irrelevant - Quatre Bras: incorporating mods

[irrelevant]

Also, I was just watching it, the stream moves in both directions. There are guys bringing stuff there, and other guys taking it away as fast as it arrives. A little bit annoying, actually. It reminds me somewhat of the thing that was happening with @slink's fruit market before she fixed it, guys stuck in a storage loop. Except in this case, the guys who are bringing stock to store go away empty, and the guys who are taking stuff away don't bring anything with them.

[irrelevant]

What I'm thinking is, the only real feedback I have is comparing the number of children to the number of students. Since children enter school at age 10, and they mostly take 5-6 year to become educated, I should aim to have 40-50% more children than I have students. If I have fewer children (as I do now) I should work on increasing pop, gradually, until I reach that ratio.

Does this seem reasonable?

Hm, and no, now that I'm trying to do it, it does not seem reasonable. Reality is, if you don't build houses, the number of children declines faster than the number of students. So back to the drawing board.

[Nilla]

What about this theory? (I will speak about real years)

For a stable population: number of birth=number of deaths

People in Banished live about 20 years. This means;with a stable population you have 5% deaths=births each year.

Children are children 2,5 years. -> The number of children should be12,5% of the total population.

In fact, I think the average Bannie don't really live 20 years. There are also accidental deaths, so 13-14% children might be more adequate.

Following this theory you have a bit too many children. But it also depends on how many old people you have.

I will follow your efforts. It would also be nice to see you population-graph.

[rkelly17]

Some while back there were a number of postings on the question of "sustainable" populations in Banished on various fora. The conclusion generally reached was that, unless you are adding to the housing stock each game-year, the population will rise and fall in a cycle. If the number of houses stays constant, x% of these houses will contain "non-breeding" citizens (sounds so crass). As the population ages x will rise and young couples will have no open houses and will not couple. The population will fall. As "non-breeders" die off  x will fall and young couples will find open houses, couple and reproduce. Thus the population will rise. Eventually these will age and the cycle repeats. The general consensus was that the only way to survive this cycle is to have enough laborers in reserve that even at the low point in the cycle you have enough workers to fill every non-laborer job plus enough laborers to fetch and carry as necessary.

Since then one or two mods have attempted to address this issue by changing the ages for childbirth, etc. I've never used any of these, so I don't know how well they work.

Personally I have never filled a map to capacity except in the Valley of Death challenge and, as I remember, that one did not require longevity to the point where the cycle showed itself. I've always been able to add at least a couple of houses each game-year and keep population trending slightly upward, so I've never seen the cycle in my own towns. Where I have seen a drop is when I have accepted a larger group of nomads who, ten or so game-years later, all die off at once.

[irrelevant]

@Nilla What you have written makes sense, and since what I thought up wasn't working, I'll steal your idea     I'm going to use 15% though, just because it's easier to figure.

@rkelly I believe the sine wave phenomenon is an inevitable result of suddenly ceasing to build houses. I'm trying to taper off home construction gradually, with the idea of easing into some kind of soft landing. It's pretty to imagine this, anyway       

Summer 44 - Here's the pop curve, for 5 years and 50 years. The 50 year curve looks alarmingly steep, but it is leveling out.                       

[irrelevant]

Early Autumn 47 - Looked for awhile like it was going to flatten out, then total pop started to trend up again while children trended down. Built a few more houses after two years of not building any.

Food is marginal, adding some gatherers and hunters. I may need a fourth TP.

[irrelevant]

Summer 50

This is tough. The number of children declined sharply while the population continued to climb. I was counting on oldsters kicking off and freeing up houses but it hasn't happened, so I had to build a whole new neighborhood with a number of houses. The families that have moved into these houses have had an alarming number of 38-39 y/o women with men in their 20s. They have one child and then done. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad! So much micro.

Balancing food and firewood also has proved challenging, so I've added some producers and another TP as well (sure wish I had a bakery!  ).

The pop curve overall seems promising though, flattening out nicely. Whether it is sustainable or not though, I have no idea (I suspect it is not, and the pop curve will begin to trend down).

[rkelly17]

This is tough. The number of children declined sharply while the population continued to climb. I was counting on oldsters kicking off and freeing up houses but it hasn't happened, so I had to build a whole new neighborhood with a number of houses. The families that have moved into these houses have had an alarming number of 38-39 y/o women with men in their 20s. They have one child and then done. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad! So much micro.

I find that as the number of "families" climbs significantly beyond the number of houses this happens regularly--depending on your demographics. Sometimes it's older males and sometimes both are older.

[irrelevant]

Autumn 53

Such an unattractive town! But an interesting challenge trying to keep the pop curve flat. I've had to build a number of houses, 10-15 in the past 5 years, in an effort just to keep the pop from crashing. Most of the new families, whether formed in a new house or in one vacated by dead bannies, still have men in their 20s and women age 35-40. One child and done.

[irrelevant]

Well now, there's something you don't see every day! Looks like Trading is paying off for Elio.

[irrelevant]

Winter 56

Pop keeps edging down, seemingly regardless of whether I'm building houses or not. So I'm going to let it crash if it wants to, and try again to stabilize on the next upturn.

[irrelevant]

Autumn 59

Really not doing very much to this town. Added the @RedKetchup milling/baking district, and four houses, in the past 3 years. Oh, and two cemeteries. Lotsa folks kicking off, and I lost a whole star.

Need to analyze and simplify the TPs so I can do autotrading.

Pop curve is.....doing something. Not crashing, in any case. I think I'm pretty close.

[Nilla]

looks good so far

but.......

now.....

comes the trickier part.....

not letting the population grow too much

good luck

[irrelevant]

Unfortunately this game has started crashing out in mid play. Not caused by saving, I expect there is some mod conflict, probably between the New Medieval Town and the Millers Family, which I still am not able to disable. I'm probably not going to be able to continue this town for much longer. Crashing over and over.

[RedKetchup]

so sad