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Nilla-testing the spring version of the North6 together with DS jetties

Started by Nilla, May 02, 2018, 01:21:16 PM

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Nilla

Back on track! :)

I started a new game this afternoon. Normally, I play in the evening. The next day, I take a look at the screenshots, I made the night before and write a little (or often more  :-[ ) about it. I like it that way. It's become a way of playing this game. But I write here now, because I don't understand the happiness system. Maybe I just need some more instructions, maybe some of the other mods I use interfere somehow or maybe there's some other bug. Anyhow; I see no effect on the happiness at all. No matter what. But I'll start from the beginning.

First picture

Map, setting and mods.

I choose the new starting option "trapper". Just because it's new. One question; why start with a trapper cabin? On this small lake map, the location is far from good. I would have preferred, that there would be traps from the start, but the player is free to place a trapper cabin on a suitable place. OK, normally you will probably not use a small lake map for a trapper start but here I want to combine the North and the jetties and also want some plausible reason to settle on the lake: no more land to expand on.

Second picture


Of course, the happiness system is one new interesting thing to check out. I guess, that normally you would avoid something like this, but I deliberately wanted to build one house in the influence radius of the carcoal pit. Just to see, if there's an effect. But unfortunately, you can't see the radius after it's built and this pale black circle is also hard to see on the footprint.

If I understand it right; good influence is yellow, bad influence black, buildings with a working area green. It would be nice to have the circles of different kind of happiness buildings in different colors. I suppose you'll need all different kind of these buildings, and I don't really know which "belong to the same category" and which not.

Third picture

In this game too, the foreign merchant wanted to build a store at the trading dock and of cause we couldn't refuse it, even if it looks odd in these surroundings. It also bring good statistics.:) You can see the green happiness graph. It's pretty straight. There's a few small "bumps"; each time a child is born or some nomads are accepted. All perfectly happy from the start, but soon realizing that Banished life isn't that fun after all!  :-\

First I actually thought, that the "bump down" was caused by the charcoal pit. But I'm pretty sure now, that it has nothing to do with it. I guess it's rather the couple who had to wait longest for a house, that started to get unsatisfied. That may happen, in every game, if it takes to long to build a home for everyone. As soon as they could move into their house, they were as happy as the rest.

Fourth picture

I've built a well, a graveyard, a chapel, a sauna and an ale house. Even bought some wine from the merchant from the far south. (I like the new names) :) No effect on the happiness. What am I supposed to do, to see something? And why is the sign for "no raw material" shown on the ale house, also when there's wine in the store, that's also consumed. In fact, my few people drinks a lot of wine! ;)


brads3

              this happiness change might be interesting.TOM and other mods over time bring something that can be useful to others to make huge impacts to the game. the NAT DIV combined with RED's fodder is like that.happiness influence once figured out could change many things. i never worry about where to build and ignore the happiness radius.i also seldom build churches.
   i take it the bannies that had to wait for thier house had to sleep outside and didn't have a boardinghouse.i wonder how that might have helped.

Tom Sawyer

Nice that we can test it now. I already started to set up some forum features on my site to not lose more time.

The Trapper start is rather a difficult thing as I wrote because actually other things are to build at the beginning. But I liked the idea. To have the cabin already built supports it a bit more and initial traps cannot be added because of their custom flag. At least not in the usual way. And as you say, a normal start as trapper will be on a forest map where starting locations will be always ok.

About the happiness system it needs some info and I wanted to make a post but could not.^^ So here some things I found out in my tests and how I interpret it in game. What we already know is that there are 5 or actually 6 aspects:

  • "Safety" provided by wells to feel save from fire and let's say to have clean water. Easy to build and necessary anyway.
  • "Health" or maybe better "quality of life" provided by a sauna in old times and by living in red cottages later. Cheap to build and without ongoing costs.
  • "Goods" provided by markets, village shops and trading docks. Also a basic need and covered anyway in most cases.
  • "Spirit" or "Religion" provided passiv by the chapel (the cemetery not in this mod because it already has an important function)
  • "Spirit Bonus" provided by a priest working in the church given to members. It costs a full time worker which makes it only useful in mid and late game.
  • "Entertainment" by Ale House and Tavern (if alcohol is stored) as final and most expensive aspect with ongoing costs.
People (at least with low population) seem to need minimum 3 aspects to then profit from the fourth and to reach 100% with the final ones. So you will not see an effect until you have solved the basic needs with wells, a sauna and a market and building at least one of the actual happiness providers (Alcohol or Religion).

