Yesterday I started a new game. I don't know if it's going to be interesting enough to tell about. Maybe I lose interest, as our diligent friend (we all know who I talk about ;D ) has finished his latest creations. But somehow I like to write these blogs; I like to go back and look at my screenshots from day before, I like to think about things I could tell during the game and if someone likes to read my thoughts, yes, I like that, too.
To play the Adam and Eve-challenge, I downloaded the latest CC-mod: "Curse of the Golden Lama" .This time, I choose the Golden Lama, medium start on a medium size map. There are a lot of new kind of maps, climates and starting options. I wasn't very impressed by the arid climate, I tried lately, so I choose normal fair conditions. I think now, that I should have picked something else, the snow on the palm trees looks weird (see second picture). But, too late, I don't want to begin from the start again.
I know, many mods are compatible, but I have no others activated.
I will make myself two special rules:
- only one trading port
- no trade orders (except maybe some special seeds or animals)
- only CC-houses, as upgraded as I can
Why this?
I have some problems with the CC-mod. One big thing, that makes it less enjoyable for me to play, is the bad economy of many production sites. More or less all advanced building materials (and a lot of other things, too) are complicated and expensive to produce. I have absolutely nothing against that. What I don't like is, that they are so cheap to buy. So if you play it with a "normal economic sense" you never produce any materials. You build a bunch of TP and buy it. With only one TP, I have to produce most of the building materials myself, and with upgraded CC-houses, I will need a lot of it.
First I had the idea, that I would only buy seeds and animals, but there are also stuff you want to get rid of. Things that only take space in our barns (yes, our all "beloved" mushrooms, but there are also other things). So I will buy what I want and what I need. If it's some advanced building materials; fine! Some of it at a bargain, why not! It would probably not be enough anyhow. I will have to produce most of it and that's what I want. Forget about the bad economy, just produce it, as good as I can.
First picture
This is the look of the Golden Lama. I have no idea what it's good for. You can send an adventurer there. You know me, of cause I did. At once! Want to find out. But...... look at the event log; seems to be a dangerous bussines. :( maybe Mechel has better luck!
The exotic trees look nice. At the beginning I will build most log cabins. I like them.
If you look carefully in the middle (no Sweden flag there this time, at least not yet). There's a small wood chopper. I had one in my other CC-game too. It produce a bit less than a normal, but still 4 wood from each log. At the beginning, it will be enough. Later, charcoal is the most economic fuel. But you need clay to build it and I don't have that yet.
I had lettuce, raspberries and olives from the start. I usually let farmers plant orchard trees in the winter, than I pause them and wait until the trees are grown. I use to build 1-2 orchards more than I need, so I can demolish them and use the trees, if I'm short of logs.
Second picture
Oh dear..... Exploring the lama is really ugly, dangerous business. I don't know how long I could do this! Lose one explorer each year! ??? :(
Here you can also see, why I said at the start that it might have been better with another climate; The snow on the palm trees looks odd!
I can tell you now that I abandoned the exploration of the Lama. But not because of the killed people. Shortly after this schreenshot, the game crashed. I did nothing, that could have caused it, as far as I could see. I restarted it from the latest save, and at the same time; crash again! I have no other mod than the CC, that could be in conflict, I didn't do anything, just crash. The only thing I could think about, was, that my third adventurer might have found something, that causes the crash. So, next try without adventurer. No crash!
I have tried to read at the CC forum, if this happens to others as well, but it's quite an active forum and it's not easy to find old threads on a place you aren't familiar with (in a foreign language). Maybe someone here knows more.
Third picture
An overview of the developing settlement. The lama will be a monument at the center marketplace. Nothing else!
Nice looking early town! I really like the CC markets. Too bad about the crash, I had crashes with CC as well, unfortunately.
We have a mosquito invasion here, not in my Banished town, as far as I can see, here in life. So it's not very nice to go outside. You are never pleased about the wheather. The whole spring was windy, now I wish a lot of wind, to blow the mosquitoes away. :-\ ;)
The mosquitoes, chased me inside the house, to my computer and to Banished. So I played a lot yesterday.
First picture
I will build a small industrial area at my trading port; a quarry, mines, production sites for advanced building materials.
