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[Zangi]

If you don't micro them like that, don't they default to laborer jobs anyways?

Nope; they actually keep pretending they are tending to the dirt. During the winter, they do default to laborer jobs. I suspect they are actually having some effect though, it's just very minor.

Ah! So basically I should only assign farmers during what seasons?

I expect during planting and harvest season...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spring and Autumn
(Sorry, I just had to...)

[Tnx]

Yeah just checking if it was anymore in depth then that.  The farmers look like they start tilling in LATE spring only, so I was thinking maybe they're off the hook early spring and mid spring.

EDIT: Actually I will test this now.  Shouldn't be too hard to see.

[Descan]

They'll plant until the whole field is planted, and after that is when you want to re-direct them.

It's POSSIBLE that the yield doesn't go as high if don't have them working the fields. I know for the Orchards it doesn't, and you lose trees rather quickly without people working them. Then again, Orchards are confusing. The yields go up even during harvest, so I can get like 70% out of a at-start-of-harvest-60% field and still have 20% left over once the trees go barren.

[Knight of Fools]

Does building more trading posts make more boats to come visit? I'm only seeing between one and two boats per year with one trading post.

Yep. Each one generates its own collection of merchants that visit you periodically.

It's rather annoying how it's set up, though. You end up either storing tons of trade goods across several trade posts or having to try to cart them over to the one that happens to have the stuff you want and hope the goods get there in time. Once you get a good Warm Coat and firewood industry going though, there's really no reason to avoid having lots of trade goods spread across all of them.

[alway]

Once you get a good Warm Coat and firewood industry going though, there's really no reason to avoid having lots of trade goods spread across all of them.

Also, do take note of this. One wood has a value of 2. One firewood has a value of 4. One wood produces many firewood; even at the start of the game you will have hundreds of firewood, and they can be traded for stone/iron/coal. Also, most traders only want goods of the types they can sell; so excess food won't necessarily get you stone. Firewood, on the other hand, is in the same general category as stone. I learned that the hard way when I had a lovely 5000 crops ready to trade for cows from the merchant. >_>

[Descan]

It's simpler than that: General Goods/Food merchant? They'll take foodstuffs (this includes Herbs)

Any other merchant? They won't take food.

Everyone will take every other goods type, though. Firewood will sell to food, general, livestock, seed, and whoever else if there are anyway.

[Knight of Fools]

Sometimes you might even use it to keep folks warm.

[Descan]

Pfeh, zey do not need ze firewood, zat is vhy we has ze stone houses!

[no fuckin' clue, mate]

[Tnx]

So I tested a bit of farming to see the numbers.  This was on beans only, with all educated, iron tool workers.

4 workers on 15x15 bean plot produced 1200-1300 beans annually.
1 worker on 15x15 bean plot produced 700 beans annually (this seemed odd).

4 workers on 15x15 bean plot, with micromanagement to take them off the field after crops were planted, produced 950-1050 beans annually.
1 worker on 15x15 bean plot, was unable to be micro'ed because the worker only managed to plant 1/3 of the field.  This resulted in 300 beans produced.

There's something wonky going on with the one worker ratio to production, seems like it should be less.

EDIT:  Something else interesting.  So say you have a gatherer's hut and a forester set up in the same area.  Keep using the tool that ONLY cuts down trees, but leaves the bushes/small plants/onion icons on the ground.  Soon you're left with a forest with more of the small plants and your gatherer's production goes up.  Note that a small plant without a grown tree nearby will die by itself.  Someone really dedicated can probably figure out the radius that a tree "shelters" the small plants and really get some efficiency out of this one.

[slink]

I figured out how the people are getting healed by the herbalist.  They have to carry one herb from the storage barn back out to the herbalist, whereupon they get healed by one-half heart.  I am wondering if it makes sense to have one herbalist in town and one in the forest.  The second one to collect the herbs and the first one to treat the people.  However, once you fix their diet you don't ever use herbs again so the point is probably moot.  The moral of my story is that you probably shouldn't play a site that comes only with potatoes, pumpkins, and walnuts.  It is such a nice location, though.  I hope my population survives until I can trade for some grain seeds.

[Descan]

Gatherer, hunting, and fishing gives you like 6 different foodstuff types. Fish, venison, and the four types that gatherers give.

My towns basically live off fish, though. 28 people spread out over 7 different docks.

[Knight of Fools]

Gatherers are a huge boon to adding variety to your food supply early on. Gathering and chickens are the only food sources that produce more than one food type from a single source.


Some other stuff I've found:

- 13x13 is the easiest to remember and most efficient use of space for orchards and only requires two workers. Food trees take up a 2x3 area unless they're at one of the edges. If you use a measurement that doesn't take advantage of that final row of orchard, that area is just wasted space. Annoyingly, you can't reform them to take up 3x2 areas, so making two different non-square rectangular fields could potentially result in wasted space, even if one of them is perfect.

