tl;dr. Why don't the Edible Markets behave like the Regular Markets but only for food items? Edible Markets fill with food nearby. Regular Markets don't. Video Example (https://streamable.com/unvvu)
Citizens only stop at one market for food. Regular Markets waste time with all goods. Edible Markets fill with food. Specialized Carts only stock one food group. None of the 3 work ideally a large and specialized town.
I made a demonstration town. The town makes Broccoli. I put a market in the center. I put a few useful buildings next to it. The next ring is houses. The next ring is Barns. The outer ring is tons of broccoli farms. I trade broccoli for everything else: tools, clothing, and the 3 other food groups. I purchase Corn, Cherries and Chestnuts to make it easy. Picture of Town (https://i.imgur.com/f4lGNR2.png) Save Game File of Town (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSb1aHMdntROP4iqaZ1cAP1mko8bQdoF/view?usp=sharing)
When I use a regular market, like this Old Town Market all goes well for food groups. I keep a relatively steady and even supply of each food in the market. Regular Markets work great for this example town: Video Here (https://streamable.com/j6s3d). This example is the behavior I want: Vendors trying to constantly stock all four food groups at a market.
When I use the Edibles Market the markets fill with Broccoli. My people's health suffers because they eat few food groups. The barns where food is imported contain plenty of other food groups. Edibles Markets fail in example town: Video Here. (https://streamable.com/pkk92) Second Video showing Change from Regular to Edible HERE (https://streamable.com/unvvu). I don't want this behavior.
When I use a group of specialized market carts the people only use the closest market cart. Again, people's health suffers because they eat few food groups. Specialized Market Carts fail in example town: Video here (https://streamable.com/zzcdy). I don't want this behavior.
The problem is regular markets don't work in my "normal" towns. My other towns produce or own too many goods. The Example Broccoli town works because that town only makes broccoli. The only other goods are imported and there are very few of them: clothes, tools, fuel and the other 3 food groups. The marketers in Broccoli town only have to cart around the necessities. When the markets have more goods the desired effect (stocking all four food groups) fails.
My Cheesy Bread town has several Rural Markets. The only fruits produced in Cheesy Bread town are Apples and Cherries. The only vegetable produced is Tomatoes. I bring up the Town Hall and there are a few thousand of each at all times. There aren't a lot, but enough that each market could stock or try to stock some. The problem is the Vendors at these markets are too busy messing with all the other goods Cheesy Bread town produces rather than trying to stock fruits and vegetables.
Furnace Fuel, for example, is one of the problem goods. My town imports Furnace Fuel. Furnace Fuel is only used in one corner of town. Unfortunately, each market tries to stock some. The specialized market cart I place next to the Furnace Fuel users won't take Furnace Fuel out of another market. My vendors waste their time stocking furnace fuel, and other similar goods, rather than the Fruits and Vegetables my people need.
Here's a Video of Cheesy Bread town Struggling (https://streamable.com/harst)
I cannot simply change the Rural Markets to Edible Markets. The Edible Markets would fill with the outrageous amounts of Beef, Bread and Cheesy Bread that Cheesy Bread town produces. That's not a problem in real life but in the game my people need their fruits and veggies. I cannot use the specialized market carts for Fruits and Veggies because a person will only stock their home from one market. Either they go to the Rural Market with little to no Fruits/Veggies, or the Edible Market filled with Cheesy Bread goodness, or to the Fruit or Veggie Cart. The only go to one and don't stop at each.
How do I fix this? How do I properly use markets to feed a spread out population with all four food groups? Why don't the Edible Markets behave like the Regular Markets but only for food items?
Guessing you are using CC? I think
@brads3 mentioned something a while back about something funky going on with the CC markets in the latest version, since the patch, etc. He's around quite a bit so hopefully may have some insight for you.
Are you using other mods or just CC?
Sorry, I copy and pasted this from the Black Liquid forums. I am only using CC 1.75.
No worries. Assumed when you mentioned the particular buildings. And furnace fuel.
I haven't played with CC extensively yet but I've noticed with the different specialized markets they seem to vary in how they behave. Some will try to keep an even amount of everything they stock, others will simply fill up. I think I noticed the stall type markets in CC are the latter, but it's been a while. I do remember them getting glutted when they are supplying a building that makes something of the same flag, I think, which sounds like what you are seeing. I get the impression it has to do with how detailed the coding is. A modder could explain it better I'm sure.
