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Nilla-testing the spring version of the North6 together with DS jetties

Started by Nilla, May 02, 2018, 01:21:16 PM

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galensgranny

Quote from: Nilla on May 24, 2018, 01:45:43 AM

Second picture
A small group from the Sami people have joined the community. They all have "natural" occupations, like hunter, trapper, herbalist. No one understand why their storage and buildings, where they prepare their herbs and meat are much more modern and comfortable than the houses, where they live, with no windows and an open fireplace.  ;)

;D Some people are indeed a mystery!

Nilla

This happiness system still puzzles me. I'm not annoyed anymore, more intrigued. There's things to investigate, all the time. This "Ironman" game is not a game, that can afford big experimenting. I have ideas, I want to test, (especially about these "uncureable traumas") but that will have to wait for another game, that's more forgiving to "bad things". But still there's many little things to notice, just by looking, as the normal life in Cullica goes on.

First picture
I had one more disease; Dysentery, not a very lethal one. Many people got sick and a few died. The effect was small, only a few people lost stars. And it looks like getting sick without a doctor and death of a neighbor, both could have a small negative influence. And I don't think it's random (or at least not totally random) who loses a star. Only people who were missing something lost a star. I have one menu open, the woman lost one star. That house is not in the influence area of the sauna. It's close, partly in the circle but the entrance is outside. There was one more example, a house outside a church. The sami people out in the woods in the house with the happiness detraction didn't get ill. They are still all happy.

I restarted the game from the point, as the disease started and assigned a doctor. There is a small difference, no loss on happiness at all. Look at the next picture. It's not easy to compare, because there's different time scales, but look at the point as the education starts to rise. No lost on happiness at all!

Second picture
I wanted to test my theory, that the door is the important part: That it has to be inside the circle, to profit from the happiness. So I built this house, close to sauna and well, but the door outside. I moved a happy family to this house and it didn't take long, until they all lost their 2 "happiness stars".

Third picture
Some students have graduated. I only have one school and the settlement isn't very small, so it takes time for many students to graduate. As I said I would, I have started a new village on the other side of the river. I'm a little "scared" of these red houses, where people can have 3 children. But as long as I have some 1 children goahti, I'm sure I can afford these few homes. I have @Discrepancy´s Townhouses loaded. It has one small house for 4 people. I might use some of those on this side of the river later. And where they fit (mainly out in the woods) the small primitive goahti.

I show the happiness of the 6 people on this side of the river. They have a well, the store (without vendor at this point) and are members of the church on the other side of the river (outside the circle). Since living in the red houses adds happiness, I expected something like this.

Nilla

Not much happens in Cullica. Business as usual. We had two epidemics. The second time it was measles, many people got ill and the doctor hadn't time to treat everyone. Some people died.  The settlement is a bit too big now, so I don't know every individual personally anymore. It's hard to find those who lost some stars. But I have tracked a few and I will keep an eye on them and see, if the loss of happiness is permanent.

A few questions/requests/suggestions for you @Tom Sawyer

First picture
I'm not so fond of these green circles for forester/herbalist/trapper...... I want a second forester but it's hard too see in summer. I would prefere something like blue.

I looked in the Wiki on your homepage. Mainly I wanted to see the difference between educated and not educated workers. I think there are some numbers by the crops, that haven't been updated. I tried to grow herbs, they give far less compared to what the Wiki says. In this game cabbage is the fastest crop, but it looks like it takes longer than beans to ripe (maybe it's because it starts to grow by a lower temperature but maybe you've made some changes here, too).

Second picture
It looks like the cows bring less milk, than they used to. I can agree, that cow pastures were a pit too powerful, but I would rather have reduced the amount of meat. Historicall cows were held mainly for milk, meat was a by product. I know, that there will be a lack of leather, if you reduced the number of slaughtered animals. In this settlement it is the way it is now. But there are different ways to solve that; Maybe a cow hide could give more leather in the tannery, maybe you could use less leather for a warm coat or maybe you could make warm coats from wool only.

With this little milk, it's not much use to run a diary, and that's a pity.

