It's All Fun And Games Until...

[MarkAnthony]

Hi, good evening.

I just got off work and thought I'd stop in and tell you that a couple of hours before work I began a new game and I chose to do it on hard for the first time. It was going well too... until it didn't. 

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"STOP INTERRUPTING ME AND LEAVE MY PRESENCE BEFORE I HAVE YOU FLOGGED AND THROWN INTO THE MUD PIT WITH THE REST OF THEM PIGS!"

... Rude little shit ain't he? Walks into my room like he owns the place! "Polish your silver Sire? Empty the chamber pots now Sire?" Gah!

Anyways. Where was I? Oh yeah, yeah yeah. So as I was telling you all, I did get that school built right away after all. You see it didn't take nearly as much time as the builders had told me it would. What do they know anyhow, right? We're Mayors, not them. Plus I knew letting them see me walk around town with this brand new whip I acquired would correct their attitudes. Whiny little lot these people were! Toss pots and scallywags, all of them. I tell you, that's the last time I let that fool talk me into taking a boat load of unsavory looking scrubs into my fine city sight-unseen!

<In a mocking voice> "It would be a charity to them my Lord, only you could save their lives for you behold the power! It would endear you to others all the land over and they'll erect statues in your honor and bless you at every meal time." he said."They were Banished my Lord, from the other side of the world all because they were caught laughing at their king! It was one of them Trumps sir, surely as Mayor you've heard of them? Yup, yup! That's right my Lord. The one with the orange skin!"

*sighs* Yeah, the school was splendid if I do say so myself, I spared no expense you see! Tis' a shame though. After all I spent building the place to bestow upon them my wisdom and my glory, there's always that one kid who chooses to remain in the uneducated class of society. Since he got here he's been nothing but trouble. He took up with others from the wrong side of the pond you see, 'Merica they call it.  I knew I couldn't save him. He arrived in my town at the age of nine and it was clear the bad seed was already sown. He'd be a lost cause, and he proved me true.

"YOU DAMN INGRATE!"  *sighs  again*

You know, I try to do some good in this world, even waste my time on these lots hoping they'd better themselves by emulating me and following my fine example on the right way to live and this is how they repay me!?!?! Pfft, thbbt!

Fine, fine! I'll get on with why I summoned you all here this evening.

As I was saying, I had my town running good, great even as you could see would have seen from my cushy Mayor's seat! For four years it prospered. Then one gloomy day a carrier pigeon flew in and landed right here on this balcony. No no. Over there! Right over there @brads3  See it!? Yeah, that spot over there. *rolls eyes*

Damnit @RedKetchup pay attention! What? No RedKetchup you cannot remodel my castle! Yes, seriously! You may not ... change ... a thing!!! Huh? What smell? Ohhh, that?  I'm having one of the kitchen maids make me some vanilla... I like vanilla RedKetchup! Got a problem with that?!!  *slowly backs up towards a bow leaning against the wall*

So anyhow, this flying rodent had a note tied to his leg and the note was from an acquaintance of mine at a village along the coast about half a day's sail from here. He told me of an impending tornado! What was I to do?! Try as I might there wasn't anything I could do to save my precious town. All I could do was gather my precious belongings and priceless heirlooms and all my taxidemy and I stowed away in a secret tunnel I had built. Yes @brads3 , secret! As in.... after they built it for me I had them put to death! No @Nilla , you may not take one of their skulls for your shrinking experiment!  My lord! How do I even know you people!  Gah!

*points to the fireplace mantle* See that fine specimen, that one over there? Aye... yes, yes Nilla. He truly was a ferocious beast that bear! Eleven feet tall, all of him!  Huh? Of course I wasn't afraid!!! I'm the Mayor dammit! In fact, between me and the bear, I didn't even think it was a fair fight for him! I was clearly in the advantage!  And you know me, being the fair man I am I opted to do only what was fair! I chose a bow I was unfamiliar with and I took him down with a broken arrow found on the ground!  And I still won!  *SNORTS* *LAUGHS*

No brads3, no Nilla... I couldn't didn't have time, I was in a hurry you see save the citizens. It was either me or them... and well... Bahh, never mind, never mind. Besides there wouldn't have been room for all of them; I needed the space for all my chests and all my taxidermy take up more space than you'd expect!

Yes RedKetchup, I escaped with my life and a couple of scratches to boot. My hair was messed up pretty bad though; wasn't happy about that. Do you even realize how hard it is to get these powdered wigs looking good? And now it's a mess again! Where in hell am I supposed to get a new wig from, huh?  Huh? No brads3, I cannot do it myself! Why? Because I don't have any mirrors you fool! What was that Redketchup? How do you have mirrors when I don't? Hmm... so you're saying where you're from... you have a glassworks huh?

*Grabs a bow and a good arrow and shoots RedKetchup dead where he stands, and gives his head to Nilla to her shrinking experiments!*
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ROFL!   
I'm done with that! 

Anyhow, I was doing good in game on hard and then a tornado came to town in season four and killed off seventeen of my citizens and wiped out a third of my buildings. I was left with seven adults and one child. I had a saved game about five minutes before the tornado warning appeared. If I reload that saved game to try again is there a chance the tornado could take a different path, or is it destined to happen again?  I really don't want to struggle trying to rebuild my town and population with only seven adults and one child.