As for fixing your problem, generally what I do is try to stick with the general markets as much as possible just to keep things balanced. They tend to employ more workers and, like you say, bannies can load up on multiple things in fewer trips to those. I use kid's market puzzle stands a lot to augment specific things. Like the tool stand near production buildings just to shorten the trip to replace tools, woodfuel next to buildings that use it, etc.
You could try adding Market Puzzle and EB's Market Set to your game and see if they help. Both are in the 107 section here. Might want to check the pages to see if they can be added to a map in progress.
It's funny you bring this up because I've been interested in learning more about how markets specifically work and what all can be done with modding them.
Quote from: Maldrick on December 09, 2017, 06:46:49 AM
I get the impression it has to do with how detailed the coding is. A modder could explain it better I'm sure.
i personally dont know how
@kralyerg coded them. he is the best one who can explain it or point you which one(which CC market) would be the best fit for your town.
@RedKetchup Do I have that right? It seems like some are set to balance everything and others just fill up on the first of that flag they find. Do you have control over that in the coding?
i like the in depth way of descibing the problems.lots of information in your post.these type posts is what modders need when developing more mods.plus the details help other players to learn and change how they play.nicely done.
i don't think i know as much as MALDRICK thinks i do. maybe i get lucky since i don't seem to have the diet problem. is it because i up herb counts? different markets? dumb luck?
in your case of growing 1 type of food and importing all the others,the issue would be more noticed. in a town that grows its own food,things are so scattered the probelm won't affect everyone.there are tons of pages on markets all over the internet. though i have read a few on different sites, i still have some issues with them. mine are more related to the new limit flags and having too many of various products and not enough of specific 1's. and as you found,everything is stored scatttered and isn't where it should be.i use lots of older mods which won't store new items.
you say the bannies take food only from the closest market. that is supposedly the rule.however,does the game really do that every time? there is also discussions as to how the radius of markets work. rather the vendor will pull from the barns inside the radius or outside.these are supposedly known rules. i am not convinced the game actually plays that way.
water is food but if storage is near by and the building needing the water is nearby according to the "rules", water would stay there.why does it get moved everywhere but there?? same thing with a production area. clay should be dug and then store nearby. then the brickmaker should have access to make bricks.why does every market all over the map need to store it then? if markets don't overlap their radius,the products shouldn't be pulled from 1 area to another.that will start a big discussion again over the differences of markets and barns. LOL.
i have built houses in a row with firewood on 1 side and thatch on the other.according to the "rules", the houses closest to the thatch should burn thatch for heat. every house will have firewood. and several,not just the closest, will have both. rules are more guidelines than rules in bannished.
let's tear your situation apart for a minute. did you check the housing inventory???what you think you see may be different than what the bannies are doing. as the vendor stocks the odd foods,are they being pulled back out of the market by the houses?? in which case the market won't show lots of apples or grain. since the houses are stocked with broccoli and farmers are you have more of it,more will be stored everywhere. but the foods you don't have as much of won't be stored in high amounts.
how many vendors to eacfh market do you have? i ususlly set 1 to each but will use carts to move logs and minerals for firewood cutters and blacksmiths. since you have to move so much food from trading posts to town,will having 3 or 4 vendors help? as MALRDICK pointed out mods might work differently as well. KID's market puzzle would give you options. you could place a grain and meat vendor near the ceter market and the bannies should pull food from all.
1 trick i try to get the bannies to do is to scatter the laborers around the map. say you need 4 workers in a forest which is 2 houses. build 3 houses so there is 2 extra workers in that area. do same thing to mine or production towns etc.this forces the laborers to live in the extra houses. laborers carry items and collect all kinds of stuff running around. as they run home to eat or get warm,they will carry items with them and this helps scatter needed items. not saying it works as well in game as theory, but it does seem to help.
depends of the coding...
usually you can tell x% of vegetable, x% of fruit, x% of meat .... it depends if has been coded that way or with x% of edible which can be everything or just 1 thing....
i am not seeing the building template.
that adds to the storage dilemas. the modders here adjust those variables instead of setting all itmes the same. that helps. that info isn't posted with the mods. even storage barns don't always have the capacity amount in the mod write up.some list when you scoll over the building icon some do not.
@brads3 You're right...Market behavior has always been a bit of a mystery when you really get down to the details. Like at what point do they offload goods to storage? Have never been able to predict when exactly but they definitely do at times. Then there's the whole stocking houses thing.
Purely as a side note....One thing that's super cool in Ostriv is there are checkboxes for what gets stored in warehouses...which are kind of a cross between barns and markets in banished terms. Still early alpha so the game is really limited currently, but can see this being incredibly handy down the line. Wish we had that level of control in Banished.
