Nilla-Tobinsvilitz and Windthorp, more mod testing

[Nilla]

I'm looking forward to a new upgrade of the Nordic mod. In the time I wait, I started a small game a few days ago to test a combination of mods. I played again yesterday and it's more fun that I thought, so it might be worth to write a little about it.

Mods I'm testing:
@Tom Sawyer: Nordic Landscape, version 2 - this time I try the harsh climate and the "Anders and Ella" start. I even play disasters on, medium, valley map, 520690710.
@Gordon Dry: One year is one year, version 16052032 (10.5) - I tried a mod like that (I don´t know if it was from you Gordon) right at the beginning, but I didn't like the dynamic of the game. Now I will give it one more try.
@kid1293: Forest outpost 1.03, version1 - I have seen all the nice mods from Kid, but have never tried one. It's time!

I have played 29 years. My settlement has the huge population of 21!  (Just to mention in my fastest game, I had 5900 inhabitants in 30 years. Banished is a weird game!)  Without some tricks it would have been even less, I have forced divorces, to get more children!  (Strange behaviour: If people are divorced, there are more children      )  Anyhow; there are 9 adults, 5 students and 7 children.

I must reverse my negative feelings about the 1:1 mod. I'm still not the biggest fan, it takes so long until something happens (OK, the Anders and Ella start makes it more extreme, than it would have been with a normal start) and I'm not the most patient person. But now, I see a sense in playing it this way. I also see some new difficulties to handle: The children are unproductive much longer. That makes it more difficult to support a settlement; the % of active workers are smaller. For me, the slow speed also causes some trouble: It's very tempting to play 10x speed and when I do, I don't play well (I suppose I'm too old)  . I forget things like sending farmers to plant the fields in spring, send herdsmen to slaughter some sheep, there are big herds of reindeer just in front of my stores, but before I notice and send a hunter, they are gone........  We will see how things work as the settlement grows.

The small buildings from @kid1293 are very nice and useful. The productivity is good, but not overpowered. I think they are most useful at the beginning of a game, but I think I will use some of the smaller forest buildings, also when the game grows bigger.

I can't say much to the harsher climate yet. I haven't farmed for long. I grow some potatoes and I have just planted some cherry trees. The potato harvest is very different from year to year. Unless I forget to to send the farmers to their fields in time, it's mostly a decent harvest (~60% average). But you have to start the harvest manually in late summer as the temperature falls.

First picture
The stores are well filled. I have to alter the people between the professions/workplaces to produce everything needed.

Second picture
So far I was a bit lucky with the disasters. First there was a tornado, far away on the other side of the river. Than this fire. It's my first house, that sooner or later would have been replaced with a nice red cottage. Nothing more caught fire.

[Tom Sawyer]

Sounds like a nice game with much micromanagement. I like this kind of playing. Just fishing some trouts, gathering berries in summer, going at the field to harvest in late summer, chop some wood in winter and so on. We can do it with this small buildings and tools.

Of course, 1:1 with Anders and Ella is extreme and a start with 3 or 4 families would be better to asses the realistic agening. But obviously, it's possible to build up a settlement with this conditions in a harsh nordic game. Very good. And your clan is successfull with this full barns and full health and happiness. Although it's because of your good gaming. Too old? Nope^^

Maybe it would be better to have more immigration at the beginning of the game. Do you have any ideas or a request to make this playstyle more interesting or more pleasant?

[Nilla]

Maybe it would be better to have more immigration at the beginning of the game. Do you have any ideas or a request to make this playstyle more interesting or more pleasant?

I'll think about it. Early immigration would maybe be nice in a game like this. Although it also makes some trouble; The nomads are all uneducated and it stays so for a long time. I have decided to take all nomads that arrive. The settlement needs fresh blood, too much inbreeding.  Really, it's because I want a challenge and the uneducated nomads surely is. I struggled very much at the beginning to get all children educated. It wasn't easy to do all the work with one adult as the other was the teacher, but they all survived and education always pays off. Here, as the people live longer, even more. And now the nomads disturbs that. In this 1:1 game, I think they arrive too often. There's no real time to recover the educational rate between the "batches". We'll see how it works out, as the settlemet grows.