Thanks.

~MarkAnthony
               

[Artfactial]

Ah yes, the ires of mother nature, won't even spare the nobility, what?
Good to read your lordship survived the thrashing, if somewhat shaken!
As for the riff-raff, well, as you said it, one rotten apple would've probably infected the bunch; so better be out with the whole of the basket, yes?

Good to see you're enjoying the twists the game throws at you, hard as it may be.

[Nilla]

You got me totally wrong! I would NEVER make any shrinking experiments on Red Ketchup! Never! I´m totally offended!    His skull needs to be saved for experiments to extract his creativity and invention-power.

.... and I guess you´ve already noticed, no tornado if you go back to an earlier save.

[moonbelf]

Thank goodness for a saved game prior to the tornado! Saved games have even saved me from some crazy random crash to desktop for no known reason.

Good luck and glad you're enjoying the game

[MarkAnthony]

Good morning, *yawns*

Good to hear I can re-try with the saved game. I wasn't sure if the tornado was baked in with the "save" or not. I was doing pretty well up until that point.. LOL, the first building it took out was my precious school house!

What nerve! 

EDIT: Nah, I have to start over. The saved games I had were after the tornado hit my town, and the other was the very instant I got the town event notification that a tornado touched down. So the tornado was baked-in to my save and it did strike for a second time.

I thought maybe that since the tornado entered at the far end of the map away from my town that saving the game as soon as I got the notification would be sufficient to backup. I thought maybe there was a chance that the path of the tornado would randomize and possibly not hit my town.  I had a tornado warning once in another game and it didn't even touch me.

Oh well, this teaches me to make more saves to the game - I don't know maybe every ten to fifteen minutes or so maybe?

C'est la vie!

[brads3]

if you listened to the Indians,they would have told you about the weather here.why do you thnnk the plains indians travel north and south different times of year?how do the Iroquois live near the rivers that flood 2 tmes a year? they know ehere to live to avoid tornados.you could make a wig at the RK barber shop it has mirros made of polished gold ansd silver.

   "...It was going well too... until it didn't"   that is how banished is you are learning. if you run low on tools, it dominos to food and everything else.hence why i do odd things like make stone tools and iron or use 2 and 3 types of clothing.all your eggs in 1 basket doesn't end well.

      i don't use auto saves. i save at the start,get the base village built ans save again then save every year. more often with nomads or the gremlins acting up.

[MarkAnthony]

      i don't use auto saves. i save at the start,get the base village built ans save again then save every year. more often with nomads or the gremlins acting up.

Yeah, that'd probably be the way to go, every year.

I too save after first loading into a map, then after my starting settlement is established. I could have gone back to that in the tornado game but I didn't feel like racing the clock all over again. What I mean is, I had three older children out of nine: two eight year olds and a nine year old. I missed getting the nine year old educated by five minutes or so. As soon as my school was built maybe about ten to fifteen seconds later, the two eight year olds started school; so I almost lost them too and the three of them probably would have started a gang! Can't be havin' no gang activity 'round here! Everything is so fragile! 

EDIT: My saved game was during the tornado itself, so that was of no help!

I'm starting a new hard game right now and just got the whole section of the map I am at divided up into sections with roads. I'm ready to begin the race again: must get that school up pronto! That Headmaster's an arse!     

EDIT AGAIN: Bah!     I got another two eight year olds and a nine year old again! Is it always the same for vanilla hard or it it random and I just got unlucky both times?

[kid1293]

Same random number - same people.

[Abandoned]

I always play with Auto Save on without problem.  I have rarely reloaded.  If other game problem occurs, delete the Auto Save file.

You can also play with Disasters OFF

[Artfactial]

I myself truly don't like the 'optimize or bust' kind of gameplay; the standardizing of  which steps to follow to 'win', or any of the spread-sheet placement diagrams.
The game has a large randomizing human factor and is perfectly fine with dynamically making every game more or less unique, manifold more so with mods.
What I'm getting to is, play however you want, but getting into some sort of perfect mold or formula, for me, defeats a large part of the fun of the game.
Edit: Scratch that.

Likewise, playing with Disasters on makes me have to deal with that extra level of dynamics and challenge.
As @Abandoned said.

Relax: shit will happen!

[MarkAnthony]

I always play with Auto Save on without problem.  I have rarely reloaded.  If other game problem occurs, delete the Auto Save file.

You can also play with Disasters OFF

Hi @Abandoned , yeah I play with the auto-save on and I kept it at the default five minutes setting. My game freezes for a brief couple of seconds when it occurs but no biggie. At the top left corner of the screen when you see the white circle with an animated image of the man cutting stone, is that the auto-save indicator? I don't see it all the time, just once in a while I notice it. When I first saw it I thought it was a lag meter.

I myself truly don't like the 'optimize or bust' kind of gameplay; ...
What I'm getting to is, play however you want, but getting into some sort of perfect mold or formula, for me, defeats a large part of the fun of the game.