You can also see the recent small drop of happiness, due to some "measles deaths"

Third picture
The "New Village" evolves.

Tom Sawyer

I'm also not so happy anymore with this trial of different colors. Changing the circle of the hunting tool for a consistent UI, I refused to this idea. It looks way better as it is and probably I will just stay with "banished yellow" as marking color for the whole game. Only gray detraction circles really make sense.

The crop table in wiki I have fixed. It is 6 - 8 herbs from a wild spot and every 3 tiles of a crop field. I reduced this amount with a last update but as I see you are still swimming in herbs. Do you think it's too much from the forest?

With North 7 I want to rework the set of coats which also will solve this leather issue.

A dairy hut is processing the milk of about 20 cows if working full time. I don't want to make it much slower because it has a reasonable profit of cheese making. At the moment a cow produces about 3 times more milk than meat wich is not bad but it can be a bit more. And meat a bit less to keep the balance.

Nilla

Circles: It does make sense, if those buildings, that bring happiness have a different color, than an influence area. I find, that this happiness system is a bit confusing. That's the way it is. I can't see anything you can do to prevent this. But what you can do, is to make things, you can affect, as clear as possible, like these circles. You must realize @Tom Sawyer, that you're a pioneer, when it comes to using this system and I hope that other modders will follow. What prevents anyone from adding a happiness radius to a herbalist? It could even make some sense. I want to be able to fast see, if it's just a influence area or a happiness area. What's easier than different colors? But please not green or any other color, that's hard to see for an old lady with bad eyes. ;)

Herbs: I have a lot of herbs, yes but I don't grow any. It was just a test. I have one working herbalist. The output variates, last year it was 72, this year (February) 48, but I have seen higher values, like 150. My people use very little, most of the collected herbs land in the trading ports. I don't find the output too high. It's alright. In a normal case, you will get a little surplus to sell but it's not so much, that I would concider to build a herbalist on every possible spot, to pick herbs for export. In my last game, where I bought vegetables and grain and from time to time was low on some food category, I had several herbalists and not always much herbs. I can't remember that I ran totally out of them but I couldn't sell any either.

Coats: I have a wish, if you want to rework the coats; take the textiles away from the warehouse and add a special store only for textiles. On a larger settlement it's hard to get an efficient production of clothes, no matter how you make it. The Bannis simply like to carry around stuff too much. There's a little wool and a little leather in most barns.

Milk:
You are wrong, at least when it comes to my cows; they produce a lot less milk than meat. I have 3 pastures, with 20, 19, 18 cows. First picture shows the output. It's rather 3 times as much meat as milk. I don't have a herdsman working all time, but I can't imagine that this could make such a difference. From July to frost, normally in October, the herdsmen are picking apples.

Micromanagement: Herdsmen picking apples, farmers working fields and workshops, farmers working fields and carrying goods to trading ports, building stuff, chopping wood, digging clay, sand and stone.......; that's my issues at the time. I have (more or less) stopped to micromanage the farming itself (starting harvest, sending farmers to help out on other fields when their field is done). It works, if the fields and orchards aren't too big. But I simply don't have enough people to staff every profession. Many farmers need to do other things, than being simple laborers in winter. At the beginning of a game, it's alright but I'm getting more and more bored for each year, doing this. No good sign.

My only goal for the moment is to reduce the micromanagement. That's the only way for this settlement to survive. Not because people will starve, freeze to death or all die of old age. Simply because, if I'm bored, I'm going to stop playing. If it's boring, why go on with a game?

This is a healthy settlement. The stores are well filled. We produce as much as we need. We trade a little. So far, we've sold more than we've bought. We have a good stock of daler and silver. My strategy to reduce the micromanagement is to use this stock and start to buy food. I will not reduce farming but I will not expand anymore either. I have started to reduce less profitable production, mainly some production of clothes. I also buy bricks, glass, stone when I can without order. Instead increase profitable trading products. I'm not sure, exactly how to do this yet.

First picture

Production milk/meat.

