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Nilla - Oltonia a town in the North

Started by Nilla, September 26, 2020, 07:33:11 AM

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Nilla

I'm back playing Banished!

And since I'm a Nordic girl, it will be a Nordic game. I had some things I wanted to test as I beta tested this version of the North but never really got to it and Tom has also made some new buildings that I want to test. 

My goal is to build a larger settlement, how large we will see but at least 1000 inhabitants. It will be fully dependant on trade because I want to hardtest autotrading in a North game. I have tried it a bit earlier and I'm pretty sure that it can work. My idea is to build a textile empire. We will see if it works.

You know me, I like the harder options. It's a Seafarer map with harsh climate. This means;

-farming is difficult, even if you have some seeds from the start, farming isn't very reliable and need a lot of micromanagement to give anything at all. I will farm a little right at the beginning but give it up as soon as I have enough to sell for food.

-there are no deer to hunt, this makes the start very difficult. Opposite to a vanilla game, no wild food grows until summer and you only have very little food in your bags, there are only two options until you can harvest your spare barley; trout and crayfish.

-there are only few trees on the map and new trees grow slowly, so you need to think very carefully how to use every log. One more difficulty in the North is that you need glass to build a forester that can plant some trees and to produce glass;you need glass😜, imported, expensive glass.

First picture
You can see the few trees, and you want to keep the close ones because underneath the trees you can find firewood and wild food. It will be gone/almost gone if you cut the trees, so I let my Bannis walk a bit further to cut trees.

You can see that my people feed on crayfish; a bit tedious but brings more food than trout fishing.

Second picture
Typical crop growth. It's August, it's 10 C, temperature dropping. The barley will not grow more this year so you'll better start the harvest manually. 39% is more or less an average harvest for barley on harsh. Tedious but it will give you 200-300 valuable grain on each field.

If you haven't played the latest version of the North, you may wonder what the dark brown tiles north from the cropfields are. I can tell, these are peat areas. The North has a new resource/obstacle and that's bogland. You can't built anything on the bog, it first need to be cleared. You can make it simple, just send a laborer to clear the bog or you can use the resource Peat for fuel. And on this map I will use as much peat as I can.

Third picture
The settlement has developed. We even have a trading port, although we don't have much to sell, yet except some crayfish, a few wild herbs and a couple of gold nuggets we've found on the riverbank. But at least we can put our orders and hope for the sheepherd to grow. We order logs, beans, glass, and a bible now at the beginning.

On some peat tiles you can see yellow flags. That means the peat is harvested.

Fourth picture
10 years have gone. The North is a real time ageing mod so we have grown with immigration. The new inhabitants live together in the viking longhouse. You can also see through the snow that we had two cold summers in a row with bad harvests, this year will be tough. Luckily we had some stored food.

Artfactial

This looks so wonderful. I really must give The North a go soon.
Having to be mindful with your tries and maintaining a balanced ecosystem has so much potential.:)
Also, welcome back!

Nilla

#2
Well, I don't think I can afford to keep the ecosystem intact for long. The main strategy in this part of the game is to let the number of sheep grow faster than the number of people. So, pastures will replace "nature" on many places.

My thought for later is also to import a lot of flax and add linen and linen coats to the wadmal and woolcoats I'm selling now. There's just one little problem; the only merchant who brings flax is the local and he is also almost the only one who brings logs. There's also a Hanseatic merchant who offers logs but he comes seldom. So, to be able to buy enough flax, I need to produce logs myself. That too means a big change in the ecosystem; introducing fir trees where normally only birches grow. As an environmental engineer, I feel as awful about that as I do when I kill my Bannis.

Anyway, I went on with the game yesterday. Nothing special has happened, everything goes more or less according to my plans. I put my orders by the merchants that occasionally return with what I need. The most trouble give me the nomads. I always struggle with myself if I should take or reject them. Generally it's more fun to play Banished if your population grows fast ;welcome nomads. But on the other hand, if I let the population grow too fast, I will have problems to get enough goods to sell to feed them all; nomads leave. But so far, the game isn't boringly slow and even if I often don't have enough goods to sell to buy all a merchant offers, I can buy enough. So, I think I've found a balance.

First picture
I realized that I only showed over-all pictures yesterday. The North buildings are so lovely that it's a pity not to show them more in detail.

