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salamander: Cooperatopolis: Flowerchild Commune Challenge

Started by salamander, March 10, 2015, 07:56:26 AM

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salamander

My first try at blogging a town, and I'm really not sure I'll keep up with it well.  But, looking for something new, so here goes.

Year 1 -- The start position was a ways from either the river (to the west) or a lake (to the southeast).  I don't want to get too far from the cart so I'll start building here and try to move toward the river as I expand.  There's a decent amount of stone and iron in the area, but not a huge amount.  Laborers are set to collect stone and clear trees for wood and the first boarding house was laid down.  Also started building a gatherer's hut nearby -- the cart's food won't last too long.

Year 2 -- Built a woodcutter since firewood was starting to get low.

Year 3 -- Health was starting to drop, probably because of all the gatherer's veggies and nothing else.  There's a pretty nice deer track nearby, so built a hunting cabin with one hunter (all I could afford this early).  Also took a chance and built a fishing dock on the river even though it was a fair walk for the fishermen.  Started on building the second boarding house in the early spring, but it's likely to take a while since I don't have the stone and logs I need and only a small number of laborers to harvest more.  Ended up being able to complete the house by the end of the year.

Year 4 -- Starting to get some babies born, so started on and completed a school for them and the younger children still around.  Managed to get 4 students in school by the end of the year.

Year 5 -- This was a bad year.  The second boarding house cleaned out food reserves when it was completed, and the gatherers were not able to get the reserve growing again.  The townies were pretty much living hand to mouth, taking food from the barns as fast as it could be delivered.  By the autumn, I was starting to see hungry citizens.  I used the tip A Nonny Moose posted a few days ago and shut down the school to get some more labor.  I hated to see that crop of students leave school, but those 5 extra pairs of hands made the difference by assigning them as gatherers and fishermen.  In the end, I only lost one person to starvation.

Year 6 -- Oops ... lost track of the tool supply, which is getting way too low.  Built a blacksmith and managed to get the supply back up to ~10 before anyone needed one.  Also started building a market over near the river as I started to plan for expanding in that direction.

Year 7 -- Built another boarding house (#3) near the new market, and a second gatherer's hut nearby.  Would really like to avoid the Year 5 situation happening again.

Year 8 -- Finally, enough resources stored up to start thinking about 'non-essential' things like a tailor ... the townies' clothes were starting to get pretty ragged.  Also managed to build another market at the original town site (had been a footprint for years, but had to wait), and a second hunting cabin, more for the tailor's leather than for the meat at this point.

Year 9 -- Just trying to sort of stabilize resources a little, so built a second fishing dock and forester.  Logs have been a problem since the start, so maybe this will help some.  Also got an herbalist built and staffed so hopefully the health will start to increase.

Year 10 -- The populations starting get pretty old and I don't want the happiness to drop too much, so it's time for a cemetery.  Built one roughly in the middle between the old and new parts of the settlement, and placed the footprint for a church.  That's going to have to wait a while, though.

Year 11 -- Started planning for a fourth boarding house across the river.

Year 12 -- Finally, finally ... got the town hall built.  Will be a lot easier to keep track of what's happening from here on.


Nilla

Nice start.

Would be nice to see some "windows" the next time.

salamander

@Nilla -- Thanks.  Here are the windows from the same year the screenshot above was made (I still had the saved file).  Please let me know if you want any of the Town Hall tabs other than the Overview.

salamander

For me, at least, this is turning into a more challenging game than I thought it would.  Mostly, I think, because I'm still trying to play the way I would using normal housing.

Usually, I try to place housing near the workplace.  That means 1 or 2 houses near the forest node circle edges to support the foresters/gatherers/hunters... and any woodcutters that I usually also put at the circle edges.  With the boarding houses, you can have a max of 5 families, which is overkill for this type of outlying housing around a forest node.  It really makes you have to think about the best place for a boarding house to best serve several work sites.

