User:Jamespapp/game

Overview

These are all my game thoughts, questions and findings.

Game things I'd like to learn

Here are some things I'd like to help out with regarding playing/enjoying/winning the game:

Optimal operation of Work Camps.
Are there any classes of location, i.e. near water/in the mountains/etc., where we can typically find clay/sand/coal/iron/gold deposits? Regular vs. deep?
Accepting the need to be much more surgical at the very beginning of a new settlement, just what is the relationship between the number of Logs that a tree yields vs. the time taken to harvest it? Is it directly proportional or not?
Taxes: does higher tier houses really pay more, or is it only about the tier of the Market around which they reside?
Seasonality of gathered resources. I'm mainly just curious about this—I don't think it has a material impact on strategy.
Specific metrics on Desirability, i.e. positive/negative effect a building as measured by both range (what is the range and is it a flat circle or a cone) and impact (what's the actual percentage).
Specific metrics on Happiness. How does it impact the Villagers? Is one effect the speed with which they work (and even travel)? Is another effect their desire to stay/leave the settlement? Any other effects? Immigration rate? Can it be quantified in any of these aspects?
Tools: ~~I'm seeing no complaints (callouts above buildings) if I never make/buy a tool ever~~ this may have been in v0.9.0 as I am seeing them (again? over buildings even when I don't futz with tools) in v0.9.0a. Which buildings actually do the complaining? Do tools really help anywhere other than those buildings? How much do tools really matter? Even now, I can certainly do fine without ever buying/making tools.
Occupancy
- How does one Wagon Shop with two Wainwrights compare with two wagon shops that have one wainwright each?
- Exactly how many farmers do you need? I'm seeing 30% of "max" as a rule myself.
- Do you really need any more than a single worker in the Market or (upgraded) Market Square?
- How many herders do you need? Do you risk cows wandering off with too few, even if fenced in? Is it really the milking that needs (benefits by) the herders more?
- Do Guards/Soldiers count against your housing capacity? If so, do they have travel time? If so, how does that impact their ability to work, i.e. will they actually be absent from their post some of the time? I've never set a flag (during a raid, say) and not seen ALL the soldiers emerge from the Barracks, i.e. none of the soldiers were elsewhere at the time, is this just good luck or a game mechanic?
- Shelter vs. Temporary Shelter. Why not just build their shelters right at the Work Camp/Deep Mine/whatever? Does a TS count towards the population capacity? Can you use a TS in the town, instead of regular shelters? I know they won't upgrade, but if you don't care about it upgrading, it houses six Villagers in the same space as a shelter houses four (but costs as much as two shelters to build).
How many health points does a Raider start with and how much (base-)damage does a Crude Weapon, Sword, Bow, Crossbow do?
- Conversely, a guard's starting health, and the protection offered by a Hide Coat, Hauberk, Platemail armor?
How many Villagers can a Nightsoil collector service before Waste begins to "permanently" build up? And just how sensitive is that number to proximity to the Compost Yard? Gotta balance the desirability placement debuff with the waste (and resulting Rat buildup).
Can Guard Towers (if placed way outside of the Settlement) give you earlier notice of Raids?
Trading
- Wiki pages for each trader (including a pic of their wagon?) and what they are (usually) good for buying and selling, how often they show up (which level of Trading Post) if they prefer early/late in the Spring/Summer. Also indicate possible cross-trades, for use in early-game! Also call out where a trading post max store of 500 actually EXCEEDS their typical ability to buy (because they don't usually show up with enough Gold for 500 of that item)!
- Wiki pages for each of the goods (or at least a trading section in each) that speaks to production costs & rates versus expected price paid. This is probably the most complex "mechanic interplay" to pin down as producing any goods costs Villagers, the Food (and other supplies) for them, the housing and raw materials, etc. The study of price paid will probably seem trivial in comparison!
Is an Oak tree the best tree to surround a Well with? A well definitely benefits by having trees planted around it, and I think I've seen where surrounding it with Spruce (which was a bad click at the time) did not help it recover from being too drained, but switching that out with Oak did.
Does it matter (ignoring the small affect it has on travel time) where you put a Mine within a Desposit's "area"? If so, how much does it affect the production rate?
Mostly just for fun, but ... a list of all the tips the game gives you while it's loading your settlement.

