I saw this Reddit post from over a year ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/Banished/comments/2dqvq8/2000_population_by_year_30_details_in_comments/
His claim was to make it to a population of 2000 by year 30, which he did. He has some pic here - http://imgur.com/a/w79Um#0
However in the last picture you see that he just received over 450 Nomads - http://imgur.com/a/w79Um#18
That is a huge number of Nomads and I am just assuming that number due to the homeless count. Point is, he may have reached 2000 at 30 years, but I doubt he was able to maintain that number.
Anyway, after searching high and low, he is the only one that I have ever found to reach this goal. From what I can find, if someone could reach 2000 at 30 with a stable population I think it would be a world record.
Any thoughts?
Jeff
there are some experts in here like @irrelevant , @Trizeropz , @Nilla ... they can probably say something about it :)
That would really be something to see. If I remember right, there was a challenge a few months ago to get the highest population with health and happiness as high as possible, and I think that was limited to somewhere around 30 years. That may also been the challenge where only boarding houses could be used, but I can't remember for sure. At any rate, it seems that most of the populations were approaching 1000, but hadn't quite made it. To get to 2000 in 30 years seems like it would require explosive growth from the very start, and I doubt just any old map would be able to support it.
I haven't been very active lately on this page but now I made a fast look and saw this thread.
Of cause it's possible to get 2000 inhabitants in less than 30 years. In my fastest game I had 4800 inhabitants in summer 30. In this game I used a couple of mods; none of them increase the population growth or the number of nomads. I blogged it: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=671.0
4800 inhabitant were not sustainable but I guess about 3500 would have been. I also think 5000 would have been sustainable if I had used a big map. I used a medium map in this fast game because I wanted to reduce the lags.
Another question is, if it's possible to build this fast without mods? I don't know. In this fast game I used the 3-store-houses from @slink. They need very little building materials and take much less space then normal houses. So the biggest problem to build fast in an unmodded game will be to get enough building materials.
One key to getting huge pop fast is to forget about education from the very beginning. No schools. This means that your Bannies will form families as early as age ten. This results in them breeding like rabbits.
Of course, no education brings its own challenges, but nothing is unmanageable if you know what is coming.
@Nilla I'm sure this would be possible without mods. Maybe I'll give that a go. I've run out of ideas for challenging unmodded towns.
@irrelevant, that's funny. I had the same idea. I haven't played Banished since before Christmas and really like to start an interesting new game.
I went to this page now, to "steal" a suitable map to start with. I'm a bit too lazy to search random. Just found one of yours; 160785085 from the 100 people challenge.
As you say; first key for a fast game is no schools and the second is the right map with a lot of children from the start. Your map had 12 children. I know there are maps with a few more, but 12 is good enough.
I might start the game later. I'll let you know how it works.
I don't think I have ever had a population of over 1000 let alone 2000, so this could be rather interesting, and knowing what my towns are like a real test of crisis management.
No mods, large map, easy start, and just for the hell of it, disasters on.
I doubt I will get anywhere near it, but it should be fun.
and us we dont sleep anymore, we dont have life anymore.....
to make mods for you guys :S
Quote from: RedKetchup on February 14, 2016, 12:52:44 PM
and us we dont sleep anymore, we dont have life anymore.....
to make mods for you guys :S
We know you're doing it cause you love it ;D
Quote from: Nilla on February 14, 2016, 02:21:48 AM
I went to this page now, to "steal" a suitable map to start with. I'm a bit too lazy to search random. Just found one of yours; 160785085 from the 100 people challenge.
I forgot about that map, yes, that was a very nice starting situation.
Quote from: Nilla on February 14, 2016, 02:21:48 AMAs you say; first key for a fast game is no schools and the second is the right map with a lot of children from the start. Your map had 12 children. I know there are maps with a few more, but 12 is good enough.
I know you are right about starting out with the max number of children, but I just don't have the patience to look through very many seeds before I get bored with it.
Quote from: irrelevant on February 14, 2016, 02:35:45 PM
Quote from: RedKetchup on February 14, 2016, 12:52:44 PM
and us we dont sleep anymore, we dont have life anymore.....
to make mods for you guys :S
We know you're doing it cause you love it ;D
i know right :P
i never played that game since lol
I started a fast game. Haven´t played much yet, so there´s not much to tell. But I can already say; this game will be a challenge. I´ll show you 2 pictures.
First picture
100 inhabitants to about the same time as we made it in that 100 challenge. I didn´t pay attention at the time, but it´s 108 inhabitants in winter 7. As expected; the problem is building materials. I try to use the wood from orchards. I think it´s quite an efficient way to increase the log-supply.
Second picture
10 years played. I will build up a trading economy, but it´s not easy to produce enough to sell, with the uneducated work force.
So far I'm on my third attempt at this, each time i seem to get to about the 10 year mark and only about 120 peeps and start to suffer serious food, firewood, building materials and tool shortages.
I know i've struck unlucky a couple of times with starting positions but I take what i get and try and work with it.
My latest attempt has been with a medium start rather than an easy start and it does seem to actually be going better.
This is everything against my normal building style, I normally start hard or often Adam and Eve and build slow and steady, keeping resources and education high and only putting in a new house when i know i can support it.
Yes. @Oenanthe, I understand your problem. Here we combine two difficult things; fast growth with uneducated people. You have to be much more ahead of everything, than in an ordinary game. The uneducated people are the worse. As I understand, you are new on this page but a while ago @irrelevant made a very good calculation; how much less the uneducated produce. Maybe you didn´t see it. I´m sorry, I can´t find it, but maybe he knows where he wrote it.