Here you can see one of the new buildings. It's a small stone cottage. It looks nice, fits well in the surroundings but it looks primitive, so @Tom Sawyer , I'm still not convinced about the glass and iron fittings you need to build it. Although I was lucky in this game by getting glass early to start a glass production but that's not always the case and I see it as a very suitable first house on a Seafarer map, where it's generally easier to get stones than logs; just the hut people who landed on such a place would build.

Second picture
The destruction of the domestic ecosystem has begun! It's obvious that this forester building needs a lot of glass. But I guess it will take a decade before we can cut trees in a larger scale in this forest.

You can also see the content in my stores.

Third picture
Main production area.

Fourth picture
Can't ovoid the over all pictures completely.

You can see on the menu at the bottom of the picture that sometimes there's a good harvest,also on harsh. Last summer was very warm and this year was also alright, so now we have a lot of barley in are stores.

brads3

1 reason i like the mini townhall for a nomad catcher is it brings them every 3 or 4 years. every year might work in the early game years but not very long.a 3 year cycle works wel,1 year to build houses and workplaces for the nomads, 1 to build for the local bannies,and 1 to restock supplies and recover.

generally,i build a stsrt village the 1st year. just a set of work shops for all the bannies need.i leave the limits alone but try to put as many working as i can. as they hit limits,they will help as laborers. i might have only 1 listed as a laborer but have several of these helpers plus the farmers in winter. i do raise supply limits on logs,stone,and herbs. the 1st few years are slow as you say. this time is used to stockpile goods and food to supply nomads later. course, i can get away without a school for many years.even un-educated, the bannies produce enuf to stockpile.

as i hit that slow spot where the bannies are busy and there is nothing to build, i adjust the mineral and textile limits.then start planning a trade good to stock.the 1st nomad group usually goes to plant a forest.1 to plant and 1 to gather the food.sometimes this group will go to fish and a trade post.

i think the 3 year cycle works. supplies can drop down during the build up years,but the bannies usually recover quickly with the 3rd year.taking nomads every year or 2 is too much push. it is always frantic trying to keep enough supplies.

Artfactial

Tom's buildings are incredible, love the detail.:)
I really like how the trees take a realistic time to grow; has wood value been increased to reflect this?

Nilla

Here we have the Thingstead as nomadattractor, Brad. I'm not sure but I think the number and frequency of nomads is a bit different, depending on the map. Here on Seafarer you get 2 nomads about every second year. I had the impression that on a forest map (where it's also easier to support many people) there were more nomads. As I said, I take as many as I dare, that's something like half of the possible nomads.

In the North the uneducation of the nomads is no issue now at the beginning since your initial population is uneducated, too. And unless you add some (cheat?) mod with an easy to build school, you need glass and brick for a Nordic school and these take quite some time to get. On the other hand, the uneducation penalty is none or low by simple professions.

Yes @Artfactial, wood has a higher value in the North mod, it's 9-12 (depending on the merchant you sell it to) buying is always 12 (or 15 if you order). But all things have a higher value in the North, also food.

Since the first map I started had this to me new graveyard bug, where no graveyard works, I decided to start over on another map. First, to my experience, some maps are "bugged" and if you have one bug on a map, it's not unlikely that more, even nastier bugs will appear later in the game. Second, this is a realtime aging, Nordic game with the tweaked happiness. It's hard enough to get people happy anyway. I don't need a "no-graveyard-penalty" as well.

But it's OK. Opposite to some other games, where I often find the start a bit routine, I like the difficult surviving at the beginning in harder Nordic game; like Seafarer on harsh.

This time it's even a little bit harder than my first attempt. Cray fishing is powerful and that map had a stream where you could catch a lot of crayfish close to the starting position. Here we need to make do with the far less producing instant troutfisher. But there is a stream right on the other side of the starting position. That's good. Not because of the crayfish, I will probably not catch any in this game but I want to test the new papermill and it needs a stream. It's a late game building, that must wait anyway. There' s another new building I want to test probably even later and that's the Russian chapel, expensive to build in the North, since it needs a lot of gold.

First picture
I didn't make so many screenshots along the way yesterday. The beginning is pretty much the same, anyway.