Second picture

You might not believe it, but I'm actually doing some "decoration" and "landscaping". On the first picture, you can see the fences around the pastures and quarry (not to the forest, the cows and sheep fear the forest, so they stay at the meadow). And here you can see, that I've kept the birches but cut the furs in living areas. And the second doctor; in this area, of course the building is red! :)

Gatherer

Quote from: Nilla on May 27, 2018, 02:58:29 AM
You might not believe it, but I'm actually doing some "decoration" and "landscaping". On the first picture, you can see the fences around the pastures and quarry (not to the forest, the cows and sheep fear the forest, so they stay at the meadow).

See, it doesn't take much. A simple fence and the whole settlement looks nicer and more organized.


Quote from: Nilla on May 27, 2018, 02:58:29 AM
Circles: It does make sense, if those buildings, that bring happiness have a different color, than an influence area. I find, that this happiness system is a bit confusing. That's the way it is. I can't see anything you can do to prevent this. But what you can do, is to make things, you can affect, as clear as possible, like these circles. You must realize @Tom Sawyer, that you're a pioneer, when it comes to using this system and I hope that other modders will follow. What prevents anyone from adding a happiness radius to a herbalist? It could even make some sense. I want to be able to fast see, if it's just a influence area or a happiness area. What's easier than different colors? But please not green or any other color, that's hard to see for an old lady with bad eyes. ;)

There is a standalone mod from CC that I use which changes the market and all other radius circles from yellow to blue. Perhaps the same could be done for the happines influence.
There's never enough deco stuff!!!
Fiat panis.

Tom Sawyer

About herbs it sounds good. I will keep it so. The herbalist with happiness I tried but did not get it to work and also did not really like the people hanging around this cabin. But if its radius would work for both gathering and happiness then it would be an argument to have yellow also for gathering because a building cannot have 2 different circles.

With milk I was wrong, yes. It was a theoretical ratio of a cow over lifetime. But of course, once a pasture is filled with animals they have a very short time to give milk. I think something 1:1 would be nice keeping the total amount of food.

I think you are just done with this town. You have managed everything under hard conditions and decoration ist not what keeps you motivated to stay on a map. :)

Nilla

No, I'm not done with this town, yet. I have managed to reduce the micromanagement. The only seasonal change is to let some of the traders pick apples and pears. There are also some small things, that  need to be done, like if the salt is out or if I need something, I don't produce all the time. That's no problem, I always do such things but I don't need to bother about the fields anymore and the herdsmen can stay by their animals all time. It's a relief. The production is not (yet?) quite sustainable. The store of food and daler are getting slightly smaller, but I hope, that I can catch up with production of more export goods. I also hope that the higher educational rate will help me. This makes the game interesting again. :)

One reason, that I say I'm not done yet, is that I wanted to build some of the Industrial buildings from @Discrepancy. And finally I could build my first. It's the lumber mill. I have imported the ironfittings and the lime, that's needed. But I think, I will go for those, too eventually. (If this settlement can survive with this little micromanagement)

Now I'm sorry to say, that this beautiful, impressive lumber mill is a disappointment. I was hoping, that I could produce lumber for export. It would have been historically correct for a settlement like this in North Sweden, second half of the 19th century. The area along the coast prospered, mostly due to export from saw mills and a building boom in the rest of Europe. But unfortunately a worker in the mill doesn't even produce enough to support himself (not even if played without Ironman). I had an annual production of around 300. 2 logs give 5 lumber. Input: 2*12, output: 5*6, profit: 6 or 1,2 for each lumber or 380 for each worker. (If I can sell it to the higher price, in barter trade it's a waste of material). In the North a person with a balanced diet consumes food with a value of at least 350 (cheapest protein:2, vegetable:3, grain:4, fruit:5, average 3,5*100=350) also tools and clothing are more expensive than vanilla, so I estimate that we can add another 100 for fuel, clothes and tools. This is about 3 times as much as in a vanilla game.

So, @Discrepancy a building that produces goods of a value less than 450 is a loss. I would only use such a building, if I need its product and can't buy it, or if it's an early step in a chain with a very profitable end step. My thoughts are about the same about a building, that produces goods with a value less than 900. That's the point in the North were it "breaks even". One productive person have to support children, students, laborers, vendors, teachers and other unproductive; that's at least one more person. If it's a product for export, the profit also need to support trader.