The worse things using uneducated are tools, clothes, mines and quarries. (as I remember). Some advice; try to use the original educated workers as good as possible and build no mines and no quarries, buy all stones and iron. If you look at my first picture; I have built the blacksmith and the tailor surrounded by the 5 initial houses. I also produce as much tools as I can at the beginning (I even store some in a trading port, to save space in the barn).
In any case, I played another 5 years. In fact it was 8-9 because I tried to build stone houses, but I couldn´t produce enough goods to buy enough stones. So I went back to year 10 and this time it worked out better. 400 inhabitants in spring 15. It´s even faster than in my Doolin. Pretty exhausting. I´ve started to play a lot in speed X1. I remember I did that in Doolin as well.:) ??? :P
Quote from: Nilla on February 18, 2016, 02:33:49 AM
Yes. @Oenanthe, I understand your problem. Here we combine two difficult things; fast growth with uneducated people. You have to be much more ahead of everything, than in an ordinary game. The uneducated people are the worse. As I understand, you are new on this page but a while ago @irrelevant made a very good calculation; how much less the uneducated produce. Maybe you didn´t see it. I´m sorry, I can´t find it, but maybe he knows where he wrote it.
It's here: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=727.0
Quote from: Nilla on February 18, 2016, 02:33:49 AM
The worse things using uneducated are tools, clothes, mines and quarries. (as I remember). Some advice; try to use the original educated workers as good as possible and build no mines and no quarries, buy all stones and iron. If you look at my first picture; I have built the blacksmith and the tailor surrounded by the 5 initial houses. I also produce as much tools as I can at the beginning (I even store some in a trading port, to save space in the barn).
Re: tools, I did exactly the same thing ;)
Quote from: Nilla on February 18, 2016, 02:33:49 AM
In any case, I played another 5 years. In fact it was 8-9 because I tried to build stone houses, but I couldn´t produce enough goods to buy enough stones. So I went back to year 10 and this time it worked out better. 400 inhabitants in spring 15. It´s even faster than in my Doolin. Pretty exhausting. I´ve started to play a lot in speed X1. I remember I did that in Doolin as well.:) ??? :P
@Nilla With 400 in 15 years, I think you will easily get 2000 in 30 years, more likely in 25-26 years
I am also trying this. I am behind you in pop, with only 202 in 17 years, but I think I will make it, as my pop has doubled in 3.75 years. At that rate I will reach 2000 in late year 30.
Quote from: Oenanthe on February 17, 2016, 10:37:59 AM
My latest attempt has been with a medium start rather than an easy start and it does seem to actually be going better.
I also find that a "medium" start is almost always easier than "easy". ;D
Quote from: irrelevant on February 18, 2016, 09:25:26 PM
Quote from: Oenanthe on February 17, 2016, 10:37:59 AM
My latest attempt has been with a medium start rather than an easy start and it does seem to actually be going better.
I also find that a "medium" start is almost always easier than "easy". ;D
I agree with you two. I find a "medium" start easier than "easy", too. But I used an "easy" start in this game anyway. The reason is, that I wanted to test how fast it's possible to build. The number of inhabitants from the start is in this case very important. I don't think we use very different strategies, @irrelevant. I suppose you build a house for each couple as soon as possible, too. The difference in the population between our two towns is due to the number of people at the start.
Quote@Nilla With 400 in 15 years, I think you will easily get 2000 in 30 years, more likely in 25-26 years
No, I will not! At least not easily! This is hard! Very hard! I played another 5 years. 1000 inhabitants in late winter 19. In Doolin it took 4 years (low) to go from 1000 to 2000, so theoretically; yes, I could reach 2000 in year 23-24. But that's pure theory. I don't think it will go on that long. There's a lack of almost everything:
- I don't have enough laborers to clear enough ground to expand the number of fields enough. One winter I tried to clear a bit more land and the farmers who made most of the work, didn't get back in time to work on the fields, and the harvest was very bad. I don't know how to manage this.
- I don't have enough ale to bye enough apples to make more ale to bye more apples............and other food. I don't know how to manage this either. No use to build more trading ports when I can't fill the ones I have.
- I don't have enough firewood to buy enough logs, stones, iron, tools, wool, not to talk about food.
- Sheep breed slower than people. I wanted to be self sufficient on wool but it doesn't work. Maybe I was a bit slow building new pastures at the beginning; not enough wood, mutton was valuable to sell. I must pay now. My tailors produce very bad.
So, what will I do? First go on like this until it crashes! Than, I have some ideas to go back to an earlier save and make some changes, not quite so fast, but more realistic. I'll let you know what I do and how it works.
For what it may be worth, I tend to agree that animal husbandry (easy start) can be a nuisance as opposed to a medium start (agriculture only). The beasts seem to just complicate the issue, so maybe the designations should be reversed.
The latest variant on Calamity Valley does seem to be going the best so far (hope i haven't spoken too soon), I did use the easy start and got sheep, threw up a pen quickly and got them breeding and splitting, concentrating on the wool not the mutton.
Unlike most I do seem to need a quarry fairly quickly i never seem to have enough stone otherwise and I don't know why but my traders never seem to bring anything of use. I have being experimenting with stone roads for the longer trips as they are meant to give faster movement, and I think it is paying off. A few stone houses thrown into the mix is also helping with firewood use.
I had a mild out break of dysentry early on that took a couple of peeps and then i seemed to have a serious outbreak of child birth, that took a few more or my women. Still I'm at 105 population at 12 years and still managing to keep my supplies reasonable. I doubt I'll make the 2000 by 30 years but it seems my best attempt so far.
