Banished

Some things I've learned:

- If you have an issue with not enough population, build more houses. People don't make babies unless there's empty space for them.
- Gatherers are great for early food (and throughout the game). The berries they gather can be turned into Ale (I wish I knew how much of each item was required for production).
- People will move to houses closer to their work, but once there (unlike a certain other game), other people won't take it over unless they leave (at least, this is how it appears to me, I could be wrong).
- It is vital to have Steel tools for miners (at least, my miners went through waaaaay too many Iron tools).
- Tools and Coats are great for trading. It's vital to get trading early, as the sooner you get seeds/animals, the better off you will be. Early game, you will probably need to trade Iron/Stone/Herbs for them if you haven't been stockpiling Tools.
- If you are playing with disasters turned on, don't neglect building wells and hospitals. I lost a number of buildings due to a fire, and couldn't rebuild them all before winter came (a complaint is that fires burn way too long - a stone house should burn down in a couple of days max, not half a season).
 
how do you determine how many people you need to have working for x job? is there a certain number you need for each job or what? would be nice to know if you need more workers here, or have too many workers for this job and that one.
 
Depends on the job/building. Some buildings have a max number of people that can work on it.
 
Stiler said:
how do you determine how many people you need to have working for x job? is there a certain number you need for each job or what? would be nice to know if you need more workers here, or have too many workers for this job and that one.
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I've had luck keeping a job filled to capacity if its essential, and slowly adding people to other jobs that aren't (mining? I put 1-2 until every basic food/resource building with low pop is set, then add more after the fact). I also go by the numbers - 2-4 people for max capacity gathering or hunting? Yeah, Im filling that before 15 for mining..

As far as I know, all main jobs have a limit by their buoldings, if you have too many people assigned, theres a notice about someone not having work to do, because theres nothing available for them in their set field. Only ones I know that don't have limits are construction and the basic one that ewveryone is assigned to. Builders limit 2 per building being constructed, but if you have 6 builders, you can make 3 buildings at once.

I haven't had a real failure of any of my towns, and I have only played on the hardest setting.. I love the game. It feels like a cross between Towns and Tropico. I think someone said something about Stronghold - it DOES feel like the free build mode in one of the versions of it, but people die and its somewhat difficult - and it looks pretty nice, is a microscopic sized game, and just fucking fun. Once you have the basic balance, down, its just refining it from there.


All in all, best $20 I have spent in a few months on a game by far.
 
One of those times where price makes a big difference. Is it perfect? No where near. Is it fun? Yes. Is it worth $20? Definitely. Completely satisfied with my purchase.
 
lilbabycat said:
Someone's having a rough friday. :D
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I started a game in the mountains with hard start and harsh weather yesterday... I lost a few people initially but it's year 14 and I'm making a comeback (I was down to 3 workers at one point...)
 
We've made due through a tornado, multiple disease outbreaks, our orchards being devasted by pestilence, and losing the hospital and some homes to fire. We're at around year 100 now. Our population is about 110 total. It's sad to see our farmers die after decades of hard work, but it's cool to see them replaced by the next generation. WE WILL GO ON!
 
Can't wait to play a bit more this weekend. Perfect with your Saturday/Sunday morning coffee :)
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Bought it to support the one-man dev. Cmon people $20.00 for a pretty damn good game ain't gonna kill ya. :)
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The one-man dev part is pretty amazing really. The $20 otoh is kind of meh. It's not even about the money but I don't pay $20 for an AAA game, I just wait till it's on sale. Added this game to my wishlist. Will buy at 50-75% off.
 
some thing is not right whit this game the last 4 games i have played i have run out of food out of no where. i had a full ban of food and close to a full market of food and then whit out changing any thing and whit 1/2 my people dying i and ever one on getting food. im thinking theirs some kind of bug i as im bringing in more food now then what used to work, i took 8 off the mines and started 2 more farms and put the rest in to gathering hurt things so i had about 2x the people working food buildings and 1/2 the people to feed and i still cant get enough food. the same thing has happened to all my games so far.


any one having this happen?
 
From what i've found (and I'm not sure), you need to have a market to distribute food/goods evenly to the population, but that market's circle of influence is only as far as it covers. In my current city, I have 3 markets, 5 stockpiles, 2 barns.