Right is a Tidal Pool next to a small barn. The dredger (funny word, I thought it was something for salt on the table) catches different kind of lovely seafood. It has about the same productivity as a fishing dock. And occatianally he finds a pearl. We will see later if it´s for some use.
To support the people in that industrial area with fruit and vegetables, as long as there's no market, I built one field. I plan to change the crop every year between lettuce and raspberries. But look at the farmer! It's autumn, not one single raspberry is picked! Only lots of resources! :-\ ??? Of cause there's a reason, and of cause, eventually, I found out why: With the CC mod you can build fields and orchards everywhere on the steepest mountain. But if you build it too high, on impassable ground, that part of the field will not be planted. And if you have one such little square the rest of the field will be planted but not harvested! :-\ After I made the field one square thinner, it worked properly.
Second picture
The years have passed. Everything works fine. Here is a major part of my industrial area. Look at the stock piles, they look unusual with all the materials. But that one with the reed straws on it, its not accepted. No one puts anything there, I can't take away the straw in a normal way. OK, reed is troublesome in life, too. We have too much of it in our bay and struggle each year to keep it away. But also here I found a way; first a road, reed gone, than a new stock pile. Wish it was so easy in life, too. ;)
I will tell you more about the production buildings, when I have examined the productivity properly.
Third picture
I have started to build the more advanced CC-houses. This is a country house. I don't really need the small markets there, but I am not sure of the category of some food and sometimes I want to know. That's why I built them there. By the way; they look nice, too. Now I know, that seeweed is a protein and honey a fruit!
Fourth picture
New merchandise. I don't know the use of this but probably replacement to ale for teetotaler.
Fifth picture
I've started to upgrade buildings; the blacksmith and some small houses. I've also started to upgrade a barn, but it takes a long time.
at least you have lamas "who say yes" all the time :)
Yes, and these are not as dangerous as the golden one, no poisonous arrows there! Maybe poisonous spit (doesn't lamas spit?) ;D
I agree that the production chains in CC are pretty convoluted. I usually only play with one or two TPs anyway, so when I tried this Golden Lama version with "furnishings" and such, I find producing the "advanced materials" to be a chore because you can easily make them yourself, that's not issue for me, but if you leave the production buildings running, it's hard to balance the inputs and outputs. More often than not, I find myself overproducing "fancy furniture" or "pottery." Then, I have odd amounts of various (expensive/high trade value) materials which are hard to track. Since they are produced slowly, the small discrepancies add up to a lot of value, and since they are so many different materials, I find myself shutting on and off toggling production sites more than doing anything else, haha.
Another thing I don't like is the gold, silver, and gem stuff. The chartered company and bootlegger's rewards for gold and silver coins are very, very underwhelming. Considering you have to mine or sluice to get ore, and then smelt it into coins, and the gem is rare but it requires a separate building. The gemcutter's production site is basically always off on my map. After doing all this, the least you could expect is some good rewards from the 3 or 4 specialized traders who only accept this new currency, but no, they just bring you 10 ale or 8 coats or something pointless like that. Sometimes you can get luxury items like chocolate, tea, or some type of hard liquor like scotch or rum; but, the amount is so small you wonder why you wasted time constructing 3 different buildings in a chain to get this, lol.
Oh yeah, one more thing, don't forget to eventually upgrade your blacksmith and tailor for better tools and clothes.
Quote from: Nilla on June 30, 2015, 12:11:11 PM
Yes, and these are not as dangerous as the golden one, no poisonous arrows there! Maybe poisonous spit (doesn't lamas spit?) ;D
Oh, yes they certainly do, and nasty smelly stuff it is too.
I agree with you,
@Dookie ; it's not hard to produce these materials. After running my fuel refinery, brick maker and glass maker a few years, I have plenty of it in my stores, also some of these packed building supplies. That's not my problem with these things.
My problem is this:
You need furnace fuel to produce brick and glass. (I have nothing against that.)
To produce 10 furnace fuel, you need 25 firewood or charcoal. ( That too is alright with me.)
But if you count (and in this case I agree with some of you; it's much better not to, but sorry, I can't help it, that's the way I am). Trade value of the input materials; 75 if you use charcoal, 100 if you use fire wood.