You might also be right @Tom Sawyer, in making your Nordic houses houses for a family of 6. More would be nice at the beginning, but as it looks now, the population grows very fast. If I don't force-separate the couples (I don't do that anymore), they can still have about 7 children. (By the way my Ella, named Harlyn had 10 ) If I build enough houses, the children start to move out as the mother is young enough to have another 3 or maybe even 4 children. That brings a fast population growth. We will see if it eventually grows out of control.

[Tom Sawyer]

10, wow. Very productive your Ella. Better not to think about what she did with her sons...^^

Up to 7 kids per woman is not bad and it sounds realistic for earlier times. Maybe the death rate was higher because of starvation and epidemics. But this is in game too if you come in trouble...

[Nilla]

The settlement prospers:

First picture

Year 35. The first great grand child of Anders and Ella (Weylan and Herlyn) was born. In this weird family constellation, it's also a grand child.  The mother Izeth is the oldest grand daughter and the father Melvis is their youngest son!

Second picture

I farm a bit potatoes and cherries. As I said, in a harsh climate, it's very unreliable. But I think, it's still worth the effort. It is an effort. You have to start the harvest manually, otherwise it's no use. The second picture shows two very extreme years. Last year was terrible; It was the smallest harvest I had, due to wheather (I have had equally small, when I forgot to start the harvest in time). There were no cherries at all. This summer was unusually warm; potatoes were harvested to almost 100%, cherries about 85%. I guess the average harvest of potatoes is about 60%, cherries 40%. It's much less, than in a warm climate, but you must also consider than fruit cost 2 to buy, so I will continue to build some fields and orchards. But not so many that I really need a good harvest. That would cause trouble.

This is one of the nice thing with the Nordic mod: You can't rely on just one food source/one way to support the settlement. If you want to be prosperous (at least in a harsh climate) you must use the whole range of possibilities in combination. At least it's the only way I see.

Third picture

What is this?
Year 41 Weylan died of old age, 57 years old. He had a hard life! But left a clan of 61 decedents. (There were a few immigrants, but they are family, too. Many of them fathers and mothers of the great grand children).
What happend to the old widow Herlyn? She took one of her grand children in to her house. I can only hope it's a caring grandson, attending to his old grandmother. But at the menu, he is on the place of the husband!  @Tom Sawyer you don't want to think about, what she's doing with her sons. I don't want to think about, what she's doing with her grand sons!  And what if Harlyn had died first? Had Weylan taken one of his grand daughters as wife? Had there been new babies? I'm not sure I want to look into the houses, as the next generation starts to die.

I suppose you have taken the 20 year age difference maximum for couples, @Gordon Dry. Why? It's maybe an advantage that no (or few) houses are occupied by only one person, but I think it comes to strange things.

[Tom Sawyer]

He did a great job. I take a minute of silence for Weylan.

In the other case he probably would have made children with a daugther. I'm not sure. Maybe it would be better to limit the age for getting married to the range of having children to avoid strange things. But that would mean more singles and more required houses. More realistic but more difficult.

I also read that the required food per year is reduced to 90, starvation comes later and the none tool penalty is x4 instead of x5. So an impossible start is much easier with the 1:1 mod.

[Nilla]

I also read that the required food per year is reduced to 90, starvation comes later and the none tool penalty is x4 instead of x5. So an impossible start is much easier with the 1:1 mod.

I have noticed, that they need a little bit less food. It might have sense, if you don't want, that the mod makes the game harder. I find it harder (not hard but not as easy as normal) to support the settlement with food, because there are more students and children than in a normal game. I started Anders and Ella and they had a few tools to start with, I also had no tool crisis, so I haven't noticed the tools. I also don't understand why, but normally it doesn't make much difference, unless you start "impossible", of cause!

The game goes on. The settlement grows, 179 inhabitants in 55 years. It's not that slow anymore. The gameplay isn't much different from a normal game. I haven't noticed any more deaths, so there are no more odd couples. The old Herlyn still lives with her grandson. 5 generations are shown at this picture. At the beginning, as the game was slow (and a bit booring for me) I kept track of the people and their relations. Can't do that anymore.

Menus in the middle:
Herlyn (my ancestress) and her grandson Mann
Genery and Moreena (the two eldest children) Here you can see that they got 3 more children after the eldest 4 moved out.
Melvis (youngest son) and Izeth (daughter of Genery and Moreena)
Hezekiel (nomad boy) and Katience (daughter of Melvis and Izeth) and their children Authurson and Camilee, 5th generation.