Of course a well balanced export business shouldn't bring a profit, that can support 15 people, like a good vanilla woodcutter can. I find 3-6 is reasonable. (If I recalculate the production numbers to vanilla values. I don't know if it's the same but 2 logs gives 5 lumber worth 4 makes an annual profit of 960, if the production is 300; that support about 6 vanilla Bannis)

Now this impressive sawmill produces firewood. It looks like the same value as this small chopper. There are two in the neighborhood, one produced a little bit more, one a bit less. I would raise the price of lumber to 8 and increase the production at least 50%, maybe even 100%. I know, that you can put up to 5 workers in the mill and that you may fear, that it will be overpowered as firewoodproducer this way. But I don't think, that this will be a big problem. If you run it with many workers, there will be logistic problems, that's sure. How do you get enough logs to the site? Also to distribute or consume the large amount of produced firewood had to be considered. New and interesting challenges. (I guess, in order to have an efficient lumber export business, a specialized store for only logs, would be needed, but in this case, the mill also need to support one (or several) vendors). In any case, I don't see, that it can be a profitable "firewood for export business", even with a 100% higher production, but it would make sense, that a worker in the large mill, can produce more firewood, than a person with an ax and a chopping block.

First picture
The mill is beautiful but I guess I should have built it a bit apart from the "Nordic Houses". It looks a bit odd together, and the vanilla trading port behind it even more odd. It is very pleasant to see a building breaking the "90 degree angle rule". It really look like they've looked for the best location on the river, to get as high velocity on the wheel as possible. I like such things. :)

Second picture
I haven't made a report of what happened to the people, who became unhappy as the measles epidemic struck Cullica. I kept an eye on 5 person. 2 of them regained their stars fast, for 1 it took a while, but she also recovered. 2 of them never recovered. Now they are both farmers. Guess on which fields!

I think, that each person has a "happiness account", where "good things", like living inside yellow circles, good food, and probably other things we haven't understood add value and "bad things like living inside black circles, death of family members, illness, lack of food, clothes and other yet(?) unknown things reduce value. If it once drops below a certain "depression" value, it can't be improved, no matter what. If it's above this value it can improve and if it passes a certain "happiness" value there will be 5 stars again. I first thought, there were some random things in this, but I don't really think so anymore. I rather think, that more things may have an influence, than we thought from the start and that these things are "kept in the memory" .

You can see the graphs of food and daler. I have some time to improve things before it becomes critical, so I hope it will work out. I have a plan B. ;)

kid1293

In Citizen.rsc there is a value:
   float _depressedLevel = 0.25;

My guess is, if they reach that value they don't recover. Any experience from this?

Tom Sawyer

That's a good question @kid1293. I kept 0.25 because it means 1 star but I don't know exactly how this value is used by the game. I think it can be worth to test it with depressedLevel = 0 and -1. Maybe we can remove this memory effect at all, the depression where people cannot recover from. Would make sense. :)

Nilla

I'm not sure about only 1 star and not recover. These people who haven't recovered in this game have 3 stars, also those who had 2 stars never recovered. Or at least; I couldn't do anything to make them happy. But of course trying other values for this depression level would be interesting, also to find a way to increase happiness by everyone. I am sure there are more to discover in this happiness system. Only this game isn't very forgiving, so I will not deliberately make anyone unhappy here.

brads3

NILLA,can i suggest that you do a small write up about how the new happiness works.adding it  to the download page might be helpful for other players. i am curious to see how much more the happiness can be tweaked or ideas TOM or other modders come up with.

Nilla

Quote from: brads3 on May 28, 2018, 05:26:06 AM
NILLA,can i suggest that you do a small write up about how the new happiness works.adding it  to the download page might be helpful for other players. i am curious to see how much more the happiness can be tweaked or ideas TOM or other modders come up with.

I've thought about something like that too, but there are still things I don't understand and things I want to check out. I'm still guessing in some parts. That's the reason, I don't want to write more, than my thoughts here in this blog, yet.

Nilla

I was right, when I said, that I'm still guessing, when it comes to happiness.

