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Balancing the food production

Started by KIM16, December 15, 2018, 02:16:13 AM

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KIM16

Banished is hard to balance because there is so many things that effect food production

So bunnies eat 100 food every year.

We assume that one family has 2 underage children on average.
Each parent is feeding 1 child.
That means that adult worker needs 200 food every year.

By looking at some vanilla data when conditions are good (educated workers, solid placement of buildings) workers should produce around 600 food every year.
That is enough to feed 3 workers.

But some buildings should produce less food (because they produce other things too) , some more.
This is how to distribute food production:

you start like this:                        and end something like this

crop:            600                             650
orchard:       600                             400
hunter:        600                             400
gatherer:     600                             700
pasture:      600                              900
fisher:          600                             550

sum:          3600                            3600

But of course mods add a lot of new building and it may be hard to feed people with only 600 food per worker so that can be increased.
Also if you feel that there is not enough space for player to build food production buildings you can increase the number of available workers.

You can sum all of your food production workers and all of your non food production workers and see what is the ratio.
How many food production buildings are required to feed 1 of each non food production buildings...

I suggest for the mod is to increase the food production of the later game buildings like bakery.
That will make these buildings worth it.

One more suggestion is to maybe make wheat inedible unless cleaned by windmill so people dont eat the wheat before you can make flour.
Meat can be made inedible too unless butchered or smoked.
It shouldn't make the game much harder because main source of food in early game is fish and gathered food.
Also water can replace the missing food.

The game will be harder for a while when the player install the mod the fist time, but it will be more rewarding to play balanced game at least in my opinion.

Gatherer

Quote from: KIM16 on December 15, 2018, 02:16:13 AM
So bunnies eat 100 food every year.


Don't know about bunnies but Bannies are supposedly eating less than that.


http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=2051.0
There's never enough deco stuff!!!
Fiat panis.

KIM16


Gatherer

I think @irrelevant was playing a pure vanilla game when making those observations.
There's never enough deco stuff!!!
Fiat panis.

KIM16

I found this in the citizen.rsc

float _foodPerYear = 100;
   float _foodLevel = 25.0;
   float _hungerLevel = 10.0;
   float _starvingLevel = 18.0;
   float _maxHunger = 25.0;

It is saying food per year is 100 but there may be some things that change that :)

KIM16

Hmm maybe newborn babies dont eat the first year or something like that

smurphys7

They eat 100 food per year.  The number is in the code and experienced while playing.  Some citizens die and are born mid-year which makes numbers at the Town Hall slightly different.

I strongly suggest NOT having inedible items that have food tags.  Inedible food items clogging up markets and other food dispensing buildings is obnoxious.  Also, people eat porridge, or plain steak.  The inedible food items already in Colonial Charter are already a poor implementation and bad design.

I really don't understand what balance you are attempting to create.  There are already balanced trade offs for food production in Banished.  Gatherers create the most food per worker, but least food per map square.  Fishing creates the least food per worker, but most in food per map square.  Farming, Orchards, Pastures and Hunting all have unique pros, cons and serve a specific purpose.

What exactly are you attempting to balance and change?  You say "But some buildings should produce less food (because they produce other things too)" but your example of Pastures has the most food produced?

And what do you mean by "everything starts at 600"?

KIM16

It is just an example lol, pastures produce a lot in vanilla.. Yeah but they can give one flag to inedible foods and other inedible items that are farmed, they have 2 free flags I think.
This is just a suggestion. I have watched some people play and tried it myself and the bakery is hardly ever working.

KIM16

well you start at 600 for every building then if you increase the food in one, you decrease it in other building so you always end up with the same number of food produced each year.

smurphys7

Quote from: KIM16 on December 15, 2018, 05:46:52 AM
well you start at 600 for every building then if you increase the food in one, you decrease it in other building so you always end up with the same number of food produced each year.

I don't understand what this means.  What do you mean by "start at 600"?  Do you mean your base theoretical numbers?  Or do you mean at the start of every Banished game each food production building produces the same amount of food?

Then, if you decrease food production in one building but increase it in another... why doesn't a player only build the Food Production building that you increased and ignore the one you decreased?

Food Producing Buildings already have trade-offs and pros and cons.

Bakery use is often ineffective because turning a Grain into Flour in Colonial Charter is a loss of resources (20 Wheat --> 14 Flour).  Some of the Bakery options are so profitable that it makes up for this initial loss but this balance on Flour is obnoxious, poor design, and poor balance.  Also, Flour Being inedible is also obnoxious, poor design and poor balance.  People can eat flour. 

Many foods in Banished assume a rudimentary amount of basic home preparation. 

KIM16

Yeah I mean theoretical numbers.

