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Abandoned - Smallville - Story

Started by Abandoned, October 11, 2016, 09:14:48 AM

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Abandoned

Hi there.

  First I want to say I am glad I found this site and thank you for the wonderful mods and information.  I knew the moment I saw Banished on Good Old Games that this was my kind of game.  I played several maps completing 47% of the achievements before downloading a few smaller mods and CC Iron Curtain.  We had a hard winter here in north-central USA and when spring came, I didn't want to see any more snow so I abandoned Banished and only recently returned to it.  Mod makers have certainly been busy. I downloaded the latest version of Banished and many downloads and began to play.  I decided to try the mods in small batches, I remembered that I found CC to be a bit overwhelming. 

It soon became apparent to me that my style of gameplay was story based.  No doubt from years of playing the Sims 1 with a neighborhood for each season and a story for each family who moved from one neighborhood to another. Add numerous RPG games, Settlers, Stronghold, and Heroes of Might and Magic plus map and campaign making and you end up with a story teller.  Discovering that there had been a storytelling community challenge on this site had me thinking perhaps the Banished mod makers would enjoy seeing their creations woven into a story.  I finally discovered the correct key combinations on this laptop and got a shot with the overhead map on the starting day saved game.

Smallville  Seed#32570687  Valley, small, mild, disasters off, easy (Trees) TOL

  I activated 31 mods, the items I didn't get into the map and the minor tweaks & fixes I won't list.  The main mods I wanted to try are as follows:  Tree of Life wild fruit & nut trees (loved this one), DS Small Village (Smallville), DS Fences & Deco, DS Wagon Vendor, Colorful Little 2 Floor House, Country Little House, Greenhouse, Little Chapel, Mini Buildings, One Stop All Mining, One Year is One Year (not sure I like this one), Slinks Lawn, Rough Lawn, Slinks Snug House, Small town House, Specialized Stockpile & Trading Posts, Wild Oats.  I regretted not having used Tiny Mine and Tiny Quarry, and RedKetchup's Decorative Items pack with the Eternal Trees, not just the greenhouse, the trees would have fit nicely into my story as you will see.  So having said all that:

  Welcome to Smallville, weary traveler. I hope you are settling in well.  Come sit by the fire with a mug of warm honey ale and I will tell you my tale.

Nilla

Welcome @Abandoned to this page and this headline. I'm looking forward to hear and see more of your story.

To introduce myself; I'm the one who write long blogs in bad English and asking other bloggers a lot of questions.  ;) :-[

Here we go: I have tried most of the mods, you describe but seldom so many at the same time. But one I haven't heard of: One Stop All Ming. What does it do?

I have quite mixed emotions about these "real time mods" like One Year is One year, too. The dynamic of the game gets weird; first boringly slow, later you can hardly control the population growth. But maybe in combination with a story, it's interesting. I am also very curious, how your story will handle the biggest flaw of just that real time mod: no limit of age difference of couples. A 70 year old widow might get a just graduated 17- year old husband!    :-\ ;D

brads3

yes NILLA u are right. the 1 year is 1 mod makes the game start very slow. i find you have way higher population than i do in a game.but i also have a tendancy to start with A7E also. makes you micro manage a lot in the start for almost 15 years.but i also dont need a school so early and my resources hold up. os it is a give n take deal. his CC mod seems to b an older version.i am curious to see if some of the buildings are different thou.
      i do use lots of mods too.mostly cosmetics: different house or storage building styles. biggest problem u have is the mod order. it has to b prcised or some parts of the mod may not work. and even when u get them to work ,it might not b the way u want either. worst part is sometimes u dont notice it til u have ran the game many many years.
  i am glad abandoned gave us a mod list. i like to check those and see if i am missing anything useful. his mine mod seems to b a stream mod. and i dont run banished under stream. have heard of problems. my banished is the original copy duct taped and upgraded several times.lol.

