World of Banished

Sightseeing => Village Blogs => Topic started by: irrelevant on September 14, 2015, 07:02:18 PM

Title: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 14, 2015, 07:02:18 PM
I'm not sure where this idea started from, it reminds me of something @Nilla would do.  ;) I want to explore what a town with no markets whatsoever looks like, what you have to do to make it work, and how its development is hampered. I tried a half-dozen random seeds before I got one that seemed worth exploring. Got a bunch of mods enabled, we'll see how many of them get used.

Terrain leveler, right away, to place the hunting cabin  ;D

You know me, buncha food right away. First year, one house; next year, two.

Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 14, 2015, 07:49:50 PM
Year 3

I forgot about NMT!  :o :-[  I tore down the vanilla hunter's cabin and replaced it with a duplex NMT hunter.  ;)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 14, 2015, 09:11:37 PM
Year 6

Should have built the chestnut orchard sooner, need cheap protein so I can put more venison in the TP. I should have a fisher as well.  >:(
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 15, 2015, 05:53:45 AM
My plan going forward is a series of small villages, all basically self-sufficient with forest circles, a wheat field or two, chestnut orchard, maybe a fisher, woodcutter, school, smith, tailor, and a trading post.

Away from the river will need to be different, obviously. I haven't decided yet what to do about iron, I'm tempted just to make the inland smiths walk to the river to get it. That will obviously impact tool production, but each smith will be producing for just a relatively small pop.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 15, 2015, 06:00:44 AM
Quote from: irrelevant on September 14, 2015, 07:02:18 PM
I'm not sure where this idea started from, it reminds me of something @Nilla would do.  ;)

You are so right.  ;D I've done this already, but only with mods. With the NMT markets it's easy. They are in fact markets, so I suppose you will not build any of them either. I made it with the specialized barns from @slink, too. That was also no big problem. But if you use none of them, it could be interesting. In any case; I wish you much luck, I will follow your efforts with interest.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 15, 2015, 06:03:47 AM
@Nilla yes, I will not use any markets of any kind. It really forces a different way of planning and building.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on September 15, 2015, 07:42:07 AM
Interesting idea. Wonder how it will go after 1000 years :D

What's the difference between the storage barn and the medieval normal barn?

You guys seem to get up trade posts and farms and such very early. I like to pretend they're stuck out in the wilderness at first, and need to build up the village a bit first. Built a TP in year 15 or so, and the first few farms around year 10. Food is rougher to get by, but I like it that way in the beginning :)

Good luck, will be interesting to see how it develops without any markets.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 15, 2015, 08:09:35 AM
Quote from: Pangaea on September 15, 2015, 07:42:07 AM
Interesting idea. Wonder how it will go after 1000 years :D
Lol, not going to do that again! :o

Quote from: Pangaea on September 15, 2015, 07:42:07 AM
What's the difference between the storage barn and the medieval normal barn?
Storage Barn is ugly, Medieval Storage Barn is pretty. It's from a @RedKetchup mod "Irrelevant Small Barns v1.0c" that has four really nice barns of different sizes. That particular one is exactly the same size and capacity as a regular barn (nope, the modded barn holds 10k), the others are 4x4, 3x3, and 2x2. http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=941.45 , see reply #49

Quote from: Pangaea on September 15, 2015, 07:42:07 AM
You guys seem to get up trade posts and farms and such very early. I like to pretend they're stuck out in the wilderness at first, and need to build up the village a bit first. Built a TP in year 15 or so, and the first few farms around year 10. Food is rougher to get by, but I like it that way in the beginning :)
I figure that for this town, no markets will be challenge enough.  ;)


Quote from: Pangaea on September 15, 2015, 07:42:07 AM
Good luck, will be interesting to see how it develops without any markets.
Thanks!
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 15, 2015, 09:18:34 PM
Year 13

Stone is the problem here. Merchants are bringing 33 here, 66 there.

Got some sheep.  :D And plum seeds, so there's another orchard going up.

The original crew just died off, mostly, so expansion is on hold for a bit.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: xyris on September 17, 2015, 03:09:53 AM
I think those early years are the most fun.   :)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 18, 2015, 10:14:26 PM
@xyris boy they sure are! Every decision seems portentous.

Year 20 - lots more micromanagement. You have to be careful not to let any of the barns fill up with inedibles. I've been fake-demolishing a barn or two every couple of years, just to keep things spread around. The original barn seems to be a particular favorite to get food from, while the NMT barns on either side of it tend to fill up.

