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Help needed - stagnation, what I'm doing wrong?

Started by aquilaspqr, July 28, 2017, 09:52:07 AM

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aquilaspqr

After a long break I've recently returned to Banished, I downloaded MegaMod and better harvest. The problem is I'm unable to satisfy the primary needs even with almost everyone working on food and wood/firewood production. I noticed the absurd AI and problems with starving mechanic, but from what I've seen it seems there's no fix for that at the moment.

This is the main village - it started around small "main square" and expanded south where the future "city centre" is going to be.



I have 8 fields and additional two under construction plus one orchard. Fields are worked by three farmers if possible, two when starvation hit and decimate my population. I also have one fishing dock with 4 fishermen, but it's probably placed in bad place since it only gives small surplus of food (500 food yearly with 4 workers). Fields usually give 700-900 yearly with two or three workers. I also built 3 gatherer huts because "they are OP and give tons of food" yet they perform below expectations.



I decided to build three "forest resources centers" consisting of one gatherer hut, one forester hut, one hunting cabin and a house, cellar and stock pile. The idea was simple - to give workers place nearby to drop resources and have one small house for at least part of the workers. I built them east, north and north-east from the settlement where there was already a large forest I intend never to cut down.





Maybe the problem is with the distance - maybe they are too far from the rest of the village? But I hope not, because I hate games where citizens are crippled when they have to walk more than 20 meters daily.

Life in my village is harsh. I have a small but steady suprlus of logs, but I'm unable to keep houses warm. I started with wooden homes but all later ones are stone to reduce firewod usage. I'm also planing to upgrade old wooden houses to stone ones, but "there's never time to do it". I had a sawmill with 3 workers - it was barely keeping up with firewood production with even smaller population - now I built water powered sawmill but it has only 2 workers because of recent starvation. The problem lies elswhere I think - because I have surplus of logs overall, but they are mostly located on small stock piles close to forester huts - deep in forest - and workers are not transporting it to the center of the village as I wanted them to do. Also vendors at the markets tend to take logs stockpiled close to sawmills and take it further inside the village - reducing overall efficiency. I'm building a new sawmill on the southern part of the village with hope it'll cover the needs there but it'll be understaffed unless I accept new wave of nomads which is a good shortterm idea (desperately needed workforce) but harmful on the long run (with my food supply I'll have another absurd starvation like the one I had yesterday - hundreds of food baskets on the fields, yet still 1/3 of my population died from starvation). I think my fields produce a decent amount of food but it lasts short, after winter it's dropping to 100-200 units and I pray gatherers and fishermen will be able to sustain the population until new harvest (which they usually do, unless I accept nomads).

In short - I have almost all my population working on food and wood/firewood yet I'm still a North Korea. I suspect the distance between forest resources gatherers and the main village may be the cause, but I would like to avoid moving them closer. I'm also investing in new fields, but so far I'm understaffed so to properly use them I'll have to accept nomads. And that'll problably lead to another catastrophic starvation which will leave me with even less citizens than I had before accepting nomads.

Now - I designed this village using "common sense" - but I realise it's just a game with its own mechanics and not a real village with real villagers and what would work in real life can fail miserably in video games. I would be grateful for any tips on how to improve the village and its efficiency. I was thinking about disabling hunger at debug options but I would like to avoid it since it totally removes the challenge - and while facing absurd starvation and seeing people carrying food dying on the doorstep causes rage - playing without it seems worthless.     

Paeng

#1
Hmmm...

You got more than a hundred peeps, but little logs, no food, no iron, no tools, no clothes, no firewood, no herbs... and no storage I can see... and Health and Happiness are way down.

Distances seem to be no real problem, I spread my villages much farther (after more than 20 years)...

I don't know where to begin - I feel you need to rethink your priorities. Remember that a 100 peeps need 10.000 units of food, best with a buffer of another 10.000.

Build storage - a 120 squares field (e.g. 8x15) can be harvested with 1 worker, specially as you use "Better Harveset"... a 4-man fishing lodge in a good place gives 2.400 fish, more than 3.000 in an excellent spot.

