Potential Middle/Late game tips

[sarahkbeets]

I’ve seen on the forum that some players are struggling with certain aspects of the game, and as this is Early Access there is as yet no tutorials and guides, I thought I might share some things that have worked for me. Hopefully, it will be useful to others. Please note that this is only how I think the mechanics work, please correct me if I’m wrong.
But firstly, I’d like to thank Zantai and the team of developers for creating a wonderful game. I am a long time player of city builders such as the entire Anno series, Cities Skylines, etc. By purchasing in Early Access I understand that the game is in an unfinished state, therefore will have some imperfections and bugs. Everyone that buys in Early Access should be accepting of this.
I am currently playing on a Large Lowland Lakes map. My settlement population is nearly 900 settlers, so I consider my game past early stage. Some details :
Very little Stone and Clay from the start – gone by now
Only 1 small pocket of Coal – all gone by now
Only 1 pocket of Sand – also long gone
Plenty of Iron on a mountain nearby
No Medicinal Herbs found as yet
Plenty of Willow
Now to the tips :
1. The Wagon Shop only carts resources from work camps, ore mines, and clay/sand pits to the nearest Stockyard. It does not transfer goods from Stockyard to Stockyard, or Stockyard to Production. Therefore, whenever I place a mine or pit (which is very far from town now), I will place a Wagon shop and a Temporary Shelter about a third or halfway back on the road to town. That way, the workers can work for longer without going home, and the wagon doesn’t have to come all the way from town and back. I do NOT put a Stockyard nearby, because then the wagons won’t have far to go, but everyone that needs ore or clay, etc will have to walk all the way out of town to pick it up.
2. Wood Logs is an issue in middle game. I used to keep moving Work Camps further and further away, but it made the map look barren, and the distance was just too long. Now, on the outskirts of town, I place a Work Camp changed to only Wood instead of Wood & Stone (all Stone long gone). Every year in winter I will plant some trees from the decorations menu to replace the trees that have been felled. It costs 1 Gold each, but means that I can have constant replacement of young trees to mature for the loggers to cut in later years. Because these Work Camps are not far out of town, it takes a builders only a short while to plant them all. The map also doesn’t look barren, and my town looks nice with some forested glades around. At 900 population, I have 5 such work camps on the edge of town and no Wood problems at all. Once my town grows to surround the forrested glades, I add next to the Work Camp a Stockyard, Firewood Splitter, Saw Pit, etc and this becomes the Plank and Firewood hub for my expansion out further. I move the Wagon Shop to the next out of town resource area as it is no longer required there.
3. In areas with an Iron Mine that not too far from town, I do the same thing. I add a Work Camp, keep the trees regrown, add a Stockyard, Firewood Splitter, Saw Pit, Charcoal Burner, Furnace and Blacksmith. My Plank, Firewood, and Tool hub for the expansion out in that direction. When the Iron Mine runs out, I place the Wagon Shop to the next mine out in that direction, so that the wagons bring the Ore back to this Stockyard. No need to move anything else.
4. Since my map has no Stone, Clay or Sand stocks anymore, I have to rely on trade for this. Thus trade is a very important aspect of my game. Things I have worked out :
• Only 1-3 traders come every year between spring and early summer. You need to be PREPARED. Only 2 workers stock the Trade Post, so you have to be PREPARED. If you miss out, you have to wait till next year, so you have to be PREPARED.
• I have an annual system for my trading which goes as follows –
1. End of summer after the last trader leaves, I transfer all the things I have “Bought & Stock” to Global Storage. Why not “Buy & Transfer”, well because when the trader is here I have better things for the workers to be doing.
2. Then I transfer the gold I will be needing from Vault to Trade Post. Without this gold already in the Trade Post I can’t buy anything next year.
3. Only then (early winter), I transfer all the things I want to sell next spring to the trading post.
4. Early spring, I am waiting with bells on for the traders to start coming.
5. I am short of certain resources, so I don’t export anything that needs Wood, Clay or Sand to manufacture. Therefore, I keep for my own consumption all Pottery, Candles, Furniture, Soap, Glassware, Preserves, Tools etc.
I export only Linen Clothes, Hide Coats, Shoes, Pelts, Baskets, Cheese, Herbs, etc and plenty of it too. The Trade Post can store up to 500 of each type. I make sure that I have some manufacturers of these items near my Stockyard and Storeroom right next to my Trade Post. These are my “exporter manufacturers”. For example, Silvertongue buys Cheese. I have 500 waiting for him, and sell it all to him. Straight away I instruct my workers to bring another 100 at a time, so I can often sell him up to 1000 Cheese per visit. Because my Gold is already at the Trade Post, what I have bought is stored and not transferred, the Cheese is right next to the Trade Post, my Trade Post workers (only 2 of them) have nothing better to do than run and get more Cheese to sell.
• This way, I buy all my Stone, extra Logs, all my Sand, all my Clay, extra Coal and don’t have any supply issues. I also buy all the Medicinal Herbs, Medicine, Glassware, Spices, etc that I can get my hands on. I pretty much clean out every trader that comes of everything useful to me.
• I also keep an eye out when 2 traders are there at the same time. Sometimes one will be selling tools for less than the other is buying. Because I have enough Gold on hand, I will buy from one and sell directly to the other. Profiteering at its best !