Abandoned

I am thrilled to get interest and replies already, thank you.  Nilla, your English is just fine.  I find your posts very interesting and informative especially info about your homeland.  I can't wait to try the North that you are testing but I am far from ready to tackle that.  Due to the One Year mod I'm going to have to use a bit of poetic license in my story telling but luckily there is not a lot of detail and statistic in this story. Brads3, I recognize your name from the posts also. by the way, I am a senior she. I don't use Steam. The One Stop Mining mod came from nexusmods.com but I believe banishedinfo.com has it also.  It is the same as the vanilla mine but it produces random amounts of iron, coal, and stone, it is never ending but removable. I don't know much about load order except what notes I made when downloading items, I also noted what is not compatible and what should be okay. I put main mods first and alphabetized the rest, so this should be interesting.  I made a list of what the mods do, and when choosing which to use, I unchecked ones that red flagged to be on the safe side.  So now I will begin my tale and see if I manage to download a few pictures.

Abandoned

#4
Chapter 1:

   I try not to dwell on what happened that day, I don't really know what happened that day. It was just before dawn on May 1st. What should have been a May Day celebration of spring turned into a May Day call of distress. We had a very cold spring with a mix of heavy snow and freezing rain. That day, I awoke early, I thought I heard thunder and then the mountain came down. The snow and the ice and the mountain came down.  Another early riser later said there was a flash of light. Only some of us living on the outskirts of town survived, 23 of us, 12 young adults and 11 children, two of them newborns. My name is Felecta age 16 and my husband, of one year, is Ramonty age 17, the eldest survivor. We were overjoyed to have found his little sister alive. He said we had to leave, we could not stay here.  We would head upstream without delay.  I remember on our wedding day we were told to go bravely into the future but always remember the old ways.

  We quickly gathered what food and necessities we could find and bundled up the children as best we could.  We tried not to cry for their sakes, as we left all we knew behind.  None of us had been away from home before, we had all we needed right here.  When we camped for the night, Christela whose nomad mother died when she was born, wanted to know all she could about the parents of the two orphans who clung to her most of the day, so when they got older she could tell them.  We were all orphans now and we all felt alone and abandoned, but family groups were already forming. We spent the next few evenings talking about friend and family.

Then one morning, traveling a ways inland from the swollen river we came over a hill and there in the distance we saw a small village. Thank God. We were tired and hungry and low on supplies. We reached the town later in the day but to our dismay, the town was deserted, and had been for some time. There was a large barn and six houses that each needed some minor repairs and a good cleaning. A small herd of deer grazed nearby, they were not at all intimidated by our presence. Six scrawny chickens and two baby chicks came out of the barn when we opened the door.  Inside we found 38 rusty iron tools, 19 dusty hide coats, several sacks of potatoes (hopefully still edible), some nuts and seed and a few herbs.  There were a few wheelbarrow, crates, barrels, and baskets.  The loft held an assortment of odds and ends plus some old lanterns and rickety ladders.  The stockpile contained a good supply of iron, stone, and logs.  All would be put to good use.

We claimed the houses that would become our new homes, the men check the fireplaces and gather some of the numerous old tree stumps from nearby to start fires.  I cleaned a small corner of the room, fed Ramonty's four-year-old sister, Rilee, some dried fruit and berries, and bedded her down for the night. Tomorrow we would begin building our new lives and our new town, Smallville.

 

kid1293


Nilla

Me, too. The start is a really good explanation to why this bunch of people, we use to start with, found themselves out in the middle of nowhere; all young, in family groups where, the parents are just a few years senior to their children.  :)

And to the Nordic mod: It doesn't have to be difficult. I use to test it under the hardest conditions; harsh climate, impossible start. And that's tough, I like the challenge. But it doesn't have to be hard. If you use an easy or medium start and a mild climate, it's not really harder than a normal game, just different. You can enjoy the beautiful looking landscape, the nice buildings and interesting changed gameplay with no more struggle than in a "normal" game.

Abandoned

#7
Chapter 2

  No one was surprised, that first frosty morning, to awaken to the sound of wood being chopped. Earnet learned the skill from her father.  Her husband of only six weeks, Lessiah, was already fishing from a hastily constructed mini pier. For just the two of them, they choose the house closest to the river and the stockpile.  It was agreed the newlyweds should not have parenthood thrust upon them so soon since they were both only 15 and neither had experience with younger children but they would keep watch that none of the little ones got too close to the swollen river.

  Looking straight out from our front door, I could see the pier builders, my Ramonty, and our next-door neighbor, Thadd, setting up tree stumps as chairs in front of the barn, no doubt waiting for the rest of us.  This would later become our mini Town Hall and mini school.  Lessander and his wife Magelina with two four-year-olds and a newborn in tow were inside the barn starting to evenly divide up the merchandise.  Lessander, now a laborer, would later become a trader.