Don' say that my Nordic people aren't strong. Look how easy they carry these big boulders.😉😁

Second picture
I had a very good start in this game, the summers were warm, and the harvest good, I almost thought that I've chosen the wrong climate, but then there was a year with almost no harvest, so I had to send a couple of people trout fishing and built a third field, and now the food situation is alright again.

But we have another problem: 9 children, 7 girls and 2 boys! We might think about introducing polygamy.




Nilla

The game goes on according to my plans. I'm very diciplened by accepting nomads and I now have a lot of textiles and a few other things to sell. I don't really need my two fields anymore, I can affrd to buy all grain and vegetables I need but I let them stay as long as I don't need the space or the workers for something else. The pastures produce mutton and I send everyone I can spare out in the woods to pick berries in autumn, so the health is good. I will now start to work on the happiness.

First picture
Overall picture year 20.

Second picture
I'm not very proud of the style of this village; people live in primitive turf houses, some even in a longhouse from the viking era but they have put windows in their barn, that they even painted red. There's also a very fancy red painted glass factory.😜🤔

Third picture
I built a house out by the pastures for the 14 year old Liliam. There are 7 girls age 15 or more. Which one will he chose?

Fourth picture
It was Mistyn, one of the elder girls but I still have 6 girls who want husbands and the oldest boy is 11. Why aren't there any single nomads?

Artfactial

Shame you had to start over due to that bug.
I recognize that some maps are buggier than others; like the walking to the edge of the map during fires bug shows up from time to time.
I love those giant sheep pastures.:P

Nilla

Yes @Artfactial, I find it good that there are no fences at the pastures so that you can establish big herds. I'm no decoration person but sometimes I put fences to the village but after all, there are shepherds employed to look after the sheep. I rather think that valuable things like fields and vegetable patches were fenced in "the old days" and the animals walked free everywhere else, tended by children.

The game still goes like I planned, I'll just show some pictures and tell a little something to each.

First picture
When I have all of these pastures, I use to build small settlements like this, a few houses, a barn, a tailor and here I also put a small wagon vendor. Health has dropped, the people out here more or less eat only mutton. The vendor will also serve the people in the wood area who eat mainly blueberries and also a second pasture settlement, I've started underneath the menus.

Second picture
Here's my village center. You can see the over all happiness has raised to 4 stars. Most people in the village have 5 (some still live in old houses with happiness detraction but they will soon be replaced) and those out in the wood and pastures will have make do with 3. And since most of them are shepherds, they can idle a bit more without production loss.

Third picture
@Tom Sawyer, you wrote somewhere that you found the work with the intermediate phases of a building was tedious and for little use. I can say, I enjoy looking at them, especially by larger buildings. So they aren't totally useless. This ladies building squad has started a big project.

Fourth picture
These ladies have talent! This beautiful export port will be the center of my trading economy.


Nilla

This is weird, I thought I knew everything about how Banished works but I have discovered something, I didn't knew before: It looks like traders put the goods they carry out of the port, not to the closest barn from the port but to the closest barn from where they live. At least it seems to be that way in this game and as far as I understand modding, such things are hard coded and can't be changed in a mod.

I built my third little port in an area I haven't developed, yet. Not far away from the other buildings. To make it faster and easier to empty that new port, I built a barn just in front of it but I didn't bother to build a house for the single trader close yet, so she lives in one of the houses close to the other ports.

It took "for ever" to empty that trading port and when I looked in the barn it was as good as empty. I saw that the trader passed this barn to put her goods in the other, almost full barn by the other ports. The close barn wasn't used until I built a house there as well, where the trader moved in.

brads3

interesting situation. i wonder if all the bannies do that? haven't noticed it but the gamne does move them close to work.maybe before they get moved ,the others take stuff way toward home also.

Nilla

I hadn't noticed that behaviour before either, Brad and normally, people live near their workplaces so you can't notice it and I don't know if it's always that way. Anyway it's not modded by Tom.

I have played this game further but not written about it. I have started to build up my second branch of industry; the production of linen and linen clothes. I import the flax, because this climate doesn't allow farming of flax. It works so far, the only "problem" is that the merchants seem to arrive in groups: I order flax and bread from all local merchants and beans from all others except the sami merchant where I don't order anything but buy berries and sometimes some hides. I also order logs together with beans from the Hanseatic merchant. But from the first 10 merchants, 7 bring beans and I run out of flax and bread. Then it changes and suddenly more or less 8 local merchants arrive in a row and although I thought I've bought too much beans, I'm out of beans.