What happens is one family will take 400food into their house, and then it will only be shared between themselves, no one else. You get multiple families to do this and you've got starving neighbors.
 
The starvation issue happens when you expand too fast. Your food seems stable until all your old citizens plus the new people go to restock at the same time and you can't meet the demand as your food production hadn't been increased yet.

Most of your citizens will be food production. Second will be logs. Stone/coal can be done with only one or two citizens. You only need a lot of stone if youre building new stuff.
 
I'm having problems with coal/stone, my mines don't see to produce much if at all, even with 4-5 people in them. Originally I thought it was something with the terrain glitching and the actual materials getting stuck, but now I dunno, as I made another mine and it seems to be crap too.

I'm restarting a new game and retiring "EveningStone" (the antithesis to MorningWood).

Also, balancing around Cattle in pastures is a pain in the ass. You can't just move 1-2 animals at a time, you have to split or empty, and the "split" function has some really weird requirements it seems.
 
tunatime said:
some thing is not right whit this game the last 4 games i have played i have run out of food out of no where. i had a full ban of food and close to a full market of food and then whit out changing any thing and whit 1/2 my people dying i and ever one on getting food. im thinking theirs some kind of bug i as im bringing in more food now then what used to work, i took 8 off the mines and started 2 more farms and put the rest in to gathering hurt things so i had about 2x the people working food buildings and 1/2 the people to feed and i still cant get enough food. the same thing has happened to all my games so far.


any one having this happen?
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That's just the VERY brutal cycle that starts when you either begin to starve, or stagnate for too long with a small town (Both ways lead to the same thing - starvation with no way out unless you get stupid lucky more or less). If you don't more or less constantly expand, your population stagnates, and the producing population dwindles. As the people die from old age, theres less and less people to fill, and due to the way housing is (You cant move a new family into a house with an old widow, that's not very nice!), the youngins being born don't quite keep up unless you add more houses now and again.

Also, as people who are producing die, the new person has to travel from wherever they were to wherever the new job is - that's precious time, especially if you have no laborers and hav to manually move someone, when you're already starving, that time could be just enough delay. As the starvation gets worse, replacement workers for starved or old ones will be starving, and will never even get a chance to gather any food before they die.


The only way to avoid it is to constantly, slowly expand. Build a house every now and then, just to build one. That will keep the population alright and growing more or less. Stockpile a ton of food. I have 45000, and add more when I make new little "hamlets" to produce food. The second the stockpile is 43k and decreasing rather than sitting at the cap, I build new food production. Theres enough stockpile that I still have over 30k food when the new buildings are up and producing, making it increase again. Doing this, and adding 2-4 houses with each production center, keeps a town fresh, stocked with ready workers for all essential positions, and growing - which is the goal after all, right?

Just don't overpop... theres nothing to prevent that other than a feel for the game.. if you overpop, it gets ugly, everyone starves and then dies. Seems to be the ending every time you mess up, no matter how it starts - fire, overpop, underpop, oldpop, etc.. - everyone starves and dies. I don't ever want to be a real mayor. People in my town would be hosed.

babycat, I found the mine/quarry pretty useless for more than idle production unless fully staffed - even then, its not that fast. I think like 150 units/season or year. I would guess nicer tools make it faster, but I still just use Iron right now.



I'm just getting into pastures now, I have one with sheep, one with cattle, and one with chickens. Took me a long time to bother with them, Wanted to have my town well off before I started trading stuff off to buy starter animals. Next up I have to buy seeds, haven't done those yet.

Its rewarding on hard with harsh weather when you're not scrabbling along. Although now that I have my food production pretty well set for a start, the only tough part is making sure I have food and houses made before the first winter - make it past that, and I'm golden.
 
I got my pop to around 170ish, with a (imo) beautiful looking town, then the fires started...and then the game crashed during the big fire...Ouch.

And i thought i was saving screenshots of my progress, but apparently they didn't want to save...got two of them, here: http://imgur.com/LWjpjhY,7yEqbqq

The second is my Chapel + graveyard combo, which once it filled with some dead looked really good....And speaking of, i'm surprised there isn't a "zombies attack" disaster.
 
Expansion must be taken slowly. If you expand too fast (as FighterAce stated), you can throw your entire production out of whack. Whenever you expand, you always want to set up the basics for survival with them (food, fuel, etc). And you always want a large stockpile of supplies.