A 4-man Gatherer also brings in well over 2000, provided there is storage nearby... build a market to help distribute your goods.

Sent 1 or 2 Hunters out for protein and hides.

All in all, make sure you can provide all 4 foodgroups - vegetable, fruit, protein and grain, plus herbs. Grain is the hardest if you have no seeds yet, so import some for now...

Build another Forester, employ more woodcutters... check the sawmill for efficiency (I forgot if it is, but you may not want a centralized firewood production)...


For me, I don't find the AI absurd (except in tiny details, but not as a whole)... and the "starvation mechanic" is what you have to overcome - one of the goals of the game  ;)


EDIT

Btw - the notion that Gatherers are OP is kinda off... in early game they are a good means for survival (two foodgroups).

Do the math - 4 workers can get a max of ~3.200 units... assuming perfect conditions - a clean forest around (no stone and ore), housing and storage nearby, preferably a market nearby... more realistic is to expect ~2.400. Deduct the 400 units they eat, you're at 2.000 - that's 500 per worker. Where is that OP?  ;)

Once your town grows and encroaches on the Gatherers, their yield will diminish... By then you'll hopefully have better sources for food.
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aquilaspqr

Quote"You got more than a hundred peeps, but little logs, no food, no iron, no tools, no clothes, no firewood, no herbs... and no storage I can see... and Health and Happiness are way down."

Little logs with three fully staffed forester huts having stock piles to drop them just few meters away (but I build quite a lot of new homes for nomads). I wouldn't worry about logs actually - I worry about firewood. Right now I have 5 woodsmen making firewood (I accepted new wave of nomads for workforce and hope I won't be hit by starvation) and it seems I'm making little suprlus so far.

No food with 26 farmers working on nine fields and one orchard, 4 fishermen and 12 gatherers. I decided to use 3 farmers per field since with two or less I barely had 70% yield. With 3 I almost always have more than 90% and usually full yield.

No iron since I have no manpower to work the full iron production chain. I built forge etc but have no spare men to operate it, because everyone has to work on food and firewood and it's still not enough.

No tools only because I accepted nomads and they took them all, but I have blacksmith working 24/7, unfortunately only making rough tools from iron ore. But soon everyone will have rough tools - so no problem here (except tool's quality, but right now I can't afford better ones).

No clothes because I can spare only one tailor making leather coats. There's small but steady production of it, unfortunately it doesn't meet demand in current situation.

Herbs - same here. I can spare only one man to gather them. Food and firewood is priority.

And I have plenty of storage - I built two barns and one cellar close to the fields so the farmers/laborers won't have to walk too much. I built meat locker close to the fishing dock. And three cellars close to the gatherer's huts so they won't have to walk all the way to village to drop their goods. There are also stock piles close to all sawmills and forester huts. So there's a lot of places they can store food and logs etc. but they are empty because either I produce too few of them or villagers take too much.

Here are my fields, food storage facilities (red circles) and fishermen dock (blue). Everything close to each other.



And two of my forest resouces camps - gatherers, foresters and hunters (blue circles with one brown circle because I clicked wrong button and noticed it after I uploaded the screen), logs storage (red) and food storage (orange). Again - everything close to production facilities:



All buildings staffed. Every gatherer's hut have 4 workers, every forester have 4 and every hunter - 3. Yet the production of each is quite low, far from what you say.

And that's why I have no idea what's wrong. If you say the distance should not be the problem - I'm even more confused, because so far I blamed it. But now... everything is staffed, have storage nearby but produce low amount (except fishermen which may be placed in wrong spot). 

