Nillas isolated town Loomfield

[Nilla]

I rarely get this, but I see it a lot in other peoples' screenshots. Maybe it has to do with how I arrange my fields, with rows of houses and barns separating them. You can see that in my Sink Mill blog if you are interested.

I have watched your blog, some times and you build beautiful. You might have a point about the barns, you have so many more than I use to build. At harvest times my barns are mostly so 80-90 % full, perhaps thatīs too much.

Now I must tell you something:

This game has a soul!!! I am certain of that!

I did just complain that it was a bit boring , didnīt I? And what happens?

A small fire, not very interesting but this time 3 houses gone. Fire is out and than the gong starts, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim,,,,,,,,,(i donīt know if you have it that way,too, but when there is a special occasion, tradesman come, accidental deaths thereīs a gong)  People are dying, dying, dying, dying.........WHAT IS THAT?  No starvation, no plague, tornado!!!!!!
Townhall gone, doctor gone, one barn, houses, about 80 people and......... a lot of sheep (3 pastures) gone!

Why did I complain? 

But now the strangest thing; as I just started to take care of the destruction, there was a thunderstorm (here in life). We are living "in the middle of nowhere" and the power connection is a bit unreliable. Power gone for 1 second or two, computer off. So I have to start the game over again, I am really excited to see if the tornado comes again!

[RedKetchup]

there is alot of action

keep it up, you are doing great

[Nilla]

Just played a little more. A short update;

Fire immediately, in the same area as the first time, but not the same building. NO TORNADO! 

Just reached the 1000 Bannies after a god harvest. I will play more tonight.

A small Quiz: guess what speed I was playing lately.

[RedKetchup]

2x ? ^^

[Nilla]

WRONG!!!
There are plenty of stones and only 10 building missions ---------- 5X 

[Nilla]

As usual, I went on building last night and now I look at my screenshots and will try to tell you something about it, but there isnīt all too much to tell. I went on building the same way as I have done all the time, most farms and slowly I have filled the map almost completely.

First picture, idling at the well. Not much work in winter. But I also wanted to show the food diagram.

I have increased the stocks of food to a more comfortable level. I will try to keep it this way, as long as I can.  I have also built less houses, than I did at the start. At the most, I had about 150 families more than houses. Now as the town reaches the age of 60 years, it is getting more balanced. I have built more houses now, but in the period of "building-stop", there were less babies, which also means less families now. I had to "pay" this with ― star. Children who cannot move out to found  their own families are unhappy and so are the parents, who have to live with their adult children for years and years. (I can understand that. I have adult children myself. Love when they come to visit, but if they were living here all the time, I would be unhappy too). And now the happiness increases again slowly.

I have slowly started the conversion from heating wood to heating coal. I have built some coalmines, but not increased the number of woodcutters.  I have never done this before so I have no idea, how much coal I need. I usually build some coalmines to support the wood, if I trade a loot whit wood. Just in case the traders are too eager, collecting too much.

I have also lost ― health-hart. I suppose it is because there isnīt enough fruit. I donīt like these orchards, never build them, if I can buy the fruit. They are too undependable! As I seldom build any, I have only little experience, to get as much fruit as possible. I have looked and made some experiments with the number of workers, without any success. Does anyone know any "tricks"? Maybe I will chop them all down and plant crops there instead. Donīt know how it will influence the harts, weīll see later.

I now have 1370 Bannies, enough supply  and still some "virgin land" in the south, so 1500 will be no big problem. But than............ let the fun begin!

[RedKetchup]

yeah, fruits are kinda a necessity. I think if you dont plan to regulary buy those, we need to use some % of the workforce to make those even if they are ugly, and totally non-productive. in my last map (present map) i m kinda experimenting a 3x5 (15) grid of 14x14 squares. I use one for market, 4 for houses/industries, some are dedicated to pastures, some to crops, and some to orchards. it s a test. I know the best for them is a 4,7,10,13 by 7.9.11.13.15 but i dont mind to lose 1 row. so far works fine, but i wont really see it till i reach high pop with it.

[Nilla]

I thought I had put my town to death! 

I made a mistake. And one thing about Banished; Mistakes are often punished, real hard. ( By the way; I love that!)

Look at the picture, and it didnīt end until it reached the bottom, real fast. At most about 70 workers had no tools. 

