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Reforestation mostly, a few other questions and comments

Started by gatinho65, June 09, 2014, 09:44:45 AM

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gatinho65

So on my easy starts, so far my maps have all had very few trees, meaning its a race to get the gatherers and hunters situated before the first summer baby explosion empties the food stores and I end up with too much hunger that first winter. I really have found the 'easy' starts to be a lot more challenging than the hard starts!

I simply don't trust farming to feed them that first year, and pasturing takes up so many resources that I don't usually build one until the hunter/gatherers are situated,  especially as I almost always have to build a bridge to get to the closest decent forest. I always build the school now first thing, at least its a cheap build and eliminates the need for so much job shuffling to keep the uneducated kids away from key positions for a decade.

I'm going to experiment with forced homelessness to see if I can get them to build infrastructure before procreating, postponing the babies for at least a few seasons of that first year or during other crunch times, but I'm also wondering if I don't need to start reforesting right away. 

On that note of forced homelessness: has anybody noticed what priority upgrading houses takes if you have builders? I have noticed that if I don't have any builders, I can keep the houses empty as long as I want before reclaiming them (forcing some rearranging of house/work which is really useful once things get a bit sprawly later on, inevitable when resources are so spread out). But if I have builders I want to focus on actual building, will they first jump to upgrading houses like they do to any road? Or can I keep them away from the houses by prioritizing the building project where I want them, while still keeping people homeless for a bit without risking the actual upgrade?

But back to trees. Has anyone noticed how long it takes for a forest to grow old enough that the gatherers and hunters actually have something to do? I've set up forest huts in desolate areas in town, for aesthetics and to see if I could do selective tree harvesting right in town when I need logs for a quick end to a build later on, and it seems to take about 7 years for the trees to look big. Is that about right? However, I have no idea at which point the gatherers would find anything if they were placed in a forest started from scratch. Would it be sooner than the 7-ish years, like 3-4 years, or do the trees really have to be as big/old as possible? I do notice that they don't collect much in my forest hubs if that forest is pretty sparse and rocky for the first 3-5 years. I really have to 'plant' only for a few years before I allow cutting by the foresters.

Also, has anybody noticed how many trees are needed to do their own reseeding? Or what the area is that they will reseed? Does the forest spread, if you leave a patch of a few trees? Will a single tree seed itself? So far I've been too caught up in micromanaging other things to notice answers to my own questions lol.

Ha, you can tell that I'm not about building vast endless farming expanses. So far I'm just trying to get sustainable villages where there is always enough food and wood to let me rest a bit and think about planning layouts, fitting in graveyards and useless but charming churches, squares, having enough firewood to trade for more seeds and some sheep, and building enough houses for the horny little villagers to pop out babies in enough supply that I avoid any demographic bombs of death every decade or so.

And survive the dreaded generations of single gender births, shudder...If someone mods same sex marriage/domestic partnership soon, I can't wait for that. Like in Tropico, it would help with the housing situation and allow for more firewood to trade instead of burn. And if you could adopt orphans through the trader (from all those starvation plagued Banished settlements), that would be very cool, soothe out the gender imbalances and wild population swings. Plenty of actual hunter/gatherer/subsistence communities have had all kinds of domestic arrangements, it wouldn't be anachronistic at all. 

Bobbi

Can't say much to most of your questions. I usually start on med, build gatherer hut first then school. My gatherers usually seem to do well right from the start. I remove all iron and stone asap.
I really love your idea of traders bringing kids to adopt. :o  How much would they cost? More for older kids, less for younger? Boys cost more than girls because usually it's boys I am short of (but not always)?

salamander

As much as I like this game, if it ever adopts the selling of orphans by traders, it will be a deal breaker and I'll drop it faster than a hot potato.

Bobbi


rkelly17

@gatinhoo65, I won't get into trading babies, but as to foresters: If your starts so far have been relatively treeless, you have been unlucky. I admit that if I don't have some forest nearby, I abort and try another map seed. If you don't have trees on an easy or medium start, don't be afraid to plant, especially if you have beans. They harvest pretty quickly. Don't worry about hunters--they need open space but not trees. If you are near the water 4 fishers will get more meat than 3 hunters, but the hunters get you leather along with food. When I set 1 forester to plant only it takes about 3 game years to fill in blank areas, but that is in a location that already has a fair number of trees from which I have removed stone and iron. 2-4 foresters would go faster, but I think that 3 years is about what it takes for a tree to mature--that is what it takes fruit trees to bear fruit. That being said, you may find food in the young forest earlier. As soon as you start to see the onions, mushrooms and berry bushes growing up around your trees your gatherers should start producing something.

gatinho65

Medium starts really are easier, isn't that interesting? I only started trying the 'easy' starts because I wanted to see what it was like to have animals and buildings right away. Its tough!