Detracting works as simply removing one aspect per object. That means 2 charcoal pits kill 2 aspects in there radius. So charcoal burning in center of the village makes all your effort in alcohol useless. It really needs to be made out in the forest. The good thing is that detracting doesn't make your people unhappier than their default 3 stars. It only prevents them from becoming happy.

Also good to know is that a banny added to the game gets the right value with next calculation which is in vanilla every 3 month and here every 1 month. It can be done more often but I was afraid to hit the performance when it has to be done every minute with high population and 10x speed. It should be tested more. That's also the cause of these peaks when a child is born or nomads were accepted. It can be seen in vanilla as well but only with tiny peaks flattened after 3 month.

I had permanent radii first but after some playing I found it annoying and made it this way to see it only when placing. Also different colors for different aspects I don't really want. It would end in a rainbow colored UI. For learning how different buildings work it would be useful but later not anymore. And for players who don't use this mode it would be irrelevant or even confusing. The icon in ale house UI I will fix.

Let's see if you can make your people happy. It is still an experimental thing. :)

Discrepancy

Quote from: Tom Sawyer on May 02, 2018, 04:56:19 PM
Let's see if you can make your people happy. It is still an experimental thing. :)

It sure is! I think the changes are great, it is now actually important to watch the happiness and think carefully about where things should be built.
In my testing with all of my smoky, smelly industry buildings I have to be very careful where I place them as my mod is adding even more detraction in happiness, In my test last night I had to build a lot of wells and markets to try and keep them happy just in their workplace... it was very hard with such a heavy mining industry employing 70% of the workforce, no one wanted to be happy!
Production drops, more idling. I will need to make a couple of other positive happiness buildings for this mod I think.

:)

brads3

can i be the evil nuthead?  so you are saying they need wells. does this matter with disasters off and would a modded well give the same happiness help??how much dropoff to production will this affect??

Discrepancy

Yes, all wells with the safety happiness attached work. The citizens like wells whether there is a fire or not, so it does not matter if you have disasters off. Of course if you have all/most of the other happiness aspects you can forgo the wells.
The drop in production is because they seem to be idling more often when unhappy, I think anyway from my observations.
This is still very much new in being able to see these kind of effects. When doing that test I was using the Iron Man mod, so I was struggling to keep up a balanced amount of food anyway for the hungry citizens.
But my other observation is that their jobs can be making them unhappy when in mining areas, I don't think it is so much from their own workplaces, but all the other detraction buildings around them. It is hard to follow this though, as I could only gauge it by following individual citizens, problem is they were also changing jobs often...

Tom Sawyer

Haha yes, your industry mod has a great potential to keep down happiness. I think it's good to be careful with adding detraction. From what I know it's not possible to counter detracting areas by more happiness providers. It removes one whole aspect, doesn't matter by how many overlapping objects it is provided. And we cannot add more than these 5. So every detraction effect should be avoidable by some good town planning and keeping a reasonable distance between houses and detractor. I made these areas already small, 5 tiles from charcoal pit for example. The others are also small. People don't want to live right next to a quarry or mine entrance but 1 or 2 houses further it's ok.