This is turning out to be quite a long winded post, so I’ll end here. If you found this useful, and would like more tips on early game, housing layout, manufacturing, farms and barns, please let me know and I’ll keep going.
I don’t want to be leading anyone up the garden path, so if I’ve got anything wrong, I would be very grateful if the developers/other players could correct me.
Happy gaming !

[dazkaz]

There are some great tips there, thanks.
What settings are you playing on. How big have the raids got at that stage of the game, and do they leave your outposts alone or do you have to defend them?

[webdem]

Buy for less sell for more, this is definitely not what you expect from such games, but, hey, why not)))

[BobTheYak]

Great tips, thank you!

[Zantai]

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

1. The Wagon Shop only carts resources from work camps, ore mines, and clay/sand pits to the nearest Stockyard. It does not transfer goods from Stockyard to Stockyard, or Stockyard to Production...

Transfer of resources between storage is something we'd definitely like to do. Setting quotas, such as to maintain a minimum of X resource in a storage would be great as well. Ultimately, wagons may end up involved in transfers as it might be with large quantities again.

The Wagon's primary role is to transport really heavy stuff across long distances, which is why they service mines and work camps. Laborers doing the same task would have to make multiple trips.

Wagons only park back in the shop when there's nothing to do, so its location is not critical to a supply line. Wagon drivers go into stasis, basically mitigating their basic needs, so they can work on where other jobs have to stop for food/supplies/etc.

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

2. Wood Logs is an issue in middle game.

Filling a Work Camp to only 2 workers and having multiple work camps out in the wild instead of one that's set to 4 workers can actually maintain their logging activities far longer because the tree regrowth has time to happen. This way, it's not necessary to plant trees around them. We'll be boosting tree regrowth rates as well to facilitate this.

A fully manned work camp can clear cut a forest pretty fast and give it no time to regrow. There also seems to be an issue with the "mature trees only" checkbox that's not being respected, so that contributes to trees getting wiped out.

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

4. Since my map has no Stone, Clay or Sand stocks anymore, I have to rely on trade for this. Thus trade is a very important aspect of my game.

We're working on getting much better notifications for traders arriving. Should have that next update!

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

This is turning out to be quite a long winded post, so I’ll end here. If you found this useful, and would like more tips on early game, housing layout, manufacturing, farms and barns, please let me know and I’ll keep going.
I don’t want to be leading anyone up the garden path, so if I’ve got anything wrong, I would be very grateful if the developers/other players could correct me.
Happy gaming !

Pretty good tips, just thought I'd give some deeper insight and what's coming to make things better!

[sarahkbeets]

Originally posted by dazkaz:

There are some great tips there, thanks.
What settings are you playing on. How big have the raids got at that stage of the game, and do they leave your outposts alone or do you have to defend them?

i am still playing the first map I started, so it is Trailblazer with Pacifist mode on. Therefore I have no raiders. I am a pure "citybuilder" gamer, so always play with conflict off. I don't enjoy that aspect of games, so it is purely a personal choice of mine. I understand that that would make my experience somewhat easier though.

[dazkaz]

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

Originally posted by dazkaz:

There are some great tips there, thanks.
What settings are you playing on. How big have the raids got at that stage of the game, and do they leave your outposts alone or do you have to defend them?

i am still playing the first map I started, so it is Trailblazer with Pacifist mode on. Therefore I have no raiders. I am a pure "citybuilder" gamer, so always play with conflict off. I don't enjoy that aspect of games, so it is purely a personal choice of mine. I understand that that would make my experience somewhat easier though.

That's cool, I wasn't judging.
Just wanted to know how the settings I have chosen might impact me later game, with regards to your tips.

[sarahkbeets]

Originally posted by Zantai:

Pretty good tips, just thought I'd give some deeper insight and what's coming to make things better!

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post, you guys must be super busy at the moment !
Yes, I misunderstood the function of wagons early on, but read some forum posts and got the hang of it. Using them more in depth would be really useful. In the meantime, I find the ability to tick on/off what can be stored in stockyard/storerooms very useful. If I could enter a limit that would be great. I had to untick water because the stockyards kept filling up with water after a fire left buckets of it in the streets.

I put my workcamps closer to town so I can keep an eye on them, and the trees look pretty, avoid the "fully built up" look. I usually only have 1 worker working in each unless I have to ramp it up. Yes, I think they are ignoring the mature trees only checkbox.

Perfect, that way the trader can have bells on, and not me :P

Thanks again for all your hard work !

[sarahkbeets]

Originally posted by webdem:

Buy for less sell for more, this is definitely not what you expect from such games, but, hey, why not)))

Back in the day when I played Trade Empires, it was all about that !

[BobTheYak]

Originally posted by sarahkbeets:

i am still playing the first map I started, so it is Trailblazer with Pacifist mode on. Therefore I have no raiders. I am a pure "citybuilder" gamer, so always play with conflict off. I don't enjoy that aspect of games, so it is purely a personal choice of mine. I understand that that would make my experience somewhat easier though.

If I recall correctly, Zantai said they're coming out with a new map type that may appeal to the city builder demographic.

[Pestilence]

Thanks!

[Swiss Halberdier]

Thanks a lot for your deep insights about various aspects of the game! Very well done.