Now to the part that spoils the fun for me: Furnace fuel has the trade value of 3 (!!!!). Input value 75 or 100, output value 30. I do not make such business in life and do not really want it in Banished either.
The same with bricks. 15 clay and 10 furnace fuel gives 3 Bricks. Input 15 +3*10=45 (I am nice and count the trade value of the fuel not the production cost). Trading value of the output; 18.
There are more products like this. I don't mind the production costs. It's the tradevalue that's too low. It's not necessary to make a big profit. But it shouldn't be so much cheaper, to buy the stuff.
But we also have the opposite; charcoal. It's a fuel, equal in use to firewood. You need far less logs to produce it and the productivity of each plant is much higher. 1 log gives 11 charcoal and one plant with 2 worker could produce more than 2000 fuel each year. It's an annual tradeprofit of more than 6000. Almost like
@RedKetchup´s pies, before he changed the production and tradevalue. You might remember, I complained a lot about that. :-[
Now I will stop the complaining. In this game, I have tried to forget about this. Instead I will show you a couple of pictures from yesterday.
First pictureHm, I just said I will stop complaining and now I find this picture. Well it's not really a complain. Only these orchards are weird. They are harvested all year and nothing is spoiled. First I thought it might be something special with the olives, I had from the start. I think olives could be harvested at different times, but I'm sure, apricots are harvested only in autumn.
Anyhow I'm upgrading everything I can. You can see it
@Dookie. The tailor isn't upgraded yet on this picture. I had no ropes. And you need them for the upgrade. I would have built one rope maker, even if it's one of those "bad" materials, but I have no hemp and there haven't been any seedtraders since I don't know when. I also miss cloth because I have no cotton.
I like the upgraded barns! :D :D
Second pictureOoops, I play with disasters on and the well is too far away. :(
Finally I could buy enough rope to upgrade the tailor, (not done yet but it's the footprint close to the upgraded blacksmith.)
I solved the issues with coal / charcoal / fuel like this:
(First my complete list of mods which I have done with my own tool)
List of Banished mods sorted by load order:
TimeIsMoneyAltVersion1ByDarkbibou.pkm
betterharvesting.pkm
NomadsZeroPop.pkm
ALittleBitRidiculousStorage.pkm
TradersAcceptAll.pkm
CCNoSmoke.pkm
SpecializedFuels.pkm *
endiadika6CoalasMaterial.pkm *
wintinAudioTweak.pkm
LegalizedMarijuana.pkm
elfSmallerVendors.pkm
big_rings.pkm
TreeGrowth.pkm
tighterroadsextended.pkm
Wooden_signs.pkm
elfStorageCarts.pkm
roadbound.pkm
vBetterRainSound.pkm
BlackLiquidRain.pkm
SJGL_Small_Markets.pkm
IrrelevantSmallBarns.pkm
StorageShed.pkm
newmedievaltown.pkm
newmedievalCastle.pkm
ColonialCharterCotGL.pkm
TreeOfLifeVersion1ByDarkbibou.pkm
FastFoodStand.pkm
ToolShed.pkm
wintinCoastalhouse.pkm
FishFarm.pkm
JapaneseFacilities.pkm
littlehouse.pkm
Covering.pkm
GrassyRoads.pkm
CombinedMoreResources.pkm
oneyearisoneyear.pkm
Cathedral.pkm
* these ones did it for me:
Specialized Fuels (http://colonialcharter.com/index.php/forum/add-ons-companion-mods-translations/1209-specialized-fuels)
Coal as Material (Colonial Charter mod) (http://banishedinfo.com/mods/view/279-Coal-as-Material-Colonial-Charter-mod)
^in this order above NMT and CC
Now the Fuel Refinery is obsolete, you can create Charcoal (furnace coal) or Charcoal (heating coal) with the stacks burner / brick maker and Furnace coal / Heating coal with the mine.
The furnace coal is material but its limit is set by log limit, the heating coal is also material but its limit is set by fuel limit.
Edit: no, the heating coal is limited by the wood limit.
It's a little bit confusing but you can get used to it.
(I just remembered in my last save that the wood limit was reached but furnace coal was still stocked.)
This is kinda weird, that in tropical land, snow appears. But anyway good screenshots.