I've been trying to ramp up my infrastructure with the idea of trading my way up to 2000, but after reading what @Nilla wrote about her town and seeing firsthand what is happening in mine, I'm thinking that this is not the way to go. Like @Nilla said, it is very difficult to produce enough goods to be able to rely on trading to supply food.
Now I'm thinking that I will use just a few TPs to trade some firewood for logs, stone, and iron, venison/mutton for nuts, and some ale for fruit. Cover the rest with farms and pastures, with forest circles on the outskirts. Food is the big problem. If there aren't enough laborers I'll cut back to one farmer/120-tile farm.
Quote from: Oenanthe on February 19, 2016, 02:14:36 PM
Unlike most I do seem to need a quarry fairly quickly i never seem to have enough stone otherwise and I don't know why but my traders never seem to bring anything of use. I have being experimenting with stone roads for the longer trips as they are meant to give faster movement, and I think it is paying off. A few stone houses thrown into the mix is also helping with firewood use.
With uneducated workers, a quarry never pays off. But off cause, you must order stones from the traders, and take the 20% higher price. It pays off. I don´t remember exactly, but I don´t think an uneducated worker makes much more than 10-15 stones each year. If you count the higher order-price of 8 it´s worth 80-120. An uneducated woodcutter makes maybe 400 wood each year, with a profit of 2,6 if you buy the logs.
I don´t think stone roads pay off, at least not at the beginning. I use to "pave" main roads late in the game, if I have a lot of stones, but at the beginning, stones are more valuable for other things. Stone houses pay off in about 8 years, if I remember it right. I normally build them, as fast as I can. In this game I tried, but didn´t manage to buy enough stone. It will cost me later, but not so much in this game, that will not be played so many years.
Quote from: Oenanthe on February 19, 2016, 02:14:36 PM
I doubt I'll make the 2000 by 30 years but it seems my best attempt so far.
I wish you best luck!
Quote from: irrelevant on February 19, 2016, 05:40:26 PM
Now I'm thinking that I will use just a few TPs to trade some firewood for logs, stone, and iron, venison/mutton for nuts, and some ale for fruit. Cover the rest with farms and pastures, with forest circles on the outskirts. Food is the big problem. If there aren't enough laborers I'll cut back to one farmer/120-tile farm.
That´s exactly how I try to make it. But my biggest problem is to clear enough land to increase the number of fields. I don´t have enough free laborers and have to use the farmers in winter. But as I said, they might not get back in time to work in the fields. Especially if I have only one farmer on the field, there´s sometimes only crops on half the field. Do you have any ideas how to make this?
Anyhow, I have struggled on a few years. It still works. Very fast! 1500 inhabitants in late winter 21. I had help :-\ from 120 nomads. I´m not sure, I can survive another two springs, that I need to get 2000. In any case; it will not be sustainable, but maybe it´s possible to reach 2000 people this way. I will give it a try.
Year 20 and just over 250 peeps and mass starvation hit.
So to start again, i'll try what the more experienced players are suggesting, no mine or quarry, order what stone and iron I need. I'm going to be sticking to wooden houses and dirt roads. The starting position wasn't good, in the middle of a a U shaped bend in the river, but it does mean I can get a trading post up quickly. Cows to start with so it will take a bit longer to get coat production going, but the meat will be useful.
Lets see if i can get better than 250 at 20 years.
How many Trading posts do you lot build? I have just tried a couple of games without building a quarry or a mine and a couple of Trading posts, by year 15 even having placed the order for stone and iron, I hadn't had a trader turn up with any. I had only built wooden houses and dirt roads but I quickly ran out of available stone and iron and was having to send my labourers so far out to try and get enough everything was taking far too long and I could barely build enough houses to keep up with population growth let alone build anything else.
So here's where I am right now. Year 20 pop 339
Don't know if I will make 2000 but I have a decent shot at it.
Right now, 4 TPs, soon will build another.
I don't have enough houses but I don't want to overstress my infrastructure. Came close a couple of years ago and nearly ran out of both food and firewood.
Right now concentrating on food production and housing.
I looked at my screenshots, and in year 10 (164 inhabitants) I just started to build port number 4, year 15 (400); 5 ports, year 19 (1000); 7 ports, now I have 9. At the beginning I order iron, stones and logs from the resource tradesman and logs, stones and apples from the general tradesman. @Oenanthe, a small advice to avoid starvation: Look at my second picture. It shows the food graph. You should always try to make it look like it does the first 3/4 of the time; the stores increasing every year. The last 1/4 of the time shows problem.
It's done! 2000 inhabitants, early spring 24. Not easy. Not at all easy! With a lot of struggle and a few starvation deaths in summer, I manage to survive.
This is very fast, a bit faster than in my modded town Doolin. Could it be made even faster? Not much, but yes, maybe a little bit. First if you find a map with more than 12 children. The start is important. There could have been more nomads. I had 3 batches, but they were never very big. Each time rather less than 10% of the population. The last years could also have been made better. I wanted to survive, so I didn't build many new houses.
What will I do now? Go on with the game. It's probably not sustainable, but we will see. It's not totally impossible. The harvest was a bit better this year, than last year and if I manage to survive until now, it could work a few more years The most important thing, is to stop the population growth. I have started to demolish a few houses to build schools. This way there will be no new couples the last few years. If this doesn't work, I will go back to a save to about 1000 inhabitants, build the schools and go for 2000. This time the last years a bit slower.
@Nilla well done! You are the Banished queen! If I don't get 2000 I may try again. It's been awhile since I played, I'm rusty but it's fun!