Maybe I'm not doing the destroy/reclaim thing right on the boarding houses to keep making couples, but another thing I've noticed with the boarding houses is that when you reclaim one, it will fill to capacity before another reclaimed house starts to fill up.  This means if you have, say, 4 boarding houses, mark all for destruction, and then reclaim them, unless you have enough families to require all 4 boarding houses, only 3 will be used.  Put another way, I haven't figured out how to have more than one boarding house only partially filled.  If birth rates in boarding houses works like normal housing, where the rate goes down with crowding, this really limits how fast you can increase the population.  Has anyone else seen something similar, and am I missing something obvious in how the destroy/reclaim technique works?

irrelevant

Quote from: salamander on March 11, 2015, 06:17:01 AM
For me, at least, this is turning into a more challenging game than I thought it would.  Mostly, I think, because I'm still trying to play the way I would using normal housing.

Usually, I try to place housing near the workplace.  That means 1 or 2 houses near the forest node circle edges to support the foresters/gatherers/hunters... and any woodcutters that I usually also put at the circle edges.  With the boarding houses, you can have a max of 5 families, which is overkill for this type of outlying housing around a forest node.  It really makes you have to think about the best place for a boarding house to best serve several work sites.

Maybe I'm not doing the destroy/reclaim thing right on the boarding houses to keep making couples, but another thing I've noticed with the boarding houses is that when you reclaim one, it will fill to capacity before another reclaimed house starts to fill up.  This means if you have, say, 4 boarding houses, mark all for destruction, and then reclaim them, unless you have enough families to require all 4 boarding houses, only 3 will be used.  Put another way, I haven't figured out how to have more than one boarding house only partially filled.  If birth rates in boarding houses works like normal housing, where the rate goes down with crowding, this really limits how fast you can increase the population.  Has anyone else seen something similar, and am I missing something obvious in how the destroy/reclaim technique works?

You don't really need to be able to fill all 4 BHs, you only need to have more than just enough to fill 3. It can take some finagling to get them organized the way you would like them to be. I find I need to dump everyone out 2, 3, or even 4 times.

I don't know if you've looked at my Bugtussle blog, but I'm not much worried about getting workers housed close to the forest nodes, I'm just concentrating them at the markets. Since the forest nodes are not far away, and since the buildings in the forest nodes aren't really workplaces in the same way that a tailor or a smith is, I don't think this is an issue. I certainly don't have any lack of logs or of food (so far, anyway).

I haven't noticed any difference in birth rates or family size between BHs and houses, regardless of occupancy. The most families a BH can have is 5, and there are 25 slots in the BH, so it is essentially the equivalent of 5 houses.

salamander

Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 07:10:41 AM
You don't really need to be able to fill all 4 BHs, you only need to have more than just enough to fill 3.
I agree, but with normal houses, you can put folks pretty much where you want them.  With the BH's, it seems like all except maybe the last will be fully filled, and any beyond the that will stay empty until the pop grows to occupy them.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it's definitely making me re-think the way I've been expanding towns since I started playing the game.

Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 07:10:41 AM
I don't know if you've looked at my Bugtussle blog, but I'm not much worried about getting workers housed close to the forest nodes, I'm just concentrating them at the markets. Since the forest nodes are not far away, and since the buildings in the forest nodes aren't really workplaces in the same way that a tailor or a smith is, I don't think this is an issue. I certainly don't have any lack of logs or of food (so far, anyway).
I have looked at your blog, and I really like the way your settlement is going.  But ... I'm trying not to look too closely at the details since this is a challenge, and it wouldn't be fair for me to 'borrow' (ie, steal) too many of your ideas.  ;)

Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 07:10:41 AM
I haven't noticed any difference in birth rates or family size between BHs and houses, regardless of occupancy.
I could've sworn that many months ago, now, I saw something that made me think birth rates dropped in a normal house as the occupancy went up.  My general impressions (but with no actual data) over several games where I was trying to concentrate on population growth seemed to support this.  I'll be the first to admit that I could very well be wrong.  But, if this the case, it would really affect the rate at which you could grow a population when using only BH's.