You can see, there are some fresh blood in this family line. I take every nomad so far. It's getting a bit difficult, the educational rate gets down dramatically (only 60% at present). If you take nomads in a normal game, it has time to recover between the "batches". Here it doesn't. I don't want any uneducated blacksmiths, tailors and (at least not yet) miners, where they do most harm. That's the reason, I keep the menus of the nomad families with "adult" children open (top left of the picture), to make sure, they live as far away from these workplaces as possible. It's not totally fool proof. Uneducated seems to fancy being tailors and blacksmiths and walk great distances, to be able to do their miserable handycraft.

Normally it would be stupid to take so many nomads, as I do. But this is a test, so I will take some more. 

[Tom Sawyer]

I repeat myself but this education system is not satisfactory. Higher professions need no education and the miners making only the half without it. So the best is to let the uneducated people do the job of the doctor and teacher and to send the smart people in the quarry.^^

I have alleviated the problem a bit (already in version 2). Stonecutter and miners have a ratio of 4:3. The same as farmers, foresters and all other professions of the primary sector. And I removed the magic of the woodcutter. He makes always 4 firewood from 1 log.

The principle is: primary sector 4:3 and secondary sector 2:1. Thats ok. The tertiary sector should have 1:0 but no way to implement it. My suggestion to Luke (if he would read it). Please implement a variable to define that a profession or a building necessarily requires education. That only an educated citizen can be a doctor for example.

[Nilla]

That's good to know about the mines. As all of your changes in numbers; it makes sense.

I've played a little bit more. Everything is fine so far. With the last nomads I took, the settlement's closing up to 500 inhabitants. But I have decided, this will be the last nomads, at least for some time. The educational rate is now 50% and the population grows fast, even without nomads.

I have compared the production at the same area from pastures, farming and forest. It's a bit difficult with this mixture of educated and uneducated workers. But as far as I can see, in this harsh climate, pastures are most productive. Chicken gives more directly, but if you consider, that you can increase the value of wool with a tailor; sheep and chicken are about the same. I had some cattle, too, but they all died. Maybe it was coincidence or the pasture was too small (6 cows) or are they too delicate in this cold climate? Farming brings a little more than forests, if you don't forget to start the harvest manually.

I trade a lot (and get richer and richer, almost 2000 daler in my port). But I don't need more than one trading port. It's getting a little bit hard to fill the port between the boats, so when the nomads all have houses, I will increase the number of traders. I have seen that you can put 50 of them in each port. I will not need that many, (at least not now) but it's good to have the possibility to use more than 20. I can manage with one port longer.

I now see another advantage to use coins. If there is no time for the traders to fill the port between the boats, it's simple to use coins, to buy what you want. But I have one question, a small problem; The boats always bring a few daler and a lot of pennigar (I have even had cases, as they only brought penningar). Most of the time, you can't sell everything you want and get paid in daler. This is a bit inconvenient. My trading port is quite full and even if the coins doesn't need much space, they need some. So you don't want a lot of penningar, just some loose change. I suppose this problem will disappear with specialized trading ports. Another thing that might be possible with specialized ports is automatic trading. With one port there isn't much need of it, but it wouldn't work as long as you can't choose, what goods the merchant should take. (If the food merchant takes all my daler instead of salmon as payment, I could buy no bricks from the next trader, who wants no salmon, if you see what I mean)

[Tom Sawyer]

Wow, 130k food and 2k dalers. The harsh climate can not harm you. Not even with low education. The new trade values will make a difference. And if it is not enough you will be sentenced to play on mountain maps.

In numbers the sheep is similar to the others and much better if you process the wool. Chicken is now better in comparison and they have some advantages. They produce food continuously and use the space mostly more effective. They are cheap in purchase. And eggs don't need education. Perfect for your newbies. Maybe this is the effect in your game. Your cows did not die because of the cold and also not because of the small pasture. I don't know why.

Automatic trading should work in the single trading post. Of course, if the traders spend all money on food, there is nothing left for bricks and the bricks come rarely. Specialized posts will solve it perfectly. In a single trading post you could try to regulate it by a smaller amount of food in the purchase tab.