Turning off farms, something I never do. Running gatherers' huts and foresters with 1-2 workers instead of 4. Making smaller farms of sub-optimal size, just to have some wheat and some squash both produced in the same area, or just to have some wheat production, to go along with roots and onions, without filling up the barns.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 19, 2015, 02:02:08 AM
I have an advice for you, if you have problems with full barns:

Don´t produce so much. You read my last blog. They can live with very little. And you don´t have to be quite as extreme as I was. I would suggest 100 food for for each inhabitant 1 coat, 1 tool. If you want to have much of anything than firewood. It doesn´t fill the barns.

I would also be careful with hunters and pastures, just as you say; not letting the barns be full of inedibles. But I can´t see any problems of that at the moment. You don´t have too much of anything of those things.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 19, 2015, 06:18:51 AM
Yes, I started shutting down producers last night. Things are turned down pretty low. It's slow to show an effect in the barns, because there are so few consumers!

I can cut back some more though.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on September 19, 2015, 06:45:21 AM
Maybe you've done this already, but you can also use the trade posts as temporary storage, for instance for tools or coats if you have heaps of those laying* around.

*is this correct? I'm not a native speaker, and always get a bit confused by lay/lie and the tenses.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 19, 2015, 09:19:01 AM
Yes, I'm doing that to an extent, with thousands of venison and mushrooms; but I actually do intend to trade those items.

Lie/lay is probably the toughest pair of verbs in English.

"To lay" is active; transitive, requires a direct object. I lay the book on the table (present), I laid the book on the table (past), I have laid the book on the table (perfect tense), I am laying the book on the table, he lays the book on the table.

"To lie" is passive; intransitive, has no direct object. I lie on the floor (present), I lay on the floor (past), I have lain on the floor (perfect tense), I am lying on the floor, he lies on the floor.

-except-

"To lie, " as in to tell an untruth, also intransitive, but has a regular conjugation: I lie, I lied, I have lied, I'm lying, he lies.

So, back to your question, it would be more correct to say, "if you have heaps of those lying around." But the way you said it, everyone knows what you mean, and even native English-speakers will get that one wrong probably more often than they get it right.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 19, 2015, 08:17:09 PM
Year 26

Starting to develop some standards, TP-centered, small farms, small barns, half-staffed gatherers in the hinterland, trading mutton, venison, leather, ale, some firewood, a few herbs, wool coats, and iron tools for stone, iron, plums, pecans, warm coats, steel tools.

Insuring that all items needed for local consumption are produced or purchased locally is the key to doing without markets.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on September 20, 2015, 12:35:28 PM
Thanks a lot for the explanation @irrelevant . Will try to keep this in mind for the future :)

Considering the amount of English native speakers that make elementary mistakes with it's/its, have/of (I HATE this one, e.g. "I would of...") and so on and so forth, lie/lay is quite understandably tricky, even for native speakers.

Admittedly I see many such mistakes on football (non-US) forums, and it has to be said that football fans tend to not be high on Mensa members. Unfortunately I see mistakes like that in many other fields too, even including in news articles, particularly online, perhaps because there is little, if any, editorial process online.

Sorry for that moan. Keep up your interesting no markets experiement :)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 22, 2015, 07:39:47 PM
@Pangaea you're welcome!

year 31

Expanding out away from the river using elongated forest groups with barns and housing mixed in, and small wheat farms off to the side. These will serve as bases when I get them extended to places where I can build TP centers. Tools and coats will be tough out there until then.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 23, 2015, 09:01:52 AM
I don't think it matters much, if the people who lives far away have to walk a bit every second year or something like that, as they need some new tools or clothing.

As always, I have a question;

Have you looked where these people outside the trading area goes idling? As you know, I looked a bit more careful on my people lately, and even happy people idle occasionally. Mostly they go to the market or to the trading port. But where do they go if there is nothing of that kind close? Maybe you should build a well (or perhaps a scarecrow, if you have that mod, it's cute) to keep them close to home.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 23, 2015, 12:40:44 PM
@Nilla I never thought to check. What do you know, they are idling standing out in the middle of the woods. I'm having a hard time finding anyone with fewer than 5 stars though.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 23, 2015, 01:32:28 PM
I suppose this is an advantage of having full happiness; they don't have to seek out a happiness circle to idle in.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 25, 2015, 02:37:03 AM
You mean if they are happy they can idle everywhere? That´s interesting. I didn´t see that in my unhappy town. But there on the other hand, idling locations were close to everyone. Happy people idle a lot, too, especially if they have little work to do.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 26, 2015, 08:17:09 PM
Year 41

Expanding in a few directions, and each one is a bit different.

Screen 1 - Going out to the north, there is a TP site on a  stream. Almost ready to start building. There will be a tavern, tailor, smith, woodcutter, farms and orchards, pretty much the same as what you see along the river in screen 5

Screen 2 - To the west, there is a landlocked (for now  ;) ) lake where I will build a TP. I'll drag construction mats out, and then....