Nilla

I'm still a bit confused about this happiness-system, but no worries, I'll get it; sooner or later. ;)  :P

If i understand what you say; they first need the 3 "basics"; "safety", "health", "goods". (Maybe we should call the second someting else than "health", not to confuse it with the "hart health. If I understand it right, they are independent on eachother)

If these three things are provided and no "black circle" interfere, one of "spirit", "spirit bonus" or "entertainment" can lead to an improvement. Some questions:

Does this mean, you only need one of the 3 later aspects to regain happiness?
What's the difference between "spirit" and "spirit bonus"?
Does this mean, that people who live inside a "black circle" never will regain any happiness, no matter what?
Does it mean, that you'll never get less than 3 stars, unless there's a death of a family member?
The ale house has a happiness circle. Does it work without alcohol? It looks like people consume alcohol without a worker. So the worker has nothing to do with the happiness-system, only the production at the inn?
How do these both (un)-happiness systems work together? Say a child loses a parent and some stars, does this other happiness- system help to regain some?

And finally the more "philosophical" but over all important question, where I don't expect an exact answer: How much does this influence the gameplay? How much efficiency do they really lose, with these two less "basic stars"? Does it "pay off" to bother? Of course it has a gameplay aspect of its own; trying to achieve full stars, but if we don't concider this; is it better to locate the houses of the worker close to the mine and lose efficiency because of idling or is it better to locate them a bit far away and lose efficiency, when they walk between house and work. No obvious answer. Nice things to investigate!  :)

Anyhow, I know now, why I saw no effect on the happiness, even though I had all these kind of buildings. I didn't realize, how small the radius from the trading dock is. There was only one house in its influence and it wasn't close enough to the well. This gives me a reason to talk about the size of the happiness radius in general terms, not based on gameplay experience. I would like the influence to be plausible.

Well: This is the North, we have plenty of water and expect to reach it fast and easy, close to where we live. To make people happy, the well must be close and the radius small. Not bigger than it is, rather smaller.

Sauna: Did you know, that our original sauna (bastu) not primary was used to take a bath, but to dry and smoke different products. You can still buy "basurökt skinka" sauna smoked ham. I think it was the same in Finland. But here it's a bath house only. Something like I can remember from when I was a child in the late 1950s, where not every house had a bathroom. We had a village bath house with sauna and large wooden tubs for us children to bath in. Open once a week, in the late afternoon for women and children and later in the evening for the men. It was the greatest fun to play in the water with your friends. Such a sauna bath house sopported one small village. The radius could be a little bit larger.

Trading port: People get happy, if they can get import goods. I don't think they get happier, if they live next to the trading port. I would prefere a larger radius, something like the wagon vendor. People are prepared to walk a short distance, and are still happy, to get these goods.

Chapel: A small chapel supports a small village, good as it is. By, the way! You can actually see the radius of the chapel when you click on it. I would very much like, that it would be the same on the other happiness/unhappiness buildings. I don't think it will confuse players, who don't play with this happiness system. I don't mean that they should be visible all the time, only when you click at the building. If it would have been, I would hardly had missed the small area of the trading dock.

Inn: One village, one church, one inn. The same size of the circle is good.

Now I want to see, if I can get my people a bit more happy! :)

Nilla

If I was confused before, that's nothing compared to now!  :-[

I don't understand one thing.

I have 6 homes. Everyone in the area of the wagon vendor, chapel, inn and of one well, everyone except 6 in the area of the sauna, 1 and 2 in the area of the trading dock. There's some wine in the inn. This is the happiness now.

House 1 occupied by the latest nomad couple; both 5 stars.
House 2 occupied by an original family; parents and the middle child (a girl) 3 stars the boys 5 stars.
House 3 occupied by an original family; all 5 stars, parents and 3 boys
House 4 occupied by an original family; parents and daughters 3 stars, boy 5 stars
House 5 occupied by the first nomad family all 5 stars, even the daughter (!)
House 6 occupied by the second nomad family all 3 stars (not in the sauna area)

Explanation?

Tom Sawyer

Ok, then let's play with happiness circles. I have added them all as permanent and adjusted as you said. The wells a bit smaller (10) and the sauna a bit wider (20), the trading dock (30). Please load it in your running game and rebuild cabin workshops and the glass factory for fixed storage.