Quote from: Gordon Dry on July 01, 2015, 01:10:13 PM
I solved the issues with coal / charcoal / fuel like this:
Sorry, I don't really understand, what issues you have fixed with this mod. Please explain it again to a dumb foreigner. The only issue I have, so far, is that the charcoal is too easy to produce as fuel (need so little logs) and that the stacks burner/brick maker is too powerful (produce a trading value of over 6000 each year) . I know that coal isn't a fuel anymore in the CC-mod and it makes the production of steel tools a bit easier but, that's no big thing.
Quote from: DesoPL on July 02, 2015, 03:08:51 AM
This is kinda weird, that in tropical land, snow appears. But anyway good screenshots.
Thank, you. And yes, I should have chosen another climate, there are plenty of new and more realistic ones. But as I realized this, I had already built some years and didn't want to start over again, so now it is; snow on palm trees! :-\ ;)
@Nilla , complaining about games is half the fun, haha jk. But yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you said. However, the furnace fuel problem isn't as annoying to me as the Building Supplier, who makes 2 packages: "furnishings" and "building supplies." Furnishings are the worst. There are two formulas, and they both suck because you either need
(pottery + furniture + glassware + rug) or (fancy furniture + bedding + candle)
The first formula makes more sense because "fancy furniture" requires "hardwood" which forces you to make a special forester site for hardwood, whereas regular "furniture" only uses regular logs, so I made the potter and produced some rugs from my excess wool. But if I use the first formula, candles are useless unless I'm upgrading mines/quarries (very rare), but okay, at least I can turn them into candlebundles for fuel. What about the bedding though? I always have a ton of feathers clogging up my economy, so I built a hardwood forester and a bedding maker, and started using the 2nd formula. You can guess what happen to my inputs for the first formula. It's tedious as hell.
The issue with the furnace fuel creating a loss in value is also troubling, but since it is a single-player game that is balanced by playstyle (ie. how much you like trading will determine how much profit/loss, and the potential cost is only realized once an exchange is made), it doesn't bother me as much. By the late game, I don't usually care if I'm trading at a profit or loss because the costs are not really relevant because by then, I'm usually pretty "rich." The way CC adds products; it's impossible for it to be nicely balanced: think about it, what would you rather have, a few hundred Stone or 1 or 2 Polished Gems? Of course, the stone is more useful, but the gems have higher price and are almost completely useless. Therefore, the real value isn't the market price at the trading post. Many people have the same idea about economics IRL, like if a product is worth such and such on the market, then it must be valuable, and people store value in useless junk like gold, and then there isn't enough gold to make electronics cheaply. But I disgress, that's a rant for another forum. My point is, profit can't get you everything unless you play a certain way. To be real, all the prices are kind of arbitrary. The part of it that bothers me is the balancing of inputs like you had mentioned.
This reminds me of when I used to play Path of Exile (action RPG like Diablo), and in those games where it is multiplayer, the discrepancy in trading value was killing me. Instead of using standard gold coins or whatever for currency, they had this bartering system, but it turned out not to be true barter because you still had currency in the form of "Orbs" There were various values assigned to orbs, and they did random shit to your gear, so you can choose to use the currency on your gear but nobody but the richest players would actually be smart to use them because the trading value was higher. Add ontop of that it was hard to establish a trade, and so most players rarely did it, but I guarantee there was a whole bunch of people not even playing the game as intended, and just trading for everything due to the weird currency exchange setup. It's a great game if it weren't for the trading value that ruined it for me. In Banished, I don't see this problem even if it does exist.
@Gordon Dry sounds like he has a mod list where it separates charcoal (heating fuel) from charcoal (furnace material) so that you don't have to bother with Furnance Fuel anymore. It sounds like several mods have to overwrite each other in a specific way.
I chose the "Very Mild (CC)" climate, but it seems to snow just as often as when I had it on "Temperate." I'm around year 50 with snow coming in late autumn. Perhaps I had SeasonFX or Greener Environment mods turned on when I created the map, so therefore they canceled the CC climate. How mild is mild supposed to be?
@Dookie , these packages don´t really bother me much, although you have to turn it on and off or change the product a lot. I find it a rather clever way to get around one of the limits of the game; You can only use 3 different kind of materials for a building. With these packages you make it possible for more. If it´s neccessary? That´s another question.