I was a bit puzzled, because all fields were worked in a similar way. It looked like the old unhappy lady has died of old age, but Lamberly, who's been unhappy since he was a child, was suddenly happy again. They had measles in year 83 or 84, in year 100 he was still unhappy, but in year 102 he was happy. Not an incurable depression! :) I have no idea, what could have caused this, and why it took so long. There's nothing new in that area, where he lives. So, as I said, there are things we don't yet understand. And maybe something random in it, after all. (easy to say when you don't understand) ;)

This game lives. At the moment I think, I've found a sustainable balance with an acceptable amount of micromanagement. It's hard to get enough miner but the resource merchants arrive often and I have bought iron ore and a little iron bloom (always without ordering). The earlier steps in the tool production chain are less profitable but if the merchants aren't helpful, some "fruit farmers" could work the mines in winter, instead of carrying goods to the ports. The number of children and students are on an acceptable level. When the population now grows, I can even increase the farming, if I want to. I could go on the way I planned but all these questions about the happiness system are "itching".

Another "itching" thing are DS Industrial buildings. I have managed to build some more. They all look so nice. I would very much like to build a larger production area with them. The problem in this game is, that most of them aren't profitable enough to run long term. None of those I've built are as unprofitable as the Lumbermill, but this is an Ironman game and I need to hold the productivity of each worker higher, than is possible in most of these buildings. One thing @Discrepancy: This is not a complain (the Lumbermill was ;) ) I'm not saying, that the productivity/profit is generally too low. Maybe it's even a good sign, that it's not high enough to manage an "Ironman" game. I like more than ever, to try this out.

So I guess, this is the last report from Cullica. It's "pollen times" so I have enough itching in my eyes and nose. Don't need it from my games as well. So, tonight, there will be a new game.

Summary new Ironman with active happiness system
-It is possible to build a prosperous settlement in a mild climate. (I have my doubts, that it can work on "harsh" but will give it a try some time in the future)
-You need to grow slow
-You need a lot of micromanagement
-You need to get (more or less) everyone happy as fast as possible
-You need to focus on high productivity/profit for everyone

First picture
When you see this picture, you might understand why I want to build more of those DS industrial buildings. One small thing @Discrepancy, maybe you already know; look at the menu of the Blacksmith at the bottom of the picture. The number for how much iron is stored is missing (it's always the product on that line).

Perhaps you can see, that I like birches. I have a lot of them here were I live and I avoid to cut any in Banished. :)

Second picture
Different part of the village have different character; here right and left side of the river. I sell a lot of things, the port menu shows the content of the large ports (there are less in the small ports). I don't sell much of the food (sometimes a little smoked meat) but I "barter for diversity". If the merchant pay a high price, I switch apples for figs, barely for corn, smoked meat for smoked fish....... It looks like the Bannis get happy, if they can have a lot of different food. The many different goods also makes it possible to sell something to the high price to most merchants (except this stingy Hanseatic merchant and a few of those others, arriving to the big ports, who only want coins or pay a ridiculously low price for my high quality goods. But on the other hand they bring things I need and the settlement is now rich enough to pay with daler)

Third picture
Here's another character to the settlement; the forest people in their goahtis.

I've cut in some menus and graphs. You can understand the struggle, if you look at the production. 153 adults for a settlement needing 72k food. I process as much food as possible, so much is counted twice, but still a lot! Also what goes into the port is counted as consumption but as I said; I don't really sell much food.

Bad things can happen, when you're trying to hold the production high for every worker. You can see the small drop on health now at the end. I couldn't really understand it, because I have a lot of food from each category, the place is covered with small markets and wagon vendors. But as I looked into the "Lanthandel" in my "Red House area" it didn't contain much food at all. Simply too many houses for the single vendor. Not good for the production, when the workers need to run to the herbalist far away. :-\ :-[

Tom Sawyer

Oh, so you have also trouble with allergy. Maybe better to cut some of your beloved birches around the house.^^ Here the birch bloom is over but grass is already smirking at me everywhere. I should really move to Iceland.

With your summary I'm happy. That's how I want the Ironman mode. :)