From your last picture.. that's what I also noticed. They have 3 stars in normal state and jump to 5 to be happy one after the other. I guess the game calculates an average value over homes. I'm not sure but must be something like that. Of course it would be better to have it graduated for every person. We cannot change how all that works and we just figure out vanilla mechanics here. I try to answer your questions:

Does this mean, you only need one of the 3 later aspects to regain happiness?
From what I figured out it starts to increase with the 4. covered aspect, yes.

What's the difference between "spirit" and "spirit bonus"?
The normal spirit aspect is what chapels provide to houses in there radius just like all other buildings work. The effect is higher with a priest working or actually it's an additional mechanic and given to people in an extra step. I think all we need to know is that a church with attendance UI and working priest has a bigger influence.

Does this mean, that people who live inside a "black circle" never will regain any happiness, no matter what?
Every black circle removes 1 of 5 provided aspects. Let's say you have a house with well, sauna, market and chapel = 4. With a charcoal pit next to the house it's only 3 anymore. Another charcoal pit reduces it to 2.

Does it mean, that you'll never get less than 3 stars, unless there's a death of a family member?
Yes, detracting removes happiness circles but does not decrease the default state. Another thing is clothing. People really dislike to have no coat.

The ale house has a happiness circle. Does it work without alcohol? It looks like people consume alcohol without a worker. So the worker has nothing to do with the happiness-system, only the production at the inn?
It provides happiness if alcohol is stored, doesn't matter if a worker is there or not. If everything is consumed it stops making happy. The job of the innkeeper is to make new stuff or to get it from markets and barns.

How do these both (un)-happiness systems work together? Say a child loses a parent and some stars, does this other happiness- system help to regain some?
As far as I know and what you found out in your tests before is that a child after loosing a parent is set to be depressiv without any effect of happiness buildings. In vanilla its a half star, here it's 2 stars.

And finally the more "philosophical" but over all important question, where I don't expect an exact answer: How much does this influence the gameplay? How much efficiency do they really lose, with these two less "basic stars"? Does it "pay off" to bother?
That's indeed the final question. If we can find a balance where all effort in happiness including making alcohol from food and keeping distances to emission sources results in a more efficient economy than ignoring their needs then we did it. 8)

Nilla

Thanks for your answers Tom. Most of it sounds reasonable but I think you are wrong about one thing; the small chapel. I'm not sure that it has an influence at all, at least it's not capable to increase happiness. And the people in a house with well, market, chapel, inn with alcohol didn't regain any happiness; not until I built another sauna.

Just to increase the confusion, I have a new report from the happiness in my village.

First I discovered, that the wagon vendor only brings happiness, if the vendor actually works. The happiness started to drop as I wanted to send the vendor out in the woods to pick blueberries. As i built a sauna in the influence area of house number 6, they all became happy. And as soon as they've consumed all alcohol, the happiness dropped to 3 stars everywhere. Nothing confusing here, rather expected.

After some years I could again buy some alcohol. The happiness rose, fast but again, not by everyone. I have no clue, how it's calculated.

House 1: 2 adults 1 boy 3 *
House 2: 2 adults, 1 girl 3*, 1 boy, 1 girl 5*
House 3: 2 adults, 3 boys 5*
House 4: 2 adults, 1 boy,1 girl 3*
House 5: man 3* wife, 1 boy, 2girls 5*
House 6: 2 adults, 1 boy 3*, 1 girl 5*

2 young adults have moved to one "perfect" house each, both 3*. There's also one more house outside the circle of the inn, of course everyone has 3 * here. All in all; they are less happy this time than they were, the first time they had alcohol.

My question this time: what is special with house 3? Everyone is always happy here.  (sorry I see now that the orange circle is slightly wrong, house 3 is directly south of the marked sauna). What does the man in house 5 miss now? He was happy before but opposite to the rest of his family not now.

To the graph on the picture.