This has made that I haven't started to autotrade, yet. But I don't barter anymore. In the small ports there are only money and all goods I want to sell are in the export port. The method works principally.

First picture
@Artfactial, even if the English aren't able to prohibit our textile export, they can boycott it by paying less than others. Most merchants pay 48 for wool coats, 20 for wadmal, 24 for linen and 56 for linen coats. This one not. But at least I can sell him some mutton and tar. That need to go too. (I don't sell pottery anymore, I did at the beginning were I had a small surplus of fuel. It's not like that anymore. I can't sell anything that need fuel to be produced. I will unload the pottery as soon as I need it)

Second picture
This beautiful Russian chapel wasn't as expensive as I thought @Tom Sawyer. 120 gold isn't more than 240 daler and that's not much in a trading economy. Anyway, it's still a pilgrim chapel but we will settle more in this area eventually.

Third picture
Here you can see that I've run out of flax. My weavers are out of material. We are also almost out of bread so I've started to order some wheat together with the beans and there's a mill on the little hill between the trading ports.

The store of daler increases. The main reason is that I haven't bought any expensive flax for a long time.

I have to increase my stores and will soon make an attempt to autotrade. I see a few problems but problems are there to be solved, that's the spice of the game.

Nilla

First attempt to autotrade failed. Not that the settlement is in danger because we're running out of things. It's the opposite; I've bought too much of almost everything so now my stores are full and we are out of money. I have stopped the autotrade for now and will manually buy the things I need for a while. And after that make a second attempt with some changes.

I also had some problems with my wheat. I order some expensive wheat that I want to process to more of the less expensive bread but I found that too much of the wheat and flour landed in the houses. I tried to improve it by using a granary but that doesn't work the way I want.

But basically, I think my idea of a textile empire will work. As you can see, not smooth without problems but what is the fun if it did. We don't want a "Nordic firewood economy" with logs replaced by flax.

First picture
Overall view of the village.

Second picture
One of my industrial centers around a warehouse. The big trading port isn't part of my attempt to autotrade. I've just build it because I have too much textiles. The merchants don't bring so much money that I can sell everything I could. I thought about building a second export port. I sure have goods to fill it but I want to see how long I can support the settlement with the one I have. So instead I built this big port where I can store some of the surplus and barter for things I don't order.

Third picture
Here is a pasture area. I will move them eventually and build a Russian village around the Russian chapel. But that need to wait.

The period of autotrade is good to see at the food graph.....

Fourth picture
.....and by the graph of coins.

Here's one of my normal "rural areas". Pastures and forests with some small settlements inbetween.

Nilla

After a few changes and with a growing population auto trading works better. It´s not easy but manageable. Compared to a vanilla "firewood economy" I need more reading ports. The Bannis eat the same in the North and it´s a difference between 4000 beans and 30 000 that a vanilla boatsman may bring. It´s partly compensated with the fact that all merchants are useful (no seed and animals only) and arrive often. Even if the import of ordered beans, wheat, flax and blueberries works well with auto trade, I still need to manage the export manually and also new ports for quite a long time until most orders are set. So it´s more work with the ports but, as I said; it works. 

I´ve just reached 500 inhabitants and without too many setbacks, I hope my goal of 1000 will work.

First picture
Here´s a small setback, a warehouse quite full of valuable materials and some other buildings gone.

Second picture
This is another problem; the same kind of merchant seem to arrive many times in a row then not at all for quite some time. Here I´m out of flax. Not long ago my stores were overfull. But this you see in all trading games. You simply need larger stores.

Third picture
But these variation may also happen when you produce something yourself, like fuel. I became a bit too confident when I had 4000 firewood in my store and started to produce brick and rooftiles for the red houses I like so much and some big barns. But I shouldn´t have done that. It looks like everyone needed to fill their house with firewood at the same time and last year I was almost out of fuel. It has recovered after the summer. I´ve turned off every site that uses fuel and hope we will manage the winter. But there will be no more red houses. :'(

Fourth picture
The southern part of my starting village is almost done.