Screen 3 - Build a canal to connect the lake with the river

Screen 4 - Expanding to the east along the south side will be the biggest challenge; I'll have to go nearly to the east edge to reach a TP site.

Screen 5 - The main town, gradually expanding.

Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 27, 2015, 04:36:19 AM
Quote from: irrelevant on September 26, 2015, 08:17:09 PM

Nice looking settlement, as always.

Screen 4 - Expanding to the east along the south side will be the biggest challenge; I'll have to go nearly to the east edge to reach a TP site.


What about the streams? Isn't it possible to build a canal-port in the area and use the streams as connection. I know, the merchant don't like all streams. It looks like the opening to the river must be big enough.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 27, 2015, 06:46:48 AM
@Nilla Yeah, I've been up and down every square of all three streams multiple times. The stream at the bottom of the map has just one TP site, almost all the way to the map edge. ::)

I don't want to build a canal TP. That's too easy.

Might be better though, to use a canal to connect the landlocked lake to the stream.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on September 27, 2015, 07:39:04 AM
Quote from: irrelevant on September 26, 2015, 08:17:09 PM
Screen 3 - Build a canal to connect the lake with the river

What's going on here? Is this a mod so that you can sort of build rivers?
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 27, 2015, 08:04:14 AM
@Pangaea You were gone a long time, weren't you?! ;D

Yes, it is included in @RedKetchup's essential and amazing mod, New Medieval Town. Not only can you connect landlocked lakes and streams to the main river, opening them up to trade, you also can build TPs on the canals themselves.

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=960.0

There are two different canal skins and (I think) four different widths. 
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on September 27, 2015, 08:35:51 AM
Ah, cheers. I have indeed been away a long while, and everything has changed now. Where is that cane so I can wave it in the air?  ;D
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on September 28, 2015, 07:13:15 AM
Quote from: irrelevant on September 27, 2015, 06:46:48 AM

I don't want to build a canal TP. That's too easy.

Might be better though, to use a canal to connect the landlocked lake to the stream.

Maybe it's easier, but I really don't see the difference; you build a canal port on a canal or you build a canal to connect a lake to the river and build a normal trading port on the lake, where it wasn't meant to be. Yes I know one difference, when I think about it; the canal port looks nicer.  ;D


One more thing for you @irrelevant: You don't have to worry, I'm going on vacation: 2 weeks to sunny Spain.  :)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 28, 2015, 07:39:53 AM
@Nilla  The reason I said a canal TP is too easy, is that I could build a canal TP essentially anyplace along that stream there. I could have built one (or more!) already, closer to the river. That doesn't really fit in with the spirit of what I am doing with this town.

Of course, I could say that building canals at all is too easy. I guess this is the compromise I have made with myself.  ;)

Two weeks in Spain! I'm jealous. Have a wonderful trip, and I shall miss your questions and your village blogs.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 30, 2015, 07:04:23 PM
Year 50

The new TP (number 6) on the landlocked lake is about to get its first visit from a merchant boat, thanks to the newly-built NMT canal. Thanks @RedKetchup!
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on September 30, 2015, 07:16:11 PM
New TP center, TP number 5, on the stream north of the original four-TP settlement.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on October 01, 2015, 06:13:15 AM
So at this point there are a couple of interesting things:

In the new TP 5 village, I have for the first time on this map built an apiary, a flour mill, and a bakery making pecan pies. This was just within the past couple of years. TP 5 village is on the far northern end of Beanblossom, but I have seen small quantities of flour, honey, and pies showing up in barns (and of course subsequently in houses) all over the map, even on the extreme southeastern and southwestern frontiers. This is something I certainly would not have expected to find.

Also, I've been thinking about the number of houses vs. the number of families as shown in the town hall overview panel. The perennial question is, do you build houses to keep pace with the number of families, or not? And if you build more houses than families, such that some of the families split up, are there negative consequences?

Now mostly the consensus has been that splitting up families has no discernible impact on pop expansion, and I think that this is correct, but there is another effect that has not been noted in this context. That effect is the formation of new families that include a student as one of the primaries. This is not bad in itself, however it can lead to delaying graduation by the new student-homemaker. This is because the student still attends the school that (s)he originally was assigned to at age 10. However, the new home (s)he moves into can be anywhere on the map, and in the case of a spread out town such as Beanblossom (or really just about any town that has a pop of more than just a couple hundred), this can mean that the student now has a very long walk to school. This will delay graduation, possibly adding several more years to the time the student spends in school, depending on the student-homemaker's age and how far (s)he now must walk to school.

Note that this can happen even if there are fewer houses than families, but the nearer the two numbers, the more likely it is to happen. If there are more houses than families, it is essentially 100% likely to happen. Whether this is a bad thing depends on your laborer situation. If you already have lots of laborers, it probably doesn't matter. But if you are stretched thin, and/or if you are trying to expand your pop as quickly as possible, it will slow you down both ways.