@RedKetchup Thank you. I was just asking as a general matter. So if I understand correctly, you can have it pull by flag, and with food it can be specified by food group and edible/inedible. Can it be more particular than that? Like could a market be coded to only stock steel tools but not iron? Or just, say, cherries and apples, but not other fruits?
Quotedid you check the housing inventory???
Quotehow many vendors to eacfh market do you have?
This information is shown in the video. The Broccoli town is simply an example town. The issue in my more normal towns is that I often play with personal restrictions or limits. Often my town has a specialized area to produce one type of food OR that type of food is important. The issue is distributing this single food group from one location across my entire town.
For example, my Cheese Bread town has Tomatoes produced in one area. Apples and Cherries are produced in another area.
This is my guesstimation through non-scientific testing: when a person's home is low on food they go to the nearest market if they are standing inside a market circle when the "my home is low" trigger occurs. If they are not inside a market circle they go to the nearest storage with food. That last part MAY be a market that they happen to NOT be standing inside the market radius.
My estimation is based on these tests:
First Test (https://i.imgur.com/NuigQxy.png). The Barns shown near the Fishing Docks only contained Fish. As expected, the homes against the market had more food types. The homes near the docks had MOSTLY fish but some small amounts of the others. The two homes way far east had virtually all fish. I tracked these numbers over 15 game years.
Second Test (https://i.imgur.com/RHiCB0j.png). Again, I ensured the outer Barns only had Fish. The Market had more food types. Again, the homes against the market had almost the same food types as the market. However, the further the homes were from the market the higher % of fish they had. The circle itself seemed to make no difference. The main factor seemed to be distance. Since my citizens mostly worked outside the circle I assume it works like I explained in my guesstimation above.
In practice across many towns, this seems to be the case. Sometimes citizens get food that doesn't appear in nearby markets or they don't use markets when their homes are located inside one.
Quotewhy does every market all over the map need to store it then? if markets don't overlap their radius,the products shouldn't be pulled from 1 area to another.
I cannot answer why they do that. I don't understand your comments about the radius and "shouldn't be pulled from one area to another". Markets pull goods from across the entire map into the market itself. This concept can easily be demonstrated and replicated.
@smurphys7 Welcome to the Great Market Mystery. They tend to work predictably-ish but not entirely. It was once commonly thought that houses would only pull from markets if they were in the radius. Which makes sense, except sometimes houses in the radius don't, it seems, and houses outside the radius will if they need to.
So what's the radius actually do? I suspect that's for the stocking mechanic that's been reported. I've never tried to test it myself and not sure I've ever seen it, but legend has it that at a point when a market is full the vendors will actually deliver goods to houses. People claim to have observed it but not sure if it's actually the case. How often are markets entirely stocked?
Would an appropriate test be to place a market, surround the market with homes and farms. Have other goods be produced quite a distance away. Have no other storage options be nearby.
That forces the farms to dump all harvests into the market. That forces the markets to unload the market into somewhere and ship in other goods from elsewhere.
I can make a town and a video of this within the hour. Any other suggestions for it? I would be using no mods.
I honestly don't know.
Pretty sure you will need storage for the offloading. Even if quite a distance away. Not sure if you've ever tried it, but when storage gets absolutely maxed it sends them into this weird loading/unloading frenzy. Think food crisis frenzy but with storage. Never tried it with a market though so don't know.
Quote from: Maldrick on December 09, 2017, 08:13:33 AM
@smurphys7 Welcome to the Great Market Mystery.....
but legend has it that at a point when a market is full the vendors will actually deliver goods to houses. People claim to have observed it but not sure if it's actually the case. How often are markets entirely stocked?
is that the trick??????? can i tell my story now?
a long long time ago, i had a "SUPER VENDOR". the map was large with lakes in middle. the far northwest was starting to be a mining town with a new small mod market to begin supplying tools and food.to get to the south,the vendor had to work around 2 or 3 lakes from the corner to south center of the map. this SUPER VENDOR would carry goods all around and keep several markets stocked even though he was set to be at the far market. i literall am not losing my mind. i watched this guy travel and carry stuff way to the south. i was wondering why and where he was going to. he stopped at one of SLINK's markets to the south and then took goods from nearby markets and delivered them to houses on the south shore before heading off again.he also took logs to the wood cutter and delivered materials to a blacksmith. all before heading on his long hike back to the northwest market. note: 1 vendor stocked the entire map of several markets and workplaces. this 1 super vendor did the work of over 20 bannies.
i miss this guy. i have tried off and on for over a year,probably closer to 2,to recreate this. was it a weird glitch or conflict of 2 mods? i have took time and reloaded old mods trying to find him. the game has upgraded several times as i think it was 1.04 back then. many large mod sets have been upgraded several times also.i have over 4 times as many mods now too.