1. Built the wagon vendor.
2. Sent him out in the woods
3. Put him back to work and built another sauna
4. No more alcohol
5. Again alcohol at the inn

sorry forgot the picture

brads3

ok, TOM's explanation of them gaining happiness makes sence. am i correct that they only ho down to 3 stars? so if NILLA built 5 charcoal pits next to 1 house,those bannies would just stay at the base 3? we can only add to happiness but not really take away?
     
                    if that be the case,as players we just need to figure out how to survive at the base 3 stars. in a industrial village,trying to build the happiness wouldn't help, since the industries would mathmatically be below the 3.help would not be noticed since the village would only go to the 3 stars. in a farming area you produce "X" food with workers at 3 stars. if "X" is enough to support the map, then you wouldnt need to boost the happiness.
          i assume that after figuring out how to help make the bannies happier and have it influence the game,then you will re-adjust and change things so the industry makes them more unhappy than the 3 stars. is there a formula or is it unknown as to the % imact each +star has? say +1 star gives % more food per square etc.

Turis

Hi, Nilla,

How are you?
No, I'm still here, leaving you alone peacefully. I just wanted to greet you as I haven't done it when you came back from your vacation.

Nilla

A few more years, a few more experiments, a few more knowledges, a few more questions:

Summary so far shown on the happiness graph.

There's a "0-level" at 60%. At the points 1, 2 and 4 the inn served alcohol and the happiness rose. The first time to about 80%, the second time to about 75% and the 3 time to about 70%. As far as I can see, nothing else has changed. What does this mean? Are some people so annoyed, that the alcohol was out, that they never more will gain happiness? In this case, you'll better not start to serve alcohol, unless you have a sustainable supply.

But I think something else must lie behind this decreasing effect of alcohol. It seems weird to program something like that. Difficult and to what purpose? One change during this time is that the population has grown. Could it be possible, that each of these "happiness buildings" only can affect a certain number of people? Something in the code like the church with its 200 members. Could other buildings have such limits too, even if we can't see them? I guess that you have made the sauna based on the hospital happiness. A vanilla hospital can hold 30 patients, if I remember it right. Maybe it can also only make 30 people happy. If there are more inhabitants in its influence area, some of them stay unhappy.

Other explanations are welcome.

I was wrong, the small chapel has an influence on happiness. I "fake demolished" it, and the happiness started to drop, 3 on the graph. But this is only the case, if you have no big church. I made the same experiment after I've built the big church and saw no effect.

The big church has a large impact. I built it at 5, when I had alcohol at the inn. But to have full effect you'll need a church and an inn with alcohol. As I took the alcohol away, (at 6) the happiness went down to about 70%. With church and inn it's about 85%. How this work I don't understand. It doesn't work like the church increases the happiness with 1 star and the inn with another. It works on individuals; (This sounds more like in life ;) ) Some people get happy from alcohol, others from the church. I have seen none with 4 stars. It's either 3 or 5.

People still not full happy are 4 inhabitants of one house inside a black radius (or rather touching it) and odd people in some houses, where the rest of the family is happy.

Yes Brad, not even half a dozen charcoal pits together with some mines, quarries and industrial buildings set the happiness down from 3stars. It only prevents people from getting happy. And I'm pretty sure, that there's no formula about how large impact the happiness/loss of happiness has in production. I made some experiments a long time ago in a vanilla game. If you compare people with 5 stars and people with ½ star, there is a difference. The ½ star do idle more but it wasn't terribly much more. I can remember I looked at two fisher in the same dock and counted how many times each went away to idle. If the happy person idled once, the unhappy idled something like 4 times each year. The loss in production was less than by an uneducated.

Hi Turis. Nice to hear something from you, not including pillagaing! :)

Gatherer

Quote from: Nilla on May 03, 2018, 03:02:47 PM
Some people get happy from alcohol, others from the church.


Better to be in an inn and think of church than being in the church and thinking of inn. :P
There's never enough deco stuff!!!
Fiat panis.