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Nilla- Sligonia; coud the Norh be easy?

Started by Nilla, August 30, 2016, 06:10:11 AM

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Nilla

#15
No, @Pangaea, the translation comes from @Tom Sawyer, who also made the highly recommendable Nordic mod. I just helped a little with a couple of words, because he's German. What I like about the Nordic mod (together the lovely design) is, that it's possible to choose options, that makes the game harder than the original. That's quite unique.

But you are right about the unbalance. Many mods makes the game easier; more.... better..... . Of cause, there are also a lot of new buildings, that more or less only brings variety, without any changes in the gameplay.

Many of the modders who discuss their mods here, have an ambition to keep their mods balanced. If they create something new, they want the building cost, production and trade value in the same range as in the vanilla game. They are very talented and "spit out" mods in a speed, that not even the most diligent tester, with a lot of free time (like me) have a chance to test them all. I don't make any mods myself, but it's very nice to read the threads and see, that it's really a community: They encourage and help eachother, they give away their codes for others to use; a very nice and helpful atmosphere.

I think it might be possible, if not totally change, at least to control the population variation a bit better with something, we are just discussing here: Houses for different family sizes. Of cause, it has to be tested and it will probably not work perfect at the first attempt. A little bit of Chinese 1 child experiment ;)

Thank you very much @kid1293 ! I have downloaded your lovely small houses but I haven't dared to add it to my game yet. I guess it could work, but I have a few bad experiences with crashes adding mods to an existing game, so I don't know. But maybe I'll be brave and give it a try. It would really be helpful.

I played a few more years. Not much new to tell. Just a small Christmas greeting from Sligona in December 26. Santa will soon collect his reindeer and go for his annual ride. You can see that my strategies for food/population control were quite successful so far. One bad year didn't hurt much.

Edit: if you look carefully, you may see my second, really bad mistake by the rowhouses, sorry @kid1293 ; not your fault! :-[


Nilla

I played a little more. The map is quite full. Than I thought; It doesn´t matter anymore I´ll take the risk. So I loaded the 3 person houses from @kid1293. No crash! I should have done this earlier. Silly me; too coward! I will play with these mini houses tonight. I´ll tell you more tomorrow.

Nilla

#17
I must say; the 3 person houses are really small. If you look at a the size of a person, it's not bigger than 2,5 *3,5 meters. Not even a full sized "Friggebod" @kid1293 . ;) . But I suppose, it would be possible for a small family to live in that tiny space if they are good organized in all their actions.  ;D

The rowhouses are good as they are and my request for houses for small families, might be very special, so maybe this is not such a good idea, but anyhow, I`ll tell you my idea:

From each design there are 3 models of the middle low rowhouse, and two of the corners. One of each has no windows on the first floor, the others have some. What if you just reorganize them and make the models without windows on the second floor as a separate 3-person house and the ones with the rooms upstairs, the way they are now; for 4 people?

First picture

Again I have problems with the warehouses. I have 4 of them, with mines, woodchoppers, charcoalburner, blacksmiths and tailors in the area. In 3 of 4 there's a lot of coal and no iron, in the 4th a lot of iron and no coal. The tool production is a catastrophe!  They are all uneducated, so it's never high, but at the moment my 29 blacksmiths only produces some 500 tools each year, much less than I need.

I think I've found out what my problems are: There are few barns in the area and for many producers, the warehouse is the closest storage place. It would be used as a barn. (You may see the same with vanilla markets in farming areas with too few barns; there might be no proteins because the farmers fill the market).  And in this case; I think, the fact, that iron, coal and steel all have the same "flag" prevent the vendors from carrying any other materials in there.

I don't know, if it's possible to change anything in the mod to improve this. Could it be made in a way, that only vendors carries things into the warehouse? In any case, I think it's possible to reduce these problems by building more barns and locate the warehouse a bit different. (I`m about to solve the immediate problems in this game by closing charcoalburners in areas, where there's too much coal and change the production from iron to coal in the mines, in the area, where there were only iron. The tool production has increased)

Second picture

I've been a bit too eager increasing he number of fields and orchards. I actually have too much food! So I'm making the opposite to @Pangaea; I'm giving land back to the forests, demolishing fields and orchards in areas where I've stolen the land before. ;)

Sorry, it seems like I forgot the pictures. Here they are!

Pangaea

Are the pictures in the last post missing for anybody else? I can't see them.

One of the aspects that can be really tricky in this game is logistics. I always find it's a pain to get enough logs (and firewood) from the forest nodes to the central areas in an orderly fashion, and the same with food variety. Some markets may be overflowing with fruits or farm products, while others (typically in the outskirts) are filled with meat (fish and venison). In areas with lots of live animals, you may get piles and piles of leather, wool and meat, and preciously little else. I wish the vendors were better at distributing goods around.

It can be partly solved by fake-demolishing stockpiles and gradually releasing bought logs and other products, but it's a pain in the neck with such micro management (and even more so for the people playing at 5-10x).