I played a little yesterday and little more early this evening. But I will stop this game now. As you might have understood; The CC-mod is not the right mod for me. It has many good things, but I make the conclusion; it´s a mod for citybuilders. Most of the buildings look good, the variety and possibilities are huge. But that´s not the thing, that really got me so charmed by Banished.
Is it harder to play with this mod than a normal unmodded game? I would say no. It´s much easier to fullfill the basic needs of food and fuel, than in a unmodden game. But it´s not easier eaither (unless you do a lot of o trade) because you have to control a lot of production buildings and production chains. Just different. I like the simplicity of the original Banished; the few materials, the few proffessions, the few goods.
Finally I will show you a couple of more pictures.
First pictureAs you can see
@Dookie, there are many buildings temporarily stopped in my game, too. I wish there would be more multi-task buildings, like the shore house. When you don´t need any sand or clay, let them catch frogs. ;D
This Chartered Company; not so my biggest favourite either. It took a long time until I understod what pouch is. I don´t know that word. I tried Google Translate, but made a mistake and wrote "poach", so I was very confused, until I looked more carefully. ;D ;D :-[
Second pictureA nice looking river side view
Third pictureWhat are these weird decorations on the mountain side? Maybe some art installation. ??? At least there are two viewers, the lamas don´t seem very interested.
Fourth pictureThe mayor have to live somewhere. Why not at the rear of the Lama? ;)
By the way; the crash I had at the start, really comes from this piece. There were no more problems, during the whole game after I let the adventurer retire. I wanted to test it once more, so I let one adventurer go on with the exploration. (No poisonous arrows this time). It took maybe a year, than crash again!
See the sign on the apothecary. I have no idea to what it is connected. I would have thought herbs, but there is the limit 800, so it´s not.
@Nilla You're right, the apothecary's output seems to be attached to the Log limit even though it produces medicine.
This thread has some good feedback for Colonial Charter, but I think these weaknesses in balancing don't really keep me from enjoying the overall game of Banished. I'm learning this modpack just like you; I've only played two maps with CC. If I play without no mods, then I will miss some of the buildings and variety.
I think I will continue to play with CC (and
@RedKetchup 's New Medieval Town) and just avoid smuggler/bootlegger/charteredcompany/logger/etc. basically the whole precious metals economy. Also, I will not upgrade housing fully to avoid using "furnishings." So, I think you can still enjoy the game with CC if you ignore the trading value of Furnace Fuel and overproduce it.
I agree CC is easier, or at least the similar level of difficulty but in a different way, and I understand the appeal of unmodded Banished's few materials, professions, and products. In my opinion, it was a bit lacking in depth if I replayed a lot, so I'm glad people are creating mods. Even though I have some criticism of CC; overall, I still think it is great, but I understand you as well.
Quote from: Dookie on July 02, 2015, 04:59:17 PM
@Nilla You're right, the apothecary's output seems to be attached to the Log limit even though it produces medicine.
Do you know what the medicine is good for? I thought it could be used instead of herbs, if people are ill. But obviously it's not, as the limit is connected to the log limits.
Quote from: Dookie on July 02, 2015, 04:59:17 PM
I agree CC is easier, or at least the similar level of difficulty but in a different way, and I understand the appeal of unmodded Banished's few materials, professions, and products. In my opinion, it was a bit lacking in depth if I replayed a lot, so I'm glad people are creating mods. Even though I have some criticism of CC; overall, I still think it is great, but I understand you as well.
Even if I complain about some things, I find the CC-mod is impressive. Some things are great. It's just not a mod that gives me more play-fun. That doesn't mean it's crap. If you like the city building, designing aspect of Banished, I can absolutely understand, that you don't want to play without it. I like more the similution, surviving, problem solving aspects.
Quote from: Nilla on July 03, 2015, 08:47:07 AM
I like more the similution, surviving, problem solving aspects.
I'm with you!
@Nilla I assume the medicine is used the same way as herbs, so it should be attached to the herb limit instead.