Congratulations Nilla, I'm going to keep trying and hopefully by following the advise given I might eventually manage it.
hmmmm 2000 citizens with food barely for 190 person (19k food) ^^
i think was time to ding 2000 lol
congratulations :)
I was right -- that was fun to watch. Congrats @Nilla. Now, can @irrelevant reach 2000 (no pressure ;))?
Thank, you. It was fun to play. And besides; I'm not finished yet. I want to make 2000 inhabitants, fast and sustainable. We'll see if this town survives as it is, or if I must go back and replay the last years.
Yes, @RedKetchup the food stores. :( Not large. But it's not always necessary to have these big amount of food stored. You might remember my town Mobilene: http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=1002.0 I made 2000 inhabitants with a food limit of 20 000. Here the stores went up to 50-90 000 after the harvest. And you may never forget that there are a lot of food stored in the houses.
I forget to tell you one small trick @Oenanthe, maybe you don't know about it. If you don't get enough stones (ore something else you want) delivered from the merchants. You can make a save, as you see that a merchant arrives. If he doesn't deliver the right things, restart the game until the "right" merchant arrives. I seldom use this, because I find it quite boring, but I must confess, I did it a couple of times in this town. Stones was the problem a long time.
Quote from: salamander on February 21, 2016, 07:38:50 AM
I was right -- that was fun to watch. Congrats @Nilla. Now, can @irrelevant reach 2000 (no pressure ;))?
Right now it's a 50/50 bet. Food is tough. But if I don't, I'll try again :D
My village is around year 12 and just entered a tools crisis. It is my own fault. I have lots of iron, but overdeveloping shelter has run me out of wood for building. Think I'll have to scrap this one and try again. My population just crossed 200.
Quote from: A Nonny Moose on February 21, 2016, 11:43:54 AM
My village is around year 12 and just entered a tools crisis. It is my own fault. I have lots of iron, but overdeveloping shelter has run me out of wood for building. Think I'll have to scrap this one and try again. My population just crossed 200.
It's always our own fault; that's one of the great things about this game. ;)
Quote from: irrelevant on February 21, 2016, 12:38:28 PM
Quote from: A Nonny Moose on February 21, 2016, 11:43:54 AM
My village is around year 12 and just entered a tools crisis. It is my own fault. I have lots of iron, but overdeveloping shelter has run me out of wood for building. Think I'll have to scrap this one and try again. My population just crossed 200.
It's always our own fault; that's one of the great things about this game. ;)
Yes. That's why I play this and SimCity 4. The basic difference is it is much harder to lose at SC4, because it doesn't kill off all your Sims, just your treasury. Neither game really has a way to "win".
I am really hoping that Luke gets his Linux native mode version working sometime soon. Running this program using the windows JIT layer causes it to be very slow because of a glitch in wine's multiprogramming capability. The wine console always has the following as a final curse, just before the game starts:
Quoteerr:ole:CoInitializeEx Attempt to change threading model of this apartment from multi-threaded to apartment threaded
I suppose some day, the developers will get around to this, but I am not holding my breath.
Quote from: irrelevant on February 21, 2016, 12:38:28 PM
Quote from: A Nonny Moose on February 21, 2016, 11:43:54 AM
My village is around year 12 and just entered a tools crisis. It is my own fault. I have lots of iron, but overdeveloping shelter has run me out of wood for building. Think I'll have to scrap this one and try again. My population just crossed 200.
It's always our own fault; that's one of the great things about this game. ;)
Agree
Quote from: A Nonny Moose on February 21, 2016, 02:54:23 PM
Neither game really has a way to "win".
I´m not sure I agree fully on that. If I make myself a really hard challenge, like this 2000 inhabitants as fast as I can, and somehow manage, it feels like a "win". The difference to many other games is, that you have to set these goals for yourself. I like that. I don´t need the computer to tell me when I win.
Talking about winning; I might be on my way to "win" this game. I manage to survive another two years. It´s still close on the edge of failing, but that´s good. It only shows that I´m close to what´s possible. That´s exactly what I wanted.
There is some starvation every spring-summer. That helps to stop the population growth. I micromanage the fields; start the harvest early and move farmers to neighbor-fields, when everything is harvested. The first few students just graduated from school. If I survive a couple of more years, the education will give in an increasing production and the problems will be solved.
One thing I just remembered doing in another town was to fake-demolish lots of houses during the winter and open them back up in the spring. This reduces firewood consumption tremendously, would leave more firewood for trade.
Quote from: irrelevant on February 22, 2016, 06:51:08 AM
One thing I just remembered doing in another town was to fake-demolish lots of houses during the winter and open them back up in the spring. This reduces firewood consumption tremendously, would leave more firewood for trade.
When you evict these people, where do they go? Do you let them freeze/starve to reduce the surplus population, Ebenezer? Or do you have workhouses?
Hehheh, the homeless guys warm up at other Bannies homes, and they get food from barns. Other than that they go on working just like normal.
These are the chains you forge on line. Getting longer and more onerous as time goes by ....
Repent!
Actually, that's not a bad idea but my game runs so slowly I don't need yet another complication.
Quote from: irrelevant on February 22, 2016, 06:51:08 AM
One thing I just remembered doing in another town was to fake-demolish lots of houses during the winter and open them back up in the spring. This reduces firewood consumption tremendously, would leave more firewood for trade.
