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Planning a little before starting

Started by Kaldir, May 31, 2014, 12:28:35 PM

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Kaldir

This game really invites to plan ahead, with all building available from the start and the ability to pause the building process. In a new town I started yesterday a overdid it a tiny bit, maybe. The first two screenshots are all from before unpausing the game, with the town center in #1 and the southern industrial area in #2. The third shot is from year 2 or 3 when the town is building up.

Before unpausing, I had to remove all the roads and stockpiles (why can't I pause those!) on the area's beyond the river and stream, to prevent my poor citizens from trying to build them. I also removed all the stone roads in the town center, but left all the dirt roads in place and assigned one builder to slowly built them.

The start was a bit rough on this one. I only had 2 kids next to the 8 adults. I was trapped between the river in the south and the stream west and north, and could only move east for gathering materials until I built a bridge. In the east I built my (temporary) forest circle, so I had to send my citizens further away to cut down trees.
And what I underestimated, was how hard it is to gather materials when you fill the whole area with buildings. So a year of careful unpausing building after building and re-pausing them just in time, so they would be cleared but not loaded with wood and stone yet. The town is doing okay now though, with the trade port set up and a second market working.

So, do you plan your town like this too, or do you go with the flow?

rkelly17

Holy Pre-Planning, Batman! I don't think I've ever done that much (except on the town I'm doing for @solarscreen's every-house-in-the-market-circle challenge). My obsessiveness shows itself by not liking all the little pause symbols all around. I'll plan a bit and then erase whatever I'm not going to build soon. Then I'll try to remember where it all goes.

Kaldir

#2
I even held back. Well, a bit. I didn't plan the farming east (mostly because I needed a forest circle there) and neither the pastures in the north, and did nothing (not even in my head) with the west. :D

Edit: I don't mind the pause icons much. Which is good since more than half my town still consist of paused buildings.

Bobbi

I can't wait to see this a few years down the road. It is going to be gorgeous!

Kaldir

Thanks. Although I think it will take quite some years before gorgeous visits this in town. For now I'm taking down every tree I can find to get enough materials. It's turning into a barren place right now.

salamander

I might pre-plan small areas, especially if the space is cramped and I want to make sure everything fits.  But at most, that might involve half a dozen buildings -- nothing on this scale.

Thinking about even  trying to do it makes my head hurt.  :o

Kaldir

Sorry to make your head hurt, @salamander.

It's now the start of year 14 and the town start to show a bit like a town, although still quite some yellow pause icons. The roads look okay even without the stone roads in between. I stuck to the plan mostly, although I changed to stone houses sooner than planned. An extra, temporary, fishing dock was placed between the planned trade posts because I needed some extra food. I also started planning some development in the west, including three houses just south of the cemetery. 61 citizens now, 21 families in 21 homes. The north (not really shown in the screenshots) is getting stripped from trees, stones and iron.

salamander

I'm with @Bobbi, that's going to look really nice when it's finished.  I'm still in the build it and tear it down later stage of planning.  I really like the looks of these types of towns -- boulevards, parks, maybe a freeway or two -- but haven't tried it myself yet.  Mostly because I'm pretty sure I couldn't pull it off.  I think trying what you've done would put me in the Analysis Paralysis ward.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

rkelly17

Freeways are nice, @salamander, but watching the citizens walking around the cloverleaf gets a bit weird.

mariesalias

That is some impressive planning! I tend to plan out in advance too, but not that much. :D 

I really like the avenues you are making. I look forward to seeing how your town develops!

Kaldir

#10
Thanks. It might take a while before I have some updates, because I am a real slow player. The planning alone took a few hours :D

Edit:
Quote from: salamander on May 31, 2014, 03:59:06 PM
I might pre-plan small areas, especially if the space is cramped and I want to make sure everything fits.

