Nilla-filling small maps

[Nilla]

Now you must explain @Tom Sawyer; how can I flood the vanilla quarry?

Yesterday I played nice, peaceful and...........SLOW. Even if I take every nomad and one couple arrives more or less every spring, not much is happening. Of course, some micromanagement is needed but not all too much. Most of the people are happy so the idling hours have been reduced and the production has increased. At the moment Iīm inclined to agree with @brads3; real-time aging is easier at least now at the beginning.

I had a lot of time to make some screenshots Iīll show them and tell a little why I made them,

First picture
As I planned, the initial settler family has got its 4. child.

Second picture
I donīt know what this is; most springs one couple arrive to join the settlement but it looks like this village has become a getaway for middleaged women who have run away with their teenage lovers! 

You can see that most people are happy. Only a few living out in the woods and temporarily in the initial goahti are unhappy.

Third picture
Here we can see the reasons for the happiness; our little village center with church, inn, traveling vendor and sauna.

Fourth picture
Believe it or not; I used some decorations. Donīt know what has happened. I must be bored by the slow pace. The pear trees arenīt pure decorations. They can be harvested but one by one so they need a lot of micromanagement. Sometimes they will pick the pears sometimes not.

Fifth picture
These teenagers! Always do the opposite of what they are told! Lancesco; the first child who was born in the settlement simply moved out from home and occupied the hut, thatīs there for new arrivals. The gouhti is next to a storage full of all kind of food but what does he eat? Only venison. And now he suffers from all kind of health issues and he doesnīt believe his mother, saying that he should eat a proper meal instead of his beloved meat.

[Tom Sawyer]

There is a small button in quarry window, just as for the big claypit. Works exactly the same way.

[Nilla]

Yes on your version on the vanilla quarry but the comment was to a (more or less) vanilla game, and Iīve never seen that button on the quarry.

I have decided I will stay in the "old times" and try to fill the map with as many people it can support. My ambitions are 5 stars, 5 hearts. Along the way, I find little things generally about the North, that might be interesting to discuss, considering a future upgrade. What do mean @Tom Sawyer; should I throw these suggestions, questions out here in my blog or on the North thread, that more people might follow and want to participate in the discussion?

Maybe I can do some combination.

[Tom Sawyer]

It has a nice tradition to talk about new ideas and balancing inside your blogs but can be more clear and easier to follow in main discussion thread.

For vanilla based games I can make a separate recultivation mod if people would like it.

[Nilla]

For vanilla based games I can make a separate recultivation mod if people would like it.

Iīm sure it would be appreciated.

It has a nice tradition to talk about new ideas and balancing inside your blogs but can be more clear and easier to follow in main discussion thread.

That was a clear and precise answer. I think I will follow the tradition and start to write about my thoughts here and if there are matters I (or someone else) finds ought to be more commonly discussed, Iīll double it and make a short version on the North main thread.

As usual, I will show some pictures and tell a little to them.

First picture
Also the most stubborn teenager will grow up and be sensible. Maybe itīs not that sensible to marry one's sister but all the rest looks pretty sane to me; reliable profession, good and balanced food, devoted father of a baby boy.

You can see the content in my stores. As always in my Nordic games; thereīs a lot of proteins. They are easy to get and easy to process. I will not say itīs a bad thing. If you play on harsh or "Ironman" you are grateful; itīs even one of the things that makes it possible to survive an Ironman game on harsh. It also makes that not so experienced players can play the North. Thatīs good too. But especially in such a game on "mild", self-supporting with very little trade, it fills the barns. Thatīs a challenge where I fail miserably; not store too much food, especially not proteins. 

Second picture
I want to talk about the turf houses. I do love the look. If it hadnīt been for two things, I would have built a lot of them.
1. happiness detraction
2. family size

This area is inside all happiness buildings. As I expected, some inhabitants are happy some not; itīs similar to before you have an inn or if they live inside an industrial area. If you want everyone happy; you canīt use these houses! Thatīs as simple as that! Is this a good or a bad thing? As the game is now, in a Norseman game; I find it a bad thing. They need the same space and the building costs are not much higher for a log cabin without detraction. I think youīve mentioned that you want to change the building cost for the log cabins and include glass. That would make the turf houses more interesting. If you canīt afford glass; you will have to live with lower happiness. That could make sense. (Maybe also make glass a bit more expensive, I find it pretty cheap to buy)

But what about the family size?