MALDRICK, you are the 1st to even say this is possable let alone give any explanation. i will need to test this theory. if you did find my SUPER VENDOR, thank you thank you. me bows and salutes you. this would be awesome. i hope i don't pass out from holding my breathe though. that got me excited.
there is a thing though: bannies wont go do all the markets to get all they need, they go to the first one they see and choose inside what is available in there. they are not human.
like they say in Battlestar Galactica about cylons... they dont have a brain, they have a program instead in their head ^^
so if you have 2 markets, 1 with just vegs and 1 with all type of food. if the closest is the one with only vegs ... they will get only vegs.
us, human, when we make our errants, if we need to go at the butchery we will go, and then we will go buy our fruits and vegs to the fruit store.... and if we need bread, we will go to the bakery ...
bannies dont do that, they go for the first one only.
@brads3 haha Don't thank me. I've never seen it happen. There was a thread about it on the reddit like a year ago, maybe more. Guy reported similar behavior you observed, although without the distances I think. Some other people confirmed they've had the same thing happen. Wish I bookmarked the thread...finding old threads there isn't the easiest.
Like I said, I've never seen it happen, not that I've particularly looked. Could very well be a glitch. Like the Bigfoot or Loch Ness monster of Banished. :P
But if it is a glitch, then what the hell is the radius for? 😂
and about % of vegetable : you cannot say % of edible vegetable and another different % of non-edible vegetable.
it is only x% vegetable (no matter if it has the edible flag (or the lack of edible flag which we call non-edible)
Right. That's why the Specialized Market Carts didn't work :(
https://streamable.com/zzcdy
Many homes had only one type of home. Some had two types -- which probably means they were closest to one Market Cart when they were low on food. Then, later either someone else in the house got the "low food" call or the original person was in a different location and a different market cart was closer.
if i go back to my cylons vs bannies comparasion.... it is cool to have cities with some fruit stalls... meat stalls... grain stalls... it looks good, but it is bad, very bad for the game mechanics.
Yeah that's why I try to use them judiciously. Like for supplying production buildings. Houses get general markets.
The CC Edibles Market does have an issue, yes. It is set to store the Edibles flag alone, and doesn't concern itself with the food groups.
MarketDescription market
{
float _fillLimit = 0.99;
FillType _fillType
[
{
RawMaterialFlags _flags = Edible;
float _ratio = 0.99;
}
]
}
This was done because there are some resources that have a food group flag, but not the Edible flag (like Flour. Grain but not Edible). If it was made to accept the 4 food groups equally, then people may complain that their market was getting filled with food no one could eat.
so it can be filled with 100% of brocoli ?
Very interesting,
@kralyerg . Thanks for the clarification.
Just tossing this out...You guys who mod have any thoughts about using those two unused flags for inedible food and water? Having control of those separate from food would be handy. Occurred to me recently playing with a lot more mods that process food and use water. Considering there's 4 food types, intermediaries for processing, processed foods of multiple types, and water all on one flag that's quite a lot. And some of it isn't used for food all the time.
The Broccoli town is a stress test/clear and simple example. Here are two towns that are more normalish examples:
1) CheesyBreadIsLife Album (https://imgur.com/a/XV3bb). There are separate areas for Cows, Wheat, Tomatos and Cherries/Apples. Placing regular markets like I do now has the issue of all the small quantity of specialty goods wasting my Vendor's time. Rather than bringing in the food group that isn't produced in the area, the Vendors constantly try to keep an even stockpile of things like Industrial Fuel, Stone, Iron, Lumber, Reeds, Leather, Silver Ore, Gold Ore, Logs, etc. If I would make an Edibles Market in any area that Edibles Market would fill with the local good. Market Carts simply do not function to provide people with each food group.
2) The Town of Independence Flyover Video (https://streamable.com/n8qm9): No Trading, no farming, no animals harmed. There lots of Gathering Stations. Some stations include Chestnut trees. Vegetables are Tinned into Soup to create grains. There's an area for producing Building Supplies and Homewares. The town must be spread out. Again, regular markets have issues because Vendors waste time moving Tin, Glassware, Lumber, etc. around. Edibles Markets fill with the local goods.