That might be a good idea. Just one thing; What is with the farming in spring? I have noticed that if you build new fields, the first years harvest is mostly bad. I explain this to the fact, that the game hasn't reorganized the living space for these new farmers perfect yet. They might still live far away, even if I try to build and staff new fields in early winter. If you make a lot of people homeless, do they live at the right spot immediately, as they get some place to live? A good harvest is necessary to survive in this game. So, I don't know if I would dare to make it that way.
Anyhow I didn't read about your trick, until after I was out of the crisis. I got a little help from scarlet fiver to stop the population growth. Mean as I am, I sacked the doctors as soon as the disease occurred. :-\ :-[
The food production has increased every year, without new fields. 40% of the population is now educated. It's a big difference. I have plenty of firewood, I reopened most breweries. I even started to build some new houses.
Yes, to my surprise, this was a sustainable settlement!
Year 16 of my latest attempt and population having just topped 300, the best so far. Only a couple of problems so far.
I suffered my normal tool shortage, it reached the point when about a quarter of the working population were coping without tools before i realised I had an emergency supply stored away in the Trading post, over 4 times the number of tools needed. I then had the food shortage, up to that point my food stocks were going well normally between 8 and 12 thousand units. I suddenly realised that it was down to about 500 units. I don't know quite what happened i was too busy watching the great sheep migration as they crossed mountains and rivers to reach new pastures, not quite the African migration of the Wildebeast, but my 5 sheep were important to me. Fortunately the harvest and a fortuitous trader saved the day.
I have noticed a few things. My builders are definitely working to type. They normally seem to gather as many as possible at the least prepared building, even if there is one with the foundations finished next to it, and then just hang around waiting for the labourers to turn up with the logs and stone, standing around, leaning on shovels, drinking tea, typical builders.
I also added a brewers purely to sell the ale to the traders, however there is a distinct discrepancy between the amount of ale produced and the amount that ends up in the trading post. I have some secret drinkers somewhere in the comunity, unfortunately there isn't an excise officer that I can send out to investigate.
@Oenanthe if your guys are drinking your ale, it's because you aren't collecting it fast enough. To pull it into your TPs quickly, increase the number of traders you have, and make sure the desired inventory level in each one is high enough that you won't reach it easily.
My town isn't going to make it. Year 25 and only pop 501. I made a mistake back in year ~18, I took in some nomads that I should not have done, and immediately had food and tool problems. In addition, that map really wasn't ideal for this challenge, to many terrain constraints on growth.
I'm going to start over with a different seed. Thinking of doing an easy start, despite the six starting houses which I hate. Starting out with sheep and more children would likely more than make up for that. I may just knock down 3-4 of the houses and rebuild them in better spots, houses are cheap.
Sorry for you guys, that you didn't make it this time. It's the right spirit; try again.
I will try to give you some advice.
@Oenanthe; A food store of 8-12 k isn't safe at all, when the population is over 100. You might survive, but you have to struggle. It's not easy to get big stores with uneducated people, but food must always be the main priority. You can't feel safe, unless you have a store of 100*your population.
And yes; it's easy to get distracted by all funny things that happens in this game; like sheep walking across the land, up the mountains, under water........I'm always quite intrigued by how they hook up, divorce and these "goosip" things.
@irrelevant; don't tear any houses up. They are too valuable. In this game; forget all about a "perfect" game, a perfect location. I always admire your settlements, your building style, it's perfect. But in a really fast game, you have to paint with a bigger brush. This game can't be perfect. Forget the perfect locations, forget some of your barns, forget the graveyards, focus on the important things; food, food, new homes, food, food, food, firewood, food, food, building materials, food, food, food, tools, food, food, food...... you know what I mean?
I liked the map I stole from you. I can recommend it.
I let my game run a few more years, but I've lost interest. I might make another try, too; really try to expand 30 years. Last time I tried to reach 2000 inhabitants as fast as possible and see if the settlement could survive. This time I will try to expand 30 years as fast as i can. Maybe make 3000! :-\ ;) ;D
Year 18, population 370, and it is apparent that I am never (or at least not in the time scale) going to recover from the food shortage. I haven't enough firewood for trade and barely enough logs for building, coats and tools are in very short supply so it doesn't look like i can trade my way out of the predicament. I think the best option is to start over. I have learnt a lot from this attempt and hopefully my next town will fair even better.
Quote from: Nilla on February 24, 2016, 02:42:00 AM
@irrelevant; don't tear any houses up. They are too valuable. In this game; forget all about a "perfect" game, a perfect location. I always admire your settlements, your building style, it's perfect. But in a really fast game, you have to paint with a bigger brush. This game can't be perfect. Forget the perfect locations, forget some of your barns, forget the graveyards, focus on the important things; food, food, new homes, food, food, food, firewood, food, food, building materials, food, food, food, tools, food, food, food...... you know what I mean?
I liked the map I stole from you. I can recommend it.
You're right about the houses, it makes a huge difference in pop leaving them up. ;)
Yes, you stole a good one! ;D
Going to try again, with another familiar map, the one I used for Rickettsville. It's a good easy start with sheep and beans, and 12/11. I did find a map with sheep and 12/14, but the map is only so-so.
I wish you luck, @irrelevant. The map seems nice. I looked for a map, too. I think I looked at 10 different maps. (map search is not my favorite occupation). Finally I took one, halfway decent and started a new game.
+++: 12 children, 3 couples 9-7 years old, a good starting position, a good future trading area close to the starting position, wheat
- - - : no real good map with no big farming area, 3 big lakes with no connection to the river, cows, potatoes
I've played 10 years. A little bit faster than my first game. I don't really know why. Maybe this time, there is a better balance between boys and girls. I got 21 nomads instead of 12. But that's no big difference. On the other hand I've already had 4 childbirth deaths in this game. I can't remember that there was any of them early in the other game.