The first general question; what is better a house for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...... inhabitants. I would answer it depends on the game youīre playing. In this game, the population growth is too slow and the houses couldnīt be big enough now at the beginning. In other games, I was happy that I had the goathi for 3 persons to control that the growth didnīt get out of hand. Now the question; What was your intentions by setting the family size to 4 @Tom Sawyer? The only argument that makes sense to me is that (for some reason I donīt understand) many people like houses for 4 inhabitants and such a house was missing in the North. Personally, I donīt need a house for 4 person families. If I want to reduce the growth I can use a combination of 3 and 5 person houses. To me, it would be more useful if it could hold a family of 6. Maybe Iīll even sacrifice the happiness for faster growth. That would be interesting. But maybe thatīs not so logical, because of the size of the house.

I have more pictures but this is long enough for now.

[Nilla]

More pictures.

First picture
Here you can see my strategy for this settlement. I want to build a bit like a medieval village; all houses close together surrounded by fields, pastures and forests. I really donīt mean all the houses.  I want to settle the 100 people who can be a member in one church congregation in the happiness circle from the small chapel. In my normal way of building more mixed houses and workplaces, I always had the feeling that the happiness circle was too small; no room for 100 people inside it. But if I do it this way; it can very well hold houses enough for 100 inhabitants many small stores and some workplaces. The fields arenīt too far away either. The next 100 inhabitants will live around next church and so on until this small map is full. I kind of like this structure.

Second picture
Iīm taking every nomad. But now also young people are getting adults. A tricky part in Norse/Ironman is that children get adults with 12 but are not pairing up until they are 15. This means that there are always some 12 years old living alone in a big house. I have found a strategy to deal with this that seems to work. I have built some gouathi ut in the woods for these single youngsters. I have another strategy to deal with the slow real time speed. Normally I play 5X but when a merchant arrives I slow down to 2x. I may make some business, then I look around that everything is alright in town. I also look who lives in the distant goathis. If itīs a couple, I build a house for them (they are already prepared ). When the house is almost done I fake demolish the goathi, the young couple move into the nice house and a new 12-15-year-old moves into the hut. Maybe I build something but normally there isnīt much to do, so I set the speed to 5X again and wait for the next merchant. Works perfect for me.

Iīm not especially proud of this food graph, even if it looks like a school book example of how it should look. I have much too much food in my stores. The reason is these guys..........

Third picture
I know, I have complained about this before. I only have so many pastures and hunters I need to produce enough textile to produce enough clothes. I even buy some wool, leather and hide when a merchant brings some. The fact is; if you want to produce enough clothing for your people in a Nordic game you will get too much meat from the first day on. I find you need too much textiles to make clothing.

[Tom Sawyer]

That's a very nice layout, compact around the chapel with fields and pastures outside. Cool how the game mechanics lead to a realistic looking structure.

About your points we talked already. The turf house is meant as starting home and move the log cabins to midgame defined by glass. Making this more expensive is a good thought. That would support the feeling to have achieved this tier. The turf house can also be set to 5 people since it has the same ground arae as log cabins but the happiness effect I want to keep. It's then more motivation to improve buildings than just a better use of firewood.

I remember in another game you did prefer 4 person houses for better control of your population. That probably just depends on game situation and also on citizen settings. Best will be to have a good range of different house types to choose. One new model I still want to make for a bigger family with 4 kids is a Viking longhouse or bigger farmhouse for later.

This discrepancy between protein and materials for clothing will be better or solved with the reduced output of meat and introducing flax production for an efficient "not-meat-side-producing" way to get textiles.

[Nilla]

1995! No, thatīs not the population of my new settlement (not enough space to achieve that) That's the last time Swedens football women beat Germany in a championship. Until yesterday! So, Germany is out and weīre still in. I think I wrote that one year ago as well. Then it was the men. At the moment itīs nice to be Swedish in a German-Swedish family interested in football.

I remember in another game you did prefer 4 person houses for better control of your population. That probably just depends on game situation and also on citizen settings. Best will be to have a good range of different house types to choose. One new model I still want to make for a bigger family with 4 kids is a Viking longhouse or bigger farmhouse for later.

I`m pretty sure that was in an Ironman game before you had made the goathi. (or maybe before I realized how I could use it) A combination of the 3 person and 5 person houses works much better to control the population growth than 4 person houses. Iīm looking forward on a Viking longhouse. Maybe you could consider making it possible to have even more than 4 children. I find it would be more challenging, because the population growth may get out of control if youīre not careful.