I actually don't think markets are really required. I've read a lot of people have issues with them, where people will run half way across the map to go to one, and then end up dying due to the weather. I've been able to build settlements with over 300 population w/o a single market.

It seems one popular strategy (on harsh/hard) is to immediately build a boarding house. This is a cheap and effective way to heat your population through the first winter. Plus, it will be a haven if a disaster (fire) takes out some of your houses or you get in a group of nomads (requires city hall). Also, families in the boarding house don't reproduce, so it will also keep your population from expanding too quickly early on (when food is most scarce).

Education is very important. The downside is that when you initially start, it will keep your children from entering the workforce for several more seasons, but they make up for it in greater productivity later on. Once you get over the initial hump, it balances back out. Just remember, that while they are students, they consume but don't produce.

Seeds are important (imo), but a well situated fishery might be able to out produce it (but only if it is almost completely surrounded by water). This is because fishing happens year round, while farming relies on the weather. If you don't have any good places for fishing, then go straight hunting and gathering.

For those looking for a different maps, someone on the official game forum created a program that will take snapshots of the different seeds. The program isn't available, but the snap shots of the seeds are. Link to map seed pictures. Naturally, not all seeds are available, but a decent number are so far.
 
Took me a while to get "started" my town kept dying from starvation over and over.
I decided to use a gatherer and hunter and it worked.

I have them all around the map with a forester, I don't swim in food but I don't have much either, I have a few fields/orchard/pasture now as well.

I expended a bit too fast, in year 18 I reached 190 adult population.
Then the purge came... the great purge of 19.

My tools broke.
All of them.

I was 176 tools short, my toolmaker had died and was never replaced so I had no reserve and the new one was making about 15 a year by the time he finished the 15th one the 1st one was broken.

Without tools the food reserve got low.
Without tools the firewood reserve got low.

That next winter, people started dying, fast, I mean, that little sound the game makes when someone died was beeping constantly.

I went from 190 to less than 90 population in about 2 years, it was insane, starvation and cold killed everyone.

The only reason my town is still going today is a merchant who came with tools, I bought everything and now in year 50 I have received the 300 population achievement, a much nicer pace!

So remember tools are important.
 
Had the same problem with tools, even with 3 blacksmiths they couldn't keep up. I saw the problem and had the 3rd one up at ~50tool shortage, but even with steel tools (which the vast majority were the whole time), it didn't budge. Thats also around the time that fire happened I mentioned before. Correlation?
 
This game is great. Big Stronghold, B & W, or any city building game really.

One thing I'd like is the ability to change the priority on certain buildings when building more than one.
 
King Icewind said:
This game is great. Big Stronghold, B & W, or any city building game really.

One thing I'd like is the ability to change the priority on certain buildings when building more than one.
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You have the ability. There is a button that lets you set tbe priority of buildings. I dont recall where it is, but I know the tutorial shows it.
 
I don't believe it talked about it in the tutorial, and I don't see it any where, but I could just be missing it. :eek:
 
The button is located under Tools and Reports (2), Increase Priority (6).
 
I was going to wait for a price drop, but I got drunk and clicked purchase. Oh well.:p

I love this game. I do not regret paying 20.00 at all.
 
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I'm really enjoying this game, it's certainly challenging. After several tries, finally manage to reach 5 years without anyone dying of starvation, lol. They eat a lot.
 
I managed my town into a 320ish population with 70k food always ready to go (it jumped so much I had to just start throwing barns and stockpiles everywhere). I set up two more trading docks, which I now absolutely rely on to get coal/iron/stone. I've got 12 miners in two mines that never keep up on the coal, with 5 blacksmiths constantly pumping out tools, and apparently maintaining a 100 surplus (whew).

At this point I think i've gotten beyond anything but a major disaster ruining the town, had a tornado but it was gone before it even hit anything. Had some bug infestations but I managed to just kill off all the surrounding pastures, let it go away, then restocked from other pastures.

I'm gonna have to try one of the harder challenges soon.
 
I found out you always have to be building houses, otherwise you will get stuck with a bunch of old people that die, and no children. Lol.
 
I can't wait for the mod tools to be released. This game will become infinitely better once it does.