Well, in traditional and even modern societies today in some places, adopting extra kids, even if their parents are still alive and even local, meant taking responsibility for their care and feeding and education, so actually just as much a burden as an extra working hand. Its not about buying them, its about getting them in situations with potential. I lived in parts of Latin America where getting your kids 'adopted' by a family that would employ but also house and educate them was very common. Parents did it for their kids, as well as relatives trying to place a family orphan. Yeah, of course there are cases of exploitation and abuse, but there is plenty of that in 'natural' families as well. Nobody is talking slavery here.

I think the older kids should be 'cheaper', as you don't have to just feed them while they are hopefully going to school and not working. 'Price' difference should be more for educated than uneducated, but gender should be equal.

As far as what it is they are traded for, hmmm. Nomads are free but come with a lot of baggage. Adoption could be free perhaps, why not? The 'price' is housing them and feeding them until they begin to work. Or maybe traded for livestock? Firewood equal to the price of seeds? They are kind of like seeds I guess. And yeah, I'm always short boys, which can be a good thing when I want to prevent too many births, but wait too long and I get the death bomb and have to plan for a drastic reduction in population for a while while all the single ladies die off.

Nomads are free but come with lots of baggage, it would be nice to have the option of more controlled growth by adoption. Traders aren't all that frequent anyway, if several orphans showed up, between 1-3, every couple of years on a boat, that would be awesome.

Kaldir

@gatinho65: I too think that easy start is the hardest start. From the sound of it, you might do better on medium, where you can decide when to build houses. Gives you better birth control for your population. And, if you don't give much for farming, you might go for hard.

Like @Bobbi and @rkelly17, my experience is that gatherers do pretty well right from the start. Put them in a forested area and it should be okay. I've never had trouble with a forest too far away and never had to build a bridge in the first few years.

Gatherers have a very high food production per person. With a forester it goes up, but that indeed takes a few years of growing. I often set my first forester to planting only for 2 or 3 years. In optimal conditions the gatherers produces more than 750 food each (3000 for a fully staffed hut). That makes them an excellent choice for early game, when you still have a lot of space.

If you feel you have bad results from gatherers in the first few years, or if you're wondering how much forest is enough forest, feel free to post a screenshot of your early game.

As for the trading of orphans: I will gladly pay for them with some single elder person.  8)

gatinho65

I wondered about my luck with the easy maps. I thought maybe it was the tradeoff because you have buildings, seeds and livestock. I wondered if the increase in trees on the other starts was the compensation for the lack of those other advantages. I'll have to just see a lot more maps instead of just starting on whatever pops up.

I didn't realize hunters could produce in relatively open areas, I'll have to place some there and see. I've never started with beans so I'll plant them when I do. I don't ever start with fishers because of the way they go through tools, meaning I have to get that blacksmith started when I'd rather build other things first. Tool shortage is horrible.

I'll have to really pay attention to what the baby trees look like each year. They do seem to grow slower than the orchard trees, I suspect they are not considered mature quite so quickly. But I'll also have to really pay attention to when the understory fills in for gathering.

Another word about the kids: apologies if I offended anyone or sounded flip. I guess I've lived in so many places where lots of 'trading' in kids was so normal, I didn't think of how it might come across.

In many of the traditional village societies where I've spent time, life circumstances really do vary enormously, like in the game. Kids are often moved around a lot to ensure that they are taken care of, that they least of anyone suffers hunger during the lean years. These adoptions are nothing like the formal legal expensive ones we think of in the west. They are not selling kids or exploiting them, even though of course everyone works in these societies, often even the kids attending school. There is a sober realization of how much cost is involved in caring for anyone and how to balance that with 'labor' provided, but its not the kind of 'economic' thinking we are taught to see as normal. Its socialism of a village kind, while still being pragmatic. The kind of solidarity I think would be very natural in this kind of game where people shuffle to every duty needed and keep the whole society functioning in the face of all the challenges.

salamander

@gatinho65 and, especially, @Bobbi  -- I think I owe you both, and probably everybody here, an apology.  My post was a gut reaction, having been raised in the southern US, with the prevailing prejudices of the times, and being just old enough to remember the aftermath of the civil rights movement in the 60's.  It was not my intent to imply that either of you were supporting the (unfortunate) values of a less-than-stellar period in US history.

I hope that you will accept my apology in the most sincere spirit in which it is offered.  I meant no disrespect.

Bobbi

No problem. I was planning on treating them really well, feed 'em and send 'em to school, then hope they would stay around to help on the family farm. Instead they would probably run off to the big city at the very first opportunity.

salamander

Madame Champion -- I humbly, and gratefully, accept your forgiveness.  You are a wise ruler, second only to The Big Chihuahua.


gatinho65

@salamander: no problem, I could tell it was a gut reaction. It reminded me that one can never be certain how things you write online will be taken, and I clearly hadn't thought enough about that before my rather flippant suggestion.

