Nilla, Firestelluride - testing the North, Ironman

[Nilla]

OK. @brads3, now I understand. And you might be right, I'm not so sure, that I can make it at the first attempt. The start of survivors+ harsh climate + ironman/woman is hard. A start with normal aging isn't different from one with real time, so I know how it has to be done, but there is absolutely no room for the smallest mistake. Maybe I will try it tonight.

I played a few more years. It's quite obvious, how the food graph and the population is connected. Many children-> Food down. Now the stores were big enough, so there's no real problem. But if the number of unproductive gets higher than about 50% of the productive, I can't even produce, as much food as they need in a good year. If it's a cold summer, more is missing, than I can buy. I have developed a "rule" about nomads. I only take nomads, if the educational rate rises above 75%. That seems to work alright.

@Tom Sawyer, you have increased the amount of money the merchants bring at the beginning, but it looks like it's not increasing with the population (at least not between 10-70). As I said; I must buy food, but I have to make a lot of barter trade. I don't get enough coins. I have more goods to sell, than the merchant have coins. In a normal Nordic game, I like it that way; you don't have to buy so much food, you can make some gambling and wait. But here you really have to buy more or less all you can get, there's no room for gambling. If the merchants would have brought more coins, I could have bought more food and developed the settlement faster-> more fun.

[Tom Sawyer]

@Nilla The next step of stacking imported goods is at 100 people. Before it was another step at 50 for less goods at the beginning. They also bring a bit more in general. Probably we should keep the balance of the standard version or increase it slightly.

I look forward to your attempts on speed.

[Abandoned]

@Nilla , doing good so far, looking forward to seeing how this town grows, those are some pretty big lakes. 

[brads3]

NILLA,do you have a rough idea of what you average food production per food worker is?? food worker being hunters,gatherers,fishermen,farmers,etc.

[Nilla]

@Tom Sawyer, as I said; I don't know how much coins, I like the merchants to bring. In a normal game I find it perfect, the way it has been before. In ironman however it's different. You had well understood, that my biggest problem was the speed. When you have played as much Banished as I have, you learn to control your population. You know quite well how many houses to build at what point, to get the population growth you want. Fast or slow; you have control. If each person need more food, like in ironman, you only have to figure out; how many mouths your population could feed and then let the settlement grow in a sustainable way. I can't produce much more food than I did (without any additional mods) but I could produce a bit more profitable goods to sell. I also now made a lot of barter trade. If it was possible to use the profit of the coins more, I could have bought more food; not to increase my stores, but to be able to let the population grow a bit faster. Of cause, I could have built a second trading port earlier (and maybe a third) to get this, but I don't really like to spam a settlement with ports. I will think a bit more about this in my next game.

Sorry @Abandoned; I've learned from you; Just as it's getting really interesting, you have to say goodbye! I will leave this settlement. But the iron experiment will continue!

@brads3. This is the North played on harsh, so it's very much different from CC, where one ricefarmer can produce 4000 food.  I have a mixture of educated and uneducated workers, so the production varies a bit more than usual but I guess the average is about:

shepherd (2 shepherds work 5 maximum sheepruns): 1200
reindeer herdsman/hunter: 900
fisher: 450
gatherer 200 (+some firewood, that also increases the productivity of the forester)
farmer 200 (not working the whole year)

I wanted to start my new game yesterday, this time IronwomanSpeed. But that sure was a big struggle. I didn't find a map. Usually, I don't put much effort in finding the right map. Most of the time the first is good enough. On rare occasions, if I want something special or sometimes, when the starting position is impossible, I might have to look at a few, but never like this.

Except a starting position from where you can gather enough wild food to survive the first year, I didn't want more than 10 people (stranded has 6 adults). It would be too hard to support more children from the start. I think I looked at 20 maps. The first picture shows a summery: 15 people on an island! (It wasn't always 15 people and an island, but if the map looked alright, there were a lot of children and if there were few children, they were stranded on an island or a tiny neck of land, where they never could have found enough food, without building a bridge or walk far and there will be no time for that, if they want to survive the first winter.) I like these Nordic lake maps. But after 5 islands in a row, I thought; maybe I'll go for a Nordic wast forest map instead; at least there will be no islans! Ha!Ha! Look at the second picture: I was really haunted by islands

I said to myself; I will look at 10 more maps. If I can't use any of them; I will quit this project. It's "Fate", shouldn't be!  It took to number 9, until I found my map. I can't believe it. I have never seen such a nice map and only 2 children. F I N A L L Y ! 