Likewise, playing with Disasters on makes me have to deal with that extra level of dynamics and challenge.
As @Abandoned said.

Relax: shit will happen!

I agree with you really @Artfactial but having read a bit of the forums prior to starting my first game ever the importance of schools as early as possible kind of stuck with me. So other than the exception of placing a school down first (or at least as close to first as possible) I do pretty much build everything else randomly to make each game experience different.

I am starting my sixth game now:

   
• 1st game was medium valleys, fair climate, disasters on, medium difficulty, unmodded. I didn't even make it to the end of the first year I think - everyone died due to cold and starvation.
• 2nd game was the same setup as the first. This also didn't last long but it was better than the first. I don't recall the specifics but I think I abandoned it because of seeing videos of people using the RK Editor Choice mod and I had to have it too!    I think it was during this game that I got my first tornado warning but nothing happened to my town.
• 3rd game was the same setup again but this time I used one of RKEC's maps and the medium 3 difficulty, modded of course. Again I don't recall the specifics but I gave it up after a few hours, hit the forums, then started another map. Besides RKEC I was also using the aging mod that @Abandoned had requested and boy that made my game so much slower in terms of the difficulty of getting things going.
• 4th game was the same as the 3rd, with a different map of course - the Equinox Valleys I think it was. This is the game that I had five game crashes trying to build my first ever Town Hall. After a few hours of hassle with it I finally got my Town Hall built on the six try but 20 minutes or so later I just tossed the game because the hassle of it all just soured my enjoyment of even being there any more. Still using the aging mod here too.
• 5th game I came back to Vanilla. It uses the same setup of the first two games except I am playing it on hard for the first time. It was not the right choice for me to start using mods right away in Banished. I need to learn the basics of the core game first and I knew this from the start but I also know my tendency in games... I eventually end up modding them and using custom UI interfaces at some point so that's why I drifted to @RedKetchup 's mod so quickly. But it was too much too soon for that. I will eventually go back to using RKEC, just not for a while though. Besides... I am quite happy to be unshackled from the aging mod!  Though, after learning the core game and getting more confident in my abilities to play it, I think I will go back to using the aging mod again too eventually. Anyhow, this game is my first tornado wipe-out game. I didn't feel like starting over here again so I started another one this morning.
• 6th game is the same as my 5th, using the hard difficulty. I'm just about to un-pause the game for the first time... just going to finish up this reply first. 

What other disasters are there possible in game besides: disease outbreaks, fires and tornadoes? Those are the only three I think I ever read about.

Thanks.

               

[Artfactial]

Great. Yeah, there is nothing wrong with getting a good foundation, especially if you want to get a hang of the game.
And you do do seem to experiment with all the options to get your bearings, so that is already one of the most valuable things you can do!

That is about the extent of the disasters with perhaps Famine (the one that is currently wrecking through my town) to be added to that. It can spread kind of like any disease or fire; once key individuals fall by the roadside and production chains get hampered it is a very hard train to stop. For me, it is the hardest one to deal with, as my town layout and the game's mechanics tend to be at odds with each other in those times.

Again, I didn't like my tone in last post and I should know better than to post when frustrated, so I apologize if that came of harsh.

Good luck with your new town, let us know!

[MarkAnthony]

I didn't like my tone in last post and I should know better than to post when frustrated, so I apologize if that came of harsh.

Good luck with your new town, let us know!

Personally, I didn't read your post with any negative tone at all, so it's all good here with me. You were just stating an opinion and preference - that's all I read into it.

I think I'll just try and get a short nap in before starting my 6th and current game. It's 11:11 am right now and I have to go to work at 3pm - so yeah, a quick nap and a shower... then work.  I have a short shift tonight so I'll be back at it later this evening.

Have a splendid day! 

[Nilla]

Question; why do you play disasters on when you give up as soon as the only true disaster struck you? 

This was meant to be provocative but not mean because somehow I like your fearless approach to the game: rather fall into ten holes than take the safe detour.

I can tell you a little which other "disasters" may strike you. They are all harmless compared to the tornado.

First I´ll tell how you can handle a tornado if you don´t want to rebuild at any costs.
1. As soon as the sign of the tornado strikes you, make a save.
2. Go back and load the last autosave. If you´re not extremely unlucky, it would be before the tornado.
3. Make an ordinary save of the game just before the tornado.
4. Load the tornado save again to see what happens.
5. If the damage was too big, load the "before tornado" save again.

Other disasters:
Fire.
If your buildings are close to (accessible) natural water, you´ll need no wells but if you´re building in the inland I recommend to build wells. Normally only one or a few buildings will catch fire but in the inland, without close wells, it may be more.

Infestations
A field, orchard or pasture may be infested. Here helps only one thing; demolition! Otherwise, the disease may spread to other units. Of course, there are some tricks to minimize the loss. Should I tell you or do you want to find out for yourself?

Diseases are no disaster. They will appear also without disasters.

[Artfactial]

Ah, yes, of course, infestations, I forgot quite the lowest ranking of them.
Technically disease and famine are no disasters (although the horsemen would beg to differ I think), but they can hit you just as hard. The first being more random than the second I suppose.