I would store my dalers, which I don't need for current trading, in barns. The big barn is a more efficient storage than the trading post. And it will be shown in the status bar for a nice overview of your cash reserve.

The amount of pennies I will reduce. Good note.

[Nilla]

Automatic trading should work in the single trading post. Of course, if the traders spend all money on food, there is nothing left for bricks and the bricks come rarely. Specialized posts will solve it perfectly. In a single trading post you could try to regulate it by a smaller amount of food in the purchase tab.

It will not work with less food. At present, I buy all I can get. (sometimes not all wheat, the boats bring a lot more wheat than cabbage and apples, I had to unorder it by some boats). But as I said. There's no need for automatic trading with one port. If my stores of daler grows much more, I might store it in the barns, but so long it's convenient to leave them in the port, where I sooner or later will need them.

First picture
This could happen if you play disasters on: tornado ~ 120 dead people, a lot of dead animals, one market, one school, a lot of houses, barns and more; all gone.

Second picture
This is weird! Many people died. Even if many houses where damaged, there are now more houses than families. That means separated couples. I had to look into the houses, find them and when I need new houses, force them together again. That's how I found this family. How could this happen? The husband (!) is a 7 year old uneducated (!) teacher. (I have had more than enough schools, no nomads the last years). Obviously this child was in the school that was damage by the tornado. But why doesn't he attend another school? There are plenty of them, always was. Weird! The wife is 47 years old, too old to have small children, 1 and 2 years old. And they are certainly not from the uneducated teacher either.

[Tom Sawyer]

Tornadoes are annoying. Fire is better. You can do something.. stone houses, distances, wells. With tornadoes I can just sit and watch and pray. And start a new game. Not nice. And tornadoes in nordic regions? Never heard. Shall I reduce the chance?

This family is really weird. It seems that children are simply adults when the school is destroyed. Even if education is not finished. And obviously with the 1:1 mod a uneducated citizen can work with 6 and marry with 7 or so. Something crazy. My son is 8. If I imagine, he marries the girl next door and goes to school in the morning, in order to work as a teacher ... Wow. ^^

I have to make the building stages of the school. I want to finish it and make a new version soon, I hope.

[kid1293]

Try RealTimeAging.
The numbers are quite different, maybe you like them.
They'll be adults at 15 so it's a slow progress.

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=39

[Nilla]

Tornadoes are annoying. Fire is better. You can do something.. stone houses, distances, wells. With tornadoes I can just sit and watch and pray. And start a new game. Not nice. And tornadoes in nordic regions? Never heard. Shall I reduce the chance?

In fact, I don't find them annoying, believe it or not. I like the little setbacks. If I play disasters on, I want disasters, not a couple of small infestations. Rebuilding is a part of the fun. Infestations are annoying and make in fact no sense, because they are no disasters, too easy to get rid of, same as fires, no disasters anymore. I don't know, how many of you played this game from the start. In the very first version, the fires were very cool. If you got a fire in a dense area, it was almost impossible to prevent it to spread. I had towns, that were destroyed to more than 50%. As you might understand, there was an outcry of complains. Unfortunately the fires where made too harmless in later patches. I was quite disappointed. You could prevent huge fires by building "smart". I never understood all these complains. It's possible to turn disasters off. And with disasters on, there's only this one disaster left; the tornado.

Tornadoes are in fact rare here in the north, but they do exist, at least in my area, up in the north, I don't know. Even so, I would find it a pity, to reduce the probability.

I have to make the building stages of the school. I want to finish it and make a new version soon, I hope.

I'm very much looking forward of that!  This game is getting near the end.

Try RealTimeAging.
The numbers are quite different, maybe you like them.
They'll be adults at 15 so it's a slow progress.

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=39

I'm not sure, I have the patience. I looked at the numbers. With only one child every 2-3 years, it would be real slow. The beginning of this game was too slow for my taste, still there were one child every 1,5 year ( mother's age 15-35). By the way @kid1293; I like your small forest buildings. They were indispensable at the beginning and I have kept some. In small forest areas, they are still very valuable.

First picture
Tornado setback fixed. Houses rebuilt, pastures refilled, everything works just fine. You can see some of the small forest buildings on this picture.

Second picture
There's a lot of trout in the small streams.

[kid1293]

Glad you like the forest buildings!

About RealTimeAging - It is probably too cruel to use that mod with North on hard/impossible.