@brads3 and @Tom Sawyer you are both wrong. It didn't take 4 attempts to survive the start, but it didn't work the first time either. If you've tried to start a Nordic game; survivors on harsh with ironman/woman you will know, that the time to build a barn and a house, get some food and firewood is very short. You have to be very precise and only do what's absolutely needed, to avoid, that anyone starves or freezes to death. On my first attempt, I first marked enough trees to cut and after that one stone. (I build the smallest Nordic barn and the Izba. I need some 40 logs and 4 stones. I choose that house, because it's faster to build than a vanilla wood house; 3 builders can work on it). Unfortunately one laborer carried these 4 stones around and didn't want to put them on the stock pile, so it took too long to start to build the house; everyone froze to death! The second time, I marked the stone before the trees and everything went well.

Since the search for a proper map took so long, I didn't play much. The third picture shows how far I got. I forgot to make a picture of the maps and mods. I'll make one the next time. I have the Forest outpost and the Tiny mod loaded from my last game. But I have decided not to use the small very convenient workshop. I know you find it a bit "cheaty" for this difficult conditions @Tom Sawyer! 

[Tom Sawyer]

I see, this little rascal with the stones in his trouser pocket screwed my bet.^^ The vanilla wooden hut is faster, also with only 2 workers and the best choice for the start. You could not know and I made a Wiki term for it. But in any case you have mastered this start, even with proper smithy and tailoring. Great! It will be interesting to see the influence of the speed aging under these conditions.

[Nilla]

You are right @Tom Sawyer, I can see, that it's faster to build a wooden house than an Izba. I should have known. I looked at it the first time I used the Russian house some time ago. Did I look/calculated that bad or have you changed anything? Anyway, it doesn't matter, it worked this way, too.

I like this game better than my last; not that slow. I have only played a few years, so there's not much to tell. Things are under control. We will see how it will look, as the first generation starts to die of old age, but I think it will be fine. One question @Tom Sawyer: Have you made any changes at the vanilla marketplace? I seldom build one, when I play the North, so I don't remember. Does it also store raw material, like ore, iron....... or only "consumers products"? I have seen a few reindeer furs once, otherwise nothing so far. Maybe some materials will land there, if I let the vendor work a bit longer.

[Tom Sawyer]

I did not change anything in the last versions. Actually the difference in building time is minimal. Its more the building materials which makes the vanilla hut to the best choice at the start. The marketplace stores food, fuels, herbs, tools, clothes and materials (metals, textiles, charcoal). No logs, stones or ores. It looks a bit like a lack of small markets for early game if you have to build a huge market place. Maybe it's not so good that the village shop is a brick building. But we have nice small markets from Kid for example.

With your speedies it seems to work. Probably we will never beat this vanilla cheat aging.^^

[brads3]

how much are you holding back your population growth??  no offence but usually you have lots more people by now. the number of people you have looks like my game pace after i add a nomad couple or 2. not tryint to wish evil on you,but don't you play with disasters on?? 1 storm and you is in trouble.

[Nilla]

I had two, what I think, good reasons to build that big vanilla marketplace. First I wanted to make sure, that the blacksmith and tailor could get enough material even after a while. If you start with the small workshop, it doesn't matter much. It works at the beginning and will be replaced with better located blacksmiths and tailors anyhow. The small market from @kid1293, that I used in my first ironman game, only contains consumers goods. For my second purpose; to get the food from the remote barns close to where people live, it would have been good enough, but the big one also supports a larger area and one market will be enough for a long time. That means, I don't have to alter vendors between several markets. I guess it will take long, until I have people enough to occupy 2 vendors.

I hold the start back very much @brads. Just the start, now I don't have to care about it much. If you want a game with a fast growth. The beginning is very important. Here I had only 2 children from the start. Normally with a fast growth; I wouldn't have chosen it. I also was very slow building houses for everyone. At my first picture from this village from year 3, you can only see one house. Most people are still homeless. If I want a fast growth, I build houses as fast as I can. (Or at least I let every family live in the hous(es), for some time each, to let every family have a baby) I didn't do any of that here. Deliberately not. The start is hard. I wanted it slow.

And I do like a small fire or tornado from time to time to cheer things up a bit, if it gets boring!  The infestations however, I could do without!;)

[Nilla]

I see, that again I forgot to show you the map settings and mods. Here they are. Except ironwoman and the North I think, I've only used the small round Tiny Town hall from @kid1293 and of cause the Izba. The vanilla town hall isn't one of my favourite Banished buildings, so I decided to use this much nicer one, even if it's faster and cheaper to build.

