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How can I prevent procreation?

Started by realm174, January 19, 2015, 10:01:15 AM

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realm174

Things were going fairly well. I had 200,000 food, nearly 1000 population, and things were somewhat stable. Somehow, something happened (haven't figured out what it was yet) and food went down to 0, people started dying of starvation. At this stage of the game, I have 180 families left, and 275 homes.  Typically, having more homes than families will mean that they will procreate. Well, until I get my resources back under control, I would prefer if they don't procreate. Other than destroying the "extra" houses, is there anything else I can do to prevent the population to grow right away?

thanks

rkelly17

If you have no builders you can mark houses for destruction and no one will move in. As long as there are no builders none will be destroyed. Then you can reclaim them as population goes back up.

Just be careful not to add builders in the meantime or else they will deconstruct the houses.

I find that checking the "Production" tab in the town hall every year is a necessity after a certain point to make sure that I'm not operating at a food deficit. If I am, then I can trade for food until I've built enough food-producing buildings. I also once lost a bunch of fruit to ale production which created a large food deficit. After that I built extra orchards just for ale.

realm174

Ah yes, thanks for the tip, marking them for destruction should work. I don't have any workers left at the moment anyway.. :)  I'm still not sure what happened. Over the last 10-12 years, my food went down to nothing, and so did my firewood and logs. Yet, I had plenty of all that. It's almost as if all the workers decided to stop working... I do have orchards to produce the fruits for ale. Maybe I just had my production of ale going too high. Maybe I'll stop those for a couple of years too, to see if things pick up. I've been trading ale for food forever and I think that was working out good, as this is how my food storage went so high.

In any case, i'll give that a try and see if things pick up. Thanks again!!

Nilla

I agree with @rkelly17, good advice. One more thing to keep the supply under control long term, is to look at the graphs at the town hall. If you buy a lot of food, the production statistic doesn't give enough information.

I give an example: Look at the food graph from my latest game. I have marked different parts of the game.

At the beginning - green - everything was under control, the stores increased as the population grew. This is the best strategy. Stores at least 100*population, growing as the population grows. If you buy a lot of food or/and make a lot of ale, I recommend more.
Later - yellow - it was OK
At the end - the stores were getting smaller and there will be starvation soon.

This was an experiment. I blogged it if you want to know why it went wrong.


rkelly17

Quote from: Nilla on January 20, 2015, 01:44:27 AM
I agree with @rkelly17, good advice. One more thing to keep the supply under control long term, is to look at the graphs at the town hall. If you buy a lot of food, the production statistic doesn't give enough information.

It is always nice to get an endorsement from a superior player. Thank you, @Nilla!

I know there are players who do quite well buying most of their food, and I salute them. I've never had much luck with that approach myself, so I prefer to produce it all myself and stick to buying stone and iron (and maybe logs and coal) after I have all the seeds and livestock. Beyond that, I like the look of a prosperous agricultural community, so it pleases me aesthetically.

realm174

@Nilla - I am definitely curious to know what happened in your case and see if it can help me figure out what happened in my case. Where can I find your blog?

I've attached my last 50 years food. The first dip, that went from 100k down to almost nothing, that was me experimenting and taking in a bunch of nomads (never again!!). The second dip, from 218k to 164k, that was when I moved some stuff around on the map. (Killed a few orchards and fields to relocate them.. in retrospect, I should have created the new ones before deleting the old ones.. LOL!) The last long dip, well, I have no idea what happened. Sure, I had almost 1000 citizens, but at *100, I should still have had plenty of food...


A Nonny Moose

Is it possible you had a crop failure?
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/

realm174

Of all my various crops, at different of the maps, all at the same time? I suppose that's possible as well yes...

As for my firewood (that I mentioned earlier), I think I figured out the issue.  I was trading Ale and Firewood for food. I had 2 trading posts, each with 7500 firewood in inventory. I think that was working fairly well and steady. I could see my firewood reserve fluctuating, but over all staying around 30,000. Then I added another trading post and set the inventory to the same. That's when my firewood started to creep down.. Between the citizens needs and the sudden new requirement for 7500 firewood, that might have just been too much all at once.

I set for destruction a bunch of houses, as suggested before. That's keeping the procreation under control, and the food is slowly going back up. I've also paused production at all but one tavern, at which I am alternating the type of ale produced based on my food inventory. Food is slowly going back up, and population is floating around 500.. I have about 40 more families than houses, but that's ok, nobody is homeless (where the heck do they live then?? Multiple families per house?)

