RKEditorChoice BETA13 open

[galensgranny]

Banished is a pre-industrial society and that should be part of how the economy works. Considering a mining fueled economy, again you are being modern, exports of common raw resources is also something that is not historically valid.

Denis, Banished is not set in any particular time period.  It could be the year 2018 and some people have been banished from some country onto an uninhabited area of land, with border guards to make them stay there.  Such people have modern knowledge, but are limited at first to use only what is available in the environment.  Whatever Red or any modder does is correct for how they are imaging things.  Red's new mod is "RK Editor's Choice".  He is making a mod the way he would like to have things in a game he is playing. 

I also find that your calculations are based on one playing style, not on an understanding of the whole game experience, or how others play the game.

Well, again, this is Red's vision for the game, so he does not need to consider the playing style of others.  He might decide to consider how others want to play, but it's his choice.

With some mods, the intent is not to totally be like Vanilla Banished with just a different look to buildings.   There is no "keeping with the vision of Luke (the creator of the game)".  No one knows what Luke really thinks about the matter, and even if we did, we don't have to follow along with his initial ideas.  Luke made available the ability for people to mod the game.  That means he is fine with what people will create and modify.   Basically, Luke made a game to make money and has now moved on to other games.

[galensgranny]

Personally, I think mining should be one of the most valuable possible jobs.  "Boom Towns" and "Mining Towns" were a thing in this time period.  Mining existed.  Mining made people huge money.  Then it was gone and the town had to do something else.  I would consider tripling, quadrupling or maybe even more the productivity of mines.  Then they empty and you have to do something else.  Currently, Mining is one of the worst possible options.  Honey should be one of the worst possible options.  Honey can be placed anywhere, is cheap, etc.

I think this is a good idea. The people were banished and have to survive with what they find in the area.  They can trade for things, though.  So it makes sense that they can get an excellent value for what they mine.

[RedKetchup]

i just changed the numbers: i ve put 25/30/35 for Iron/copper mine and random mine. And i've put 20/25/30 for the stone/coal one.
hoping everyone will be satisfied

[smurphys7]

Unmodded Banished is an imbalanced mess. 

Trade Values created per workRequired.  Higher is better.

7 Woodcutter      --- 14 / 2.  <--- Doesn't list workTime.  I believe it is 2. 
5 Tavern    --- 50 Value Created / 10 workRequired.  10x8 Created - 30 Input = 50
4 Tailor (Wool)    --- 20 / 5.  2x15 - 10 = 20
2 Tailor (Hide)    --- 10 / 5.  2x15 - 20 = 10
2 Tailor (Warm)    --- 10 / 5.  2x20 - 30 = 10
1.8 Smith (Iron)     --- 9 / 5.  2x8 - 7 = 9
1.4 Smith (Steel)      --- 7 / 5.  2x10 - 13 = 7
0.4 Coal    --- 24 / 60 
0.167 Iron    --- 10 / 60

Fishing, Gathering, Hunting, Farms, Pastures etc. don't all follow the same formula.  We can use the above numbers and annual production numbers of everything to estimate.  Per worker, per year, I get slightly under ~100 Coats at the Tailor.  That means my Tailors perform ~240 work per year.  (100 Coats made per year.  2 Coats per 5 work.  100 Coats per 250 work.)

Here are my annual numbers per worker for various things.  These are not optimal numbers.  My Condensed Guide to Food video shows annual numbers and how to get them.

1000/80 Sheep Pasture (3400)
1000/20 Cow Pasture (3200)
700/150 Chicken Pasture  (1950)
600/18 Hunting (1980)
900 Gathering
800 Farming
600 Orchard
450 Fishing
130 Herbalist (520)
90 Forester (180)

Plugging in 240 Work/Year...

14 Sheep Pasture
13 Cow Pasture
8 Chicken Pasture
8 Hunting (assuming 3 kills!)
3.75 Gathering
3.33 Farming
2.5 Orchard
2 Herbalist
1.87 Fishing
0.75 Forester

0.4 and 0.17 for Coal and Iron Mining.

Virtually all discussions, everywhere, on the topic of Mines and Quarries are "only make and use if desperately needed" and "the game highly encourages you to get your stone, iron and coal from anywhere else".  I watch a lot of Banished on Twitch.  Virtually all players who do reach Mines/Quarries quickly come to the realization that these are a waste of time.

[smurphys7]

I'm going to make a Google Doc spreadsheet that makes things all nice and easy to see.

[RedKetchup]

ok 

[smurphys7]

i just changed the numbers: i ve put 25/30/35 for Iron/copper mine and random mine. And i've put 20/25/30 for the stone/coal one.
hoping everyone will be satisfied

That puts Iron and Copper mining at 1/10th the value created of Honey at the Apiary.  Honey at the Apiary is similar to a Fishing Dock.  Fishing Docks are the least effective default form of food production in terms of quantity produced per worker per year.

It is 10x better to have your people make honey than mine.  It's about 2x better to have your people Gather or Farm than make Honey.

I am populating the spreadsheet with your mods numbers now.

[smurphys7]

I am far from done but here is a link:  Google Docs

The 2nd page is RK Editor's Choice Beta 11.  It is nearly 10x more effective to dig sand all day than mine.  I didn't see the files for Stone and Coal production.  Perhaps they are the same as the default?

You should be able to copy the spreadsheet and make one of your own then play around with numbers.

[Nilla]

I´ve just looked a little more at your spreadsheet @smurphys7 , especially at the estimated production numbers. Some are very accurate, some not even close. I have never looked at the production in this way, so I can´t say, why it looks like this. It seems like you are using the right formulas but maybe some input values have changed.

[smurphys7]

I agree.  I also had never looked at the numbers this way.  Right now the correlation seems to be in "Quantity Produced".  The higher "Quantity Produced" the higher actual results are relative to the estimated numbers.