Spoiler: Example (click to show/hide)

First orchard, 7x5:

TXXTXXT
XXXXXXX
TXXTXXT
XXXXXXX
TXXTXXT

Result: 35 Tiles, 9 Trees

Second orchard, 5x7:

TXXTX
XXXXX
TXXTX
XXXXX
TXXTX
XXXXX
TXXTX

Result: 35 Tiles, 8 Trees

They take up the same amount of space and require the same number of workers, but yield different amounts of trees. Note the hanging empty area to the side of the 5x7 orchard. You could make it a 4x7 and make it just as efficient, production wise, with the benefit of taking up less space.

I'd like to see orchards reworked so you don't have to fiddle with this. Just give trees a 2x2 or 3x3 space instead of a 2x3 space and/or restrict the sizes so you can only make orchards of optimal dimensions and call it a day.

Also, it would be awesome if you could see how many workers a field would need to be optimal as you're drawing its bounds. Would definitely take a lot of the guesswork out of oddly shaped fields.


- Individual 7x7 plots are the largest a single worker can manage. If space and/or variety of food is an issue, you can plop down several of these and four of them produce nearly as much food per square as a fully staffed 15x15 area. They fit almost anywhere and potentially produce four times the variety as a single, larger field. I wouldn't recommend using the minimum 4x4 fields unless you're desperate or have a massive idle population. They produce next to nothing.

Also, since we're on the topic: Space starts becoming an issue in the mid-to-late-game, even on larger maps. Expanding your village means people spending time travelling between hamlets, resulting in time lost and even potential deaths from the commute (Though dropping stone roads seems to help quite a bit). This goes for having production further from your city center, and having four 15x15 fields for four workers may earn you more net food, but it'll take up a lot more space and will earn less food per acreage. So when you have 300 people and there isn't much else to do with them, you might as well increase the efficiency of the space you have by having more workers work less space.


- Trading goods seems to be the key to unlock more stuff when traders stop by. After automatically trading for stone for almost 50 years, Goods and Food Merchants bring around 30k units of food every trip. Resource Merchants bring about 5k units of Stone, Coal, and Iron. The only downside at the moment to trying to make an industry based village is the lack of variety and value in trade goods. Firewood remains the tool of choice for running the market.

I'd really like to see more luxury goods, like pottery, artwork, metal crafts, and the like.


- Speaking of trading, it's possible to devalue your goods, but it only affects one merchant at a time and requires you to sell a LOT of a particular good. I sold a few thousand units worth of firewood to a Goods Merchant a while back, and the value of firewood went down from 4 to 3, but only with that particular merchant at that particular trading dock. It has not gone back up in value.


- One tavern stocked by a single 15x15 field of wheat appears to be enough to keep the supply of alcohol constant. You'll probably need more than that one field since your villagers will inevitably eat some of it before it gets to the brewer. Having taverns seems redundant, though, since Chapels make 200 people happy at a time and don't require any resources.

Of course, I just had a thought. Do people only drink to restore happiness, like people do with health and herbs? Because having both a chapel and a tavern may explain why my berry fueled tavern could barely keep booze on the tap in smaller villages, while my two wheat taverns easily keep 300 people happy. I'll look into it later.

In any case, having a large tavern, church, and large cemetery for every 200 villagers is sufficient to keep them 100% happy most of the time.


- You need a LOT of wells spread around your village to keep fires under control. I've had both my markets burn down, despite having two or three wells right next to them and the houses around them. Kind of frustrating, but now I've put about four near the village center and spread wells around a bit more. After I did this another fire broke out, and this is when the second market burned down, but I didn't lose nearly as many other buildings. As far as I can tell, wells only lower the chance the fire spreads. Stone houses seem to catch fire just as easily as wooden ones.

[Descan]

I, too, would prefer more beautification and, as you say, luxury-good production.

Couple that with a way to fill in quarries, even if it's with water (I'd prefer to be able to choose between water and build-able land), and a way to bulldoze (smaller) hills*, and this game would be the best thing ever.

As it is, it's better than a lot of more recent releases, and it's very pretty to look at (with weather effects off, at least >___>)

*I have one area in my current town, that... as far as I can tell, there is literally NO difference between it and the surrounding locale. But there's a 3x3 (with two opposite-side corners that are green instead of red) area preventing any building in it. I don't know if it's a road-glitch-piece that won't delete, or some invisible plants, or what. I THINK it's a hill, but as I said, there's no difference. I've seen larger ground-differences elsewhere (even in the same general location) so if it is, the game's being a git.

[werty892]

To be honest, the end game is kinda realistic. Nothing screws you over once you get the ball rolling aside from disasters/dumb luck/bad management. Which is already simulated. But yes, reputability is low. Want I want to see more types of land where you get banished too. Jungles, taigas, deserts, coasts, etc.

[Chaos17]

Too simple and basic for its price.
It didn't make my heart skip.

People who say that's it's hard, maybe it's because they're too hasty.
If you play like me: expanding only when food and wood are stable then there are no problems but it's boring. I tried to play it more than 4 hours before stopping at my 21 year.

I had more fun on a Kairosoft game or more stress while playing Dwarf fortress (those damn goblins invading, snatching my children!!).

The author of Banished said he don't really know if he will expand the game at the moment, he hopes the community will expand it, but you won't be able to tweak it and make some militia to protect you from thieves, etc... That's a bit unfortunate because I feel that Banished has the potential to become more interesting.