Despite what I said before, I'm going to head over to your Bugtussle blog and really look at what's been going on over the years.  I think of everyone here, you've probably got the best handle on population control.  And, if I want to meet the 400 pop limit for the hard-core part of the challenge, something's got to change in the way I'm doing things.

rkelly17

Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 07:10:41 AM
. . . since the buildings in the forest nodes aren't really workplaces in the same way that a tailor or a smith is, I don't think this is an issue. . . .

In what ways? Don't need raw materials? The workers "create" products, though the "raw materials" are located inside their circles by definition and not brought from elsewhere. I'm sure you're right, but I'm not quite understanding how.  ???

irrelevant

Quote from: rkelly17 on March 11, 2015, 08:37:18 AM
Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 07:10:41 AM
. . . since the buildings in the forest nodes aren't really workplaces in the same way that a tailor or a smith is, I don't think this is an issue. . . .

In what ways? Don't need raw materials? The workers "create" products, though the "raw materials" are located inside their circles by definition and not brought from elsewhere. I'm sure you're right, but I'm not quite understanding how.  ???

The workers don't work "at" the buildings, they work everywhere within its circle. When they are inside the circle, they are "at work."

Nilla

I am quite sure @salamander, that the birth rate is not dependent on how full the house is. The only limit is the space in the house (normal house 5 people, @RedKetchup colourful houses 6 people some of the CC-houses 4 or 3). As far as I have seen in the boarding house, it's like a normal house, only for 5 families with up to 5 people. If you are persistant enough to force couples together, there will be as many babies in a full as in a half empty boarding house.

As I played this challenge, I stopped the game, deleted the BH, let the game run a couple of seconds, than stop again to undo the demolition and finally started the game to let the people move in. I often had empty boarding houses. It seems like the Bannies prefere to live with other people.

If you play the "one with nature", I think it's a good idea to have many markets, locate the BH around it and "forest nodes" and fishers outside. I think I made too few markets in my attempt. Like @irrelevant, I don't think that it's a big disadvantage for gatherers, hunters and foresters to live a bit more remote. Fishers are really much more productive, if they live close. But in this game; live with it and make a couple of more fishing huts than in a "normal" game.


salamander

@Nilla and @irrelevant -- I surrender  ;).  I've got two folks I trust to know more about this than I do telling me I'm wrong, and I'm good with that.  Thanks for straightening me out and for the advice.  Looking back, it may be that what I thought I was seeing in the past was not a birth rate reduction in a single house because of crowding, but an overall town rate decrease as more and more houses reached capacity.

I'm not trying to diss either the game or this challenge, but even being wrong about the crowding/birth rate thing, using nothing but BH's is really making me re-think things, especially expansion of the town into new areas before an additional BH is ready to be occupied.  It makes expansion more of a long-distance affair instead of being able to have laborers living nearby to the new area under development.

rkelly17

Quote from: irrelevant on March 11, 2015, 09:13:01 AM
The workers don't work "at" the buildings, they work everywhere within its circle. When they are inside the circle, they are "at work."

OK, now I understand. Please excuse the thick-headedness.  :(

salamander

I seem to have expanded myself westward into a corner of the map.  So the next few years are to move into the south and then back east toward the lake to the south of the original settlement.

Year 13 -- Built boarding house #4 across the river (west side) and a woodcutter for the forester I'll eventually put over here, too.  Still a little nervous about food reserves, so another fishing dock put on the river nearby.

Year 14 -- Started a new hunting cabin to take advantage of a pretty good stream of deer coming through the old part of town.  Built the forester lodge near the boarding house from last year.

Year 15 -- Added a market to the boarding house #4 area.  Remembered that disasters are on, so put in a well in the oldest part of town ... everything else so far is pretty close to the river.