I also built two traders - one for seeds and one for animals, but I only managed to buy trade chicken (bad deal since I bought the final product, not animal for breeding as I later noticed - a mistake others sometimes do too) and one sheep. That's because I don't have anything to trade.


grammycat

#3
Maybe you expanded too quickly and accepted too many nomads?  Keep in mind what Paeng pointed out on requirements-each bannie needs 100 food a year so 100 need 10,000.  Never accept nomads or build new houses if you can't meet their needs.  It's all about balancing needs versus expansion.  Another thing I found is cellars are good for storage near homes, but barns are better next to fields and forest hubs.  I put a big barn just on the outer limits of a forest hub along with a stockpile, woodcutter, and enough homes to meet the number of workers in the hub.  Putting woodcutters near the forest hubs cuts down on how far they need to travel to get logs. If you build storage and homes next to production areas you cut down on how far they walk to get to work thus longer working time.  Also like Paeng suggested-8x15, 10x12, or 11x11 fields can all be harvested by 1 person and usually completed before snow hits.
I would check each home and, if you find any empty or only 1 person in them, set them to be destroyed. Maybe some of the singles will move in together helping somewhat on the firewood.  I noticed you have a lot of things set to not work-don't build anything until you need it because it uses your logs up.  You also may want to build a stacks burner.  It produces charcoal from logs with a good boost from your logs:  11 charcoal per log while a woodcutter only produces 4 firewood per log.  Build a sawpit for the lumber to make the stacks burner and turn it off as soon as you have enough lumber so it won't eat into your wood supply.
Good luck saving your town-a challenge is always fun.  Please keep us posted on your progress.

edited to add:  Also check your stockpiles-you have several places that need them-especially your sawmill.

aquilaspqr

I hope you didn't mean buildings have upkeep costs? Because I built those not working buildings much earlier when I was making slow but steady progress and was preparing to use them (slowly - with one or two workers changing jobs depending on the situation). But when first starvation hit - I had to abandon them and focus on survival, not on thinking about non-crucial goods.

Right now I probably made another mistake - but I accepted nomads to fill jobs. I produce higher amount of food, but new citizens became hungry and I've just started the harvest (sooner, to save as many of them as possible). But I predict another mass extinction and return to workforce problems :D After that I'll just focus on increasing food production - new fields, new fishermen and maybe another gatherer hut. I only have no idea who will work there when another group will starve to death.

raerae2

Based on the worker numbers you have posted, I am guessing you don't have any general workers. They are useful to move supplies around and they can help harvest the fields. Like paeng and grammy cat said your fields/orchards (if they are the correct size) only need one worker so that would free up 16 workers. Also your hunter shacks only need 1 hunter each (there is an extensive thread somewhere here regarding that). It looks like you have 3 so that would free up an additional 6 workers. You could also add some small markets near your housing with the extra workers. With megamod you should have some small options. (one worker, doesn't take much space, specialized to fuel or food).

Good luck. Stopping that food/fuel downward spiral can be hard.


brads3

sounds like we have a couple issues.1st i will say we all play differently so have different ideas.i use 10x10 fields with 1 worker each. then i try to figure my food workers<farmers,gatherers,hunters,etc> to 1 per 5 bannies.so 100,you need 20 on food. note your food drop could be partly due to the stocking of those extra houses.as bannies move into houses they will take a lot of stocks.next problem is do you have markets to move goods closer to bannies away from the forest. if you store logs where you cut them and don't move them,the bannies must walk that far to get the itmes they want.it is handy to place a wood cart or KID's log depot near wood cutters and them near the most housing.same thing with food or textiles. i try to plan areas so they each produce enough food for themself plus extra. in other words a forest with 1 hunter and gatherer will support more than the 4 bannies it takes to run it including the forerster.another thing that can hurt you is education levels. if it drops below 40% then there is trouble.you always want to try to stay ahead. this means putting out extra food and firewood,etc. the more you have stored in the 1st 10 years the better. then you have extra to handle nomads.ohh and don't forget that in winter the farmers become laborers. so if you plan clearing far away they will get back to fields late and that will drop production levels.one thing that does help is to plan for the extra laborers to be scattered around. say you need 4 workers in 1 area,build 3 houses. that gives you 2 extra bannies that will help carry supplies to the local barns and drop them as they travel to and from home.