2 reasons I think;
1. As I produce a lot of coal for heating, I have many miners and I have the impression that miners and quarry workers need more tools the others. As I increased the number of miners, I didnīt increase the number of toolmakers enough.
2. I made steel tools. The Bannies used the coal for heating. No coal left for the toolmakers. Productivity broke down. (I think we all know this, stupid beginners mistake)     

So I have built a couple of toolmakers and  changed the production to iron tools (maybe I will change the production summer- steel tools, winter - iron tools) . And now I have 100 tools in my store!!!!   

Crisis might be over..... for this time......

By the way I have reached  1630 inhabitants. 

[Nilla]

Crisis might be over..... for this time.....

I was wrong, crisis was far from over!

My God, they need a lot of tools! And now I have iron tools.  OK my blacksmiths do produce now, but of cause everyone need a lot more iron tools than steel tools, so there are still not enough. I doubled the blacksmiths but it is still not enough. As I didnīt plan for this high demand on tools, I have no real good positions for new ones.The only real good thing to do, would be to go back to an earlier save, before I built so many coalmines, but......

....I HATE THAT!   

When I make such mistakes, I let the disaster come: Let half of the population starve to death and then I can go on; replan and rebuild.  (I know Iīm a mean person )

But they do not even want to do that!

I let the game run, with not much care for almost 10 years. They froze in the winter and starved in spring and early summer, but only few starved or froze to death. The lack of tools became bigger for each year, but it seems that the farmers are not so much less productive without tools. Somehow they manage to survive. I show you my last screenshot. I let run for some more years after that, same result.  The population didnīt reduce much, I think it was 1580 something as I turned off, in year 74 or 75.

So for now I will finish this experiment. It made a lot of fun! It is such a big difference, not having the nice tradesmen, "bringing all the goodies"! You have to go back to the basics of the game. The trading ports are so "powerful" and make the game so much easier.

I will sure try this again soon (but perhaps first something else in between) Probably on a new map, but maybe I will go back to an earlier save. We will see. If I do I will continue this blog.

I recommend all of you good players;
Try one with no tradesmen, try to "beat" this: 
Population: 1663
medium map, fair climate
NO TRADESMEN
(that was my biggest save, maybe I had some more later, didnīt notice, I was busy doing other things)

I am sure some of you good planners can do better, because here youīll need a lot of planning.

[RedKetchup]

so sad to see it failed.
yeah TPs are OP and allow you to skip most of mechanics till you hit a big high pop. lack this ? or lack of that ? no worries, i ll place orders to merchants ^^

i already have one without TP i m playing time to time but it s hard to have focus to play , my 5000pop emptied my energies ^^

[Nilla]

i already have one without TP i m playing time to time but it s hard to have focus to play , my 5000pop emptied my energies ^^

No wonder

[RavenSteele]

Very nice town!

Though I'm beginning to realize I build much, much slower than all of you

I'm lookin' at you @RedKetchup & @irrelevant haha

[Pangaea]

Very nice thread, and well done getting that high pop on a medium map without the merchants. I couldn't agree more they are OP. But it also means people can stretch the game as far as possible and get these wacky high population numbers, so that's a good thing I guess. More variety.

I'm surprised you got by with so few barns, though. Feels like I'm putting down almost as many barns as farms, and it's still a struggle as they keep filling up. Didn't you lose a lot of food when farmers had to walk far to deliver the food? Logistics is important in this game.

[Nilla]

Thank you!

The things with the barns.... and also markets. i do not have a lot of those neater in this game, specially if you compare to @irrelevant, who makes a lot and lot and lot of those.

In this case I build on a medium map, space is rare, so I have tried to build exactly as many barns as I need, not more. That means I want them to be full to 90-95% at harvest-times. Mostly this is the case. I usually check it very carefully. Sometimes if there are several good harvests in a row, there might be full barns and the farmers must walk a bit longer, to deliver their products, but I let that happen. It is seldom and if it happens, I have a lot of of food and can spoil some, If I had built much more barns I would have spoiled more, because there would have bin less fields. But of cause it is fragile.

By the way; empty barns are no god neither, specially the way I build with not so many markets. Many of the houses get their food-supply from barns. Too many barns=empty barns at harvest times and the farmers (and other people living a bit away from the markets) have to walk far to get their supply. As i said fragile.

[Nilla]

As you commented this old blog @Pangaea I got a bit inspired to make another try on this non-trading-project. Though i have decided to start from scratch and look for a new map. No idea if it is better, but I am not so fond of building on the same map more than once.

I will still try this coal-heating project and plan it better from the start, also a lot of toolmakers.

I have just started the game and will tell you a little more, when i have built more.