It's also important to note that the defaults for the # of workers isn't always ideal. Also, the size of your farms/orchards/pastures don't always need to be (or shoudl be) the max size. It's best to experiment, and find the combinations that offer the most food per tile (per worker). I won't post other people's theorycrafting, but some things I've learned:
- Maximizing fish production requires at least 70% water coverage. Most maps have very few spots where this is attainable.
- Gathers require lots of forests. Pairing this with a Forester that only plants trees will help maximize your food, as their entire radius should be all trees (maybe paired with a couple smaller buildings, like a Forester and some houses).
- The further workers need to go to deliver their goods to a barn/stockpile and to their homes lowers productivity (as does their happiness, tool leve, and clothing level).
 
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Some things i don't understand yet.

I expanded a little too fast and made my fishing too far from the barn. So I built a new barn closer. But the workers kept going to the old one. Is this normal?

Also I tried to make a pasture but couldn't select any animals. Do I have to trade with a trader before I can raise livestock?

Also, any word on when mod tools will be released? This game is just begging to be modded.
 
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TheToE! said:
I expanded a little too fast and made my fishing too far from the barn. So I built a new barn closer. But the workers kept going to the old one. Is this normal?
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The workers should always drop off their supplies at the nearest barn/stockpile. If they are still doing this, you can try scheduling the other barn for demolition, immediately pause the destruction, and watch to see where the fishermen bring their goods now. Make sure to cancel the destruction.

TheToE! said:
Also I tried to make a pasture but couldn't select any animals. Do I have to trade with a trader before I can raise livestock?
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On easy, I believe you start with some type of livestock. On medium, you only start with seeds. On hard, you get nothing. So, to answer your question, yes, you need to trade for them.

TheToE! said:
Also, any word on when mod tools will be released? This game is just begging to be modded.
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No word on this. I imagine his sales will increase a lot once they are released. There are a lot of good ideas on the official forums that will keep the modders busy. I have a few ideas myself. Most involve fixing late game expansion that won't kill off 100 people.
 
Pezzy said:
The workers should always drop off their supplies at the nearest barn/stockpile. If they are still doing this, you can try scheduling the other barn for demolition, immediately pause the destruction, and watch to see where the fishermen bring their goods now. Make sure to cancel the destruction.



On easy, I believe you start with some type of livestock. On medium, you only start with seeds. On hard, you get nothing. So, to answer your question, yes, you need to trade for them.



No word on this. I imagine his sales will increase a lot once they are released. There are a lot of good ideas on the official forums that will keep the modders busy. I have a few ideas myself. Most involve fixing late game expansion that won't kill off 100 people.
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Thanks man! Lost another 4-5 hours to this game last night..I'm really liking it. If you look at the game right now as a framework for what could come in the future....Man, serious freaking potential.
 
Its a great game, but lacks variety
More resource types, maybe being able to build walls towers and a watch to keep bandits out

Technological advancements, monuments maybe.

Make it like Paraoh basically :p
 
Brownstone said:
Its a great game, but lacks variety
More resource types, maybe being able to build walls towers and a watch to keep bandits out

Technological advancements, monuments maybe.

Make it like Paraoh basically :p
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From what I've found the single developer wants to focus more on OS support if it brings in enough support (income). I would like to see Linux support but, I'd rather see some features added before OS support.

Only thing I could think of, instead of needing a river based trader.. why not a trading post? Say a trader with a pack mule comes every once in a while and trades by land.

Anyway, great game, huge time waster.. I played it for HOURS yesterday.
 
Love this game. I keep getting in situations where I run out of food and tools though around the 80 population mark or so. I even had 12000 food stockpiled but the fatties just eat it all.
 
I'm kinda sad that Banished is a better game than Sim City and it had only 1 person coding everything with a very minimal budget.

Sure it's not perfect, there could be a lot of stuff added but taking it for what it is, a city builder, it's the best one to come out in many many years so good job there.

Mod tools will make this thing sky rocket , just look at what modders do for games like Sim City 4 and Civilization, can't wait :)
 
I feel like Foresters need a buff. Can have it filed with four workers and just set to cut, but they only get 70 wood a year? My biggest issue is the stupid firewood.

Really wish sometimes it could be not so dependent on the food stuff/firewood and just let me focus on building more.
 
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