Game Things I've learned

Here are somethings I think I've figured out.

Miscellaneous

Whenever you build a Storehouse, turn off all food, and Flour & Wheat!
The first two Relics you wanna excavate/buy//equip (if you have a choice) are the Eye of the Hunter (Bows, Crossbows and Towers deal 15% more damage, traded by Ander Plainsrider, which works for Guards, Soldiers and Hunters) and the Teeth of Jonia Ascetic (Villagers get hungry 15% slower, traded by Atka of the Iron Clan, which makes food stretch longer as long as it doesn't spoil in the meantime).
Noticed this while my settlement was loading, v0.9.0a:
"Tip: Villagers who are very unhappy will drink more at pubs and can become violent while intoxicated.:
Whenever you place a Well you should leave the tiles (all the way) around it empty so you can add trees later (to help the well).
If feels like Tools are totally unnecessary! Heavy Tools are still important, but if you're only grinding Flour, making Furniture & Glassware, and maybe deep mining Clay or Stone (buying weapons & armor instead of making those) you don't need as many.
Use Production Limits FTW! It is so much easier to let your labor force manage itself than to do it manually. There are a few different techniques you can use here:
- Leave it alone and let them create the item ad infinitum. This is okay for stuff you are always going to need and will never run out of the source/ingredients but gets consumed kinda in line with its production so you don't fill up storage.
- Just set the maximum and let the minimum default to 50% of that.
- Set both the minimum & maximum if consumption is a bit "bursty".
  - This technique can be further leveraged by having an "excess" of buildings that produce the item (more than you might normally expect to have) so its production can also be bursty.
You only really need to protect the heart of your town with Soldiers. What should your town's heart comprise? Your Town Center (which also serves as a Barracks of sorts), the Trading Post, all of your Stockyards, Storehouses & Granaries (and maybe a Root Cellar) and as many barracks as you will want (and maybe a few Shelters and a Well). Surround this heart with Palisade Walls and then upgrade those to Fortified Walls when you can ... and double thick walls are better than single thick! You don't need to worry about protecting anything else!

Trading

Nobody buys Beans, Willow or Wheat!
Books aren't (yet?) a tradeable item! Paper isn't either!
Don't forget to check Keep In Stock for those items you need it.
Don't forget to Transfer Gold if your town is running net-negative.

Strategy: No Fancy Mining

I tried (on easiest level & terrain) a "no fancy mining" strategy, where I didn't mine Coal, Iron ore or Gold ore.

It's not only doable, but I think it works even better. Those Deep Mine s are SLOW, smelting iron is SLOW, and making weapons & armor is SLOW.
Building an industry that makes fine goods is a winner! Think Furniture, Glassware, Pottery and Cheese.
The other amazing item to sell is BEER! It does NOT count against Happiness if you build a Brewery (the Villager Happiness dialog still says "Your villagers aren't concerned about this yet." regarding beer) only if you build a Pub and they aren't entertained enough buy it/them!

Desirability

When it comes to Desirability, you only ever need to consider 25 Shelters! One way to do this is to build a "nice" part of town that you don't build anything undesirable near. You could design it beforehand to make sure the desirable buildings & Decorations you will subsequently add both fit (you'll be leaving gaps for them initially) and actually cover all of these "special" shelters such that they will, ultimately, enjoy a desirability of at least 65%. One such design is shown. You can build all the other shelters anywhere you want, even right next to all the nasty stuff, and it won't matter!

Wherever you do build shelters (that aren't part of the uptown area) try to group them together so that they can be covered by a Market (so you only build the minimum markets needed to cover all/most of them). Tip: a market covers a 9×9 shelter (27×27 tiles) area, but you really should include a Well and a Rat Catcher in that area.

Farming

Farming is super easy!