This can be counteracted by the schoolhouse shuffle that we hit on in the Flowerchild Commune challenge. That is, build enough "spare" schools to take all your students, assign teachers to these schools, shut down all the other schools, let the game run long enough that all the students get reassigned to theses schools. Then reactivate the "real" schools, shut down the spare schools, and now all the students once again are attending the school nearest to where they live. This needs to be done 2-3 times a year if you regularly are forming new households with student homemakers.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on October 04, 2015, 10:42:53 AM
Year 54 - another landlocked lake opened up for trade.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on October 09, 2015, 04:00:23 AM
Year 57

Nothing terribly important going on here, just spreading out bit by bit, and adding housing to existing areas. Gatherers and foresters still running with 1-2 workers each so as not to clog up storage. Have to keep an eye on most every barn to make sure things don't get out of hand either one way or the other.

Still considerable room available to expand along the river in both directions.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on October 19, 2015, 07:25:58 PM
Year 62

So I'm still at it here, just not getting as much screen time as I want.

Development is very tedious, markets make everything run so smoothly, doing without them you have to think much harder about every build. Can I have more houses here, do I need another barn, should I set up a new mill/apiary/baker group?
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Pangaea on October 20, 2015, 12:14:51 AM
Looks like it's going pretty well so far, closing in on 1000 buannies.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on October 24, 2015, 01:01:03 PM
Impressive: still 5 harts without markets.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on October 24, 2015, 07:23:15 PM
@Nilla thanks; I've found that all you really need is a gatherer, a hunter, a small wheatfield, a forester, and maybe a chopper, and of course a barn next to every little clump of houses. People sweat over taking production away from forester and gatherer by building stuff in the circle, houses and barns, but it doesn't really matter. That is playing the min/max game (getting the largest return from the smallest investment), and it simply is not necessary. You just need to be producing some of everything, it doesn't matter if it is not tip-top efficient.

@Pangaea thanks for reading. Pop isn't the goal, but it certainly is creeping up! No idea how far I will take this; it's a lot more work than a regular town.

@kralyerg  Just added some Mini-Foresters in an odd little spot not suited for a regular forester; they're great!
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on October 25, 2015, 01:01:24 AM
These mini foresters don't produce bad. I will try them too, when I'm done with my present game.
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on November 02, 2015, 07:27:16 PM
Year 70 - pop 1149

Very tedious and boring. The hardest part of this town is figuring out where to build things. Markets are such a crutch for me; you put one down, and everything else just falls into place around it. Without markets to serve as anchors and focal points, it is so hard to decide what to put where. But now that I have figured out how to organize the logistics, I am not noticing any shortages of anything anywhere.

Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Nilla on November 03, 2015, 03:13:19 AM
I can understand that it's getting boring, just reproduce the same thing over and over again. I think this game would have been much more rewarding on a small map. It would have been enough space to figure out how to make it and you would have come to the limit, where it's getting interesting again much sooner.

How long will you play this game?
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on November 03, 2015, 08:33:25 AM
@Nilla I think both the tedium and the difficulty have a common root. I have too many TPs.

Every time I place a TP, I also build a tavern and a bakery/apiary/mill to provide trade goods. These then require additional barns to store purchased fruit, nuts, honey, and wheat. It is deciding where to build all this stuff that is giving me headaches. That, and doing the trading (still manual at this point). I currently have (I think) ten TPs, with another one under construction.

I think what I'll do is tear a couple of these TPs down, and the related ale/pie production infrastructure. Stop building TPs, and go back to just building forest villages to cover the rest of the map; I find that setting these up is more enjoyable than setting up the TP towns. Then increase pop until things start getting tight. I'm interested in seeing how far "inland" things like honey, pies, and carbon steel tools get distributed in the absence of markets. I have found these items in surprising places, far from anyplace where they were being produced/purchased.

At the same time I need to get autotrading set up at the remaining TPs so I don't have to stop every 4-5 months to deal with it. I hate trading!  >:(

Maybe try to get to the point where I can auto-run overnight.  ;)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: irrelevant on November 06, 2015, 08:29:28 AM
On the other hand, I may start a new town instead. Last night I got an idea for a tough challenge for myself. ;)
Title: Re: Irrelevant: Beanblossom - no markets
Post by: Gatherer on November 13, 2015, 01:01:50 PM
Quote from: irrelevant on November 03, 2015, 08:33:25 AM
@Nilla I'm interested in seeing how far "inland" things like honey, pies, and carbon steel tools get distributed in the absence of markets. I have found these items in surprising places, far from anyplace where they were being produced/purchased.
In what quantities do these items appear? Could it be it is the builders dropping them in your barns when they need their hands free for transporting material for building?