About small houses, before my hiatus I recall @slink making some small houses that looked quite neat. Although it's very nice to be able to use smaller housing units, a concern can be that it allows even more people on the same space. Although they look very good, that is a concern for me with the two and three story houses via modding.

Starting with the impossible option sounded too hard, but you're right that more options there is good, because the start of the game can be a little easy once we know what to do. I remember in the very beginning, when we tried all sorts of different things, and many ended in disaster and deaths. I lost more than a few villages to mass starvation or mass freezes  ;D

kid1293

#19
@Nilla - I understand even without pictures, but your idea about
3-family versus 4-family rowhouses can be a bit tricky to implement
now when I have the mod up and going. Maybe it would be
compatible, maybe not. I dare not take the chance!

For now it works with the those 'extra-small' rowhouses.

Tom Sawyer

#20
Logistics is really a challenge in Banished. The warehouse (or other specialized markets) can help.

I think the problem with your warehouses is, as you describe it @Nilla. Probably the laborers meddle in the logistic of the vendors. This warehouse on your picture (as far as I can see in this fog ^^) is surrounded by charcoal burners without barns or sheds. All the coal is carried directly in the warehouse and it is over the limit. In my final test of the new setup, there were exactly 200 iron, 200 steel, 200 coal, 200 firewood etc..

If iron and coal would have different flags it could solve it, but we don't have free flags and with the next resources it would be the same... I would like to see if some barns or sheds next to the production buildings can solve it...

For your second picture you get the Banished Award for Conservation of Nature and Environment. And maybe you can apply for EU funding. ;D

Nilla

#21
No, no, no @Tom Sawyer; no EU fonding. Sligonia is a communist settlement of the most evil kind, remember. It will never lose its independence over such a trivial thing like money!

I have decided to stop this game; no fun anymore. The map is full; I have the tool production (and every other production) under control. I build a few new 3-person houses each year, so the population still grows a little bit. I try to have about 15% children. If I wanted to run this settlement, I think I could reach a quite stable population. But as I said, I will not. This is not a self running game, you can leave without attendance some hours, than come back and see how it has developed. And sit here in front of the computer, letting it run at 10x speed, demolishing some infested farms and orchards, taking care of old orchards, change the mines between iron and coal is too boring.

I will answer my question:

Could the north be easy?

Yes, it can! Maybe not easier than a vanilla game, but definitely not harder.

Choose a mild climate and the farming works just fine; most years 100% harvest on fields and orchards. Of cause, you have to choose the right crops. Not everything grows well in the north. But if you start medium or easy, use the starting crops for the basic supplies. @Tom Sawyer will not let you down, by giving you impossible crops to start with. If you want diversity on your fields, try some others. Some work fine, others not at all. And forget, how the crops work in a vanilla game. Everything is changed.

If you want to be self sufficient on fruit, the orchards might give you some trouble. They are much easier to harvest, than in a vanilla game. One farmer manages the harvest of a really big orchard (up to 200 tiles) but a full harvest gives much less fruit. The trees also grow very slow. They also live longer, but when they start to die, it gets a bit complicated; the autoharvest doesn't work proper. I cut the trees, as soon as they started to get old and let the orchard rest until the trees were big again. You need a lot of space to be self sufficient on fruit, but it might still be worth the effort; fruit cost 2, if you want to buy it.

I didn't trade in this game, but from my other games with the Nordic mod, I could say that trade is a bit more complicated, than in a vanilla game, but works fine. Many trading values are changed, so don't try to sell any firewood. That's one of the few things, that gives you no profit! You will need coins, if you want to buy things. If not firewood, what is good to sell? Many things, take your pick! There are two different merchants who want to buy your products for coins; One wants rawmaterials. I sold logs at the beginning and steel later.  The other merchant wants Nordic products. I sold venison and salmon early, steel tools and Nordic coats later. Ale from (imported) wheat is also good. But here is no best product. It changes over time and from game to game.

First picture


The winter light is a bit dark here too, but now I have the iron/coal situation under control. I was running a bit short on logs, so I closed the charcoalburner and get coal from the mines. There are always 2 mines at each industrial spot. If it look like this at the warehose; one for coal and one for iron. If there's much more iron, I produce only coal and reverse. That works fine. Even if the careless blacksmiths throw all their fresh produced tools in the snow, the stores are filling up.

Second picture

I've cut in some production statistics. You can see, that most things have had their ups and downs. (Except food, I was a bit too eager in expanding the farms, I have had bad experience with uneducated and food before) I had to take care of things all the time. As example; wool (textiles). As it was running shorter, I built new pastures, it was shown to be too many, too fast, so the place was flooded with wool. I made a few Nordic coats and the problem was solved. These things makes the game interesting. With some trading ports it's easy to buy/sell to get/get rid of what you need. Here you have to think differently.