I'm changing the strategy a little bit from my first iron attempt. I will reduce the farming; no fields but still some apple orchards. Fruit is expensive to buy and the time a farmer has to spend picking apples is very short. I will try to produce more high value export goods in this game. I don't plan to take any nomads and now after my 2 uneducated are dead, a high production is guaranteed.  You may see, that I've already built a second trading port. I will buy vegetable and grain, trying to avoid barter trade. I'm also buying some iron ore and wool. It will take some time, until I can reach a mountain to build a mine and I'm not sure, how long the bog iron will last. It took some time until I got the sheep. If I hadn't bought wool, there wouldn't have bin enough clothing.

As i found this map, I thought it was perfect, but of cause, the perfect maps are rare. This one has a nice big spot of flat land, some good positions for fisher and room in between for a few trading ports but the mountains for a mine are far away, same as a stream for a mill. And if I build a mill in the closest stream up north, I will block the access to the east lake for traders. I haven't decided yet, what I will do if/when, I can expand that far.

As expected, one thing is harder in vanilla aging; the number of old age deaths. It seems like a lot of people die at the same time. I've cut in the population graph. The number of adults gets down from time to time and I get too few workers. In the real time speed, it was easier to plan, how to micromanage. On the other hand, I thought, it would be easier to plan the "right" population growth in this game, but I'm not so sure it is. If you get too many unproductive children and students, of cause, it doesn't take a long, until some students are graduated. But often some old people die as well, and nothing is changed.

But despite these difficulties, this game runs well. I'm kind of glad, that I got some experience of this iron options in that other slow speed game. So far I can manage.

[Nilla]

A small report from my Elkhorning. Year 34, the settlemet still lives. At the moment I'm struggling with many old age deaths. The grownups population gets down, but there are a lot of children and students. This makes it very hard to have enough people for all work, that has to be done. It takes several years to clear land to build more pastures and orchards. This might be crucial for the further development.

[Tom Sawyer]

Maybe I was not totally wrong in our little bet. That speed people run out of childbearing age too fast under these conditions. At least, if I compare the pop graph with your real time game... it was not slower there.

And I found a mining location not far away from your settlement.

[Nilla]

yes, I have noticed, too, that this game is almost as slow as the real time game. I'm a bit surprised. But I ran it unusually slow (too slow!) at the beginning, and, you are so right, overaging can be a problem. And yes I also know that I can build 2 mines (one on each side of the mountain) on the other side of the river. I guess it's the way I'm going. But I still have iron enough. I can even put some steel tools in the trading ports.

[Nilla]

I've played a little bit more. I can say the "iron mode" works, even if you're playing the North with a harsh climate;
- if you let the settlement grow slow
- if you micromanage a lot

It works with "vanilla speed" and "real time speed". It's a little bit easier to control the growth, if you play "real time speed" but "vanilla speed" is on the other hand a bit more forgiving, if you make a mistake and let the number of children grow too high.

Do I like it?

Yes and no!

- Yes, it's interesting, because it's really a challenge. There's not much room for mistakes. All the time I have too few people. The challenge is to use them well. All the time I'm tempted to let the settlement grow faster but as soon as I try, I start to get trouble. I like that.

- No, the game is too slow. It has to be, to work. After I've found out how to micromanage, it's quite tedious. Same things all the time. Each month; let the shepherds tend another pasture, every couple of month; let the vendor fill another market, every spring; let some forester be gatherers and herbalist, every July send more or less everyone to pick apples, when the first frost comes; let them go back to their original work....... the same things year after year. Not much creativity and problem solving here. 

I guess I will play "iron woman" again from time to time. But I don't think I will again on " Nordic harsh". I have proved, that it's possible, but I can't see how it could be made in a to me agreeable speed and without much (after some time boring) micromanagement. Maybe it will be possible on a mild climate or without the North. I will think about it and probably try something later.

Anyhow, I will play this game a little bit more. Despite what I said about slow and tedious, it's still interesting enough. I've cut in some graphs. All of a sudden, there are a lot of new young adults. That made it possible/necessary to develop the settlement a bit faster. I've built and filled two more trading ports. I have to buy 3000-6000 food every year, depending on the climate, that's more or less every vegetable and grain, the merchants bring. I don't get enough coins, so I have to barter trade a lot. That's the reason for these 2 more ports. Without them, I don't think there would be enough food.

As I guessed a few years later, as the second picture shows, the number of adults doesn't grow anymore, just the number of children and students. But I think we will manage this, too. With 4 ports, the deliveries of food will be enough. I only hope, there will be enough to sell on a longer term. I will now cross the river to get some iron ore, to be able to produce more steel tools. The first building on the other side is a market. It's always a good thing to start with, when you're developing new areas.