How Far Is "Far"?

[Paeng]

Half the talk in Banished revolves around the problem of people having to walk too far to be effective...

So how do you measure or even define a 'distance' in Banished? Do you use the circles? Count the squares? Use (draggable) streets, bridges, tunnels etc. as a "ruler"?  Or do you just 'eyeball' it?

[irrelevant]

Depends what you are talking about. If you are talking about something that has to be done over and over (like how far a farmer has to walk between his field and the nearest storage), "as close as possible" is the only possible answer. If it is something that happens once in awhile (like how far a citizen has to walk from a storage building to his house to resupply it with food or firewood) it is less of an issue.

Did you have a specific scenario in mind?

When I'm planning locations for markets and forest nodes, and for houses and barns in relation to these, I definitely use the circles. As much as possible goes into the market circle, and as little as possible goes into the other circles.

It would never occur to me to try to figure out how "far" something was from something else, that would just be a number.

[mariesalias]

For things like gathering resources or building at a distance, I eyeball it. Though if I looked too deeply into it I might find I unconsciously use the marketplace or forester's diameters as a general ruler to eyeball it. I am used to the visual distances from one end to the other of these circles as I often leave them up long after they are built (for planning purposes).

When planning out placements of buildings and fields and such, I definitely use the roads as a ruler (while paused so I can delete them). If I need to measure a space to see if something like a pasture or quarry will fit into it, I'll use the pasture/quarry tool/blueprint itself to make sure there are no small bumps that would interfere with the placement.

I try to get around the problem of building/clearance jobs being too far away from builders/laborers by trying to have extra housing in all areas (especially the edges of the town) so there are always people nearby to work, even if for others the job is 'too far.' I've started trying to spread some farms around as well for off-season jobs, and to make it easier for vendors to stock food. So far, I have been having a good amount of success with this.

[rkelly17]

Yeah, the definition of "far" varies depending on what is the point of the citizen's movement. Awhile back when there was serious discussion about fishing efficiency on the SRS forum I did some experimenting and discovered that even a small distance from home to work could have an impact on production, so I'm trying to place housing right next to as many work sites as possible. When citizens get sick and walk to "visit the doctor" there is a tricky balance: I don't want them walking any farther than necessary but I also don't want too many hospitals around for silly people to idle at. For laborers going to collect resources I try to make sure that they are never too far from a warm house so they won't freeze. "Too far" would mean further than the radius of a market circle or thereabouts. When expanding to a new area I try to build a couple of houses first to get some builders into the area for the bigger projects.

[Paeng]

I might find I unconsciously use the marketplace or forester's diameters as a general ruler to eyeball it. I am used to the visual distances from one end to the other of these circles as I often leave them up long after they are built (for planning purposes).

Yeah, that's the way I mostly do, too.

When planning out placements of buildings and fields and such, I definitely use the roads as a ruler (while paused so I can delete them).

That's when I sometimes wish we could just toggle the grid on/off... 
My old eyes (or mind?) sometimes have a hard time to even determine whether two 4x4 buildings will fit in a given space... 

discussion about fishing efficiency on the SRS forum I did some experimenting and discovered that even a small distance from home to work could have an impact on production

That's also interesting - the Fishing Huts are where that is very easy to observe (because they are usually on rather unforgiving terrain). I'm quite sure there is a table somewhere that spells out Distance vs Efficiency (in grid squares or such)...

Sure, in most cases it's enough to eyeball it, or settle for "as close as you can" - though the lay of the land usually drives us further and further away from that 'perfect' spot... and occasionally I'd like to have a more solid figure on just how much efficiency I lose with every grid-square I move away 

[tomplum68]

I found out for a couple fishing huts the distance to the barn had a much greater impact than the distance to their house.  The huts were pretty close together on opposite sides of my river barely overlapping in the middle.  A bridge across the river was all the further the one group of fishermen had to walk to get to the barn.  However, the guys on the far side of the river also had homes further away.  This was impacting their production by two to three times every year.  They still had positive production but not nearly as good.  When I finally got housing closer so as both fishing docks had a similar walk to work, the production didn't change for the hut on the far side of the river.  That walk to the barn seems to be all the difference.

[rkelly17]

I had a map where an "ideal fishing spot" where the river entered a lake had a hill right behind it. I could get the dock in but had to site the houses and barn about 10-15 spaces away. That spot never did as well as the one down the way a bit that had less water in the circle but houses and barn right across the road. It changed my definition of "ideal fishing spot."

[Paeng]

That walk to the barn seems to be all the difference.

Yeah, that makes sense, as they need to bring the fish to the barn much more often than go to the house for eating or warming up...

[A Nonny Moose]

This may be naive, but I've found that "local" stockpiles and storage barns help the situation with how far people will travel.  My tiny town has half a dozen stockpiles and about the same number of storage barns.  Seems to help quite a bit.

[RedKetchup]

ya i agree with you, i always have little mini stockpiles everywhere

[tomplum68]

I've been including small stockpiles next to all my 'build' areas and I've been putting barns next to any food gatherers.

[A Nonny Moose]

One thing about these "construction helpers" is that when the construction finishes and the stockpile is quite low, I cancel them.  They do take up land that can have other uses.