4 Houses.  That ensures that each and every Gathering Hut setup has an abundance of Laborers immediately nearby.

[theonlywanderer]

@smurphys7    You took "running around" a bit literal there.  I just meant if you have enough laborers, there is a higher chance they will be spread out among all the houses and wherever there is a task needing done, a laborer is more likely to be close and available.

I agree that a poorly setup town will function inefficiently, this is well known.  If you only have just enough housing for the jobs nearby, of course there won't be any housing available for laborers, they will have to be elsewhere.  Like a forest hub, if you don't provide some extra housing, there won't be any laborers living in the hub they will have to come from town or some other area further away.

Bottom line, I agree that it's better to have Bannies employed then waiting around as laborers.   As I said before, I typically don't have that many laborers.   I think it's wise to keep around 5 to 10 depending on size of population, but that fits my style of game play.

But I'm going to bow out of this conversation, it's really not for me.

[brads3]

@smurphys7   

Bottom line, I agree that it's better to have Bannies employed then waiting around as laborers.   As I said before, I typically don't have that many laborers.   I think it's wise to keep around 5 to 10 depending on size of population, but that fits my style of game play.

But I'm going to bow out of this conversation, it's really not for me.

that says a lot and i agree with it mostly. in the beginning of the map,i can put everyone to work and control them with the limits to build the base camp or town. the 1st set of children become laborers and the limits are increased to stockpile supplies. after many years, the 5-10 laborer count becomes a % of the popuation not just 5-10 bannies.

        as @theonlywanderer  points out,much is about playstyle. on a very large map, i find SMURPHY's idea that housing laborers  is priority flawed. in my experience, builders are moved closer to the new construction areas 1st and laborers are last ,even below workplace workers. as i expand farther from the start center work of clearing land takes more time and is slower. the game moves the builders which are needed AFTER the clearing and building supplies moved to the construction projects. building houses in these far out zones works to speed the process, if you keep the builder count down and build more houses than the builders need.

        that being said we are talking different scenarios. 1 is building a modded map and the other is a vanilla town functioning that was built already. mods can have different effects some of which i calll "piggy-backed coding". a mod is made to do certain things. when the mod is zipped for us to download sometimes an extra piece or lines of coding gets  accidently oved with the new mod. this does not happen on purpose nor does it happen often especially with WOB moddders. for example a sub mod or addon from CC can cause the pastures to produce feathers.

        we players do not see inside the coding. some of the effects from piggy backed coding can be subtle and might have effects we don't even see.  since my games are heavily modded and use older mods, my games may play very different than other players.  what i say may not be normal. it is o'k cause i never want to be normal anyhow 

[irrelevant]

Just now saw this topic. I did some testing on this a few years back. Ref posts #170-178 in this thread:

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=726.170