This discrepancy between protein and materials for clothing will be better or solved with the reduced output of meat and introducing flax production for an efficient "not-meat-side-producing" way to get textiles.

Iīm not sure the output of proteins needs to be reduced from the pastures, at least not much. If you look at the output of food related to space and compare it to fields, itīs not so much. We have talked about this before and I would like to see more milk and less meat from the cows and maybe more wool and less meat from the sheep. A flax chain would, of course, improve the balance meat/textiles. That sounds good.

Talking about textiles. You made this lovely storehouse for non-food products @Tom Sawyer; textiles among others. Iīm sorry to say; it doesnīt work very well. The many small barns around my store are full of all kind of things and the big store is almost empty. Itīs a pity because the model is so nice. It would need a better purpose. I see two alternatives. Both would probably be more useful than how it works now, but Iīm not fully happy with any of them. So I hope youīll come to some better idea.

1. Make it possible to use a vendor. It would work like the warehouse. The vendor will fill the store alright but also with all kind of things, that you might need somewhere else. Say; you build the store close to a tailor to provide textiles and store clothes but the vendors will also carry lamp oil away from the store next to where itīs produced, close to a mine where itīs needed.

2. Transform it into a large barn for all kind of "stuff". Before this game, I would have said that we do need a larger storage building for food in the "old times". But now Iīm pretty fond of the look of all these small stores. I try to put them everywhere in all directions. That looks genuine and pretty cool to me. If you want the larger stores, itīs another motivation to move into "modern times" and this would at least partly be gone, with such a larger store.

First picture
The food store gets bigger and I will need at least one more of each sheep and cow pasture to produce enough textiles soon. 

Second picture
When we reached 200 inhabitants I decided to take no more nomads. Before that, I took every arriving nomad. I wanted to "feel" the change in the "dynamics". The settlement still grows but by far not so fast anymore. Maybe I should have waited a little bit longer.

You are absolutely right, @Abandoned if you want o story-based game, you need a real-time ageing mod. Otherwise the people you "know" are fast gone. Itīs nice to follow the initial settler, the first nomads and their children. Mara was the first middle-aged woman who arrived with her young husband and mother of the "football child" Messie who married the second daughter of the initial settlers. (See, I know them) They both still live and are still together. The two initial settlers, however, are both dead. But you canīt possibly mean, that you find it harder to play real-time ageing, at least not as long as the settlement is this small. I know it will change when it gets bigger but it will still take some time.

[moonbelf]

Nicely done Nilla. Looks good and I'm following your blog to see how it all turns out

[Nilla]

Thanks, @moonbelf but itīs not "my fault". Like many other mods; itīs not so hard to make it look good if youīre playing a North game.

@Tom Sawyer, I wanted to ask a bit about the roasted meat. If I understand it right; itīs produced by the innkeeper at the inn using ale and meat and can be "eaten" at the inn with the same effect as alcohol. If I have more meat than grain (like I have in this game) itīs good to use it that way.  But sometimes I see a little of it at a wagon vendor and a small amount also in peopleīs homes. How does it get there? Is there a way to make more or less of it available for "normal eating"? At the moment it doesnīt matter. Thereīs always enough at the inns but it would be good to know, how itīs meant to be.

Maybe weīve talked about this before; I also have some "issues" with the output from rye and wheat. I like very much that the output is different for different crops. But why is wheat better than rye? As far as I know, rye was the common bread crop for ordinary people and "everyday" food. Wheat was luxury, for the rich and for special occasions and holidays. As I looked at the different outputs of the crops I saw a couple of minor errors in your Wiki: The price of apples and pears Iīm sure are wrong, also some of the production numbers of food processing looked different than those I remember. I havenīt checked, so they might be correct and my memory weak. 

First picture
By not clearing the ground before building, I find this second village looks even more pleasant with the natural trees still in the village.

Second picture
I think youīve hit the effect of fire really good. This time it looks really realistic as if the wind brought sparks to the next house in the wind direction. Itīs named "disasters" and 1-2 houses burned down is no disaster. This fire hurts but doesnīt destroy the game. Well done!

[irrelevant]

@Nilla, I love the look of this town, with the green roofs!

[Tom Sawyer]

I have seen that too in Ale House and Tavern. Sometimes people take a bit roasted meat at home or in your case it's probably the wagon vendor who is taking it from the ale house. It's their "meat to go" service or so.