First picture
Like you, @Oenanthe, I don't have much to trade. (The tools are certainly not for trade, I only store them to save space in my barns). Here I want to buy the steel tools and the cheap, not yet ordered stones. But I only have 200 firewood in each port. So I let the merchant wait, empty the other two ports and let all traders carry enough firewood into this port. All tricks needed to halfway manage. :-\ ;)
Second picture
200 inhabitants in 10 years; really fast. Here's the reason for the good food situation; very "aggressive" farm expansion. The big orchards aren't mainly for food, but for logs. I plant them, take the farmer away until it's fully grown, harvest one year and than I delete the orchard, clear the area and have plenty of logs. Later; when I can buy enough logs to make enough firewood, to buy more logs..... the area will be change into more productive fields.
Third picture
A food graph to my liking.
@Nilla harvesting orcchards for logs seems counter-intuitive to me, but I know you use this tactic a lot so it must be profitable. How long do you let the trees grow before you harvest them, and what is the exact procedure you use for doing so?
Quote from: irrelevant on February 26, 2016, 07:18:12 PM
@Nilla harvesting orcchards for logs seems counter-intuitive to me, but I know you use this tactic a lot so it must be profitable. How long do you let the trees grow before you harvest them, and what is the exact procedure you use for doing so?
I use it a lot at the beginning. I find it an efficient way to get logs. I use to make the first orchard very soon and let the initial farmers plant it immediately after the first harvest. Than I close it until it can be harvested. If I need logs, (I normally do all the time, so there is seldom more than one harvest) I demolish it (not cut) and let it be cleared. I make at least one new big orchard each year.
Quote from: Nilla on February 27, 2016, 02:42:02 AM
I use it a lot at the beginning. I find it an efficient way to get logs. I use to make the first orchard very soon and let the initial farmers plant it immediately after the first harvest. Than I close it until it can be harvested. If I need logs, (I normally do all the time, so there is seldom more than one harvest) I demolish it (not cut) and let it be cleared. I make at least one new big orchard each year.
If you don't wait for a fruit harvest, can the trees be harvested sooner?
Two 4x15 orchards would have one more row of trees than one 8x15 (and the same as one 10x15); three would have two more rows than a 12x15. No big deal, but worth considering.
Quote from: irrelevant on February 27, 2016, 06:41:12 AM
Two 4x15 orchards would have one more row of trees than one 8x15 (and the same as one 10x15); three would have two more rows than a 12x15. No big deal, but worth considering.
That's a good point. If I remember right, it also makes a difference whether you make, for example, a 4x15 vs a 15x4 orchard, because of the different spacing of the trees in the north-south and east-west directions.
Quote from: salamander on February 27, 2016, 06:52:56 AM
That's a good point. If I remember right, it also makes a difference whether you make, for example, a 4x15 vs a 15x4 orchard, because of the different spacing of the trees in the north-south and east-west directions.
@salamander yes, never make orchards oriented N/S, always E/W.
This town is moving much faster than the previous one. Got a partial harvest from the three mature orchards there, decided to leave them as I was in good shape for logs at the time. I'll cut them this fall. The upper ones will need another year or two.
For comparison, my previous go at this map, some 18 months ago :)
Quote from: irrelevant on February 27, 2016, 06:41:12 AM
Two 4x15 orchards would have one more row of trees than one 8x15 (and the same as one 10x15); three would have two more rows than a 12x15. No big deal, but worth considering.
It might be this way, but I'm not sure. I studied the fruit harvest, as the game was new and as far as I noticed, the harvest was correlated to the area of the orchard, not the number of trees, we can see. We must remember; this is not life, but a programmed computer game. The gameplay and the graphic could be separately made. But as I said, I'm not sure, it was a long time ago as I tested, it might have been wrong and I didn't test the number of logs, that could be different. And anyhow I see no disadvantage in making many smaller orchards with more trees. (except more micro management work)
Quote from: irrelevant on February 27, 2016, 06:41:12 AM
If you don't wait for a fruit harvest, can the trees be harvested sooner?
Yes, of cause, but as far as I've notice it gives less logs.
I played a bit more yesterday. This game is still faster than my first. I have more food, but clothes is a big problem. I haven't got any wool delivered yet. I wanted sheep fast, so I ordered them from the chicken merchant, and couldn't afford to buy more than 2, and they breed slow. But finally, I've got a lot of logs, so the orchards will be replaced with fields in the next years.
@Nilla I have about as many extra girls as you have boys. They don't seem to want to move into houses on their own though; when I build an extra house a family splits up.
I finally managed the full 30 years with a viable population, unfortunately at the 30 year mark it was only 437, so not even a quarter of the required amount. I could probably have made 500 if I had accepted the Nomads that turned up but I am always wary of Nomads, they seem more trouble than they are worth a lot of the time. A major fire at the docks caused a problem about year 15 and destroyed 2 trading posts, 1 store house, 1 brewery, 2 woodcutters, and several houses. I did manage to rebuild but it cost a lot in resources and trading time. I know I could turn off disasters but for me they are half the fun.
Tools, Iron and Stone were the normal problems and indirectly logs and firewood as it limited my ability to trade for what I needed.
I have learn a lot from this attempt and hopefully my next one will go even better. I will probably go back to the easy start, this one was the middle option, and be a bit more choosy about the map i start on, normally I can't be bothered messing about and just accept what i get, i was too far from the main river so it took too long to get a trading post in place.
Try 585 070 167 - Right next to a lake connected to the main river.