Create a 12×12 Crop Field. Improve it with Field Maintenance and Clover, with as many FM's as you can get into the current year, then an FM+FM+C the second year, then maybe a C+C the third year (depending on how its Fertility is looking).
As soon as the field is in good shape, i.e. fertility is over 70%(?), plant (the upcoming year) clover & Beans (the year after that) Turnips, clover & FM (sliding that FM over to the farthest right you can to make it stagger nicely with your subsequent fields) and (the year after that) clover & Wheat.
- Be sure to move the Soil Mixture slider to ~52%. Even if you don't have adequate clay/sand yet, it'll get added eventually and bring the soil mixture to where you're crops benefit the most. You need your beans at +10%, and your turnips too. If you can get your wheat there as well, all the better, but not at the expense of your beans/turnips.
Eventually, you will want/need to replace the wheat with either Flax or Cabbage. I always ended up producing more wheat than I could handle (let alone needed) and then more flax than I could handle, so eventually settled on just enough wheat, just enough flax and using that "slot" in every remaining field for cabbage, even if that experienced excessive spoilage—in this way you've got everything you need and the surplus food (purportedly) increases the Immigration rate.
Once the first field is created you can begin creating the next one, i.e. don't create more than one field concurrently unless you somehow have a crazy surplus of laborers.
As each field becomes created, i.e. you are now able to assign crops, be sure to reduce the number of Farmers from the maximum of 13 to just six! You don't need more than six farmers for a 12×12 field but, as you can't change this number until the field has been created, be aware that all those 13 farmers will be automatically assigned and drain your labor force accordingly unless you manually manage Professions! I don't bother manually managing professions as I don't want to risk forgetting to set something back.
- Even when this maximum number increases to 18-20, you don't need more than six farmers! ← can we get this number even lower?!?
When you create each subsequent field, offset the crops by a year from the field next to it (this is good for multiple reasons). For this reason, it's also good to create a number of fields that is a multiple of three ... but only if those fields have exactly the same (rotated) crops assigned.
For each pair of fields, you can build four Shelters in between as they are 12 tiles long so fit perfectly.
As soon as you are permitted to build them, build an Apiary at the corner of every field!
Once you're harvesting Flax, as you can't sell it, the only thing it's good for is the Weaver. One way to manage how much of your storage it consumes (between the massive harvesting of even a single field of flax compared with the slow consumption by the weavers) is to build a Storehouse right next to your Weaver Building(s) and configure it to store just flax, configuring all your other Storehouses to store everything except food, flour, grain & flax.

Traveling Merchants

Items

NOTE: You aren't permitted to buy Cows until you build your first Barn. Also, Lethros & Massuke won't show up until you upgrade your Trading Post (not your Town Center).

Merchant
Ander		B		B	B	B	S	B		S	B		B								S		B		B	S				S		B				S		S	S		S	S
Atka		B		B		B			B/S			S				B	S	S					S	B/S	B					B		B			S	B	S		B		S		S	S		B
Beldar		B/S	S	S	S	S		S					S							S	B				S	B/S		B/S		B		S	S	B		B			B		B				S	B
Lethros	S			B		B	B							B	B		S	S	S				S	B							S	B			S		S		B					S
Massuke				S	S	B/S	B						S	B/S	B/S		B	B	B				B/S						S		B/S		B/S							S			S	B/S	S
Scorv				B				S			S	S								B/S	S	B	B		B		S			S						S		S	S		B	S	B	B

Raw Resources

Prices are shown with triangles indicating sold (◀) by the trader and/or bought (▶) by the trader. Coloration reflects the game's coloration indicating high/mid-high/mid/mid-low/low price indication.

Merchant
Ander	4▶						◀4 ◀3			◀5 ◀4
Beldar	◀5 ◀4 ◀3			◀3−4			◀3 2▶	◀10▶ 8▶ 6▶	4▶		◀1

Relics

NOTE: You won't be permitted to buy Relics (or excavate Ruins) until you build a Temple.

Merchant	Tribute
Massuke	▲3610 ▼3193