  When we were all gathered in front of the barn, Magelina, whose father had been a blacksmith and mother a tailor, said she would only need a mini workshop in front of the barn and she could clean and repair the tools and hide coats and still keep and eye on the children at the same time since she live right next to the barn.  In fact, she and her neighbor to the south, Asha, could take turns watching the children.  Asha and her husband Wihelma, also have a newborn and a one-year old.  Asha will be close to home also, taking care of the chickens as soon as the men get the pen built out behind her house. They could even help watch the three children Muriela and Garet took in. Garet said he was concerned with the lack of trees in the vicinity of the town.  He wanted to set up a mini forester stand a ways north of town, he'd only need a small tent.  Wilhelma said he'd just walked up that way and saw wild oats coming up, he would need a gatherer's hut to dry and thresh the oats and a yard to willow them.  Asha spoke right up saying she could use some of the straw for the chicken nests.  Thadd said as soon as the chicken pen was built, he'd also like to head north to do a little hunting.  He'd only need a mini camp, he'd be home every night for supper.  His wife Christela could take his place as builder if needed.  I said I would need an extra share of potatoes to plant for a fresh crop of seed potatoes and I would take the cabbage seeds. The pepper seeds, walnuts and pecans would have to wait. Smallville had just had its first town meeting.

  We all went home with our supplies, each family also got a basket, a crate, and a barrel to use for storage and furniture.  One crate had a few pots and bowls we divided amongst us.  We all had a hanging pot in our fireplaces which by dusk would have firewood and a hot meal cooking.  After we stashed our treasures at home we got to work.  I picked a spot for the cabbage and potatoes.  Tomorrow I would cut the potatoes into pieces each with two or three eyes, plant them, and hope they would sprout. Today I headed north, gathering all the herbs, roots, mushrooms, and onions I could find. Later in the year we would follow the old ways.  When the crops were harvested, we would all head for the woods to gather what we could before the cold and snow. And I feared we would be cold, the trees were few and far between, trees had been cut faster than new ones could grow, and there were few new ones. We may be cold but we would not be hungry, I found wild fruit and nut trees of every kind imaginable.  Those we must not cut no matter what.

Those first few years were busy ones and our log and firewood supply was a constant problem.  Darving became an adult before we knew it (they grow up so fast) and took over the northern forester stand close to where his father Thadd hunted.  Meanwhile, Garet headed southwest of town to setup a forester post there.  It was a long way away, we all worried about him there alone. His wife, Muriela, stayed in town with their three children but moved into the new house build next door to their first one.  Heavy snow had damaged the already leaky roof, repairs would have to wait. We were sorry Muriela, did not begin teaching in time for Darving to get a proper education.  Earnet thought it better to travel from her woodshed in town to her mini chopping blocks in the north and south camps.  Several times in those early years, we stopped what we were doing to help cut trees and chop wood. We just did not have enough manpower for all tasks that needed doing.

  Lack of food was never a problem due mainly to the amount of wild foods we gathered.  We took only what we needed and we did not over hunt or fish.  I now had a mini gathering spot and shed in the north woods.  The seed potatoes I planted did not germinate but the cabbage grew and produced enough seeds for the following year.  The pepper seeds, pecans, and walnuts we found in the barn would not grow, who knows how long they had been there.  But the children awoke each morning to a kettle of slow-cooked oats with my old family recipe of wild plum sauce. At the start of year 5, we now have a population of 29. Two of six children born were Ramonty and mine. He just finished building a mini dock and we anxiously awaited spring and hopefully a trader.