Plains
Large
Mild/Fair - shouldn't matter
Disasters On/Off - shouldn't matter
Easy
You get: Pumpkin, Wheat, Walnut, Chestnut and Chickens
i have no idea of how the map seeds actually generate the starting conditions, i just keep starting over until I get one that doesn't appear too bad. The latest one looks quite hopefull, beans, potatoes and plums, and sheep for livestock. I was only a short distance from the river and across some nice open plains, plenty of resources, and then some nice land for farming. I always want sheep to start with, the wool is useful for coats for wearing and trading and is produced far quicker than cows produce the leather. The plums can be used to make ale for trading once my food stores are looking a bit better.
Toukay - year 13 - pop 230
This one is coming along pretty well. I just fell slightly behind in housing; took in some nomads without having a hospital built, and before I knew it 50 of my guys had the flu. Crash program to build two hospitals, and now I'm ten houses behind.
Besides housing, my emphasis is going to be to replace the forest circle there in the second image with a market supporting a second manufacturing/trading center, and to expand across the river into that huge forest in order to spread farms and orchards far and wide.
@irrelevant; as always, nice looking settlement (with many barns). Are they really all full after the harvest?
I played a few more years. No changes. More people and more food as in my last game. Another thing is the same: there´s always lack on something. This time logs! I need more trading ports. The big boats arrive too seldom. But the problem is to fill the one I have. That´s the big struggle at the moment.
Quote from: Nilla on February 29, 2016, 02:33:46 AM
@irrelevant; as always, nice looking settlement (with many barns). Are they really all full after the harvest?
I played a few more years. No changes. More people and more food as in my last game. Another thing is the same: there´s always lack on something. This time logs! I need more trading ports. The big boats arrive too seldom. But the problem is to fill the one I have. That´s the big struggle at the moment.
@Nilla no, the barns don't fill up; they are there for the convenience of the farmers to insure that my 1-farmer fields get fully-harvested. I am not using as many as I used to! ;D Three houses between each rather than just two ;)
It is indeed hard to get enough logs, ever.
You have so much more industry than I do!
@irrelevant, Do you really get less harvested with less barns? Of cause in games where you store a lot of food, you need a lot of of barns, and of cause the farmers need a barn somewhere close to bring their crops. But in this case? I don't know.
Look at my first picture. In this farming area there are 4. It's far away from the city center, so these barns will be emptied last) OK, one is full, but the others are the way I want them. There's as good as never any crop left on the fields, as the frost arrives. I micromanage the fields; start the harvest manually at 95% and move the bean-farmers, as the field is done. This is a lot of tedious work (I must stop the game and reorganize the farmers the first thing I do now). Can you manage to get a full harvest without this with your many barns? If you do, it might be a good idea for me to build more, too? I have two farmers on about 80% of the larger fields (8*15, 12*10 and bigger) one farmer on the smaller. (Don't have enough people for more). The problem to me, seems more to get them started fast enough in spring, than to get everything harvested fast enough. There are always some fields not 100% grown in early autumn, as the harvest starts automatically. I lose more crops that way, than by frost.
You can see my new strategy trying to get 3000 inhabitants in 30 years; the schools. It's a new challenge to suddenly send all 10 years old to school. First I made the mistake to build too few schools. They do fill up fast. I had everyone educated so far, but some schools are full and that means; some students have to walk far and get educated late. Second, there are no new adults for a long time and I need to increase my farming areas; not enough people to clear the land, not enough new farmers. Third; how do you prevent students to move into empty houses (even more?) far away from their schools?
In any case, there is no food crisis, yet. I can't increase the stores anymore, but they are never empty either. I hope it will stay that way!
And to my industries: Even if it looks like a lot, it's not enough with these uneducated. There are not enough goods to fill the ports to buy enough raw materials to produce more goods. A "Teufelskreis" as the Germans say.
Quote from: Nilla on March 01, 2016, 03:37:13 AM
@irrelevant, Do you really get less harvested with less barns? Of cause in games where you store a lot of food, you need a lot of of barns, and of cause the farmers need a barn somewhere close to bring their crops. But in this case? I don't know.
Look at my first picture. In this farming area there are 4. It's far away from the city center, so these barns will be emptied last) OK, one is full, but the others are the way I want them. There's as good as never any crop left on the fields, as the frost arrives. I micromanage the fields; start the harvest manually at 95% and move the bean-farmers, as the field is done. This is a lot of tedious work (I must stop the game and reorganize the farmers the first thing I do now). Can you manage to get a full harvest without this with your many barns? If you do, it might be a good idea for me to build more, too? I have two farmers on about 80% of the larger fields (8*15, 12*10 and bigger) one farmer on the smaller. (Don't have enough people for more). The problem to me, seems more to get them started fast enough in spring, than to get everything harvested fast enough. There are always some fields not 100% grown in early autumn, as the harvest starts automatically. I lose more crops that way, than by frost.
Before I started using barns like this, I used to have all sorts of problems with barns filling up and fields not getting fully-harvested. Do I need this many barns? I don't know. But I do use fewer than I used to, and I am using only a single farmer per field, and the harvests are going quite well. Maybe next time I'll try with four houses between each barn. ;D But I consider my method to be tried and true.
Quote from: Nilla on March 01, 2016, 03:37:13 AM
You can see my new strategy trying to get 3000 inhabitants in 30 years; the schools. It's a new challenge to suddenly send all 10 years old to school. First I made the mistake to build too few schools. They do fill up fast. I had everyone educated so far, but some schools are full and that means; some students have to walk far and get educated late. Second, there are no new adults for a long time and I need to increase my farming areas; not enough people to clear the land, not enough new farmers. Third; how do you prevent students to move into empty houses (even more?) far away from their schools?
