Achievement Challenge

[Abandoned]

  I have a challenge for anyone who likes Luke's Banished and would like to get a few of the game's achievements done.   My challenge is to have someone play one of the 3 small harsh mountain maps listed below and reach a population of 300 citizens, something I failed to do time and time again.  Luke made a very challenging survival game.

The map seeds are # 60890962,  922250126, or  678689605.  Each has a large lake required for one achievement.

The map must be Mountain, Small, Harsh, disasters Off, Medium start





I chose disasters Off, and a medium start because of having 5 families, a storage barn, starting supplies, and no animals.  The crop seeds cannot be used until after One with Nature achievement is completed, no fields, orchards, or pastures can be built.  (That achievement is not required for this challenge.)

No mods are allowed to accomplish the vanilla achievements.

The population of 300 citizens must be reached without building a school or trading post, and without planting crop fields, orchards, or pastures.


  I got a new computer several years ago and reinstalled Banished; my achievement completion progress was lost.  I had only 1 achievement left to do on my old laptop, the Town with a population of 900. The achievements I did accomplish were done over time and on different maps.  I have been meaning to do them again but did not get around to it until a short time ago.  So, I thought why not try to accomplish all achievements on one map.  I picked up a few pointers from posts by Irrelevant and did a bit of reading on how Nilla and theonlywanderer did it all on one map.  I think the chance of success is based on map choice but their pictures were lost back when the site crashed, and the map seeds given no longer generate the same maps due to the game itself being updated to a new version; those map seeds no longer have a large lake that is needed for one of the achievements.

  I spent a lot of time searching for a good map; it was not easy.  The choice is limited by several of the achievements themselves if hoping to do all on the same map.   The map would also need some good spots to build trading posts, mines, and quarries.


There are 36 achievements; some are critical and must be done first.  They are:

Mountain Men -   small mountain map with harsh climate with 50 people for 20 years

Golden Gate ----critical that map has a big lake, to build a bridge 50 units long (can build later)

Settlement -----reach population of 300 citizens

Isolationist -----reach population of 300 citizens without building a trading post

Uneducated ----   reach population of 300 citizens without building a school

One with Nature----reach population of 400 citizens without crop field, orchard, or pasture

Others I hope to accomplish at the start were:

Smiles All Around -   high happiness for 10 years for 100 citizens

Healthy -------------   high health for 10 years for 100 citizens

Immigrants ------   accept 200 nomads (needs town hall, market, and trading post)

  I found a few maps that I thought were good maps to accomplish at least the above list of achievements on, if not all 36; these are the 3 best of the ones I found and tried.  I am not recommending these maps for all-on-one because I don't know if it is possible. Only the first 5 achievements on the above list need to be accomplished to complete my achievement challenge. And actually, the bridge does not need to be built unless you want to get that achievement done; the lake is on the map.  Note that on all three maps and restarts, I made 4 of same achievements: Mountain Men, Golden Gate, Smiles All Around, and Healthy. 
 

Here is what I did on these 3 maps:



Started map #60890962, made some mistakes, failed, reloaded earlier save, and failed again; no tools and mass starvation the cause. Highest population was 171.

Restarted that same map, failed again, reloaded earlier save and failed that too; no tools, clothes, firewood, or food; freezing and starving the cause of failure.  Highest population was 207.




Started a new map #922250126.  Had firewood and tools but too many children and not enough food. Failed again. Highest population was 198.  I thought that the problem on these 2 maps may have been that the big lake was too close to the starting place. 




Another Try on a new map.  Started map #678689605 with a river that had a lot of good fishing spots.  Highest population was 270, so close to 300 before no logs, no firewood, no food.  Loaded earlier saves a few times but failed again and again.

Restarted that map but failed again with population of 254.


  I could have tried to recover from drastically reduced workforce but I chose to restart or choose another map.  From what I read, mass starvation is common under these conditions. After so many failures, I began to wonder if the production numbers were changed when the game was updated; I don't remember struggling to complete the achievements before.

 My next post on this thread will have some tips and pointers, and then I will post some more pictures from these maps; I have a lot of pictures to sort through.

I would really like to know if anyone can reach a population of 300 on one of these 3 harsh mountain maps.

Good luck

[catty-cb]

I actually had a go at getting all the achievements a while back, even set up a board over at Simtropolis to document it

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/forum/382-banished-achievements/

Then life sidetracked me, I have a feeling I still have the map I was using .... or maybe not as I updated the computer so I could play Foundation and I think my maps might still be on the backup drive

[Abandoned]

I had not seen that post, I have not been over to Simtropolis in quite awhile.  Thanks for posting link, @catty-cb

Hope you will be trying my challenge, 300 population on a small harsh mountain map #60890962, #922250126, or #678689605, with no school , no trading post, and no crop fields, orchards, or livestock.

[Abandoned]

Here are some tips and pointers:

  These tips concern 9 of the 36 vanilla achievement which includes the ones that need to be done first if attempting to do all achievements on one map.  I completed only 4 of the 9 listed above on each of the 3 maps shown, but I learned several things that could be helpful to others trying the achievements.