 

 


Nilla

I was curious, what happened to the original inhabitants of this small village. No signs from them found?

brads3

wth abandoned wrote such a good story and nilla throws her a curve ball.lol

Abandoned

#10
Chapter 3

  We did not have long to wait; early spring of year 5 brought the first resource trader to our little dock.  The call went up in the north that a boat was coming round the bend.  We all dropped what we were doing to run to the dock to greet him.  We had too little to trade for what little he had to offer but he had a lot of information to impart.  There was word amongst the boatmen that this area had been resettled and since he made good time on his trade run he thought he'd take this fork in the river to see what was what.  The previous inhabitants weren't settlers, they were a group of men who came for the wood.  Some well-to-do guy downriver wanted to build a railroad and needed lots of wood. According to the boatman,a railroad was big carts on wheels that could move a lot of heavy resources from one place to another along a wooden track. It sounded like a good idea to us weary laborers. But those men came here, threw up the barn and a few houses and began cutting trees.  They didn't replant any.  They thought they could float the logs downriver but when the logs got to the big lake they went every which way and caused a big jam.  Half the men died trying to unjam the lake. The last boatman barely made it out alive, said those men had killed off all the deer and were starving.  He took the last two of them downriver with him.  None of the boatmen came this way again. 

  No wonder our old hometown hadn't had a trader stop for a long time, but we did get a lot of driftwood.  The boatman heard about what happened to our old town and was glad to hear us young'uns survived, he'd been there many times.  He'd let the other boatmen know this river route was again open to trade, we might want to consider building a bigger dock.  As for trade goods, there was a big need for logs and firewood, tools and food too.  He gave us some odds and ends he had in the boat and we gave him a sack of fruits and nuts and he went on his way.

Our first group of nomads arrived in the spring of year 6.  They came over the same southwest hill that we had.  There were 5 of them and they were pulling a very nice covered wagon.  We welcomed them even though housing was limited, they pitched right in to help.  Their wagon was empty, they needed tools and clothes.  They helped finish buildings that had been started and helped build new ones.  One set up a mini hunting post down south, another became a forester there.  The wagon was loaded with supplies and taken down south where needed.

  A general merchandise trader arrived in late spring but we still did not have enough goods to trade.  We watched bundles of wool and sacks of flour float away.  In early summer there was an outbreak of yellow fever for which we were ill prepared. We had no hospital, no physician, no herbalist. We did have plenty of herbs and homemade chicken soup just like mama used to make.  A mini hospital was set up just to the west of town, Christela went to tend the sick, there were many more than could fit into the mini tent.  Fearing the worst, the workers stopping paving the roads with stone and began constructing a cemetery.  It was only half complete by summer but by then we thought we had the disease well under control and then 8-year-old Holling died.  He was one of the boys Garet and Muriela had taken as their own before we arrived.  They were crushed, Muriela didn't want her boy laid to rest alone in the unfinished cemetery.  She wanted him close to home where she could see him from her window.  So Holling was buried behind their house, a small white cross and lantern marked his grave.  The men set up some wood benches for the service, the whole town attended, spilling over into the cabbage patch.  We now had a mini chapel to help ease our sorrows. The fever claimed no more victims, time pasted, and the grief lessened, and life went on.  By late summer of the following year we had a population of 48, 33 adults and 15 children, 2 of them newborns.

Nilla

yes, @brads3. And the ball was caught in a very clever way! Well done @Abandoned!

Abandoned

#12
Chapter 4

  Yes, life did go on in much the same way over the next two years, except that we had two very cold snowy winters. We were thankful that the deer had returned to this area; venison stew cooked in the pots and extra hides warmed our beds.  Stones warmed by the fire were wrapped in cloth and tucked under the covers to warm cold feet, like in the old days. We all wished we had listened closer to the words of wisdom our parents and grandparents had to say.  We agreed to follow their advice, take care of the animals and they'd be there when you needed them.  Even though the deer nibbled our fruit trees and ate my seedlings, those winters we put out straw and some of the acorns and tree seeds I had collected.  We saved all our pear and apple cores for them.  The small area beyond the wild pear trees would be their safe place.  We would build no farther in that direction than the new fishing pier that we were forced to put on hold for lack of wood.

We all loved the colorful little house that was built there by the pears trees.  It just seemed to have a warm welcoming glow and a very colorful roof. One of Muriela's children spilled fruit juice on her tree stump table and stained it.  One day when her students were forced into the barn because of rain, she had them stain a pile of roof shingles that had been cut and stacked there, just for fun. The colored shingles became very popular, homebuilders wanted other colors.  Again the project was put on hold for lack of wood.

