Why no working sawyers?

[NanoGrrl]

This is only my second day playing, so I probably don't understand something obvious. I have idle workers but nobody splitting wood or sawing it into planks--so we can get on with the building! I have plenty of trees and everything marked for harvesting (white outlines, right?) and there are still plenty of trees around the village in year 7. What am I missing? Any help would be gratefully accepted. :)

[Snidget]

Maybe an obvious question, but you have them assigned to the saw house, yeah?

[BobTheYak]

Your trees are marked for harvest but do you have logs in storage yet?

[SgtScum]

If you have buildings set down for construction along with a lot of harvest orders then the ai can get confused and not work correctly. I find that harvesting works best when there isn't anything else set up for them to do.

[NanoGrrl]

Yes, they were assigned. Now, how the heck do I get people to harvest the designated-to-be-harvested trees & stuff? @SgtScum, you may have put your finger on it--I think I tend to pile on the tasks, and the AI gets confused or something. So! I shall make sure the sawyers are all assigned to the saw mill, and then back off on the constructions. Although, I desperately need houses at this point. Ugh. But harvesting logs first, yes?

Thanks, everyone, for your answers!

[SgtScum]

Well can't build anything without logs to begin with. I find its helpful right at the start to ignore building the town hall and immediately have them harvest all the closest wood and stone then put up one of each food building(no crops) terrain and wildlife willing along with a well. After those are built and staffed then go back to the town hall and finish it but drop assigned workers to 1 and set the rest back to harvesting. Then you can build three houses(also dropping assigned workers down to 1. this should be a setting tbh) and a firewood splitter then start the storage route to root cellar. This should balance out harvesting vs building and make the first year a lot smoother.

[NanoGrrl]

Checking back in - I backed off on the construction and reduced some workshops (soap, potters, etc.) to one and folks got around to cutting trees. Yay! Then they built more shelters quickly, so I could then prop up the shops again. It worked! I even got some fields started. Am up to year twelve and tier 2, and things are going pretty well. Thanks for your help!

Here's another question: You can't put in a cooper until tier 3. Can you get barrels before then? For proper storage. I've been checking the traders, but nothing so far.

[Grannyhammer]

Originally posted by NanoGrrl:

Checking back in - I backed off on the construction and reduced some workshops (soap, potters, etc.) to one and folks got around to cutting trees. Yay! Then they built more shelters quickly, so I could then prop up the shops again. It worked! I even got some fields started. Am up to year twelve and tier 2, and things are going pretty well. Thanks for your help!

Here's another question: You can't put in a cooper until tier 3. Can you get barrels before then? For proper storage. I've been checking the traders, but nothing so far.

just a heads up, in the civilian population tab, you need to make sure you have people working as laborers to harvest things, or build work camps

[NanoGrrl]

Got it. No prob. Any thought on barrels before tier 3, or is that not possible?

[kmmacman]

Keep checking your traders... there is one that sells them, don't know his name but he's out there.

[SgtScum]

Dunno why they stuck the cooper at tier 3 since I have always been offered iron ingots long before I hit t3. Now you have to rely on traders to have them in stock but so far they are showing up fairly regularly. Seems the bump to trader goods variety is working.

[Merlin69]

Very good advice SgtScum. I'll try that.

[NanoGrrl]

I never did see any barrels for sale until after I managed Tier 3. You can bet I set up two cooper's shops toute de suite.