In any case, there is no food crisis, yet. I can't increase the stores anymore, but they are never empty either. I hope it will stay that way!
And to my industries: Even if it looks like a lot, it's not enough with these uneducated. There are not enough goods to fill the ports to buy enough raw materials to produce more goods. A "Teufelskreis" as the Germans say.
I think there is no way to prevent students moving away from their schools. The only thing you could do would be to not build so many houses that students were becoming homemakers. And of course that slows pop growth, which is the whole point.
Maybe you are trying to have too much industry? How much less would you need to import, if you were not needing to create and support all that manufacturing infrastructure? Easy for me to say, of course; my pop is far smaller at the time.
For me the biggest issue is balance. I now see that trying to just get to a population goal is easier than reaching that goal with a solid town that will not fail. Right now I am doing pretty good on my town. I am at 2000 in year 25, but more importantly everything is running smooth. I have plenty of food, firewood, logs, stone, iron, herbs, tools, and coats, and do not expect any limits for anything. I have no clue what will happen in the next 5 year but at this time I think that I will get over 3000 since last year my population build was more that 250. If I am really lucky I might reach 3500 with a smooth running town at 30. What would be awesome is to reach 4000.
Jeff
@jeffmikl Pop 2000 in 25 years is excellent! Congratulations!! Can you put up some screenshots?
Year 15 - pop 328
Quote from: jeffmikl on March 01, 2016, 06:02:23 PM
For me the biggest issue is balance. I now see that trying to just get to a population goal is easier than reaching that goal with a solid town that will not fail. Right now I am doing pretty good on my town. I am at 2000 in year 25, but more importantly everything is running smooth. I have plenty of food, firewood, logs, stone, iron, herbs, tools, and coats, and do not expect any limits for anything. I have no clue what will happen in the next 5 year but at this time I think that I will get over 3000 since last year my population build was more that 250. If I am really lucky I might reach 3500 with a smooth running town at 30. What would be awesome is to reach 4000.
Jeff
Good job! Can you show us some pictures? How do you support your population? Farming? How do you expand enough fields fast enough? Trade? What do you trade? How many ports?.............
I'm very impressed when you say, everything is running smooth; as I made my 2000 (OK a little faster than you but not much) nothing was smooth at all, after I passed about 1000 inhabitants. Always struggle!
In my school building experiment, I have decided to go back a few years and try to build the schools better. It seems like the game considers long time students; 24, 23, 22 years old (yes, there are plenty of those in this game :( :-[ ) as adults. They always hook up with someone, even if there are other adults available. I just had a 17 (male) year old teacher moving in together with a 24 year old student (female). This doesn't work! I will make a new try.
I went back and built more schools. It's still too few in some areas. I made one school for 20 houses; thinking one schoolchild in each house; that fits. But it didn't. In some houses there are two students. But at least this time it's much better. Not so many students older than 20, who are considered adults and move across the map. I followed these two student girls, who moved out with 21, to the new areas in the north and are attending schools in the south. No pleasant look! :( :-[
The game still runs. There's always some shortage, but no disaster yet. Now I'm short on logs, so I'm behind building houses. But I just noticed, that for the first time passing year 5 or something, I have enough clothes. Some of the tailors are now educated. That makes a difference. :)
Hiya,
I Have been distracted by real life, so not much time this week for Banished. However, I have reached 2200 and just crossed into the 26th year. The town focus is trade. I will get pics up once I reach 30 years. Storage barn food is currently 100,000 and wood is 80,000. Herbs, tools and coats are enough but not surplus. In year 25 my population grew by 450 and this is not calculating any nomads. If I have enough land to build houses I think that I will exceed 3500 by year 30, but I also now wonder if it will be possible to reach 4500 in year 30. Either way the population will have to be stable to count as successful.
If I do what I set out to do, I will post pics from year one on. This game is an "out of the box" no mod game. I can post vids to show that too. Anyway, writing this on my phone and my hand is going numb.
So you trade mostly firewood, @jeffmikl. What I see from my games: it's probably the best thing, as the game grows big and fast. I have started to trade some firewood for food, too, but it's still in a very modest amount. The settlement isn't planned for serious trade. As I've said before, I have big problems to expand the farming area fast enough. Land isn't the problem yet, but as I've said before; it isn't cleared fast enough and if I make a try to clear more land; the farmers will go and doesn't get back to their fields in time. It's very obvious: The farmers down in southwest are too far away from the areas I work with and their fields are always well grown. Farms closer to the clearing areas, are often bad. I try different strategies to start and stop clearing, smaller/bigger areas....... but nothing works really good.
In any case, the settlement still lives. Just passed 2000 inhabitants. You can see my new wood-export area. I hope I will reach 3000 in 30 years but I suppose not much more; first it's educated people and second I sometimes run out of logs, so from time to time I'm behind building houses.
I am very impressed with your effort Nilla.
@Nilla you are truly awesome! So well done.
I had to take some time away from gaming, eyes burning and feeling sandy from being badly overused, and I have to look at a screen all day at work.
But I'm still plugging away at this. I had a few months where I was unsure how to proceed, and fell behind in houses. But now I have a plan, and I think I still can get 2k.
Year 18 - pop 550
Just starting to break out from the two fairly balanced initial towns, each built around a market and three TPs. The trick always is expanding into sufficient farmland and forest production while developing housing, industry, and trade. The balance is crucial, and really hard! :D