For example: Things like the Tailor and Blacksmith produce 1 or 2 at a time.  Those numbers are very close to the actual.  The Butcher, Smoker etc produce 24 at a time.  My actual numbers are almost double those ones.

Edit
The main purpose of those is so we can compare them to things that can't go into these sheets: like Fishing Docks, Gathering Huts etc.  You can compare your annual Fishing Pod output to a a Fishing Dock.  etc.

I am going through some building files.  Some have added in Storage Values.  I suspect that is the real culprit.  Buildings with higher storage allow fewer trips to Barns/Stockpiles.

[Denis de la Rive]

You can choose to imagine any modern context, but that is your choice, I believe that the available technology is an indication of a time frame, more than the word "Banished".

I also disagree about the balance in vanilla, many things don't fit your game style, but there is a unity of design, a bit simple, but still present. Luke did most of his work on how people act in the game, and creation of the game physics. We don't know why things were done in a certain way but judging it by your production obsessed ruler is not the way everyone thinks. A balanced games includes both advantages and penalties. The player must find the skill to handle the challenges created by the author. If the game was simply one of maximizing production it would get boring very fast. Have you tried "Planetbase", this is why that game fails, no challenge beyond the management of production.

When you consider a game, and its functions you must look at all the aspects, not just a few. What appears strange, can make sense when considered in relation to other factors. You could want to balance a high trade value with a high death risk, this is what CC did with its special starting conditions. A high payoff, but you have to pay in blood. This creates a choice, money for life, investment for profit, time for added value. If you look at The North, this is what Tom Sawyer has done.

I don't want to insult, by your logic, all mods should be cheats. With so many mods available this game can be extremely easy, players need challenges, but again in a well crafted balance.

We are completely surrounded by the capitalist model, but that is not the only way. In some cultures in the past you could only own an object if you had the right status, or had a done the correct rituals. In these cases production was limited to need, you could make it, but you did not. We live in a culture where objects come and go, where if you can pay you can have, but that is more unique then you think. We still have a bit of this with family heirlooms, and collecting, but in the past it was a way of life, you used a thing until it broke, and you could not fix it, even if that meant 100s of years. This could change with the evolution of technology, but not in every case.

I still remain convinced that you comments are more about your way of playing the game.

Just so you know, in most of my games, I'm an industrialist, but when considering mod design I avoid taking one point of view.

I think you are creating something that can be a tool to discover where certain corrects could be needed, but is should not replace balance.

Red I assume the numbers are for work, they look good to me. It might be worth considering a slightly higher death %, if it is still a bit too easy.

I'm happy you shared your files, I will be reading them, often.

[smurphys7]

The only "unity of design" in unmodded Banished seems to be "the game seems to function, I won't change things."

There are a multitude of places where things can be adjusted that only significantly affect a specific playstyle.  The Trade Value of meats are only relevant for players who trade meats.  The trade value of meats cause meat producing options to be vastly more effective than any other alternative if trading is involved.  Changing the Trade Value of meats from 3 to 2 in the base game would significantly affect players who frequently trade and have virtually no affect on players who do not.

This meats example is one example of how vanilla can be improved in simple and obvious ways.  Some options need adjustments down (meats).  Some options need adjustments up (mining).

I feel that modders have a significant opportunity to drastically improve the base game.  I feel that this opportunity should be utilized.

[elemental]

There is more than one play style. No mod is going to keep everyone happy and people shouldn't be afraid to make suggestions and to mention things that they don't like about a mod.

As mentioned earlier, mod is short for modification. Change, alteration, improvement - although that last one is a matter of opinion. I don't think that mods should necessarily stick to the vision of the vanilla game. Nobody is forced to use a mod that they don't like. So long as a mod keeps (some) players and the modder happy, then no harm no foul. On the other hand, straying too far from vanilla might mean that few people would be interested in using such a mod. It all depends on what the mod adds to the game.

Banished was designed as a survival game but many of us (myself included) play it as a town builder. Not everyone wants balanced challenges. Some people just want to build. OK, balance is needed to some extent, but ultimately balance is somewhat a matter of opinion anyway (hence this discussion).

For me, playing Banished is a bit like painting a picture. That will never get boring because I like spending time in the Banished game world. It's a visually beautiful place and I find the overall experience relaxing. If it wasn't for mods I never would've bought the game at all, because after seeing it played on youtube (before modding) I thought the vanilla game had too little content and was somewhat boring. But thanks to mods I'm still playing after three years. 

[smurphys7]

There's a difference between "this isn't perfectly balanced but that's ok" and "it is literally 10 times better to dig sand than to mine iron".

Digging sand isn't even a good option.  Digging sand is a relatively bad choice amongst all the possible things your citizens could be doing.  Digging sand is 7x better than a tier 1 iron quarry and 10x better than a tier 3 quarry.

[RedKetchup]

yeah but at some point, it give you what to make profit chains to get things to sell things when all the products you can buy with it can be a super profitable chain too ? by itself?

the things that you need to get in this game and you will use all game long is :
food : of course,
tools mostly and cloth to lesser extant. : but you do need hundreds of thousands of those
and then:
all the materials to build buildings : thats the main thing outside the food.
oh and the fuel.

Fuel is always needed, but super easy to over produce firewood and have the ability to buy everything and overstock everything with firewood. (i already took care of it, didnt you saw already you have a bit more hard to keep up the firewood level ? with many woodcutter you kinda just keep up and you dont get thousands of this so easily ?)


if you can produce all the iron/stone/bricks/logs so easily that you can make it a profitable chain.... what will you buy finally with all your profitable chains ??

you still need a reason to cumulate, overproduce, and sell.
you still need a reason to buy.
a purpose of all of this.