Paeng

#7
Okay, I see your storage now... but it's not plenty, and mostly not placed well  :)

Your hubs (forester, gatherer, hunter) - their barns and piles should be at the fringe of the circle, closer to the village, closer to producers (e.g. firewood cutter, blacksmith)... same with housing, your peeps have to walk all the way from the hub to the village to get food, tools, herbs etc.

In early stage, I prefer to cluster houses nearer to their workplace (again, at the circle's fringe)...

Your farms - again, placement of barns and housing is unfortunate... try follow a farmer during a harvest cycle and see how often he runs off to eat, see the herbalist, place produce in a barn, idle... and how long these ways get in your setup.

And build a market, even a small one - the vendors work wonders pulling in stuff from even pretty far off places.

I also feel that some places are over-stuffed - I never put more than 2 foresters to a lodge, or more than 1 hunter per lodge. If these guys eat more than they produce, you need to fire them  ;)

Coats - yeah, low priority, you can go a long time without, if you're not in very harsh climate...


Good thoughts also from Grammycat -
QuoteIt's all about balancing needs versus expansion.

You'll get there  :)
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aquilaspqr

Thanks for tips, I'll try to use them. But that proves the point that it's just a game and first you have to follow the designers way of thinking, not "common sense" :D

And when I said about AI being dumb I meant this:



"Hey! We're starving! So let's just forget about all this food out there on the fields waiting to be picked - and wander aimlessly and die from starvation, among fields full of food". And yes - I have more than 20 people ready to pick them, just none of them cares to actually do it.

grammycat

#9
No-buildings don't have upkeep costs.  What I didn't explain well is building anything costs-wood/stone/iron.  You're using a lot of wood building those buildings and homes for nomads.  But your main problem seems to be too many workers at some jobs, crop fields too big & using too many farmers, and you need better storage and homes closer to production.  Your forest hubs need to be made more efficient by adding better storage, woodcutters, and homes closer to them.  Many people use Pinstar's crossroads build for forest hubs:  I use something similar but put my barn and homes just outside the gatherers circle.
Here's a link to his you tube series-he's fun to listen to because he sounds like Winnie the Pooh to me, and he's very informative.  It's an unmodded series but the basic techniques are the same.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrmmPKYXqaFacM-rJKB4ak3xfQuWzh20U

Change everyone to laborers and prioritize those fields to be picked up-maybe you can save some of them.

Paeng

Quote from: aquilaspqr on July 28, 2017, 01:23:11 PM"Hey! We're starving!"

Yeah, so unmotivated and too weak to keep working...  :D


Anyway, I'd build your forest hubs something like this (attached)...

7 houses for the 14 needed workers, with a barn and two piles...

4 foresters, 8 gatherers, 2 hunters... ughh, sorry - add one more house for the 2 woodcutters (sawmill).

Add a small market would be good, too...
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aquilaspqr

That's the plan, I already know what to do, but it'll take some time. I'll let you know how it went :D

Whoyou13

Greetings
Maybe your building too fast, my only problem on a year 20 town is tool production. I don't accept huge amount of nomads because they cause trouble in terms of food, clothing, and housing.

I share my gaming experience on how I play Banished with my former town Gahata. Maybe it will help. (tips and hints)

I am not a professional Banished player but this is all based on experienced.
Make sure that the production building is near the residential area.
try not to have a constant builders, if they dont have work, shift then to something useful.
In early gaming always check the production of your people, logs, stone, iron ore, firewoods and food. For example if you had a woodcutter put one worker there then place a limit on its production like 250 for early gaming then when the worker reached it, stop then disable the woodcutter and make the worker useful for other things. when you need firewoods again, then continue processing and increase the limits.
In early gaming I put limits on production and shift bannies work time to time, but not on food production, because in this area  the worker should be stable. Check their production if they are efficient, if they are not, dont hesitate to destroy it. You could design your town later of the game.
I always check if there are adults in the household (gent and ladies) before  i make new residential houses. So they can occupy the new house and build a miserable life under my authority, hahahaha
I dont let kids go to school for early years in gaming, I built school when my town is stable and dont need too much worker. But if you want your people to be academic then send them to school, its your free will. But if you need workers right away, just cancel their scholarship from the school(disable the school).
They always said that water is essential for living and they are right, as much as possible build near the bodies of water, you use the megamod, use it wisely, I am always fond with reeds, shell food, honey,salt and seedlings. Producing them is so easy, but figure it out for yourself and thats the challenge.
Work for food production building that that needs only worker for example the apiary, but dont be redundant, one in every location is enough.