As a side, I put New Medieval Town's Food Stores through the Broccoli Test. The results were good. (https://streamable.com/9o9ru)
It seems like my first option is to play in such a way where all goods are produced in each area. By playing in such a way I probably wouldn't build any markets whatsoever. Basically, General Markets and Edibles Markets seem to serve no purpose whatsoever for me. The only time they would actually work would be a in a situation where I don't actually need them.
My second option is to play with more mods. I normally like to play with as few mods as possible on each town. Playing with ideally one mod or two at a time makes it easier to switch between towns with different mod load outs. Also, I can more easily share my towns with others people.
Quote from: smurphys7 on December 09, 2017, 10:13:08 AM
As a side, I put New Medieval Town's Food Stores through the Broccoli Test. The results were good. (https://streamable.com/9o9ru)
yeah those are from me :) (everything with "medieval" in front of the name are from me , from new medieval town ( included in megamod :) )
I love the work you do :) I always recommend some of your stuff when someone is too overwhelmed by some of the big mods but wants more cool toys.
On to the Edibles Markets again: right now I don't understand their purpose. My understanding is the purpose of the markets is to collect a wide variety of goods from all over and collect the diversity in one place. Currently, the Edibles Market takes the closest food and moves it closer. The citizens in town would have taken the same food themselves from the barn. Sure, the Edibles Market moved food closer but it didn't help amalgamate a bunch of different barns that hold different products.
EDIT If any market functioned like a standard market or RK's Food Store, but only had the tags: Grain, Protein, Fruit, Vegetable, Tool, Clothing Fuel, then it would provide for any area of homes. Market Carts would then be used to move specific goods to specific places. Though, a Food, Fuel, Clothes and Tools market might be too powerful. I think it would be so good I might skip making it most of the time. I think sometimes I would appreciate the ease of use.
since many of the items are tagged now under the 1.07 flags,you might want to try adding a small mod that is just a 1.06 market. an older mod won't store the new items. this will force it to stock food,tools,and clothing more.SLINK has a general market in her set. there is a general store mod.by adding just a small market mod,you could use it in your different mods easily.similar idea would work with 1.06 or earlier barn mods as well.
I have solved my issue. In short, I need to fill my markets with goods of each tag. If all the other tags are full, and remain full, the vendors will focus on moving only the things I want: four food groups, fuel, tools, and clothing.
I wasn't setting a high enough Max Limit for a few specific items: Construction, Industrial Fuel, Fuel, Iron and Raw Materials. Also, I need to let these goods build up to a decent sized inventory for each market I have placed.
What I was doing was making all those goods "on demand". Tool Production, for example, requires Industrial Fuel, Iron and Logs. I kept my Limits on these items very low. As these items were produced they were turned into tools. My markets constantly attempted to stock these items at EVERY market rather than stocking what I wanted. Instead, now I will produce large amount of these items (and others) and keep each stockpile high.
Now the markets stay full of Fuel, Industrial Fuel, Iron, Lumber etc. and focus on bringing in other things.
that is interesting info that could be very useful.please keep us informed on how it goes or more trivia info you run into. sometimes little thngs like this matter lots.thank you
based on your info and MALDRICKS theory,we may need to go back and load some good 1.06 markets. that way only needed items are being stored in town centers and the other goods stay in mine and production areas to be used by processors.then as those older markets fill we can watch and see if the super vendor comes to help.the upgraded mods and the CC markets were done quick with the new flag upgrade. they are set to basically store everything. a 1.06 market will only store food,firewood,tools,clothing, and maybe some basic material like logs and stone.
Quote from: Maldrick on December 09, 2017, 07:52:49 AM
@RedKetchup Thank you. I was just asking as a general matter. So if I understand correctly, you can have it pull by flag, and with food it can be specified by food group and edible/inedible. Can it be more particular than that? Like could a market be coded to only stock steel tools but not iron? Or just, say, cherries and apples, but not other fruits?
by flags
you cannot say steel tools or iron tools, it is just "tools" all the 4-5 kinds of tools will be stored.
same as fruits: all the fruits, or none. not just cheeries and apples.
Caesar PC Games used granaries to store everything and you could order it to fill/empty with any chosen item which was a great feature. That was 15 years ago and games were really basic. It would be wonderful to have this ability.
Quote from: purringcat on December 26, 2017, 10:23:43 AM
Caesar PC Games used granaries to store everything and you could order it to fill/empty with any chosen item which was a great feature. That was 15 years ago and games were really basic. It would be wonderful to have this ability.
granaries and stockpiles, both had cursors you were able to control each items, and yes fill/empty feature too