Wheat got a higher standard output because it's so in real but due to temperature dependencies you should get a better yield with rye in cold climate. In Nordic mild it might be still good with wheat but in "fair" it turns. You can compare the grains in your game directly. Would be interesting.

Apple and pears I checked and they are correct in wiki. If you see or suspect mistakes there, I'm always glad to hear.

[Nilla]

@Nilla, I love the look of this town, with the green roofs!

Thank you. I love the look of these buildings and the overall look, too. I think the North would be a mod to your liking. Maybe give a small headache but a pleasant one. But forget all you know about vanilla Banished, itīs in many ways a totally different game.

I have seen that too in Ale House and Tavern. Sometimes people take a bit roasted meat at home or in your case it's probably the wagon vendor who is taking it from the ale house. It's their "meat to go" service or so.

Wheat got a higher standard output because it's so in real but due to temperature dependencies you should get a better yield with rye in cold climate. In Nordic mild it might be still good with wheat but in "fair" it turns. You can compare the grains in your game directly. Would be interesting.

Apple and pears I checked and they are correct in wiki. If you see or suspect mistakes there, I'm always glad to hear.

I guess the vendors sometimes see some additional business in "drive-in fast food" Itīs no problem, I just wanted to know.

I have compared rye and wheat. Wheat is indeed the crop thatīs harvested last. But here on mild I seldom lose anything but unless the field is very small, I use more farmers on each field. Anyway, the output is higher for wheat than rye.

No, I persist; the trade values for pears and apples are wrong in your wiki (or maybe right there and wrong at the ports). You get 5 from the "good merchants" and 3 from the stingy ones. Not 3/2 as the wiki says.

For this game, Iīve changed my initial plan. I want a self-sufficient settlement thatīs not based on trade. Thatīs why I only wanted one small trading port, to first buy seeds and animals, a little glass for the inns, later some salt and sugar, additional tools and iron but also (not really planned) wool and lamp oil. The only pure "export goods" I produce are some furs and herbs I let unemployed labourers pick in the summer. But I also sell some smoked meat, just to get rid of it.

Now I have decided to build this one large port as well, mostly to get rid of the meat. Itīs getting worse. I produce too little of all other food categories but I donīt want to increase the total amount of food. So I have decided to fill the port with meat and increase the number of fields and orchards. We will see how it will work.

[irrelevant]

@Nilla, I love the look of this town, with the green roofs!

Thank you. I love the look of these buildings and the overall look, too. I think the North would be a mod to your liking. Maybe give a small headache but a pleasant one. But forget all you know about vanilla Banished, itīs in many ways a totally different game.

I played the North when it first came out. I enjoyed the town I made using it, but it didn't make me want to try another.

Based on your posting in Village Images (http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=2858.0 which I had not read until this past Sunday) I downloaded RKEC1.03 and started a town with that as my only mod. I have to say that I love it! The changes that @RedKetchup has made to the basic game (refining ore at the smith, making cloth and flax at the tailor, making firewood from thatch at the chopper, lumber, etc) add so much depth that was missing. I'm only in year 7 or so, but I'm having the most fun I have had with any set of mods.

[Nilla]

Much have changed; evolved in the North mod since the first days. But @irrelevant, youīve made a good choice; RKEd is a great mod.

First picture
The big port really paid off! Look at the inventory! Balanced food! Iīve sold almost 20 000 meat, so I have a small stock of coins. Iīve also bartered traded for some cabbage. Iīm pleased.

I also made another change in my initial plans; Iīve given up the thought of warm coats. Normally in a Nordic game, warm coats pay off but I guess not on "mild". I wish I had thought of it from the beginning, it would have made life easier.

Second picture
Iīve made another small deviation from my initial plans; no "modern" buildings. You can see the watermill in the background. Sure, water mills have been used for thousands of years but not red. I wanted to compare the output between the water mill and the small windmill. I havenīt run them both for very long but they look pretty much the same.

One question @Tom Sawyer; how much grain can the small granary hold? It has no "% bar" like other stores. I find it would be a good idea to add one if possible. It also stores flour (just made in the close mill) and bread, so it would be good to see fast if thereīs still room for more grain to grind or if we maybe need another one.

500 inhabitants passed but the map is slowly getting full. Weīll see how long this game can last and how many people we can support on this limited space.