How to make all achievements on one map without starvation

[Nilla]

@theonlywanderer wrote this in his thread about his successful attempt to make all achievements on one map:

The isolationist challenge in tandem with uneducated and one with nature is where I see starvation afterwards as unavoidable at the moment. 

I canīt see a statement like that, without feeling challenged, especially as Iīve almost managed to make it without starvation in my attempt. In fact, I will not make all achievements here, only the "trickiest"; small mountain map, no schools and no trading port before 300 inhabitants, no farms, orchards or pastures ever.

I took the first map without bothering about room for the long bridge (no ambition of building that). Itīs not a very good map; too little buildable space along the river, thereīs no good fishing spot at all and the number of fisher huts you can build without overlapping water tiles isnīt very high (10) but I think, almost any map will work, this one, too.

Whatīs the trick? Of course, there are tricks. You canīt produce 30k food on a small mountain map, especially not with uneducated workers. The main trick is to use the "natural" population variation; the "famous sinus graph". But also some other minor tricks:

- use the educated start-up population wisely: let them work on professions where uneducated destroy raw material hard to produce; make a lot of tools in advance, clear all stones and iron on the ground as labourers. Locate the uneducated children close to fishing huts and in forest producing areas.

- store a lot of food with a manageable population. You can make this in two ways; grow slowly at the beginning and make a surplus of food each year during this slow growth or grow faster without large surplus to the maximum population the small map can support. Stop building new houses and when the population drops you can produce a surplus of food.

-when the food store is big enough; use the next growing part of the cycle and expand fast to 300 inhabitants, stop building new houses at 260-270

- with 300 inhabitants build some schools and 2-3 trading ports, fill them with venison and as much firewood you can spare. Order food, logs and stones. When a merchant with food is at a port, let him stay until youīve bought all the food worth 1 that he has.

- transform your settlement to a trading village using firewood and/or ale and venison as long as some are produced, let the population drop

- when you feel safe and the population is younger again, start building new houses, spam the river with trading ports, expand the number of choppers (or brewers) and grow to 900 inhabitants or more if you like and have a map that allows many trading ports. Maybe you can even allow yourself to take some nomads.

Iīll show you how I did it with some pictures:

First picture
It took 42 years to reach 300 inhabitants. I chose the second option; to expand to (what I wanted) 200 inhabitants. Then no more houses and wait and let the stores be filled. Now, it didnīt exactly go the way I wanted. I had forgotten how fast uneducated breed and the growth went on to 230, not 200.

Second picture
My maximum food production was 22k each year so it was pretty tough for some years but in the end, you can see that it worked out. The stores of food rose to 58 k and are now dropping.

Third picture
2 trading ports built. Of course, this merchant arrives at first! 

Fourth picture
But shortly afterwards this one arrived.  I could buy a lot with the stored venison, also whatīs stored in that other port. And the merchant will stay until Iīve bought all the food worth 1.

Fifth picture
Here we donīt have so much venison to sell anymore but weīve expanded our firewood production. This part of the village is under reconstruction. The homeless people arenīt any nomads (no good idea to take any at this moment) Itīs the people whose houses Iīm upgrading. I donīt want to expand the number of houses at this moment. This is the safest way.

Sixth picture
Again it took some time but weīve reached 400 inhabitants without getting close to starvation. Now itīs "too" prosperous. Firewood production is indeed powerful. 

Seventh picture
600 inhabitants didnīt take very long. Still everything very safe.

Eight picture
900 inhabitants didnīt take long either but it wasnīt quite as comfortable as before. You can see that weīve been short of logs for a part of the time. I was stupid enough not to buy everything that was delivered, didnīt want the stores of logs to get over 10k but for several years the merchants brought a lot of seed and animals, a little food and almost no logs. You can also see that we are short on clothes and stones. Lately, the resource merchants, where I order these materials have been absent. This is the hazards of an export depending village. You need big stores to overcome periods of only "wrong" merchants.

I have 9 trading ports. Itīs enough for 900 inhabitants. If I remember it right, I had run sustainable villages with 120 inhabitants on each trading port in other games, so a little bit higher population would be possible but I donīt think I can survive to fill the map with houses.

[theonlywanderer]

@Nilla ..  congrats!   It's tricky for sure.

That's why I said.. "at the moment", had to leave it open because I had ideas myself.     I have also been tinkering with a new map and my stored food was up to 75k at one point.   I have a lot going on so I had to stop messing with Banished for a bit here, but I will be going back to that map.

What really ticks me off is the crappy AI when it comes to house management and people moving out and pairing up.  There are definitely flaws in the system where the tricks have to accommodate and make up for and it's a real shame.   Having to go around demolishing/reclaiming houses in order to get people to move around and pair up is annoying.   Without doing that, it takes building new houses constantly because the old farts never move out, they stay single in house until they die so you have to kick them out so a new couple can move in.   I think my impatience gets the most of me even at 25/50/100 speed.   Everything just takes too long in the game sometimes and becomes drudge work.  I start to get annoyed and then start to rush everything to overcome the annoying AI.

But I did figure out a solution, just need to get back to it.

[Nilla]

@Nilla

What really ticks me off is the crappy AI when it comes to house management and people moving out and pairing up.  There are definitely flaws in the system where the tricks have to accommodate and make up for and it's a real shame.   Having to go around demolishing/reclaiming houses in order to get people to move around and pair up is annoying.   Without doing that, it takes building new houses constantly because the old farts never move out, they stay single in house until they die so you have to kick them out so a new couple can move in.   I think my impatience gets the most of me even at 25/50/100 speed.   Everything just takes too long in the game sometimes and becomes drudge work.  I start to get annoyed and then start to rush everything to overcome the annoying AI.

But I did figure out a solution, just need to get back to it.

Iīm not so sure itīs the AI that makes the problems. Normally people pair up without doing anything. Itīs only if you have too many houses, you get these trouble, and thatīs part of Banished; adapt to the development of the population. Sorry for being rude; but I think the explanation for these troubles is your 25/50/100 speed! You canīt play well that fast. I canīt play well 10 or even 5x speed. Although, in this game, I partly ran it that fast in periods where I didnīt build any new houses but thatīs an exception. There were periods where I had more houses than families but I rather "tricked out" my Bannis who were keen on separation: The first time when I didnīt build anything; by closing houses, the second time; by demolishing and upgrading.

[theonlywanderer]

Nothing taken as rude.

I mainly do the higher speeds after pausing and placing things and not really planning to do anything else until those aspects are done.     I actually do believe it's an AI issue because you will always end up with too many houses as people age out of being able to have children, they remain in their homes and as they die off their spouse is still lingering in the house on their own for however long.   So, you still have to build more houses to make room for new families and then when the old folks finally do die and free up homes you now have all these extra homes again.   I have also seen plenty of situations where say two older folks are in a house with someone capable of forming a family and another house with a similar scenario and then another house with only one person in it.   If each house can handle two families, then why aren't the younger two moving in with the single person and forming another family?   You end up having to force the issue by demo/reclaim method to free up the home and the couple moves in.  It's definitely an AI problem.

True, there is a fine balance to the game that can be followed, but that's where my impatience takes over.  I simply have no desire to monitor the game at that level.    It's only within this all-in-one situation where my lack of patience really affects anything and even then I've still successfully completed two all-in-on maps.  On a medium or large map, I should have no problems whatsoever doing an all-but-one achievement, obviously leaving out mountain men.