Regarding designing versus problem solving/surviving, I'm with you and
@irrelevant that the latter appeals to me more as well. I've never been good at creating things aesthetically. That's not the reason I like to play with CC. As much as I complain about the some of the production chains, the variety of new crops/animals/industries does provide more depth to problem solving, imo, I just have a critique of the ones that are not useful to your citizens (eg. gold/silver/gems). For example, the decorative stuff in CC is great (the other decorative items modpack is nice too) if you're into design, but I don't use them that much because I'm more into the simulation and problem solving aspects too.
In unmodded Banished, it still isn't very difficult once you get things running; so like I said, when you replay it many times, I notice it usually develops one of only a few ways. So I see that it isn't very deep... For example, you always see the same few terrain types, and you're always getting the same animals, and you realize trading post is the solution for everything. Beyond survivability, which I argue isn't super hard anyway, the base game always presents the same set of familiar challenges, so the more stuff you add to it, it creates replay value for me in what I do or do not build. The unmodded game is still fun, but I don't expect anything unfamiliar or to do anything very different each time I play.
Quote from: Dookie on July 03, 2015, 01:48:37 PM
@Nilla I assume the medicine is used the same way as herbs, so it should be attached to the herb limit instead.
In unmodded Banished, it still isn't very difficult once you get things running; so like I said, when you replay it many times, I notice it usually develops one of only a few ways. So I see that it isn't very deep... For example, you always see the same few terrain types, and you're always getting the same animals, and you realize trading post is the solution for everything. Beyond survivability, which I argue isn't super hard anyway, the base game always presents the same set of familiar challenges, so the more stuff you add to it, it creates replay value for me in what I do or do not build. The unmodded game is still fun, but I don't expect anything unfamiliar or to do anything very different each time I play.
I don´t really agree on that. I have played a lot of games and I have always found some new challenges. Try a game without schools, without trading ports, test the limits on small maps, build a big settlement as fast as possible, join the challenges and build settlements with no normal houses, store as much food as you can or start a game as fast as possible.... the options are huge, even without mods. For me; it´s wide and deep enough, But true; I also enjoy testing the mods. :)
That's not really what I meant, of course you can find fun in these self-made challenges, but you're creating rules to limit yourself, and that's not the joy I get from playing Banished, which is more open-ended playing. For example, why would I make a game without schools? I already know that it will be harder because I've played many games partially without schools. (You can't make a game without normal houses unless you use mods). Storing as much food as I can sounds like something I try on every map, but I wouldn't want to maximize it to the extreme.
These type of challenges aren't the type I was referencing, which was the depth of the game mechanics itself. Let's be honest with ourselves, we enjoy playing a simple game, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because it is not very deep doesn't make it not challenging, but we can't mistake difficulty for depth.
I do enjoy watching/reading others play certain challenges, but for myself, Banished isn't the type of game that is meant to be competitive like a war strategy game or something like that. Things like new terrain, climate, and stuff like that add variability and increases the number of small problems you have to solve, making it more complex. That said, complex is NOT always better, and we pointed out some issues where they have taken it too far without balancing it, imo.
@Dookie, I agree to sone points but not competly.
QuoteFor example, why would I make a game without schools?
Because it is a really hard way to play. Sometimes I find Banished a bit too easy and no one wants to make a mod that makes the game harder ;) :'( But there is a way without mods; no schools.
Quote(You can't make a game without normal houses unless you use mods)
You can. Look at the challenge with only Boarding houses.
QuoteStoring as much food as I can sounds like something I try on every map, but I wouldn't want to maximize it to the extreme.
Fully agree! That challenge was awful!
QuoteLet's be honest with ourselves, we enjoy playing a simple game, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Agree
QuoteJust because it is not very deep doesn't make it not challenging, but we can't mistake difficulty for depth.
I don't think I understand what you mean with a game having depth (sorry English is my third language). What is the opposite? Easy-difficult, simple-compicated, deep -??
QuoteI do enjoy watching/reading others play certain challenges, but for myself, Banished isn't the type of game that is meant to be competitive like a war strategy game or something like that
I absolutely agree, that Banished isn't a competerive game. I play the challenges because I like to see how different (or not?) we all approach the task, that is asked for in that specific challenge. I do not compete with others. I like when other people do things good, better than me, and also explain what they do. When I've played one of these challenges, I use to tell how I think it could have been done better. Just because I want someone to try it (together with his/her own ideas).