I think its kind of fascinating to see how differently people respond to some of the ethical issues that are inherent, if not always examined, in most games, even the ones that don't involve any killing or conquering.

I love Tropico and always play as a commie, which makes for plenty of success, as keeping people happy and mostly equal is what works in the game. Something very much resented by players who are boisterously capitalist in their strategies and love assassinating intelligent courageous agitators or fighting rebels, according to what you read in forums lol. And when I play Civ IV, I almost only play for cultural or diplomatic victories, I really hate having to go to war at all if it can be avoided. Some people can't get enough competition and fighting in games, I'm exactly the opposite.

In Banished, I quickly realized that I wouldn't be comfortable trying to find ways to force the old couples into a boarding house, or speed them on their way to the resentfully built graveyard. I once tried 'freezing' a few older folks to death to free up houses that I simply couldn't afford to build, but ended up feeling terrible when I was successful! And I can't bring myself to starve a few children to death because I want to choose building something rather than food production with my limited adult workers. Even if I was tempted;)

I figure part of the challenge I create for myself will be to build enough sustainable infrastructure so that I can tolerate lots of houses full of fuel consuming older workers while still providing houses for the younger ones so they can have kids. Even if I end up building houses that will end up empty from time to time. And I like getting to a point where I don't have to force all my farmers to do other jobs during their slow season. I can let them just be more idle or do the odd laboring jobs they do. It makes resource management even more critical and difficult, but then that is part of the fun of the game.

Its not a 'superior' way to play, just particular to me. But I do get my own gut reactions when I read some ways other people approach certain issues in city builder games.

One of the most appealing things to me about Banished is its intent to look at sustainability and limited/non-renewable resources, even if some of those factors were taken out of the game before release. I'm sure they will be made into mod components that some people will really enjoy playing around with. But not everyone! Probably the never-depleting mine/quarry mods (or peasant war mods) will be most popular lol;) I guess that is why some games are so fascinating and successful: the rules may be universal (without mods) but still they can be played in so many different ways.

gatinho65

And back to trees:) During my recent playing, I tried to take more specific notice of growth patterns and timeframes, but with all the micromanagement required, I lost track of a few things before learning what I hoped to learn.

But I did notice a few things. Single trees don't always spawn new trees in the same place when they die, unless they are near enough even a few other trees. They don't always grow goodies underneath either, if in isolation. Small patches of trees sometimes have goodies, sometimes not. And trees don't seem to spread, they only regrow in spots that had forest already.

The forest trees grow more slowly than orchard trees, but live longer. It seems to take about 7 game years or so for the trees to be really big and have lots of understory goodies. The goodies do start showing up at around 4-5 years, but not lots of them until later. The biggest oldest trees seem to die after 11 or maybe a few more years. I lost my favorite old tree in town after 13 years I think, but I didn't remember the year when it was first a seedling, so it could have been older. That is where I need to take more notice, how long they live after their first year.

Growing a forest from scratch is no quick fix. It means having to plant only for 5 or more years. But then understory seems to get established and a few years later one can plant/cut and really produce, plus provide for gatherers.

Having lots of trees in town makes for beautiful scenery, it just means having to leave at least 2 spaces between structures, which I do now in spots where I want some green space. Also, if you avoid paving everything between structures, leaving patches of green earth, lots of deer wander through town. Its particularly beautiful in winter, when the villagers hang out in the square near the fountain, alongside browsing deer. I like creating park-like spaces with some big trees and understory in town, especially near the plazas and town hall and other bigger buildings. It requires a lot more space and planting a forest hut that won't ever really harvest, but I think I will do that more now.

My latest town has been incredibly difficult, even on another 'easy' start! A tiny spot between endless mountains and rivers, so few trees that I simply had almost nothing to harvest for the first decade. Those bridges I needed to build to the only available trees were so pricey!! Only after building 7! forest huts and waiting almost 15 years have I finally been able to produce enough logs to actually get things going. Its nerve wracking to alternate between starving and freezing at 1X for a few years so that nobody dies, as you move workers from moment to moment from one job to another to keep everyone alive.

Its really beautiful now, plus lots of food, enough houses, essential jobs filled, finally a trading post and a town hall. Still barely 60 people, but happiness and health never went below 4, even with all the cold and hunger, mostly hovered at 4.5. No starvation death and I survived the first baby explosion (forgot to try my temporary homeless birth control method). Equal numbers of babies and students now, so I think there will still be some careful growth ahead, even with the death of the first generation. Success so far;)

rkelly17

I had read and always believed that you needed at least two squares to get my town forester to plant a tree. But wouldn't you know it, I was proved wrong. The other evening I had plotted out the roads for my town square area and left a one-square hole in the roads for a future well. My minions built the dirt roads and then wandered off to do something else. Along came the town forester and planted a tree in it! So, there you go--a tree in a single square surrounded by roads.