Year 16 -- Got the first group of nomads coming through ... a total of 6.  Being a softy, I took them in (4 adults + 2 kids) mostly for the labor boost.  Immediately started on a hospital, though, just in case.

Year 17 -- Starting to turn the town back to the east, toward the lake ... built boarding house #5 on the river's east bank south of the older part of town.

Year 18 -- Mostly just hung out letting folks collect more iron and stone now that I'm getting into areas that haven't been cleared yet.  Did start a school near the last boarding house, though, just to be ready.

salamander

The next several years have been spent moving back to the east to reach the lake, and to beef up the these southern settlements.  Food had started to drop, so additional gatherers were assigned as the labor became available, and fishing docks and a gatherer's hut were built.

Year 19 -- Mostly clearing iron and stone to keep the building to come going.

Year 20 -- Built some additional storage barns near markets, and built a new boarding house (#6) as part of the southern settlements.

Year 21 -- Coats and herbs were not reaching the southern settlements very well, so constructed a tailor and herbalist hut in the new area.

Year 22 -- Finally started the lake settlement with a fishing dock and market.  Accepted the second group of nomads ... 17 this time, 10 adults and 7 children.  Started construction on boarding house #7 to accommodate them, and increased the number of fishermen and gatherers in already constructed buildings.

Year 23 -- Built an additional gatherer's hut back up in the northwest corner where the settlement first crossed the river.

Year 24 -- Built an additional well near the southern gatherers and hunters buildings since they are kind of far from the river.  So far, no fires, but it's inevitable, right?  With the new nomad arrivals and expansion of the town, I thought it might be smart to have a hospital in the south, so construction started on that.  Started building boarding house #8 at the lakeside settlement.


This several year period started off promising as far as population growth, but despite my best efforts to shuffle BH occupants around to get new mates pairing up, there's been a decrease in the number of children (population graph attached).  It seemed to start with the acceptance of the last group of nomads in year 22.  It may be that I'm reaching total capacity for some of the BH's, and until the population expands enough to start filling the next boarding house, the lower birth rate is just a fact of life.  Please let me know if something I've overlooked occurs to you.

Nilla

I have no idea why the number of children are getting down. How often do you "demolish" your boardinghouses? After I had 5 BH or something like that, I did it once a year and I had a slow but  steady growth.

I didn't take any nomads, but as long as you had room enough it should not be the reason. Maybe you didn't had enough room for new couples after you took the nomads. In a normal game, you can often see, that the number of children reduce after you took some nomads, unless there are a lot of free homes, when you take them. Perhaps it was something like this here, too.

salamander

@Nilla -- So far, I've been "demolishing" at least once a year, and sometimes more than once.  Taking your and @irrelevant's advice, each "demolishing" may kick the folks out of the houses more than once until I get things the way (I think) I want them.  One thing I did change in the last few years was the way I looked at the result of shuffling the housing.  It was starting to get tedious to look at the occupants of every BH, so I started looking at the number of families reported in the Town Hall Overview screen.  It seems there's a difference in the way a house counts the number of families inside and the way the town hall reports the number of families total.  After the demolition shuffling, a lower number of families in the town hall screen I think would indicate that new matings had been formed, and I would continue demolishing until the number was as low as I thought I was going to be able to get it to go.  If I'm wrong about using this approach, it could be that I'm actually doing more harm than good.

Here's how the BH's occupancies look in late spring 25 (only a little after the screenshot you saw above):
BH1 -- 17
BH2 -- 15
BH3 -- 0 (this is my 'overflow' house)
BH4 -- 15
BH5 -- 19
BH6 -- 16
BH7 -- 11
BH8 -- 17

When I took in the nomads, though, BH7/8 had not yet been built, so I'm thinking you might be right about the effect being because of a sudden increase in population from the nomads.  If so, with the last two BH's now recently built, I would expect to see the birth rate come back up.  I'll keep an eye on it for a while.