salt, reeds and seedlings are not edible, but they can be traded for something useful and its up to you.
I also built cemetery early so everyone can lay rest and be visited by new generation, plus it adds happiness. And I pay respect on my pioneer bannies hahahaha
There are so many ways to play it, if you struggle try to find ways, because Banished is created that way, and this is not just a building game, its a survival game. And dont just survive, you gotta live.
Also when you play Banished put a story on it on how you survive or how you struggle just like others did.


the attached photos are my early game struggle. Like I said tools. About year 15 to 30
Sorry for bad english, not may native language.

Savidan

#13
More tips if needed, here is the way I start, I did a lot of start to optimize the thing (in Medium level):

1- 6 Houses not too far from barn and the first stock pile with a road beetwen all of that, the 10 banners set to builders.
2- A forest hub, outside the start place with first a little stock pile and a road linked to the start place.
The little stock pile is made for your banners not walk too much to unload the trees and rocks they get when they clean up the place for the forrester, gatherers and hunter's cabin. Keep the stock pile in the hub till the forrester had clean up the area, then deleted it later in the game to provide space for more trees.

I start to set the hunter in the area because he's got the biggest work circle, then build gatherers and forrester around.
4xhunters, 4x Gatherers 2 forresters (I set more forresters later because I use it later in the game for my first trades)

3- One log stock pile outside the forrest area and closed to the road for your forrester to bring back logs. Then a woodcuter and a Firewood storage closed to it (still outside the forrest hub).

4- Build a fisherman dock, try to found a good place, the more waters in the circle, the better yield you will get. Set up to 4 fishermans in it as far as you kept one laborer and one builders at least to clean/build/optimize.
Fisherman is nice because they are constant to provide food and you can remove them with no loss from the dock if you produce enough food and you need banners for something else.

5- You should be closed to 10 tools remaining, build a Blacksmith in your start place and one or 2 houses.

6- Optimize, build a food storage or food cart outside the forrest hub closed to the road, and an other one closed to your fisherman. The less road they had to unload the food, the more they can work.





Tips and tricks:
-Set food limit to 20 000 or more ... you dont care to had too much food, always check the amount of food you had, if it decreased, you can build other fishermans dock or beekeeper, greenhouse, hunters cabin, gatherers ... all are fast food producers. (Try to mix ^^)
- You can let it turn a while to get a "big food stock", if you do, try to increased your log/iron/stone stock with the manual recover tool by the way.
- Never, never build a lot of house at once, you should build some regularly but one by one is better, otherwise you get a babyboom with a lot of new baby to feed.
- If you did the school you will had to wait for a while till you get new laborers so try to overproduce food, build 1-2 houses and ... wait a bit, increased your log/iron/stone, clean, build roads ... plan your expension...
- dont forget a water well  (I always forgot), one in your start place.

then, you can either
- start an other forrest hub (usually that's my first choice since i like to overproduce logs/firewood for trade)
- start to grow crops
- build a church (maybe it's a bit early but why not)
- build an industry area (foundry, quarry ...)
as you want ... but always keep an eye on your food/firewood lvl and .. .for a long game try to keep always more babys than student that's a way to know if you are ok with your population pyramid. 

estherhb

A couple of ideas:  Your Fishing Dock is in a bad spot. Replace it with a Hunting Blind (or more) - one person will bring in 1000+ food on average.  Build a Stacks Burner and produce Charcoal instead of Firewood (you get 11 Charcoal per Log vs only 4 Firewood). Remember that educated workers produce about 25% more than uneducated ones.