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Using Wheat to make Ale - DON'T DO IT!

Started by irrelevant, June 23, 2014, 07:46:31 AM

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slink

I built a market with no buildings within its circle, and it stocked all item types available excepting, as @irrelevant points out, stone.

irrelevant

@slink  ah, it was you! Thanks for the correction. That test was well-done; simple and definitive.

Dookie

You all are right.  Wheat is terrible for ale production rates.   And yeah, I had the taverns right next to the market for that reason.

irrelevant

@Dookie  Did you actually try wheat into ale? I did in my previous town, switched about half of my taverns (that would have been 8 or ten at the time) to wheat for several months; it was awful. :o That was when I figured this out.

Dookie

yeah @irrelevant,  I switched my crops and had wheat up the wazoo after harvest.  The taverns still produced less. 

I think it has to do with how much raw material a brewer can carry and how much wheat/berry/fruit a tavern can hold.  (i.e. inventory space)  Since the recipe depletes the wheat and berries at a faster rate, the brewer has to go get it more frequently.  He's spending more time in transit apparently. 

IRL, brewing most these fruits is very similar.  Sure, an apple cider master brewer can't make the perfect plum wine, but it doesn't make sense for him to be grabbing only apples when there's a limited supply.  It's like a tavern serving only one type of liquor.

For simplicity, I think the way it's setup in the game is fine though.  BUT, it makes berries and wheat not viable for ale production.  You never want to make berry or wheat ale in this game, even if you have plenty of berries or wheat.  Why give us the option when it's like a guaranteed fail?

irrelevant

#50
Quote from: Dookie on July 31, 2014, 03:34:00 PM
yeah @irrelevant,  I switched my crops and had wheat up the wazoo after harvest.  The taverns still produced less. 

I think it has to do with how much raw material a brewer can carry and how much wheat/berry/fruit a tavern can hold.  (i.e. inventory space)  Since the recipe depletes the wheat and berries at a faster rate, the brewer has to go get it more frequently.  He's spending more time in transit apparently. 

@Dookie Yes, you have it I think :D

If you have no fruit other than berries, you can still make ale for trade. I almost always get a tavern built before I'm getting a regular supply of fruit through trade, so I'm using berries. It's still better than not making ale.

As far as wheat is concerned, I think that in the original concept for this game, happiness (and health) played a much more central role than it appears to at present, and that ale would contribute significantly to happiness, and that it would therefore pay to make ale from wheat in happiness, rather than having no ale.

Dookie

It might have been cool to have the health and happiness provide buffs of some sort, but I could see how that could make the early game even slower due to debuffs. 

@irrelevant
The taverns can produce a small ale surplus from berries when you don't have many folks drinking it quickly.  Once I get some population, I have to place taverns close to where traders can grab it.  My issue isn't that I can't produce enough ale to trade.
It's more like you need many taverns and a large supply of fruit to supply your citizens--nevermind trade.  It steers you towards monoculture (i.e. single type of fruit orchards) OR heavy importation.  Berries and wheat are a waste of tavern utility because the bottleneck isn't the supply of raw materials, but rather, inventory space.  Why would a brewer only carry and store such a small amount?

irrelevant

#52
You solve the ale storage problem by having the traders suck it into the TPs. I try not to let my guys drink any of it. It's all for trade. It is the best trade good per storage value there is, 8 for 1.

I have 33 taverns; this past year I produced ~13,000 ale. All the fruit is imported. I buy all I can, and let the guys eat as much as they want; after all they need it for 5-heart health. Earlier I had been banking big stocks of fruit in my TPs, like 45,000, just so my guys wouldn't eat it all. But now I can afford to buy enough that I don't care, I just let it go, and keep 2000 in a number of TPs in case of hard times or many seed traders in a row  :D

If I have any ale sitting in the taverns it's either because I don't have enough traders or I don't have the desired ale inventory in the TPs set high enough.

The ideal ale inventory in storage is 0. I have 28,000 ale in my TPs, and 397 in storage.

Dookie

That is a solution; as we mentioned before using traders to grab it, but I don't like it.

The problem is two sided and multifaceted:  On the demand side, your villagers drink it too quickly.  Okay, the solution is to just produce more.  When it comes to other products like firewood or clothing, it's pretty easy match to the supply to demand because we're not dealing with this inventory bottleneck. 

For example, citizens consume clothing relatively slowly, so it's easy for tailors to produce a surplus.  (This is roughly the same situation for tools, although less so).

Example 2, if you have plenty of logs, then you won't run out of firewood if you have enough woodcutters.  That's because the cutters carry enough raw material (logs) and store more at their workplace relative to the output.  In other words, it doesn't take 50 logs to make 1 firewood.   This helps in several different ways. 
1) It's easier for vendors at markets to maintain a supply of local logs.
2) Cutters aren't wasting as much time grabbing logs since logs aren't running out as frequently at the woodshop. 

Relative to consumption rate, the raw materials inventory issue is unique to ale.  Traders can get around it; so of course, we can use this OP mechanic, but I rather not abuse.   I prefer using 1-3 trading posts.  I also would like to produce some ale if I have a ton of wheat without having a swarm of traders snatch it up.  I'd like the feeling of having my whole town drunk and plenty of ale to go around :D

salamander

This is just an impression with nothing to back it up, but it seems that ale disappears from taverns in waves.  I wonder if those drinking binges coincide with periods when you don't have laborers doing anything at the moment.  If so, keeping your laborers busy could make more ale available for trading before it gets slurped up.

Anyone noticed something similar?

Dookie

Yes, folks take (sometimes large) chunks of resources to consume at their house.  I've also noticed that they go on binges where the ale disappears rapidly although it usually coincides with when one of my taverns has the wrong recipe or runs low on raw materials.

In my current town, my workforce is unbalanced with too many free laborers, so perhaps you're on to something about idle drinking.  I think an individual can grab too much at once whereas the brewer can't grab enough materials to make the same amount.  For every drinker you would need like so many taverns.   Look at irrelevant and the 33 taverns and still has to pull ale with traders.

irrelevant

#56
Well of course I'm pulling ale with the traders, I'm making ale to use for trade, not for my guys to drink!  ;D

Just wanted to say one more thing about ale, kind of a summary. The keys to making lots of ale for trading, and making it continuously.

  • Just use one kind of fruit (not berries or wheat)
  • Put your taverns directly on your markets, up to 4 on each one (see my "Sink Mill" blog for examples)
  • Don't rely solely on orchards, you need to flood your distribution system with fruit. Buy as much as you can. Your guys need fruit anyway, let them take what they need
  • Be sure to have plenty of traders, and make sure your TPs are always set to collect ale, that means you have to keep bumping the desired inventory

As for buying fruit, this is what I do. Any boat arriving with fruit, the first thing I do (after buying any logs with firewood) is spend 1000 ale to buy 8000 fruit. This replaces the 3000 fruit it took to make that ale, provides 3000 fruit for food, and contributes 2000 to making even more ale.

rkelly17

I'll second what @irrelevant said about ale: trade it, don't drink it. I do it a bit differently than he does, but the effect is the same. Keep trading post demand higher than current capacity.