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The Labour Pool

Started by A Nonny Moose, November 23, 2014, 01:23:51 PM

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A Nonny Moose

I have a town running that reached 100 bannies today, then started to act up seriously when the labour pool dropped to the area of single digits and sometimes 0.

Currently I have a few people freezing to death because no woodchucks are active even though there are some (2 or 3) people in the labour pool.  At the same time, while I believe I have enough food supply, I am getting hunger zots.

I have three wood-choppers, two forestry huts.  Production sucks.  I also started a coal mine.

These problems appeared out of the blue when I admitted a set of 12 nomads, one of whom starved to death.  The others managed to find housing.

The question is:  How large a labour pool does one need when the population gets larger and the number of working objects increases?
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

Nilla

I have a "rule of thumb", that has proved to work in all of my games. 10-15 % of the workforce as free labourers. No idea, if it is the best, but it fits my way of playing. If it is less, I look over my productionsites, if I might "free" some of the assigned workers, if it´s getting more, I try to assign more labourers to my fields or other productionsites.

A Nonny Moose

Thanks.  I was thinking along those lines.  Looks like full employment is not in the cards for Banished.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

slink

I try to keep at least one laborer free to replace anyone who dies, and I always keep one more teacher employed than I have schools.  At times I can have hundreds of laborers, though, on the crests of the population waves.

A Nonny Moose

For reasons unclear to me at this time, that city starved to death.  Must have been a massive crop failure because out of the blue there was simply no food at all.  By my calculations, I had agriculture to feed 120 people and had a population around 110.

On my system, the game runs so slowly that it takes hours to do much of anything.  Good thing I am retired and have lots of patience.  The wine executive kills the multiprocessing aspects, and makes the program into a single thread.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

irrelevant

#5
Re: your crop failure, a possible explanation.

If you had laborer tasks queued up during the winter, but no laborers available to carry them out, they would have been handled by your (winter-idle) farmers.

If the farmers were still engaged in these tasks when late winter turned to early spring, only then would the farmers have stopped working as laborers.

Then they would have returned to their homes to warm up and eat. At that point, if they decided that they needed more food/fuel in their homes, they would have gone shopping for those things.

Only when this housekeeping was complete, would they have returned to their fields to start planting. But if planting does not start early enough, crops will not germinate. What constitutes "early enough" I do not know, but it probably is based on both season and on temperature. If it is too warm, or too late, planting will be fruitless, and there will be no crop that year.

To compound the problem, if you still had no laborers available, your hunters and gatherers would have been double tasked not only with hunting and gathering, but also with collecting their products and storing (a task that is mainly handled by laborers). So your alternative food production would be hampered there as well.

I have seen this happen in one of my own towns on a small scale, scattered fields being tended by farmers but with absolutely nothing growing. I figured out what had been the cause, and since then I have done everything possible to prevent my farmers from working as laborers in the winter (mainly by creating very few laborer tasks during the winter, as compared to the size of my labor pool).

I try always to have as many laborers as possible, even if it means reducing the number of gatherers, foresters, vendors, traders, etc. I always have at least one laborer, just in case a teacher dies. I prefer to have at least 5-10% of the total workforce, but "as many as possible" can be 20-25% or more.

rkelly17

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on November 23, 2014, 01:23:51 PM
I have a town running that reached 100 bannies today, then started to act up seriously when the labour pool dropped to the area of single digits and sometimes 0.

Currently I have a few people freezing to death because no woodchucks are active even though there are some (2 or 3) people in the labour pool.  At the same time, while I believe I have enough food supply, I am getting hunger zots.

I have three wood-choppers, two forestry huts.  Production sucks.  I also started a coal mine.

These problems appeared out of the blue when I admitted a set of 12 nomads, one of whom starved to death.  The others managed to find housing.

The question is:  How large a labour pool does one need when the population gets larger and the number of working objects increases?

There are times in the early part of the game where I play with the labor pool at a bare minimum (which to my mind is 2 up to 40-50 citizens) in order to maximize production of necessary commodities, but I try to keep it at least at 6-8. Before I build the town hall I also check to see who has graduated from school and is eligible to pair up and build them a house ASAP near where workers are needed. I also build barns near food production to maximize working time.