I agree people can eat everything. I wish they prefer the processed food and not eat all the wheat but that cant be changed by mods.

w
Quote from: smurphys7 on December 15, 2018, 05:56:34 AM


Then, if you decrease food production in one building but increase it in another... why doesn't a player only build the Food Production building that you increased and ignore the one you decreased?



I mean why even build food production buildings if you can just trade for food?

Quote from: smurphys7 on December 15, 2018, 05:56:34 AM



Food Producing Buildings already have trade-offs and pros and cons.


Yes and the pros and cons should be added to new building like aviary for example, it makes honey but also beeswax that you need for candles and they are needed to build some buildings...

Thats why I suggest wheat to be inedible unless processed by windmill. So you can make a choice to make wheat into flour or to make it edible wheat that's cleaned of chaff.

brads3

a big can of worms.... is this to be a guide for new players or somethng for modders? the in-edible edible idea has been argued many times.the way mods process food and increase units not just value has been adjusted better. you didn't mention field size either.

   generally i keep 10x10 crop fields and orchards are larger.my pastures vary somewhat depending on terrain. with many mods,i try to maintian a minimum average of  500 food output per food worker.this includes modded farm areas,hunters,gatherers,fishing,etc. crops will do better than that but this compensates for bad years and uneducated workers.in a mountain map the terrain is more limited as well. climate is set to mid range.
            so say 14 nomads arrive,i know i need 3 of them to produce enough food for that group.by using a 1:5 ratio of food workers,the math is simple and quick. if i have 235 bannies,i should have 40-50 food workers. the excess will help keep us stocked for the children.

note that is a general guide with using a 1yr age mod. changing mods or climate means adjusting.   
 

Maldrick

Brads is right, it's been hashed out a million times and there's really no right or wrong answer.  It's another one of those areas where limitations on what can be modded comes into play and personal preference and playstyle determines a lot.  If you like a lot of extra production chains and things for your bannies to do, you could go way off in one direction.  If you like playing optimally, you could go way off in another.  Personally, I find the latter to be really dull so tend to go more towards the former, but not always and depends on what day you catch me.

What you find currently with most mods represents a happy medium that will generally accommodate most playstyles to whatever extent.  Food intermediaries, like flour, get flagged as inedible because, ostensibly, people playing with it want to actually use it for production and not have it eaten before it gets to that.  While the raw foods remain edible so as to not take it too far in that direction and could, conceivably, cause problems early game and such.  The value of doing it vary based on how individual modders have balanced it for volume, trade value, added challenge, or just the fun of doing it, etc.  Again, it largely depends on personal preference and playstyle and there really is no right or wrong approach, so it goes round and round.  Personally, I think inedible food, in general, should have its own flag, especially since we have two unused flags in the current "standard" setup, but I gather from previous discussions that I might be the only one with that opinion.  Even so, it's really only an issue at size, although it would help with storage and distribution.  Round and round. lol

I have some ideas for things I'd like to try in this area down the road, but I have a long way to go with my modding before attempting such a thing.  And, even then, it would have to be with the understanding that other areas of the game would have to be de-emphasized because of the limited flags we have to work with.  And would still be subject to the realities of gameplay like efficiencly variables, etc, and probably wouldn't go as intended anyway.  High hopes that Luke's new project is Banished 2 and these types of things are more accessible and modifiable.  Too soon to know, of course.
"We are the architects of our actions and we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic."
― Ezio Auditore da Firenze

Maldrick

Quote from: KIM16 on December 15, 2018, 06:24:37 AM

Thats why I suggest wheat to be inedible unless processed by windmill. So you can make a choice to make wheat into flour or to make it edible wheat that's cleaned of chaff.

Forgot to add...If you look over in the downloads section on Black Liquid, there is a whole series of individual mods that will make anything and everything inedible.  I've never used them so don't know if they only work with CC, how they impact production, etc., but that might be an option for what you are looking to do.  Test it before really playing, of course, so you know what you are working with before committing to a game with it.
"We are the architects of our actions and we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic."
― Ezio Auditore da Firenze

theonlywanderer

The whole point of the Vanilla game was to create a challenge of populating the map.   Since Vanilla is so limited in buildings and professions, you obviously have to repeat buildings as your population grows.

This has not changed with Mods.    If one wheat field isn't making enough wheat to supply the windmill you make another wheat field.   If one windmill isn't making enough flour to supply your bakery, make another windmill.   If your bakery isn't making enough bread to have a little surplus, make another bakery.

To try and tweak production buildings to meet some idealistic set of numbers is simply impossible due to the massive randomness of how thousands of maps can be built out and how thousands or players want to do things.

Basically, the whole point of the game is to take what you got and make it work for whatever style you enjoy.