I had an issue with cramped space as well. I started planning with the town square around the original cart with two wells and two open spaces for trees. Then the chapel west, town hall east, two schools north and a market south. Then I built most of the roads for the north-south and east-west avenues. When I was searching for a nice looking place for the hospital, I wanted it in the corner between chapel, schools and stream, but one little corner of it didn't fit. I really liked how it would look there (or at least, I hoped), so I moved everything I already placed one square to the east. I was glad that bug with unremovable roads was fixed in 1.0.2 :D

Kaldir

#11
I had to redo part of the north-south avenue. I made the orchards 5x15 but that doesn't look balanced with the trees. Changed it to 5x13 now. Before the change this was what Potato Avenue looked like:

http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/8_03_06_14_8_37_04.bmp



It was the only seed available at the time. It looks much better with Chestnut though:

http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/8_03_06_14_8_48_31.bmp



Again I changed some small things. A little square, swapped my (unbuild) second tailor and blacksmith, an extra house near the chapel, etc. Maybe I should think more carefully about this next time. ;D

I might have change too much though. This merchant lost her boat somehow:

http://worldofbanished.com/gallery/8_03_06_14_8_34_20.bmp

rkelly17

I love your boulevards and avenues, @Kaldir. Just to show you what you have inspired, here is a picture of my latest town centre. I was feeling very streesed out by trying to cram as many people as possible in a market circle, so I started a town on the same map and built it my own way. You can compare this with the pictures I posted in the challenge section. It's not very far along yet, but it is much more relaxing. The houses along the extended square are planned to be stone, for the better class of citizens to live in.

Kaldir

That's looking good. I also got inspiration for building wider and greener from others, here and on SRS forum, so it's good to spread that a bit more.

I often find the houses a bit too crowded next to each othe, so I often space them one apart as you did here. It looks promissing, @rkelly17.

ertira

  @Kaldir
        I also set up as much as I can but I break it up to be a lot less than yours initially. My main or first settlement is fairly well planned out as far as primary buildings, Market, School, Blacksmith, Tailor, Church, Log Cutter, Storage Barns, Stockpiles and paths etc. I almost always setup as a Gather/Hunter/Fishing society until around turn 45-50. I have only begun to branch out into farms, orchards and pastures in the last few seeds I have done. Also I minimize the usage of Traders to maybe 2 at max. So I have played maybe 22-24 seeds as strictly Gather/Fish/Hunter and the last 2 as the other fancier stuff. Am always curious how high a stable population I can achieve, around 170-190 as a Gather/Fish/Hunting base seems to be comfortable on small to medium maps. I only play on random seeds anyway, they are more fun. I did play the one challenge map though about build sequence. Nice map. 6934 I think?

       As far as outlying or expansion areas, I only set up a Forester hub as my expansion point and make a path leading to the areas set up to allow for alignment of the buildings. Then I delete the path(s). Since getting into farming, orchards and pastures have  begun to set aside areas for them and do fill in the area on pause. I experiment too much to actually hope to use them though until I get to them. Paths are about the most important structure to me in the beginning of a game though.

      You I have to admit setup some really awesome layouts. Eventually I will too but that is a future date yet to be determined,  :) I tend to be a bit more less scenery oriented in a way although I do not enjoy cluttered or crowded areas much. I tend to appreciate a nice suburban sprawl.

      I do seem to have a problem though with taking pictures of my maps. I took 1 every 5 years for one of the challenges, And when I got to like year 55 went to view them out of curiosity and cannot find them  :'( If they exist they are somewhere I have never been. I use the Prt Scr key. Oh well. Will get that part going eventually.

      1 last item  of curiosity, At year 100 I have maybe 300 to 400 population, Adults, Students, Kids. I do tend to build my houses when needed though. food is never a problem, nor is health and happiness. I build Herbalist, I like them in my settlements. In fact each settlement has a hunter, forester, gatherer also. I just kinda incorporate them when I annex the hub. Hospitals and graveyards are cool with me, But I tend to stifle my population. Oh well.  It just seemed most of you have oodles more Pops than I do at the same year.

Oh well.. Thanks for sharing your layouts. In fact thank you to everyone for sharing. I get to learn more that way.
 
   Ertira.