When I play I usually have one woodcutter up until I start trading, then, if firewood is low, go to keep enough for both heating and trade. In part that depends on educated or uneducated woodcutters. Ever since I watched the "Crossroads Build" videos I have been starting my foresters on plant only and removed all stone and iron from the circle (using laborers) until it is full of mature trees and then let the foresters cut and plant. In the meantime laborers cut logs as needed from areas I'll want to build on later. When the foresters start cutting I set the log limit at 1000 and the firewood limit at 800-900. At 100 people I have usually 4 gatherers, 3 hunters, 4 foresters, 1 woodcutter, 1 teacher, 9 farmers (tilling 9 9X9 plots) 1-3 vendors, 1-3 traders, 1 blacksmith and 1 tailor. Depending on what crops I have at that point (grain being the key item) I would have either 2-4 fishers or 3 beekeepers. I cycle builders as necessary, often not using all of the default slots. That usually leaves enough laborers to fill in for the dying, but it is often a close call as the first generation dies off. If I get down to 0 laborers I have to watch very carefully for deaths so that I can re-balance work assignments. Not a good idea, though. Usually by that point I'm starting to work on a second forest node (gatherers, hunters, foresters and woodcutter with barn and storage yard) if I have enough single graduates for the necessary houses. I'm also looking for a second market square. So far, so good. I haven't had a town die off for awhile. I should say that I am now using the "Better Fields" mod, @RedKetchup's "Irrelevant Tweek Crops" mod and @slink's "Immortal Trees" mod for farming. My apiary is by @RedKetchup. This approach worked pre-modding as well.

I used to build mines and quarries all the time, but once I started learning trade I've gone for surface stone and iron until I can produce ale and trade for it. Mines and quarries take a lot of workers and they die fast. Plus when they are empty they are ugly.

A Nonny Moose

Thanks for that.  The point about the farmers as labourers is well taken and that is probably what happened.  This only seems to be an occurrence when the population is getting around 100 or more, and I think it is over-ambition on my part.  I'll certainly keep this in mind.  Live and learn.

This program is so complex that it is easy to get distracted and lose sight of the whole picture, and by the time you get back to it, it is usually too late.  Neat piece of programming.  Keeping all the plates spinning at once is a real challenge, and will probably cause some people to give up.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

irrelevant

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on November 24, 2014, 09:31:05 AM
Keeping all the plates spinning at once
This exact metaphor has occurred to me more than once regarding Banished. :)

A Nonny Moose

Quote from: irrelevant on November 24, 2014, 05:18:29 PM
Quote from: A Nonny Moose on November 24, 2014, 09:31:05 AM
Keeping all the plates spinning at once
This exact metaphor has occurred to me more than once regarding Banished. :)
Yes, this kind of thing will drive some dilettante players away from the program.  I, on the other hand, persist.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

rkelly17

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on November 24, 2014, 09:31:05 AM
This program is so complex that it is easy to get distracted and lose sight of the whole picture, and by the time you get back to it, it is usually too late.  Neat piece of programming.  Keeping all the plates spinning at once is a real challenge, and will probably cause some people to give up.

Indeed. Just yesterday at c. 200 citizens I lost track of food and had to quick build a number of farms. Fortunately I had enough people awaiting houses and enough laborers to populate the farms--not to mention about two years worth of food in storage to ride through the deficit (though my supplies dropped from 60+ thousand to 40+ thousand before I righted the ship). You just can't look away even for a minute in this game.

A Nonny Moose

Interesting that you had such a huge surplus.  Are you growing all this or trading for it?  If trading, what are you using for trade goods?
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

Nilla

I don't know if you read my present blog. In this thread I compare my two towns, built on the same map (one as fast as possible, the other slow and relaxing).

Here I have 100 inhabitants in both settlements. They are very different but both prosperous in its own way.

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=671.msg11934#msg11934


rkelly17

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on November 25, 2014, 01:04:19 PM
Interesting that you had such a huge surplus.  Are you growing all this or trading for it?  If trading, what are you using for trade goods?

I always try to run a food-production surplus and build enough barns to hold it all. If I get a little behind in barn building I stash some in a trading post for awhile. I track it pretty carefully in the town hall window. In the early years my goal is 3000 food in inventory at all times, though on some maps I have to settle for 1800-2000 for years 2 and 3. Lately I've been starting on Medium and building 2 9X9 fields (with 1 farmer each) right in front of the barn where the land is already cleared for an immediate crop. Then I collect 250-280 logs for construction and firewood. Then I build (in order) a second barn, a gatherer (with 1 worker for the immediate future), a wood cutter, a hunter (with 1 or 2--need both leather and food), two houses, a forester (with 1 planting only) and enough houses to house everyone. During this time I have 7-4 builders depending on what is under construction and everybody else laborers to collect materials as needed. That is usually done by the beginning of Year 2. Depending on how many people age up I assign more gatherers and hunters while keeping at least 2 laborers and 2 builders. from there it depends on what is needed most.

When I first start trading I trade firewood for seeds and livestock. As time goes on and when I have enough workers I start orchards for ale production and then trade ale for stone and iron. Depending on merchants I can get fully stocked on seeds and livestock somewhere around year 20. I then focus only on ale for stone and iron unless I have a year of food deficit when I buy food. Before I have my wool and leather sources fully up and maximized I'll also but some leather and wool.

This does not put me in the class with people like @irrelevant or @Nilla, but most of my towns do OK.

A Nonny Moose

Interesting scenario.  Some of the features are quite intriguing.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/