A Nonny Moose

I always keep a boarding house (third entry on the housing menu) for anybody who needs to move out of the family home.  It is often empty or occupied by the occasional, rarely admitted, nomads.  Takes up a little land and a lot of wood to build, but seems otherwise a harmless bit of insurance.

"There is a boarding house
"Not far away
"Where they serve pork and beans
"Three times a day."
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: realm174 on January 21, 2015, 05:20:55 AM
I have about 40 more families than houses, but that's ok, nobody is homeless (where the heck do they live then?? Multiple families per house?)
"Families" in the town hall summary means "potential families." It includes adult children living with their parents, and female students down to 16, and probly some others as well.

If you have 40 more families than houses, you most likely could build 20-30 more houses, and they all would get new couples to move into them and start child production. Of course then you would really have a mess on your hands!

Personally, it never bothers me if I have many more families than I have houses, that just means I am keeping population expansion at a lower level than it would be if I was just building houses with abandon.

Nilla

I blogged the settlement here:
http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=741.0
I tried to expand fast with uneducated people as long as I could. It worked very well in another game with some good mods (http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=671.0) but without mods is much more difficult.

I think the problem, you had with the food, was not a mystery. You produced less food then you needed over a period of time. If you don't buy the difference, even large stores will sooner or later be gone.

realm174

Valuable info, as usual, thank you!

I do have a boarding house, one of the first thing I built, early in the game (around year 10-12 or so). I do like the quote... lyrics from a song maybe?

Thanks for the clarification on family @irrelevant. I wasn't actually aware of that. I was under the impression that a family was actually a completed family (at least a couple) ready to take ownership of their house. I do not plan to give them such luxury at this time tho.. not until food production is a tad higher. As it is, I think I am consuming a little more than I am producing, the difference coming from the traders. So until I increase the food/firewood/tools production, nobody gets a house.

@Nilla, I think this is what's happening as well. I spent a few years not taking anything from the traders to see how my food is going, and as noted above, realized I am producing a little less than what I'm using. If I get the taverns going again, food storage will definitely drop again. So I think what's pretty much what was going on. Too much was going to ale production, and not enough was being produced for eating. So it got out of control. I just thought I had a good deal going on there, brewing ale and trading for food. I don't think I was paying enough attention to the levels at hand tho.  Thanks for the blog links, I'll go have a read while I'm waiting for the farmers to do their thing.. :)


A Nonny Moose

Yes, the quote is song lyrics.  It is the chorus of a long campfire song from my checkered past.  The first verse starts with "Ham and eggs we never see ..."

Actually, I think it originated in the lumber camps during the great depression, so it probably came to me from my good Aunt who was a Sisters of Service nun working there as a Nurse Practitioner (long before there was such a thing as an NP).  She had some wild tales of field surgery in the bush.
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/

realm174

So in case anyone is curious, things are catching up slowly.. I am producing enough ale to trade to compensate for my lack of food production. I am thinking I want to build more taverns, but I can't at the moment. I can't build anything at all... I have all those houses marked for demolition still, that I am reviving one at a time here and there, so until that's completed, I can't assign any laborers as builders.

As it stands, I am producing about 63000 units of food, but I'm using 76000. So if it wasn't for the trades, I would be having issues again. My citizens are still procreating, despite the lack of housing. There's nobody homeless yet, but I have 194 habitable homes for 336 families (679 citizens). I have 2 boarding houses, but both are empty. So I'm not sure where they're all stacking up for sleep... Maybe they sleep on shift.. :)

Some of the food usage is probably the various things I use to make ale. That would make sense. What I would like to achieve is to produce at least as much food as they consume, and use the trading mostly to increase the reserve.

As I was focusing on food mostly, I went through a few years with no tools. That didn't help the food production.. or the production of anything really. I have 2 blacksmiths, but they can't keep up. So again, I have to rely on the very rare delivery of tools by the traders.

I would like to setup more tailors too. Looks like my sheep get really busy.. I have 8000 wool in inventory.  I could trade some I suppose, but I'd rather trade wool coats

In any case, I'm at year 144, things are starting to look better.. I'm thinking another 10-12 years and I should be able to start unlocking most of those houses...

realm174

Quick update.. We are on year 148, and my food production finally matches the food consumption. Both are at approximately 70,000 units. I import about 16000 units per year from the ports.So I unlocked a few houses, and a year later, things are still somewhat balanced. I see, however, how easy things can swing around. I need to increase food production a little bit to match the citizen increase. Thankfully, I have lots of room for fields, and I have about 60 laborers. So I'll put a few of them to work..