If using a map other than one of the 3 listed in the above challenge, be sure you can build a 50 unit long bridge on the lake.  I did that when generating maps; I placed and paused it when I started the map.  I unpaused it several times to get building materials to it; it takes a lot of logs to build.  It may have been a mistake to chose 2 of the 3 maps with the big lake so close to the start position and I may have built the bridge too soon; I thought it would help move materials faster.

  I started my town center by the storage barn and stockpile.  I built a few houses and the tailor and blacksmith like I do on most maps I play so that the starting people who are educated take these important job.  The woodcutter placed by the starting stockpile here was a mistake; later on not enough logs made it that stockpile, and the logs that did were needed by the smith.  An iron mine closer to this location would also have been better. Note: it is important that you build at least 1 mine and 1 quarry before surface stone and iron are gone.  You have a few years before needing them, but I placed them while the needed materials were available and then I paused them. 

Nilla, in her blog, also thought it important to start tool production at the start.  See Nilla's bog here: https://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=1048.0 

Production was bad enough when no educated workers were left alive, but map was doomed to fail without tools, as I found out.  I though steel tools would last longer but on the first map the coal was being used for fuel before the smiths got it. Placement of mines, stockpiles, and smith are crittical.

theonlywander thought log and firewood production were more important right at the start.  He built what he called hubs with a forester, woodcutter, hunter, and gatherer with a few houses, storage barn, and stockpile.  See theonlywander's challenge post here:  https://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=3178.0

As I always do at the start of a map, I built a smaller similar areas with a foresters, hunters, gatherers, and a few houses, adding barns and stockpiles nearby later.  On these maps, I often had to build small bridges first.  I found that the gatherer produced better when kept farther away from the forester.

I added a small cemetery early on fearing a childbirth death would cause overall happiness to drop. I learned to build a cemetery by year 10 when the first of the starting citizens began dying of old age.   I was concerned about this because I began losing needed workers; the children were not becoming adults fast enough to replace those that were dying. Citizens continued to die of old age, there was a death during childbirth and stonecutters died after being hit by falling rocks.  I don't think I had this many deaths in all my bog stories combined; I had even requested deco tombstones because my cemeteries were always empty.

  I only recently realized what my problem may have been.  Both Nilla and theonlywander said not to build more houses than necessary.  I was watching the houses for adult children who could pair up if another house was built.  I did not take into account that I was used to using an aging mod that is quite different from vanilla aging; the vanilla children become adults and can marry and have chilren at age 10.  I was thinking teens, I was not building enough houses soon enough. 

  Another mistake I made on the first map was thinking I could get nomads to make up for lost workers.  I didn't remember at the time that I would need a trading post to get nomads; I mistakenly thought I only needed a market and town hall and planned accordingly. I built a town hall, a market, and a boarding house.  In case the nomads brought any disease to town with them, I began building a hospital.  I began wondering why no nomads had showed up yet, so I checked the in-game help and discovered I needed a trading post which I could not build until I had a population of 300 if I wanted to complete the Isolationist achievement.

  It was a good thing I made the mistake because the thought of nomads got me building the hospital.  It was not quite finished on the first map when in late autumn of year 14, there was an outbreak of scarlet fever. This took me completely by surprise.  I had not taken nomads and I had map settings on disasters Off.  One case quickly turned into 3, then 8, 13, and 16 when the hospital was finally completed.  There were only 2 citizens that died; it would have been a lot worse without the hospital.  On all three maps I had a disease outbreak at this time so I recommend having a hospital built by year 13 or at least place with materials and paused by then.

The towns' overall health stayed relatively high on all maps despite poor food variety because of the supply herbs.  I was reminded by a post of irrelevant's that it is best to keep herbalist away from foresters as the herbs need old trees to sprout from.  It's hard to do on a small mountain map but I thought I would add that reminder here.

Also note that the 2 achievements, Smiles All Around and Healthy, only require 5 hearts or 5 stars if the population is 100.  A higher population with less hearts and stars can still have 100 citizens with high health and happiness.

I hope some of this information has been helpful.

[catty-cb]

I had not seen that post, I have not been over to Simtropolis in quite awhile.  Thanks for posting link, @catty-cb

Hope you will be trying my challenge, 300 population on a small harsh mountain map #60890962, #922250126, or #678689605, with no school , no trading post, and no crop fields, orchards, or livestock.

Well real life is still proving a challenge, but will take a look at my banished setup, I know I was using my steam version of banished to do the achievements and my GoG version had all the mods I was using .... so next time I'm on computer will go have a rummage thru my backup drives and see if I can start again with the achievements map

[Abandoned]

Good luck @catty-cb on whatever map you choose, but this challenge only concerns the 3 map seed numbers and conditions specified.  I am wanting to know if anyone can reach a population of 300 on one of these 3 maps using the small harsh mountain setting without building a school, trading post, crop field, orchard, or raising livestock.

As stated, I have previously completed all but 1 of the achievements myself on other maps, but cannot reach 300 citizens on any of these 3 under stated conditions.  I hope someone else can.