When there was little wood we used stone.  The cemetery was completed and happily remained empty.  Work on the roads resumed making travel a little better especially for the laborers and Lessander. The sun melted the snow faster from the stones, our feet stayed a bit warmer and drier and mud free.  Lessander, who was now moving stone and iron to the trading post found his wheelbarrow stuck in the mud less often.  We had to go a lot farther now to collect iron and stone.  He talked more and more about railroads. The boatman stop by as usual and always had some odds and ends to give us, a basket or pot, a piece of cloth or rope. Magdalina put in extra hours out in the cold making tools to add to the trade goods and finally we were able to make a trade, we now had bean seeds.

  We also had bees and honey.  Newlyweds, Herbertus and Alleannie, both builders, constructed a marvelous country little house with a stockpile and storage shed attached.  We townspeople made sure the young couple had supplies in their shed.  Herbertus set up an apiary out back and became beekeeper.  It wasn't long before we had honey, royal jelly, and we each got a small piece of the chewy honeycomb, a sweet treat we hadn't had since we ourselves were children.  The couple had remembered the stories told by their parents.  Christella, our physician, said it was a shame we had no lemon; when we were kids a spoonful of hot honey with lemon eased our sore throats. The first bean harvest was a good one, by fall we all had a string of beans hanging from the rafters to dry along with braids of onions and baskets of other wild crops we had gathered.  Flintonia, our cleric living in the small town house next to the mini chapel, said we should give thanks for all that we have.

 

brads3

i see you are a writer. it is nice too hear how the town is doing n growing it is. thou i notice u want to skip an era from walking to trains. yes it is a downfall of banished. it skipped using horses and bugy's. just think of the mods we could have then..... lol. mayb then the nomads would bring some supplies and not come and eat me out of food. it wasnt my fault today,the ppl got tired of eating strawberries so i tried to build up supplies for the traders. we couldnt get the smoked venison and jerky back to the markets fast enough. the farmers wouldnt work their fields since they were trying to gather food.

Abandoned

#14
Chapter 5

  Year 10 arrived and so did 3 more nomads.  They were the only survivors when their town was hit by flooding and mud slides, lack of trees to blame.  Ironically, one went to the forester stand in the south and one to the newly completed forester stand in the north.  Darving would continue using the mini stand.  He thought part of our wood shortage was due to the fact that the wild fruit and nut trees seemed to be multiplying at a faster rate and should be cut.  Although these hard woods would be good for building and firewood, burning longer than the pine and birch, they were at present contributing greatly to our food supply.  I had a better idea, we would dig up the smallest ones, put them in the greenhouse my husband just built for me, and replace them with the other seedlings I had there. I was now the botanist and I just loved the greenhouse.  It had no glass windows, but still it protected the seedlings from the wind and the deer.  The trees to the north and west help to keep it warmer.  A few much needed houses were being built up here; Ramonty asked if I wanted to move.  No, I was quite happy in the house we choose when we came and it was there we would remain.

Year 11 brought little town or population growth, although our health and happiness were quite high.  We still lacked manpower and building supplies.  The log and firewood supply had improved somewhat but stone was now the problem.  Our stone shortage led to the construction of the bridge to nowhere.  The rocks across the river from the stockpile were yielding less usable stone than we had hoped. Beyond was a creek and steep hill, a tunnel would be needed to reach the limited amount of resources on the other side. I thought the root of our problem was lack of education.  By late summer of that year we had a population of 53, 36 adults and 17 children only 5 of them were students, all that our mini school could handle.  We already had new school on our wish list. 

  The trader arrived late that year.  First thing he wanted to know was what the new building by the river bend was. When told, he said he'd take any extra seedling we had off our hands, would give us a real good trade value for them.  There was sure to be a big demand for such seedling.  The food and livestock traders would sure take fruit tree seedling in trade but with the river running high like this he didn't think many of them would risk coming to this mini dock.  We added a new dock specially for them to our list.

Year 12 brought about the start of several new buildings, the school still waiting for stone. One building had everyone looking on in amazement. My greenhouse ladder went missing, I found it out back where my husband had left it. It was needed to reach the top of the colorful 2-story little house.  It was really something, 2 families could live in it, wonderful.  Something else went missing that year, in early autumn, our fisherman, Lessiah drowned.  Earnet, his wife, and everyone else were in shock, he'd been on that mini pier at the crack of dawn since the morning after we first arrived. He would be missed.